Bent Labour Sandwell became past masters at delaying and/or rigging Standards investigations against those Councillors alleged to have breached their Code of Conduct. What of the record of the current Monitoring Officer. Michael Jones?
On 13th March 2025 I made a standards complaint against a Labour Councillor. This was to the effect that s/he had attempted to suborn the Chair of a Licensing Committee meeting to provide a favourable decision for a friend. Jones was informed of this "in real time" and steps were taken to prevent the [alleged] corruption. Labour knew full well what was attempted but have taken no [public] steps against this xxxx and I have personally seen an email where a Labour Councillor expressed disgust at his/her misconduct. As far as I am aware s/he has not been deselected by Labour and so the public will be invited to vote for him/her without being aware of his/her activities.
On 18th March 2025 I put in a multiple standards complaints against some of the Councillors who voted for "Independent" Councillor Richard Jeffcoat's pathetic motion trying to stop arms trading with Israel [Skidders passim]. This was because several of those voting failed to declare an interest in that they (e.g. Piper) or their spouses (e.g. Carmichael) were members of the Local Government Pension Scheme Jeffcoat sought to attack (with no consultation whatsover with current of future pensioners). Once again Jones was directly involved in that he attended the meeting but completely failed to advise Councillors to make the appropriate declarations of interest and/or to recuse themselves from the vote. I have seen the video and he did appear to have been awake at the time.
ADDENDUM 25/02/26 - if memory serves Carmichael did not vote on the Motion but "let it be known" that she supported it - which was a signal to her mindless flock to "baa" at the right moment.
When I submitted both complaints I pointed out to Jones that it would be inappropriate for him to deal with them since he was personally involved in both cases. In May, 2025 Jones claimed that in respect of the alleged corruption case HE had been consulting with the "Independent Person" [sic] (usually a Labour crony). Why was HE doing this when he should have stood down from the case?
He then advised that he HAD stood down from the alleged corruption case and passed it to "Deputy Monitoring Officer James McLaughlin" who had apparently "concluded his review" and would soon be contacting me. This was on 22nd July, 2025! Not a dickie bird from McLaughlin seven months on! WTF is going on?
No-one has yet responded in respect of the second complaint. Accordingly I wrote a formal complaint to the very highly-paid and now part-time Chief Executive, Shokat Lal, on 19th December, 2025. No reply! Perhaps Lal is spending too much time dealing with governance issues in his other gig at Tower Hamlets? Or he is out on the p*ss with the Hugheses again - using taxpayers' money (as pictured)?
I have reported the egregious delay to the Ombudsman and voiced the suspicion that both Complaints are being deliberately held back until after the May election. What do you think, eh readers?
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