Great story for local newspapers to pull out all the stops and offer the kind of breakdown that communities want on what their MP has or has not been up to. You simply won't/can't get his on local TV news.  

'Incidentally how absurd was all that..'

Amen. For the first time in an age I had to switch off the PIP TV I watch over my lunchtime sarny lest the monitor screen ended up with a Coronation Chicken stucco effect.

Being bundled out as he was mock bundled in would have been too good for hi, though maybe sent a worthy message out... and around.

ps: Didn't twig to click on 'login' to comment for a while, and in so doing noted your contact page URL seems down. FYI.

An opportunity, perhaps, but one one suspects that will be missed. I recall a similar opportunity that the South Yorkshire press had when the local authorities decided that Barnsley could be turned in the Tuscany of the north! This involved hiring a leading architect as consultant (obviously at great expense), plus other pointless expenditure to prove their spurious point. Money that could have been better spent in what I believe is one of the most deprived areas in the UK. The whole idea was total bollocks of course, but not once did the local hacks go to town in the manner that they should have. Needless to say it died a death and all that remains of the 'concept' are a few themed street names on new-build sites...Tuscany Way being one.

Tuscany - genius!

I guess that's an endemic problem with the regional press Sue - low expectations breeds complacency among the people who produce it. That's not to say that it doesn't exist to some extent within the trade press too. Perhaps it's because the people who produce them see it merely as a stepping stone or are paid so poorly they think accordingly.

Stepping stone? You're not wrong. Whenever you hear hacks or former hacks talking about their backgrounds, they always say something like, 'I started out on the Havant Argus (?)' etc. Parkinson is fond of telling everyone that he started out on the Barnsley Chronicle. The problem is the readership (driven by geography of course). The local papers focus on reporting what has happened, rather than analysis or investigation, because (forgive me) their readerships on the whole don't give a toss. They just want to know 'what's gone-off', as they say ooop north. You may have gathered that I have (unfortunately) links with S. Yorkshire and the local rags (the aforementioned Chronicle and The South Yorkshire Times) are eagerly anticipated. But not for the insights or scoops that may be found there. The readers read because they want to know who has either been 'done' or 'banged-up'. Or if little Alfie's school photo is in print. That's it. So local reporters report and invest their efforts in pieces they think they can flog to the nationals and thus escape the tyranny of the village fete.

By the way. I forgot to say that Tuscany Way is, I believe, fittingly, a cul-de-sac.