The analogy with the Guinea Worm is neat.. and is something that the Liberal democrats in Portsmouth could have avoided by ensuring that there was separation of the roles.. Doubtless it is something that the 13th Committee on Standards in Public Life are aware (MPs expenses). How on earth after the current flurry of activity is it that the Lib Dems have not identified this issue.. and sorted it..

The people behind the po12bg site should have been able to identify their concerns to their MP.. However.. this is not possible as the MP is also part of the Council’s executive… so quite possibly they get a little frustrated..

The banning of facebook at Portsmouth is a decision of the LibDems through delegated powers.. whichever way you look at it.. whilst the decision of the MP to be a member of Portsmouth Cabinet (for many years) is theirs and theirs alone..

But I don’t think that excuses the sheer poison on the po12bg website. It’s clearly malicious and wildly exaggerated, with a toneof personal grievance outweighing any rational consideration or reflection. Getting entertainment from politics is one thing (hey, I read Charlotte Gore sometimes), but slanderous, biased, personal vituperation is the Guinea Worm of the internet, and it shouldn’t be encouraged, not even for a laugh.

However, I am very disturbed to find that one of the members of the Council’s Cabinet is also an Portsmouth MP. This is in my understanding the only example of this in the country (there are about another 10 MP’s who are also Cllrs) but none responsible for making executive decisions. The MP is also a UK appointment to Europe for local government (not Parliament).

Now call me old fashioned.. but an MP is there to act as the representative of the people.. not as a representative of the Council.. and where you find the two roles combined.. there just could be problems and that even if a little of what po12bg identifies as being true is true.. there are very real issues that the Liberal Democrat Party needs to address to retain trust and confidence.

My personal view is that portsmouth is barking mad to ban facebook access. The technology is there and should be used…. maybe it should place an upper limit on use … but if the job is done what does it actually matter..

here in Portsmouth the Lib Dems are slowly taking them away by walking out of council meetings because they don’t agree with those who are making deputations or asking questions. In a true democracy, we all get to voice our opinions, no matter how agreeable or disagreeable and to deny us this right, is nothing short of a…DICTATORSHIP!

So: City councillors refusing to stay and listen to people who (judging by the rest of the site) compare them to Nazis and call them paedophiles is dictatorship.

I just wanted to share that information. I’m a bit of a neophyte when it comes to politics on the internet, so I’m still capable of being shocked by the vile, deluded, hate-filled conspiracy fantasies that float around out there (or do I mean out here?), poisoning the electrosphere. (At least bitter, resentful old-timers only get to spew their bile to people they work with or other old lags down the pub, not spread it far and wide at the touch of a button.)

The http://www.po12bg.com site is understood to be whacked daily by the IT section reducing the average external staff use of the site to 0.2499999 seconds a fay and distributed to staff over the Council’s own network to ensure that they know what their employers have been doing. Internal use of the site from the Council’s own network has been reported as possibly being as high as 1800 seconds a day (30 minutes) by each of the 4,500 (on average) members of staff at the Council.

A younger manager who knows what the world is like in 2009 knows who’s just taking the p*** & who works & can be allowed a bit of slack provided a proper amount of work is done. I for one remember in an old job hearing bitter, resentful old-timers whinging at my colleagues’ occasional internet use at work when they (despite their use of the Evil Internet) do far more actual work anyway due to actually knowing what they were doing.

Yes, I can still remember (with burning rage & hatred) those staff meetings…

In any case do you really think that 2 full-time-equivalent staff doing nothing is anything remotely significant given the amount of inefficiency at any large unitary council?

Maybe next the taxpayers alliance should do a survey on how long council employees spend on the loo and demand that all toilets are removed from the work place as they are reducing the efficiency of the staff !!!

Mark: It’s easy to divide and divide a number until it seems insignificant (re your 11 seconds figure) but if you look at the actual cost this is the equivalent of two full time staff doing nothing all month! That’s clearly wasteful – even if the time wasted is paid on minimum wage that’s over £28,000 a year, which is quite a few people’s council tax.

If a council worker set up a Facebook Group for disabled users of council facilities would the TPA think that was a waste of money?

I am starting to wonder if the TPA is a serious group or not? If I was on Facebook, Could set up a group about that.

I’m not forced to pay for them though.