Sandwell Covid B*lls, Comrade Cooper & More ...

 PPE 

Remember the early days of the pandemic when Sandwell Labour Councillors whipped themselves into a state of hysteria over PPE (personal protective equipment) and used all available means to attack the Government? As ever in bent Labour Sandwell, wherever Labour "politicians" lead, the deeply corrupted paid service is sure to follow ...

In May, 2020 a spokesperson for Chief Executive David Stevens and the Council decided to attack the national Government and told the Local Government Association (LGA):

"PPE, unsurprisingly, has taken up a lot of our time. We have been liasing with care homes [plural] about PPE. The stocks available have simply not been good enough. We should have done better. If local government had been involved from the start we could have got more PPE distributed more effectively to care homes."

[This was said in May 2020 when the crisis only began - outside China - in mid-January starting a race by countries world-wide to secure the limited supply of PPE available at that time].

This caught my attention since 84% of UK care homes are owned by private owners. There was a crisis with these businesses competing in the world-wide scramble for scarce resources but supply was soon organised through the Department of Health & Social Care, the NHS and, where possible, UK manufacturers (a PPE Portal was set-up to streamline FREE supply of PPE to care homes -and many others - which has been extended to mid-2022). Why, I wondered, with a pandemic raging was Stevens concentrating resources on private care homes when there was surely quite enough for bent Sandwell to be getting on within its own remit in the crisis situation? Was this to appease his Labour masters?

A response to a Freedom of Information request now shows a completely different picture:

"The Council has one [my emphasis] care home, Fountain Court."

"There was no difficulty in supplying PPE to Fountain Court. PPE was supplied from the Council's Central Stores and via Central Government Local Resilience Forum".

So there you have it folks, contrary to the propaganda, the truth was that there was no problem with PPE at the one Council care home in Sadders and it was being adequately supplied by a joint operation via local and central government! 

It gets odder still! It seems that it was the bent paid service itself that was in meltdown since Stevens and the Council stated via their spokesperson:

"At one point in March ... [SMBC staff] were scouring the internet and looking to pay for PPE with credit cards. At one point someone was ready to spend £5,000 on PPE. When you do that, you know something has gone wrong".

Indeed one does! There are specific procurement procedures in the Council both for transparency and to counter fraud. What credit cards did Stevens mean (surely not staff using their own cards) and why were the correct procedures not being followed? Why had something in the Labour Council "gone wrong" so badly?

Once again, however, a FOI response paints a different picture to the "news" item, which begs the question why David Stevens caused and/or permitted these allegations to be made and published nationally by the LGA? The truth is this:

"Credit cards were not used to purchase PPE for Fountain Court".

Also, in March, 2020 SMBC spent a relatively trivial £3,636 on PPE for general Council use using SMBC's own procurement cards. (The FOI is silent whether the goods were ever actually delivered and whether they were fit for purpose. There is no price comparison showing whether Labour were ripped off or not. Mr Stevens has not supplied details of who these suppliers actually were - not Labour cronies one hopes!) But at least the employee who was going to splash £5k of our dosh was stopped in time!

Further PPE suppliers were added to the Council list of suppliers using - it is said - proper procedures.

The truth is that, like the rest of the Country, Stevens's Council did not hold stocks of PPE for general staff use. Somehow Labour had not seen the pandemic coming lol, whereas they say the Tories should have!

The Council spokesperson also stated, "we always knew enormous stocks would be needed." What a shame bent Labour didn't get on to it then before Sandwell had the staff looking at ebay and whipping out the credit cards!

Clearly there was panic within the bent paid service, as now admitted above, but why did Stevens and the Press Office seemingly decide to, at BEST, grossly exaggerate the situation via national media? They caused the position to be described as a "scandal of epic proportions" to the media so as to bash the Government. Why, when this was NOT the situation in Sandwell? I think we can probably guess can't we readers?

At least now there is an official opposition to bent Labour this sort of sh*te can be questioned contemporaneously and duly exposed for what it is.

Incidentally, I have now written TWICE to the LGA asking them either to remove or correct the original article but, so far, I have not even had the courtesy of a response. No doubt Mr Stevens will himself write to them to correct the record!

More Sandwell Labour bullsh*t before Sandwell recorded the worst Covid rates in England!

I'm in trouble lol!

My friend Satinder Dunn has upbraided me for not mentioning her in my reflections on last week's election results. My piece was not intended to be a ward by ward analysis but I am very happy to say that although Satinder lost, she raised the Tory vote spectacularly in Cradley Heath & Old Hill from 349 last time to a stonking 1,187 votes. Local morons decided they preferred Labour's Vicki Darby-Smith despite her involvement in bent Labour Sandwell's "crony contract" to run the Xmas Lights events at Blackheath and CH (a total shambles at Blackheath in 2019 which was slammed by locals as being extremely dangerous!) Even with the evidence available to them these xxxxs voted for Labour cronyism and failure! Weird!

Incidentally, the Tories appeared not to have committed significant resources to CH & OH last week but that will no doubt change next year, as Satinder only lost by 63 votes. In fact, she still polled more than Labour's ghastly Eling-rimmer, Ann Shackleton, did when winning the seat in 2019! 

There probably won't be any posts next week (as I am working away) and so don't forget to read the Election Result Special:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2021/05/small-earthquake-in-bent-sandwell.html

The Bent Blues and "Partners"

Just in today - another example of the corrupt relationship between West Midlands Police (WMP) and the bent Labour Council.

The Times newspaper wrote to WMP raising certain issues concerning me and the Council. This was a press request from a national paper to the Bent Blues so what did they do? They immediately sent the request and their reply straight to their corrupt pals! 

Quite how this sort of thing fits in with Data Protection issues is a question in itself, but when there are people at the top of WMP preventing investigations into SMBC criminality I suppose that is the least of our worries.

The GMB's Fraternal Fatso (yes, I know - pot and kettle!)

Chief Executive David Stevens appears to be dancing to the tune of Sandwell's Unions in general and the GMB in particular. But not so long ago the GMB were most upset that their malign influence was waning in the sh*thole Borough.

This caused the wobbling Ian Cooper, Il Presidente of the GMB's notorious s85 branch and Chair of Halesowen and Rowley Regis Labour Party to fire off an intemperate email on 1st January 2020 to (then) Labour Leader, "Red" Yvonne Davies. Besides being grossly defamatory, Cooper whined that the unions needed more influence. As if we didn't know, the Leader was expected to kowtow to "the Party".

Here is the derogatory and defamatory email and I must stress that it was absolutely NOT leaked to me by Yvonne Davies herself. Further, Darryl Magher has never been a member or supporter of Britain First!

What a disgrace when the unelected union and Party try to run the Borough and to tell an intelligent - if sometimes misguided - woman who she can and cannot talk to and how to do her job!

This is why folks, it's time to change!

THE SANDWELL SKIDDER - COMMUNITY NEWS - READ THE SKIDDER, KIDDER!

**** Phone No: 07470 624207 ****

Email: thesandwellskidder@gmail.com

Facebook: Julian Saunders  

Facebook Group: The Sandwell Skidder - Speaking Truth To Power!

Twitter: Publisher: @CrowMultimedia; Julian Saunders: @SandwellSkidder            

Post:  Jules Saunders, 11 Chelworth Road, Birmingham B38 0BG

PROUD TO HAVE BEEN TROLLED BY DICKHEAD DARREN COOPER DECEASED!

LEGAL NOTICE (Version 3 from 14th February, 2021)

I cannot list every previous mention of individuals referred to in the entirety of this blog. Where I refer to a specific story please follow the supplied hyperlink since this forms legal justification for later comments. Similarly references to “posts passim” and to earlier posts mean any individuals concerned about purported defamatory or otherwise unlawful material must read later posts in the context of earlier posts. Full information can also be supplied within a reasonable time upon application via email to thesandwellskidder@gmail.com

In most cases we try to give the subjects of these blog posts the opportunity to comment on our journalism pre-publication to ensure the accuracy of our work.

Every now and again we make a genuine honest error and get something wrong. If an error in the blog affects you please email thesandwellskidder@gmail.com and we shall use our best endeavours to publish appropriate corrections forthwith.

We have had to remove the direct comment facility from this blog due to the activity of a West Bromwich woman but we are pleased to receive comments via email to thesandwellskidder@gmail.com , on Twitter via our publishers @CrowMultimedia or via our dedicated Facebook Group: “The Sandwell Skidder - Speaking Truth to Power!” We are happy to publish any sensible commentary and offer a right of reply where applicable.

If you consider that anything written is defamatory or otherwise unlawful please email thesandwellskidder@gmail.com or telephone 07470 624207 forthwith. If your complaint has merit we shall endeavour to make immediate amends.