Lal and Bent Labour's £4,000 p*ss-up + WMP politicisation

Just another quick reminder of the update to the revised legal notice below. Please take a look if you haven't already done so.

Lal and bent Labour whoop it up in skint Sadders - no austerity now!

In my last post* I explained that newish, highly-paid, Chief Executive, Shokat Lal, had been out partying at taxpayers' expense with Labour Cllrs Randhawa and Hughes at a fake "Business Awards" event. And this despite Sandwell Labour's hatred of business and enterprise!

These utterly meaningless "awards" ceremonies are a gift that keeps on giving as there is a steady stream of gullible fools anxious to part with their - or in this case, OUR - money. The way these scams work is that the organiser sets up a posh black-tie event and then canvasses local business to buy tickets at it. Usually, "Joanna Bloggs Limited" receives a random sales email that the company has been "nominated" in a certain business category - "best new business", "community excellence champion" and other such b*llocks - and is invited to fork out at least £90 per head to attend the beano. If the company is mad enough to fork out they get included for an actual - and wholly pointless - award - selected by cronies of the organisers. The only real winners are, of course, the organisers themselves.

One such is a major rimmer of bent Sandwell Labour, Ninder Johal of Nachural Events. Here he is playing the fool with his old mucker, former Sandwell Labour Leader, and wife beater, Darren Cooper. 

Johal is said to also be a personal friend of Cllr Pam Randhawa. I have written to her asking if this is correct but she has failed to respond. Nevertheless she managed to bag herself a seat at the posh do, at taxpayers' expense.

A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request makes interesting reading not least since it shows that Lal hasn't got his finger on the pulse and the paid service is as shambolic as it always has been during the currency of this blog.

Due to redactions in the FOIA reply it seems a third party was involved but we can see that Johal had sent out a round-robin looking for sponsors (rather than businesses per se). This came to be dealt with by Sandwell's "Anchor Network Coordinator in Sandwell Growth [sic]" whom Lal is bizarrely refusing to identify via the FOIA. The person claiming to do this job is one Nicy (correct spelling but pronounced "Nicky" - ! - ) Morgan. At some point Tony McGovern - Sandwell's flash Director of Regeneration was also involved.

The "invite" was vague - starting "How are things? Hope all going well? Please could you forward this to the correct person internally? Thanks." But it did also include the enticing comment that it was "an excellent opportunity to promote ... your new CEO."

Ms Morgan (it seems) tried to get the "budget" to attend this worthless event - i.e. to get someone to agree to shaft us taxpayers. McGovern started to get copied into correspondence but in Lal and McGovern's circus the paid service claim that they cannot trace who actually authorised the booking. Lal says there is no document showing who in the incompetent Authority agreed to expend public money on this event. Nevertheless, Ms Morgan was able to say to Johal on 2nd June, "It's a yes" plus a smiley emoji.

At some point Ms Morgan (?) invited Lal and McGovern to attend the bash but it seems that Lal didn't read the email since a further email from Sandwell's Communications and Corporate Affairs Manager  (who he/she?) was then sent to Morgan (?) on 19th June which makes interesting reading:

"Shokat has just messaged me to ask:

Hi I have just seen on linkedin that we are sponsoring the Nachural summer dinner in July ‐ i am just interestedin knowing what this is costing and do we get any time at the event to speak ‐ and who is leading this? thanks"

We have seen time and again that the deeply corrupt Council is using messaging systems - WhatsApp etc - to avoid leaving a paper trail showing what is really going on. Happily this message was recorded in a subsequent email. Clearly Lal is intending to carry on in the same manner as his disgraced predecessors, Britton and Stevens - and that is something the Commissioners need to address whilst they are still in situ.

This also shows that the partying decision was not made by Lal himself. The assumption must be that McGovern made it, but couldn't be arsed to keep any records about it. Lal appears to be concerned about the cost as well he might be since it was £4,000 plus vat. But clearly the new CEO was comfortable with this since he was quick to don his best bib and tucker to get some free food and booze.

The sponsorship of a meaningless "awards category" at £4k of our money provided a table of 10 tickets but, curiously, only four attended. As pictured above Lal, Hughes and Randhawa were quick to get their noses in the taxpayers' trough plus one "junior employee", whom Lal is refusing to name (although the smart money is on Morgan). If this was such a prestigious event and we had paid for 10 Cllrs/employees to attend anyway, why did only 4 show up? And that's £1,000 a head just for a night out.

Lal has confirmed that the taxpayer-funded food and alcohol for the jolly and, no doubt, he and the "junior employee" have declared this on their Employee Declaration of Interest.

As above, normal attendance tickets for these w*nkfests start at £90 a head. In fact Johal is already trying to flog tickets for the self-same event next year at £110 per head. I duly wrote to Cllrs Randhawa and Hughes asking why neither had declared the jolly on their own Register of Interests. Hughes failed to respond but Randhawa wrote this:

"The council was one of the sponsors for the event and the costs of any hospitality received is valued by the council to fall below the threshold (£50) requiring disclosure on the Gifts and Hospitality Register."

When an event is publicly priced at well over £50 per head who the f in the Council "valued" this at under £50? Was this Lal himself so that he didn't have to declare his own register entry. I think we should be told don't you readers?

Sandwell Police - support by association?

This blog has occasionally run a "Cops*ckers" feature showing social media posts where the local cops are seen to be - metaphorically - fellating Sandwell Councillors. We have also seen that, for reasons unknown, the local plod and noddy plod (the PCSO's) literally - and I mean literally - have been seen queuing to be photographed with lying Labour Cllr Parbinder Kaur (who was found to be in breach of the Councillor's Code of Conduct when she lied about her property interests). Why FFS?

There has been some improvement in local policing in general recently, and in their social media output in particular. Long may it continue - although there are again signs of slippage when it comes to Kaur:

Now here's a thing. Cllr Kaur has very publicly been supporting the campaign for a separate "Sikh State" called "Khalistan" to secede from India. I was communicating - separately - with two Sikh readers recently who both expressed concern with regard to this. They were anxious to assure me that not all local Sikhs supported the Khalistan idea. 

But now Kaur has sailed to even wilder shores actively supporting Hamas, a proscribed terrorist group in the UK:

Perhaps Sandwell Police should be a bit more circumspect about who they associate with? Or do they endorse Kaur's views?

Quick updates ...

In my last post (link below) I mentioned that Lal is fighting full disclosure of Matt Huggins's coffee van - alleged bought unseen from eBay. It is believed this is the actual vehicle:

AND Lal is also preventing disclosure of the letter of complaint bizarrely sent by Surjit Tour to Aileen McColgan KC concerning alleged deficiences in her handling of the McNally case. That has now been referred to the Information Commissioner.

Same old, same old Sandwell ...

Watch this space for a big story - hopefully at the end of this week plus outrageous behaviour from the local Tory Group ...

* https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2023/10/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-next.html

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