Surely worth a mention in 'Private Eye'...

[DRiddle]

So just to clarify, tonight Putting Hartlepool First made it abundantly clear that they were willing to give up 100% of their secondary leaders responsibility allowance, and donate the whole lot to cancer charities.

However, instead L-A-B-O-U-R voted to give 30% of it to........ the Conservatives.

What a calamity... 

[mk1]

Your wish is granted. Its in this weeks edition. I will scan and post shortly.

[steveL]

I've lost track. Is this the 5th time that HBC has been mentioned in dispatches in Private Eye's Rotten Boroughs?

[mk1]

Private Eye 1371 25 July-7 Aug 2014

page 11.

Unholy Alliance

Meanwhile in Hartlepool, the Labour councills leadership has also put up two fingers to an independent remuneration panel. It had suggested too much was being paid in special `responsibility allowance (SRA) to Jim Ainslie and Kevin Cranney, councillors who chair its twoneighbourhood forums. They each get £3,495 a year. As the forums only meet four times in 12 months, they pocket more than £870 per meeting.
The panel suggested the annual SRA should behalved to £l,747, but Labour ignored this, with the support of its Conservative allies.
Eh? Although Labour holds 19 of 33 council seats, to get the annual budget through it needs the help of the Tories (three seats) to achieve a two-thirds majority. Nothing bridges the political divide better than money! The panel had not called for any change in an allowance of £3,400 to the leader
of the largest opposition party, Putting HartlepoolFirst (PHF), which has four seats. But that has now been changed for the benetit of the Tories.
The £3,400 is now split three ways between PHF (50 percent), Tories (33 percent) and Ukip (17 percent), which has two seats.
Tory group leader Cllr Ray Martin-Wells gets to pocket £1,130 from that deal, but in a move that recognises his help in pushing through Labour policies he has also been made chair of the audit and governance committee, which gives him a further £6,267 on top of his basic allowance of the same amount. His job will be to scrutinise and challenge decisions made by Labour leader Christopher Akers-Belcher, who chairs finance and policy. No doubt the six grand will help him be all the more rigorous!

[DRiddle]

Haha, excellent. It was worth losing a % of the allowance to provide further exposure of the shambles that is our coalition council.

[Stationario]

Ha! I wonder if the Mail reports on this national coverage that the town is receiving? 

[not4me]

Ha! I wonder if the Mail reports on this national coverage that the town is receiving? 

Well they didn't report on any of the other four mentions in Private Eye so I wouldn't get your hopes up - way too 'off message'.

[fred c]

Its has got to the stage that no one is surprised by what the TorLab Mob get up to, but i have noticed that more & more people are beginning to pass comments both here & on the Mails articles.

Come May of next year Labour will need to spend an awful lot of time & cash to stand any chance of keeping their majority in council, they will have to spend even more to keep the "Flaccid Member" in his seat.

[marky]

5 appearances in the rotten boroughs piece must surely be worthy of some sort of award: "Rotten Borough of the Year", perhaps?

[SRMoore]

Out of interest, are PHF donating 100% of the reduced secondary leaders allowance to cancer charities or was that only on offer if they retained the full amount?

[steveL]

Talk to the hand, Shane. As far as cleaning up Hartlepool Borough Council is concerned you're a political eunuch and will remain so until you have the balls to challenge Wells' behaviour.

[DRiddle]

you're a political eunuch

Haha, bless Shane. He's been keeping his head down for a couple of months since the election, now he's back. Maybe he's heard the rumour there's a seat on Rural West up for grabs soon...

[SRMoore]

I guess the answer to my question is no then? It was a genuine question which, if you'd have come out and said you would be donating the reduced aunt anyway, I would have congratulated you on. As it stands I guess it just shows the donation was just a cynical one that would never have been followed through.

Actually David I've been quiet because my wife has recently given birth to our second child. A girl named Emily. Reading your post though I think you need to grow up, a lot.

[DRiddle]

Interesting to notice that you're STILL choosing to focus your efforts on here attacking PHF Shane.

Surely your time and energy would be better spent trying to wrestle control of your party back from a man who is no more a Conservative than Arthur Scargill.

What PHF would or would not do with around £3,000, is so insignificant in the grand scheme of what the coalition are squandering week in week it's laughable that you even mention it.

The fact that you keep your head well below the parapet concerning the towns big issues, but pipe up about us all the time, demonstrates that Steve's description of you is pretty accurate.

[SRMoore]

I suggest you re read my original post, David. I asked a civil question about a donation your party offered to make. As I stated in my last post, I'd have actually congratulated you on sticking to your pledge to donate the money to cancer charities but it would seem that sadly the offer of the donation wasn't sincere and it was just a cheap publicity stunt.

You can continue with the petty personal attacks of you like, it may make you feel big sat behind a keyboard, but I won't partake in the school yard antics.

All I will say is that I do feel sorry for the genuine members of PHF who have been involved from day one and have had to watch what could have been a positive force of good be turned into the vehicle to further one mans ambitions and to he'll with the rest of them, as Alison unfortunately found out.