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.

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...

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.

From our Watermelon MP...

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.

Ample time my arse!

Amy Teale asserts that I had ample time to speak on the Morley Together Motion. I checked with Roland:

0:00 Cllr Gettings (Independent) Mayor, introduces Agenda item 12
0:12 Cllr Grayshon (Morley Borough Independent) makes announcement clarifying newspaper reports
0:36 Cllr Grayshon proposes Motion
3:35 Cllr Gettings asks for a seconder
3:39 Cllr Teale (Labour) gives a formal Second
3:45 Cllr Grey (Independent) proposes procedural motion to vote on the Motion in two parts
4:05 Cllr Bradley (Independent) Seconds
4:40 Cllr Gettings puts it to immediate vote on discussing in parts - lost
4:46 Cllr McSharry (Labour) Comments on Motion
5:10 Cllr Slingsby (Independent) comments
5:37 Cllr McSharry Point of Order on Cllr Slingsby's comments
5:45 Cllr Bradley Interjection on Cllr McSharry's comments
5:55 Cllr Leadley (MBI) proposes Move to vote
5:57 Cllr Grey points out he wishes to speak
6:02 Cllr Gettings asks for a seconder
6:07 Cllr Welham (Independent) Seconds move to vote
6:10 Cllr Gettings clarifies that vote against permits further discussion,
6:20 Vote on move to vote- passed
6:30 Vote on motion- passed
6:51 Cllr Grey expresses strong disappointment on not being given a chance to speak
7:07 Cllr Gettings makes closing remarks

One minute nine seconds. Less than I thought!

MP's rebuttal in full...

Here is the reply to my letter last week, via the Postbag page.

It doesn't really answer the question, does it? Of course, the cat gets let out of the bag again on page 15 where this appeared...

Yeah, right. Oh, look, a photo opportunity. Blinky (left), Watermelon (right).

Are they new £20 notes they are holding? the ones with adam Smith on? Surely they aren't trying to buy our votes?


If you want to see a more senior politician make a fool of himself, go here (strong stomach required!)

Morley Together in the Yorkshire Evening Post

...is now appearing in Google searches pointing to the Leedstoday.net site, home of the Yorkshire Evening Post. It wasn't showing up last week though.

I don't read the YEP, Karen thinks it is rubbish, at least compared to the Manchester Evening News. Perhaps Google agree with her!

Anyhow, I now know what the pledge actually says (or at least how it is reported) and it seems that the participants get a nice certificate as well.

I'll get round to reading it all in due course. Interestingly, another article has comments and not everyone thinks it is a good idea.