Sidcup & Old Bexley by-election

Dishonesty, disconnection and mumbo-jumbo, a look at the leaflets pouring through our letter-boxes

If you live in Sidcup, Bexley or surrounding areas you'll probably have had loads of leaflets stuffed through your letter box about the the forthcoming by-election. I know I have, and I'm as disturbed by much of what's been written on them, as well as amused.

Readers of my previous blogs will know that I have been particularly critical of the Tories in the constituency. Back in 2010 they promised to save the A&E and maternity units at Queen Mary's in return for our votes, with puffing, sweating Tories wandering around Sidcup with a cardboard cut-out of Gordon Brown wielding a big pair of scissors. 

Changing the dates...

The Conservatives not only let those departments close after the election, they told the News Shopper (sadly just about our only local media) to remove any comments reminding people of that promise (it all too readily agreed to do this, I spoke to the editor), they then claimed it was the NHS that shut it down once a Tory-led government coalition was in place (the NHS they run...) and in their 2015 their Sidcup & Old Bexley election material they changed the date of the closure to before the 2010 election (I made them correct that on the website but written deliberately misleading material would have already been delivered). You can read about that here and see actual material from local Tories.

I have challenged Louie French to debate this openly on neighbourly forum NextDoor or Twitter but he hasn't responded at all. Nothing. Whilst broadcasting platitudes on social media about what should be done, he never responds. 

The Tories were right when they said that the loss of our hospital departments would have devastating consequences, with longer trips to A&E and maternity. The Tory Assembly Member wrote a long road-rage piece about his wife nearly having an accident on the A2 and that had she actually have had an accident, Gordon Brown would be responsible for her certain death, had there actually been an accident. We're all still living with real accidents and emergencies, without an A&E. It's as important then as it was now.

 

The East Wickham Godfather

Like a protective godfather, Cllr Steven Hall answered on Louie's behalf on NextDoor as Louie was still wandering about, hoping no-one would speak to him, hiding behind god-uncles and aunts like Rishi Sunak, Johnson and, God forbid, Liz Truss who somehow managed to work a satnav to get here. Priti Patel also turned up in Sidcup High Street, presumably looking for refugees and discarded dinghies outside Waitrose that she could point out to wavering hard-right Tories, Heritage Party, UKIP and BNP voters now that her family was in and she'd pulled up the drawbridge.

Chucked out of NextDoor

It would be nice to keep debating with Steven. However, 'someone' reported me to NextDoor for not using my real name so my account was disabled. This is an echo to the News Shopper censorship. By the way, I use my writing name extensively for my books and other writing, in the same way that Reg Dwight and Harry Webb use theirs for their work, not that I'm in their league. In fact I use it in a similar way to Tory 'grandee' Grant Shapps, who went under the name of Mr Green for some time, whilst denying that he was Mr Green, in order to hide his second (or third?) job. Shapps threatened anyone exposing this with libel. But he was finally caught out as like so many of his colleagues, he ain't the sharpest tool in the box.

Randall & Hopkirk

Being selected for the Conservatives in Sidcup & Old Bexley is better than winning the lottery. You get over £80k every year and enough expenses for tax-payers to pay your son a part-time salary for three years when he was in fact studying full-time at university. That was the previous incumbent before Mr Brokenshire, Derek Conway. It's a job for life, until you get caught. Few in the constituency appear to think, "Hang on a minute, what are we getting for our money?" They just vote the same way every time.

As well as a writer I'm a PR and public affairs person, which means I spend much of my time meeting and talking with Lords, Ladies, MPs and Ministers, trying to get them to amend laws and generally do the right thing on behalf of charities and businesses. Some of them I really rate and like, and I have socialised with them out of choice, from nearly all parties. But I'm often reminded of when I did my first MP meet with the MD of a cable TV company. When we left, the MD said: "I wouldn't give him a Level 1," meaning the lowest management role in his business. 

And he was right. Amongst the awful MPs, the mad, the bad and the useless, are those whom the local association has chosen because they have no ideas of their own and no plans, and can be easily influenced. And I'm worried that's what's happened here.  This might be completely unfair, but Louie is completely invisible. It's like a political Randall & Hopkirk (younger people look that up on Google) but where only other Conservatives can see Louie. 

Most people don't vote for a person, they vote for a party, so the Conservatives in Old Bexley & Sidcup could have pulled Prince Andrew out of hiding and he'd have got in.  The MP expenses would be handy for the legal fees.

Propaganda leaflets

Let's have a look at what's being shoved through our boxes, so to speak.

Christian People's Alliance

The candidate is Carol Valinejad. Smiley Carol claims to be a practising consultant clinical psychologist. Her party says that the world was created by God and the Party doesn't seem that keen on evolution. Blimey Sidcup. Give it a go but you'd have to go to church every week, and I suspect it would be one of Carol's choosing, where they'll whip you into shape if you believe in dinosaurs.

Conservative

To make up for his lack of presence Louie's 'leaflet' is massive. You know what they say about politicians with a massive leaflet, fnaar, fnaar?! Actually I don't know but it is gargantuan. It says 'More and more local residents are backing Louie French'. Now when I write for people I must include the source for any claim I make. I can see none here. Johnson is saying that Louie is a 'terrific local candidate'. I think we all know that if you asked Johnson five minutes after meeting Louie the name of the candidate he'd only be able to answer "Peppa Pig?"

But look at this! Lovely clean-cut Conor pictured as one of the 'local residents' is actually a Conservative Party worker and Parliamentary assistant to Tracey Crouch MP. That's not declared anywhere on the leaflet. It seems like Louie has at least managed to convince a massive Tory to vote Tory in the by-election, nice one Louie!

The rest of the leaflet is platitudes and the usual old tosh that will never happen and our new local hero, when he becomes MP, will ignore any questions on it or say that providing more police or better education never actually meant providing more police or better education.  

Particularly galling is the railways, it always features, our rail services are so poor that prospective MPs always hang about stations like train number enthusiasts, promising to put a firework up the railway bosses' backsides. However, post-election they're handing out awards to staff or sympathising with SouthEastern's MD over difficult weather conditions. Constituents will just be told: "I don't run the railways."

And, of course, our hospital features. The NHS will be adding and taking away facilities, you can expect the new MP to take credit for any new facilities, though they'll have had nothing to do with them. And if you ask about facilities that we were promised would remain, then you're a lone nutter.

Heritage Party

Huge pic of the candidate David Kurten with a big ol' union flag behind him. Now I know Kurten is local because I have often been denied the seat next to him on the train because he's huge and very, very sweaty. David is very keen on barring immigrants, a) because unlike persuading the UK's corporates to pay some bloody tax, it's much more sexy to go on about immigrants, who pay more on average in tax than us lot. And b), of, course there'd be even less room for him on the trains. Kurten's heritage is partly Jamaican, so he too is pulling up the drawbridge (in return for votes).

David is also keen on the important issues that really affect each and every one of us, such as not allowing Pride flags on public buildings.

Labour

Nothing through the door yet. At all. Presumably party funds not up to it.

LibDems

What do you if you can't decide if you're Labour or Tory? Vote LibDem! Nice pic of Simone on the front, looking a bit stern, by Five Arches. Main messages are that Simone is local, experienced and demands better. Some stuff about Tory sleaze on the back, but tell us something we didn't know Carol.

Rejoin the EU

I actually met the candidate outside Sidcup station, the sort of spot Louie would shudder at unless he's trying to get a train up to his financial services job, debating with people. Quite straightforward and apart from the picture that makes the candidate look like Alan B'Stard from The New Statesman, the leaflet is quite informative. It's even got a quiz! Though I suspect it wouldn't go down that well in the Tailor's Chalk pub quiz.

Ukip

Same, same old. Foreign aid, immigrants, 'woke', 'cancel culture' (apart from cancelling immigrants), 'erosion of British history' by a bunch of people who want to do nothing more than erode British history. In the same point wants women protected from rape (only a Ukip candidate needs to tell potential voters that) and a 'forum to combat social media' (put it on Facebook?)

The candidate, John Poynton, is a management consultant. These are slightly less trustworthy than estate agents. Of course Ukip takes pains to communicate that John is definitely not a racist by pointing out that he worked in Nigeria and recruited people from 'many different backgrounds'. Though I suspect that his choice was fairly limited there. Anyway, he's back with us now, unless he plans to run the constituency from Lagos.

Worth pointing out that John's boss is now Neil Hamilton, he of the brown envelopes, cash for questions episode. Nice to see that people can rise to the top even after they have reformed many times over.

The future's the same as just now...

So, there you have it. Anything from dinosaur deniers, climate-change deniers, sweaty blokes on trains and a candidate who'll win anyway who's having to pretend he's converted a party worker to vote for the party he's chosen to work for.

The Tories will win in Old Bexley & Sidcup 'because that's how my mum and dad voted', Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, and we'll have another few years of zero campaigns on anything at all to help the constituency until the next election.

So why not give them a scare this time? If you are a Conservative your values are about hard work. So why is it ok to hand someone an assured salary without a single KPI attached to it because they know that they'll have your support no matter what?

Yeah, I've got white privilege

I keep hearing denials of ‘white privilege’ and how black people are angry for no reason. But I know the reasons, and they’re not just about George Floyd. People who have been told to work elsewhere because of their ‘smell’, racially abused as a six-year old at a birthday party, had their faces in photos defaced in their workplace and  held by the police until a crime could be found to fit them, yet they won’t, or can’t speak up. I talked to some black friends, yeah, I’ve got black friends, about what had happened to them and how we can all work towards a better understanding of each other.

I grew up until I was 11 in west London. My earliest memory of black people was at school when James, who was a bit of a handful, was given a place on the school football team in an effort to divert his anger, it was my place. I was bloody angry but I used to walk home with James, he was a mate, and I forgot he was black, so I never resorted to blaming his colour on not getting a place in the team, just his personality disorder.

I’m not a saint, it just happens, when you have black friends you forget their colour. And this is why I wasn’t a saint: I didn’t want our milk delivered by a black milk-man, none of my friends were black milk-men, and I had been conditioned by 11 years of my parents banging on about ‘blacking-up’ to claim benefits, and all the other tropes about black people.

I moved to Anglesey when I was 11, which was very remote and monocultural compared with London. However, there was one black family living nearly. But they were all killed in a car crash one night and north-east Anglesey’s claim to multiculturalism was cruelly wiped out in a moment. The families had been ‘celebrities’ in the area, ‘exotics’, but I know now that if another family had joined them, things would have changed very quickly.

When I arrived back in London, after realising my parents’ opinions on so many subjects were similar to those of the Nazis my dad was so proud of fighting against, and whose bombs had fallen on my mum’s street, I was back in a multicultural world. I hadn’t given much thought to race but I was surprised when I realised my feelings about the Brixton riots were fuzzy and warm when I saw black and white people throwing petrol bombs and building barricades together. It looked like a spirit of co-operation that had sadly been missing.

As work progressed from one job to another in the 80s and 90s I came into contact with people from many backgrounds: Irish people whom customers used to verbally abuse after each major IRA bombing, Bangladeshis who brought in lovely food on festival days, a Dutchman who had forgotten how to speak Dutch and had to speak in English when he called his parents, and black people. In common with so many white people in the UK, the only black people I ever met had been in retail and I didn’t really know what to expect from black colleagues.

I then sat in meetings with black people and hey, they seemed just like me. They certainly did jobs like me, liked football (they just couldn’t go to matches), agreed to take on actions in the meeting (they actually did them, unlike me) and liked the same jokes. But when they moved from being colleagues to friends, I saw a whole new world.  I had never realised what was sitting behind the professional façade, what they were hiding, what they couldn’t speak about or be labelled ‘black and angry’. That’s when I first realised I had ‘white privilege’.

Fay was my first black friend. Even though I couldn’t say “I’ve got black friends,” Fay, 53, and a business support officer, was in that group. She was boiling over with fun, her impressions of colleagues and her mother were a part of what makes some workplaces so glorious to be in. But then there was the serious stuff. I learnt from Fay that black people don’t like going on holiday in the UK.

“Can you imagine me in Cornwall, walking down the street with everyone pointing at me? ‘Look at the black lady!’ they’d be saying. ‘She’s a long way from home…’” So Fay and her family went to the US on holiday where she could be amongst strangers the same colour as her.

“If I went out after work it was nice to with some white people. You could go into pubs without hearing the sort of comments I’d get if I were in a group of black people. And we can walk to a bus stop without more comments or the police stopping us.”

One of the most awful things Fay shared with me was being invited to another little girl’s birthday party when she was six. It was a white friend from school. Fay’s mum was on a tight schedule and when she checked what time Fay should be picked up, the party girl’s parents said they’d arrange for her to be taken home.

“At the end of the party,” said Fay. “The arrangement was that the girl’s uncle would take me home in his black cab. I got excited and my friend asked me why; I said I’d never been in a black cab before. The uncle blurted out: ‘That’s funny, what with you being black.’

“I knew that wasn’t very nice,” said Fay. “But I was only six so I wasn’t sure why it wasn’t nice. But on the Monday morning back in school the girl who’d had had the party told me her uncle had said ‘blacks smell’ and that I would be the last black person that went in his cab.

“I can’t tell you how upset I was. My mum had taken me along in my best party dress, none of us smelt, we’re very proud people. But that wasn’t the point, it was just about the most hurtful, racist thing someone could say. Even now I find it hard to go to a social occasion at a white friend’s house, it brings back that awful memory.”

There is an undercurrent of racism us whities are not aware of, because we don’t need to be on our guard. I asked Fay about school. She went to a girls’ school which was divided equally between white and black girls. Fay told me that there was only one black teacher but many of the teachers were great and supportive. But, as ever, there are exceptions.

“I was in the rounders team and I was a great catcher. One day, in a match against another school, the sun got in my eyes and I dropped the ball. Our teacher asked me why I had done that and I said that the sun was in my eyes. She replied: ‘You’d think that that where you lot come from that a bit of sun wouldn’t be a problem.’ Every girl on our team walked off and we forfeited the match.”

“My mum sent my brothers out to get some shopping when they were 13 and 14. They didn’t come back for hours. When they eventually got back, crying, they told us they’d been arrested by the police and put in the cells. Then they’d been released with no charge and no explanation. And can you imagine my parents going to the police station to ask what had happened? They’d be arrested too.”

“My brother was out in his car with his two-year old twins in the back. He was stopped and searched and then handcuffed, in front of his twins who were terrified. Again, he was released with no explanation. He was so traumatised that he got rid of the car, he became reclusive and never drove again. Black men used to beg women to sit in their cars with them if they had to go somewhere, for some reason the police were more respectful of black women and were less likely to stop a car with a woman inside.”

This reminded me of Dave the plumber, who often did work for me. “I ran through a park when I was about 17,” said Dave. “I was late for college. I was stopped by the police and arrested but they wouldn’t tell me why. When they got me to the station they told me that I must have mugged someone, that was why I was running. And that they would keep me until the report of the mugging came in. Several hours later they let me go. Just let me go, like it was a favour, no apology, nothing.”

Work had presented Fay with issues most of us never encounter. As a telephone operator all the black women were made to sit together, because of their ‘smell’, and if they spoke to each other they were disciplined.

“Even having black managers didn’t help, in some cases it made things worse. Those managers felt they had to be tougher with other black people to show they weren’t biased towards us. In one place my manager decided to withdraw working from home as a privilege if he thought we weren’t achieving targets. Not only did it become obvious that he only did this with black people, it wasn’t even a right that could be withdrawn.”

Fay talked about ‘the conversation’. The talk black parents must give their kids about living in a largely white society. It covered situations like how to act in the workplace and what to do if you come into contact with the police. How odd that my parents never gave me that lecture.

Peter, 47, a marketing professional, told me about the conversation: “Don’t make eye contact with a police officer. If they do stop you, be polite, don’t give any lip.”

I met Pete first around 10 years ago. We worked from a headquarters building in the City where, one morning, we had come into work to find that our pictures from events had been defaced. All the black faces had had crosses cut into them, as well as the face of my white, gay colleague. The fact that the white face was defaced too informed me that the perpetrator was someone who knew us, we couldn’t blame this on some random idiot working in the building, though that would have been bad enough. We discussed what to do about it but those affected just said “Leave it.” I saw again just how much this was a part of so many people’s lives and they kept quiet about it and then went off to the next meeting about budgets and customer numbers, whilst much of the population continued to deny white privilege.

“I don’t get stopped by the police so much now I’m older,” said Pete. “But of course I’m aware of the women that cross to the other side of the road, and the tighter clutches on handbags, when they realise a black guy is behind them. I just turn a blind eye to that.”

“As Will Smith remarked: racism isn’t worse, it’s just that it’s on film now,” said Peter. “But we must have a conversation. Black lives do matter, but we just want to fit in to all lives. We want to talk to our white brothers and sisters about white privilege. There must be an understanding about what #

white privilege means: systemic policies in policing, housing, work, etc, have had a real effect on allowing us to move forward in the way the rest of society has been able to. We have moved on in some ways since the 60s and 70s but due to the racism embedded in these areas, life still presents real problems for us. The Covid-19 report has highlighted this yet again.”

A Public Health England report has shown that people of Chinese, Indian, Pakistani, other Asian, Caribbean and other Black ethnicity had between 10 and 50 per cent higher risk of death when compared to white British. The disease is impacting hardest in highly populated areas and on workers with low-paid, public-facing jobs such as taxi drivers, security guards and care workers.

“It’s hard to know what to do, so many of us don’t want to be seen as a ‘problem’ that we just shut up. But we want to move forward, with white people; we can’t do it on our own. It’s great to see so many white people involved in the protests. We want to work together. We want you to speak up for us when you see things happening.”

We talked about how we should go about that. I asked if humour was a good way to approach this, or if it was completely inappropriate? And specifically whether any humour, from white people, based on his colour was appropriate.

“That’s a difficult one,” said Peter. “It’s true that humour lightens the mood and is a good way to start a thinking process sometimes. The context has to be right. For example, I didn’t appreciate a tired old cliché from a colleague about me being ‘difficult to photograph’. But amongst my white friends I still find the comments about black men being gifted ‘down below’ oddly amusing! But, as I say, it has to be in context. And I’m not just a black man, I’m a dad, a husband and a football supporter who likes other jokes too.”

One thing that has always intrigued me is the 1970s controversial sitcom Love thy Neighbour. Essentially it was tragic 70s comedy, based on race. It used offensive terms but for me it showed integration, Nina Baden-Semper and Kate Williams’ characters, a black and white woman were inseparable friends. Rudolph Walker’s black character was always in the pub with his white mates and Jack Smethurst’s white character was portrayed as a bigoted idiot.  But I’m white so what did I miss?

Pete’s first answer was to remind me that he was ‘too young’ to remember it. But of course it was widely known amongst his parents and older relatives.  After some research Peter came back to me: “My dad actually enjoyed Love Thy Neighbour. But at the time, I suspect he didn’t acknowledge the elements of the programme that in today’s world would be seen as a ‘no-no’. If I could ask him now, I believe he’d see it differently. That said, I believe this type of programme could still be used as a basis for more meaningful and open discussion.”

Natalie, 41, a corporate responsibility manager, echoed this (and had to ask her dad too): “As well as a number of other points Love thy Neighbour was trying to portray white and black people getting on. But some of the jokes were very racist. Many black people liked it because we enjoyed seeing ourselves on tv, there weren’t many other opportunities. So whilst it was racist and offered little in terms of education on our respective ways of life, we accepted it. We had to.”

Natalie was in a mixed relationship. That has ended now but I was interested in her thoughts on this. Fay had said it was something she had been reluctant to do, if only because she couldn’t bear the thought that in an inevitable row with a partner, something racial might slip out and, for her, that would be the end of the relationship. Natalie said that she felt if she had a connection with someone, colour didn’t matter.

“The separation was absolutely for the better. I have wondered if white privilege was at play here, which led him and his network to behave so appallingly,” said Natalie. “But that wouldn’t stop me having another mixed relationship; I know the warning signs to look out for now. Some of my best friends are white and one got me through the aftermath of the relationship, he understood me and my situation.” I asked Natalie why she hadn’t got together with him: “He’s gay,” she said.

We discussed humour for a while and Natalie agreed with what Peter had told me: “Context is everything. If you have a good friendship with someone, there are no limits to where humour will begin and end, as long as there is trust.”

Natalie talked about work. “You know that thing about ‘not suffering fools gladly’?” she asked. “Well us black people know we must do that. I have been to so many meetings that are such a waste of time, with ridiculous things being said, but I can’t say anything. I’m almost always the only black person in a meeting and I don’t have the same scope to make constructive criticism as my white counterparts. If I’m frustrated with someone, I’m automatically labelled ‘aggressive’, rather than actually bothering to explore what my issue is.  There is a new trend at the moment: ‘bring the real you to work’, which simply doesn’t apply to black people. If I find the right manager who supports me for being me, then I can shine, otherwise you have to be a yes man.

“I had ‘the conversation’ too. My mum told me how to act at work: ‘Always be your ‘best-self’, never have down-days, never be frustrated or angry, don’t make mistakes and make sure you work twice as hard as everyone else’.  I got dreads and went travelling, when I got back she was clear: ‘You can’t go to work with your hair like that ’. I resisted at first but got rid of them before starting my first job and watched as white people with dreads strolled into offices. I see millennials today who can pretty much present themselves in any way they see fit and go into the office, that’s fine but you still don’t see a scruffy black person doing the same things; the bar is absolutely set a different level for black people, whatever they do. 

“I have a two-year old daughter, and I’m already wondering about the conversation with her. We’re going to a George Floyd memorial where the town hall is lit up purple, which she will like.  I’m not going to talk to her about colour at this point, I’ll just say that people are coming together to demand change for the better.

“My dad talks about when he came to the UK. He worked hard to buy property but barriers were put in his way. To buy a property, you had to pool your money with your local community through a ‘pardoner’. This is where a group of people pay a regular sum to a trusted person (an older, respected member of the community) weekly. Every week, one member of the group receives the total amount contributed by all partners. It’s like a pyramid scheme today, but in a trusted community in the 60s was the only way a black person could raise a deposit, which was often higher than a white person would pay, to keep us out of certain neighbourhoods. That would usually give you enough money to get a deposit and a mortgage through the council. Black people couldn’t get bank mortgages, they were literally laughed out of the bank.”

Natalie talked about resilience: “We have to be resilient in everything we do. I simply put things to the back of my mind, otherwise you will become an angry individual, and I won’t give anyone the satisfaction: did I really miss out on that job because there was someone better? Did that person really do a monkey gesture at me (whilst sightseeing around Berlin)? 

“I’m accused of being a perfectionist, I guess I have to be, if I want a decent quality of life. At a BAME Facebook event I attended, a speaker said equality in the workplace is when you have mediocre black people in senior positions (like their white counterparts) and he’s absolutely right! So I have to be a perfectionist if I want to succeed, I dare not.”

I had heard a few of these stories, and it was heart-rending to listen to Fay, Peter and Natalie. I was left in no doubt years ago that something was wrong but have been too worried to ask deeper questions for fear of saying the wrong thing (though I still do that) or patronising black people. I am sickened by the nonsense written on social media about ‘white guilt’ and ‘not being ashamed to be white’. I’m not ashamed or proud, I’m just white. I’m no prouder of that than I am of having toenails; I haven’t worked to be white.

I talked to a white friend, Andy, 57, who runs a building business, about this. He had grown up in south London and told me: “I was brought up amongst some the UK’s most accomplished racists. We used all sorts of words I’d never use now. On my first day in secondary school I used the ‘N’-word with some black classmates and was hauled up before the headmaster. The thing is, I couldn’t understand why. That racism was driven into us at home.

“I couldn’t tell you when I changed, I can’t say what prompted it, but I find myself apologising to friends from minorities for what other people have said now. ‘It’s ok’, they say, ‘we’re used to it.’ That’s not good enough.”

What I do know is that white people must start listening to what has actually happened to black people, and other minorities. Start listening, start asking, stop defending yourselves first. As a white person I know that if this does not happen, and the running sore of racism isn’t tackled through an open-minded look at our joint history, it will be worse for us too.

And start looking at some of our leaders, who know they can gain easy votes and salaries from appealing to those who claim that black people have no right to speak up; in many cases they have given up that right. White privilege is real, I know, I’ve been using it for years though I never knew I had it until I started asking questions about what I’d already seen for myself.

 

Telecoms paranoia, 5G vs Covid-19 (and phones turning into human heads)

The latest conspiracy theories around 5G and Coronavirus come as no surprise to those working in telecoms. It is an area dogged by amateur theorists and pseudo-scientists. From the early days of the telephone where it was claimed the new invention would be used to "talk to hell..." other issues have included spying, phantom phone calls, telephones turning into heads, garden gnomes building up big phone bills and the Renault Clio being the ‘only car in the world’ for those worried about radiation. The only answer for mobile operators is to develop matter transfer via broadband…

I’ve been reading about the association of 5G with Coronavirus, seeing posts about it on Facebook by friends confused about this bizarre phenomenon and reading ‘reasoned’ tweets from those convinced that they will be catching the Miley Cyrus via mobile masts. But through a career in telecoms customer service and PR, dealing with some of the UK’s most dedicated conspiracy theorists, I felt a little superior having been there many, many times before.

In 1980 I joined British Telecom, now BT, as a trainee telephone exchange engineer. However, wiring up equipment with only the company of men many years older than me was not the career I was looking for. So when I saw an advert for a role in customer service, dealing with ‘high-level’ complaints from customers whose technical, accounts and ‘other’ issues had not been fixed by the relevant departments, I applied.

At the interview I was warned that it was a role where I would be shouted and threatened with my life on a daily basis, it was so bad that only two years in the job was recommended. But I got the job and was sent on a course to learn how to navigate my way around the labyrinthian company, which comprised a quarter of a million people in 1983. I learnt how to deal with technical issues that occurred in exchanges, in streets and business and residential premises and how to resolve billing problems.

However, what we weren’t taught about was the ‘other’ issues; from my stats over 70% of the issues we dealt with were ‘other’. And other issues rarely included anything that was down to British Telecom: nuisance calls (“Are you wearing any knickers?” and pre-cyberbullying stuff), being ‘spied on’ via phone, phantom phone calls, phones turning into human heads, cordless ‘phonewaves’ causing psoriasis, garden gnomes building up huge phone bills and advice sought from complaint handlers like me on how to complain to other companies.

Being spied on through the telephone was bread and butter. We even had a standard response along the lines of: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of either Her majesty’s or other nations’ secret or special services?” Evidence of being spied upon was usually around ‘clicks’ on the line or other noises, all of which could be explained by the shocking state of wiring and joints in the ground and rain in some places at that time, or electro-mechanical exchanges which were phased out long after steam trains had disappeared from our railways. One customer told me had actually found the bugs on his line. I asked him to bring them in and show them to me and the head of engineering.

“I’m a councillor for the bereaved,” he told us as he removed the ‘bugs’ from his pocket. “My conversations must remain private.”

“What does your telephone line look like now?” asked the head of engineering.

“it’s sagging a bit…”

“That’s not surprising, those are the clips that hold it up,” responded the engineer, leaving the room as he shot me a “Don’t ever waste my time with your lunatics again,” look.

Other people ‘under surveillance’ via the phone included a lady whose extra evidence was planes circling over south-east London as they stacked for Heathrow.

“They tilt over because everyone's on one side looking into my house,” she claimed.

And the scout hut over the road was where people met to discuss her. They wore uniforms so it was definitely ‘government-sponsored’.

One elderly lady called after she was advised she was about to be cut off for non-payment. Apparently her garden gnomes were using her phone all the time and “I’m sure as hell not going to pay their bills,” she told me. Accounts referred her to me as they had no time for this sort of thing, apparently I did.

“Do you think you could be imagining this?” I asked.

“Do you think I’m mad?!” she responded. “And they take all the hot water, ask the police!”

So I did. I called Catford police station.

“Ah yes,” was the response. “We’ve a specialist officer who deals with her.”

He called me back and told me all about her. She was quite lovely and was looked after by carers, family and Help the Aged volunteers so she had an independent life. He said the ‘gnome thing’ was sensitively managed: “I go round and bollock them every now and again. Only I can do it as I have a beard. But it keeps her happy for a while. I’ll let the family know there’s a billing issue.”

After all the warnings about physical threats, which I did receive (and these were the customers who almost always bothered to call back to say thank you: “Sorry about what I said before about breaking your legs…”) the only call that ever kept me awake was the lady who told me that when she gets a call her phone turns into a human head. I told her that I wasn’t qualified to deal with matters like this.

“You might not understand this, but your soul does,” she responded enigmatically. Her voice haunted me for days and I woke at night several times with it in my head.

Regulars included ‘dreamers’, who insisted their phones rang all through the night. With these we put a check on their lines to test for incoming calls and always found that their phones never rang at night. Most took this well and once their brains knew it was a dream they could sleep through. Some resented the ‘invasion of privacy’ but were unable to explain what privacy we had invaded.

It was at this time that telecoms paranoia was joined by accusations of health issues. Cordless phones had been launched and despite them being massive and ceasing to work ever again after thunderstorms they were very popular. But not so popular with some neighbours.

“My daughter’s had psoriasis ever since next door got a cordless phone,” I was told by one person. This was new territory then, and I wasn’t sure what to say other than that sounds ridiculous, which I wasn’t allowed to say. So I said I’d contact our laboratories and see what they had to say.

“That sounds ridiculous,” said the boffins.

In the meantime I got a call from the neighbour, who said her neighbour had told her I had ‘forbidden’ her to use her cordless phone. I assured her that I hadn't and contacted the original caller to say that not only did she or I not have the right to tell anyone not to use a perfectly legal device, it was scientific opinion that a cordless phone was not the cause of her daughter’s psoriasis. I suggested she got some proper medical opinion from her GP and discussed with her what my friends with this condition did, and this did not include distancing themselves from cordless phones.

After some other roles I moved into PR, working with journalists. This went so well that I left my job and set up my own PR agency. Here I took on the PR for a business which had developed ‘mini-masts’, amongst other technology. These were devices that could be attached to lamp-posts and telegraph poles to boost the mobile signal in areas where this was a problem.

A mini-mast had the equivalent power of around four mobile phones and is always, because it was placed on street furniture, several metres from premises. Yet one tabloid took up the cases of people, for example, who were literally living in houses wallpapered in Bacofoil because they had singled out mobile phone signals as carcinogenic. It carried articles every few days for some weeks about what could happen to your child (including the ones with mobile phones) if mini-masts were introduced. It became so bad that despite my efforts and those of a crisis PR agency the project was shelved.

That same tabloid and, in some cases, even the same journalist, then took up the case of people who had a poor mobile phone signal. Advice comprised: “Get a signal booster, there are third-party gadgets called signal boosters that pick up weak signals and produce a full powered signal indoors,” and: “However, while these are available in the US , they are currently illegal in the UK.”

What intrigued me was the fixation on telecoms Electromotive force (EMF). Why not TVs? Or laptops? These are ubiquitous, but perhaps too difficult to live without. At the time of the mini-mast venture the old cathode ray tube TVs were much in vogue and emitted much more radiation than current TVs, which still give off a little bit. But I’ve yet to hear anyone taking up the cudgel against them. Sure, there are the usual quack EMF shields that ‘scare the pants off them’ marketing can sell but aside from that, very little.

Later on in my PR career I worked alongside legal and safety experts in my return stint at the big telephone company. By this time Wi-Fi had arrived and brought with it the new wave of monomania, a word I picked up from legal colleagues who dealt with various cases including, again, being spied upon, mobile-phone signals and now Wi-Fi.

I took a call from a lady who told me that she would not use Wi-Fi because it is carcinogenic and wanted the right (here we go again) to stop her neighbour having a router.  She told me that her daughter was a lecturer at the University of Toulouse on EMF prevention. Of course I checked, there was no such person or course. But what really got me was this conversation:

“I’ve got the only car you can buy that doesn’t give off any EMF.”

“Which car is that?”

“A Renault Clio.”

“How is a Renault Clio is different to any other car?”

“I don’t know the technical detail but I told the man at the garage my concerns and he recommended the Clio as the only car that doesn’t give off EMF.”

Well hats off to that salesman for knowing his market. I did what any self-respecting PR person would do and asked her to write in outlining the issues in a proper letter, on paper, with a stamp on it. That usually works. However, I did get a letter, and very detailed it was too. I gave a standard response about the WHO saying there was ‘no evidence’ for Wi-Fi or mobile phones killing us. Though this is dangerous as WHO, quite rightly will not say EMF from these devices doesn’t cause cancer, but it would say the same about slippers or divan beds.

Incidentally, whilst in this job I worked with a colleague who came into work extraordinarily distressed one Monday. A neighbour had tried to get into her house to take her cordless phone as she said it was “Killing my children.” For me it was a trip down memory lane, back to the 80s.

“Wait until you tell her you’ve got a TV, a Wi-Fi router and a microwave,” I said. “Actually, tell her that when she gets rid of her TV, Wi-Fi and microwave, you’ll get rid of your cordless phone.” I’m not sure this advice was gratefully received by either party but sometimes I’m just at a loss for words on this stuff.

The latest nonsense around 5G is totally expected, by me anyway. But like the anti-vaxxer ‘campaign’ the sinister turn it is taking is scary. Burning down masts could prevent emergency call access and abuse of engineers could lead to tragedy, on either side if my experience of old colleagues was anything to go by. The Government is right to stop transmission of manipulative nonsense that is already leading to vandalism of vital equipment and violence, and the fact that it is doing it transparently is even better.

My suggestion as a PR professional (OK, I failed on mini-masts but I’ve upped my game and learned from that experience) to telecoms firms is this: pretend that you’re toying with matter transfer of people via broadband. That would present all sorts of ethical and medical issues for the dedicated conspiracy theorist to get their loosening teeth into. And in the meantime you could get up to 8g without anybody noticing. 

The Kurds certainly helped these Brits in WW2

Dad, on the left, rampaging through Belgium, commandeering German equipment in-between sleeping with princesses

My ol' man was a terrible father but a great soldier. He went from Private to Lieutenant Colonel in WW2 and was commissioned at the request of King George VI and further promoted at the direct recommendation of Monty.

He was rescued by HMS Skipjack at Dunkirk, which was sunk the next day. He was disgusted at the leadership of the army at that time, which largely comprised ex-public schoolboys placed by their fathers, schools or starry-eyed generals despite lacking any aptitude for their roles. After Dunkirk there was a significant clear out of these people, which gave people like my ol' man a chance. He was at El Alamein and then D-Day, where he rampaged to Belgium.

He boasted loudly to me and my brother in  a Belgian restaurant in the 90s that a certain Belgian princess was an 'old slapper'. We remonstrated with him and he responded: "Even I slept with her..."

After he left the Army he refused an MBE. None of us believed the latter, but my daughter found the records online.

But the thing that impressed me the most was his story, which he has written down, and which I mean to translate into usable English, about Monty's request that he find a route into the USSR from North Africa for a possible retreat should Rommel push us back.

It is a fantastic story of getting a platoon of men through exotic middle-eastern places, and over geographical boundaries, eventually reaching and passing into the Soviet Union.

However, there was one major drawback. And it was pretty big. Nobody had told the Soviets. So when the ol' man pitched up to some Soviet army base expecting a warm welcome and pint of vodka, he and his men were immediately arrrested as German spies. Even this bloke from Hoxton couldn't get past the famous Soviet distrust of anybody, even each other.

He was invited into the local commandant's office to discuss the situation. But rather than a discussion, he found out at the end of the cosy chat that this was, in fact, the trial. The translator, who grew up in New York, told him him: "Jeez, I feel sorry for you guys, but at least it'll be quick." They were to be shot the next day.

He and his men were locked up with some Kurdish prisoners, who had been planning an escape. I don't know the detail of this until I make some real effort with the ol' man's manuscript but somehow the Kurds got themselves out, and my ol' man and his men, and they all made a break for the border.

One of the reasons I found my dad hard to deal with was his hypocritical racism. He was opposed to the UK accepting Ugandan Asians into the UK, for example, but made a fortune selling them refrigeration equipment they bought with Government and other grants, and made friends with many but criticised them being here behind their back, as so many British people did (and still do).

But if you said anything against the Kurds...

Cynical Business Poet

I heard John Cooper Clarke, the punk poet, on Desert Island Discs the other day, I found it really inspiring. So much so that I'm adapting much of the copy from my A-Z of Cynicism in the Workplace into some cynical poetry. Here's the first one.

The alpha-male

The alpha-male

Will never fail

To drive you fucking insane

His ski-ing prowess

Will create much stress

With endless tales of Gastein.

He's sold more than you

And clients love him too

He'll lead you to understand

His bonus is massive

And his Rolex is magic

Wiping his arse with its minute hand.

He causes office division

Whilst oozing narcissism

With slicked-back hair

And a leather office chair

From which he can wipe his jizm.

His car's a Maserati

And his bit-on-the-side is nasty

With a mouth only made for slagging

She'll insult your suits from her Gucci boots

Not knowing who else Alpha is shagging.

I'll stay in my baggy suit for now

Waiting for my chance to wow

Like the alpha-male does

With his designer fuzz

And a wife he refers to as 'Cow'.

D Eckhoff

The Remlic card

Brexiteers: put your money where your mouth is!

The Remlic Card, pre-Brexit life for Remoaners on plastic

It looks the men of the people like Rees-Mogg, Johnson, Farage, etc, have persuaded (some of) the people that despite their public-school backgrounds and careers that their parents worked so hard for them to be given, that a vote their way is a vote against the establishment. So, if you’re a Brexiteer you’ll have won for them what they wanted. Let’s just hope they look after you when things don’t go as well as they promised you they would.

No doubt you’ll be proud of what you’ve achieved. Maybe you can write down what exactly this is in a quiet reflective moment. But in the mean time I’d like to propose something that will make it easier to push through what you wanted so much, and enable you to confidently back what the Daily Mail, Sun and Daily Express recommended you do with your vote.

As a dedicated Remoaner who never wanted your country handed to over to the hard right, who never wanted to see a neo-Nazi preaching and being lauded by our cenotaph, who didn’t want to see your standard of living wrecked, your jobs decimated and your services lost, I’m suggesting that all Remoaners down tools and let you get on with it, on one small condition, that you put your money where your mouth is.

I’m suggesting a two-tier society where you get exactly what you voted for, it’s the Remlic card: the Remoaner Life Insurance Card. You got blue passports (made in France), we want a good British Remlic card. This will provide us with:

• NHS queue jumping over Brexiteers. There will be less money for the NHS after Brexit so we want better odds of getting treatment for the tax we paid. We want that money to be spent on our bunions and haemorrhoids, not on ensuring your heroes got a crack at being Prime Minister.
• Access to health services overseas like we had with our EHIC cards. If you go to Spain and fall off a bar stool after sixteen pints of Tennents, get your mates to sort you out and drive you home.
• If there is any rationing, double coupons for us and our families, a bit like double Green Shield stamps from the halcyon days of the 60s. I’m slightly concerned that some warnings on this might be a bit overkill but don’t want to take the chance.
• 20% more than you on foreign exchange. When you go overseas and you suddenly realise a pint costs you nearly as much as those crimplene trousers in the back of the Daily Express, you can always blame the EU, like you’ll be told to do, and that’ll take your pain away. We will blame you but as we’re not allied with the BNP or Stephen Yaxley-Lennon we won’t give you the good hammering you deserve. Knowing that we’ll get our drink cheaper will sort us out.
• Discounts on goods that get a Brexit mark-up. Again, you will blame the EU. You will also blame our politicians, yet before the referendum you agreed with me that they were useless and never did what you wanted. But I will blame you, you were warned about this, yet you chose this.
• We can resort to those pesky EU laws that the Daily Mail told you that you didn't want. So if your shoes or union flag fall to bits after one wearing or waving you can just buy some more. We can have a two-year guarantee on ours.

So, what have you got to lose? It cannot go wrong for you, Johnson and Nige said so! You can register your agreement by leaving some poorly spelt abuse through the comments link.

Crime, punishment and hypocrisy - at Tottenham Hotspur

Last night I was asked to accompany a friend to Wembley to see his beloved Spurs, at Wembley as their house isn’t ready yet. I’ve been lucky enough to visit many grounds across the UK, but all of them feature ‘football fans’. Last night’s special subject amongst Spurs fans holding court over various sections was ‘Fernando Llorente and his contribution to Tottenham Hotspur’. It wouldn’t have taken Stephen Hawking to work out that Fernando was unpopular. He was described for 80 minutes as “useless” and a “c*nt”. Some of the more mathematically gifted worked out and argued over how much he was being paid per minute to besmirch the lily-white shirt with his Spanish body. Derision was also aimed at Spurs’ manager, who apparently had ‘no balls’, when there were two substitutions yet Fernie was left on.

And then he scored.

I’m not saying that football fans are fickle but the calculators were put away and every positive thing the heroic Fernando had ever achieved for Spurs was recounted lovingly. He could have married their daughters, and whilst waiting for the wedding he would have been invited round for Sunday afternoon intercourse with their wives whilst the husbands looked on and admired his technique.

And then poor old Fernando needed a rest. He knew that after he’d scored he could go down if a Watford player so much as gave him a sideways glance, and then stay there whilst waiting to be tucked up in a duvet by Spurs fans now concerned about what his ‘work rate’ had done to his geriatric 33-year old body. Contrast this with the reaction of the Spurs faithful who had demanded throughout that Watford’s keeper, Ben Foster, be executed for time-wasting each and every moment he got the ball.

The other observation is about fans of the same team fighting amongst themselves. In football crowds things are said that couldn’t be said elsewhere. They are not always ‘politically correct’ and thankfully most of outright racist comments have disappeared. And some of the things said are very funny.

But an incident I saw last night was funny in its abject hypocrisy. A man of about 70 stood up and laid into another, younger man. “Don’t you f*cking swear in front of my son!” he screamed. “You can f*ck off to another seat if you want to f*cking swear you c*nt!” The son looked on bemused; he was about 45, and looked as though he’d like a good swear himself. Eventually the stewards intervened and settled them down. But then it all erupted again and the protective, sweary father and sensitive son decided they would move to two of the other 70,000 seats available in the stadium.

The only other crowds I’ve been in that are as amusing as this are at the ballet, and possibly the rugby where you can drink with abandon and trade insults with opposing fans who won’t try to murder you in return. At baseball you can sleep and eat your own weight in burgers as the ‘sport’ is as dull as the audience. At cricket you can also get a*seholed but as it goes on for so bloody long you can leave and visit an art gallery during a game and not miss anything so drinking yourself into oblivion won’t waste any money spent on the ticket.

Who wants to take me to another game?