Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Gambling affliction

And so we have the shortlist for the super-casino. Let's have a more detailed look at the winners:

The Dome (Greenwich): Labour borough council, Labour MP
Wembley (Brent): Lib Dems largest party in borough council, 2 Labour MPs, 1 Lib Dem MP
Blackpool: Labour council, 2 Labour MPs
Manchester: Labour council, 4 Labour MPs, 1 Lib Dem MP
Glasgow: Labour council, 10 Labour MSPs, 6 Labour MPs (plus the Speaker)
Newcastle: Lib Dem council, 4 Labour MPs
Sheffield: Labour Council, 5 Labour MPs, 1 Lib Dem MP

And then we have the Solihull bid at the NEC (backed by Birmingham City Council). Central location, at a major conference venue, with excellent road, rail and air connections:
Solihull: Conservative council, 1 Conservative MP, 1 Lib Dem MP

I don't think I need to say anything else, do I...

4 comments:

PoliticalHackUK said...

Except - Birmingham, 9 Labour MPs and Labour as the largest party on the council. An awful lot of rejected locations have Labour elected members, so your point is simply wrong.

Praguetory said...

I am personally of a view that a megacasino is not a positive and I don't like the wasteful selection process for it. But that's besides the point. Once again the Midlands misses out. Midlands politicians should be drawing attention to this. Unfortunately, local Labour doffs it cap to London... again.

Peter Smallbone said...

Solihull's council is Conservative and Birmingham's is Conservative-led. Both areas have a Conservative MP.

*None* of the shortlisted areas has a single Conservative MP. And *none* of the sortlisted areas has a Conservative council. Coincidence? I beg to differ.

Praguetory said...

Re John Prescott - the supercasino selection process is revealed as a corrupt pantomime. In hindsight it looks like we were playing a game where the house has loaded the die and that your criticism was well founded. Congratulations.