Full Council Meeting, Thursday 26th March

[admin]

The next meeting of the Full Council will be held on Thursday 26th March in the Civic Centre at 7pm

http://www.hartlepool.gov.uk/egov_downloads/26.03.15_-_Council_Agenda.pdf

Items of note:

• Vote of No Confidence in the Council Chair
• Allan Barclay's Summary of support for Armed Forces
  
• Vote to join with four other authorities in forming a Combined Authority

[fred c]

Location will be The Civic..... Doors Open 6.30pm

Be There or Be Square.... lol

[steveL]

I've never known Allan Barclay to be trusted with uttering more than a sentence or two before so that should be fun. He's obviously been given the floor - and The Mail write-up which will follow - because he's up for re-election in May.

[Lord Elpus]

Saw 'Father Jack' Barclay literally trudging the streets delivering the Labour 'Your Hartlepool' leaflet yesterday morning.  He looked tried and sad.  The Causeway had just opened for the day but he managed to avoid the temptation of calling in for a snifter.

The Comrades will make sure he has plenty to do till the 7th May. 

[ashamedtobebritish]

He's got plenty to do allright.....

Just look at what hes reading here....

Labour Girls Magazine, apparently its the latest edition



If that doesnt put a man back on the wagon for the week, I dont know what will. !

[steveL]

Timing is everything they say.

There we have CAB in the paper denying the existence of any plans to create a Teesside City and at the same time we have Ray Mallon on the telly telling everyone that he wants to be its first elected Mayor.

The Labour/Tory Coalition are determined not to give the people any say on the matter. A 3-line whip to vote NO and say nowt was the order of the day tonight coupled with what looked like mass botox injections aimed at removing any form of facial expression that might give away personal thoughts.

Three times Labour were given the opportunity to allow the public a say on the matter through:

• A referendum
• A public vote in the Borough Hall
• A Survey Monkey poll with a properly considered, neutral question along the lines of Yes or No

. . . and 3 times it was refused.

Wells was challenged with Shane's question of why the coalition wouldn't give a referendum and Wells response that it was because it wouldn't give the 'right' answer. I was within 6 feet of Wells and clearly heard him confirm to brain-dead Loynes "it's right". He thought it was funny; such is the contempt for the public now on open display.

The choice is pretty clear now. There will be a gap of inaction for a couple of months before anything substantive will happen on the Teesside City plans.

If you don't like the idea of a return to Cleveland County II and want a public referendum, then you need to vote for someone other than a member of the the Lab/Con Coalition.

[Inspector Knacker]

Anyone who couldn't see how this town stagnated during the time of Cleveland County Council must have a very poor memory and incapable of learning from the mistakes of history,  happy to live in a town at the bottom of the political food chain, or...... naively deluded they can have an input.
It appears this has been well debated out of public gaze and we're presented with the end product, debate free.
I find it odd in this country how we depose tyrants but submit meekly to politically illiterate nonentities, clerks and grey people in suits.

[Lord Elpus]

For the life of me I can't understand why the Comrades are so terrified of allowing the Residents of Hartlepool a chance to express a view on a Combined Authority.

I would imagine 100% of the public at last nights meeting wanted to express their opinion and be heard, its the basis of democracy, this issue could well be Labours nemesis.

One thing is for certain, HBC and Hartlepool Labour Party needs a effective Leader to bring the town and the Council together.  CAB is not that man.

[Foggy]

I totally agree to the post above. CAB is definitely not that man. He is totally delusional for a start. For example, he tweeted the following on March 5th:

"Thank you for all the Thankyous & Positive comments re our 'Your Hartlepool' bulletin being delivered. We have a Vision #votelabour" (sic)

Then this on March 24th:

"Hartlepool Hospital has been saved by Labour locally. Whilst others talk we are working on our new Health Plan for Hartlepool"

Then this on March 27th:

"I was elected to make decisions that's why I hold my head up high not like shameful weak opposition #votelabour"

The man has no idea. In fact I would doubt that any of the labour lot do. They looked totally perplexed by the responses of the public during the meeting. Either they are good actors or they literally can't see the (dead) wood for the trees.  Their lack of debate or defence of SAB spoke volumes. Great leadership CAB, well done.

On a totally unrelated matter... Something really has to be done about the sound system in the chamber. Granted it didn't help that there were a lot of members of the public in the chamber but I have been to meetings before where there have been only a handful of people there and the problem was still the same. Dave Stubbs was out of order by blaming members of the public. The complaints about not being able to hear from the public were genuine. They were not being awkward towards Labour and this is clearly evidenced by the fact that they asked both Kelly Atkinson and David Riddle to speak up.

I didn't hear a word that Robbie Payne or Alan Barclay said (though we probably can't blame the sound system for that). I struggled to hear pretty much everyone else, including Peter Devlin and Carl Richardson (when he was in the chair). The only two people who can be heard clearly are Jonathan Brash and Paul Thompson.

Speaking of Paul Thompson, I was happy to hear he is standing again and I thoroughly enjoyed him telling Ray Martin-Wells that very fact. Roll on May.

[Land Phil]

I have asked Radio Hartlepool if they will transmit future meetings.

The response was they will bring it up at the next board meeting.

I assume they will have quality audio and we can listen in with a tranny and earpiece like they do at sport events.

[Gustaf I of England + BWH]

Saw 'Father Jack' Barclay literally trudging the streets delivering the Labour 'Your Hartlepool' leaflet yesterday morning.  He looked tried and sad.  The Causeway had just opened for the day but he managed to avoid the temptation of calling in for a snifter.

The Comrades will make sure he has plenty to do till the 7th May.

I apologise for the delay in making this my first post, too many distractions elsewhere.
Lord Elpus postulates that Columbo was able to resist temptation on 24th. March. I believe the more likely explanation is that he was saving himself for his meeting on 25th.
Mr. Akers and Mr. Belcher had him in the Whitehouse on Wooler Road, presumably to rehearse his lines for the Council meeting on the 26th., but it is equally possible that they were deciding the outcome of the meeting so that they could pass it on to the faithful in advance of any voting. There were certainly plenty of HBC documents being wafted about to support either conclusion.
Don't worry though, the three of them legged it when the chappie started his rounds with the charity raffle tickets. Perhaps it wasn't one of the Mayor's chosen charities, or there again, perhaps it was."All back to Stephen's lads for a shuftie".

Just as an aside, where we all aware that 2 easy peelers = 1 portion ?