Gambling with Other People’s Money

Not that we’ve had any official announcement but it would seem that hawking Wirral Council’s tawdry wares in the Far East seems to have sank without trace somewhat like a Chinese junk ship over-laden with marrows and Stella Shiu’s false promises.

We should be at least be grateful that Wirral Council’s latest speculative jaunt is closer to home as plans are made for a Wirral Council (and no doubt Wirral Chamber of Commerce) delegation to jet off to Cannes next month. Not that it should work out any cheaper as the South of France is notoriously expensive. But hey!, when you’re speculating with public money what’s the big deal? Shouldn’t we just be grateful that our betters get a spring break at our expense?

This then led us to reflect on gambling in general and jaunts to far flung places in particular and the curious twinning arrangement with Reno . If you remember, when we heard of the plans in December 2014 , we wrote :

‘However it seems to us that Wirral is behaving like a desperate divorcee on a dating website – posting flattering pictures to prospective partners in the hope of finding true love and salvation. The Reno hook-up seems particularly dodgy – apparently the fact that “The Chamber of Commerce had a contact over in Reno with a guy who used to work in Liverpool in the video gaming industry….” was enough for the Wirral posse to metaphorically put on the lippy ,reach for the Wonderbra and fly down to Reno on a wing and a prayer.’

Big Guns in Tiny Town

As we said we at the time we couldn’t understand the hook up until we recently read a review on the EscapeHere website which decreed that just before the desperate Transatlantic jaunt that Reno was considered the third worst city to visit in the United States  :

‘Often referred to as Las Vegas’ poorer cousins , the ” biggest little city in the world” suffers some BIG issues when it comes to violent crime and unemployment. With the populous of 227,509, despite the luck ,lights and glamour promised to gambling tourists, Reno residents have suffered drops in housing prices, drastic cuts in public services, and layoffs. However ,despite the setbacks Reno is attempting to reinvent itself with revitalization projects like The River Walk , a water and sculpture path built in the middle of this once,seedy run down city center’

http://www.escapehere.com/destination/10-worst-cities-to-visit-in-the-united-states/

Sound familiar folks ? doesn’t it suddenly all make sense !

However (just like Wirral Council) we’re led to speculate that could the dubious attractions of Reno have had a more personal attraction for one of the Wirral delegation as we are led to believe that when in Reno he was ‘not a stranger to the tables!’

This is reinforced by another Wirral Council casualty closer to home who tells us rather more prosaically :

 ‘I was once in a planning meeting away from Wallasey Town Hall with him when a very tragic story emerged, involving the death of a small child in Wallasey, whilst the meeting was taking place requiring the said officer to give his immediate apologies and return to the Town Hall. I stayed for the duration of the meeting and was driving past a bookmakers a little bit later in Argyle Street en route back to Wallasey and happened to see the same officer inside the premises, obviously his priorities lay in his personal gain ahead of anything else.’

Forget everything we’ve ever written – we think that ‘His priorities lay in his personal gain ahead of anything else’ is perhaps the most insightful comment ever written about how Wirral Council operates.