The Poverty Tourists

It had to happen – red-eyed Heidi ‘Pass the Onion’ Allen and Frank ‘Foodbank’ Field join forces to patronise the poor in the provinces. The Guardian report tells us that Heidi ‘crocodile tears’ Allen has ‘absolutely had enough’ and has dragged her tut-tutting friend round the country to see just how perfectly dreadful it is for the underclasses.

“This denotes a new offensive…” says Frankenfield

Doesn’t it just!

Allen and Field may think that the endless anecdotes recounting the often tragic circumstances of other people’s lives is ‘blowing the lid’ off an increasingly desperate situation for many more people. It isn’t. We all know it’s a shitshow out there and we don’t need crass and exploitative politicians making political/personal capital out of it.

The absolute nadir of this brand of poverty tourism can be found on Frank Field’s own website from last year where  Wirral Councillor Julie McManus made the following report :

Tawdry and mawkish doesn’t come close…and not forgetting  the cheap plug for Feeding Birkenhead ! Even Charles Dickens would have baulked at writing something like this.

Who in this day and age writes portentous, pseudo-religious sentences as ‘And so it was…” !

Thankfully there are people out there who see the poverty tour stunt for the photo opportunity that it is and regardless of affiliations are just getting on with helping people and not waving a placard proclaiming ‘ I AM A GOOD PERSON, I CARE, HONESTLY’ . Our thanks to Fans Supporting Foodbanks. 

 

Frank Field : Fearless or Shameless ?

Now we’ve imagined that we would meet a grisly end courtesy of either a failed brakes incident as Her Ladyship and I cruised La Grande Corniche or a like a deadlier version of the opening scene to the film ‘Sexy Beast’ as we lounged in the Mediterranean sun.

However it would seem our readers have other ideas. Are you really trying to induce a coronary? We say this as we’ve received pictures from a Mail On Sunday reader – we’re a broad church and we don’t judge – yeah right! we hear you cry- but that particular publication isn’t usually part of our reading matter , especially when it regularly features their ‘pet’ Labour politician Frank Field.

Last Sunday’s edition exceeded itself as it features a full page spread of our beloved MP for Birkenhead under the headline – ” Fearless Frank : How I brought TWO Philip Greens down to size” and where we find Frankenfield adopting a macho stance (or as close an approximation as he can manage).

The TWO Philip Greens involved are the former boss of BHS , ‘Sir’ Philip Green and the Carillion CEO of the same name who isn’t a knight of the realm . Frankenfield is wringing every last ounce of self-aggrandizing publicity out of this isn’t he?  How ‘fearless’ do you have to be when you’re the chair of Work and Pensions Select Committee and what is it with Frankenfield and Greens? – beit Dave, Philip or the Green Party? Perhaps ‘Dear Papa’ forced him to eat his greens and he’s held a grudge ever since. And if there’s one thing we know about Foodbank Frank is that he ‘bears more grudges than lonely high court judges’  .

The hagiographic article written by the clearly impressionable William Turvill is jampacked with early entries for the Leaky Awards ‘ “Quote of the Year”.

Now if questions  A) and B) were posed to Wirral Council, Grant Thornton etc; instead of untouchable ,distant but headline-grabbing multi-millionaires we might have more respect for him*

* nb – let’s be honest it’ll be a cold day in hell when we have any respect for Frank Field 

A) 

B)

 

But our absolute favourite quote was this :

To which we would like to respond and say : Be careful what you wish for Frankie-baby! Although it must be great when Wirral Council (or rather their council taxpayers) are picking up the bill as a result of your scheming ways!

The Urge to Purge

 

Now as you know we  haven’t taken that  much interest in national politics since the Whigs were around.

However we couldn’t let yesterday’s  announcement that Jeremy Corbyn had retained the leadership of the Labour Party go without comment as we were hoping it would land a much needed metaphorical punch in the mouth to some complacent local politicians.

But then we read that within an hour of the announcement that Jezza  had been lured over the River Mersey and was busy making pizza in a community cafe in Birkenhead and we realised that it was going to be more a case of conciliatory limp handshakes.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/jeremy-corbyns-victory-celebrations-were-8905402

As you can see from the above picture the gang’s all here – there’s Frank Field on the left (which has to be a first) , faithful acolyte and serial failure  Cllr Moira “Matron” McLaughlin , former Wirral Council control room favourite Cllr Chris Meaden , Wirral West MP Margaret Greenwood and of course on his phone recording everything for posterity Liverpool Echo journalist  Liam Murphy – because as we know Murphy is fond of pressing the ‘record’ button.

We wonder whether Frankenfield found time to explain his recent letter to J.K.Rowling slagging off Jezza or whether McLaughlin was able to discuss the publication of Ofsted Children’s Services inspection report and whether there was any connection as to why some of Birkenhead’s kids found themselves being used as  props in a cynical,political photo-op.

Whilst there has been much talk about Corbynistas seeking to purge the Labour Party of MPs who are hostile to their glorious leader – and it must be said Frankenfield has been one of Jezza’s  bitterest critics – it would seem that in the name of party unity all has been forgiven.  All of which leaves us with our own urge to purge – pass the sickbag these two-faced, deeply  manipulative , disloyal local politicians make us want to throw up our pizza.

Wirral’s Growth Industry : Foodbanks

The new year has started off with much sound and fury signifying nothing about record business growth on Wirral and the usual petty politicking about who should take the credit.

SEE HERE

Forgive us for being cynical here at Leaky Towers but where is this growth exactly ? – call centres? , former council services which have been outsourced ? consultancy firms – it’s got to be consultancy firms the amount of money Wirral Council spends on them!  Business growth is certainly not yet apparent on Wirral Waters and the much trumpeted golf resort non-starter has finally been declared unplayable and left in the rough. In our experience the only area of growth on Wirral that we can identify are foodbanks.

That’s hardly surprising as my goodness our Wirral politicians love those foodbanks don’t they ?- it’s a pity some of them have never been reliant on one.Let’s face it having to live off tins of spaghetti hoops and spam might make them focus their minds before they issue their next caring,sharing soundbite

In the blue corner we have Esther McVague extolling the virtues of foodbanks and how right it is that people should live within their means even if that means reliving the days of the soup kitchen. And in the red corner we have Foodbank Frank – who laughably was recently identified as a Hero of the Year for 2014 in the tabloid blog Huffington Post. What for ? – you may ask – for services to breathtaking cynicism and political manipulation? Why no – it was for his anti-poverty stance. Which I’m sure you agree is so,so brave because there are so many people are pro-poverty aren’t they? It seems to us that Frankenfield’s anti-poverty stance means as long as him and his chums don’t have to experience poverty the feckless, the wreckless and the less than well connected are on their own.

There have been more foodbank frolics with Foulkesy thanking Wirral council staff for donating generously to this year’s Foodbank appeal in his Mayor’s Diary in the Wirral “News” which made us think a) does he still use crayons to write his column and b) will Wirral Council staff who donated generously end up eating their own spaghetti hoops and spam found at the back of the cupboard when they too are made redundant?……….