.Labour Councillors Concerned for the future of a ‘Fantastic Piece of Public Art’

 

Today marks the unveiling at the head of Blyth Marketplace of a wonderful new piece of public art in the heart of the Town of Blyth.

In Elfin Walk a patch of ground next to St Mary’s church dedicated to the submariners who were based in the Town during the second world war, County Councillors Kath Nisbet and Councillor Grant Davey unveiled the latest tribute to the Towns long history and links with the military and in particular the Royal Navy.

The art work already nicknamed ‘the hub of the universe’ by locals on social media and has been commented on widely in a most positive fashion by all who have seen it since it was placed on site last week, was commissioned by Blyth Town Council and partly funded by the two Northumberland County Councillors.

 We caught up with them today and they are both very concerned regarding the future of this work of art.

 Councillor Davey when asked about the future of Blyth expressed his concern and pointed out that he had been the Portfolio Holder for Regeneration for Blyth Valley prior to its closure and “I was responsible for the commissioning of the ‘Blythscope’ a hyperscope sculpture by the conceptual artist Simon Watkinson and the wonderful water feature that was designed to bring life to the market place. The water feature was decommissioned by the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition administration from 2009 to 2013 at County Hall in what I believe to be support for the political statement from Councillor Jeff Reed who publically said ‘Blyth is a Dump’. I’m not sure what the future of this work of art will be but I hope the Tories at County Hall accept it for what it is a wonderful new improvement to the Town”.

Councillor Nisbet echoed Councillor Davey’s concerns and said “This week we have seen the Tory MP for Blyth, Ian Levy proudly standing next to derelict walls in Bowes Street that his Tory Council in charge at County Hall have left to crumble away, claiming it as some sort of achievement that a small amount of funding is being sprinkled by Central Government into the Town. This is  following three years of planning and the offer of sponsorship to undertake the modernisations of Bowes Street from the Labour led Blyth Town Council. I am personally very worried and hope they don’t have this magnificent art work pulled down just to run Blyth down further”.

Starmer slips the Tories noose to prove he's good value.

In January 2020 the daily mirror included the following few paragraphs in an editorial.

 

TORIES TO SMEAR KEIR

A TALKATIVE Cabinet Minister told me that the Tories “can’t wait to get to work” on Keir Starmer if the front runner wins Labour’s leadership race.

The Conservatives’ DIRTY TRICKS DEPARTMENT is plotting to smear a decent public servant as a “terrorists friend” in an all out attack”.

We’re going through every decision when Starmer was Director of Public Prosecutions,” smirked the Secretary of State. “He won’t know what’s hit him.” Really? I trust that the public is canny enough to separate fact from fiction on this, so these Tory fibs are bound to backfire.

Enemies on the left disgracefully join the mudslinging, inventing false claims that Starmer pressurised Sweden into pursuing Julian Assange.

Starmer was a respected DPP and the working class lad made good who is named Keir after Labour’s founder and should view their malice as a backhanded compliment. They are clearly frightened of him.

First appeared in the Daily Mirror 27-01-2020 Kevin Maguire

Keir Starmer who has taken over the reins of the Labour Party following the party's consultation and democratic election process to find a new leader after the disastrous 2019 general election result has managed over short time he has held his new position to not only to beat off the Tory bully boys but to show the Tories up for what they are.

He has been so successful through the dark months of the pandemic that many are looking  at him to lead the UK as most are less than enamored with the Johnson teams diabolical handling of the pandemic, Brexit and international diplomacy.

Starmer has shown all sections of industry and business that he is the person for the job and his broad brush parliamentary team has warmed to his leadership. From the trade unions through to many leading industrialists have shown a high level of support that is trickling down to grass roots voters in a wider number of seats than those lost in the last general election.

Even sceptics such as us, the 'layman's team' believe we can't go on with a Premier who's only link with ordinary members of the population is through the hands of his extremely disparate spin doctor team. We fully believe that Starmer can deliver for the UK in a way that the Tories haven't managed to find during the last decade.

The obvious failings of the nations Johnson experience coupled with a bleak future predicted for striving families at the end of the pandemic and Brexit, with the nation poised for the poverty downturn millions out of work will cause, we may see a kick-start of the process to force an early General election as the PM loses further control of his struggling back benchers. If that scenario pans out, in Starmer we have a party leader with much closer links to the needs of ordinary people and a wider more experienced group of people willing to pull out all the stops to ensure Labour meets their needs positively and rapidly.

. Tory Councillors simply collateral to damage in order to hook in builders as permanent sponsors

 

This week will see a major split between long serving Conservative Councillors and the Boris Johnson Government as those sitting on silk cushions in rural constituencies, fully Parished and with locked in neighbourhood plans coupled with Local Plans and Core Strategies that have been designed in harmony to keep property prices up and homes in short supply will be expecting that their MP’s will be baying for Dominic Cummings and premier Johnson’s blood and expect a U-Turn on the proposed changes to Planning Law.

The Governments changes include an algorithm to determine the level of new housing in each area its the prime element of the new sweeping changes to planning law being imposed in order to ensure developers and builders continue the money supplies pouring into the coffers of the central party. The assurance builders need is that they will have an unending land supply by being able to develop more and more housing in popular places to develop highly overpriced housing in rural villages and market towns to lock in their returns to shareholders for the next 40yrs until the scope of this planned national policy change runs out.

Testing the proposed algorithm has shown that old Tory Councils will have to supply ever more housing numbers with both Labour held and areas surrounding ‘ex red wall’ MP seats now having to deliver less. The Law changes will also allow urban councils with land shortages to redevelop redundant offices and Council buildings into affordable or social housing stock, the Government would like that to be the norm in town centres to bring back life and vigor to waning high streets whilst in tandem developing a steadier set of family leaning night time economies whilst they continue reaping the bounty from builders who will be developing on former green belt in the Countryside.

But his rural backbenchers, many of whom spent a decade wiping out well entrenched LibDem MP’s particularly in the West Country and the Scottish-English border areas are supporting their Councillors and its known that 40 of them are actively engaged in attempting to develop a coup.

The political media is poised for this activity this week as a U-turn on this matter by Government will see a massive split between the Government, many of its prime sponsors who stand to make £billions and its Party base in the Shire Counties. Any change will bring the Tory grassroots voices into play to remove Johnson from office complete with his ‘Mad Monk’ Cummings and take a chance on losing the massive prosperity of permanent sponsorship to keep them ahead of the game in political cash terms.

Neither a Party split nor the Law changes proposed will please everyone but the winners in this debacle will be the losers over the next two decades at least, so will it be the minion Councillors back in the shires who will be kicked into touch in favour of LibDem and Labour candidates whose popularity growth has shot up while the Country is led by a fool or the developers waiting with baited breath to reap massive harvests for their shareholders for years to come.


Certainly worth a watch.


Ed.




 

Tory Councillors simply collateral to damage in order to hook in builders as permanent sponsors

This week will see a major split between long serving Conservative Councillors and the Boris Johnson Government as those sitting on silk cushions in rural constituencies, fully Parished and with locked in neighbourhood plans coupled with Local Plans and Core Strategies that have been designed in harmony to keep property prices up and homes in short supply will be expecting that their MP’s will be baying for Dominic Cummings and premier Johnson’s blood and expect a U-Turn on the proposed changes to Planning Law.


The Governments changes include an algorithm to determine the level of new housing in each area its the prime element of the new sweeping changes to planning law being imposed in order to ensure developers and builders continue the money supplies pouring into the coffers of the central party. The assurance builders need is that they will have an unending land supply by being able to develop more and more housing in popular places to develop highly overpriced housing in rural villages and market towns to lock in their returns to shareholders for the next 40yrs until the scope of this planned national policy change runs out.


Testing the proposed algorithm has shown that old Tory Councils will have to supply ever more housing numbers with both Labour held and areas surrounding ‘ex red wall’ MP seats now having to deliver less. The Law changes will also allow urban councils with land shortages to redevelop redundant offices and Council buildings into affordable or social housing stock, the Government would like that to be the norm in town centres to bring back life and vigor to waning high streets whilst in tandem developing a steadier set of family leaning night time economies whilst they continue reaping the bounty from builders who will be developing on former green belt in the Countryside.


But his rural backbenchers, many of whom spent a decade wiping out well entrenched LibDem MP’s particularly in the West Country and the Scottish-English border areas are supporting their Councillors and its known that 40 of them are actively engaged in attempting to develop a coup.


The political media is poised for this activity this week as a U-turn on this matter by Government will see a massive split between the Government, many of its prime sponsors who stand to make £billions and its Party base in the Shire Counties. Any change will bring the Tory grassroots voices into play to remove Johnson from office complete with his ‘Mad Monk’ Cummings and take a chance on losing the massive prosperity of permanent sponsorship to keep them ahead of the game in political cash terms. 


Neither a Party split nor the Law changes proposed will please everyone but the winners in this debacle will be the losers over the next two decades at least, so will it be the minion Councillors back in the shires who will be kicked into touch in favour of LibDem and Labour candidates whose popularity growth has shot up while the Country is led by a fool or the developers waiting with baited breath to reap massive harvests for their shareholders for years to come. 


Certainly worth a watch.


Ed.

Saving the rights of the Cornish Pasty is more important to Boris Johnson than saving Nissan Jobs in Sunderland.

Yesterday the Government rolled out what they called a historic ‘Free Trade Deal with Japan’. A deal that should have hailed good news for the North East workforce but how good is it and what does it do for the protection from recession in the North-East?

If your reading the right wing press today even those reporters who are the most ardent supporters of Boris Johnson and his hedge fund administration are not exactly crowing about it and on top of that the deal contains this dark matter: ‘in the car manufacturing and electronics sectors, Japan has agreed to count products with a significant amount of EU components as a UK export’.

The agreement will be spun out by the Government over its current period of administration as ‘brilliant’ but for the North-East of England its certainly a lukewarm future as slippage of car manufacturing or electronic component work to the EU from the UK will be covered off by any stability in the EU export market and job protection on the Continent as a UK success story whilst our skilled workforce languish in the Universal Credit doldrums with the former opportunity of working in Europe closed off to them through the Johnson and Cummings plan to crash out and support the gambling hedge funds and not UK jobs.

As a nation we should be informed how much members of our parliament have locked into hedge fund gambling to see why there’s no enthusiasm for a trade deal with the EU. Is it so that as we the public who now sit muzzled behind our face masks and locked down in a right wing media stretched Covid fear campaign are unable to take to the streets and complain as the Law now stops us meeting in groups larger than six?. We’ve now become the most controlled and watched nation outside China and UK freedom of any sort is fully curtailed.

So as you can see we need different deals to save the majority from future problems of jobs, food and energy shortages and this Governments lack of investment for the last decade will come home to roost when the top Tories have relocated offshore to the Bahamas or the Caymen Islands with their pockets full of hedge fund winnings.

It seems its alright to protect the name of a pasty or a variety of cheese but that won’t fill the shelves in Asda or Aldi and it won’t employ the nations workforce  so Boris change direction now and U-turn on something important for once!

 

 

 

 

Councillor Glen Sanderson Ignores plight of Cowpen Road residents may find himself exposed following legal challenge against his Government!

 Following the removal from office by fellow Councillors of the Leader of Northumberland County Council Peter Jackson a Farmer from Ponteland, the new interim Leader of Northumberland County Council Glen Sanderson JP seems to have gone into hiding.

For the last three years he has held the portfolio for Highways and Local Services and just like many of the portfolio holders from the Tory cabinet at County Hall in Morpeth he has spun out stories about what he will deliver for the people of the County.

One of the prime targets he rambled on about in his early days in office during 2017 was his support for the development of a Cowpen Road bypass to spread Blyth’s traffic across a wider network of roads and ease pollution for the thousands who live in the Cowpen/Kitty Brewster areas of Blyth, Northumberland’s largest town.

The County Council has borrowed £880M since he released his promise and spent it mainly on schools and highways in rural areas of the County. His latest spend of course is the promise given to the three Bedlington Councillors to build a swimming pool and leisure centre in their town in exchange for their votes to save his predecessor in the post of Leader, Councillor Peter Jacksons job. This type of unbudgeted spend of course puts back promised projects and the Cowpen Road bypass is the prime one to suffer.

The latest news from the Financial Times today is that the Government faces a legal challenge over clean air plans
The UK Government is facing a legal action to force an early review of air quality targets, as evidence suggests severe coronavirus cases are linked to air pollution. The challenge is being brought by the Good Law Project alongside campaign groups Mums for Lungs, the UK Climate Coalition, and Students for Global Health. A growing number of studies, including analysis by Harvard University, suggest high levels of air pollution can raise the risk of dying from COVID-19. But there is still significant debate over the strength of the link between the two issues. Lawyers making the challenge argue ministers have a legal obligation to act, even if the scientific evidence is not yet conclusive. They are seeking a judicial review, which would examine whether Defra followed the rules in reaching the decision to refuse an early review of the strategy.

Through Councillor Sanderson ignoring the plight of the people in the Cowpen area he is just a guilty as his Government for the illnesses people have suffered since May 2017 when he first made his promise and local people have told us they are keeping a weather eye on the progress of this case and may also seek judicial review to force Councillor Sanderson to keep his promises.

https://www.ft.com/content/7c93b653-50fa-4329-9ba2-cc3342dbe36f

 

Northumberland Care Homes ‘Forced to take in Covid 19 patients’

 Less than twelve hours after announcing that Tory led Northumberland County Council were investigating issues raised by its suspended half time Chief Executive Mrs Daljit Lally, who in a series of e-mails to the Tory Leader Peter Jackson expressed concerns of corruption and illegalities, the voice’s of the Tory Party, Daily Mail and Telegraph ran out a story that the Company Wellburn Homes were paid extra from the public purse to take Covid patients into their care. Wellburn Homes have a number of care homes in Northumberland.

The other half of Mrs Lally’s time is spent as a senior official of the Northumbria NHS Foundation Trust and care for the elderly is handled by the Council she is CEX of. We understand her job at the NHS is to manage patients out of hospital to be supported or nursed out in the Community keeping the NHS trust figures at a low level.

This dual role was bound to lead to conflict. It seems it has but whose role is it to investigate the happenings and will this exposure colour the obvious failings of good governance in Northumberland County Council and the extremely muddled mess both the Tories who are accused of mismanagement and corruption and their CEX now find themselves in?

https://trendswide.com/care-homes-bribed-to-take-coronavirus-patients/