Saturday, November 10, 2007

Blackpool Vanishes: Galloway Victim of Tory Plot?



An unexpected day away from the Blog and a comment on the George-Galloway-Blackpool-Mother-of-all-Cancellations story from one Dana Garrett who said...

Galloway has only been announcing for weeks on the air & web what would occur at the conference, which the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Company allegedly only just discovered. Given that a Tory had a conference there recently, the hypocrisy is evident. Canceling the event 4 days in advance couldn't be more perfect from the perspective of Galloway's political enemies. It gives Galloway time to contact people who'd be taking international flights to attend the conference but makes much of their expenses non-refundable, puts Talk Sport on notice that the wider business community will make Galloway a liability for Talk Sport every chance it can get, and provides ammunition to Galloway's detractors about his so-called litigiousness given that suing the company is the predictable consequence of the Blackpool company's precipitous action. Galloway will win the case on the merits, but it will be worth every penny to the Tory owners of the company.
The reward will be Tory and Labor conferences being booked as if they were going out of style.
Dana Garrett
10 November, 2007 07:31

These ideas - that the Conservatives have combined with a supporting business to scupper a thorn in the Government's side, with the business expecting conference business to actually pick up after allegedly cancelling something for no good reason at four days notice - well these ideas seem to be towards the top of the pecking order for ridiculous conspiracy theory of 2007.

There are still no answers offered to the many good questions posed in and around the original post. Graphic to follow: Blogger ain't co-operating.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

A strange thing.
George is claming he sold over 500 tickets,and that he only paid a deposit on the theatre.
Why no refunds then George?

Chris Paul said...

He will have had other costs? Like his supremely brilliant web advertising campaign which must have cost a few quid. As in few ... say ten.

He would of course get his deposit back so long as he had kept up his obligations under whatever contracts were agreed and signed ... there were some of those presumably?

Anonymous said...

And yet he's teling the ticket purchasers that they must wait for the legal action.

Chris Paul said...

Which tends to support the theory that there is more to all this than meets the eye. But we'll have to wait and see. I am not one of the 500 customers claimed so this is not a problem for me.

Gig cancellation insurance can be a good policy. Costs 1 or 2% of sum insured. Then again they wouldn't always pay out. It depends.

Anonymous said...

George Galloway has been using his radio programme to urge people to send cash to a company called Miranda Media.On Friday 2nd November he claimed that if people were to send cheques to him at Parliament he would "post them on" to the "people running the convention"It seems that is one and the same person.
Post them on to George.
And the Company Secretary is also registered as Galloways Parliamentary assistant.Ms Bajwa has not registered an interest at the House of Commons as she legally must do.Here latest entry is October 17th.6 weeks after the Company details were registered
Here are the company details for Miranda Media

I have deleted Galloways home address as althought Galloway posted the home addresses of the company directors.I would not sink to those depths

Company Number: 06364580 Date of Incorporation: 07/09/2007Company Name: MIRANDA MEDIA LIMITEDRegistered Office: XX AMBLESIDE AVENUESTREATHAMLONDON SW16 XXXCompany Type: Private Limited Company Country of Origin: United Kingdom Status: Active Nature Of Business (SIC(92)): None Supplied[snip] Current AppointmentsNumber of current appointments: 2SECRETARY: BAJWA, AYESHA Appointed: 07/09/2007 Nationality: BRITISH No. of Company appointments: 1 DIRECTOR: GALLOWAY, GEORGE Appointed: 07/09/2007 Date of Birth: 16/08/1954Nationality: BRITISH No. of Company appointments: 7

Anonymous said...

George Galloway really is a spiv.
Ofcom take a look.

Chris Paul said...

Thanks Anon and Anon. I linked to the company search info in the original post on which Dana commented.

Anonymous said...

Well done Blackpool pleasure beach perhaps George will now take all his loonie lefty friends to Brighton for his next conference I am sure they will give him a warm pink welcome.

Delaware Watch said...

I just found your caricature of my comment.

I never cease to be astounded at the charge "conspiracy theory" when someone proffers two uncontroversial aspects of human behavior as an explanation for an event: intention preceding behavior and approval and reward for from others for desirable behavior.

Nowhere in my comment do I ever state that there was any collusion between the Tory owners of the Blackpool conference center and the Tory and Labour officials who would find their actions desirable and worthy of approval and reward.

Anyone employed in a company fraught with inner-office politics understands this completely. If your supervisor is at odds with another supervisor and if you act in a manner that benefits your supervisor's position at the detriment of the other supervisor's position, you can expect approval from your supervisor and, probably also, reward. You didn't need to huddle in a smoke-filled room with your supervisor to know what to do. You didn't need to discuss it with your supervisor at all. You understood what to do without discussion from anyone.

Undoubtedly, the owners of the Blackpool company stuck it to Galloway for their own purposes and didn't discuss their actions with Tory and Labour officials beforehand. They didn't need to.

Given Galloway's notoriety and the fact that he booked and advertised the purpose of this event months in advance, the best bet is that canceling the event 4 days in advance betokens a political purpose.

It is just as likely that many Tory and Labour officials were delighted to see one of their arch critics get slammed in such an embarrassing manner. One can also reasonably expect that Tory and Labour officials will look favorably on the owners of the Blackpool conference center and would relish the opportunity to hold an event where Galloway could not. It would be salt in the wound.

No conspiracy theory is required to explain what happened here. A rudimentary capacity to understand transparent and predictable human behavior suffices. Yet it flew over your head. Fascinating.