Another week, another U-turn (or should that be U-bend?) by an increasingly nervous Labour administration at Wirral Council .This time it’s about the right for pooches to poop on the beaches.
As you can see Cllr Matthew ‘Faux’ Patrick aka Matty Patty fronts – and boy do we mean ‘front – this response to Wirral Council’s ‘faux’ consultation concerning where Wirral dogs can or can’t defecate. This appears to be an phoney (and costly) exercise in ‘We listen, we care about what the people of Wirral tell us’…
However now that they’ve backtracked on the beaches , will Wirral Council be pulling out of their park proposals? …and can somebody tell us who keeps coming up with these dog-eared, madcap money making schemes?
PS Wirral Leaks welcomes entries in our caption competition to accompany the Matty Patty still above. Just keep it clean – this is about the Town Hall not the Townhouse!
We won’t be shedding a tear as we were never a fan. We regularly made the observation that he was someone who seemed more comfortable being in impotent opposition than being in a position of power.
As we know Green briefly reaped the rewards of the Martin Morton whistleblowing scandal by getting the backing of the Lib Dems to oust Labour leader Steve Foulkes and to subsequently become the leader of Wirral Council.
However his tenure as leader was short lived and he seemed relieved to resume the position of a perpetual purveyor of “‘faux outrage” (to quote Labour councillor Matthew ‘Matty Patty’ Patrick) . Meanwhile the returning Labour administration, this time under Cllr Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies, went back to their bad old ways – cover ups, secrecy and cronyism – all in the name of rampant reputation management.
All of which meant that the seismic shockwaves that were supposed to result from a series of whistleblowing cases ended up being no more than mere tremors.
Of course Green should have read the writing on the wall ( or more accurately the writing in the first Patricia Thynne investigation into the Wirralgate scandal ) when Foulkesy described him as ‘kindred’. As both are now ousted party leaders their bond can only be closer.
As far as we were concerned his apparent complicity with the Wirralgate scandal revealed in the second Thynne report is his biggest failure when it comes to trying to hold the Labour administration to account. His compliance resulted in the biggest scandal in Wirral Council’s history to be all neatly wrapped up in an unwarranted apology from Foulkesy to Green.
We shall wait and see as to whether Green’s successor as Tory leader , Cllr, Ian Lewis adopts the same collusive approach as Green and takes to winking at his oppo, Power Boy Pip, after declaring how ‘outraged’ he is about the latest Wirral Council cock up.
We can’t get enough of ‘Wirral View’ – well we would if we had actually received more than one copy at Leaky Towers . Yes , we know there’s an online edition but there’s nothing like the touch of newsprint and gazing lovingly on those precious words of wisdom that fill that empty void that was once our information deficit to make us be #thankful #grateful #blessed to be living in such interesting times as these.
So imagine how relieved, nay, overjoyed we were to hear that Wirral Council are addressing this pressing issue. We dare say we need to take some credit for this. For way back in November 2016 we identified what we called the ‘Distribution Deficit’ when it comes to this vital organ.
Subsequent Wirral Leaks posts have highlighted the fact there is no point in producing a publication which nobody ever gets a copy of and when they do they get a copy they quickly come to the conclusion that there is definitely no point in publishing Wirral View.
Our distribution solution would be to chase Wirral View out of town once and for all. However belatedly it would appear that Wirral Council’s Head of Communications Kev MacCallum is on the case – phew! . He once was lost and now is found and what would we do without him!
Apparently the distributors that were based in Liverpool have been dumped (much like their delivery methods) and been replaced by a Wirral firm , and er, Royal Mail. This may have led to an increase in costs but Kev reassuringly tells us that ‘This additional expenditure will be accounted for through reducing the spend associated with copy writing and photography with more work being delivered in-house.’
We’re imagining this involves the Labour Cabinet writing good news stories about foodbanks and passing round the crayons to draw pictures of tins of beans. The next edition promises to be all very Warholian.
You can hear Matty Patty at 1hr 05.20 followed by Conservative Councillor Adam Sykes http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04x0r52
However the absolute highlight was ‘Kathy from New Brighton’ who at 1hr 20 put Roger right about Wirral Council’s intentions when it came to generating advertising revenue. Kathy told us that she ran an independent business and received an email from Wirral Council in September 2016 promoting a ‘new advertising opportunity’ .
Kathy declined this opportunity on the grounds that advertising costs were ‘extortionate’ and ‘I support my free press’ . You tell ’em!
Roger seemed a bit miffed that he’d been wrongfooted about where the advertising in Wirral View was supposed to be emanating from. ‘I was told NHS ……that sort ofadvertising‘ he said forlornly. Sorry , Rog , but you seem a bit slow on the uptake that the Wirral Council crew can sometimes be rather disengenous (and we’re being polite for a change). We just wish more people would get with the programme – but preferably not yours as we find it a frustrating experience over the years as you have consistently provided the Wirral Council power elite with a platform for their mendacious BS. Who can forget the infamous Graham Burgess ‘ mistakes’ episode for starters?
Indeed listening to Roger Phillips always makes us want to storm the Radio Merseyside studios and reinact the famous scene from the movie ‘ Network ‘ and scream : ‘I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore…’
Wirralleaks 