Rich Pickings On Animal Farm

As a companion piece to yesterday’s story we have been sent a link to a story on the Guido Fawkes website by a gobsmacked Wirralian. And yes we know Guido Fawkes has an agenda, so does The Canary and so do we. Deal with it! For avoidance of doubt our agenda is to highlight that modern (and particularly local) politics is complete self serving bollocks.

However for your delectation here is the story that was brought to our attention:

Back in October Guido ran one of our “through the keyhole” looks at Esther McVey’s Wirral home, the four bedroom house was on the market for £615,000. With our help promoting the property it sold the very next month in November for just below the asking price at £605,000.

In a strange twist, the buyer of this suburban dream home was Catriona Davies, the daughter of the leader of Wirral’s Labour Council – Philip Davies* – who, in the 2010 General Election, lost out against the now-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for the Wirral West seat. She bought it for cash, no mortgage needed…

*not her boyfriend Philip Davies, the Tory MP.

Link to Guido Fawkes story : here

So much we’d like to say – much (if not all) are contained in the comments below the Guido Fawkes article.  However the story strikes us as very Orwellian. ‘Animal Farm’ made flesh with the extra frisson that Birkenhead councillor Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies’ daughter allegedly now lives in the house that was once occupied by the woman who thwarted his political ambitions. As we know at the subsequent General Election McVey was ousted after what was a particularly hostile campaign co-ordinated by Pip’s West Kirby neighbour , Martin Liptrot – the man who first became Pip’s personal PR guru before being appointed to a ‘transformation’ policy wonk role at Wirral Council after a couple of ‘grace and favour’ appointments.

And so it all worked out well in the end for everyone (including McVey) didn’t it ?  – as it always does with those with the ‘right’ connections , who live in the ‘right’ areas and say – but don’t necessarily mean – the ‘right’ words. For those who don’t – and who won’t play the modern political game – not so much……….

The Skwawking Canary Comes Home To Roost

 

Yes ,we know it’s not a canary but then Frank’s no saint!

There are alternative sources out there for the politically curious beyond the usual newspaper columns, press releases and soundbites.

Indeed we’ve been inundated with contacts providing links to a couple of left -leaning blogs The Canary and Skwawkbox and telling us that they’re singing our song.

And so it would seem there’s only so much backstabbing of the Labour Party leader that Corbynistas are prepared to tolerate from Birkenhead MP Frank Field.

Firstly, The Canary rustles Frank Field’s feathers by challenging him on his reprehensible stand on paying disabled people less than the National Living Wage (NLW). Apparently this is because their work has “an economic value below the legal minimum wage”. He says his idea is to help employers “to take on low-productivity disabled workers”. Field, in his typical high handed manner ,dismisses criticism of his standpoint as “absurd” . Might we suggest as a point of comparison he checks out the “economic value” of some of the charlatans on six figure salaries running Wirral Council?

Linda Burnip from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) believes that Field does not understand why his comments have upset disabled people. She told The Canary:

For anyone in this day and age to hold those views, and especially someone in Frank Field’s position, is abominable. It is exactly the same sort of thinking as the Nazi ‘useless eaters’ rhetoric.

John McArdle from campaign group Black Triangle also criticised Field :

The right to equal treatment and equality are human rights. Human rights are not privileges. That’s why they are called rights. I suggest Mr Field goes back to the drawing board. His comments are a disgrace and he should now apologise. Furthermore, if the Labour Party wishes to prove that it has truly changed its tune, it will need to demonstrate that the New Labour old guard are no longer calling the shots and put the voices of disabled people first.

The last time we looked, Mr Field was not a spokesperson for disabled people.

Read the full article here : Sack Field

However talking of the ‘old guard’ Field and his cabal will be facing a much more serious and pressing challenge much closer to home at tonight’s Birkenhead Constituency Labour Party (CLP) AGM to be held at The Lauries.

Skwawkbox reports a local activist as saying  that :  “The cabal of right-wing, clapped-out councillors needs a shakeup. We now have a record membership – they just need to turn up, in numbers, and make change happen!”

This is like a line from our back pages as is the ‘slate’ for a member driven Birkenhead CLP  which includes the following commitments . These are the ones that stood out for us but the full list can be found here: Birkenhead CLP AGM

•  A member driven CLP run from the bottom up ,not a top-down Cabal .
•  A more competent CLP ; where meetings are properly organised, and managed  for the benefit of ALL members ,not just the needs of a few Councillors or the MP
• Honesty,integrity and openness;where decisions are democratically arrived at, and nobody is bullied, disenfranchised or discriminated against by those with agendas or vested interests
• A more visible , and active CLP ; that campaign’s on multiple fronts (locally and nationally) not just to preserve the careers of elected members ! we will be more visible and active than ever – in our Community and beyond

Ouch!

But then we’ve always maintained that it was only a long established small cabal who were responsible for bringing the local Labour Party into such disrepute. Furthermore we always said that it would be party members who would finally call time on this abuse of power.  We shall be following tonight’s developments with interest in anticipation of ,not so much a coup d’état , as a coup de grâce – for everyone’s sake it really is time to put the old guard out of their (and our)  misery.