Sorrento Shame 2 : No Laughing Matter

Ordinarily our lead picture would be the Foulkes’ Sorrento holiday snap which features on social media and has been forwarded to us. However after further consideration of the ‘Sorrento Shame’ story we feel the need to take a more sober approach (no pun intended) . Now is not the time for satire, sarcasm or caption competitions.

As you can see from the picture above hotel management  tried to pacify a distraught couple who allege they were subject to racial abuse on holiday and hope that one day they will find it ‘something to laugh about’. On seeing this letter it suddenly struck us that it took people from outside Wirral to point out how unacceptable some behaviours are. They’ve held a mirror up to us all and it doesn’t reflect well on any of us.

We say this , as to us and to many people, none of the allegations that have surfaced will come as a surprise. We’ve been forwarded many stories over the years which people have asked us not to publish. Frankly we’d rather not know. It’s just such a shame that people locally haven’t been prepared to speak up before now. We’re calling it the ‘Weinstein Syndrome’ – where ‘everybody knew’ about certain attitudes and behaviours but chose to succumb to pay-offs , legal threats or went along with a different kind of abuse of power because it was advantageous to their career. Additionally we understand that some people are frightened to speak up against powerful and influential people especially when they are protected by other powerful and influential people. And look what happens to those who do speak up!

Doesn’t it make you proud to live on Wirral?   But then we’ve long held that there is a dark heart at the centre of the local Birkenhead Constituency Labour Party (CLP) where racism , harassment and bullying and lying by a tiny minority of local councillors is apparently tolerated and/or condoned because they’re part of  Frank Field’s ‘Inner Ring’ .

But it’s not just the Birkenhead CLP who go along with it – it’s Wirral councillors of all political parties (with a couple of honourable exceptions) who thought it was OK for ‘Foulkesy’ to become Mayor of Wirral in 2014, two years after it was exposed he was the leader of a basket case council that was rife with bullying , nepotism , incompetence and dishonesty (but then everyone knew that as well!) Of course there was the opportunity to prevent this appointment in 2013 but an unholy alliance of middle class charlatans and working class chancers went along with it – all in the hope of career advancement, financial gain or a front page exclusive. We can’t think of anywhere else in the country where the Wirralgate cover up would have lasted this long.

Wirral councillors then went on to  (deliberately?) miss the point of the Patricia Thynne Wirralgate investigations by a country mile. Who gives a damn whether Foulkesy was part of a plot to ‘smear’  Tory collaborator Jeff Green? It was the fact that he’d lied through an investigation which necessitated a further investigation costing us £17K and throughout which he again continued to lie. Perhaps instead of an apology to the collusive Cllr Green ,  Foulkesy was instead denied the opportunity to be a Wirral Council representative on outside bodies this might have represented a meaningful sanction.

However as John Brace’s excellent blog points out ‘Foulkesy’ has this past week been allowed to vote himself an annual £10,108  pay rise  (this is not including his remuneration for sitting on the Magenta Living board alongside ………yes you guessed it, Cllr Jeff Green !)

Holiday money

But then the likes of the Local Government Association (LGA) and consultants like Anna Klonowski and Anna Hutchinson at Labour North West and Merseyside Police are no better – pussyfooting around power abusers is so much easier than confronting sordid and difficult realities.

And then there’s what we’re calling ‘Shite Privilege’  where  certain people are allowed to hold the most reprehensible views and behave in the most appalling manner because of their local connections . Of course the precedent here is the Jack Nolan case (Jack being Elaine Foulkes’ -nee Nolan’s- son ).  A classic case of the the apple not falling far from the tree. Suddenly doesn’t his assault and affray conviction at Birkenhead Magistrate’s Court in 2015 seem tragically inevitable? We could almost, but not quite, forgive him. However what we can’t forgive is the high profile protectors who turned up to provide character references at the trial. This inevitably included council leader Cllr  Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies, who’s moral compass appears to be permanently pointed to hell.

What A Load Of Testimonials!

Now we don’t know about you lot but we resent someone is allowed the opportunity to finance him and his missus’s holidays in the sun so he can allegedly stand by and watch the abuse of innocent bystanders at our expense.  We should not be funding more opportunities to ruin not just other people’s holidays but other people’ s careers and lives. This is no laughing matter.