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.

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!

Another Wednesday, more letters...

Three pertinent letters this week.

The first is from an observer at the March Town Council meeting. The title was the width of the Postbag.


I don't know who he is but I am pleased that my thoughts on what observers might have thought of us are on the mark as far as he is concerned.

The second is from Amy Teale, leader of the Labour Group.


To save you looking it up, here are two definitions of petulant

pet·u·lant (pĕch'ə-lənt) pronunciation
adj.

1. Unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered; peevish.
2. Contemptuous in speech or behavior.

[Latin petulāns, petulant-, insolent, from petere, to assail.]
petulance pet'u·lance or pet'u·lan·cy n.
petulantly pet'u·lant·ly adv.

I have to say that Amy's letter betrays a huge level of ignorance of debating matters. When proposing an amendment,it is not permitted to actually discuss the motion first as the amendment will be refused by the Chairman in those circumstances. (You can't speak for or against a motion and then subsequently amend it- it would give you two bites of the cherry.) My proposition was democratically rejected but there was no effort to explore it first. At that point, the amendment having been lost, I was then entitled to speak on the original motion and would have done so had I not lost the opportunity to do so shortly afterwards. (I was happy to let a couple of others speak first (keeping your powder dry!) and that was my downfall
Her points about Derek Bradley being wrong in blaming just the Labour party have merit, but she spoils it with a personal attack about having "lost the plot".

having the opportunity to raise concerns in the proper place (the Chamber) is exactly the point I am making and has obviously sailed straight over her head.

her suggesting that I would rather remain silent in the Chamber and then go to the press is at best disingenious- did she not hear me stress that I wished to speak at the meeting?

As for blatant electioneering, it seems somewhat of a ridiculous comment seeing as how I'm not standing again! I have no idea what Derek Bradley's intentions are though.

Amy, I'm waving goodbye to you from the window of the Cluetrain that you missed...

Finally, one fromDerek Bradley.

I'm a bit puzzled by this and wonder if he has got confused.One Motion on whether to give funding to a charity was indeed deferred after I picked several holes in the proposal. However, the Morley Together Motion was accepted by a majority- but at breakneck speed and with abuse of procedure-it must be that he blinked and missed it!

Election countdown- 40 days to go...

The election day for Morley Town/Parish Council (as well as two of the City Council Morley ward seats) is to be Thursday May 3rd, 7am to 10pm. The election will officially be published on March 27th (Tuesday) and prospective candidates then have from Wednesday 28th to Noon on Wednesday 4th April to get their papers in and accepted by the Electoral Services Team.

The candidates will be published on April 5th and then the race is on.

The votes will be counted from 10am on Friday morning, probably in Morley Town Hall.

More details about the forms to fill in and the process can be found on Leeds City Council Website.

The other supportive letter

Letter of support

This is the letter from Derek Bradley. It is in two halves because it spanned two columns on the letters page.

Whilst he is correct that Labour did leap on the perceived Racist comment, the move to the vote was proposed by Tom leadley, Independent Councillor and the Independent Group Whip (i.e. chief cat herder!)

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!)

Press reactions

Well, the Wednesday letters page was slightly unexpected. There was a mild rebuttal from Colin Challen MP, telling me I was rather wide of the mark about Morley Together being partisan. There was a letter from someone using my stance to make a point previously made about Mayor Bob not standing down after announcing his candidacy for Morley North. There was a supportive letter from Cllr Bradley, which, however, blamed it all on Labour. The other letters were from old Labour complaining about New Labour, a familiar position.

Cuttings up in due course.

Scans from last week's paper

Retribution day

Tomorrow, the weekly paper comes out. There will probably be letters opposing my stance and supporting the Town Council &/or the MP. No doubt that variants on phrases "works tirelessly for the town" and "a credit to the people of Morley" will be used.

However, I have received two unsolicited supportive emails from two well known Morleians not on the Town Council but who know of it.