Birmingham: It's Not Shit

‘tinterweb invades the real world

we’re big fans of Moseley and King’s Heath’s web 2.0 councillor Martin Mullaney’s talent for getting people involved with politics – his direct communication on the web, and in particular on youtube has got people interested in the council who you never would have believed would be. Even if it is only local taggers scribbling “Marin Mullaney sucks diek” (literacy campaign anyone?).

It seems that Martin’s latest moves, to cut back laurel bushes in a park to combat ‘anti-social behaviour’ (as the Liberal’s newsletter put it) has upset a few more people. He’s been sent threatening letters, and a not nice ’sign’ has appeared by his house. (Here it is reported quite sensationally on ‘the Stirrer CAMCORDER COUNCILLOR TARGETED OVER GAY ORGY VIDEO)

I’m not sure this one’s totally related to the park, for the ’sexually liberated’ a sign using the word paedophile seems a little Daily Mail, and the sign is written in marker-pen by someone who looks like they’ve had a little bit of practice. As Brum Blog says, the gay orgy-angle, while difficult, seems to be the most news-worthy. It also comes over a month after he first posted the video – but he’s posted others on other subjects more recently.

The real interest for us is way Martin has got local people interested in local politics by using the internet in all it’s user-generated content glory.

Here’s to Martin, a Brummie of the Year nomination seems to be brewing here.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 8:32 am by Jon Bounds and is filed under internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.