In The Public Domain?: P*sspoor BBC Thrash Eling With Wet Lettuce Leaf!

#Sandwell
 
Time and time again we have seen the BBC fail to cover the corruption, cronyism, incompetence and bullying within their friends at Labour Sandwell Council and that they have shown clear partiality when they do get their act together.  A senior BBC journalist led the memorial event for the late Smethwick Scumbag, corrupt Darren Cooper. We saw the nonsense with the so-called "news" programme Midlands Today.

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/skidder-shorts-27-bbc-midlands-today.html

(Of course, one senior male Sandwell Councillor frequently boasted of having sexual intercourse with one of their presenters.)

As this blog has shown, "Leader" Steve Eling and Cllr Richard Marshall met with The Skidder in a Birmingham pub and tried to recruit me to attack various Councillors and, particularly, Cllrs Hussain and Ian Jones. Eling communicated lightly with me via his personal email account but the pair set up a Whats App feed and sent loads of communications, thereby exposing confidential information, abusing all manner of people, making grossly obscene and transphobic remarks and much more. The full thread (with a few necessary redactions) is available at:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/steve-eling-you-are-fcking-liar.html

Whilst this course of communication was ongoing, Private Eye Magazine (one of the few media organisations to actually do some proper journalism about the Labour disaster-zone) published that a Councillor had been subject to a court summons for, er, non-payment of Council Tax! Sandwell refused, as per normal, to answer a Freedom of Information request to name the errant individual. I found out it was Marshall. In some Whats App messages and phone calls Trick Dicky finally fessed up and gave me a cock and bull story that it had been overlooked due to a bereavement in his wife's family. Meanwhile a BBC Journalist called Alex Homer (who had previously been a slavish propagandist for Sandwell Council and Darren Cooper at his former employers, The Wolverhampton C*ck-Suckers (aka The Express and Star) had picked up the story and spoken with Marshall.

I told Marshall I would be running the story and he sent me the following message alleging that Alex Homer on behalf of the BBC had agreed to lie on his behalf. Alex Homer denies this but I cannot trace any sign of the BBC running the story. Anyway - here is the message and this is clearly what Marshall was telling me:

Of course, all this was before Marshall was made bankrupt when he and his wife cheated a widow out of £30,000 and they couldn't pay the money (increased substantially by interest and legal costs) back after blowing it.

Now a BBC Broadcaster called Alex Lester has failed to do his homework properly and let Eling p*ss all over him on air!

On Friday last Eling appeared on WM. During the interview (in which Eling defamed me - thanks to folk who sent me the recording) there were the following two exchanges about the WhatsApp stuff:

Alex Lester: "He [James Morris MP] specifically accused you and another councillor of asking a blogger to give the Chief Executive "a kicking". Is that correct?"

Cllr Eling:  "No, it is not correct."

Alex Lester: "That's an absolute lie - definitely not?" (Meaning that James Morris was lying not Eling).

Cllr Eling:  "It is. I have never asked him to kick anybody so erm (then returns to the subject of James Morris)"

And then later:

Alex Lester:  "Now the thing is - let's just go back - you say you deny actively sending - I mentioned the, er, you or another councillor asking a blogger to give the Chief Executive "a kicking". And so nobody as far as you are aware has sent any or you didn't and no-one else as far as you are aware has sent a message to that effect?

Cllr Eling:  "I'm not aware that there's been a message asking a blogger to give the Chief Executive a kicking. I certainly haven't given a blogger a message to give the Chief Executive a kicking." (Once again he rapidly turned the conversation to a rant about James Morris MP.

Eling thinks he has got one over on the BBC because what he said was technically true. Interviewer Alex had not researched the matter adequately or at all and named the wrong person. It was the (female) Assistant Chief Executive Melanie Dudley that Eling and Marshall wanted me to harass (and again later on other occasions too). And here is the offending message they sent me (the white messages are them):

Note the "we" in last message ie Eling and Marshall!

So Eling whilst ducking the real issue did not lie and thanks to pathetic interviewing he got away with it........

Alex "the Dark Lord" (and his on the ball BBC colleagues) could have read all about Eling and Marshall's vicious harassment of Ms Dudley as long ago as 31st October 2017 when The Skidder published:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/eling-marshall-planned-melanies-demise.html

Whilst all this was going on neither BBCWM nor Sunday Politics Midlands (where Eling appeared on TV) mentioned a huge breaking story where someone leaked that Sandwell Monitoring Officer, Surjit Tour, and his Deputy, Philip Tart held an highly irregular meeting in secret with members of the Standards Committee the day before their Stalinist Show Trial of Cllr Jones. Eling was so furious that the secret meeting was in the public domain he suspended SEVEN Council workers! Big story of Eling totally losing self-control and a LABOUR council sh*tting on employees completely overlooked by pro-Labour Sandwell Council BBC!

Two days later Eling appeared on Sunday Politics and seasoned Oldbury Kremlinologists sniffed the first bat squeak that Eling is going to let Marshall carry the can. This was the relevant piece with an interviewer (who I think was Elizabeth Glinka - my apologies if it was not):

Interviewer:  "There are accusations that you have attempted to use social media to retaliate against your political rivals, the people you have an axe to grind with. What do you say to that?"

Eling:  "Well I don't use social media at all. I haven't got a single social media account. I haven't got Facebook, Twitter or a blog."

Interviewer:  "There are accusations that you tried to get other people to use it on your behalf."

Eling: "No well its rubbish. Absolute dross."

Interviewer:  "So you are saying that all the accusations made by James Morris are essentially lies?"

Eling:  "Well they certainly are in relation to me. Other people have posted on social media. All sorts of horrible stuff gets posted on social media but nothing has been posted on social media by me because I haven't got a single social media account."

Eling actually sat back with a broad grin on his face presumably amazed that he had been given such an easy ride! Here is the actual screengrab showing smug Steve's self-satisfaction at "winning" this part of the "interview". He may mock folk but the storm clouds are gathering...

It is because of supine mainstream media like this that The Skidder has to keep going and continue to speak truth to ye huddled masses. We march on comrades!

PS - Eling seems to have bought a new tie in, er, Thailand. Thank heavens he only goes there for neckwear and not for what one predecessor Sandwell Leader [sic] "Bangkok Bill" went for.......

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Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more: 'Blindlingly obvious' - and those missing declarations of interest...

Via - Carmarthenshire Planning Problems and more: 'Blindlingly obvious' - and those missing declarations of interest...

 As I mentioned in my end of year post (scroll down) I emailed the head of legal/monitoring officer Linda Rees Jones before Christmas raising a few concerns. One of these concerns was the revelation that the chief executive had not declared his 'Cardiff' interests which, in my opinion, he should have done; namely that he runs a property management company, he's a director of four private companies, owns leaseholds on several flats and is a registered landlord.

Ms Rees Jones (the email could have been written by Mr James of course) attempts to remove herself from the equation by saying that it is up to him to consider whether or not there is anything within these extra-curricular affairs which may be in conflict with the authority's interests. In my view, the problem with such a voluntary arrangement, for Carmarthenshire anyway, is that this is dependent upon the honesty and integrity of the senior officer concerned...
Ms Rees Jones also notes that there has been much 'blogging' about it all. Quite.

Whilst I have set out my reasons why I think this failure to declare could lead a potential for conflicting interests, and even costly judicial reviews, let alone the significance of the bad press which emerged over the summer, I also made a comparison with the failure, by the chief executive, to declare an interest when being bankrolled for his legal costs by the Executive Board in 2012.

That 2012 failure to declare was one of the reasons why the decision was declared illegal (or 'unlawful', if you like), this was in addition to the fact that such an indemnity was unlawful, full stop. It also led to an independent review of the entire way the council was governed and the conclusion from former lawyer and lay member of the Audit Committee that the council's internal legal advice was 'cavalier' and 'incompetent'.

Ms Rees Jones is of course, unwavering in her defence of Mr James, as if her job depended on it... and continues to argue that the Wales Audit Office were entirely wrong. Quoting various 'counsel's opinions', namely Mr Tim Kerr QC (who was brought in to defend Mr James and the Labour/Independent Exec Board at the time), one of the bizarre excuses was that as it was "blindingly obvious" to the Members that Mr James had a direct interest, a formal declaration was not required. The leap of logic continues with the unverified claim that it was she who gave the advice and not him.

I have pointed out that it is also "blindingly obvious" to Members that officers have a direct interest when pay policy or pensions are being discussed at full council, but those officers duly, and correctly file out of the chamber when such items arise.
In the real world anyone with a shred of integrity would have made a formal declaration and left the meeting. As for the 'advice', I have suggested that his presence alone was sufficient to influence the decision and, furthermore, she discussed the report with Mr James, and sought his advice and approval three days before the meeting, this was highly inappropriate to say the least. It didn't matter whether he spoke at the meeting or not, he'd already influenced the decision.
Oddly, when questioned about his presence at the 2012 meeting at the libel trial he had a sudden memory lapse and 'couldn't remember' if he'd been there or not. Yeah really. Far be it for me to suggest of course that he was not being entirely truthful when in the witness box.

As for the current state of affairs, and undeclared interests, it appears to me that governance is still dire and legal advice remains both cavalier and incompetent. In fact, it's blindingly obvious.

*

In an unrelated issue, the legal department are, it seems to me, currently taking it upon themselves to extend the Freedom of Information Act exemptions to prevent the release of the now scrapped City Deal Joint Working Agreement.

The 70 page document, covering the governance arrangements between the partner local authorities, led by Carmarthenshire, was scrapped in the Autumn and a new one commissioned. In refusing my request for the original draft the council acknowledged there were "public interest factors which favour disclosure in this case, namely transparency and furthering public knowledge in relation to a high profile project involving the expenditure of significant public funds", but used legal professional privilege to prevent its release.

Legal professional privilege (in this case relating to legal advice rather than impending litigation) is, in theory a reasonable and well tested means to protect lawyer/client correspondence and advice, but this is not a bundle of legal letters in the true sense of the law but a complete draft document not only of significant public interest but one that has also been made available to councillors elsewhere.

What this means is that the council can refuse to release documents which may, or may not have been wafted past a lawyer at some point. We wouldn't know. This could even be applied to documents and agreements which have been adopted such as the council's own constitution. Clearly that would be an extreme example, but the council are attempting to set a dangerous precedent regarding the legal exemption and as this is an important principle, I will be taking the matter up with the Information Commissioner in due course.
The full thread of the request and the responses can be read here.

Whilst I'm on the subject of the City Deal it seems that despite the questions hanging over governance arrangements, the level of public funding, etc council staff are being redeployed to work for the City Deal, and as recent advertisements for media and office managers show, this is on the council payroll. It seems that not only are 'cash-strapped' councils required to borrow (and pay interest on) unknown millions but will be funding the staff themselves.

Or perhaps it's just Carmarthenshire, whose chief executive happens to be the lead chief executive for the Deal and who is perhaps busy creating a personalised offshoot of the Kingdom of County Hall, leading us all up the garden path to, er, Wellness...or oblivion.
Councillors may wish to check for themselves that staff and resources are not being diverted away from frontline services to an organisation, a quango of sorts, which has yet to show its hand, let alone democratic accountability.