Tameside's Rent-a-Mob

Click to enlarge

Things are afoot in Tameside with Cllr. John Taylor recruiting the services of Peak Combined Security to provide "Military" patrols in Dukinfield as reported in the Tameside Reporter.

You may remember when I was arrested last year that I pointed out a posting on John Taylor's website about him posting an article about a lad in Northern Ireland who was suspected of theft, so the militant Ulster Volunteer Force beat him black and blue and stuck a sign on him on a busy road saying "I am a theif". Councillor Taylor's response to this was "I bet this lad does not reoffend I understand the number of criminals on this estate is nil". So it would seem that whilst I thought his support for the idea was bizarre in itself, but to actually carry it out in Tameside is frankly obscene.

The choice of Peak Close Protection raises a few eyebrows in itself. The director of the company is Steve Bell or known as "Sinbad" to the local Labour Party. Peak Close Protection is part of Peak Combined Services which offer cleaners, removals and boarding up of houses (see: evictions) and catering services. It makes you wonder what over services this little umbrella company offers to Tameside Council - I can exclusively tell you for a fact that the Greater Manchester Pension Fund have Peak Catering Personnel Services to provide catering after meetings.

Steve Bell is also a director of Whitesails Training which funnily enough, Councillor Sean Parker-Perry is listed as being a "business development manager" on this Facebook group, although he can be seen in a Peak Combined Security uniform when dropping off money at Natwest on King Street in Dukinfield. That's funny because last year he told the press that he left James Purnell's office because he wanted to learn sign language and focus on being a councillor.

Now Sean Parker-Perry may say there is no conflict of interest, but I think there is. The article in the Reporter states that "offenders" are made to attend courses as part of their rehabilitation - something which a speciality for the Whitesails Training division which on their site currently states:

Management & Business - Managing Conflict
A range of courses are now being delivered to youths aged 14 - 19 including KNIFE CRIME, CYBER-BULLY, FIRST AID, STOP AND SEARCH POWERS AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT (more info)

I do find it deeply disturbing that the council are employing totalian tactics to combat crime when we already have an independent police force and the patrollers. If they are not doing the job effectively, then they need to be accountable to the public. Having hired heavies going about the streets with rottweilers is just an erosion of our civil liberties and we must ensure that this stops now.

Tameside Council Tax to Increase by 20%?

Today, the Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson announced a £16bn sell-off of public assets to raise cash for the government. He said in a speech that this could include "local authority airports" such as Manchester Airport.

This would be a concern for Manchester Airport Group (MAG) which is 55% owned by Manchester City Council and nine other local authorities in Greater Manchester including Tameside which own 5% each. During the Congestion Charge debate, it was dismissed by Sir Richard Leese that the Airport should be sold off to cover the proposed £4bn public transport investment as it could lead to council tax increases of 20%.

The MEN article says that the airport gave a dividend of £25m in 2006, but councils also have to make an annual contribution to pay off the debt of building Terminal 2.

Twatters!

I have now been blocked from the Tameside Tories Twitter page after my recent article slagging off the Tameside Conservative group. Other users get the "Send Request" page which is totally missing the point with social networking which is meant to engage with an audience without restrictions.

On another note, Andy Hoyle from Tameside Radio has tweeted that Tameside Radio are running a report on the Andrew Gwynne smear at 1PM today. So tune in or listen online.

Paxman Smackdowns Tameside Council

This video is pure gold. Whilst watching Newsnight the other night, Jeremy Paxman went over the state of the Labour Party conference and highlighted the exclusivity of sponsorship coming in from the public sector. One being Tameside Council!

Paxman asks the person at the TMBC stall as to how much this is costing to local council tax payers. The lady in the video says she doesn't know and is unable to give an answer. That's odd because when David Ottewell visited he was told the cost was in the region of £10,000. So that is roughly the same as last year, but the press has been more favorable this year compared to last year probably due to the £240,000 "advanced spending" in the budget for local newspapers.

Along the video you will see Jeremy Paxman's face drop with shock as he hears the justification for the expense of taxpayers money to be used at the Labour Party Conference. Tameside Council say they intend to spread a positive message then they can make things better in the longer run.

I bet you are thinking that those scoundrels at Tameside Council are just lining the coffers of the Labour Party, but you are wrong. There will be the exact same stand at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester next week at a similar cost.

Propaganda on the Rates

There is something that stinks at Tameside Tories and it is the vulgar smell of hypocrisy. The Tameside Conservative group led by John Bell is campaigning to end the council's propaganda which has won an "excellent" rating by the Audit Commission. In a recent article on the Tameside Tories website Councillor Bell states:

"We will not support ‘propaganda on the rates’. At best, the publicity coming out of Tameside Council has been brazen, and at worst – as we saw with the information about the EU Treaty on the website 18 months ago – illegal"

So what does Councillor Bell have to say over his political assistant, Richard Ashton illegally producing election material for the Stalybridge & Hyde and the Denton & Reddish constituencies? He is also the sole editor of the TamesideTories.com website and the Tameside Tories Twitter account. Richard Ashton also writes letters to the press on behalf of Councillor John Bell which local journalists should be able to confirm as Richard emails them out to the editors of the Tameside Advertiser and Reporter.

Richard also takes a lot of time off work to perform his political activity, but states to the Head of Democratic Services, Robert Landon that he is "working from home". He recently took three weeks off to manage the disastrous Denton North East by-election. The irony is that Richard Ashton is holding a fringe meeting at next weeks Conservative Party Conference in Manchester on "how to win a by-election" as part of his role as chair of the Conservative Political Officers Network.

The tip of the iceberg has to be this article on the Tameside Tories website attacking Denton & Reddish MP, Andrew Gwynne for not attending yesterdays speech made by Gordon Brown.



The image above is claimed to have come from "an anonymous Labour delegate" leaked to Tameside Tories! Laughably the faces have been blocked out - for what reason is unknown.



It's funny because the picture was posted by Ed Balls according to Andrew Gwynne's Twitter status three days ago - way before Brown's speech to Labour conference. You can see the original above which includes other senior delegates including Tom Watson, Ed Balls and Kerry McCarthy. I really doubt that a cabinet minister is going to miss the PM's speech.

As part of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 the law explicitly states that politically restricted officers like Richard Ashton are not allowed to have a political role in or outside the workplace.

What Richard Ashton has done is a lie and is an attempt to deceive voters into thinking that Andrew Gwynne is against Gordon Brown. This is disgraceful coming from a paid officer of the council. Richard Ashton is paid a whopping £28,000 a year as a political assistant to the leader of the opposition. It is Tameside council taxpayers' who are funding Tory propaganda and for that Tameside Tories have a lot to answer for.