Travels With My Aunt?

Stay with me Sandwell (aka "Sadwell")....

Nice folk keep asking me to investigate the doings of Birmingham City Council (BCC) but I am afraid that, with other commitments, I am struggling to stay afloat under a tsunami of information about deeply corrupt Sadders and have no time at all to spare for the "Second City" (save that I am keeping a watching brief in respect of allegations of (a) an elected wife-beater (never did Labour's Darren Cooper any harm - unlike his victim) and (b) an elected "member" having use of a property to facilitate drug-dealing!)

Perhaps because of my work exposing the Sandwell Councillor Lying Lucy Cashmore* people have been contacting me with regard to BCC Labour Councillor Valerie Seabright.

One of the joys of what passes for local democracy in this country is that councillors are supposed to live in the area they represent. I am sure Brummie Councillors dare hardly venture out of the front door without constituents bending their ears about the piles of  rubbish left in the streets by Corbyn's stormtroopers in Unite the Union. But whilst that may be tiresome it is a good thing - particularly as national politicians become ever more distant both metaphorically and, as we shall see, physically.

And so Brummies - can you help me with this? Is La Seabright struggling to pick her way through the piles of stinking detritus in highly marginal Kings Norton? The answers must be "no" if she is living just down the road on the, er, Isle of Wight!

I wrote to Ms Seabright and asked her where she is living but she has declined to answer. Yet a number of people (including one councillor) are telling me she lives on the island.

She was first elected to BCC in May 2012 but the only Register of Interests online is dated 4th June, 2014. Her declaration confirms that she was not a tenant of BCC or any associated body as at that date, had no licence to occupy property in the City and does not own any property there.

A Companies House search shows that she has been involved with two companies until recently but gave correspondence addresses for both. This begs the question of where she was supposed to be resident when she stood for election again in May, 2016 - being re-elected with a majority of just 23 votes?

Straight after the election she certainly headed for a "break" on the Isle of Wight until 28th May, 2016.

The electoral register shows that one Valerie Seabright is eligible to vote from Flat x, xx Landguard Road, Shanklin, Isle of Wight. Is that her? As above, she won't say where she is living. If it is her, why has she gone on the electoral register there?

If Ms Seabright has moved away, residents of Kings Norton may feel that she should resign and that there should be a by election but perhaps she feels she can emulate the conduct of another, more prominent, absentee Labour politician as it is said that she is the aunt of none-other than Labour's Deputy Leader - the vicious bully-boy Tom "Lazy Tom" Watson MP!

Perhaps the locals down Kings Norton will heed the words of "Ticket to Ryde" [geddit?]: "Before she gets to saying goodbye, she ought to think twice, she ought to do right by me."

Tom Watson was the joint laziest MP 2010 to 2015 and pretended, for electoral register purposes, to be shacked up Chez Cllr Simon Hackett - "The Sandwell Slasher" - in sunny Wednesbury whilst actually living in London. He also spent time in the fragrant burrow of the apparently talentless Ms Stephanie Peacock in Halesowen - she is, unbelievably, now the Labour MP for local, er, Barnsley East! He is still refusing to say whether he paid Capital Gains Tax on a property he co-owned in London. He then moved to the house of a Unite the Union official in trendy Southwark/Bermondsey. He has, of course, sh*t his nest with Unite (whose unfortunate members also bankrolled his lifestyle) but he now has several millionaires throwing cash at him and he has moved to Vauxhall, also in London. All this time he purports to "represent" in Parliament the sh*t-hole that is West Bromwich East and where he is the de facto Dictator of the appalling Sandwell Labour Group.

As Sandwell readers will know - it is no good expecting thuggish Tommy to do the right thing. If you think he will change you will be waiting till the Cowes [geddit] come home.....

* The records show that Lying Lucy - with the active connivance of West Midlands Police - took the taxpayer for £50,339.55 in allowances. Nice on top of her own pay (now received from the Express and Star Group) and her husband's salary from, er, Labour Sandwell Council. Ironically - she WAS resident in Kings Norton (Brandwood)!

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PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!

The Britton Doctrine "Lol"!

This blog has frequently asked how Jan Britton, the joke "Chief Executive" of Labour basket-case Sandwell (aka Sadwell) Council, has managed to keep his job when - if he is to be believed - he was simply unaware of the fraud and corruption going on all around him for seven years?

We all know that the three old political leaders [sic] of the dismal outfit - Cooper, Hussain and Eling - appointed some under-qualified staff to very highly-paid positions. If they failed they were booted out with a huge bag of taxpayers' cash. Thus Neeraj Sharma was taken on as head of Legal despite her disastrous record at Walsall Council. Britton himself had a very thin CV when given the top job. The seemingly untalented Melanie Dudley was promoted to the post of, er, number two for no apparent reason. Existing staff were paid large salaries to do the bidding of the ruling triumvirate. Bubalo was directly involved in virtually all the frauds reported on in this blog but apparently uses the "Jan Britton" defence favoured by the man himself ie he simply didn't notice what was going on! People like Scarrott and Satchwell were always very happy to do whatever they were told. All mentioned have now gone with handsome pay-offs.

Two senior figures who allegedly tried to stand up to these three - Stuart Kellas and John Garratt - soon got the Spanish archer with no reasons ever being made public.

It must be remembered that - even on the most charitable view - the majority of Labour's elected members in Sadders are as thick as two short planks and have never run a bath. Yet there have been frequent allegations by staff of bullying - notably by Cllrs Hussain and Hackett - when these strutting peacocks have attempted to throw their weight around. And, of course, we all know that the late Leader, Smethwick Scumbag Darren Cooper, had sh*t for brains.

I have frequently asked why unintelligent Councillors are involved in the day to day running of the Council (I am currently working on a major fraud allegation where the employees involved are copying in a cabinet member to EVERY email -why?) I have also questioned why the pathetic Britton gave a number of councillors "access all areas" security passes? This led directly to allegations of files going "missing" and also of Cooper, for one, roaming the offices groping female workers (see posts passim).

Most Sadwell-watchers had assumed - particularly noting his track record - that this was all simply because Jan Britton is as weak as p*ss. He hadn't got the balls or the intellect to stand up to the leading three and passively bent over whilst they shafted him - the pain being assuaged with a pay package of nearly £160k. But those of us who thought that he was just a dormant greaser prepared to passively grovel to these three (and others) were barking up the wrong tree - this feeble character was an active proponent of sucking off the, er, "members" as a 2012 document recently obtained shows!

The leader "lol" of the bent and out-of-control paid service wrote to all staff on 17th December, 2012.

He mentioned that in a series of meetings staff had raised concerns about the relationship between staff and members. For someone with half a brain and knowing what Cooper was like this should have been a big red flashing light but not to the obsequious principal officer. He stated, without irony, "it is a characteristic of failing councils that they have poor working relations between employees and Members" (note mere employees are not worthy of a capital "e").

We have seen that Britton has allowed staff to be used to support the aims of the bully-boy Cooper and The Labour Party and he used this internal memo to personally take a sideswipe at the constituent parties of the then coalition government citing Colchester Council where he cited a distinct divide between the liberal towns and the Tory countryside.

But he went on to ORDER his cowardly underlings to kowtow to the dimwitted elected sheep:

"there is no such such thing as Members interfering with something [seemingly including inappropriate touching of women staff] - the Members are the people who are elected to form the Council and they have every right to be involved in whatever way they wish - as long as it accords with the Council's constitution and the law of the land and, if it doesn't, that's probably our failing not there's [sic], because it means WE haven't given them appropriate advice about the constitution and law."

He went with this stream of total sh*te:

"The key as far as I'm concerned, is not to tell the members to "butt out" and let the employees get on with it - that's the way of the past not what we do in Sandwell....."

Is it any wonder that - if he was NOT directly involved in any wrongdoing - he completely failed to see what was going on under his nose? And, for example, is it any wonder that Cllrs like Peter Hughes could bully staff in the manner set out in my last post?

Of course, the employees who have to put up with this have no adequate union representation despite paying their dues.

There are now four independent councillors on Sandwell (excluding Mahboob) and surely it is time that they put down a motion of no confidence in Britton at the full Council meeting in October? There are a number of the Labour sheep who are unhappy with Jan though it is said Eling won't sack him as Britton "has too much on him", whatever that means (although Eling and Marshall have said that his time will come). No doubt The Milkman would demand a whipped (!) vote but the sheep would finally have to show whether they are still the cowards they were under the "leadership" of the old wife-beater or had finally "grown a pair" (metaphorically).

"Blind Steve Eling"

Like Britton, "Leader" Eling is another who was at the heart of the Council throughout the years of corruption, cronyism and incompetence but apparently didn't manage to see anything untoward going on. One might think he may have missed things because of his onerous day job as a political officer at nearby, er, Rotherham Council. Yet he was also among many at that other Labour basket case who "missed" years of shocking child abuse there.

[Incidentally - please put October 17th in your diary when there will be another demonstration of solidarity for the 6,226 victims of child abuse in Sandwell over the last five years outside Oldbury Council House before the full Council meeting.]

Eling continues to work at Rotherham where he must be on a good salary and have a gold-plated pension as well as claiming large allowances from Sandwell taxpayers.

On top of the well-paid day job "Blind Steve" has received , in the last 11 years, a stonking £365,433.16p in allowances. No wonder he eschews living in sh*t-hole Smethwick where many of the mugs who vote for this shower live and prefers the bucolic surroundings of "the summer palace" in leafy Derbyshire whenever possible. But as he is missing so much going on around him he really should use some of his considerable wealth and go to Specsavers!

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Fox Off Zorro!

Even by the standards of the weird bunch of Labour Councillors in the socialist hermit kingdom of Sandwell (aka "Sadwell") Cllr Peter Hughes is up himself. For some bizarre reason this strutting peacock calls himself "Zorro". Maybe he would like to think he is one of Sandwell Council's notorious amateur swordsmen or perhaps he sees himself as an avenger of the helpless who strives to aid the oppressed? Or perhaps he is a bully like so many of the cohort from the corrupt Cooper/Britton era?

Take this gem from the diminutive dictator of Wednesbury North...

Hughes decided to assist a constituent who had received a parking ticket. Nothing wrong with that if he used the proper channels ie assisting with the appeal and, if applicable, providing supporting evidence. But we have seen time and again that the joke "Chief Executive" Jan Britton has allowed councillors to throw their weight about at will and, with the pathetic trade unions at Oldbury, condoned bullying. And so Zorro ignored the proper channels and fired off an email direct to Sandwell's then Principal Parking Officer, Kira Fleck.

Even though he was helping a constituent with regard to a parking ticket he marked the email as being of "high" importance and copied in another employee, Sharon Lang, and THREE other councillors!

The formidable Ms Fleck wrote a perfectly sensible reply asking that the proper appeal procedure be used and asking that Hughes please desist from emailing staff direct on such issues. Hughes went ballistic and fired off a reply giving the employee a right dressing down (where was pathetic Jan Britton whilst this was going on?) Hughes stated that unless there was a "formal procedure for Councillor's on appeals" he would continue to write to her "as the senior officer in that team". Even though her email was a perfectly reasonable outline of the proper procedure Hughes wrote to her "I would have expected a more constructive and less dictatorial email from you in this instance." To enhance this shocking bullying Hughes also sent this email to another employee, Sharon Lang again, presumably to denigrate Ms Fleck's reputation and also copied it to the same three councillors (none of whom seem to have taken Hughes to task for his behaviour)!

Hughes also made a cryptic comment to an employee whose job was to enforce parking notices: "officers and members should work together to resolve residents' problems on the ground here, which other Highways Officers are doing!!!" Clearly this suggests that yet more cowardly employees in Britton's bent paid service were/are happy to do the bidding of their political masters.

No here's a laugh: Ms Fleck replied to the puffed-up Councillor using the salutation "Cllr Hughes". This buffoon replied:

"When responding to emails (from Councillors or not) do you not adhere to the normal pleasantries in your salutations? It is not good manners to start off a message with just the person's name. Having been a Council officer myself, I consider this grossly impertinent." Again this bullying was copied in to a fellow employee and three Councillors.

So did Hughes address his two email to Ms Fleck with appropriate formality given her status or did she not deserve this as a silly woman and - in his perverted view - an errant employee? No. He sent both his emails with the opening "Hi Kira". What a f*cking t*sser!

Incidentally:

Information was passed to bent West Midlands Police about the alleged interference of Cllr Mahboob Hussain (and possibly others) in respect of parking issues around mosques (and lest we forget the cunning comrades sold a huge plot of land suitable for future development to Tipton Mosque for just £20k allegedly as "overspill parking". Also - thanks to the Skidder's disclosures the sleazy socialists had to pull a similar - and bent - deal to gift land in West Bromwich to the Dartmouth Street Mosque.)

There were allegations - unproven as yet - that parking tickets have been cancelled for Mosque attendees and that parking rules were deliberately not being enforced near to mosques. In the latter regard here is what "Zorro" also wrote to Ms Fleck:

"What makes the situation more galling is that...[residents] in Kendrick Street have a major issue with illegal/inconsiderate parking on yellow lines lower down the street from visitors to the Medina Mosque in Walsall Street just round the corner. They have complained about this relentlessly for five years but the problem continues, and there is little enforcement action being taken against the perpetrators in that case!!!"

I wonder why not.....

Info Please:

1   Can anyone flesh out the facts surrounding "that incident" involving Hughes at Wednesbury Rugby Club please? I have written to the man himself but he has declined to respond so far!

2   We now have information about a very senior male (and married) officer of the Council boning a female employee. A little more information very welcome.....

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No phone at present - please use email.

Email:  thesandwellskidder@gmail.com                      Facebook:  Julian Saunders

PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!