Author: Owl with the View
Date: 10/28/2001 4:21 pm WEDT
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By next May (2002) the Richmond and Twickenham Comet & Times will be a tabloid made in Surrey under Sean Duggan with the poor, spent ex-R&TT editor Malcolm Richards not even employable as his tea-boy (sold right down the line by the rich Richmond Dimblebys). Every gay has his day - it seems!
The R&TT did not save the Twickenham swimming pool from the clutches of Lib Demmery. It just sat passively on the sidelines and let the whole structure rot away. Now it passively watches the relentless advance of the Razzallean rape and pillage machinery. Why is that? Well we all know Malc is vulnerable. Boyfriends in Barnes make you so. Especially attractive Asian boyfiends that people notice. Those of us that know him also know that he is an unabashed Liberal Democrat party supporter and all his decisions reflect that. Is it really proper for the editor of the only remaining serious newspaper in Richmond borough to be so partial like this? The people of Richmond read the R&TT letters page and believe the correspondence to be representative of public opinion. I have news for them, the letters are only a very selective Lib Dem filtration of those submitted.
Malc knows the people of Twickenham want a swimming pool, the people have been deprived of a local swimming pool for a quarter of a century. The R&TT could have represented them, could have pressed for it to be rebuilt, modernised, put under a glass roof, there were many chances missed in 25 years.
So one has to ask why the R&TT, as representatives of the community, didn't lead the campaigns to save the Pool, or the Ice Rink before it. Well the answer can clearly be seen in the ex-editors self aggrandizing attitude, he has crawled and licked his way up the greasy Lib Dem pole by favouring the majority party to the detriment of the population who trusted him. Dimbleby's ensured they always had compliant, inexperienced, journalists by paying the lowest rates of any local paper in England, which left the editor largely in control, and he has used this to keep his political buddies, the Liberal Demagogues, clinging on to power.
Now its all-change on the buses. Newsquest is in town. Stop the Press! And Malc is in the out-tray, he is a past pundit - a spent, now third rate, local hack. From time to time he may be seen with his mates, like the pungent, disqualified SS chair, Barnowl, propping up the bar in some sleazy Richmond dive and boasting to unaware tourists, through an alcoholic haze, about the days when together the party and the paper carved up the whole of this borough and financed the National Lib Dem party to boot. Maybe Malc will get an MBE in the end.
I am old enough to remember that the R&TT was once a great local newspaper. We were all, rightly, very proud of it. Now its not even good toilet tissue because of the coloured ink! Newsquest paid 8m for an advertising rag with big pages and pretty pictures, all they have really bought is the R&TT name. And not surprisingly the Dimbleby's, who knew it was almost worthless, cant stop grinning, have you noticed? Newsquest will just stick the RT&T name on the tabloid Comet and sack half the staff, you just watch!
After the next local elections our new councillors will have to steer our borough around the efforts of the local suited spivery, in which I still include Lord Razzall of Tortola and the soon to be Lord Wilhelms of the Audit Commission, and will have a chance to pull us Pheonix-like from borough poverty. I hope with all my heart that they seize that opportunity.
Let us hope that it will then be a more honest and transparent Richmond council, with a more honest and open local press, representing the people of the borough not just a corrupt political party with so many hidden vested interests.
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