SHAMELESS EXCLUSIVE: The First of the Bloggers to Die?

Some bloke in Manchester with a personal political blog, which might as well be written in green ink as it is that hilariously maverick and idiosyncratic, has we've heard been causing all sorts of ructions. In not one but three local Political Parties. Not to mention one or two Trade Unions.

We've also heard there is to be an exclusive news story about just one of these ructions in the highly respected South Manchester Reporter this week. If that is they don't bottle out. But we've scooped them anyway.

That "exclusive" should be arriving on mats this very afternoon. But will it be on page 10 where "Bloke Blogs Bollocks" belongs? Or on page 1 where it clearly doesn't. We'll soon find out.

Essentially, we're told, this bloke suggested six weeks ago that one of the local councillors for the Lib Dem party looked a bit like the handsome and talented David Threlfall when he is got up as Frank Gallagher in Channel 4's excellent, affectionate and multi-award-winning Shameless. But unlike poor David it seems this man doesn't need three hours in make up. He just happens to look like that. Which is a bonus.

Now there is a fine tradition in Private Eye, The Daily Mirror, News of the World not to mention Have I Got News For You of this "Separated at Birth" or what is technically known as "Looky Likey" journalism. We've even done it here on Labour of Love.

Most recently likening Labour's own Jack Straw to another TV character "The Demon Headmaster", not to mention comparing some random bloke-off-the-internet being rude to Labour's own Candidate in Oldham. And there was some Lib Dem bloke also I think, quite a few weeks ago. And another one being rude with a beer bottle and in a drunken coma that was apparently the dead spit of some Lib Dem bloke that works for an MP now and has a very rude and un-PC gob on him.

And we like this Luke Akehurst/Chris Evans Morph too and we're soon getting our hands on some nifty software to keep up with this new-fangled information super highway thingie. So I think you can tell where our sympathies are going to lie.

To make matters worse this Bollocks Blogging Bloke (BBB) pointed out that one of the area's councillors was actually on the missing list and suggested too that the one that looked like Frank and the one that looks pretty ordinary really might not be the most effective councillors in the Council Chamber. So that local people were let down.

As your blogger had a conversation with Shameless creator Paul Abbott a few months ago I can confirm that Paul is himself aware of this looky likey councillor from this South Manchester neighbourhood. But I tend to believe him when he says the inspiration comes from his own growing up elsewhere in the North and not from Nell Lane.

Labour of Love is told that on the estates in these Lib Dem councillors patch there ARE some real social and environmental problems, that a gangster called Desi Noonan was actually murdered there (which I blogged in my old blog in 2005), and that there are some very real problems with crime and anti-social behaviour. Clearly all can be tackled and lives improved with good old Manchester positivity and co-operation.

But our BBB had reported the word on the street that there were times when these councillors were rather more sympathetic to the 5% of ne'er-do-wells than to the 95% of decent and hard working residents who believe, like John McDonnell, that Another World Is Possible but for some reason have been taken in by these shameless wrong 'uns.

Sounds like pretty standard stuff in the strange world of personal blogging on this new fangled inter-web? But it seems the miserable Lib Dem three, who already spend their lifetimes running down Manchester, spreading misery, condoning anti-social mayhem and voting against measures to deal with it, have absolutely no sense of humour and a knack for making a mountain out of a molehill.

Not to mention a slow fuse taking six weeks to getting round to doing anything at all. They haven't even put a comment up or asked this BBB to change anything. At least the other parties have been proactive. We know who's really doing the work, all year round etc etc.

What the Lib Dems are of course trying to do is claim that The Labour Party condone this maverick sense of humour and childish name calling, whereas they wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. And if the Lib Dems do get round to making a complaint to Labour's Regional Office they may find themselves at the back of a queue of other luddite spoilsports.

Worst of all these Lib Dems are trying to persuade the South Manchester Reporter (circulation VFD 42,324 copies weekly) to carry a story about BBB, whereby a story hitherto seen by about fifty people and their dogs - and I'll be bound lots of other exposes of Lib Dem lies and hypocrisy - will be seen this tea time by around 80,000 people.

We'll keep you posted! We've even had the bloke's correspondence with the newspaper leaked to us! And we are talking to our marketing manager and literary agent about preparing an index of LoL's own stories against Lib Dems these last three months, in the hope that they drum up some much-needed business for this bloke's blog too.

One last point. LoL happen to know that Sir Alex Ferguson once took action against the owners of the South Manchester Reporter over a story in another of their titles saying he was allegedly bad tempered when he got a parking ticket outside his barber one time. He was paid £25,000! How much more for impugning a poor blogger or a respectable political party?

UPDATE: Turns out the complaint to Region this poor blogging bloke was faced with was from his OWN PARTY!