Keeping Up with the Joneses!

DUE TO AN ONGOING LEGAL DISPUTE, AN OBVIOUSLY COMEDIC REFERENCE TO JAN BRITTON HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY REDACTED. 

Sandwell's Labour dictatorship has been good and bad to the Joneses of Wednesbury - Cllrs Ian, Olwen and Stephen. But mostly good.....

Before we look at this grim bunch it is worth noting again the way the malignant cancer of Labour control has spread through the Borough so that they have a Stasi-like grip on all that goes on. There are bodies that undoubtedly do good work in the Borough for the best of reasons and yet prostitute themselves to the "Party" for ridiculously small amounts of money. Nowhere is this better seen than in the pathetic individuals queuing up to tug the forelock and receive their "Christmas Dinner" money from their "socialist" masters.

Every organisation which takes the Labour shilling is expected to toe the line once they have opened their legs or else they are likely to lose the pathetic sums  they have sold themselves for. And Labour are always willing to get the cheque book out to buy ever increasing influence to maintain the North Korean-modelled regime.

With the larger organisations, Labour force recipients of the taxpayers' largesse to accept a representative on their boards so that they can exercise yet further control. Thus, the Council's "Chief Executive" (lol) Jan Britton - "xxx xxxxx xxxxxxx" - has been placed on the Board of Sandwell College as part of the bent Public deal; Cllr Simon Hackett - "Two Homes" - is supposed to be in charge of the disastrous Labour Children's Services but sits on the Board of The Albion Foundation who get sod all from WBAFC but shed loads of money from the taxpayer and even a small registered charity like BUDS - in receipt of grants from Labour - now has TWO Councillors (Piper and Gavan) on a Board of just seven.

Another worrying feature of Sandwell life - of which more anon - are the number of bodies who call themselves "not for profit community organisations" who then seem to receive public money without any accountability whatsoever and without producing any accounts for ordinary people like us to see. Some of these bodies also take money direct from the public claiming it is for "charitable" purposes and yet do not say where the money actually went. Regular readers will be well aware of my posts about "Postman Prat" - Cllr Tony Meehan - and "The Friends of Fudgestock". Take a look at the letter I send Fudgy by recorded delivery on 30th July, 2014. I am still awaiting a reply!

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/fudgestock-letter-to-fudgy.html

Fudgy's alleged organisation received taxpayers money from his Labour comrades and held "bucket" collections etc raising cash at events but he refuses point blank to account for the cash. I wrote three times to the New Cross Hospital who were supposed to have been one of the beneficiaries but they were unable to confirm receipt of any donation. Perhaps it was made under a different name but the public deserves to me told. Incidentally, Postman Prat - who lied about owning his own house on his original SMBC Register of Interests - used to call himself a "trustee" of "The Friends of Fudgestock" but has now downgraded himself to "volunteer". Where did the money go? Councillor - where ARE the accounts?

Of course, the most egregious example of this sort of thing is the Three Degrees Statue Fund which is actually meant to be a PRIVATE project. See blogs passim and to come (Labour have delayed my further Freedom of Information request on this from early March which is now overdue. Do you think they might be waiting until the election is over? I have written to Jan Britton requesting the reasons for the delay).

If you look at the social media of sundry Labour Councillors in Wednesbury you will see that they are constantly promoting "Wednesbury Celebrates" ("WC" - !) and by constant reference to Wednesbury Town Hall the lay person may assume that this is actually a Labour Council-run project. But, again, WC describes itself as a "community association". If you go to its website - wednesburycelebrates.org.uk - you will find various pictures of councillors but nothing whatsoever about the legal constitution of the association, who runs it or, most importantly, the accounts. It seems to have become the sole booking agency for events at the Town Hall and takes cash for tickets direct from the public. In the financial year just gone it also received £5,500 from us taxpayers via Sandwell Labour. I think the folk of Wednesbury are entitled to full information about this body as public money is going in, eh readers?

Happily. we do know where some of the public money is going back out from WC as Labour Cllrs Ian and Olwen Jones state that their "son's partner is employed as sports co-ordinator there"! Lets us hope that the salary is a reasonable one!

The website also features references to something called the "5 Star Performance Academy" which appears to be connected to yet another mysterious "community association" the "5 Star Community Association". Happily Cllrs Ian and OIwen Jones declare that their son, Robert, is "Principal" of the former (is it a private enterprise?) and "secretary" of the latter. No doubt all the booking arrangements are conducted "at arm's length".

You would think from all this that Wednesbury Celebrates is a quasi-charitable organisation desperate in these austere time to raise as much cash as possible on top of the enforced £5,500 "donation" from us taxpayers. And yet Cllr Olwen Jones wants to use the organisations funds to raise monies for the ridiculous PRIVATE statue project in West Bromwich and not Wednesbury! Is this allowable under the constitution? Do the anonymous "trustees" authorise giving their funds out of the town to Jim Cadman's dodgy scheme? Here is what Olwen said on Facebook. Ask her about it in the last days of canvassing:

 I like the way she refers to "OUR" raffle money! And who the f*ck is "Cecil Regis"?????

(Just in passing, WC also hire out 2 caravans at Borth and Clarach Bay. Not sure whether Olwen had been on the vin rouge herself when she took to Facebook the other night but she referred to the latter as "claret" bay!)

Cllr Olwen was, of course, employed by Sandwell Council back in the 1990's but their unreasonable conduct caused her mental illness (!) and she successfully sued them. The case went to appeal and the Council lost so that she was awarded £157,541. How strange then that she should become a Councillor herself in a Labour Council where bullying and harassment continue to this day. Perhaps she has chatted with her Councillor husband about the harassment of my wife? Perhaps she has talked to some of the employees who phone me to tell me that morale is at rock bottom and that they are scared to speak out as it would inevitably lead to dire consequences (and, of course, to phone The Skidder using a SMBC phone is a "capital" offence).

Olwen's son Stephen is also standing for the Council this week in Princes End. I was standing a few feet away from him last year in the Council chamber when this childish prat made a gross display of disrespect during the one-minute silence following the death of Councillor Docker - making comic gestures of wiping away tears etc. Nice man!

Fortunately, Cllr Ian Jones is not up for election this time round which is fortunate as he would not be able to stand anyway as he placed himself (with Cllr Hussain) in voluntary administrative suspension with the Labour Party. He cannot stand for election until this is rescinded nor attend "Labour Group". He (like Hussain again) has stood down from Labour's joke "Cabinet" to "clear his name" although it is still a mystery what the allegations against him actually are? It is said by the press that it was something to do with the Bog-gate Scandal (a Skidder exclusive story). But what?

Certainly other Labour Councillors like Costigan and his own wife, Olwen, previously sought to involve themselves in the use of the former bogs at the aptly-named Shambles:

Olwen fully recovered from her 1990's agoraphobia?

but the only publicly-known involvement of Ian was when he went on BBC local radio and lied to Adrian Goldberg about the valuation report on the three blogs involved. He crazily lied that the valuation had been done AFTER the secret sales of the three sites which was errant nonsense. I went on to prove this was a lie via a Freedom of Information request but when I personally confronted Jones with this he still didn't have the b*lls to admit it. He gallantly blamed hard-working SMBC staff instead who he alleged had supplied an "inaccurate briefing paper". (Even this shows he is prepared to parrot whatever he is told to say no matter how ludicrous it might be!)

So come on Ian, Olwen and Stephen - tell us - and your potential voters - exactly what has been going on?

I don't know how much of Olwen's compo money is left with all three of this lot claiming to be unemployed. The last available Labour Council figures (March 2014) show that excluding any pension payments Ian scored £26,386.08 from the taxpayer by way of allowances whilst Olwen had to make do with just £15,876. Idiot Boy scored slightly more - £19,371.

And so, excluding pension payments the taxpayer paid this little Wednesbury version of the "Three Degrees" just £61,633.08 in one year alone.

Of course, Ian's mystery resignation from the Cabinet will hit him in the pocket (cue Stephenesque dabbing away of crocodile tears....)

Just to finish off this "Wednesbury Round-Up", Postman Prat is working as is Cllr Bob Lloyd although the latter works for an organisation providing housing services to - yes, you guessed it - Labour Sandwell Council. The Joneses are all unemployed as are another husband and wife team of Councillors - the Hughes's.

Sandwell Labour keep piling money into sport at any cost and Peter Hughes is a trustee of Wednesbury Rugby Club which leases its ground from, er, Sandwell Council and also received a small £500 grant which Labour were bribing small clubs with last year.

Costigan is also up for re-election. She is another who uses social media to pump WC as much as possible and she is yet another of the labour army of unemployed councillors (no wonder they can't encourage business into the Borough!) One strange think about Elaine is that her apostrophe-free twitter profile used to contain a hymn of praise to the woman-bullying Labour "leader" Darren Cooper - "The Turdmeister" himself! "Hes [sic] a really great guy", she used to say but this has mysteriously disappeared! Has she joined Team Hackett for his forthcoming leadership challenge, I wonder?

And finally, in the incestuous world of Wednesbury, Labour are making great play of yet another new leisure centre being built whilst totally failing to say that the skint Council are having to BORROW the money to pay for it. Like much else they have spent on - they have mortgaged your kids - & maybe the generation after that to the hilt. It is also interesting that they thought their own Leisure Trust (where one of Labour's nominated trustees in ex-bankrupt Cllr Joanne Hadley) was unfit to run the new West Bromwich Centre (which was farmed out by the socialists to a private, profit-making company instead) but it was given the Wednesbury Centre without question as a reward for not opposing the bent Public deal.

Funny old world up Wednesbury way.....

If you have evidence of possible corruption at Sandwell Council please speak in confidence to DS Wayne Haynes and his Team on 0121 251 2175 - police Regional Fraud Team.

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