MBIs help labour shock

The letters page Councillor thank yous are now coming to an end, although there was another "Uriah Heep" humbled one.

Ex-Councillor Stuart McArdle has a letter in the Obtiser that comes as a surprise...


perhaps the revelation that the MBI's were delivering leaflets for Labour candidate Jack Dunn will come as a shock to many.


Read the whole thing HERE

As suspected, MBIs now have a lot more clout on the Leeds minority administration.

Councillor training I'd like to see...

Burning our money

I'm a fan of the Burning our money blog, which has the following strapline:

They spend 43% of our income, yet fail to deliver decent services. They promise prosperity, yet tax and regulate our economy into stasis. They talk up social justice, yet consign millions to welfare dependency.

Enough is enough. We the peasants demand our high-spending, high-living, conflicted politicos mend their ways.

The scary figures quoted on Wat's blog make the expenditure figures of Morley Town Council look somewhat trivial. However, they have a habit of adding up...

In an earlier posting, I guesstimated the tax hit on Morleians to be round about the £1m mark. I was fairly close:

2000/01 £104,870
2001/02 £104,870
2002/03 £104,870
2003/04 £152,900
2004/05 £166,661
2005/06 £166,661
2006/07 £171,650
2007/08 £171,650

TOTAL £1,144,132

This is from the local authority precept which is applied as a supplement to the council tax at various ratios depending upon the house banding. (Blogged before: The default band D is £17.85).

The 2007/8 budget is for about £220k so the taxation isn't enough and reserves are being drawn on. This isn't sustainable, of course, in the longer term the Council will need to cut its cloth or dig deeper into our pockets.

Now £17.85 doesn't sound a lot, but £1.14 Million does, especially when a lot of it goes on double-taxation for things we supposedly already pay for, like local policing and keeping the parks tidy.

I'd question spending more than a Monkey's worth of Wonga on crockery as well!

Political punks...

A strange tome in my Inbox...

Went to vote, and noticed there was a Paul Cook standing in our ward

"Oh", I quipped "He used to be drummer with the Sex Pistols."

Later when I saw the results, I saw Stephen Jones had also been elected.

" Ah", I opined. "He was the Sex Pistols guitarist"

Needless to say, I scanned the rest of the results eagerly.

Nearest I could find was J.Beverley. Sid Vicious' real name was John Beverley, so that'll do.

Now all we need is a Rotten councillor... :)

Missing in action...

The Morley Town Council mailing list has disappeared. No announcements or apologies, just deletion.

Karen (The Wife one) says it might have been deleted by mistake, but this is very unlikely as when you choose the delete list option it goes through an are you sure? consequences routine.

It would seem that someone perhaps doesn't like the potential risk of what could be posted up there, e.g. opinions that don't align with the party line and are therefore "inappropriate" in PC speak.

It wasn't a particularly good mailing list, being inactive for long periods and populated by the usual suspects with entrenched opinions.

However, it was a communication channel for many Morleians and even had admirers from visitors abroad. To delete it unannounced in such a fashion is immature, childish, petty and vindictive. It is the sort of thing the Labour Party would do, not the new occupants of the "Morley Numptorium"...

Uriah Heep

The First post's Mole says that for Gordon Brown to be "truly humbled" whilst he (and his team) has been vigourously and ruthlessly getting MPs to get them to sign up to him is cynical in the extreme.

There is a curious parallel here- Terry Grayshon wrote a letter to the Obtiser last week saying he was also very humbled- whilst the MBI SWAT team spent time off work three weeks before the election targeting hundreds of voters with personalised letters, presumably up to the limit of their allowable expenditure.

I don't mean to tar the MBIs with the same brush as Labour, they couldn't even get anywhere close to being as manipulative, sleazy, callous or downright shady in their pursuit of power. I think it is just an unfortunate choice of words with the benefit of hindsight.

Having said that, the MBIs still want to be strong on News Management- there is a letter from Gareth Beevers that reads as though it has been written by others. (You get the feel for these things when you know the people involved).

Anyway, Terry "Uriah" Grayshon has been elected as Deputy Town Mayor. He has joked about it for the last three years and now it is likely to happen.

(The Town Mayor for this year is Joyce Sanders, no surprises there.)

The Abolish Morley Town Council Party?

Interesting goings on at Bury St. Edmunds...

could it happen in Morley?

is it worth the circa £1,000,000 collected in precept taxes since formation?

One million pounds. food for thought...

Worth a look...

http://republicofhydepark.blogspot.com/index.html

A Councillor's view on the Leeds minority power struggle (that the MBIs could tip the balance on).

Presumptive Press

The Morley Obtiser has a story on the front page about the forthcoming literature festival in October.

In it, it describes the Deputy Mayoress, Joyce Sanders, as the Mayor-elect.

Seeing as how the meeting appointing her would not take place until today at 7pm, it is extremely presumptious of the paper as the Mayor is decided by who the Councillors vote for.

However, with 23 Morley Borough Independents and only one dissenting voice in Joanne Beverley, BNP Member, it is pretty much a given other than interference from an act of God.

(Traditionally the Labour Group would propose Stuart Welham in a bit of mischief making but that won't happen for the next four years).

On the basis of near unanimity, will the MBIs dispense with their behind closed doors pre-meeting? There is no longer any justification to have to stage manage the meetings these days.

On another note, i wonder who the deputy Town Mayor will be? Suitability is based on both inclination and capability, not just longevity. My guess is Wenda Whitehead...

Back from the edge...

UKIPhome site went rather quickly. It is now back as DroogieBlog, written in Nadsat.

Get your oranges out and wind the key...

http://www.droogie.com

You might need to load the dictionary/translator...

Morley Annual Town meeting...

...will be held on Tuesday 15th May at 6pm in the Town Hall.

Diddly-squit publicity though, apart from the statutory announcement on the Town Hall notice Board (undated)- no agenda given.

I'm not even certain that I was aware of it as a Councillor pre- May 3rd, although I have the recall capability of a goldfish these days!

I wouldn't expect there to be a particularly high turnout for this meeting. It is a statutory obligation but doesn't achieve a great deal.

Other Obtiser articles

In the paper, BNP Councillor Nick Griffin describes how the other parties " behaved disgracefully " during the campaign, presumably referring to the Searchlight leaflets and the anti-BNP slant of the Labour leaflets.

A little bird tells me, however, that the police contacted him during the election to enquire about what the MBIs had put out that was supposedly illegal and libellous as the leaflet claimed that the police had been contacted and nothing had been heard at Morley Police Station. His reply was to the effect of he had no idea what it was about...

In amongst the thanks to the electorate by various candidates, there is a letter from Derek Bradley's Wife, Hazel, commiserating for the stalwarts who had lost their seat.

IN writing to thank the many voters who have had the confidence in us to represent their interests in our town and Scatcherd ward, our thoughts turn to two former town council stalwarts who will no longer represent parts of the Morley electorate.
I refer, of course to Mrs Amy Teale and Stuart A Welham.
My husband tells me of Amy's unfailing courtesy whenever addressing councillors within and out of the council chamber. Her questions on issues were well researched and penetrating and she always appeared to have the support of her fellow councillors. She always led from the front.
How do you condense 45 years political service into a few lines? With great difficulty.
Stuart served the people of Morley unswervingly both on our old, illustrious borough council as a Labour councillor, thence on to our new town council as an independent since inception in year 2000.
He regularly brought some of the traditional wordplay of the borough before the new town council and - by so doing - reminded us all of the right way and the wrong way to address the Councils a body.
For many years he was chairman of the Highways Committee and always made sure the interests of our citizens was of prime importance, indeed paramount.
His being fluent in German also suggests his motto could well be "ich dien" (I serve) - and he did, too.
We shall miss more councillors in the future. Let us hope they have elegies such as these.
COUN MRS H P BRADLEY
Scatcherd Ward,
Morley Town Council

The letter has the tone of being written by Derek himself and the praise for Amy seems a bit over the top- she frequently demonstrated that she was clueless on procedural matters and could get hopelessly muddled if the meeting strayed off-message from the briefing. This is someone who thought that converting a former toilet block to a Cafe couldn't be allowed because it would be a health hazard...

The praise for Stuart Welham is also somewhat over the top- although I admired his political incorectness, he would frequently make derogatory comments of others that were clearly audible but discreetly ignored for the sake of an easy time of it. He also typified the area in his hubris- You can always tell a Yorkshireman but you cannot tell him much...

Tories put the boot in Gordon Brown

(I've seen better, but it gave me a small wry smile)

Newspaper Editor thinks MBI need a name change...

Bob Evans, the Editor of the Morley Obtiser, offers an opinion on Quasi-Independence.

The big winner, both in town and city polls, was the Morley Borough Independents. They took both Morley North and South in the city elections and became the major player in the town elections.
Perhaps now it is time for the MBI to consider a change of party name.
The Collins English dictionary quotes independent as: "free from control in action; judgement" and "not dependent on anything else for function, validity, etc".
With the continued rise of the MBI, it would be hard to argue that it is now not a political party in its own right. Perhaps "The Morley Party" or "The Morley Alliance" would be more appropriate.

You can read the full article HERE (if their flaky website is working).

Bob, it is a party in its own right- see the electoral commission. Their accounts are online as well.

(They did it to get recognised status as a grouping on Leeds City Council).

The lean green sewing machine

On the way to the election count last friday, I wandered down to the library as I was a little early. I noticed that the Labour HQ had been fitted with new doors and windows so I took a snap.

On reviewing my photos, I now notice that the Watermelonmobile is parked up, so CCMP was in.


News reaches me of more gossip on how he was nobbled to make way for Ed Balls. The "plot" is currently on Times Online

Morley Town Council results

The Morley results ARE published, just in a more obscure bit of their website.

Figures are not given for the electorate or the number of ballot papers so I have based the percentage figure on the highest number of votes received plus the number of spoilt papers. As voters could vote for any number of candidates up to the maximum (3, 4 or 5) and quite a few voted for zero without the papers being classed as spoilt, there were a much higher number of voters than the figure may suggest.

(I will request the details from Leeds).


In Central Ward, BNP came second and fourth, with Labour third. In Churwell, BNP came last.


BNP came second and Labour third in Elmfield, I expect that a fourth MBI would have succeeded in this Ward, but they presumably deferred to Stuart Welham who did rather badly as an Independent, coming in second last to Albert Slingsby.
In Scatcherd, BNP came second and there wasn't any candidates to come third!

Note that there is a clear percentage gap between MBI and BNP.

In Teale, BNP beat Labour and the two (BNP) Independents came last. In Topcliffe, BNP came a closer second but beat Labour in their heartlands.

Town Council results

...still not up on the Leeds Website so analysis will have to wait.

The winner results are up on the Town council website though, which looks rather similar to the MBI site list (which doesn't include the BNP Councillor, unsurprisingly).

The site has been updated but doesn't have too much content yet.

It is also broken under firefox...

Town Council gets a new notice board

No, that isn't whitewash, it is protective paper on the perspex.

Results- a closer look.

Here are the official results for Morley North & South, images from a spreadsheet. I've postulated the spoilt papers so that the percentages match and I've ordered them as to vote share. Note that BNP were second both times, the Lib Dems came last and when the share of the electorate (rather than the share of the vote) is looked at it is rather pitiful- less than 20% voted for Bob Gettings and less than 15% voted for Terry grayshon.



The Town Council results are not published yet.

Result!

Result- City Council- Independents in North & South.

Town Council- 23 Morley Borough Independents, one BNP, no labour. (Subject to verification).

My own ward has five MBI independents. Was five laboour. Result!

BNP get a result:...

BNP are claiming that the Electoral Commission agree that anti-election material needs to be declared and taken into account at election times.

You can see their story here. I haven't seen it verified anywhere though.

Guessing the results:

I won't put money on it, but I reckon the results tomorrow might look like the following:

City Council:
Morley South- Terry Grayshon (MBI), 2nd Mike Mee (BNP)
Morley North- Bob Gettings (MBI), 2nd Stuart McArdle (Independent) (OR POSSIBLY THE OTHER WAY ROUND, A CLOSE CALL!)
Ardsley & Robin Hood- jack Dunn (Labour) 2nd Joanna Beverley (BNP)

Town Council:
Morley Borough Independents 14
BNP 6
Labour 2
Independent 2

I wouldn't like to put names in frames for the Town Council though, it is too hard to call.

In a final push...

Labour did a last minute leaflet drop today. A bit late fellas, I went to the polling station at 7:15am.

David Langham is the City Council candidate.- I don't know him, although I did know his Dad Peter who used to be the Town Council Mace Bearer until his unfortunate death in early 2006. That connection is a bit of a "so what?" to me as I didn't think it of any relevance to him standing as a Councillor, let alone feature in his shiny leaflet.

I do know the three stooges listed here. Not exactly a hard sell, what?

It is a sad reflection on local Labour that they can only drag along three candidates for the five seats of their only "safe" ward. (and only muster eleven candidates overall when the BNP managed twelve).

Election day

I nipped into the polling station on the way to work. I was about the fifth to vote, although someone followed me in (who wanted to vote for Leeds, but not Morley).

The City Council ballot paper was white, the Town Council one was green and had two columns whilst the sample ballot fixed to the booth was a single column, a contradiction which I thought was potentially confusing for the more hard of thinking voter. As a passing comment, the shade of green for the Town Council ballot was MBI green!

Something else I noticed was the lack of official mark (the stamp out or emboss used to show it came from the polling officer). On querying that I was told "we don't do that any more".

(It is still in the rules though about not disclosing what it is).

Both votes went in the same box- one more job to do tomorrow, separating them before bundling, counting and sorting.

Politics is getting personal

Today I received a personalised letter from Cllr Terry Grayshon (as did Karen). They both had 2nd class stamps so they were probably posted on Saturday last week.


This might be what the BNP are supposedly getting upset about, although probably not.

The letters included the following leaflet.


Let us have a reality check here. The only place the MBI have real power (but not control as they only have one third of the Councillors) is on the Area Committee South. The Council as a whole is run by a rainbow alliance of Conservative, Lib Dem and Greens who form the executive posts as they have a 52 seat majority (of 99). (The people excluded are Labour (40), MBI (4), BNP (1) and two Independents).

This could well change on Friday, although in what way is anyone's guess.

One full day of campaigning to go...

...and I've actually seen a couple of signs up on telegraph poles in Morley!

They were both for Grayshon, the Morley South/Central Ward Candidate.

"BNP leaflet allegation are lies"

The Morley Borough Independents have repudiated the allegations of the BNP. The following appears on their website:

"
At election time we expect a number of allegations and counter allegations to be made. People often claim credit for the work of others and will attach themselves to the success of others.

However the BNP in Morley have produced a new low.

We can assure you that no leaflet issued by the Morley Borough Independents is either illegal or potentially Libellous. It appears to be nothing more than scaremongering tactics by the BNP.

If you have not received one of the leaflets from the BNP making the allegation, below is a copy of the section of the leaflet in question. The leaflet does not substantiate the claims made and offers readers no indication of what the alleged misdemeanours could be.

There has been no complaint made to West Yorkshire Police about any Morley Borough Independent Leaflet and neither has the matter been reported to the Legal Services Department of Leeds City Council.

The BNP in Morley seem hell bent on trying to silence anyone who speaks out against them, by using their bully boy tactics.
"

You can see it online HERE