The Reiver
Watch out!!!........it’s those wacky councillors!!
There are those of you out there that think the daily life of a councillor involves nothing more than a quick photo opportunity, pooper scooper in hand showing the good councillor picking up Fido’s finest.
Well you’re wrong, the job of a councillor isn’t all picking up dog muck, being a councillor sometimes involves deep thought and concentration.
Cricket is a game of deep thought and concentration it apparently takes a similar degree of thought and concentration to remember you’re a member of a Cricket Club. This human error was committed by one councillor from Epping Forest when considering a planning application for a cricket club, indeed, he not only forget he was a member but also his brother (and business partner) was in fact President of the same Cricket club. This silly oversight apparently happened to Councillor Richard Morgan, whom also apparently forgot to declare he was the clubs Vice-President.
Councillor Morgan was found guilty by a panel of the district council's standards committee, but they ruled that he did not bring himself or the council into disrepute, and that no further action should be taken. He said: "I've been in local politics for 27 years and chaired all the committees the district council has.
I've always declared my interests. The clerk admitted at the hearing that he may have simply forgotten to record my declaration in the minutes.
"It would've made no difference to the meeting if I'd declared an interest or not. My family has no financial interest in the cricket club and everyone knows my situation but there's a group of councillors who didn't like not getting their way and so decided to complain about me.”
"I'm pleased with the outcome because the committee agreed it was only a technical breach. I'm pleased it's all over because it has been very stressful for me and my family."
Sorry councillor Morgan, but if you were actually innocent, why did they find you guilty?
Nope, its not all dog sh*t, those cabbie hating councillors of Salford, who incidentally deregulated taxi numbers, will be no doubt amused to have read that one of their own seems to have dropped a rather larger bullock whilst recently on holiday in Cyprus. Councillor John Warmisham thought he sent a twitter to his girlfriend, but made the silly mistake of twittering it to all his colleagues, one of them read
"Chatted up by Hungarian 2night who had foil red heart but no t**s."..........Little wonder you were Salford councils lead member for Education during 2007, again, this is the same councillor who in a heated meeting of Salford council during 2009, said he was 'incredulous and angry' at the decision by the decision of the independent school's adjudicator, Canon Richard Lindley, to keep St George's RC High in Walkden open.
I wager the Hungarian lady was equally 'incredulous and angry' at councillor Warmisham’s comments about her t*ts, its not all cleaning up dog muck is it!
This is the same Salford Council who recently banned biscuits and drinks to save money at council meetings they further angered union bosses in March with plans to shut a works canteen. The canteen is at Salford council depot Turnpike House, on Eccles New Road, where refuse collectors, trading standards officers, and housing officials are based. The closure will save the council around £16K. The council decided last month that bourbons, custard creams, and rich tea biscuits will no longer be served at council meetings – saving £30K.......now that takes the biscuit! Yes I did notice that too, biscuits for councillors £30K........a canteen, with staff etc £16K.......how many biscuits were those people eating?
No siree Bob! It certainly isn’t all cleaning up dog muck.....it sometimes involves wandering into peoples houses and emptying their knicker drawers! Yes, wacky old Ian Stafford, twice elected Mayor and district councillor in Knott End, was found with £900’s worth of women's stolen underwear - some in bags with the names of victims written on them.....now that is the kind of dedication taxitalk likes.....knott only (geddit!!!!) did the councillor break into houses, he actually individually labelled the garments before putting them in a bin liner, that takes a special kind of lunatic!
A Wigan councillor who cannot drive has paid back hundreds of pounds claimed for mileage expenses. The move came after a spending watchdog was called in by another councillor to probe Town Hall expense claims. Independent opposition councillor Jim Ellis asked the district auditor to look at mileage claims submitted for journeys taken on town hall business. He claimed to have found evidence of:
Councillors who do not have a driving licence claiming mileage for journeys;
Inflated home-to-town hall mileage claims.
Households with two councillors travelling together but putting in separate claims.
Short journeys always being rounded up.
I was always of the opinion Glasgow was a tough City, I’ve seen ‘Taggart’, indeed, having met Jack Clyde I was quite certain about it, this place is tough, don't wear an England top. This reputation has been somewhat tarnished of late as it would appear the leader of Glasgow councillor was in fact a gay. Not being homophobic, this obviously told me Glasgow was a cosmopolitan place with no hang ups about a person’s sexuality. Unfortunately the bloke resigned. Political opponents of former Glasgow council leader Steven Purcell demanded full disclosure of the circumstances surrounding his departure. Mr Purcell, 37, unexpectedly quit the council leadership and his job as a councillor last week citing extreme stress.
Since then, there has been a steady stream of revelations in the media about why he quit. Reports said his taxpayer-funded media team wanted to cite a “chemical dependency” in his resignation statement but Mr Purcell refused at the last minute to allow this phrase to be included and hired his own spokesman instead. He spent several days at a private hospital specialising in drug and alcohol dependency and it was claimed that a search was launched when he disappeared one Sunday night. He was said to have returned in wet clothes, leading to speculation he had attempted to drown himself.
Blackheath Councillor Mary Docker has been reprimanded by Sandwell Council’s Standards Committee after an 11 month investigation. The charge stemmed back to the Summer of 2007 when the councillor phoned Dudley Council on behalf of her daughter who was involved in a neighbourly dispute. She was found guilty because she said she was a councillor and that she knew the deputy leader of Dudley Council Councillor Les Jones during the phone call to Dudley Council.
A standards committee report about the incident said:
“The member (Cllr Docker) had failed to comply with Paragraph 6 of the Code of Conduct which states that a member must not use or attempt to use their position as a member improperly to confer on or secure for themselves or any other person an advantage or disadvantage.”
Councillor Docker said:
“Three of the four allegations were dismissed but I was disappointed that on one count I was found guilty of breaching the standards.
“However, I received the lowest penalty available which was to have a training session concerning guidelines when the highest penalty could have been dismissal.
“I have decided not to appeal because the investigation took 11 months and I just did not want the whole thing to go on and on where as now I can put it behind me.”
Sorry councillor Docker, but if you were actually innocent, why did they find you guilty?
As I said, it’s not all dog-poo, sometimes councillors have to actually turn up at meetings, but this apparently doesn’t happen in some places. Hartlepool has many things, its taxi fleets cab fares are amongst the lowest in the UK but the latest councillor attendance figures show that more than a quarter failed to attend at least half of the meetings they were supposed to go to. Hartlepool councillors receive a basic allowance of £5,696, paid for by the taxpayer for their duties, which includes attending meetings.
But figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 13 councillors attended less than half their meetings between May 1 last year and February of this year. I bet they remembered to pick up their allowances though!
A former councillor from Lancashire has been jailed for four-and-a-half years for helping a drug dealer to launder more than £300,000. Former deputy leader of Preston City Council Frank McGrath, 59, was found guilty of nine counts of concealing criminal funds for Silvano Turchet, 55, who is serving a 15-year sentence for importing class ‘A’ drugs.
Judge Robert Atherton, sentencing, said
"You told a pack of lies through your evidence, you're a deceitful man, you deceived those you did business with and you deceived those who trusted you".
Fellow Liberal Democrats have rallied round The Mayor of Stockport, Colin MacAlister, after he was arrested for alleged benefit fraud linked to his transport company. Councillor MacAlister, 55, met with Stockport Council’s leader Dave Goddard and chief executive John Schultz on Friday. It followed an investigation by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) into claims that a number of employees at his coach and minibus firm were in receipt of benefits.
He has been released until June pending further investigations and has vowed to continue as mayor.
Mary Monson, the solicitor representing Mr MacAlister, said
"Colin MacAlister attended at Stockport Police Station voluntarily to assist the police with inquiries into allegations of breaches of regulation. He wishes to make clear that he has absolutely no doubt that this process will show that he has done nothing wrong."
Watching Wirral
If this magazine had demanded the resignation of Wirral Council, we would be vilified and I would have been called subversive, admittedly I would have probably also have insisted the good councillors carried out the ancient Japanese act of ‘seppuku’ at a full council meeting in front of a live pay per view audience, but Frank Field MP does it and gets applauded! (Ed.....that’s because he’s got MP behind his name and your a tw*t)
The Wirral Globe reported that MP Frank Field demanded the resignation of Wirral Council's chief executive and education director. Mr Field sent a blistering letter to Steve Maddox expressing fury at his "shameful" management of the town's schools. He said Mr Maddox and Howard Cooper, the chief officer of the children's department, should resign immediately.
The council has refuted the MP's accusations. (I suppose they are still thinking about the lost word of vision? Who mentioned spec-savers?) Is the same council that wanted to close an awful lot of libraries?
Perhaps Mr Field should consider the plight of the Wirral’s taxi trade, someone should because the council aren’t, after all, some would consider Wirral’s attitude towards taxis as somewhat shameful?
Wirral residents will also be delighted to hear their council tax is only going up 1.67% this year, the ministry of propaganda sold this to residents by pointing out its less than 50p per week. I hope taxitalk advertisers follow suit;
“The New Mercedes Vito, only £14 per day or 58p per hour......can you afford not to have one?”
Council leader Steve Foulkes said he was proud of the budget the authority had
“been fantastic at producing efficiencies” and all the savings were achievable. Describing it as a budget
“about jobs and the environment”, Cllr Foulkes said:
“This is the third budget of our administration. It’s not about the election; it’s about the future of our citizens.”
Yes, Steve, it’s not about the election is it, it’s about the environment; I wonder how many extra pollutants are on the Wirral due to taxi deregulation?
Incidentally Wirral MBC was awarded first prize by Merseyside TUC as scrooge employer of the year 2008, so presumably one of Steve’s budgets went down like a Chinese human wave attack in Korea; The president of Merseyside TUC Alec McFadden stated:
“Staff say they haven’t been consulted about the problems, in terms of job losses, and were absolutely shocked when they found out. They were discouraged from getting involved and they were discouraged from going to meetings. You can be an employee of Wirral Council but at the same time pay your council tax. Therefore you still have the right to express your opinion, and that seems to be what the council is trying to prevent from happening.”
Strange what 12 months can do in politics; The Tory leader Jeff Green (how the hell did they pick a leader called Jeff?) pointed out;
“Last year, we were told because the budget was in such a mess we had to close swimming pools and libraries and that ‘doing nothing was not an option’.
“But that has been shown to be massively incorrect. It was a huge con on the people of Wirral. This budget shows how wrong they were 12 months ago.”
The Wirral Waters planning application was so huge it had to be delivered by van and cost thousands of pounds just to print!! The biggest application the UK has ever seen will take more than a week to be fully uploaded onto Wirral Council’s website.....exclaimed the Wirral news.
Peel Holdings’ Richard Mawdsley said:
“As well as targeting new start-ups and local companies, we see Wirral Waters having an appeal to those who have become discontent with the South East.”
Obviously Richard forgot to mention it would attract interest from the People's Republic of China, after all, Wirral and the peoples republic have so much in common, £28K is being spent to go there on a cushy trip promoting the benefits of the Wirral (I think we’ve mentioned that before.....Ed).......we expect to see a deluge of Chinese restaurants opening in the near future, of course we look forward to Wirral MBC making good their announcement in the recent budget shpeel telling us about the council commitment
“about jobs and the environment”.
The public seem impressed anyway, with Peel reporting a 99% approval rate among those who filled in questionnaires at displays in Birkenhead Market over the last month, that’s a great figure, I mean 99% of people in the Soviet Union supported the Communist Party, the other 1% were in gulags......strange place to have a questionnaire though, presumably the market will experience a slight downturn in trade when Wirral Waters is complete? I imagine at some point Peel Holdings will tell the Wirral cab trade how taxis fit into the grand scheme and how much it’ll cost to rank there?
The Mail reported that Wirral Council was able to lavish £3609 on three ‘business planning’ trips for 19 officials at the grade 1 listed Bulkeley Hotel – some 50 miles away on the Isle of Anglesey – apparently it was the cheapest possible location.
“The hotel’s prime position within the town affords its visitors majestic panoramic views of the Snowdonia Mountain Range from many of its 43 spacious, well-equipped rooms and suites; all with en-suite facilities and some with four-poster beds. This Grade I listed hotel, steeped in history exudes elegance and comfort, whilst assuring you a warm, friendly welcome and relaxed ambience.”
Pictured above; The Bulkeley Hotel
I wonder how the 19 officials travelled to the hotel, I trust it fits in with Wirral’s new budget which as mentioned is all “about jobs and the environment” That aside, with pubs closing all over the Wirral, perhaps the 19 officials would have supported the area better by finding a hostelry with a function room, or would that be beneath them?
Points towards madness
Kirklees council have always appeared to be reasonably fair towards the cab trade, recent months suggest they may have gone stark raving mad.
Their councillors have taken a step towards the dredded ‘penalty points’ system for licensed drivers this could see filling in a form incorrectly placed on the same level as carrying a weapon in a cab.
Licenses will be subject to a ‘totting up’ procedure, a licensee racking up 12 points would face a ban.
At a meeting drivers’ leaders branded the idea ‘unfair’ and warned more enforcement was the answer to rogue cabbies. However, Kirklees Council’s licensing committee agreed to set up a working party to examine the idea in more detail.
Amjad Nadeem, vice-chairman of Kirklees Hackney Carriage Association, apparently stated: “We would want a guarantee of proper consultation on this. Many drivers think it would be unfair. This scheme is not the answer. We need more checks on drivers.”
Head of planning Jonathan Barrett said: “That’s not going to happen at a time when the council is considering major cutbacks.”
Errm sorry Jonny boy, taxi licensing is paid for out of licensing funds, and should not be subject to major cutbacks......unless of course you’re going to reduce licensing fees?
Till next month
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