Another Wirral CoC Up!

The Power Boy Pip and Princess Paula Show 

The good people of Wirral have certainly come up trumps this week (insert own joke here ).We’ve just opened our email, checked out a few things and pressed the publish button.

It would seem the urge to leak is almost becoming something of a biological imperative for surviving the ways of Wirral Council and its parasitic offshoots.Talking of which news arrives of Wirral Council’s municipal mini-me – namely the Wirral Chamber of Commerce. According to our corroborating sources it would seem Wirral CoC(!) is but a scaled down (but more upmarket) replica of our dearly beloved council – the nepotism,the bullying,the dubious contracting arrangements etc;etc;

As emotions are running high we’ll forgive the flagrant use of emojis in the following messages!

You not only want to look into who the Chamber of Horrors are employing but the fact that around 30 staff have left there in the last year! Some made redundant ‘whilst’ they employed others to do the same job!

Yet do you know there are no longer any Town Hosts (maybe a part time one lurking!) and therefore no one taking a wage from the business rates levy ….. sooooo what are they doing with the money?! Also Tourism gone back to the council? Marketing Manager forced to resign? More investigation and light shedding on this! People need to know!

And another one :

Re your article about WCoC… A number of council staff who had been working for the council for several years, but paid by WBC, were actually TUPE’d across to WCoC last summer (with an additional 1 for good luck), in a 2 year 1 million pound contract (paid monthly if you check WBC expenditure tables)… Of the 7 staff TUPE’d one was made redundant by Chamber, 4 left, 1 is on maternity leave…. Only 1 remains at the chamber…one of the areas this contract was to cover was tourism… Apparently that’s been returned in house… You should check if the contract is still live or cancelled… But would Princess Paula walk away from half a million pounds? If still live presumably the million pound contract is paying existing staff or new staff… Council staff only have a home for life at the Chamber if their face fits. Ask Heather Heaton… Her arrival was much vaunted but I suspect her departure (allegedly not voluntary) will be less so. Or ask Mark Barrow… With his wife in a council role he has apparently taken redundancy. So that’s 4 redundancies in past 5 months, in amongst a recruitment programme of young ‘uns…. Let’s not mention the other 30 odd staff who have left voluntarily (or been forced out) in the past year….

You do realise, I’m sure, that The Lauries still has charitable status? It just made me wonder if they were fraudulently getting out of paying business rates…. It may be that a lot of the tenants would be exempt under the new rules, with the exemption thresholds, but suspect WCoC themselves wouldn’t be

It’s horrendous the way they are going through public money and also their treatment of staff. They need to be held to account.

These comments prompted the following exchange between Wirral Leaks and our source :

But who’s going to hold them to account ? Blogs can only do so much and we only scratch the surface – we need people to speak up. We’ve had a couple from WCoC come to us and then back out -knowing that behind the pretty frocks Princess Paula wields significant power. Frightening.

I know. Everyone has got so used to just doing as they’re told. I know a couple of people who have left the chamber and as you say… They left full of intent to let people know what was going on. Then decided a quiet life is easier. The stories I’ve heard have been terrible, of them bullying people who no longer fit the mould. We (people in general) need to stand up and be counted… 

 

Pop Ups For The People

When we first heard that a disused bank in Hamilton Square had been taken over to house and feed the homeless we naively thought that  Wirral Chamber of  Commerce under the guise of a ‘Birkenhead First ‘ initiative were behind it.

We weren’t just convinced because the former bank was a Barclay’s – which let’s face it has to be the Chamber’s bank of choice! No! -we also found out the ‘Love Activists’ were involved . We assumed this was an offshoot of  the Chamber’s  ‘Fantastic Festival of Beautiful Things’ . All very touchy-feely, hippy -drippy and vaguely nauseating.

Fantastic Festival of BS

Plus the fact it all seemed to encompass two headlining modern themes : ‘pop ups’ and ‘homelessness’ – which all of a sudden are ‘sexy’.  As we know the Chamber of Horrors CEO Paula Basnett can’t open her mouth without using the term ‘pop- ups’  but when it comes to homelessness were not talking about vagrant love we’re talking about how homelessness (like foodbanks) have suddenly become a fashionable issue to be seen to support . Something which shames us all.

Birkenhead First (Among Equals)

Now we hesitate to use the term virtue-signalling because as Aesop said : ” No act of kindness ,no matter how small, is ever wasted” . However there appears to have been a worrying shift from preventing homelessness to sustaining the homeless on the street. Dare we suggest this approach only exacerbates the homelessness situation. There are sandwiches, hot drinks, blankets and even haircuts dispensed by commendable volunteers but no money for support services and a lack of affordable housing which would prevent vulnerable people ending up on the street in the first place!

As far as we’re concerned this is David Cameron’s nightmare vision for a ‘ Big Society’ made flesh . A community of volunteers providing what were essential public services to the vulnerable as there is no other option because public money has been diverted to pay inflated salaries to high level ‘public’ servants who frankly don’t care if the homeless (or any of us) live or die.

Now of course we know that Wirral Chamber of Commerce have nothing whatsoever to do with this particular ‘pop up’ we are warming to the ‘Love Activists’. They even offered our photographer a cup of tea. They seem to understand that life is is rough out there for rough sleepers especially when it isn’t for our rapacious leaders .