Can you help us out? We need to protect Manchester and its suburbs from the gambling and payday loan industry.

City centre councillors and I recently opposed the opening of the 26th betting shop in the city centre.

We failed because the gambling legislation is written in favour of the unlimited growth of betting shops.

Now we have received another application, which would make 27 betting shops in our city centre. But they are not traditional betting shops – the gambling industry has reinvented these facilities as mini-casinos, with what have been described as ‘crack cocaine’ casino play machines.

This is the real reason for the expansion of these shops.

If you are concerned, please write to the Gambling Commission and express your opposition to these shops.

Manchester council will be inviting the chair of the Gambling Commission to the city to express our alarm at the spread of these shops, so please look out for an open meeting.

Shame on Bolton Wanderers for signing a sponsorship deal with QuickQuid, a leading payday loan company.

These companies are popping up all over Manchester and need tight regulation to stop them from ‘ripping off’ local people.

If you are worried about their activities, please write to the chair of the Office of Fair Trading and demand that they regulate this daylight robbery of needy people.

Suffering from the social media blues

There is only one Pat Karney.

Sorry if that sounds egotistical, but up until last week, there were two of me.

Some saddo set up a ‘parody’ Twitter account, which was offensive and insulting in the extreme.

It was an eye-opener for me to find out what a rigmarole you have to go through to get these fake accounts closed down.

Surely we need clearer and quicker channels to seek redress across Twitter, Facebook and all other social media websites.

We all know that the internet can be like the Wild West and most of us are prepared to live with that.

We certainly don’t want what they have in many countries, where corrupt governments try to censor and stop online communication.

Besides my fake Twitter account, I have on two occasions had to alert Manchester sites about offensive and incorrect postings.

I am a big supporter of a free internet, but there must be clear policies and processes of redress when people go too far.

BBC TV’s People Like Us, Part 2

Next Thursday, Graham Stringer MP, Lucy Powell MP and I will be meeting the head of BBC3, Zai Bennett, about the uproar in the Harpurhey area over the unbalanced TV show, People Like Us.

We want to hear from him about any plans for a second series, which we are adamantly opposed to.

The upside of the programme is that the Harpurhey and North Manchester community, led by one of our respected local churchpeople, the Rev Mike McGurk, has come together to plan an impressive range of community events.

We will let you know how we get on with the BBC and a possible second series, but watch this space for the proposed Harpurhey/North Manchester film festival in September. People like us? You have not seen anyone like us.

Manchester Day 4 and Christmas

A huge thank you for supporting our annual Manchester Day which is now the largest annual parade in the country.

For planning purposes we have to choose the date seven months in advance, so we are nervous wrecks watching the weather. But we got there. It was wonderful to see thousands of Manchester’s great kids who contributed to the event. Happy memories for all.

Dare I say it, we are now taking planning decisions for our Christmas events.