Vote Rigging, Job Rigging - Sandwell Labour "Business as Usual"!

 Attempt to rig Tividale vote

Thanks to Shaun Bailey MP and Conservative Party observers, Labour were prevented from nicking the local election in Tividale Ward in May. I need to say straight away that there is no implication to be drawn from what follows that any named individual was personally responsible for what happened. Someone was, but we just don’t don’t know who (yet). But when the bent paid service in the rotten Borough of Sandwell (aka “Sadders”) has been involved in, and connived with, so much Labour cronyism, corruption and incompetence during the last few years (as recorded in this blog) it is hardly surprising that an attempt would be made by elements of it to scam election results.

Let me just explain some features of how an election count works (and to keep this short, I am ignoring the minefield of postal votes here). The Chief Executive is usually the Returning Officer (RO), and so recent Sandwell elections have been ultimately overseen by Jan Britton and David Stevens - both of whom were, er, disgraced and shown the door! Beneath the RO (another payday for Interim CE Kim Bromley-Derry this year) are other persons including highly controversial figures such as Surjit Tour and Maria Price (Skidders passim and see legal notice below). This pair - both Solicitors - have been involved in many of the matters written about in this blog and there is very serious cause for concern about their conduct, not least that both were directly involved in the unlawful funding of Lisa McNally’s crazed High Court action against me which cost the bent Borough over £100,000 (more to follow on this soon).

ADDENDUM 30/06/22 - there were at least FOUR solicitors in Sandwell's bent paid service directly involved in the McNally affair, one of whom has left SMBC. In addition to Tour and Price, the Returning Officer has also confirmed that Vanessa Maher-Smith was also a "Chief Counter" in Zone 1.

Whatever Tour may or may not have been up to, he was the Head of Legal and Governance when so much went disastrously wrong and the Government was forced to appoint Commissioners to run bent Labour Sadders for the next two years (at an estimated cost to moronic locals of £2m!) He has not, however, seen fit to resign his highly-paid position.

(Incidentally, can I ask yet again for your help here since I am preparing a dossier on Tour which is already online and being updated “as and when”. Tour is currently refusing to provide details of many of the standards investigations where he has invariably exonerated Labour Councillors from wrongdoing. If you have any information please let me know - contact details below.)

 You can also read the dossier so far at:

http://crowmultimedia.blogspot.com/2021/12/monitoring-monitoring-officer-case-study.html

A few months ago the local Tory Councillors queried at a full Council meeting whether Tour was a fit and proper person to be involved in the election. Whilst they dropped the issue it was still a good question. I must repeat here that there is NO evidence of Tour being involved in ANY electoral malpractice at all, but there is still a concern that someone prepared to traduce the rule of law in the McNally case, and to have behaved as he has done in other matters raised in this blog, should even be in post let alone being in day to day charge of elections. Hopefully he won’t be around for the next one and submissions have been made (and are still being made) to relevant parties to bring his term at Sadders to a conclusion (and, as with Jan Britton, without a pay-off).

Beneath Tour are a tier of  SMBC employees who have the powers of returning officers and there is nothing to suggest that they have misbehaved in any way. One of them was working with Maria Price on Zone 3 but there is absolutely no suggestion whatsoever that they were personally involved in what went on there. Having said that - there were shenanigans by persons unknown on their “watch” which they seemingly did not spot.

The Sadders count is split into 3 zones - alphabetically by ward name. Each Zone has two supervisors - all employees within the bent paid service. Once again, and as above, there is NO evidence that any of these supervisors was guilty of the attempt to rig the vote, but there are some interesting names, known to readers of this blog in supervisory positions within the democratic process. Maria Price (Skidder’s passim and see legal notice below) was one and, indeed, was in Zone 3. 

Neil Cox was another. Neil was an acolyte of David Stevens and Stuart Lackenby who, despite those unfortunate associations, has been rapidly promoted within the bent paid service. He was involved in “Tractorgate” but, more notoriously, was also the author of The Cox Review (Skidders passim). This is the explosive report disclosing much wrongdoing by former Chief Executive, Jan Britton, plus racism and procedural missteps in former Leader Steve “Squealing” Eling’s successful campaign to bring down former Labour Deputy Leader, Mahboob Hussain. That vendetta was heavily supported by one of Eling’s chief rimmers, Kerrie “Dim Kez” Carmichael now, incredibly, the current Labour leader who, as reported here, has publicly lied about the Cox Review and deliberately blocked its publication. And so, presumably, Cox now has to keep quiet and toe the line or risk losing his highly paid job. Happily, judging by his suppressed  “Review”, Cox is incorruptible but this cannot be a comfortable place to be in.

Oliver Knight was also on parade. He was the long-serving and seemingly highly thought of guy whose reputation for trustworthiness was trashed by SMBC Director, Lisa McNally, in the infamous “Happy Christmas” staff briefing - available via this link:

https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2022/01/new-year-sandwell-rimmer-special.html?spref=tw

(If you haven’t got time now to follow the link at least watch the video - https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eK1xoMRPPRA - as it is comedy gold!)

Many of the Sandwell counting staff are current or former employees within the bent paid service. Whether any have been involved in the corruption raised in this blog can’t be said, but there was at least one rotten apple in the Zone 3 barrel at the May count.

I am not sure whether it is a Covid thing but there seem to be less party officials allowed into the counts now (which would suit Labour). This means that there are more people actually counting the votes than observers. An observer can stand in front of one person and watch the actual process, but can’t watch several folk counting at the same time.

It is fair to say that the Conservatives have had serious concerns about some recent counts and, as we shall see, they were right to be concerned.

In May, 2021, Labour Cllr Maria Crompton (also involved in the conspiracy to unlawfully fund McNally but still trying to keep it secret) won re-election in Tivi, beating local Tory, Emma Henlan, by 150 votes. 

Following the untimely death of Cllr Sandra Hevican (who was not a Tivi resident) a by-election was held in Tividale and Labour selected the deceased’s widower, Rob Hevican, (also not a Tivi resident) to contest the seat. In the incestous hermit kingdom of Sadders, Mr H is a former employee of the corrupt Council. Once again, I must stress that there is NO evidence of Hevican being personally involved in the deep-seated corruption of the Cooper/Eling/Britton era although it has to be said that he was working in, I believe, Democratic Services [sic] yet seemingly suffered from temporary blindness and deafness during this period of employment as he was apparently totally unaware of all the wrongdoing going on around him!

The fact is that many of the supervisors and counting staff knew Hevican personally and were saddened at his loss. Nevertheless, he lost by 176 votes to Emma, who was standing again for the Conservatives.

Despite the comfortable margin of this victory the Tories still worried about the Count and so Shaun and his colleagues decided to pay particular attention to Tivi this time round. Emma stood down and the Tories selected another from their stable of whip-smart youngsters (see, e.g., Cllr Will Gill), Amrita Dunn. 

Incredibly Labour started the usual dirty tricks and made great play that Amrita doesn’t live in Tividale (she lives in B68 rather than B69) whereas Hevican lives miles away in Wednesbury! It was going to be close, but there was shock when Hevican was said by the supervisors in Zone 3 to have “won” by 2 votes.

Without being too technical, votes are counted in bundles of 25 for each candidate. Shaun and his colleagues demanded a recount and went through everything with a fine toothcomb. 

It is always possible that the odd vote may find its way into a bundle but if a “rogue” vote is placed on the top of a bundle then the whole bundle of 25 is counted for that candidate.

There was confusion at the Count as it was claimed at one point that two bundles had somehow “gone missing”. But then not one but TWO bundles were “found” - each contained 24 votes each for Amrita but someone had placed a “Hevican” slip on top of BOTH bundles.Thus he secured an extra 50 votes rather than two.

This was a blatant attempt to steal the vote. I was actually watching the Tipton Green Count but all hell was breaking loose in Zone 3. By rights the candidates should have been level-pegging since 2 votes went to Hevican from this bundle and 48 to Amrita which turned out to be her exact margin of victory. Yet, unless there was a miscount originally, Hevican was said to have initially won by 2 votes????? Whatever actually went on - one or more persons slipped two Hevican votes in front of precisely 24 votes per bundle for Amrita.

Shaun Bailey was irate - quite rightly. I am not sure if the Conservatives made any sort of official complaint about this but I am sure Kim Bromley-Derry must have held an inquest into this shocking attempted voter fraud, and I am sure that as he is now also one of the Government Commissioners he will wish to release his findings to the public.

Kim Bromley Derry (KBD) & The Payments List

KBD, the Interim CE at bent Labour Sandwell (and, curiously, one of the two Government Commissioners) seems to talk a good game but is he delivering? 

By law, the bent paid service has to publish a monthly list of all payments made over £500. But, under KBD, the "Head of Legal" [sic] Surjit Tour is trying to unlawfully conceal information. Regular readers will know that I recently wrote about the joke situation where Labour is screwing the hard-pressed morons of Sandwell with rent increases, council tax increases etc. and yet has agreed to spend MORE public money on the propaganda department! Bent Labour employed Promodo (a firm of consultants) to provide a "review" of the hitherto useless half-a-million-pound-a-year press office but refuse to disclose their findings, and did not even attach them to the Report to Council members when they approved blowing even more of OUR money on this nonsense. Not only that, but KBD and Tour are saying they will break the law and won't disclose how much they paid Promodo! This has been referred to the Information Commissioner but how is this illegality being allowed by a guy who is also a Government Commissioner?

Tour and his colleagues also redacted the names of all businesses receiving Covid Grants on the unlawful and spurious ground that this was a data protection issue. All other councils have published the information and when I raised this with KBD he agreed that the records would be duly amended to name the recipients as the payments were to businesses (even if some are sole traders).

It was also assumed that KBD would get the bent paid service working efficiently but when I consulted the list TODAY this is what I found:

Although it is almost the end of June, the s.151 Finance Officer has not bothered to publish the list since FEBRUARY! This is as bad as anything under the hapless Darren Carter! 

And, what's more, even in the list for February vast swathes of recipient's identities are STILL redacted despite KBD's promises.

Help please:

1   I received information that bent SMBC arranged for its staff to clear vegetation over several days at a site near Britannia Park, Blackheath for a private property developer. Alas the date was not given, but if anyone has any information on this, including the precise site, please let me know;

2  I am now receiving a number of comments concerning Matthew Huggins. More information welcome please. (And yes, I know all about the book!)

Soccer Gets the Boot

Bent Labour are screwing y'all for millions for the z-list Commonwealth Games whilst also shafting Sandwell Leisure Trust. 

Since I started writing this blog, bent Labour has poured colossal sums into sport and yet the comrades consistently make life difficult for the Warley Football League, a longstanding local sports organisation.

There is, of course, a reason for this. Corrupt Labour have been trying to flog Lion Farm Fields, where the Warley League plays regularly, in a bent deal with Tory property developer Jeremy Knight Adams (work that one out!) It would suit Labour very well if the League folds and quits the pitches.

There have been Labour attempts to shift local teams to pitches on the other side of the Borough and a host of minor annoyances regarding the collection of pitch fees etc. Now they have massively hiked the fee for each pitch from £60 to £75.80! So much for encouraging sport and fitness!

Incidentally, you may have seen the press reports recently that bent Labour did not spend all the money the Tory Government gave YOU for the Covid crisis. And so the comrades have now drawn up a plan to blow the money on festivals and all sorts of junk projects. Surely this money should have been allocated to education, health and fitness and some of it used to promote football on local pitches? Why couldn't the football pitch fees be held for, say, another season with the Covid money? But, when bent Sandwell Labour see a drain, they cannot resist pouring your money down it!

Imogen Walker

Again, regular readers will recall that this friend and associate of Labour leader, Keir "Sir Woodenarse" Starmer, was given a plum job by KBD and Rajbir Singh although she lives in Scotland (by her own account)! Facts are beginning to emerge about this outrage and hardcore Skidderati might like to read the Freedom of Information Request I have put in about this today. You will note that, amazingly, KBD and Rajbir "The Boy Blunder" Singh rigged up the job and made it an "interim" position to avoid the expenditure having to go through tiresome Committee approval! The link is here:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/appointment_of_starmer_associate

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