Morley South Candidates

From last weeks Obtiser, the choices I have on offer within my home Ward for Leeds City Council.

(Click for a more legible version)

Meanwhile, in a large City a few miles away...

From my The First post Sunday Paper Digest:

A member of the Labour group on Leeds city council has been caught on tape discussing plans to commit electoral fraud in next week's local elections. Leader Keith Wakefield instructed canvassers to help elderly voters to complete postal ballots and offer to post them, but then destroy those that were for other parties. (Sunday Times)

If this is true than the man is scum and deserves to get banged up and barred from public life for the next twenty years.

This is really going to give them an election boost on Thursday...NOT!

Funny how he didn't mention it as a tactic in Winning the battle for ideas in Leeds: Keith Wakefield writes on the upcoming local elections.

UPDATE: The actual story isn't as simple as the headline suggests, but still very bad. You can see it at Times Online Here and commented on here.

Accusation repeated

Another leaflet repeating the accusation, this time in Central Ward.


I ought to say that I've not seen anything illegal or libellous fram any candidate, outside of claiming false credit and the general manure about how the opposition are useless and only they can save the world etc. With the exception of Stewart McArdle, they are all guilty of that.

Accusations of wrongdoing

The Town Council elections are starting to get nasty.

Friends of Morleygate have passed me a leaflet from Elmfield Ward (my own Ward, but not the one I live in).


There is an interesting accusation in the spiel. Click on the image below to see a large version:


If true, then the MBIs are in big trouble. If false, the BNP are. However, I would think it very unlikely that either side are daft enough to do this. I'm more inclined to think that the MBIs are going to be used as some sort of stalking horse in some sort of Searchlight accusation and the BNP will apologise afterwards but have made their point.

Town Council List Censorship

The Town Council has an online mailing list, called Morleylist. Up until the legendary free speech suppression episode at the March Full Council meeting, I was the Webmaster and list administrator.

Afterwards, I made it clear that if they weren't prepared to listen to me, I had no intention of carrying on with my informal duties and whilst I didn't actually resign from being a Councillor, I chose to (mostly) withdraw from participation as a Member.

(I will cease to be a Member this Thursday of course once the elections take place as I am not re-standing).

Yesterday, I received an email from someone asking me "What happened?" and with the subject LISAGATE. I went and had a look on the site and noticed that ten posts had been deleted, without explanation, by someone with access to the List Management account.

I have seen the posts (they turned up in my daily digest) and they did degenerate into what might be called "inappropriateness" but some of them were simply critical of the Morley Borough Independents.

There is probably an argument that a forum such as this should be suspended during the run-up to an all-out election but there is also an argument against as well.

BNP 'oop (Morley) North

Morley Obtiser politics special

This week, candidate testimonials for the three Leeds City Council seats have been published.

Bob Evans, the Editor, was so underwhelmed that he editorialised about it.

One thing does strike me, reading through the statements from the candidates this year.
It appears that politicians from all parties are claiming credit for the same things and are also wanting the same things to make Morley a better place.
If that's the case, why is there any need for political parties?

You can read the whole thing here.

Searchlight highlights

Our 8 page comic treat, supported by the Daily Mirror and lots of Public Sector Unions.






Even the MBIs hold their nose and link to their websites.

That MP letter in full...

(OK, not totally in full, I blotched out my address. There are strange people out there...)

His website that is no longer live can be found HERE and you can't send messages HERE.

I recommend this book for him... or maybe even that one.

Some leftovers...

I mentioned some leaflets but never got round to fully uploading them.
The Socialists...






and the blackshirts...



No, we're not, although some people will.

A Town Council leaflet!

"...the only group fielding a full team of woman in Topcliffe..."

Sloppy proof reading there!

The other side is a further plug for Terry grayshon on the city elections.

Letter from MP

A Houses of Parliament letter awaited me today. CCMP has disclosed all Morley Together correspondence- but only that sent to Morley Town Council!

An accidental or deliberate misunderstanding? Stalling for time hoping for a good outcome on Friday?

The letter finishes with:

"I hope you support the principles of Morley Together. Please let me know."

Don't worry, I will...

Trouble at mill...

The following was posted to the Town Council mailing list today, but uploaded as a file, so not many people will see it. (I did though!)

Britannia Quarry

As we are heading towards this years elections, there is the usual blatant electioneering propaganda from the Morley Borough Independents (MBI). A recent press release says: Cllr Robert Finnigan, as chairman of the Quarry Action Group which oversees the quarry... The question to ask here is: how could the quarry be overseen by Councillors who didn't attend for at least 13 months? It is noted in the quarry minutes of 27th September 2005, that neither Cllr Finnigan or any Leeds City Council officers attended the quarry meeting, or sent their apologies. Only one resident and myself turned up on 27/09/05 so the Director of Woodkirk Stone said there was no point in him arranging another meeting date.

Let us move on nine months to the 15th June 2006, when Leeds City Council took Woodkirk Stone to court over a breach in section 151 of the 1980 Highways Act. Once again, I was the only councillor who bothered to attend the court hearing, it appeared Leeds Council officers and the MBI party didn't consider the issue important enough to merit their time. I rallied round to get some non Rein Road residents to attend the court to show support for the council's action. I was asked at court by the Director of Woodkirk Stone if I was prepared to attend any future meetings at the quarry and I said I certainly was!

Move on another three months to the 13th September 2006, I was the spokesman of a three man deputation entitled 'Local Residents concerned about Britannia Quarry Morley' to the full Leeds City Council meeting on 13/09/06 at Leeds Civic Hall, complaining about dust, mud and stones falling from wagons, also the non attendance of Cllr Finnigan, Council officers and other MBI Morley South Councillors at the court or Britannia Quarry meetings.

Cllr Judith Elliott seemed more concerned about keeping face with Woodkirk Stone and her colleagues at Leeds Civic Hall than representing the interests of Rein Road residents as a whole. Cllr Elliott was aided and abetted by Cllr Terry Grayshon, who condemned my neighbours for supporting the deputation and clearly let all the Rein Road residents down by abstaining from voting on the deputation with her saying the quarry issue should never have been brought to Leeds Civic Hall.

Cllr Elliott, who is a Rein Road resident, sent me an invitation letter to attend her first quarry meeting on 25th October 2006, using Morley Town Hall as her contact address. I fail to remember seeing her at any Woodkirk Stone quarry meetings before this date, so it is a travesty for Cllr Elliott to say: We will continue to work with residents and the company with regular meetings to address the legitimate concerns raised.

It seems the Government and Councils aren't the only ones running Private Finance Initiatives (PFI) the MBI party are operating their own PFI scheme but in their case it reads: Propaganda From Independents!

I remember a few years ago some people felt so strongly about an issue printed in the Morley Advertiser that they went round and collected all the offending papers, tore them to pieces, then dumped the lot in front of the Advertiser office in Queen Street.

May I kindly suggest an apology is made by the Morley Borough Independents to the other election candidates, including myself and all those people concerned who have been offended by this electioneering propaganda please.

That by the MBI they did everything - without them they did nothing!

Albert Slingsby

Election news- Morley North

My friends in the north advise me that they have had nothing from any Town Council prospectives yet, although they have had the Labour leaflet, shown below.

Ask Colin Challen...

I notice that the BNP have been talking to the Electoral Commission about the far left targeting them. (You can see their spin on it here)

Whilst many might think that the BNP are fair game, they do stand legitimately, lots of people vote for them (for whatever reason) and they are obliged to follow the electoral rules, whilst Searchlight are not.

It is now blindingly obvious that Labour are actively supporting Searchlight, Even Ed Balls is out leafleting in Ardsley and the Leeds Searchlight special edition features Morley Together, including David's school (who claim not to have signed up to it).

It will be interesting to see what happens. Needless to say there is nothing about it online other than on the BNP site.

All of the hoo-hah about Freedom of Information and MPs last week spurred me on to make my own request to the MP Constituency Office today. Here it is...

Colin Challen MP
Constituency Office,
2 Commercial Street,
Morley,
LEEDS
LS27 8HY


Dear Mr. Challen,

I enquired via your website enquiries page for further information on the Morley Together campaign on March 8th, the day after the Town Council confirmed participation despite any information being presented to Councillors. My message was as follows:

Hello, I'm a Councillor on Morley Town Council.
Last night Council voted to note the "Morley Together" campaign and agreed to sign up to the principles laid out in it.
However- no supporting documentation was actually provided and discussion was curtailed prematurely by a move to the vote.
Can you please send me a copy of what we have actually pledged to as otherwise all that I have is what I have read in the Morley Observer & Advertiser.
Thank you in advance,

Ian Grey

To date I have had no reply.

I am now writing to make an open government request for all the information to which I am entitled under the freedom of information act. In order to assist you with this request, I am outlining my query as specifically as possible. If however this request is too wide or too unclear, I would be grateful if you could contact me as I understand that under the act, you are required to advise and assist requesters.

The Morley Together Campaign – Letters, correspondence, emails, media (audio/video), presentation materials, notes of telephone conversations etc. sent and received pertinent to this activity.

I understand that under the act, I should be entitled to a response within 20 working days. I would be grateful if you could confirm in writing that you have received this request. I look forward to hearing from you in the near future.

Yours Sincerely,




Ian Grey




I look forward to getting some stuff to look at by this time next month.

(Letter template supplied the guardian, of all sources!)

Leaflet checklist- 10 days to go...

City Council- (italics- leaflet received, bold- diddly squit!)

GRAYSHON TERRENCE MORLEY BOROUGH INDEPENDENTS
JAMIESON KEELY JOANNE THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CANDIDATE
LANGHAM DAVID PETER THE LABOUR PARTY CANDIDATE
MEE MIKE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY
SADDLER JAMIE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
SLINGSBY CHARLES ALBERT INDEPENDENT

Town Council- sweet Fanny Adams.

Posters seen around town- Big fat zero.

Election fever- not yet...

Driving back through Churwell this afternoon, Karen commented that there was a distinct lack of "Vote for me!" type signs. Indeed I haven't noticed any posters in windows yet. (Not that I've been particularly looking). No rosette wearing, vote touting hopefuls near the Town hall this morning either.

Still, there is next weekend.

The Obtiser has promised candidate biographies next week, along with a list of Town Council hopefuls. (You saw it here first, of course.)

No Town Councillor leaflets through the door yet.

Out for the count...

A while back, I did consider asking one of the candidates if I could be a polling agent so that I could be present as an observer, then the City Council offered to pay me to do it! They also asked me if I would consider doing the actual vote at a polling station on the Thursday, but I couldn't justify two days off work.

Today, I received confirmation that I am to be a counting assistant for the Morley North election. (& possibly the Parish/Town Council ones as well, although it isn't actually mentioned).

The count is on Friday 4th May at 10am in Morley town Hall and I will be paid £40 (gross) for doing it. I am also informed that recounts will incur a supplementary fee.

I am obliged to keep some stuff secret, namely names (& register numbers) of electors who have or have not voted, who they have voted for or what the official mark is (that punch/stamp the polling clerk uses just before they hand you the ballot paper.

These are the same undertakings that everyone who participates in the count has to agree to from the clerks to the candidates. Obviously, counting staff must not be employed in any capacity by a candidate or party at the elections. (That probably includes leafleting, but I'm not in the pay of any politicians, paid or unpaid.)

Autorantic virtual moonbat

Via the power of the internet, direct access to Morley Labour Party HQ at Unity House.

Meet Excalibur, used for composing letters to the editor.



Hat tip: Bill sticker, who exposed me to it ages ago but I forgot...

Terry Grayshon's leaflet

Unsolicited, Cllr Terrence Grayshon Esq. has graciously sent me a soft copy of his election flyer. (He always did have high standards when it comes to sartorial eloquence so I imagine he wants his tome to meet the highest presentation standards)




This is better than my leaflet - the colours are more vibrant and it isn't creased. It doesn't show the printer though- PDQ Printing Services Ltd.

Terry- I'll add a ClustrMap to the site so you can see where in the world people are who are admiring your leaflet.

Schools signing up to Morley Together

I had been rather surprised that David's school had signed up to Colin Challen's Morley Together, it hadn't been raised at Governor meetings and wasn't in the Head's report. (The Stephen Lawrence award, by comparison, had been discussed at length).

Anyway, the Head and senior management team inform me that they haven't signed anything, agreed to anything or received any certificates. Apparently CCMP mentioned it on the way out from a Stephen Lawrence event and they expressed some interest to find out more.

So, yet again, all is not quite what it seems.

Newspaper day

The letters aren't overly inspiring this week. There are features, however, about Nick Griffin (BNP Chairman) visiting Morley, also a large advertorial about Ed (Blinky) Balls MP who promises to move his office to Morley if elected. (Not a big surprise there, the office rent probably keeps Unity House solvent). The headline is "Minister: I will work hard for independence and a strong economy". The independence he refers to however, isn't from Political Parties, the Union or the European Union, it is just a throwaway remark about us being a proud, independent area, whilst he delivers Searchlight leaflets.

Through the door tonight- Morley Mirror leaflet, from Labour. It has results of recent polling they have conducted: BNP 31% Labour 28%, MBI 22%, Others 17%. (That adds up to 98% so the numeracy of it is rather suspect!) They claim that they have overtaken the independents as the main challenger to the BNP. It is possible that they buck the national trend and bounce back, but I wouldn't bet money on it...

New leaflets

I've received a copy of Terry Grayshon's shiny green and white leaflet through the door today, it is awaiting scan.

Meanwhile, over in Morley North, the two flavours of independents have been busy.

Searchlight special

A large colour mini-newspaper arrived at home yesterday, a Searchlight special shining a light on un-pleasantries about the BNP and beyond.

There is something a bit rum about this. On the surface it looks Ok (it even has Alan Sugar and Leona endorsing it, along with the Daily Mirror, and...

Amicus Unison T&G TSSA GMB RMT BECTU ANGU

Musicians Union National Union of Mineworkers Connect Usdaw.

(A quick cut & paste from hopenotmate.org.uk, I couldn't be bothered to transfer all the graphics).

So, an extreme but legitimate "right wing" party constrained by election law can be challenged by a rather oddball collective of extreme "left wing" communist anti-facist facists (with tacit Government support from gordon Brown and Colin Challen) and the Electoral Commission can't do anything about it.

New Boots and Panties

Join in at the back...

Black shirt, black tie, black jacket black hair... SWEET JEAN VINCENT...!

From our Watermelon MP...

Beware the Ides of March...err...April...

Yesterday was Friday 13th. I was rather disturbed to have found unexpected spherical, plural objects in my garden.

(The frog is just for effect, by the way!)

What does this foretell? Well, I have examined the entrails and have bad news for Morley:


General Election 2008: Labour Hold!

(Of course, I could be talking a load of...

(Blinky Gif shamelessly stolen from Guido Fawkes!)

Obtiser letters

The Morley Obtiser was supposedly putting up some election pages online but they don't seem to be there yet.

However, I notice there are a number of letters online, some (but not all) of which I've previously put up at Morleygate.

Here are a few others connected to the Town Council and politics in general. letter, letter, letter, letter, letter, letter, letter, opinion

More on Morley Together

A few weeks back, I asked the Town Council ofice to dig out all relevant correspondence on this Morley Together business. Being a Member of the Council, it wasn't necessary for me to make this a Freedom of Information request but I did ask that it be treated as such as regards content and timescales.

This was in response to the total lack of response from Colin Challen MP since March 8th when I emailed him the day after the Motion was hastily approved (via his dormant Website).

The pack yields two interesting details.

Firstly, the Mayor wrote to Colin Challen on February 19th that the Council support the principles of Morley Together, based on it being agreed by the Strategic, Policy and Constitutional Committee. On this basis, CCMP rightly assumed (and went to Press) that the Council had signed up to it. This was denied in Full Council, however, by Cllr Grayshon, when I asked for clarification.

I don't think this was deliberate per se, but more a case of backtracking when they realised that it would need to go to Full Council.

(With hindsight, I suspect many Councillors were rather worried about getting this motion agreed, preferably unanimously, before the spectre of twelve possible BNP Councillors at the May meeting.

The second interesting detail is the correspondance from CCMP himself. The main letter is fairly much as expected from the press report, however a specimen certificate has a Hope not Hate logo on it.

Take a look at http://hopenothate.org.uk/. It is the website of Searchlight, which describes itself as the "Anti-Fascist Community". From my brief perusal, it is rather like the BNP- surface respectability, extreme views, shades of obsessive compulsive behaviour, not very pleasant under the rock.

Lots of others (& not just the BNP) describe it in less glowing terms, however. (and here and here).

I liked this quote;

There's something rather sinister and undemocratic, however, about an organisation which doesn't put up candidates itself but devotes itself to attacking people who do submit themselves to the democratic process.

Someone replied to this as follows:


There's something sinister and undemocratic about the BNP. Other parties don't have an equivalent of RedWatch, where if you criticise the BNP, someone will come in the dead of night and firebomb your car.

Really? I thought Labour had outsourced it to Searchlight. Tell that to Chris Beverley, who experienced a bit of RedWhite&BlueWatch at his house.

Meanwhile in a nearby Ward-

Ardsley & Robin Hood is an adjacent Ward to Morley, much of which came under the auspices of Morley Corporation. There are five hopeful candidates from each of the main parties, i.e. Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem, BNP and UKIP. (No Independents are standing here).


BEVERLEY, JOANNA BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY

BOYNTON, DAVID THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CANDIDATE

DANIEL, DAVID UK INDEPENDENCE PARTY

DUNN, JACK THE LABOUR PARTY CANDIDATE (Current Member)

MOORE, PHILIP LIBERAL DEMOCRATS

The Ward currently has three Labour Councillors although there is considerable scope for a protest vote here!

Results 2004 (3 Councillors)


KAREN RENSHAW LABOUR 1993
JACK DUNN LABOUR 1775
LISA MULHERIN LABOUR 1572
KEELY JOANNE JAMIESON CONSERVATIVE 1357
DAVID BOYNTON CONSERVATIVE 1308
MARGARET SCHOFIELD CONSERVATIVE 1201
JOHN DARRELL HIRST BNP 1158
PAUL ANDREW COCKCROFT INDEPENDENT 981
BRIAN JUDGE INDEPENDENT 920
JAMES ALEXANDER SMITH LIBERAL DEMOCRAT 822
REBECCA CLAIRE SMITH LIBERAL DEMOCRAT 799
PAMELA SUSAN TEBBUTT LIBERAL DEMOCRAT 792
DEREK LAWRENCE BRADLEY INDEPENDENT 640

Results 2006: (1 Councillor)


LISA MULHERIN LABOUR 1884
DAVID BOYNTON CONSERVATIVE 1372
JOHN HIRST BNP 1182
PHILIP MOORE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT 821

I don't know any of the candidates, other than knowing that Jack Dunn is the incumbent and Joanna Beverley is Chris Beverley's Wife. Based on general Government dis-satisfaction, I predict a possible Conservative or BNP win here. If the deserters are split though, the Labour candidate might just scrape back in, particularly if the UKIP candidate gets a chunk of votes.

Town Council Candidate matrix

(I've had to dick about to get this as a jpeg as it was originally a spreadsheet and blogger didn't like the HTML version. I've put BNP as deep blue as their leaflets seem to be that colour, although they are red white & blue of course, which if mixed togetehr give a sort of pinkish colour!)

The grey column shows current councillors who are re-standing.

Click on it to see a bigger version.

Labour's Pre-election election leaflet.

(Remember Andy Pipkin from Lou & Andy on Little Britain?)

This is side one, on which the new candidate is introduced (although he isn't actually the candidate at the time), he gets to meet a Home Office Minister outside the Police Station, visits nearby towns with Bus Stations and then stands in Queen Street with a naff handwritten sign. It also plugs Morley Together (a Labour MP initiative, of course), slags off the BNP Councillor for not saying anything at the Morley Summit and still fails to say who David Langham is.

I think of this side as the "Want that one!" side- raising the green eyed monster of envy for not having a Bus Station.


Meanwhile, on side two, it reverts to NIMBYism. It lists various bits of Bovver the BNP have got themselves into (of course, Labour Councillors are all squeaky clean so this isn't at all hypocritical), raises Hope NOT Hate and then raises worries that Morley is to have an incinerator.

Gordon Brown spoke on Hope NOT hate the other day . I saw it described as:

Where's Gordon? Day 4, April 6th:

Speaks from back of a bus in Glasgow to (ironically) anti-democratic communists condemning anti-democratic racists about "Hope not Hate". Video here.


As Andy would say, "Don't want it!"

(Hat tip: Guido Fawkes)

Morley Town Council nominees

Leeds has now published the candidate list for Morley Town Council.

There are 51 candidates contesting 24 seats and there will be elections in all six wards. (If up to the same number of candidates as positions are nominated they are voted in by default.) They will serve for four years and the next election will be in May 2011.

Seventeen of the existing 24 candidates are re-standing. After a bit of thought, I have worked out that those who are not restanding are:

John Chadwick (Labour)
Tina Fielden (Labour)
Myself (Independent)
Paul Jamieson (Conservative)
Keely Jamieson (Conservative)
Brian Judge (Independent)
Kath Sutton (Independent)

There are a grand total of 23 Morley Borough Independent Councillors, eleven of whom are existing Councillors. Only one of them campaigned as an MBI originally, as MBI was set up after the last Town Council all-out election four years ago (but before the first by-election three years ago). Four others were implied MBIs (as they were Leeds MBI Councillors) but it now looks like they have persuaded most of the other independents to join them in order to collectively fight the BNP challenge.

Eleven people are standing as Labour, four of which are existing Councillors.

There are twelve standing as British National Party (none currently on the Town Council, although we do have a City Councillor for Morley South).

There are five independents, two of whom are existing Councillors. Of the other three, one is Stewart McArdle (currently a Leeds City Councillor but up for election on May 3rd) and the two others are actually BNP Members if they are the people I think they are.

(As a sidenote, normally you are only allowed the word "INDEPENDENT" on the Ballot form description if you are not representing a political Party. Albert Slingsby, however, has managed to persuade the election office to put "INDEPENDENT FIGHTING PASSIONATELY FOR THE COMMUNITY" on the nomination. Good for him!

There are no Conservative or Lib-Dem candidates.

As to distribution of party candidates to seats, it is as follows:

Central ward (3 seats) MBI 3, BNP 2, Labour 2
Churwell Ward (4 seats) MBI 4, BNP 1, Labour 1, Independent 1
Elmfield Ward (4 seats) Labour 3, MBI 3, BNP 2, Independent 2
Scatcherd Ward (5 seats) MBI 5, BNP 1
Teale ward (3 seats) MBI 3, Labour 2, Independent 2, BNP 1
Topcliffe Ward (5 seats) BNP 5, MBI 5, Labour 3

So it can be seen that the big battle is going to be in Topcliffe, which is the ward I live in (and presumably where the BNP think that most of their City Council votes came from). BNP have fielded at least one candidate in every other Ward, Labour have not even fielded a candidate in Scatcherd Ward. Indeed, having only put forward eleven candidates, they will not be able to form a majority on the Town Council even if they are all elected.

The only thing we can say with certainty is that four MBIs will be elected to Scatcherd, the rest is anyone's guess.

Names in the frames

No further letters directly on the Morley Together business this week, although a few political slants.

The candidate list has been published for the Leeds Council Morley Wards:

Morley North:
ALDISS JASON KARL THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CANDIDATE
GETTINGS BOB MORLEY BOROUGH INDEPENDENTS
LOVELL CHRISTOPHER JOHN LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
MCARDLE STEWART INDEPENDENT
MULLEN PAUL IAN THE LABOUR PARTY CANDIDATE
REDMOND TOM BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY

Morley South:
GRAYSHON TERRENCE MORLEY BOROUGH INDEPENDENTS
JAMIESON KEELY JOANNE THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CANDIDATE
LANGHAM DAVID PETER THE LABOUR PARTY CANDIDATE
MEE MIKE BRITISH NATIONAL PARTY
SADDLER JAMIE LIBERAL DEMOCRATS
SLINGSBY CHARLES ALBERT INDEPENDENT

Town Council nominations aren't posted online yet.

The first election leaflet through my door is from Mike Mee, BNP Candidate.