‘Suffrage’ The right to vote.

 

In the home of Emily Davidson, why do voters not want to get rid of an ‘Anti-women’ regime?

As we move out of the current 14 months of unbelievable series of lockdowns with thousands of workers spending months on furlough and independent self employed people finding themselves having to sign on for the first time in their lives we have an impending very important Local Government election facing Northumberland this week.

Over the last 14 months we have seen the current Tory Council running County Hall in Morpeth accused of all sorts of abuse towards their women employees with a sensational email from the Chief Executive of the County Council Mrs Daljit Lally exposing the Tories to how life is for women who have smashed the glass ceiling under their extremely anti women regime and to how the Tories have mismanaged the Councils finances since May 20, acting more like tribal rulers than  democratically elected representatives of the people.

Their nastiness has not been limited to the circle of women who work for them it has been running for years with the famous attacks against Councillor Anne Dale in the west of Northumberland, Councillor Georgina Hill in the north of the county and recently exposed on gloating Tory social media, extreme bullying stabs at Councillors Grimshaw and the Leader of the Labour Group, Councillor Susan Dungworth for asking valid questions regarding the Tories management  or should that read mismanagement of the Council's finances, with the Tories making secret decision which are  damaging to the authorities ability to help the most vulnerable in society over the next few years.

The move against this very horrible Tory regime has seen a small level of success during the last year with the removal from office of one of the chief protagonists Tory Leader Peter Jackson through a truce brokered by Councillor Dungworth between her Labour Group, Cramlington Tories and the independents outside of Bedlington including the two fighters Dale and Hill.

The Tories are making a move through this election to bring Councillor Jackson back to his seat to harry the Council Officers out of their jobs and kick start the tribal anti-women administration back into action. Where did we get this information from you may ask? from the social media pages of the wife of Tory MP Ian Levy thats where!

Nationally, women will suffer most from Tory ‘out of lockdown’ policy with women losing more jobs that their male counterparts as its retail that has taken the biggest hammering and large female workforces finding themselves being subjected to the Governments cut in benefit payments later this month. 

The Tories who think they have this election won hands down through the issue of endemic low voting levels in South-East Northumberland and across the rural coalfield could still get a fright if women whose turnout at the polling booths in Northumberland is historically very low indeed, get moving and embrace like Emily Davidson that the world requires to move closer towards equality for women. Why not go out on May 6th and vote against a regime that shows hatred for your sex everywhere outside the bedroom.

Road Safety at the Square and Haggerston Road

 

Compromised by Tory MP ?

Working in the area of investigative social media our blog team unearths a number of stories that sometimes take a little time to come together, this has been one of those investigations.

A social media item was put out a few weeks ago by a resident of the Square in Kitty Brewster praising Ian Levy MP, stating that he had voted conservative because he had been told that he was to get a dedicated parking space outside his home on the Square, also stating that the ‘right to buy plebs wouldn’t get their way’ regular nasty Tory supporter stuff you might say?

 A couple of days later we were then brought up to speed on social media by the Labour Candidate for Kitty Brewster ward, Warren Taylor, who is a road safety campaigner and has been up to view the problems in this area. He had made contact with both Persimmon Homes and Ian Levy MP to get more information and was sent the usual holding email by both parties trying to kick the issue into the long grass.

Labours Warren Taylor, the current mayor of the Town of Blyth wasn’t having any of that, so he set out to pursue things much further and went up to talk with other residents of the Square and Haggerston Road who had been slated in the Conservative residents message to get a picture from their perspective.

We contacted Warren to get his view of the issues, he told us “ I was so disgusted with the attitude from the resident of the Square towards his neighbours that I had to talk to other residents who had already expressed fears surrounding road safety problems on this estate”

“I was given access to an email from Northumberland County Councils highways engineering department which stated that in order to adopt the estate highways the developer (Persimmons) should finish the square as intended with two half circle grassed areas and no extra defined parking bays outside of people's houses”.

“This would be an excellent result for lots of residents trying to make that Square safer to enter and exit, and was solid evidence that in order for the estates highways to be adopted and maintained via the public purse, the developer must stick with their original plan”.

Adoption by the County Council is essential to halt the double payments by residents into what has become a national scandal where residents both free and leasehold are made to pay exorbitant charges to maintain public open space, highways, litter cleaning and street lighting which they have no control over and are also expected to pay full Council Tax. This practice has grown rapidly over the last 10 years of Tory Government domination.

Warren also told us “It's not only the residents of this estate which are suffering from double charging for services they already pay for through Council Tax, half a million homes nationally have been caught in this scandal because in many cases developers have won planning permission by appeal and do not want to lose huge service charges by bringing estates up to adoptable standards.”

“If elected on 6th May to represent Kitty Brewster on the County Council I will work my fingers to the bone trying to resolve the problems facing residents on this estate I think the whole situation is deplorable and very stressful for residents and their families!”

 

Damage the hopes and aspirations of over half of Blyth, Ashington, Morpeth and Newbiggin by the Sea

 

The news that the Conservative led Northumberland County Council have refused to invest capital finance in a new station, public transport hub and cark park at Bebside in the Town of Blyth before a single nail has been knocked in to repopen the AB&T Line from Newcastle to Ashington has shocked many.

With the Tory MP Ian Levy totaly reliant on the news surrounding the reopening of the line to passenger transport were not surprised that he hasn’t furnished the Chronicle with a published quote apologising for the action of his party for abandoning the largest Town in the county of Northumberland. It shows that he is sitting on the wrong side of the Conservative Party split dominated by a Morpeth centric group of Councillors.

The railway station at Bebside in Blyth is situated on the edge of the most deprived areas in Northumberland with endemic poverty running through families for generations, Its reopening has been integral to Labour’s reason for supporting the reopening of the rail line and furnishing the cash from 2013-2017 which paid for the very expensive but necessay GRIP studies which have led to where the reopening position sits today.

We caught up with two of the County Councillors from the area and asked them their thoughts on this matter, Councillor Susan Davey the County Councillor for Cowpen Ward said to us: “The whole ethos for the long term struggle to have this line reopened was to bring equality of opportunity to some of the wards in Blyth which are well entrenched in the top 10% of most deprived wards nationally”. “Cowpen, Kitty Brewster, the North side of Croft and most of the Isabella ward suffer from high rates of deprivation including some of the lowest rates of access to transport for private use in the UK”. “The reopening of the station and transport hub at Bebside would have allowed people to access higher paid jobs on Tyneside and beyond to improve the income of some of the poorest families in the UK”.

“The town of Blyth is geographically cut in two with no easy to use cross town highway or public transport routes to access a station at Newsham and for those who can drive there the pressure placed on the roads in Newsham will be immense and begin to equal the traffic and pollution problems suffered by residents of Cowpen Road.”

Kitty Brewster Councillor Grant Davey said to us: “This act of vandalism as that is what it is, against the population of the North and Central areas of Blyth is somethng we have come to expect from the Tories at County Hall”. “It was in the GRIP estmates that the opening of the new hub and station at Bebside would cost Circa £4.5M that included foot and cycle access over the A189 spine road. Something the Tories had already cut back on with a cheap bridge design that did not include disabled or cycle access.”

 “£4.5m, is only 12% of the capital expenditure frittered away on an academy high school in Hexham that now its built and paid for has nothing to do with the County Council or just over half of the cash set aside from Adult Care reserves to protect the Company ADVANCE Northumberland’s by those same Conservatives who wish to damage the life chances of Blyth residents”. 

“It was predicted that when the station at Bebside opened not only would house prices in the area rise rapidly, new development planned in  Bebside to take advantage of the station would have covered the investment costs of the hubs development via Councl Tax receipts but the short sightedness we see from Tories in Northumberland is undeiably and always will be part of the question of if Blyth is getting something how do the Tories sell that message across Castle Morpeth to protect the administration team from criticism? making it easier to strip out all spend in Blyth to stop the whisper’s from their heartlands” 

“This retraction of investment in the long term plan to raise the opportunity and income bar in the Town of Blyth is a real time digrace, affecting the future of not only the residents who live here but the shutdown of the opportunity to develop high value homes near the station will mean that Council Tax will have to rise year on year to compensate for Austerity 2 which will be announced by the Chancellor after May 6th elections to pay back the pandemic and Brexit costs as rapidly as possible.” 

We also caught up with Wansbeck Councillors Lynne Grimshaw and Liz Simpson, Councillor Simpson said: “This dreadful cut back by Tories at County Hall does not bode well for future extensions of the line to Woodhorn to aid the General Hospital and East Ashington or on to Newbiggin by the Sea.” “The promised run in to Morpeth from Bedlington Station must now be light years away if the Tories on the Council won’t invest such a small sum by County Council standards into its largest town.”

Councillor Grimshaw said:” I’m now very concerned that the project will not be economically viable when the largest predicted user group for the service have been cut off from having a station they can access easily.” “Ashington needs this rail link to keep its population in well paid employment but it also needs the people of Blyth, the Counties largest Town by far to use this service regularly and to cut off the largest population group with the greatest transport needs from access to jobs and a wider social and shopping experience will not benefit Ashington and will affect the the medium and long term viability of running a line into the jobs powerhouse areas of Newcastle and the Tyneside connurbation.”

 “Not only will I fight to get this line opened to Ashington, I will if re-elected put pressure on Labour’s leadership to invest and open the Bebside hub to gift longevity into this reopening passenger service.”

Newsham Tory already in the swing for stealing other people's successes.

 

His latest leaflet sees him claim that he is going to have land at Elliot Street cleansed and secured. Well he must have missed page 93 in the shared by coalition handbook as he should have checked things out before going into print.

Labour County Councillor Deidre Campbell has already had the Council's enforcement team let loose on this site which is known as rear Carr Street. The landowners have been through the full enforcement process and the executive officer of the Council in charge of Street
care has led some of the visits to the site.

 We caught up with Councillor Campbell who said “the effort I have put in to getting these issues surrounding this site resolved particularly with the Tories being in charge at County Hall and their insistence that they will not deliver anything in Blyth has been enormous.”

“But my persistence and harrying of those in charge led to enforcement action being taken and if the landowners don’t keep this site clean in future they will face further action.”

“But its galling that a man who people say lives in Newcastle can just float in and claim he is going to do something, typical Tory.” “Claim it all and do nothing for the people who live here”.

 

Labours promise on James Calvert Spence is Amble’s only hope for a better future for our children!

Having read the Government’s report on persistent poverty and the damaging effect deprivation and a minimum wage which hasn’t kept up with inflation over the last decade has had on forgotten towns like Amble and the families and children who live in them I am pleased the Labour Party in Northumberland has decided that enough is enough.

During the last Labour administration at County Hall a £9m project was designed to improve the buildings at James Calvert Spence College in order to protect the damage time had done to the fabric of the building.

When the Tories took over in 2017 they immediately stopped the project in order to spend, spend, spend on new schools in Hexham and Ponteland and the repair of schools in the West of the County where the Tory self centred meddling had dislodged faith in Councillor Wayne Daley’s ability to deliver on the wests behalf, he said at his first meeting of Council that he would bring in teachers from bedsits in London to achieve his aims on behalf of Northumberland’s Tories. He didn’t bother too and he didn’t help James Calvert Spence College either.

The extra four years of waiting has taken its toll on the buildings in Amble and the Labour Party has pledged to build a new school which has been proven in other areas, where new build has taken place, will improve learning and the results of that learning dramatically. 

The Government and the Council have reported that across Northumberland 15% of families and children live in persistent poverty and that as many as 13% of young people leave home for better paid employment and never return, leaving Amble and other similar forgotten towns short of the entrepreneurship that township growth requires.

The Northumberland Labour new build pledge for schools should in the medium term help Towns like ours improve and retain the skills we need to improve business and wages and rid ourselves of the persistent poverty tag forever.

Who’s going to help you when you need it?

 

Adult Care going to the dogs.

     Over the last 10 years the Tories have been slashing Adult Care budgets through their austerity programs and now Council’s  fear they can no longer fulfil their obligations in future as the Tory spin doctors turn the public's eye from the needy to the Governments pathetic ‘save the NHS campaign’ designed to blind the public into believing the NHS will help you if you wish to stay in your own home when you get older. That is not their role and the Government knows it!

 

Its known around 2m older people, are denied help with basic tasks like washing, dressing and eating. Charities helping older people and Labour voices from across the North East accused the Government of failing to act to address the problem, and criticised many councils and the Tory led Local Government Association for failing to speak out on their inability to meet their duties to safeguard older residents. 

A recent survey by the Care and Support Alliance found that three in 10 of those who experienced difficulties with day-to-day activities over the last twelve months had received no support, with a quarter having asked for help but not received it

In Northumberland those Labour Voices have been pointing towards a bleak future as £8m held in reserve to meet the needs of elderly people has been earmarked and moved out to bankroll the Tory’s private company ADVANCE Northumberland a company effectively bust, with its workers only hope to have a Labour administration take over the County Council. Northumberland’s Labour Leader Susan Dungworth has promised to put a trust board in charge of the company and link it closer to the Council to work on real time shovel ready regeneration work on the Councils behalf and pull away from speculative money losing development projects. But this will not save or replace the £8m already wasted by the Tories.

Recently released Government figures show that 17% of Northumberland single female pensioners and 16% of single male pensioners live in poverty and can’t afford to pay for help yet the Tories plan is to increase service charges in this sector well above inflation if returned to office on May 6th.

The North East pensioners association have been lobbying for extra cash for this sector for a number of years and they know the NHS can’t help, so Councils need to join with them and others in the lobbying sector and form a consistent front at least at North of Tyne level locally and keep the interests of the elderly well up the list and in the public eye on the matter of need.

Gutter Politics from Northumberland’s Tories won't protect them from four years of deceit

With the Tories in Northumberland reeling from the release of a poll this week which shows that if a general election was held tomorrow Labour would win back Blyth Valley, strengthen their majority in Wansbeck with both Berwick and Hexham becoming very marginal indeed through long term LibDems now happy to be voting Labour.

Three years in from a General Election you may think this type of Poll doesn’t matter, but were only a few weeks away from the local government elections, being held on May 6th and this poll really does matter. So much so that the Tories as well as having to fight the toxic stigma caused through the recent attempts to bully their  Chief Executive Officer out of her job and in leaked e-mails sit accused of Corruption, Racism, Dodgy land dealings and mismanagement. Accusations which led to the sacking from office of the former Leader of Council, Peter Jackson.

They are also clearly in deep trouble through their well publicised mismanagement of ADVANCE Northumberland a company the Tories set up at great cost following their poisoning of the Brand of its predecessor ARCH, along with the handling of the use of public finance and the accusations that they have altered the minutes of a Cabinet Meeting of Council to cover their tracks in saving the face of the Tory chairperson of the Company, Councillor Richard Wearmouth.

This element of their reign has led to the removal £8m from Social Services reserves, much needed finance to help those in greatest need after the pandemic is over and they have appeared in Private Eye on this issue as they were going to use much needed by residents Covid finance and that auspicious magazine has exposed the Tories attempts at a cover up.

The mire doesn’t end there for the Tories in Northumberland as the recruitment of candidates to fight this election has thrown up some very dubious characters indeed, turning Conservatives off voting altogether in this election as it harks back to the days of the ‘Nasty Party’ an image many don’t wish to be tarred with again.

We will see the outcome on May 6th but the polls have been very accurate of late at predicting change and in Northumberland that change can only be for the better.