Editor's Blog: A farewell to Ann
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So with the dissolution
of parliament this week we can now officially say farewell to
Maidstone’s MP of 23 years Ann Widdecombe.
One of her claims to fame
was her achievement in originally being selected for the
consituency by the local Tory grandees, where Margaret Thatcher had
failed. But we understand that in addition to being impressed by
Miss Widdecombe’s personal and political attributes they had been
quite stung by having rejected a future PM and they 'didn’t want to
make the same mistake again’.
Well she didn’t quite
follow Mrs T into number 10 but was tantalisingly close to a seat
on the cabinet and her political legacy speaks for itself.
And despite her
protestations that she’s happy to retire quietly to keep animals in
Devon, we wonder if a new political career beckons at a later date
- along the parliamentary corridor to the 'red seats’, maybe?
The one thing
about the long Easter weekend is that is makes events from prior to
the holiday period seem an age ago. Take April Fools Day, for
instance. Those japes seem in the distance past. Newspapers have
traditionally had a lot of fun with them and for a weekly like the
KM the opportunity only comes around every six or seven years so
its too good a chance to miss. We’ll be clarifying in Friday’s
paper that our story about the fossilized remains of Iggy the
Iguanadon’s mate being found off Fairmeadow and bringing work on
the new library to a halt was in fact a hoax. It’s quite amazing
that despite big clues to that fact that all might not appear as it
should be in a normal new story (bylines like Avril D’Uno, for
example) some readers do fall for them - as happened this time
around. We thought quoting our local historian Diana Soar might
have been enough to give it away, if not our cartoon.
One of the key events of the Kent Messenger’s
150th anniversary last year was our successful
fundraising appeal to buy a guide dog. Readers will recall that the
£5,000 target was reached and the guide dog was chosen and named
after a reader vote. We are pleased to introduce ‘Hunter’ to
readers in Friday’s paper. I can promise you, he’s very cute.
Wednesday, April 07 2010
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