David Ottewell's Politics

What is it with politicians and facial injuries?
One minute I’m blogging about Sir Richard Leese’s cricket injury. The next, news arrives that Arlene McCarthy MEP – fresh from the Democrats’ convention in America – has fallen over and broken her nose.
For those of you worried about Sir Richard. I hear he’s had his last stitch taken out. And he is adamant that no one called the catch.
So there.

Remember Tim Leunig? He was one of the authors of the report that suggested people should abandon “failed” towns like Rochdale and Bolton, and head to the thriving south.
Now, I’ll be honest. The report made me angry. I believe I called it “utterly naive about policy-making“.
Strong words, I thought, but justified.
It turns out plenty of other people were angry, too. Only they wrote direct to Dr Leunig – and in terms that were, shall we say, slightly more agricultural than mine.
“People have accused me of being a paedophile,” says the good doctor. “Both people accusing me have misspelled it.
“There are a few comments on Facebook saying I should have gone to Specsavers.
“I bought my glasses in 1990 and they are not that fashionable, but I don’t care.”

I’ve been spending the last couple of weeks on newsdesk.
That means I’ve been out of the reporting loop, and unable to check out rumours that Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese is nursing a black eye after a mysterious cricketing injury.
My sources tell me he collided with another fielder going for a catch that – and I quote – “he had no right to take”.
Let this be a lesson. You don’t see Andrew “Freddie” Flintoff trying to run Manchester town hall, now do you?

I wasn’t at the meeting where the date for the transport innovation form referendum was set.
But a source tells me the first half-hour of the debate was all but drowned out by opera rehearsals coming from the Albert Halls.
I assume the orchestra was practicising for Verdi’s Nabucco, which is being put on by Opera 74 Bolton.
“Set in Jerusalem and Babylon in 586BC, Nabucco is based on the biblical story of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar and the captivity of the Hebrew nation,” says the blurb.
Hmm, Nebuchadnezzar… Wasn’t he the one who dreamed of a huge icon of gold and silver, only to be told by god it symbolised ruin?