Monday, 7 August 2023

Bumper Summer Skidder! Double "Holiday" Edition!

When you are cowering beneath any available shelter during our Great British Summer here's some horror stories to, er, make y'all feel even more miserable - courtesy of bent Labour Sandwell Council! 

Alice Davey - the worst Director's performance since Alison Knight?

Over the years Labour have realised that the people of Sandwell are so craven they can be bought very cheaply - "circuses" without the bread. Thus thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money have been wasted on a series of "events" over the years. Many have been disasters, and the vast majority have been loss-making as well! Bent Labour really can't organise a p*ss-up in a brewery!

But in these straightened times Labour's crazed, spend,spend, spend behaviour is unsustainable. Now the incompetent Comrades think that they can actually put events on AND make money from them.

Enter Mr Matthew Huggins - an employee with an interesting back story if ever there was one! I have received countless reports that since his arrival bent Labour has been "spending money like water"  on events etc. - despite the presence of the Government Commissioners. The Skidder keeps being told that there is "a massive hole in the budget". Recently, Huggins was "relieved of some of his workload" to "help him", but remains at the Council.

Back in the day, Liam Preece chaired one of the most notorious meetings of this corrupt Council when he and his Labour colleagues attempted to give retrospective legality to their bent deal to flog Lion Farm Fields (incredibly, still an ongoing issue) They switched off the sound recording for the relevant item. In the history of this blog this was the stage for the most truly awful performance by a Director of the paid service, the hapless Alison Knight (Skidders passim). Knight's performance that night was one of breathtaking ineptitude but, as we shall see, the recent "up yours" hubristic show from the Director of Borough Economy, Alice Davey, was marked by stunning arrogance and seeming contempt for the Council and the watching public.

Curiously, Preece was purporting to be chairing the meeting this time too. He is, of course, as weak as p*ss and a pathetic rimmer of Tom "Twatson" Watson. He was an ineffectual Labour Councillor in Charlemont and Grove Vale before Charley folk realised how useless he is and chucked him out. In true Sandwell Labour-style he was soon found another seat. The scum* in West Brom Central thought they needed someone crap to "represent" them and duly voted him back in!

I know that some readers don't like to click through to videos posted on the blog but you really need to see this shocker from a recent Audit Committee meeting. Please also note the astonishing comment from Preece, "I haven't seen the strategic risk register for sometime". This was spotted by local Community Activist, Darryl Magher, who rightly questions why Preece hasn't seen this all-important document for so long when he is CHAIR OF THE F**KING COMMITTEE!

As you will see, Preece tries to ask for figures showing whether bent Labour IS actually making any money from the considerable sums they have chucked at "events", but Davey, in an outburst of management babble about going "offline with this", flatly refuses to tell him or the watching public the true position (and I think we know what that is don't we readers?) Preece shows the firmness of a milk jelly with her, and when she effectively tells him to "do one" - he does! ROFLMAO!


This is truly shocking even by Sandwell-standards. Questions must be asked about what went on here and, of course, the public needs to know what the (inevitable) losses actually are! 

Yes folks, Wednesbury is STILL sh*t!

Over the years, this blog has consistently pointed out that bent Sandwell Labour Councillors hate business and enterprise - except when it comes to enriching themselves in which case they are all for it! Most of them have no business acumen whatsoever and on the wilder shores of this cesspool, the lunatic fringe like Cllrs Piper and Fenton yearn for the destruction of capitalism and private enterprise altogether!

Socialists are nothing if not sentimental and yearn nor a non-existent past where workers supposedly had "dignity" and comrades nearly destroyed the economy through endless strikes. Sandwell Labour has this absurd nostalgic hankering for markets. No, not financial ones which ensure the efficient use of capital and create wealth, but street markets where you can buy a pair of cheap knickers and a cauliflower in the pouring rain.

There are many reasons why many markets up and down the country are failing or have failed, but these don't appear to have come to the attention of Sandwell's corrupt Council. I know Wednesbury is a sh*thole but, as a quondam market trader myself, the Market is a woeful sight. This does not stop the Labour liars bragging on the Council website that, "Wednesbury is one of Sandwell's ... most vibrant markets."  WTF must the rest be like?????

And so bent Labour decided - once again - to revamp their pathetic previous efforts. There is nothing in Wednesbury that would not be better for facing a visit from the Luftwaffe but, under the guise of a "heritage project", some hopelessly designed stalls have simply been plonked around the old, er, Market Place and the top of Union Street. The Wednesbury Labour Councillors - some of the worst in the Borough (and that's saying something) - were quick to attend photo shoots metaphorically masturbating next to the, er. empty stalls.

And, of course, they have remained just that - empty! Now the anti-business Labour comrades have hit on a brilliant wheeze to make the stalls pay their way lol! Yes, you guessed it - give them away FREE! They are advertising for anyone holding public liability insurance to take stalls for nowt on 6 Saturdays from now. 

I have said so often on here that these jokers couldn't run a whelk stall - but they can't run any other type either without compounding losses to us taxpayers. Total *****!

And on the subject of markets ...

Bent Labour have also used 49 years of dicatorship to run West Brom Indoor Market into the ground. These jokers now want to invest millions of our money in a super-duper new Market Hall. There are experts around the place who can advise on such matters (admittedly at a price) but Labour Leader Kerrie, Dim Kez, Carmichael is trying to rehabilitate the Criminal Councillor, Steve "Rocky" Melia (although I use the work "rehabilitate" with caution as Melia has not, hitherto, achieved any level of competence or aptitude), and so Kez sent the Crim on a taxpayer-funded jaunt to gawp at Crewe Market. The only things this nasty, dimwitted, POS has ever run are his mouth and his fists, and so we await his views on running markets with, er, no interest whatsover.

Here he is, appropriately highlighted in yellow given his pathetic cowardice:

A Gunn to the Head?

You good folk keep sending me stories and this one can best be described in an email I sent to Dim Kez regarding Alfred Gunn House on 4th July, 2023:

"THIS IS NOT A PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL COMMUNICATION - PRESS ENQUIRY

"I have been informed, rightly or wrongly, that you personally were heavily involved in awarding a contract for the renovation of Alfred Gunn House to Seddon Construction.

"The allegation is that firms such as Lovell quoted in the region of £40m whereas Seddon put in a low-ball offer of around £11m (although the stated contract value ended up at £14m). There is no allegation (yet) of corruption but an allegation of further SMBC/Labour incompetence in the groupthink determining that the Council was getting a bargain from Seddon.

"I am also informed that Seddon have run up costs already of around £28m and work remains incomplete.

"Are these allegations true and, if so, what is the final figure budgeted for this project?"

Needless to say, Kez is happy to shoot her vicious mouth off at me but has failed to respond to this email. Incidentally, I also wrote to Seddon who have also declined to respond. 

Obviously Carmichael wants to create more work for Council staff and so I have duly obliged with a Freedom of Information Request (link below)

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

This looks like another big Labour scandal in the making.

Gove's Commissioners not interested in alleged Sandwell "fraud"!

I received some intelligence from a Council whistleblower. Over the years a number of staff have asked me to raise issues with the Council as they have been too afraid to do so - with good cause especially during the appalling bullying of the Cooper/Eling/Britton and Stevens eras.

In my chaotic way, I "lost" the complaint in my paper mountain but when I found it again it seemed from other intelligence received from staff that a couple of the alleged miscreants may have already been dealt with. I did, however, send a precis of the complaints to the Commissioners - complete with the names of most of the accused. Here is an anonymised version - and please remember that these are just unproven allegations:

Employee A sits in the office with 3 or 4 mobile phones selling cars during work time. He also leaves work during normal hours to work on cars.

Employees claim flexitime for [the whistleblower alleges] "working" beyond normal hours from home. It is alleged that these claims are fake.

Materials for jobs are ordered without any inspection of the actual sites. The waste is "unbelievable". Materials are left to rot in all weather and then have to be disposed of as "hazardous waste". "Tons" of sand are delivered to even the smallest of jobs. Patios and driveways are supplied for "special tenants". Disabled wet rooms are installed and then "able-bodied" tenants put in so that the bathrooms are ripped out and reconverted at yet more expense.

An employee bullied numerous members of staff but SMBC only moved him/her to another section.

An employee has interests in companies undertaking voids maintenance work.

An employee took a redundancy payment but was reemployed, in an alleged scam, the following week under a new job title.

The response from the Commissioners has been gob-smacking noting, as above, that some names were supplied. Kim Bromley Derry and his co-Commissioner will NOT investigate these matters AT ALL -  because they say they do not fall within the legal definition of whistleblowing! WTF? So much for sorting this corrupt Council out! This is what you are paying £2m for (thanks to bent Labour).

Parts of this could, of course, be a Police matter but given the corrupt relationship - at least (possibly) - until recent times - that also looks like a non-starter. Carry on bent guys and gals - you are immune from sanctions!

The naughty boys and girls list

My "rolling" blog on (a) Sandwell employee miscreants and (b) SMBC staff doing work "on the side" is proving popular and more information is welcome. Oh, and there should be a couple of absolute humdinger entries coming soon ...  Watch this space! You can find it via this link:

https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2023/07/sandwell-council-rolling-log-of.html

Of course, the former Labour Leader [sic] of the Council, the tyrannical Cllr Steve "Squealing" Eling was not an employee of SMBC but he was raking in the allowances whilst also working for nearby, er, Rotherham Council. Of course, he institutionalised corruption at bent Sandwell during his evil regime (Skidders passim ad nauseum) - one of the main reasons the Commissioners are in now at your expense. Here is the entry for your convenience in case you don't want to click through and read the whole of the existing post:

"This is a slightly odd entry in this list since Eling was not an employee of Sandwell Council but the political Leader of it whilst also working at another Labour basket-case Council, Rotherham. Thus he was raking-in pay at one council and allowances at the other.

"Eling was reported by a number of Sandwell employees as having a vile temper and he institutionalised the corruption which was already rampant when he was one of two Deputy Leaders. Rotherham MBC claimed that he was working for them as a “political officer” but that this was NOT a politically-restricted post.

"As the corruption intensified on his watch at Sandwell the long-serving and (too) loyal Cabinet secretaries were suspended after Eling thought they had exposed the Monitoring Officer in what appeared to be misconduct. A Councillor in the private section of the Council House where the Leader’s Office is situated was heard screaming, “I want the f*ckers out and I don’t want the f*ckers back”. Many sources say this was Eling and he has never formally denied the allegation. (As it was, Eling was totally wrong and the secretaries were not the whistleblowers. They were all reinstated with an apology and a small compensation payment. The principal senior employee doing Eling’s dirty work was hapless s.151 officer Darren Carter who moved on to Reading Council despite his track record.)

"Since Eling was splitting his time between Sandwell and Rotherham (and actually living for most of the time in a pretty north Derbyshire village) he needed a right-hand man to be his enforcer at Sandwell whilst he was absent, and he chose a ludicrous figure, Cllr Richard Marshall. The pair met with me and in return for exposing two other of their senior Labour Councillors (which I was doing already) they offered to  feed me confidential Council information or, as they put it, there would be “more leaks than Wales”. 

"To that end the pair set up a WhatsApp account to send the confidential information to me. Most of the feed is available at my post of 5th November, 2017 - “Steve Eling - You Are a F*cking Liar!”. Amongst much appalling output the pair (a) asked me to give the female Assistant Chief Executive “a good kicking”, (b) suggested they might arrange a travellers’ site next door to an enemy’s property development so the travellers could “shit in the gardens” of the new houses, (c) alleged that a fellow Labour Councillor's partnerwas a transexual or, as they put it, “a cock in a frock, and (d) envisaged a married Labour Councillor “sp*nking” over a female Councillor “in her bikini” since this would be better than the male “doing his wife” - also a Labour Councillor.

"Despite Rotherham Council having full knowledge of all this,  and in the sick, sick, world of local government, they made Eling their “Equalities Officer”. Eling was suspended by the Labour Party and did not contest his Council seat but remains the Chair of an important local charity, Warley Woods Community Trust, who think he is wonderful and are content to ignore his truly shocking track record (of which this extract only details a small part)."

Brandhall - What's in a word?

There is now very serious concern about the conduct of the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust. This blog reported that the Trust provided a (controversial and disputed) survey of the wildlife on the lovely Brandhall Green Space (formerly a golf course replete with mature trees). As we have seen, bent Labour loves destroying green spaces in Sadders and is determined to force through a development wrecking a substantial part of the site. 

When this was forced through the Council, Satnam Sahota's puppet and tenant (Skiddder's passim) Peter "Alberich" Hughes stated in public that the green space that survives will become what is laughingly called an "eco-park". He further stated that the Wildlife Trust would be getting the gig to "advise" on the eco-park - thus profiting from the destruction of a beautiful environment teeming with, er, wildlife.

This blog previously described how I wrote to the Trust and asked whether it was part of its charitable purpose to destroy valuable green space in an urban setting, and (b) to then make profit from this. Was there not a clear conflict of interest here? The Trust said they were unaware of Hughes's public comments and had NOT made any arrangement with the bent Council to profit from further work at the site.

ONLY 83% of the locals who responded to the initial plan were against this devastation (!) but bent Labour is setting up a separate group of cronies and rimmers to "consult" with about the project - thus sidestepping the existing - and vocal - local campaigners. A meeting was held for the patsies to give "their" thoughts and Labour invited the Wildlife Trust too. Sources told The Skidder that. at the meeting, the poisonous Hughes again claimed that the Trust would be cashing-in by advising on the project "going forward".

Once again I wrote to the Trust and in respect of the meeting they stated:

"The Trust was invited to attend a public meeting organised by Sandwell Council to gather the thoughts of the local community on the future of the site.  We felt it was important to attend this meeting to ensure that the ecological and biodiversity implications for the site were fed into this discussion as appropriate and to have the opportunity to hear directly from members of the local community about Brandhall."

Once again one can only say - as I have done in writing - that the Trust has chosen to only hear the views of that section of arse-lickers Labour has created to represent the pro-vandalism view. This included six Labour Councillors and seven SMBC employees. Strangely the Council say three reps from the Brandhall Action Group were present, but a group of the campaigners denied this and say that if anyone attended they were NOT there on behalf of the protest campaign.

Curiously Labour invited along something called the "Lion Farm Action Centre" which is ironic noting that Labour are planning to also destroy Lion Farm Fields. What the hell are they doing helping bent Labour destroy a large part of Brandhall?


We have seen that bent Labour have "bought" many local charities (see "Scips" below) and a worrying further statement from the Trust reads:

"I also made it clear [in the earlier correspondence referred to above] that the Trust had not received a formal approach from Sandwell Council about the Trust’s involvement in the future of the site.  These facts remain unchanged. "

Note that the word "formal" has suddenly appeared. This implies that there have indeed been "informal" discussions for the Trust to profit from this egregious environmental damage. Are they pulling my chain? It certainly looks that way since I wrote to Hughes and he had his ventiloquist's dummy, Tony McGovern, Sandwell's Director of Regeneration, respond:

"It is no secret that the Council has made a commitment to work with the Birmingham and Black Country Wildlife Trust on the Brandhall site ..."

Well the "charitable" Trust has certainly been trying to keep this secret! But money talks ... This is really sick (in the traditional meaning of the word.)

SCIPS - have your data rights been breached?

This - the Sandwell Community Information and Participation Service [sic] - is one of the most egregious "fake" charities in Sandwell and whilst purporting to be an independent charity acting for tenants it is largely funded by bent Labour SMBC and acts as a pathetic mouthpiece for the corrupt Council.

It is another of the charities in Sandwell which feeds off other charities who coalesce together to "work" with each other, rather than with real people who actually need their help. If you are a tenant in Sadders it is hard to see what SCIPS would actually do for you if you needed help. Oh, and SCIPS call real people who need help, "customers" (pass the sick bag, Alice).

The organisation also has "members". But any tenant group members also have to be, er, "registered" with the bent Labour Council (as with - now - all community groups who seek help or funding from the twisted Dictatorship).

Recently, someone contacted me as SCIPS had passed their personal contact information to the corrupt Council who duly sent him/her a survey questionnaire (asking for extensive personal details). This appeared to have been a very serious data breach and I duly wrote to SCIPS who advised that a list of all "members" had been supplied to the corrupt Council and that SCIPS consented to the Council asking for this data so passed it over pursuant to what the Information Commissioner calls a "legitimate interest". This is highly debatable and I am looking into this.

Even more worryingly, if you were an individual tenant who has consulted the Charity for help, your data may have been passed to SMBC too. SCIPS allege that every individual who received a survey/questionnaire has given their express permission for SCIPS to pass their data on AND for SMBC to use it (since once the data is received by the bent Council they too can only use it in accordance with the Data Protection Act).

All this came as a surprise to my correspondent who had no idea his/her personal data would be handed over to the Council by the Charity. And SCIPS has failed to say how it obtained the consent of individual users of their "services" for disclosure.

If you are an individual who received a questionnaire  - or even if you didn't but are concerned about this - please contact me via the methods set out below. YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO COMPENSATION!!!!

And in another of those amazing Sandwell "coincidences" I tried to search the SCIPS "privacy policy" today but it was "not available" on the website. Now just fancy that!

The History of Sadders: Part 94

I recently came across this gem from a 1996 edition of the brilliant Private Eye Magazine. This reports corruption within bent Labour Sandwell Council and a total failure of the craven Wolvo C*cksuckers (aka The Express and Star) to report it. These are themes constantly exposed in this blog since 2013 and which still continue to this day!


And if you have insomnia ...

For those who want to get into the nitty gritty of what Sandwell Council legal department has been doing there is a new blog in the Crow Multimedia stable. This is actually intended to cover any interesting legal points from councils across the land but, at present, there is more than enough Sandwell sh*t to expose. 

You can find the blog via the link below and there are two posts on Surjit Tour's unlawful use of public funds to pay for McNally's legal case:


* The 2023 Sandwell Scum Counter can be found via this link:

https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2023/06/the-all-new-2023-sandwell-scum-counter.html

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 or Skidders 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.


Wednesday, 26 July 2023

BREAKING NEWS: The Turd of Sandwell aplogises!

Who knows what, if anything, goes on inside the head of the "Leader" of bent Labour Sandwell Council, Kerrie "Dim Kez" Carmichael, and what on earth was behind her crazed decision to make Bent?* Billy Gavan the Mayor of Sandwell? Anyone who has had anything to do with Sandwell politics knows that Gavan is a complete **** and it is incredible that bent Labour should make him The Turd of Sandwell when he had left the Party to join the Tories (who immediately kicked the scumbag out lol!) Perhaps Kez appreciates the fact that, like herself, The Turd is unable to control himself in polite society (Skidders passim).

This blog forecast that Dim Kez's decision would end in tears and so it has come to pass in just 56 days. On Monday this blog reported some of The Turd's appalling behaviour at the Extraordinary Meeting of the corrupt Council on 18th July. You can watch a couple of short videos via this link:

https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2023/07/turd-begins-to-smell-much-more.html

Not one Labour Councillor in the history of this blog has ever apologised for their appalling misconduct - save for a couple of examples when they were forced to do so! Not so long ago a pathetic former Mayor, Mushtaq Hussain, steadfastly refused to say sorry for his outrageous behaviour. But last night The Turd apologised publicly although it is highly unlikely that such a loathsome person would have done this without being forced to do so. I explained in Monday's post that he was opening up the Council to potential legal action by his bullying threats to elected members. He is also itching to have a go at people lawfully present in the public gallery.

Like many who bully, The Turd is a pissy-kilt coward (Skidders passim ad nauseum and see legal notice below). Before his inexplicable rise to the Mayoralty Gavan usually used the tradesmen's entrance (no double entendre intended) to enter Oldbury Council House so as to avoid protesters and journalists outside the linkway. And for the first time in living memory he did this last night as Mayor, which was a sure sign that even this thick plank realised his conduct last week was well out of order.

There was talk of the Conservative Councillors refusing to stand when The Turd entered the Chamber but they bottled it, and duly rose to honour this POS.

The Turd was nervous when he started the meeting and read the same passage about filming the meetings out twice. He then had to be shown what to do next. Bent? Billy then said this about last week's shaming degringolade:

"I have reflected on my conduct and accept that it fell short of what is expected of me given my position."

THIS IS AFTER JUST 56 DAYS!

Reading from a prepared script (!) The Turd then "sincerely" apologised to the Council collectively and to two Councillors in particular.

When Mushtaq Hussain lost the plot there were only a couple of meetings left before the end of his Mayoral term of office and he was replaced for the final meetings. But The Turd is in office until next May and given his vile personality the bookies after offering 4-1 ON that he soils himself and the reputation of the Council again before too much longer. This is frightening, as is the prospect of his Deputy taking the Chair as she gives every outward appearance of being brain-dead!

As the old saying goes, "we live in interesting times!"

* Bent? as in corrupt?, crooked?


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 or Skidders 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.

Monday, 24 July 2023

Turd begins to smell + much more!

Mystic Skidder

On 21st May, 2023 I wrote a blog about Labour's Bent?* Billy Gavan becoming the new Turd Of Sandwell (aka Mayor) who may or may not be one and the same person who raped taxpayers for £5k in a corrupt deal (** blog link below and Skidders passim).

It was only a matter of time before this POS soiled the mayoral robes and started to behave in his usual appalling manner. In particular, I pointed out that Bent? Billy would soon attack the Tories - not least because he is a prissy ***** who joined the Conservative Party online - but they had the good sense to immediately kick him out when they realised. ROFLMAO!

And so it came to pass at an Extraordinary Meeting of the corrupt Council concerning bent Labour's disastrous dustbins deal with Serco, which has caused so much expense and misery for Sandwell folk. Please take a look at the shocking conduct of The Turd in these two short clips, and note especially his incredible statement that he was "dying" to throw elected members out of the Chamber. I warned Sandwell  - from personal experience - that Bent? Billy is a complete **** but he cannot be allowed to get away with this sort of behaviour. Not only is he bringing the Council into even more disrepute (if that is possible) but he is opening up the rotten Borough to potential legal action.

Turd: the inevitable, Part One

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/t7jP6fb-OGo

Turd: the inevitable, Part Two

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMKu0uzmxKA

"Fascist" Rally in Wednesbury (LOL!)

Talking of Bent? Billy, here he is leading an all-white rally of Brexit-loving right-wingers (or whingers) in sh*thole Wednesbury:

This event was actually a knees-up run by a "charity" called Lets Dance Again (of which more anon) which revels in nostalgic w*nkfests where the same elderly xenophones who shafted their children and grandchildren over Brexit - due to their hatred of "foreigners" - wave Union flags with a frenzy that makes a Nuremberg Rally look restrained.

One of the "trustees" of the "charity" put up 70 (seventy) photos of the above event on social media and in a startling display of Wednesbury white-power there did not appear to be a single person present who was not lily-white - incredible given the diversity of Sandwell folk, and astonishing in that charities these days are supposed to be "inclusive". Also - this organisation is using large parts of Wednesbury Town Hall for free courtesy of corrupt Sandwell Labour so that the taxpayer is picking-up some of the the tab for these horribly jingoistic assemblies.

And "cumming" soon is the one event of the year guaranteed to create an orgiastic frenzy over the cod'n'chips (roe and chips also available) - a performance by the D-Day Darlings! Notwithstanding that attendees would have to be 79-plus to have even been born at D-Day there are a miniscule number of flag-wavers who were even around on that fateful day, let alone involved in the invasion but, hey, it was a victory over the kr*uts, and that's all that matters.

It's deja vu all over again!

Of course, Let's Dance Again (LDA) is a plaything of the odious liar, Elaine Costigan (Skidder passim ad nauseum), who has taken the opportunity of getting out of the crap town of Wednesbury asap, and now lives in bucolic Staffordshire. Regular readers will recall her poisonous involvement in an identikit organisation, Wednesbury Celebrates (WC!), which duly became mired in scandal.

WC screwed the taxpayer and funding organisations as well as being a promotional tool of the bent Labour Council. Many Sandwell charities are, of course, fronts for corrupt local Labour and, as with WC, history is repeating itself. This is part of a letter I recently forwarded to the Charity Commission (with a redacted copy to LDA itself) - unfortunately some of what follows must remain redacted for the time being:

"Let’s Dance Again CIO - registered no: 1202816

This so-called “Charity” has only recently registered with you and there is an opportunity for the Commission to intervene here at an early stage and to prevent history repeating itself. The Trustees are apparently flouting Charity Law and urgently need guidance on the appropriate way to conduct themselves.

I refer as evidence herein to numerous blog posts published via thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com with regard to a (former) organisation called Wednesbury Celebrates and those relating to Elaine Costigan, who is now a Trustee of Let’s Dance Again CIO (LDA). If the Commission requires assistance I will be happy to refer to specific blog posts. I did, however, make public a redacted copy of a Report I submitted to West Midlands Police in respect of some of the antics at Wednesbury Celebrates:

https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2015/10/wednesbury-celebrates-crime-report.html

[Redacted]

It is of considerable public concern that LDA is a clone of Wednesbury Celebrates in almost every way. This time, however, LDA is a registered with you and you have regulatory oversight.

I refer you to the LDA Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/431916475621940/

(Let’s Dance Again CIO - public group.)

[Redacted]

The Trustees of the Charity recently bought expensive tickets specifically for a Labour Fundraising Dinner. I have invited those attending from LDA to confirm whether they used the Charity’s funds to pay for these tickets, but have not received a response as yet. Here is an edited extract of a recent blog post about the event:

“Interestingly Labour First, which organised the flash dinner event, didn't give much of a discount for tables of ten:

(Image: "Tickets are £100 per seat or £1,000 for a table of ten")

Another point of interest is that although this was a political fundraiser a number of people from Let's Dance Again turned up. LDA is, of course, the bastard child of the infamous "Wednesbury Celebrates" run partly by former Councillor Elaine Costigan. That piece of work used Wednesbury Town Hall for the former organisation without bothering to actually pay any rent (Skidders passim and see legal notice below). Since the supposedly "public organisation" folded she has steadfastly refused to say what happened to its remaining money.

To facilitate Costigan and her pals SMBC decided that, for the most part, community organisations could use Wednesbury Town Hall for free. Costigan and others set up LDA and now boast that they have taken over the balcony for their use and also hold regular events in the main hall with use of the kitchens etc. If Costigan and/or others repeat the previous trick, LDA will also be trying to screw the taxpayer for funds via the bent Council.

The difference this time is that LDA has recently registered as a "charitable incorporated organisation" (CIO) with the Charity Commission - the trustees being Costigan, Debora Price and Maxine Hipkiss. This means that they will eventually have to file an annual return and accounts which will be publicly available. What is surprising, therefore, is that the Trustees and at least one other LDA person turned up at the Labour fundraiser (if you exclude the cynical view that they hope to screw money out of Sandwell Labour Councillors). Costigan, Price, Hipkiss and someone called "Jo" turned up - ostensibly paying £100 a ticket. No doubt they paid this out of their personal money since it would clearly have been wholly inappropriate to use the CIO's money for such a purpose. I am sure they will hasten to confirm the position so that I do not need to alert the Charity Commission about them too!”

End of blog extract.

The Labour Mayor of Sandwell is described as a “guest” at the LDA table and it is not clear whether LDA paid for his ticket too. Further, it is not known whether any other expenses for attendance - additional drinks, taxis etc have been booked to the Charity.

I do not believe what follows is technically illegal but it is very surprising that - just as Wednesbury Celebrates did - LDA is holding collections at events for other charities and not for their own funds! At the latest event the collection was for the Mayor’s Charity and not for LDA itself. Whilst this is a blatant attempt to curry favour with the Mayor it is also surprising noting that LDA will inevitably have to seek external funding as it racks up large losses on its uneconomic events.

End of letter.

External funders will indeed be shocked that LDA is raising money for other charities rather than applying these funds for their own supposedly charitable aims!

But the Trustees continue to take the p*ss

Once again LDA has actively been promoting the Labour Party. Here is my second letter to the Charity Commission today which needs to act NOW.

"On 28th June, 2023 I wrote to you regarding serious concerns about two Sandwell charities, Sandwell Leisure Trust and Let’s Dance Again CIO. I await your acknowledgement but, in the meantime, further matters have arisen in respect of the second “Charity”, Let’s Dance Again (LDA) 

I should have mentioned in my first letter that this organisation’s address (as shown above) is “℅ Sandwell Council”!

In my first letter I referred to the trustees using the “Charity” for Party political purposes. The promotion of the Labour mayor and the attendance of the Trustees at a Labour Party fundraising dinner being two of the questionable examples noted.

A redacted copy of my letter to you was forwarded to the LDA Trustees and they have provided a two-fingered response. LDA used yet another of their events to promote the Labour Mayor (again) and also Labour’s Tom McNeil who has aspirations to be the next Labour candidate for Wedensbury and is currently an Assistant Police and Crime Commissioner. As the attached photos show McNeil was given the stage for propaganda purposes."

Once again the Commission needs to remind the Trustees of the legal nature of charitable status as a matter of urgency.

End of letter.



(Note that The Turd has donned the Mayoral Chain for this propaganda exercise!)


And here he is - McNeil given a platform:


Langley Labour encourage kids to execute enemies of Socialism

The Turd ran back to bent Labour Langley after The Tories scraped this particular piece of sh*t off their shoes. The three Labour Councillors in that foul ward back, amongst other things, the destruction of Lion Farm Fields. And via social media they also encourage kids to guillotine enemies in what they still perceive to be an ongoing class war. Nice people (not)!


And finally - more Sandwell history ...

I am archiving some Skidder material at the moment and re-discovered this recently about one of Costigan's gallowglasses. Mr X wrote to a third party:

"Walsall Council arranged for me to have an enhanced DBS [criminal record] certificate as one of their community champions (child workforce) so I could be involved in taking photos ... ". He seemed to think this was rather amusing when on social media:


Happily there is no evidence of him taking inappropriate photos of children, but Mr X was interested in another type of shot which is now illegal (racist expression redacted):


What a charming place sick Sandwell is!

* Bent? as in crooked or corrupt.

** https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2023/05/turd-is-new-mayor-of-sandwell.html

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.


Wednesday, 12 July 2023

Early death in Sadders, Piper the Hypocrite and more on the Cops.

Those who interact with The Skidder on social media (contact details at the bottom of this post) will know that I had hoped to bring you a big story at the end of last week. For legal reasons (which will be explained shortly) I was unable to do so, but there may be developments tomorrow. Watch this space!

More taxpayers' cash up in smoke!

I have explained to Sandwell folk a number of times that their life expectancy in the Borough is lower - sometimes considerably lower - than elsewhere after 49 years of corrupt Labour dictatorship. Some recent statistics show this, er, graphically as shown by this info on just three of the benighted Borough’s wards:




The good news is that locals are likely to slip away before their time in Sh*thole Sadders where rates of cancer, circulatory disease, coronary heart disease, strokes and respiratory disease lead to horrifically increased mortality rates. At least corruption-loving morons won't have to endure life under the Labour jackboot as long as they might if they lived an "average" lifespan.

No wonder the likes of foul-mouthed Cllr Laura Rollins - who works on NHS data - couldn’t wait to move out of the poisonous dump.

One of the answers to this from sick Labour is to build on contaminated land wherever possible, and to destroy as much of the green space left in the urban dystopia as they can - Brandhall (see below), Londonderry Fields, Lion Farm Fields etc.

Sandwell Labour's latest wheeze (pun intended) is to appoint a Tobacco Czar at a mere £49,950 per annum! As an ex-smoker I do not see it is my role to lecture folk on giving-up save to say that there are now gums, patches and the like to assist would-be quitters, and even official medical help in some cases. There cannot be anyone out there apart from the mentally-ill or irredeemably stupid who are not aware of the clear message that smoking is bad for one’s health and so it is unclear why the taxpayer has got to pony-up another fifty grand per year (plus employment expenses and gold-plated pension) for someone to repeat this very clear message. In any event, bent Sandwell already has a sizeable public health department whom taxpayers surely expect to be already “on the case”.

As ever with bent Labour all is not quite as it seems. The new tobacco nanny must also cover, er, gambling addiction or as the job advert describes it: 

“The post will also support delivery towards reducing harms for other commercial determinants (my emphasis) of health including gambling” and

“The role will include project management of an approach to address harms from all age tobacco/nicotine and gambling in particular.”

Whilst there is one readily available medical paper on the alleged correlation between gambling and nicotine addiction they are chalk and cheese. Many smokers are not gamblers, of course. The medical definitions of the two “harms” are different. Nicotine dependence is mostly pharmacological - hence the gums and patches - whereas pathological gambling is a behavioural disorder where the treatment is usually psychiatric assessment and counselling. 

[There is an excellent organisation called Gamblers Anonymous if you need help. There does not appear to be a meeting site within Sandwell but there are ones in Quinton, Birmingham and Dudley - 0330 094 0322.]

Clearly the Czar will need to be an "expert" across the range - perhaps like the unlamented Mouth of the Mersey.

Of course, this blog has pointed out that pathological gambling amongst Sandwell Council STAFF is now so bad that bent Labour and the Unions have set up a “charter” to deal with the problem! Perhaps getting them back into offices might help? And the pathetic little spiv from South London who purports to be the MP for Warley, John Spellar, has been taking expensive freebies from the bookies and their trade organisation and then praising their industry in Parliament! Here he is my recent video expressing pride in being a greedy ****:

Piper and The Nimby’s

Comrade Robert Francis Piper is, of course, one of the vilest people in Sadders and gratuitously offensive to anyone who does not share his warped crypto-Bolshevik views. Whilst promulgating the nonsense of his guru, The Jezzatollah (aka Jerry “Jeremy” Corbyn), he loves to amass personal wealth - hence why he is raking in taxpayers’ dosh as “Deputy Leader”  at age 76 (almost the same age as that other money-grubbing scumbag, Jeremy Knight Adams, whom Piper is trying to help destroy Lion Farm Fields).

In a public Council meeting, “Seig Heil*” Piper laid into the many people objecting to Labour’s plan to destroy a substantial part of Brandhall Green Space. The area around the beautiful Brandhall Green Space is RELATIVELY affluent by the standards of the Sandwell poverty ghetto, but the Bearwood Bolshie accused locals of being Nimby’s - a term of abuse usually reserved for middle class + people who object to building in their villages/neighbourhoods - hence the acronym which stands for “Not In My Back Yard.”

Of course, this is rich from the former paper-clip pusher at Walsall Council who lives directly opposite the heavily protected (unlike Brandhall) landscape that is Warley Woods. Indeed, here is a picture from outside his house of his delightful sylvan surroundings:

Incidentally, bent Sandwell Labour originally suggested Warley Woods as a possible site for The Scrotum (the Commonwealth Games Pool). Labour were desperate to build the white elephant anywhere they could and without any planning or due diligence whatsoever. After all, folks, it’s your money they are wasting not theirs. Of course. this supposedly “Green” Labour Group destroyed Londonderry Fields instead. When originally suggesting Warley Woods, however, they listed the site as Council-owned. But the indefatigable Viv Cole of the Warley Woods Trust has pointed out that most of the site is owned by, er,  Birmingham City Council which then leased the Park to Sandwell who, in turn, leased it to the Trust. Thus bent Labour do not “own” it.

Whilst Piper is desperate to destroy green space for the residents adjacent to Brandhall there is no chance of his own view and lovely local amenity being wiped out. Warley Woods is Grade II listed and is smothered with covenants preventing building (including housing). Lucky old Bob!

Of course, another Labour politician who was instrumental in the plan to destroy Brandhall was another Corbynista, “Red” Yvonne Davies. Whilst happy to wreck the environment for locals she moved to a near-half million pound “cottage” in Herefordshire - so surrounded by gorgeous mature woodland it is almost impossible to see it from the road!


Workless Tipton Cops are at it again!

On the face of it there was some good news in Tipton this week. After a prolonged campaign by West Brom West Conservative MP, Shaun Bailey, and local Tory Councillors, Tipton Police Station has been saved from closure - at least for now.

However, you have to wonder what the point is given that local Blues have so little to do in crime-free Tipton that these taxpayer-paid individuals can go out litter-picking! 

In my recent post (link below) I asked who the hell was authorising PC’s and PCSO’s to go out doing this type of work (which the taxpayer already pays the bent Labour Council /Serco to supposedly do anyway). The answer was two-fingers up from the underworked cops who then published themselves out doing it again! And this time the Bent Blues did another "copsucker" tweet bragging that officers (plural) had been out litter-picking with their pals at deeply corrupt Sandwell Council! WTF is going on?

https://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/2023/06/bent-cops-bin-strike-special.html

But … a new broom?

Rather than picking up a few Twix wrappers in Tipton we need Sandwell Police to sweep away the corruption promulgated by Sandwell Labour. There have been a few promising signs in recent times - Chief Super Rich Baker took a while, but finally realised that WMP were being played by bent Labour. And TCS Maria Fox also seemed to be aware that unquestioning support for corrupt Labour was not the way ahead. But there has been one step forward and two steps back in the last few years. There are also a worrying number of Councillors and their cronies now who have close contact with local drug and crime barons - the same ones who allegedly have close “partnerships” with, er, WMP officers.

Anyway - fair play - we need to give the new head honcho a chance and so welcome and “good luck” to Sandwell Chief Superintendent Kim Madill (pictured).


Skidder News

I am attempting to work on several projects at the moment including Sandwell stuff. But I will be stepping up Sandwell work over the coming weeks. To that end I am now specifically working in Sandwell (Bearwood) one day a week (usually Tuesdays). If anyone needs to meet me and they can get to Bearwood so much the better but other arrangements can be made by appointment as usual. Email address below.

* So-named as he walked into a crowded Oldbury pub and gave a Nazi salute whilst shouting "Seig Heil". Laughably he was Chair of bent Labour Sandwell's Licensing Committee at the time!!!!!

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.


Thursday, 6 July 2023

Sandwell Council - Rolling Log of Employee Misconduct and Outside Interests

BREAKING NEWS - Gillian Douglas, bent Labour's Director of Housing is leaving after just two years. The plan was to clear out the dross (excluding Surjit Tour) and bring some stability at the top of the paid service. Well that went well ...

Of course - the appalling Tour has now gone. More anon

In the real world of work - outside the feather-bedded environment of local authorities - employees are usually obliged by their contracts to obey rules and to act diligently. But at bent Labour Sandwell Council a number of employees have sinned in various ways - from facilitating corruption to shocking incompetence.


In many cases miscreants have been paid-off with large sums of public money. Invariably they sign gagging-clauses to prevent them from spilling the beans. But, in many cases, these people face no sanction at all for their misconduct, negligence or ineffectiveness.

This blog has recorded many incidents of wrongdoing from theft to gross incompetence. But these incidents are usually kept secret. Further, there has been a deliberate policy of failing to keep records. This ranges from outright fraud - like the bent Lion Farm deal - and the wholesale destruction of records (unquestioned on numerous occasions by the Office of the Information Commissioner and even by the Information Rights Tribunal), right through to staff who simply cannot be arsed to fulfil their contractual duties.

There has been a history of dealing and consumption of Class A drugs within the workforce. Some specific names have been supplied to Sandwell Police over the years but, inevitably, they have not moved against their pals.

We now know that many employees are supposedly "working from home" so that the Oldbury Kremlin is now like the Marie Celeste. It remains to be seen whether this fact is linked to the apparent upsurge in gambling addiction within the shirkforce. Apparently bent Labour and the Unions claim this addictive behaviour is now so bad that they have had to agree a "Charter" so that taxpayers' can also fork out for the rehabilitation of the pen-pushing punters! When it comes to bent Labour, Sandwell taxpayers - like mug punters - always lose.

In the circumstances, The Skidder Team is starting a rolling blog post to name errant employees. As SMBC staff face no sanction for most wrongdoing, it is appropriate to shine a spotlight on what has been happening so that taxpayers can ask their Councillors why this deeply corrupt Council (currently in Government "special measures") causes and/or permits this continuing sh*tshow.

Another issue that this post - which will be updated from time to time - will deal with is the moonlighting of  a number of staff. The normal rules in most councils are that employees wishing to do work on the side must get permission from line managers and, clearly, this must not conflict with the "day job". Further there is a Register of Interests where employees are usually required to list outside interests. As we shall see, in bent Labour Sandwell Council, the likes of fraudster Naseem Khan (pictured here recently with spiv John Spellar MP) simply did not report his interest in four companies to his employers. (His business interests were well known to a number of Labour Councillors who kept schtum.) Even if employees do make disclosure, the public are not allowed to see this as Sandwell claims this would be unlawful disclosure of personal data. 


It is a matter of considerable public interest that some employees cannot live on their taxpayer-provided income and need to take on extra jobs to enhance their wealth. Further, most taxpayers will be concerned that the likes of Khan can run side-hustles whilst supposedly devoting themselves to full-time for the service of the public. 

It is not illegal to take on additional jobs (subject to contractual disclosure) and no such imputation should be taken from an employee's inclusion in this blog. As ever, readers - including employees - are referred to the Legal Notice below.

Accordingly, as Sandwell are trying to keep these issues secret The Skidder Team will be providing this log. It should be noted that some of those listed may have now left SMBC but records show that they were running businesses contemporaneously with their employment.

There are some employees who have left whom we are still interested in, such as David Stevens and Stuart Lackenby . We are also interested for more on the employee who worked mostly on her back during Covid - "debriefing" a Labour Councillor.

Some of the following are historical incidents or ones that are some years old, but which have mostly only recently come to light. The list is rather sparse at the moment but we are checking anecdotal evidence about a number of other individuals, including regarding property interests. We will add to this "blog log" from time to time. Please feel free to add your own experiences via any of the contact methods set out below.

Incidentally, most Sandwell Council employees are on a cushy number as it is, but Labour and the unions are beginning to press for a 4-day week on the same pay. SMBC is full of dross but the evidence is that where clever people swing a 4-day week they do not use the spare day for leisure but do extra work elsewhere. 

Names below in surname alphabetical order.

Version 3 - 07/08/23 (Addition in Blue)

Jan Britton - this **** got away with (metaphorical) murder. Most of his misdeeds are secret, but he was instrumental with Eling and others in institutionalising corruption in the benighted Borough. He used an encrypted Blackberry to conceal his misconduct and leave no "paper trail". He colluded with Paul Reeves (see below) with regard to the evidence at a criminal trial and then lied in the witness box. Incredibly, given his all-powerful status, Sandwell Council itself reported him to West Midlands Police where his son was working at the time. Needless to say the Bent Blues did nothing. The good news was that when his disgrace belatedly came he was booted out without the usual mega pay-off - just receiving the money he was contractually entitled to. The bad news is that local government is a sick world. You might wonder who on earth would employ someone with such an appalling - and well-documented - record but the answer is Joe Harris, the Leader of Cotswold District Council. He and others decided that four councils in the area need a useless liar mired in corruption scandals to run their administrations, and so Britton walked straight into a job with Publica Group which runs the quartet.

Kim Bromley-Derry - appointed as Interim Chief Executive in a rigged process following the sacking of disgraced David Stevens this guy was allowed to retain his position as a Group Director of property developer, McLaren Construction Group. When the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Michael Gove, put bent Labour Sandwell into "special measures" he bizarrely appointed KBD as the lead Commissioner - despite his conduct (particularly in respect of the Imogen Walker affair). Gove also permitted him to retain his McLaren directorship.

Brian Carmichael - husband of the lying "Leader" of bent Labour Sandwell, Kerrie "Dim Kez" Carmichael and on the taxpayer payroll at SMBC. Dim Kez reports that he is employed as an "Architectural Technologist" who also does "private work on private properties".

Cllr Steve Eling - This is a slightly odd entry in this list since Eling was not an employee of Sandwell Council but the political Leader of it whilst also working at another Labour basket-case Council, Rotherham. Thus he was raking-in pay at one council and allowances at the other.

Eling was reported by a number of Sandwell employees as having a vile temper and he institutionalised the corruption which was already rampant when he was one of two Deputy Leaders. Rotherham MBC claimed that he was working for them as a “political officer” but that this was NOT a politically-restricted post.

As the corruption intensified on his watch at Sandwell the long-serving and (too) loyal Cabinet secretaries were suspended after Eling thought they had exposed the Monitoring Officer in what appeared to be misconduct. A Councillor in the private section of the Council House where the Leader’s Office is situated was heard screaming, “I want the f*ckers out and I don’t want the f*ckers back”. Many sources say this was Eling and he has never formally denied the allegation. (As it was, Eling was totally wrong and the secretaries were not the whistleblowers. They were all reinstated with an apology and a small compensation payment. The principal senior employee doing Eling’s dirty work was hapless s.151 officer Darren Carter who moved on to Reading Council despite his track record.)

Since Eling was splitting his time between Sandwell and Rotherham (and actually living for most of the time in a pretty north Derbyshire village) he needed a right-hand man to be his enforcer at Sandwell whilst he was absent, and he chose a ludicrous figure, Cllr Richard Marshall. The pair met with me and in return for exposing two other of their senior Labour Councillors (which I was doing already) they offered to  feed me confidential Council information or, as they put it, there would be “more leaks than Wales”. 

To that end the pair set up a WhatsApp account to send the confidential information to me. Most of the feed is available at my posts dated 5th November, 2017: Steve Eling - You Are A F*cking Liar!

Amongst much appalling output the pair (a) asked me to give the female Assistant Chief Executive “a good kicking”, (b) suggested they might arrange a travellers’ site next door to an enemy’s property development so the travellers could “shit in the gardens” of the new houses, (c) alleged that a fellow Labour Councillor's Partner was a transexual or, as they put it, “a cock in a frock, and (d) envisaged a married Labour Councillor “sp*nking” over a female Councillor “in her bikini” since this would be better than the male “doing his wife” - also a Labour Councillor.

Despite Rotherham Council having full knowledge of all this, and in the sick, sick, world of local government, they made Eling their “Equalities Officer”. Eling was suspended by the Labour Party and did not contest his Council seat but remains the Chair of an important local charity, Warley Woods Community Trust, who think he is wonderful and are content to ignore his truly shocking track record (of which this extract only details a small part).

Adrian Hackwood - according to Hackwood himself, he started at SMBC as a techniical assistant way back in 1989 but became a Neighbourhood Repairs Officer from 1995 "to present" - although a SMBC document states that he joined the Urban Design and Building Services Team as a "Stock Condition Surveyor". However he also states that from August 2009 "to present" (nearly 14 years) he has also run his own Company "Hackwood Property Assessors" providing building surveys, reports, inventories etc. He also claims to be contacted with "Elmhurst Energy".

Naseem Khan - the recently convicted fraudster has been dismissed by the bent Labour Council despite his close relationship with many Labour Councillors - notably the deeply corrupt liar Simon Hackett and also Lachrymose Luke Giles. He was running four limited companies whilst employed by the taxpayer and failed to declare any of them to his employers. Oh and here is the fraudster out and about with Cllr Pam Randhawa - the Chair of Sandwell Police's Independent Advisory Group!

Addendum 19/04/25 - Someone purporting to be Khan is now putting pressure on me. Here is the write up at the time from the Wolverhampton Express and Star. I have nothing more to add.

Addendum 08/07/25 - I cannot bring you the E&S piece as it is claiming copyright for it! Their pettiness and hate campaign against this blog knows no bounds!

Khan was convicted at Walsall Mags and given a 12 month


Paul Reeves - this POS (happily now gone) infamously ran a gardening business, Paul's Gardens, whilst working for the Council. Astonishingly, disgraced liar and former Chief Exec, Jan Britton, made Reeeves head of security at the height of the Eling-era corruption. Previously he had worked hand in glove with wifebeater Leader, Darren Cooper, in using social media to "troll" me and my wife. Here is an example of his malicious and defamatory handiwork concerning my wife:


Of course, as regular readers know, Reeves has some great pals in corrupt West Mids Police. They declined to charge him and Jan Britton after the pair (a) colluded in respect of their evidence at the notorious "C*cksucker Trial", and (b) lied on oath in the witness box - both Reeves and Britton made exactly the same false statement. 

Kelly Robinson - an Operations Manager of long standing at bent Labour Sandwell who states on LinkedIn that she is also a "property developer", being a Director of Pepperbox Properties Limited (which is confirmed by Companies House).

David Stevens - another disgraced Chief Exec who was sacked by short-lived "Leader" Rajbir "The Boy Blunder" Singh, who himself did a moonlight flit amidst lurid rumours. The truth has yet to come out on the sacking but we live in hope ...

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.

Version 1 - 06/07/23; Version 2 - 15/07/23; Version 3 - 07/08/23;