Redaction in action

Redaction is in the Press a lot at the moment with the censored publication of MP expenses. As well as the removal of sensitive information, it can also be a form of editing.

The Morley Obtiser often edits letters to the editor for reasons unstated. Often it is to add clarity or for brevity; sometimes it is to avoid sensitive or controversial subjects.

This letter written by former independent Leeds City Councillor Stewart McArdle was published on Wednesday 17th June, however the Editor omitted what Stewart considered to be the most revealing and damaging part of the letter. The paragraphs omitted are shown in bold.

The recent spate of letters concerning the Annual Meeting of Morley Town Council and there being only three members of the public in attendance deserve some further comment. This may infer a number of things; such as that, members of the electorate have no interest in it, nor its relevance, or even may object to paying the precept!

Of course, Mr. Bywater is presuming there will be a town council by the time of the next all-out elections in 2011. By this I mean that the legal case/tribunal of the former town clerk versus Morley Town Council has yet to be resolved as the council has collectively decided to contest the decision made against them by an Independent Panel. So there is a strong likelihood that more money will be incurred in further legal costs with the legal profession being the only winner.

Latest figures released for expenditure are attributed to the civic year 2007/8 and show a rise of £47,000 against the coding of General Administration. This is not broken down but, in all probability a significant amount is due to legal costs. I also understand that the reserves of Morley Town Council diminished by almost £34,000 and added together, is a significant portion of the Annual Budget and more importantly, your precept money.

The former town clerk did not leave the post until Christmas 2007 so that is an awful lot to spend on legal costs in twelve weeks but, everyone knows that barristers do not come cheap!

As the tribunal did not take place till October 2008, the figures for 2008/9 should make interesting reading when released. Will there be enough in the council pot by then?

Yours sincerely

via e-mail

Stewart McArdle

Hurrah!

Some activity on the Town Council website. Lots of links broken within the pages, but most of the Home ones lead somewhere. Meeting dates are up and even a smattering of Agendas for recent meetings. Minutes would be useful...

This Blog is now on holiday until September, as is Shades of Grey.


...unless something particularly interesting happens in Morley, worthy of mention. (& not Terry Grayshon going to a Garden Party).

Town Council rather quiet...

I'm having withdrawal symptoms. I don't get agendas through the letterbox any more. I don't really know who is on what committee. There is sod-all about it in the papers, apart from caped photo-ops. The website is moribund. The discussion list was killed off. The new notice board is bereft. I don't know what they are plotting. No newsletters for a while now.

Is nobody interested? Probably not. As someone said to me recently- "is so & so on the Town council, or the proper one?".

One million Pounds, and counting...

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...

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...

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.

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.