Week ending 23rd April

Our Friday miscellany of the week's news and events ...
No way forward ... a reader sensed a certain degree of irony in the following communication and decided to share it with us: "TO MEMBERS OF THE WAY FORWARD GROUP AND OTHER MEMBERS FOR INFORMATION. Dear Councillor, With the permission of the Chairman, Councillor Blaylock, the next meeting of the Way Forward Group scheduled for 27th April has been cancelled due to lack of business. Regards ..."
Countdown to what ...? Less than a fortnight to the general election and Boston is still scarcely ablaze with excitement. But one or two quirky sidebars to the campaign have caught our attention, as you might expect.
Vote for who ...? A dilemma for Boston Borough Council Leader Richard Austin if he stands by his words on the Lincolnshire Independents' website. Back in the days when he was still a member of their county council branch he said: "There is deep disillusionment with the old politics - Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat. People just do not trust them - they do not answer to local people and they have failed to deliver practical policies that help people. Lincolnshire deserves better!" Who gets your 'X' then Councillor?
Not his lot ... With nominations now closed, there are six candidates for the Boston and Skegness constituency. They are: Paul Kenny, Labour; David Owens, British National Party; Christopher Pain, United Kingdom Independence Party; Mark Simmonds, Conservative; Philip Smith, Liberal Democrat; and Peter Wilson, Independent. No sign of the world's greatest political party, that invincible band of heroes known as the Boston Bypass Independents, then? Of course not. The result would be so predictably disastrous that we knew they wouldn't dare to test their "popularity." No, they'll just carry on smarming around the Tories.

Price of fame ... After a long delay, the BNP's David Owens has at last persuaded the BBC to acknowledge his candidacy on their website. A reader who took the omission up with the BBC a couple of weeks ago received the frosty reply: "We're currently putting in candidate data, some of which was provided to us only very recently by party leaders and some of which is coming in from the candidates themselves and the public, all of which is subject to accuracy checks. I'm sure you can appreciate there is a fair amount of data to format and publish. This can take time but we are trying our very best to update our pages with accurate and up-to-date information as quickly as possible, normally within 36 hours." We wonder why the list of candidates posed no such similar problem for Sky News, who had a complete list of candidates available online the day the election was called. Now all Mr Owens has to do is to overcome local incompetence, such as that demonstrated by the Boston Standard, who crushed his campaign advertisement to make him look like the Teflon scientist in the old adverts.

Silly Tweet ... Meanwhile, Labour's Paul Kenny continues to entertain with his pithy, petty Tweets. One of the most recent made us smile. ""Tories avoid tough issues, duck key issues and can't meet Labour commitments on front-line services of schools, hospitals and policing." We wondered whether the "duck key issues" to which he referred concerned getting access for Donald and his chums to the nice houses bought for them on expenses by Tory MPs?

Faceless ... We note the arrival of Boston Borough Council on Facebook - although we're not quite sure why. The message on the main page says "Boston Borough Council has no recent posts" and a further look around shows that there haven't apparently been any prior to that either. What's even sadder is that more than 20 people have signed up as "friends" of the borough - including a number of staff. We guess it's one way to try to keep your job safe.

Leave us alone ... We mentioned the other day about the absence of a phone number on Lincolnshire Police handouts affecting Boston. The other day a reader who wanted to contact the nick had no end of a problem finding a number. An obvious starting point for such information was the internet, where the following page was found. Once again, no number. Meanwhile a news release from the police on thefts from 12 cars were in Boston within a few days, tells us that the inspector concerned "is happy to give interviews and/or a further comment on these thefts but is not available until Monday 26 April."  Not that concerned, then?
Dizzy idiots ... Having said that, we feel some sympathy for the local bobbies when their efforts to warn of the dangers of climbing rooftops are countered by some local halfwit who claims to be "Urbexing" - exploring areas which are normally out of bounds to the public to photograph them. Call it what you like, but you end up just as dead if you fall from the roof.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.

Join us tomorrow for a Saturday extra blog from Councillor Brian Rush of the Better Boston Group