Jock's Place - social enterprise - Comments

I'm not asking "them"

Jock — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:29:17 +0100

I'm not asking "them" (being Co-operative Group) to do anyone any favours actually. The best outcome from the point of view of this idea would I suspect, be that Co-op Group sell it to MidCounties Co-op and they help us create a new Headington shopping centre/market and take the rent from it.

I agree, especially with one of Britain's cleverest property magnates selling it to them, that the Co-op Group will want to dispose of the surplus sites as soon as possible.

I've extended my idea anyway - the biggest problem in Headington centre is I believe the landlords who appear to have no interest in developing their properties to create an environment in which modern shopping can survive and thrive, so I reckon taking over Somerfield ought to be the first stage of a plan to assemble a site that would include all the shops and flats along the London Road and Old High Street frontages from Somerfield's entrance round to the Bury Knowle Park entrance. I already have a very beautiful idea in my head for a mixed development including arcades, new flats ovelooking the park and London Road and the "covered market" type idea roundn the back where Somerfield no is.

Great idea Jock. But

The Poet Laura-eate — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 14:48:26 +0100

Great idea Jock. But wouldn't they be more likely to sell it off?

Nah ... leave it to the markets

Mark Wadsworth — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 20:16:53 +0100

I covered this topic a while back.

For some reason, retail mergers never go well ... see the Somerfield/Kwik Save and Morrisons/Safeway debacles, or Tesco and M&S expansion abroad, or the Sainsbury/Homebase takeover (Sainsbury sold Homebase again a few years later, having bought it from, rather bizarrely, Ladbrokes when it was still called Texas), the Woolworths/Kingfisher demerger (continued page 94).

So this does not bode well for the Co-op.

Patronising sod! In the

Jock — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:28:48 +0100

Patronising sod!

In the real world one expects one's opponents to play the ball not the man. I've seen innumerable complaints to police about election literature far less distorted than they put out against me. If there was the remotest chance that they won by unfair tactics then I should have that tested, which it now has been and ruled "fair play" (though it still breaches my copyright, which I see has become an issue again in Crewe). Such tactics only serve to prevent honest and open debate amongst opinion formers,

I don't particularly care actually. As a libertarian I'm much more enthused by the idea of delivering social and public goods without the dead hand of government at any level.

Greet, greet, greet. What a

Anonymous — Thu, 15 May 2008 19:12:35 +0100

Greet, greet, greet. What a poor loser. If you think the words did you harm you shouldn't have used them. Welcome to the real world.

If I was in your ward, you

Citizen Stuart — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:22:24 +0100

If I was in your ward, you wouldn't have needed to knock on my door - that Labour leaflet would have persuaded me to vote for you! Give it another go next time, either as a Lib Dem or a member of the Libertarian Party. We need more real liberals in political office.

tow = toe. I'm ill today so

Philip Thomas — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:17:13 +0100

tow = toe. I'm ill today so that's my excuse. Betty has none.

A sorry affair

Philip Thomas — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:14:27 +0100

God, I hate the leaflet that was put out against you. Hopefully, some people read it and realised how much sense you were talking. I worried a bit about the same thing during my campaign. It is something any politician that doesn't tow the route of conventional ignorance risks.

Evidence of what? That an

Jock — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:07:00 +0100

Evidence of what? That an offence may have been committed? The leaflet speaks for itself. It is a clear breach of my rights as copyright owner under section 80 of the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act (1988?) which is the civil matter. If I can make the case, however that that makes it a derivative work I will argue that it is therefore a statement of fact misrepresenting me or my position and could then fall under section 106 of RPA 1983.

And the evidence?

Anonymous — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:30:05 +0100

And the evidence?

I suspect the thick skin

Jock — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:54:02 +0100

I suspect the thick skin thing is one of those aspects of psychopathy that I do not share with most politicians,

But you are right - I need to get back onto that book which is now badly delayed. I have to ask a few other contributers still for a start!

Bad luck Jock

Andrew Duffield — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:37:01 +0100

A thick skin is required in politics - as I'm sure you know! At least you now have plenty of time to re-focus your efforts on the assembly and production of the most important book on Liberalism since 1909. Every cloud and all that...

Yup - I'm sure you're right

Jock — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:25:12 +0100

Yup - I'm sure you're right that it happens all over the place. And were it purely a civil matter it would not be worth pursuing, except perhaps as a service to bloggers in general who might feel their words in future coming back to haunt them in a similar way. But if there's any chance of it being an election offense I think it's worth checking because it was clearly done maliciously (despite there being no previous animosity between me and the Labour candidate, now councillor).

Actually, that's a good

Jock — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:22:00 +0100

Actually, that's a good point - I don't think I ever have really and I do get asked what it means.

When I adopted the tag I did a post about the various flavours of individualist-anarchist/libertarian here . But never really developed it further.

However, during the election campaign I was in correspondence with a Labour member who is an academic and who let me have a copy of his latest paper, "Revolutionary Liberalism", in which (though I haven't finished it yet) he talks about the "ownership for all" policies of the post-war Liberals in the UK which made me feel right at home - what he was describing seemed to me to be what I understand by mutualism. So over the next few days I will try and put together a posting on it.

Jock, Have you written

Aaron Heath — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:41:15 +0100

Jock,

Have you written about "geo-mutualism" in a specific post.

I'm very interested in:

I believe sovereignty should lie with the individual and he or she should only cede power upwards to representatives over things that they cannot arrange for themselves or in small groups or local communities.

Can you (have you already) developed this?