CROYDON COMMENTARY: In a week when two journalists were announced as winners for the Nobel Peace Prize for their courageous work in fighting for freedom of speech against despots, GEOFF JAMES reports on a less well-publicised award-winning effort
Prize ‘winner’: Hamida Ali
Nobel Prizes are awarded to the best-of-the-best, the winners must have shown world-class abilities in their specific field.
In the numerous press releases issued, you might have missed that the Nobel Prize for Rewriting History has been awarded to a Croydon resident – Hamida Ali.
This was a very late nomination, but very well-deserved.
Ms Ali’s latest rewriting of history was published late yesterday on the council website.
The judges were particularly impressed with how Ms Ali was able to write such blatant falsehoods and misrepresentation with such assertiveness.
The leader of Croydon council also gave an oral submission to the judges, by means of an interview with ITV London News which aired on October 8, in which she stressed that she was “listening” to her fellow residents.
It has been leaked from the prize committee (Ms Ali’s Labour colleagues on the council are already conducting an urgent investigation to punish the whistleblower, when they decide who it is they want to punish) that the Nobel nomination for Ms Ali was originally for Satire.
But after further interviews with Ms Ali, it became clear that she truly believes that any reader with an IQ above 20 will accept what she has written as the truth.
The committee noted that – it is not “satire” when the author expects the audience to believe what they are told.
Hence the judges were unanimous in awarding Ms Ali the Rewriting History prize.
In making this Nobel prize award, the judges noted their disappointment that Ms Ali’s writing efforts may be considerably more difficult to access after May 2022.
Read more: After defeat, pressure mounts on ‘lame duck’ council leader
Croydon Commentary is a platform for all our readers to offer their personal views about what matters to them in and around the borough. To submit an article for publication, just email us at inside.croydon@btinternet.com, or post your comment to an Inside Croydon article that has caught your attention
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
- ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: Croydon was named the country’s rottenest borough in 2020 in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine – the fourth successive year that Inside Croydon has been the source for such award-winning nominations
- Inside Croydon: 3million page views in 2020. Seen by 1.4million unique visitors
I saw this last night as it was included in the weekly Your Croydon email. I nearly choked on my pint when I read it. This clearly shows that Ali must inhabit a parallel universe where people make the mistake of believing a single word she says.
Poor Hamida Ali.
She could never have imagined that the chalice which she so eagerly accepted was quite so poisoned. As well as all the nominations she has earned from ICED*, she is also in line to collect a valuable Peter’s Prize.
This is a prize awarded in memory of the seminal 1970s work, The Peter Principle. She, poor thing, is a perfect example of that principle at work. Briefly, the principle states that in a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his or her level of incompetence. In turn this leads to Peter’s Corollary: in time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out its duties.
Two bits of clarification: in this case “employee” is replaced by Councillor and, two, by extension it is clear that the whole Council is a perfect example of Peter’s Corollary.
*ICED= Inside Croydon EDitor.
i dont know how these Nobel prize thingy’s work but I would like to nominate two more under the categories Literature and Economic Science. The candidates are Steve Reed and Sarah Jones and I will leave our dear readers to decide who gets what award .
ok Literature, The prize is awarded to those who have contributed significantly to the written word and can be for a work of research or a work of fiction. Lets go down the fiction route, Basic research will show not only the extent of the fiction particularly as regards extra costs for a mayor, but also the fiction that the campaign was run by Chris Philp and the Tories. But their lasting contribution to Literature has to be the new slogan “fat cat mayor”. Wow.
This crosses over to the Economic Science category where these two worthy contenders will have to slug it out as to who got the most facts wrong. A Mayor cost somewhere between £1 million a year, £2.8 million over 4 years or £2 million over 4 years and all amounts in between. Clearly eligible candidates for an economic prize. There are also the cuts that will have to be made if the voters of Croydon were stupid enough to vote for a mayor. Well they did and the cuts had already been planned before the referendum. double wow. so now we see how the Economic category crosses back over to the Literature of the fictional variety category!
So this Nobel thingy is not as easy as you think, and I will have to bow out and leave it to better brains than mine to come up with more suitable awards for these two worthy advocates of the strong leader model.
Perhaps an Organisation or Collective is deserving of an award?
I would like to suggest the respective Parties CLP and its role of ”Strong Leader” for a a Darwin Award.
Usually a Darwin award is given to a person who does the world a service by removing their DNA from the gene pool by indulging in foolish behaviors leading to their demise.
Considering the hyperbole, unrealistic propaganda, strange Councillor and ”Strong Leader” selections, along with the manner in which it has conducted itself losing millions and then this referendum along with the outcome – It has certainly led to the demise of the ”Strong (Party) Leader in Croydon.
Perhaps when the blame game ends the ”Buck” will stop at the appropriate musical chair? Sorry pardon the pun.
It depends on those voting in the selection as to whether we have a phoenix rising from the ashes that can lead us to a better future – or just more of the same old same old.