We Love Jobs Fairs

But questions need to be answered about this one?

This Friday 18^th October 2019 there’s a Jobs Fair to be held in the Wentworth Leisure Centre in Hexham.

50 top class local and national companies are hoping to recruit the staff they need and the outcome will hopefully lead to increased employment right across the Tyne Valley area.

Its being promoted by the MP for the area Parliamentary under secretary for the Department of Work and Pensions Guy Opperman.

To publicise the event a flyer has been produced in its thousands and distributed widely across Tynedale and Northumberland as well as a huge levels of twitter, blog and facebook activity to advertise this wonderful event which will open up opportunities for many people as widely as possible and as it states on the flyer the event is supported by Northumberland County Council as it should be.

But this flyer isn’t just an advert, it’s a political leaflet entitled Guy Opperman MP’s TYNEDALE JOBS FAIR the flyer contains the the MP’s political imprint promoted by his agent Gordon Stewart a County Councillor from the Prudhoe area, an ex-policeman and the political leader of Northumberland Conservatives board.

The County Council is a Tory run organisation and Councillor Stewart has been pictured with arms on the shoulders of the in-crowd of that organisation on many occasions.

The questions that arise immediately from the release of this flyer is: What is the support from the County Council, a Council who is in charge of the physical operation of elections in the Tynedale Area?

Have the County Council supported this event and of course the production of this political flyer either in kind or financially?

What role has County Councillor Gordon Stewart played in harnessing or garnering the support of Northumberland County Council for his promoted flyer on behalf of his MP?

Was advice sought from either the elections department of the County Council its Chief Executive or its legal department prior to the decision being made by the Council to support this event and its flyer?

These questions and many more need to be answered by Councillor Stewart and the County Council both fairly and honestly and not as the secret council they are does on so many occasions stay silent and sweep the matters under the carpet.
 

 

 

Government announce 'support promises removal' to organisations through an attack on refugees.

Its only been a couple of weeks since we laymen brought up the issue of the replacement for EU regional and national funding in the form of the UK shared prosperity fund and how we hoped our suspicions that Sajid Javid would claw back huge sums of money from Councils in order to finish off local democracy once and for all if we crash out of Europe would not occur.

Recently our fears were finally upheld through an article in the Guardian newspaper regarding the removal of any future support through the UK shared prosperity fund entitled: No-deal puts refugee funding at risk

The UK Government has told the Refugee Council that, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, millions of pounds of European funding to support vulnerable refugees will be lost. The Council, which was initially assured that the grants would be secure post-Brexit, said the threatened withdrawal was a “disgraceful U-turn.”

This hardening up of the Governments position shows that the supposed ending of austerity was as we always believed a sham and the halt to internal spending for one financial year by Government departments will not happen and austerity still sits in place.

If the nation crashes out of Europe which now seems to be a very likely situation the loss of employment will be immense and we will descend rapidly into recession hence the reason for the announcement of more police officers to be recruited. As the UK spins out of control the cash we should all share will be used to control the people. It looks ever more like the nation will go back in TARDISTIC time to the miners dispute only this time the Government will be fighting women who will be desperate to feed their families.

 

 

Government announce 'support promises removal' to organisations through an attack on refugees.

Its only been a couple of weeks since we laymen brought up the issue of the replacement for EU regional and national funding in the form of the UK shared prosperity fund and how we hoped our suspicions that Sajid Javid would claw back huge sums of money from Councils in order to finish off local democracy once and for all if we crash out of Europe would not occur.

Recently our fears were finally upheld through an article in the Guardian newspaper regarding the removal of any future support through the UK shared prosperity fund entitled: No-deal puts refugee funding at risk

The UK Government has told the Refugee Council that, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, millions of pounds of European funding to support vulnerable refugees will be lost. The Council, which was initially assured that the grants would be secure post-Brexit, said the threatened withdrawal was a “disgraceful U-turn.”

This hardening up of the Governments position shows that the supposed ending of austerity was as we always believed a sham and the halt to internal spending for one financial year by Government departments will not happen and austerity still sits in place.

If the nation crashes out of Europe which now seems to be a very likely situation the loss of employment will be immense and we will descend rapidly into recession hence the reason for the announcement of more police officers to be recruited. As the UK spins out of control the cash we should all share will be used to control the people. It looks ever more like the nation will go back in TARDISTIC time to the miners dispute only this time the Government will be fighting women who will be desperate to feed their families.

 

 

Bloodthirsty Councillors Criticised for ‘Gentlemanly’ Attitudes.

As the Northumberland layman contributor who lives in the most rural location in our beautiful County I spend a great deal of time on the telephone each day making contact with my neighbours, family, local businesses and the authorities. As I don’t have access to high speed broadband yet (although the authorities are working hard to bring it on) it has taken me a little while to pick up the noise on social media surrounding this matter.

A report in the Newcastle Journal on 19^th September 2019 explained the activities at the Morpeth and District local area Council on the 16^th September, where the subject brought up by the Gentlemen farming Councillors who run Northumberland County Council, Chairman Richard Dodd, Leader of Council Peter Jackson and Glen Sanderson, head of Local Services three of the pack who cut down the number of democratic meetings of the County Council to suit their money making business interests and the agricultural calendar in order that they are not brought to task regarding their seemingly hooray henry decision making by the public at large. The subject they wanted to discuss at this publicly reported meeting was the Policing of poaching from their land.

Not content with acting themselves in front of the press, boasting that their businesses include the bloodthirsty activities of hunting shooting and fishing they unbelievably criticised the Police for not personally informing them of whom their local policeman is.

This release of how their gouty lifestyles have evolved since taking office as a Councillor on the public’s behalf is what led to the crescendo of activity on social media particularly from the South East of the County and some of the Counties most deprived areas. People who may not be averse to the Country lifestyle are disgusted at the laziness of these Gentlemen Councillors and Farmers who employ staff to work their land whilst they take part in their pursuits and tweed and barbour coated activities all the time holding positions at the County Council which warrant the supply of secretaries and teams of admin staff at their disposal. My friends in the Morpeth Rural areas all have access to high speed broadband and I suspect their farms would be some of the first to be equipped with this communication medium yet here we have three snobby people living impressive lifestyle’s who admit they cannot press the keys on their PC, use a telephone nor even ask the staff who work hard for them on a daily basis to phone the Police to find out who their local bobby is.

I only have the telephone and basic internet to help me, I am not a Councillor yet I made it my business to speak with a local policeman following the last reportable criminal activity near my home and the Police have been very kind and kept a little bit of contact with me ever since.

I’m sure the County Council who offer evening classes through their adult training arm on every subject under the sun will have a course on ‘how to feel confident using the phone’. It’s important, in fact essential that these three people who are obviously too posh to dirty their hands or pick up germs from a telephone receiver are sent on that course.
 

 

 

Deprivation concentrated in post-industrial areas of North and North East

A new Government report shows that the that the most dense concentrations of deprived neighbourhoods in England are still to be found in the post-industrial areas of the North and North East, such as Middlesbrough, Liverpool and Blackpool.

The Seaside village Jaywick in Essex, has been named the most deprived area overall for the third time in a row since 2010. Meanwhile wealthy incomers moving into new-build apartments in regenerated neighbourhoods has altered the socio-economic profile of some of London’s traditionally most-deprived areas.

The latest official indices of deprivation in England shows that the high concentrations of deprivation found historically in the boroughs of Tower
Hamlets, Westminster and Islington appear to be becoming significantly diluted. However, one inner London council leader said the deprivation data did not appear to reflect the reality of poverty in local communities or the pressure on local authorities who had to deal with its effects.

In Northumberland, the Unitary Council and its attached partner Clinical Commissioning Group from the County NHS have ignored the Government invitation to locate the pockets of serious deprivation that can be found across this huge County, allowing it to slip to 122^nd in the current list. This major cock-up by the Tory administration in County Hall and their medical allies who are hiding the truth on so many issues will see deprived areas across Northumberland lose £Millions in aid to help the less well off while the number of families who need to use food banks and the number of children who are undernourished grows.

U.K. shared prosperity fund and its effects on Council funding

U.K. shared prosperity fund is not a matter on everyone’s lips and ‘We’ as laymen suspect the majority of people reading this blog won’t have heard about it, in fact it is the scheme that will replace EU Regional Funding.

In the recent one year funding round exuded from the lips of one of the losing contenders in the recent Tory leadership race, Sajid Javid, losing to the known, according to the Supreme Court, liar and charlatan Boris Johnson hasn’t set a budget line to support the U.K. Shared Prosperity Fund but has uniquely spun out a situation where his electioneering single year budget hasn’t gelled with anyone other than those who want to see rapid free market economic growth and those who will benefit most from rising inflation.

Javid has also changed the goalposts in regard to funding with his promises for help in three areas in order to gather the headlines, health, police and education, leaving the other services we all rely on high and dry. He knows that the last spending round for Councils comes to an end in 2020 but has not begun to assemble a spending review that would allow councils to form new medium term financial plans.

The last fair funding spending review 2014-2020 allows councils to plan and spend up until 2023 to give them time to complete late projects. It’s expected that Javid will claw back all funds not spent by November 2020 to pay for the two high street funds, the stronger towns fund, of which the issued list of winning bids lines up with the Conservative marginal seats list and the future high streets fund whose dates of acceptance are quoted as being after the next general election. It’s expected those towns who are not won by the Tories will be struck off the list.

Charities are also expecting to be battered by the Government as EU funded projects unspent cash, not earmarked cash, as has been the case previously, will be clawed back at the rate of 66p in the £pound.

We all need to remember that under this Tory Government austerity is only eased for a single year leaving your Council without financial stability prior to the completion of a new spending review period and the current announcements will put local authorities into the hands of the free marketeers as they struggle to manage without medium term funding security.


 

 

 

The unbelievable Cath Homer extends library austerity an additional two years.

Last week the public across Northumberland were asked by the Comms and Press department of the Council to expect an opportunity to contribute towards a consultation to shape the future of the library service in the County. Today we learn that this consultation by Northumberland Tories is simply one with a pre-determined outcome in order that they can slash another £200,000 from the service. Library services nationally have taken some of the most severe hits through the Tories nine year austerity program and have become after the third sector, the most damaged service across most councils yet just two weeks after Tory ministers announce the end of austerity a leading Tory Councillor in Northumberland announces a slash and burn cuts package agreed by the single party Tory cabinet in Northumberland. Cath Homer is seeking a two year cuts package of £100K per year. Labour attempted to offset the austerity cuts to library services by sharing property costs with Active Northumberland but under the watch of the same Cath Homer, Active Northumberland has slipped into secret privatisation mode and Councillors removed from the board with the workers pension schemes slashed so that in the future, pensioners from Active will not have the same remuneration as their equivalent colleagues in the mainstream Council. If you have any interest in learning, history or the future education of people from more deprived areas including rural areas, you must ensure that we are wrong and when you complete the current consultation make sure you strongly comment about these further cuts. We do want to be wrong but we would like to get a bet on that were right. https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/News/2019/Sep/Public-asked-to-help-share-future-of-library-servi.aspx