Lord Mayor of Sandwell - Hypocrite!

The new Lord Mayor of Sandwell, Derek Rowley, selected the excellent Sandwell Women's Aid ("SWA") as his mayoral charity and he was out in his togs last night at The Mayor of Sandwell's Dinner where, happily, at least £300 was raised for SWA.

I cannot tell whether Rowley was at the secret "Labour Group" meeting held on the night before the full Sandwell Council meeting of 4th December, 2012 because these meetings are, er, secret.
What I can tell you was that the record shows that he was MOST DEFINITELY at the actual Council meeting of 4th December whereby those Sandwell "Socialists" who were in attendance unanimously voted through Eling's disastrous unlawful and discriminatory "amendment" to the CTR - Council Tax Reduction - scheme (see my blog "Local Media Blackout on New Sandwell Council Scandal" dated 5th August, 2014).

We can only surmise that Eling and his Cabinet colleagues had discussed this amendment with their flock of sheep at the secret Labour meeting as a High Court Judge last week described how they had not apparently discussed it with anyone else, including officers of The Council! In a thoroughly damning judgment, Mr Justice Hickingbottom described the unlawfulness of the decision, castigated the abysmal failure to consult and found the policy discriminatory.

The action was brought by the Child Poverty Action Group on behalf of 3 vulnerable women - one homeless, one with mental health issues and one fleeing domestic violence - just the sort of unfortunate folk you might think Labour would support. The Judge found (and this was NOT disputed by Sandwell Council) that Sandwell Labour had, in fact, shafted 3,600 (Three Thousand Six Hundred) of the most vulnerable members of society by its decision and I wouldn't mind betting that SWA assisted a number of Labour's victims. In addition, this unlawful and discriminatory policy - cheerfully approved by the whole Labour Group present at the meeting including the hypocritical ROWLEY - has cost in excess of £1 million (as a direct result of this discrimination Labour lost a grant of £675,000, incurred massive legal costs and will have to compensate as many of the 3,600 they screwed who come forward to make a claim - plus the associated admin costs involved in all this). It seems Rowley will pay lip service to women's rights but, in his political actions, vote for policies which are directly detrimental in practice to them

There are a tiny handful of decent Labour Councillors - I am told Bob Piper is one - but no public apology has been made by any of them to date for this outrage. On the contrary, the oafish "leader", Cooper, has said the Council may appeal and that the decision was somehow "right". Perhaps he is just too thick to appreciate the Judge's ringing denunciation of Sandwell Labour's "unanimous" decision and his criticism of "the evidential void" that surrounded Labour's decision making-process in this case (if it can be described thus).

Sandwell Council were comprehensively hammered by the Judge on all six legal arguments and SWA should note the specific finding that Sandwell Labour has breached s149 Equality Act, 2010.

Of course, voluntary organisations in Sandwell are in a "Catch 22" situation since many are dependent to a greater or lesser degree on Council funding. In return the Politburo expect them to toe the party line and any opposition to Labour is likely to lead to immediate threats of "sanctions". If you do not believe me ask any of the organisations connected with The Public about the events of precisely one year ago...... It is no surprise, therefore, that it fell to an outside body - The CPAG - to deliver the coup de grace.

Sandwell Women's Aid do invaluable work and if you have read this post I urge you to make a
donation to them. I hope they receive shed-loads of money this year and keep up the good work but it should be noted that this was not an isolated incident of Sandwell Labour changing policy "on the hoof" (eg the ice-rink scandal) and all Sandwell charities and voluntary groups must be aware of the Council's current modus operandi under the moronic Cooper who believes he has "a mandate" to force through whatever he pleases - usually with no consultation whatsoever (eg ice-rink again). Third Sector organisations must be alert to this. They must demand to be heard and to make sure their specialist knowledge is taken into account where applicable. If your organisation is too afraid to do this for fear of retaliation please send your concerns to me (anonymously if necessary) and I will do the necessary or try to get an "outside" group like CPAG to help.

My personal view is that Eling must resign (or be sacked if he won't) and the Labour Councillors should be individually surcharged for the £1m plus loss brought about by their unlawful action but, the latter at least, is unlikely to happen. If those who voted for this are not, individually, man or woman enough to publicly apologise to the 3,600 who suffered at their hands and to the taxpayer for the substantial financial losses then someone should defy Cooper and Co and step forward to express contrition on their behalf. May I suggest Councillor Derek Rowley, The Lord Mayor of Sandwell.

PS. Returning to a familiar theme ie the fact that all policy is agreed in secret Labour meetings so that the public Council meetings are just rubber-stamping exercises (see blogs passim) the High Court Judge was clearly not aware of this "system" and expressed surprise that the full Council had managed to get through the entire agenda on 04/12/12 in just 39 minutes - including, of course, Eling's disastrous amendment referred to above. The Judge would have been even more surprised to note that in that 39 minutes there was a lot of time spent on "non-business" items including a minute's silence for Alderman [sic] Vera Jones followed by no less that SIX oral tributes from Councillors. There was also an item welcoming back Cllr Sidhu from illness and an item announcing the Mayor's forthcoming events. Thus the business part of the meeting where the comrades pushed this through was considerably shorter than stated. Is it any wonder that such horrendous mistakes are made when there is no debate whatsoever.

Finally, The Chief Executive and the Head of Legal & Governance usually sit in on full Council meetings but the minutes do not show whether they were there on 04/12/12. If they were - what on earth were they doing allowing a major policy change to be made in this manner (although, as above, this is not an isolated incident)?

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