The Genuine Article : Can you spot the difference between news headlines and political adverts?

A number of our readers have been in touch with pictures of the Wirral Globe wraparound ‘Advertisement Feature’ promoted by Cllr Ian Lewis on behalf of Wirral Conservative Group which has caused pre-Purdah murder.

We remember having a pop at the Wirral Labour Group for pulling a similar stunt last time the local elections came around. However this particular production really is something else. Real lowest common denominator stuff – right down there with their infamous ‘baseball bats’ leaflet which ruthlessly exploited the fallout from the damning  ‘Independent Review’ of 2012 .

The problem we have is that whilst we acknowledge you’d have to be spectacularly dim to think that the wraparound contained genuine news stories and not exploitative electioneering on the part of the local Conservative Group the fact is a) it appears under the Wirral Globe masthead and b) there are an awful lot of spectacularly dim people out there .

The scaremongering cover star is hasbeen ‘Militant’ bogeyman Derek ‘Deggsy ‘ Hatton. The picture is so old it was taken when he still had a decent head of hair . Whilst this ‘hard left’ trope is not only used as means of highlighting  the power struggle within the local Labour Party it also tacitly supports the established Labour cabal which have wreaked so much havoc in Wirral over recent years!

The inside features  pro- Green Belt , anti-Kingdom Security votecatchers which hitch a ride on the work of local activists and campaigners . Elsewhere it’s a bit thin on the ground policy-wise. A less than detailed 6 point plan features such nebulous aims as ‘ Expose Council Waste’ and ‘Better Council Services’ . Perhaps if the local elections don’t go well as expected the author can take over the running of Wirral Leaks. The local Conservative Group  don’t seem to have learned their lesson from exploiting the  political fallout of the Independent Review . Once they unexpectedly got into power , their main policy initiative was a desperate Council Tax rebate – even that didn’t work and there wasn’t enough spectacularly dim people to keep Cllr Jeff Green in power as Leader of Wirral Council  and the Conservatives were ousted at the next election.

Finally , we’d like to comment on the back page of the ‘Advertisement Feature’  which features the welcome demise of litter enforcement louts Kingdom  Security. We can’t help feeling that there’s been a bit of ‘Leaksification’ when it comes to the hard-hitting picture. Well ,they do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery…

Wirral Leaks 2012

Wirral Globe 2019

Who are the real ‘Red Menace’ ?

Thanks to those who have got in touch with reactions to some rabid stories which have appeared in both the local and national press concerning the ongoing melodrama within the local Labour Party (and specifically Birkenhead Constituency Labour Party).

First there was the Wirral Globe front page story which was headlined : ‘Death Threats made to to Birkenhead MP Frank Field‘ although the article provides no examples of such threats being made on social media. Tweets wishing someone is dead may not be very nice but they still doesn’t constitute a death threat. Consequently the article just provides Frankenfield the opportunity to resurrect memories of Militant Tendency that resemble nothing more than McCarthyite-era fears of reds under the bed .

This ‘Red Menace’ theme was expanded on yesterday at great length in what can only be described as another piss-poor piece of scaremongering even by The Daily Mail’s risible standards under the headline :

How the hard left is reclaiming Merseyside: Three decades after Derek Hatton made them unelectable, Corbynistas are forcing Labour moderates from their heartlands

This week local Labour Party Secretary  John Maher and Labour councillor Tony Norbury are featured after last week’s Frank Field inspired press tsunami which starred his superannuated political groupie Cllr Moira ‘Matron’ McLaughlin playing a supporting role as a ‘witness’ to a bullying incident that she heard about secondhand on Twitter.  It didn’t stop The Sunday Times  publishing the story as ‘fact’. Whereas the sad fact in all this is the press attention that is being given to these no-marks for the former’s political ends and the latter’s personal ends.

Read it for yourself and make up your own mind: here

Having said that we’re inclined to believe some of what is written about Maher as needless to say we’ve featured him on Wirral Leaks before . Once again how prescient of us to write in 2016 about this Labour -turned Green-turned Red again political chameleon :

From what we can gather about his behaviour within the Green Party is that if he’s true to his “principles” it won’t be long before he falls out with his suddenly rekindled allegiances within the local  Labour Party  – as it’s a case of Maher-way or the highway.

Read more here :   A Maher-vellous Result for Labour 

However much of what is claimed in the Daily Mail shock horror probe about Maher is all a bit ‘meh’ .  Among the anonymous reports about him making people feel ‘incredibly uncomfortable’ there is this hilarious quote :

I was a police officer prior to re-joining the Labour Party and have been trained in reading body language when in confrontational situations. To me it was clear that the body language displayed by both John Maher and [a friend] was clearly threatening…

Meanwhile regurgitated from last week’s scare stories published elsewhere there’s patronising tales of Maher and Norbury upsetting the Labour ‘laydeez’ with their belligerent ways. All of the above conduct has apparently been reported to Andy Smith the Labour Party’s top official in the North-West by a group of six Labour politicians who plotted, sorry, met with Smith one Saturday at Birkenhead Town Hall (somebody needs to tell Daily Mail it’s not the Wirral Council HQ but again why let a lack of local knowledge get in the way of cutting edge investigative journalism?)

Who are the unnamed ‘Gang of Six’ we ask ourselves? We’d go for  Birkenhead MP  Frank Field , Cllr George Davies (of course), Cllr Phil Davies , Cllr Moira McLaughlin,  Cllr Steve Foulkes , Cllr Brian Kenny  or Cllr Jean Stapleton  (you may have your own pick of the politicians – let us know) .

Whoever they were they were complaining about an ‘an orchestrated campaign to remove long-standing and hard-working’ Labour officials in which ‘suggestions have been made that people are corrupt and ineffective’

We have to say that this is something we can wholeheartedly get with. What’s more we think that knowing what he knows about the local Labour cabal Maher has been rather restrained – and yes, Mr Maher we have seen the emails which contain similar information to that which was sent to Anna Hutchinson – Regional Director of Labour North West.

Under the circumstances is there a more sickening, hypocritical spectacle than Wirral Council ‘leader’ Cllr Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies whinging that ‘Bullying is a serious issue, and to have it ignored like this just beggars belief.  Isn’t this someone who was part of a small gang of Labour politicians who tried (and failed) to suppress allegations of a bullying culture at Wirral Council which we maintain persists to this day? And could this be the same ‘gang’ who are now feigning victimhood about being ‘bullied’ themselves? We think the people of Wirral should be told – and fear not Wirral Leaks will be telling ALL very soon…

… and finally in light of the information contained in the Daily Mail  article can we say the most offensive thing we could identify was the sight of Derek Hatton’s mullet!

 

Keep Your Hat on

*incoming message* Please find advice to “Leaders” within Wirral Council when discussing redundancies. *stop* ….

Key Messages for Leaders

1. This is hard
2. Talk more
3. Cascade through conversation
4. Don’t answer what you can’t – escalate to FAQ’s
5. Read Intranet
6. No decisions made as yet
7. Leadership – Visibility – Communication – Consistency – Ownership
8. Print articles for staff without Intranet access
9. Cascade One Brief on Friday 9 November 2012

See it in all its glory HERE

Nb/

 Not that they would try and feign empathy you understand but Ricky Gervais would have an absolute field day if ever he decided to revive “The Office” format and based it on a local authority.

 

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Now, how about this for rank hypocrisy from new Wirral CX Frank Drebin look a like, Graham Goofy Burgess – In a lovely soft focus interview in the Daily Post in May 2007 our hero GB tells us about his time in Liverpool as a union rep and how he fought those nasty Militants and banished them forever. Something he’s dined out on ever since…  

“……. the Militants’ solution to creating a legal budget – issuing 90-day redundancy notices to all 30,000 staff – immediately put the political leadership on collision course with unions.

Graham says: “They would say to us, ‘It’s just a piece of paper, of course we’ll re-employ everybody’ but from a union point of view, we couldn’t accept that because there was no guarantee.

“Liverpool at this time was, in many ways, in a desperate state. Hundreds of jobs were being lost at the big employers every week. The council was the employer of last resort, so we couldn’t let that happen.”

Fast forward to today and the latest leak … (click)  – Poacher turned gamekeeper

Taxi anybody ???

But GB is used to this for where GB lands redundancies seem to follow …see HERE

Love, Verity Snoop x