Animal Crackers

As Mayor Foulkesy nears the end of his mayoral reign the tributes begin to pour in.  Readers are invited to enter our caption competition and win a stay at at award winning top notch Wirral love nest Mere Brook House.

Manifesto of Death

Andy Burnham gives a visual assessment of Wirral politicians…..

And so like Alice Cooper in a polyester suit screaming ” I Wanna Be Elected” the bullshit fiesta continues with Andy Burnham flattering Wirral with his presence this week backed with singers from the same hymn book – Sister Stooge.
” We are family ,I got all my sistas with me” sing Labour mavens Ali McGovern and Mags Greenwood as they join Andy in setting up shop in Hoylake’s Holiday Inn – and setting Wirral to rights…… starting with Arrowe Park Hospital .

CLICK HERE 

Considering that one of Frankenfield’s pet peeves is that “Arrowe Park Hospital is ungovernable” it is curious that he wasn’t involved in this particular media assault – but then the Birkenhead MP can act like a petulant diva when it comes to sharing the stage with another local MP – and particularly someone with such lovely long eyelashes as Andy Burnham! As Her Ladyship said : ” I can only hope he was an inspiration to prospective West Wirral MP Margaret Greenwood – that woman is clearly a stranger to mascara”.

Arrowe Park Hospital may be the local battleground where Labour politicians have chosen to set up their shock troops but it seems to us that they really need to get their battle plan sorted beforehand .Conflicting PR stunts made it seem like a case of left hand meet, er , left hand………  On the very same day Burnham and co were railing against the creeping privatisation of the NHS ( accelerated by the last Labour government but Andy doesn’t let facts get in the way of feigned outrage) Labour council leader Power Boy Pip was announcing a successful bid for government money to enable the private sector to play a major role in a “new model health care for Wirral” !

Pip heralded this further contribution to the dismantling of the NHS with this glorious piece of gobbledygook:

“We aim to test, evidence and disseminate the opportunities to be gained from an integrated approach with aligned incentives to manage improved outcomes for patients.”  CLICK HERE

We believe these are the weasel words which are the smoke and mirrors ultimately leading the people of Wirral to sleepwalk into the slow death of the NHS.

Of course the other part of this “integrated approach” is Wirral Council itself and particularly it’s social services. So we need to ask ourselves how has Adult Social Services (ASS) in particular been doing since the publication of damning report after damning report which lead to…… well, not much actually. From what we hear it’s very much “business unusual” with a deeply entrenched bullying culture (some parts of the department being subject to Marshall Law) and cronyism which simply Beyga’s belief……..
Under such circumstances it comes as no su prise to read claims that, in an aim reduce costs ASS, are taking “short cuts” when it comes to assessing the needs of vulnerable people.  CLICK HERE 

Wirral Leaks notes such “short cuts” usually lead to a slippery slope and that the Globe report rightly referenced the notorious and heinous 4 week delay policy which was based on the premise that costs could be cut by denying meeting the needs of vulnerable people’s legally assessed needs for at least 4 weeks in the hope that – in the words of social work “professional” – that the people they were paid to support might die in the meantime and thus save ASS a few quid.

But then we need to remember that ASS undermined the professional status of their social workers by employing non-qualified staff to undertake assessments and who are therefore less likely to question such unlawful practice.  Is it any wonder that it has been reported to us that one of these social work subs (as in substandard) recently asked a shocked and appalled carer how long their child had had Downs Syndrome! Yes folks that is what currently passes for social care assessment on Wirral and again is it any wonder that ASS are having to pay social workers extra money so they can retain the qualified staff who have been leaving in droves to spare themselves the soul-destroying,money-saving monotony which is so far removed from why came into social care in the first place.

Therefore can we suggest that before the prospective Health Secretary sees fit to share his future vision of health and social care on Wirral he needs to understand what is really going on locally and not what he’s told by local politicians and high -ranking officials……………somebody needs to whisper these 3 little words into Mr.Burnham’s ear : “Mid -Staffordshire Hospital.”

Take Me To Your Leader

It’s election time : when the air is full of speeches and vice versa!.

Indeed the election campaign has kicked off good and proper with the dissolution of parliament and the leaders debate on TV.

This gives Wirral Leaks endless ( and by the looks of it boy do we mean endless…..) opportunities to cast our jaundiced eye over the local political scene.
So having given Wirral MPs Frankenfield and McVague the Wirral Leaks treatment we thought we’d move on to Wirral’s political bottom feeders and focus on the so-called “leaders” who will be spearheading the local council election campaigns.

Protocol dictates we must start with the man who is the current council leader and the man with self declared “special powers” – the one and only Power Boy Pip! Well what can we say about The Pipster ? – other than to thank him for the continuous comedic opportunities he provides us with and which mostly emanate from his resolute adherence to ” The Pollyanna Principle”

SEE HERE

Unfortunately aiding and abetting the poor fool’s delusions are the likes of the Local Godawful Association giving Wirral Council Mickey Mouse awards – really you people should know better than to be an enabler for such flights of fancy as luxury golf resorts and trying to hook up with gambling resorts or envisioning skyscrapers over the Mersey….. most other people would be heavily medicated rather than encouraged to pursue such rampant lunacy.

The reality is expertly disinterred by the current edition of Private Eye under the headline “Mythed Opportunity”:
As we’ve said before and will no doubt say again the only thing this leader is good for is leading everyone up the garden path. As witnessed this week with the launch of the local labour campaign featuring a video of Power Boy Pip where the awkwardness spurts out of him like spit from a Roy Hattersley Spitting Image puppet.

SEE HERE
But as Her Ladyship said at least prospective Wirral West MP Margaret Greenwood “put some lippy on this time ” unlike her horrorshow of a performance when she was the support act to “Harriet Harperson’s Travelling Let’s Patronise Women Roadshow” when it recently hit West Wirral.

Pip’s faltering up close and personal piece to camera covered the usual bases – foodbanks and zero hour contracts being prominent among the soundbites. However it strikes us as sheer hypocrisy on Pip’s part as local Labour politicians seem to see foodbanks as no more than photo -ops and where the opening of a new one is somehow a cause for celebration.Moreover we suggest Pip spares a thought for council staff he and his cronies have made redundant and thereby putting staff on zero hours pemanently.The council’s appalling treatment of CCTV control room staff being a shameful case in point.

A new departure which nevertheless follows the usual negative campaigning template is attacks upon Arrowe Park Hospital which seem to be orchestrated as usual by Frankenfield.
The shoddy bullying tactic comes across as not about genuinely caring for the future of the NHS but rather a case of :” Ner ner ner ner ner…you’re worse than we are….”.

And so we move on to Nigel Farage soundalike Tory leader Jefferson Green – who seems to be permanently “outraged”, “appalled” or “shocked” about how the Council conducts it’s business (usually after he’s read some revelation on a local blog) but seems unwilling or unable to actually do anything about it. This is the man who was once accused by Foulkesy of conducting a ” £250,000 ambush” following the fallout from the Morton whistleblowing scandal when the former Labour leader was booted out in a vote of no confidence.Of course as we know Foulkesy floated to the surface like an air-filled turd when he later became mayor ( talk about rewarding failure).

Foulkesy’s comment suggesting that Green would cynically use the serious issues raised in a series of scandalous reports to gain political power is perhaps only inaccurate in the sense that it wasn’t a £250,000 ambush – it was more like a £400,000 ambush ( which is what Klonowski and legal eagles/vultures pocketed between them !)….

We do however note that Green has gone awfully quiet on the subject of the Wirralgate scandal – which considering it was based on a conspiracy to discredit him seems to be a bit out of character. Could it be that even Green doesn’t come out of this episode smelling of roses – but then nobody including the “whistleblowers” do as far as we’re concerned.
In fact we think it was Foulkesy who summed up Green best during the joke of an investigation into “Wirralgate” cobbled together by Patricia Thynne where he described him as ” Kindred”

Indeed judging from the last council meeting that Foulkesy presided over as mayor and Green’s fawning,obsequious speech about the former’s year in office suggests that the feeling is mutual (if not symbiotic) and may help explain as to why Green is happy to rock the boat as long as he doesn’t make any waves……

As for the Lib Dem leader Phil Gilchrist – what can we say?.Nothing much to be honest.We can’t even drum up the enthusiasm to coin a satirical nickname.Apparently he’s been a councillor for 37 years and from what we can gather is well liked in his ward and is polite and inoffensive during political debates. Whilst his support of Lyndale School has been admirable it has to be said that his socks and sandals and cycle clips Lib-Demness has been no match for the Birkenhead Boot Boys on the Labour benches.

Talking of ( re) cycling there is the (green) fly in the ointment that is sole Green councillor Pat Cleary.Remember it was Cleary who ousted Labour favourite Bri “Nylon” Kenny in the last council elections and he (and his party) have been the subject of much hostility from Labour politicians ever since.
A further reason that Cleary seems to irritate those in power is his utterly perplexing habit of cycling to council meetings.The freeloading Labour group are simply incredulous at the fact that he’s not jumping taxis or bunging in mileage claims for a huge gas guzzler.As this picture of the Queen of Social Care Matron McLaughlin proves it would appear this is how they think councillors should arrive at Wallasey Town Hall.

However there is some good news concerned with the the local elections as we understand that the one man swearbox that is Councillor Harry Smith finally bows out of local political life. Oh how we’ll miss his constant inane interruptions in council meetings and his habit of verbally abusing journalists. However Wirral Council should be praised for their Equal Opportunities stance when it comes to Cllr Smith – as it seems to us from his behaviour he must be the first councillor with Tourette’s Syndrome to be appointed to the cabinet and will forever remain an inspiration to our pottymouthed butler Eldritch.

The bad news is that – yes you guessed it – aforementioned election failure Bri “Nylon” Kenny is to be parachuted into Cllr Smith’s safe Labour seat – which only goes to prove Red Ken Livingstone’s maxim that : “If voting changed anything they’d abolish it…..”