Tales From The Chamber : Chapter 2 – Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes…

kirkham

Wirral Chamber CEO Princess Paula and new Chair Sandra Kirkham

As the late,great David Bowie once sang ‘Ch-ch-ch-ch -changes…’ have been afoot at Wirral Chamber of Commerce (WCoC) this week. We’ll leave you to judge whether they’re for the better.

First of all there’s the news that Kate Eugeni has been appointed as the new WCoC ‘Visitor Economy lead’ ( and if someone can tell us WTAF that means we’d be grateful)

Gorgeous pouting Eugeni
A WCoC insider has contacted Wirral Leaks to comment on this particular appointment and commented as follows:
Because of course Kate has a background in the Visitor Economy. Ffs.
Headline states she’s ‘new visitor lead’ when she’s been appointed as Director of Visitor Economy.
Who’s budget is she being paid from? How many members in the visitor economy exist in Wirral, is it enough to pay her salary and deliver outputs?!
Has the council given money to the chamber to deliver on these outputs? And isn’t Lucy Barrow the lead for Visitor Economy in Wirral?
All valid questions but they need to be put in the context that the poor love once had to return from a Christmas break skiing in France with her father only to find that a treasured sculpture had disappeared from her garden . Can we please just imagine the sheer horror of that situation for a moment? #prayforsuperlambanana
Did we mention that Ms Eugeni’s father is, of course , former Parks hamper magnate,Tranmere Rovers owner and current tax exile Peter Johnson. We don’t have to tell you how this insular peninsula nepotism shit works again once again do we?
Meanwhile another source tells us :
Worth noting that another chamber member left this week. ‘An agreement’ was reached and she left straight away. Lisa Furlong was the only person on the Enterprise team who actually had any knowledge of running a business and who was credible to offer business advice. 
Good luck Warren Ward
But the big announcement was the appointment of Sandra Kirkham as the new Chair of WCoC following on from Asif ‘Massive’ Hamid, who having squeezed every bit of financial advantage out of the role, has moved on to pastures even more lucrative as Chair of Liverpool Enterprise Partnership (LEP).
We’ve a bulging file on the previous exploits of Ms Kirkham but her profile hasn’t been big enough . But as this promo video shows it is now :
Now as you know we try not to judge at Wirral Leaks but the most interesting aspect we gleaned from the promo, amid the corporate BS,was the fact that ‘Our San’ is a Kylie Minogue fan. But then, let’s face it ,she would be wouldn’t she?
As we can exclusively reveal here are ‘Our San’s Top Five Inspirational Kylie Minogue Tunes’ for Wirral’s business community :
Theme tune : Better The Devil You Know  (even if it’s Kevin Adderley)
I Should Be So Lucky ( to be ‘best buds’ or related to Princess Paula) 
Especially For You ( Duet with Cllr Phil Davies) (but mainly for us)
Spinning Around (spin is what we do – get over it)
Can’t Get You Out Of My Head (but if you sign a non-disclosure agreement it would help) 
 

Asif Attack

 

asif hamid themed call centre liverpool

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

If ever you needed confirmation of how things work round here look no further than the inexorable rise of Asif ‘Massive’ Hamid. Of course we’ve reported regularly on his ability to attract public monies in the pursuit of his personal business empire by exerting influence over local politicians via his chairing of the Wirral Chamber of Commerce.

Christmas day in the call centre

The Common People

Contacts and Connections

Pie Chart In The Sky

Now it appear the modus operandi has been repeated over the River Mersey as his chairing of the Liverpool City Region Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has seemingly enabled him to secure the final remaining plot on the iconic Liverpool waterfront.

Call Centre Fury

Needless to say the ultimate cynic Mayor Joe Anderson called the King’s Dock deal with his LEP colleague “brilliant news for Liverpool” and said it “could ultimately lead to the creation of a new riverside destination, boosting our visitor economy and creating jobs for local people.”

We’d prefer to stick with our original analysis that call centres are the ” dark satanic mills of the 21st century”

If Liverpool’s UNESCO World Heritage Site was under threat before now this cynical philistine decision should finally seal the deal. The Liverpool Preservation Trust must be hanging their heads in despair.

World Heritage Site In Jeopardy

Meanwhile we’re left wondering just how long it will be before Hamid’s , ahem, “hands on” management practices will hit the headlines.  But hey! –  he’s been awarded an MBE and so is obviously beyond reproach. And confirms that it’s not  just the way works round here but how things work nationally.

Time to emigrate.

Better to reign in Hell,than to serve in Heaven ……

better-to-reign-in-hell

We are proud to publish the latest instalment of the BIG/ISUS/Working Neighbourhoods saga written by Nigel ” Highbrow” Hobro  which may answer a few questions raised by our readers and explain why we continue to follow this story.

We follow it because it’s everything that’s wrong. The incompetence, the ineptitude, the total disregard of what’s right and wrong.

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven:

“So spake th’apostate Angel, vaunting aloud

But inward rack’d with pain”

Satan is the Father of Lies whose feeble imitation of God is Gehenna, or Hell. Rather than serve Truth he will concoct a monstrous imitation, rather like Macbeth who preferred to be a false King than a faithful Thane.

We read much vaunting from Councillor P Davies and from his faithless band, that Wirral Borough Council is ever “open and transparent”. We read glossy brochures from Merseyside Special Investment Fund about its manifold successes and yet all are silent on their failures?

My Lord Leaky in the preface to “The Big Lie” https://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2016/09/16/the-big-lie/ worried about the muteness of regulatory authorities. He did not elaborate but they are worth reciting here. A forensic investigator given access to the Beverley Edwards report signally fails to report of the warnings from that lady about the phoenixing of Lockwood Engineering Ltd’s assets into Harbac UK ltd. Remarkable it is, considering the discussions held with Andrew Walker, the Government Internal Audit Agent, that Grant Thornton can report of no wrong-doing by Council officers. Long before I and James (Griffiths) made our complaints GIAA was investigating the perversion of the tender process for the £3m Business Start up 2 (ISUS) project, and the intimidation by council officers of the most qualified candidate to run it who had an assessment of 88% compared to wirralbiz’s 36%! Yet still the 88% candidate did not secure the contract. Turning to the liquidators of Lockwood Engineering Ltd they found nothing unusual in an engineering company stating on oath that the engineering firm had no machinery whatsoever. When confronted with this anomaly and the starkly clear evidence of the BIG file their response was the liquidation was over. The liquidators of Harbac UK Ltd when presented with same evidence by devilish equivocation asked by what right did I question them, was I a creditor of Harbac UK Ltd? Finally they finished with a “well we have lost a lot of money!” (some £10k on their £395 per hour fees). At this time after a prolonged liquidation, due to there being no accounting records given to them, they propose to close the company in January 2017,without reporting any need for detailed investigation despite having had copious correspondence between myself and themselves (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/07396044).

I have only started emptying the bucket but the above should be enough to persuade the reader that we should all share Lord Leaky’s concerns.

The Devil rules the world and he does so with coin!

What of Merseyside Special Investment Fund (MSIF) and connexions with the Big Lie article?
I don’t intend to befuddle the Reader but these matters are not a clear as the springs in Paradise. Pandemonium is a phrase well coined.

Unlike Councillor Davies in the press release referred to in the Ministry of Truth article

https://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2016/11/14/ministry-of-truth/

I will warn the Reader that there is some speculation in what I am going to write. I feel entitled to speculate when my adversaries plainly lie. Councillor P Davies undoubtedly is a clever man ( really? – Wirral Leaks) and with fingers in many pies as can be seen from his personal website :

I represent the Learning Partnership on the Wirral Local Strategic Partnership and the Wirral Waterfront Board. 
I am a non-executive director of the following organisations: The Mersey Partnership; Greater Merseyside Enterprise; the PSL Group (Pentra); The Lauries; Wirral Multi-cultural Organisation; and the Laird Foundation.
I also represent Wirral Borough Council on the Merseyside Objective 1 Programme Monitoring Committee and chair a post-2006 European funding lobbying group as well as the Wirral Pathways (Priority 4) Board .

The key words are THE Mersey Partnership, Wirral Waterfront Board and Merseyside Objective 1 Programme Monitoring Committee and chair a post-2006 European funding lobbying group. I believe these posts extend in substance back to the beginnings of wirralbiz and of the strange case of New Concept Gaming Limited. Speculation coming…Councillor Davies would associate closely with Mark Basnett, Director of the Liverpool Enterprise Partnership, for, after all he had also been a member of the LEP and has many photo opportunities with Mrs Paula Basnett, ex Head of Invest Wirral , and now Head of Wirral Chamber of Commerce. Invest Wirral was in charge of the BIG fund and Mrs Basnett was charged from early 2011 with supervision of the renegade Directors of wirralbiz. If myself, Lord Leaky or Paul Cardin were the three witches on the blasted heath cackling before Macbeth, a picture can be conjured up. These people were and are an elite, an Eurocracy, who run Roman triumphs through the media hailing their achievements with our money, European money, and who would recoil at having their failures equally trumpeted.

New Gaming Concept Ltd

The following is neither lie, nor speculation.

In October 2009 Councillor Jean Stapleton signed off a BIG grant to the company who had already received public funding of £845,000 via Subsidiaries of MSIF and via the NWDA.

In March 2010 the same company filed for Liquidation with an accumulated net loss of £905K. All the European, BIG money and NWDA money was declared lost at the final Liquidators report in (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05427776) except for £5,000!

No accounts submitted to Companies House in the lead up to the investment of £845,000 of public money on 30th January 2008 were endorsed by professional accountants. Indeed the 30th April 2008 accounts did not even allude to the floating charge nor the debenture created on 30th January 2008.

Speculation follows:

Shoddy indeed was this for a recipient of £845,000 of public money, even dishonest. I wonder whether the accounts filed for 30th April 2009 on 8th December 2009 were truthful in outlining £461,494 of debtors when three months later the Statement of Assets

At liquidation the Debtors are described as £90,000 of which the liquidator by June 2011 has collected just and precisely £NIL. With Invest Wirral running the show given the revelations in the Grant Thornton BIG investigation one can imagine the BIG panel being duped.

This case has not been followed by any detailed investigation for like wirralbiz it does not suit the Eurocracy, among whom I count Cllr P Davies, to rake over the ashes. Certainly I doubt if Joe Public would ever have heard of this monumental waste if it had not been for the determination of the whistle-blowers to nail the LIE.

I have asked MSIF under FOI for their file on New Concept Gaming Ltd and received the fastest ever response to any FOI, that they were not subject to FOI. I have asked NWDA and its successor, DCLG, and WBC, for their files who of course are subject to FOI.

I conclude that Readers should be aware of just how little protection we are afforded from deception by Councillors or downright robbery by some private companies, by any organ of the state or duly appointed agent of the same. CAVEAT EMPTOR and respect to WIRRAL IN IT TOGETHER and WIRRALLEAKS who do the next best thing which is to put travesties on RECORD.