Forgemasters Dispute Breaks Out In Parliament!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/emp/external/player.swf

Clive Betts Labour Member for Sheffield South East secured an Adjournment  Debate on Wednesday evening on the subject of the cancellation of the £80 Million proposed loan to Sheffield Forgemasters and the exposure of lobbying by Andrew Cook, chairman of engineering firm William Cook Holdings who wrote to Conservative Business Minister Mark Prisk calling for the funding to be withdrawn.

Rotherham’s own MP Denis MacShane was also there to lend a hand as was John Healey the Member for Wentworth and the Dearne still sitting on the front bench.** The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg Member for Sheffield Hallam was strangely absent from this debate.

Previously Nick Clegg had made the following statement: that he regretted the government “cannot afford to support its expansion” but added that “the truth is that this loan was promised by the outgoing Labour government as a calculated ploy to win support in Sheffield just ahead of the election”.

Labour’s cynicism is fully on show here, their promise was essentially deceptive, If the money had existed they would have completed arrangements before the General Election thereby ensuring that no cancellation was possible. They did not because they knew that, if they had won or gone into coalition with the Liberals, they would have had to cancel it themselves. Plain Hypocrisy at work! Nothing new about that then!

Rik

Notes:

** In opposition, Labour MPs get to chose their front bench team by ballot, I wonder where Healey will stand once these elections take place? We shall see!

Disgraced Parliamentarians, Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield, to face Trial! – case not privileged! Appeal Court gives judgement.

In a landmark ruling today, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Judge, sitting together with Lord Neuberger and Sir Anthony May, have rejected their appeals against Mr Justice Saunders previous ruling at Southwark Crown Court in June, that the parliamentary expenses system was not covered by parliamentary privilege.

Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield argued at the Court of Appeal that Parliament should hear their case.

When handing down the Appeal Court’s judgement,  Lord Judge said:

“The stark reality is that the defendants are alleged to have taken advantage of the allowances scheme designed to enable them to perform their important public duties as Members of Parliament to commit crimes of dishonesty to which parliamentary immunity or privilege does not, has never, and, we believe, never would attach.”

Pretty conclusive from the Appeal Court Judges then, they are however likely to appeal this to the Supreme Court supported as they are by legal aid, they will not bear the cost, we will! Outrageous!

Elliot Morley, the former MP for Scunthorpe, David Chaytor, formerly MP for Bury North and ex-Livingston MP Jim Devine were barred from standing at the general election by the Labour Party after the allegations surfaced and Lord Hanningfield, has been suspended by the Tory Party.

All four face separate trials once this charade of an appeals process is over, perhaps they should be charged for deliberately wasting public money on further appeals?

All four deny charges of false accounting over their expenses which carry a maximum sentence of seven years’ imprisonment.

Rik

Competition Time!

Competition Time!

Now that summer holidays are upon us, time to relax, try this friendly competition.

Last May the Labour Party election addresses were strewn with errors. This is the worst I have come across, unless you know differently? If you think you have another leaflet with more mistakes in it, get it scanned and email it to me please. Click here for details.

This example was issued by Neil License in his election for Swinton ward on May 6th. Click on the images to enlarge.

Identify the errors, there are loads!

Enter via comments below.

Have fun!

Rik

Words, Words, Words!

Numpty, incompetent, inept, pathetic, stupid, arrogant, conceited and misconceived!

The words employed by Cllr Neil Fulcher when describing RMBC regarding their performance.

Suspending him from office for 6 months, the judge described them thus, “pejorative, unjustified and probably defamatory”.

A quick search of Hansard, the official record of Parliamentary business, shows that words such as these are in common usage on a daily basis apart from numpty, which has been only been used occasionally. None of these words then are considered at all un-parliamentary.

I am pretty sure that the defence of ‘fair comment’ would prevent any defamation law suits being successful.

So we are left with the inevitable conclusion here that vast quantities of your money has been spent, well north of £160,000, persecuting someone for what most would consider mild, insignificant and reasonable in the circumstances, I leave you to judge for yourself.

This situation is an example of internecine warfare within the Labour Party in Rotherham and demonstrates exactly what is wrong with the once proud ‘Party of the People’ in our town. If members of the Labour Party turn on one another in such a childishly vindictive and spiteful way, no wonder they are arrogantly contemptuous of their own voters and value them only as ‘voting fodder’, come election time! You have been warned!

Rik

Sitwell By-Election 3, UKIP Mystery Solved? More Questions to Answer?

At the end of June, John Wilkinson was teasing Rotherham Independents and presumably others, that they had an excellent potential candidate for the by-election. I reproduce below an email sent by John Wilkinson to Peter Thirlwall:

“—– Original Message —– From: “John Wilkinson” <jwaccountancy@msn.com>
To: “Peter Thirlwall” <peter.thirlwall@talktalk.net>

Hi Peter,
Hope you are well.
Are you putting up a candidate for the Sitwell by-election?
We have a good guy we want to go with.
Regards
John”

At close of nominations, it became clear that their claimed ‘good guy’ was none other than John Wilkinson himself!  Alternatively, said ‘good guy’ might have thought better of it?

John Wilkinson, famous locally for his diatribes in the Rotherham Advertiser especially on the subject of climate change.

This scientifically illiterate, flat earther, appears incapable of understanding even the the most basic of scientific concepts, if his patently ridiculous and false arguments are actually believed by him.

His prejudices, based as they are on ignorance or misinterpretation of the facts, leads to inevitable questions as to his judgement on other matters, if he can get this one so wrong?

Of course he is representing a Party that tells everyone that will listen, that if we came out of the EU, the whole world would suddenly improve overnight.

I am certainly not a lover of the EU and the corruption that appears endemic in that organisation, but his beliefs and that of his Party, UKIP, in this matter are clearly suspect and certainly not at issue in this local by-election.

Pernicious ‘moral relativism’ that attempts to undermine confidence in prevailing interpretations by attacking the merest detail and then claiming the whole concept is discredited as a result, that had previously manifested itself in the courts of America, resulting in the extraordinary verdicts in the famous examples of OJ Simpson and Michael Jackson and again in America in the continuing and interminable debates surrounding Evolution vs Creationism!

A distinctly unwelcome American approach, imported, it would seem by UKIP, and practised in good measure wherever self serving narrow political advantage is perceived, for themselves. The first casualty in this? The truth!

UKIP cannot be taken seriously unless they allow facts to inform positions rather than prejudice!

Giving the voters of Sitwell this UKIP candidate, if he is the ‘good guy’ promised in his email then heaven help the Rotherham voters in the future if their judgement is so obviously poor! Is he really the best they could do? Perhaps Caven Vines was to be their ‘white knight?

Finally, there is credible evidence of an electoral pact between UKIP and the BNP, at at least one previous set of local elections. They carved up Rotherham secretly between them and agreed not to stand against each other. Discipline only broke down in Maltby where they opposed each other. BNP and BNP light or UKIP as it’s members call it, has not changed one iota since then.

This bunch of narrow minded, prejudiced, far right nutters that are essentially politically parasitic and specialise in fomenting conflict as a political tool, should be ignored by every right thinking person, as one would avoid the plague.

Suspicions are growing that the pact is back on and the lack of a candidate from the BNP does lend weight to those suspicions. We should be told?

Rik

Sitwell By-Election 2 – It was the Liberals!

It has now been revealed that the by-election was called by the Liberals, defending themselves by saying it was OK because they waited until after Michael Clarke’s funeral!

What tosh! Seeing clear political opportunity at the expense of their Coalition partners, they defied convention, the requirements of  basic respect and called the election at breakneck speed, whilst simultaneously denying publicly having done so!

The formation of the Coalition Government involved the most naked political opportunism by the Liberals, in their push for power they abandoned principle, gave up all of their policy promises in order to get their feet under the table of Government and access to the accoutrements of office, oh and lots of Ministerial salaries to assuage their guilt at abandoning pretty well all principle!

Hopefully Sitwell Voters at the polls on August 5th will roundly reject such cynicism and exercise their votes accordingly!

Rik

Neil Fulcher – On Consistency! Or Double Standards At Work?

Neil Fulcher writes:

“Consistency is a prerequisite in any statutory empower body or so you would think.

Let me test your adjudication abilities if I may:

Doncaster’s proposed civic mayor sends factually proven emails from a council computer containing a strong racist and sexist content to council officers.

Rotherham Councillor Neil Fulcher sends factually proven emails from a home computer containing words like numpty, incompetent, inept, pathetic, stupid, arrogant, conceited, misconceived to council officers.

Sentence imposed by Standards Board Tribunal Doncaster.  Councillor 3 months suspended

Sentence imposed by Standards Board Tribunal Rotherham.  Councillor 6 months suspension

Consistency and impartiality at work in a system that quite rightly is soon to be abolished by the new government because it is neither consistent nor impartial”

Read text of Sheffield Star 24 May 2010 at http://www.thestar.co.uk/doncaster/Councillor-suspended-as-explanation-over.6314921.jp

Neil Fulcher, farce ends in slap on wrist! Comment.

Neil Fulcher a Bramley resident and parish council member has been suspended for 6 months from holding elected office.

After well in excess of £160,000 has been spent trying to pursue this community activist for simply trying to perform his elected duties on behalf of his fellow constituents.

What were his crimes that merited such vast expenditure in bringing him to book?

He is on record as using the following terms when attempting to hold our slippery and opaque council to account:

“Numpty, incompetent, inept, pathetic, stupid, arrogant, conceited and misconceived”

Hardly the most pejorative terms to have used when commenting upon the poor performance of our Council! Much, much worse has been said in these columns and if this were a libel case,  ‘fair comment’ would surely win out as a defence. The Advertiser would also have found it self subject to litigation on a regular basis if words such as these were to be genuinely derogatory and libellous!

These words do not adequately cover the situation at RMBC, indeed Labour members, councillors and the odd MP have used much more direct and far cruder language than this when describing me in the past!

Numpty

Scottish usage: a) Someone who (sometimes unwittingly) by speech or action demonstrates a lack of knowledge or misconception of a particular subject or situation to the amusement of others. b) A good humoured admonition, a term of endearment c) A reckless, absent minded or unwise person.

Incompetent

Being useless or very bad at your job or task.

inept

adjective

1. without skill or aptitude for a particular task or assignment; maladroit: He is inept at mechanical tasks. She is inept at dealing with people.

2. generally awkward or clumsy; haplessly incompetent.

3. inappropriate; unsuitable; out of place.

4. absurd or foolish: an inept remark.

Pathetic

adjective

1. causing or evoking pity, sympathetic sadness, sorrow, etc.; pitiful; pitiable: a pathetic letter; a pathetic sight.

2. affecting or moving the feelings.

3. pertaining to or caused by the feelings.

4. miserably or contemptibly inadequate: In return for our investment we get a pathetic three percent interest.

.

Stupid

adjective

1. lacking ordinary quickness and keenness of mind; dull.

2. characterized by or proceeding from mental dullness; foolish; senseless: a stupid question.

3. tediously dull, esp. due to lack of meaning or sense; inane; pointless: a stupid party.

Arrogant

adjective

1. making claims or pretensions to superior importance or rights; overbearingly assuming; insolently proud: an arrogant public official.

Conceited

adjective

1. having an excessively favourable opinion of one’s abilities, appearance, etc.

Misconceived

adjective

Badly planned because of a failure to understand a situation and therefore unsuitable or unlikely to succeed.

As I said, fair comment, if not too mild and understated in my opinion!

Hope Neil appeals, that should be fun!

Rik

Salt Dome Protest Reaches Airwaves!

Neil Fulcher and Rob Foulds have taken to the airwaves to bring attention to massive ‘carbuncle’.

Listen to Neil here.

Listen to Rob here. Part 1, Part2.

Neil Fulcher, farce ends in slap on wrist!

PRESS RELEASE – FROM NEIL FULCHER DATED 22-07-2010

STANDARDS BOARD OF ENGLAND / RMBC V COUNCILLOR NEIL FULCHER

CASE REFERENCE: LGS/2010/0504 Rotherham Law Courts The Statutes 19^th / 20^th July 2010

SUBJECT MATTER: Reference in relation to a possible failure to follow the Bramley Parish Council Code of Conduct

APPLICANT: Jonathan Wigmore, Ethical Standards Officer Standards for England

RESPONDENT: Councillor Neil Fulcher of Bramley Parish Council

TRIBUNAL MEMBERS

Judge: Patrick Mulvenna

Member: Richard Enderby

Member: Peter Norris

STATEMENT FROM NEIL FULCHER

Not a 100% victory but a victory never the less in spite of the fact that I was never going to get a fair trial in view of the covert and clandestine activity surrounding this case. After a 13 month investigation involving over 10 officers and many, many more back office staff at an estimated cost of over £160,000 to the public purse I find it insulting to the public at a time of great national hardship money has been deliberately wasted on what has been nothing more than a public vendetta by Rotherham Borough Council Officers Mumford, Waller, Battersby, Sheera and Councillor Terry Bradley. Heads should role and accountability should be demanded from those who are elected by ballot to run our services in Rotherham. Such a substantial breach of fiscal and political policy can only be described as incompetence by a third rate three star lacklustre council.

The decision by the Standards Tribunal Panel to dismiss some of the charges is testament to the poor quality case made by such vast resources at RMBC and the SBoE. Charges without substance or factual evidence to back them other speculation and vengeance. All made against Councillor Fulcher because I used my democratic right to have a say, hold an alternate opinion and be an activist in exposing the appalling record of this deplorable Labour controlled council.

It is quite extraordinary that the charge sheet states “The Tribunal has considered an application from an ESO following an investigation of a complaint that the Respondent had failed to follow the provisions of the Code of Conduct of Bramley Parish Council” when in fact I have not even been tried against the Bramley Parish Code of conduct but by Tim Mumford’s self made Borough Council Code of conduct. This aptly demonstrates the tribunal process is flawed constantly making mistakes with many, many inaccuracies. Even the charge sheet read Councillor Fulcher of Wigan Council. Another major flaw in the quango Standards Board soon to be abolished by national Government is been found guilty on charges that I have never been interviewed about or asked one question about. How appallingly wrong is that and in a so called justice system? The standards Board have unremittingly gone out of their way to case build, collude and manipulate with the Rotherham Borough Council officers to gain an outcome that dealt with that “Troublesome Councillor” once and for all in their high mined opinions.

The most stupid thing of all about the hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money wasted in this fiasco is it only came about because of the descriptive words I used to expose the totalitarian corruption behind Rotherham Borough Councils bullet biting, gun ho, bunker building, greenbelt land grabbing policies.

I used words such as Numpty, incompetent, inept, pathetic, stupidity, arrogant, conceited, misconceived. I admit it is quite a textual bombardment and bang on accurate. It is really something mature Officers such Mumford, Waller, Battersby, Sheera and Bradley throw their dummy out of the Borough pram just because there are other people in the sweet shop. The tribunal judge said of my words “they were pejorative (negative), unjustified and probably defamatory”. They are accurate, articulate and acutely true. If the best they can come up with to find me guilty is probability then that accurately, articulately and acutely demonstrate why this inept organisation is to abolished as the whipping boy organisation it has become.

I stand by what I said, every single word, I stand by the people who I represented as a councillor and I stand by the community where I live, work and socialize. I can prove that my words where descriptively accurate to describe these people and the situations RMBC had manipulated to their own deceitful advantage and that why they fought so long, so hard, so expensively to shut up that “troublesome councillor”.

It is quite ironic that the Standards Board Tribunal have band me from having a public voice as a councillor for 6 months have in practice given me an even greater voice as Neil Fulcher the citizen. I will not be going away in fact I now have leave to be more active in uncovering RMBCs Totalitarian Regime and dogma down at town hall towers. I will attending council meeting as a citizen and will debate and challenge and expose accountability as often as I can. I will use my democratic freedoms to call these people numpty, incompetent, inept, pathetic, stupidity, arrogant, conceited, misconceived wherever and whenever appropriate those terms need to be applied.

The case file all 2000 pages will now be going to HM Government and Mr Eric Pickles, Government Minister for Information who is spearheading the abolition of hundreds of Labour quangos and useless organisations that just tax payer money in serving no purpose other than to control, manipulate and implement Labour party politics.

As always I make myself I am open to public scrutiny and will answer questions asked of me and provide proof of my justifications. If the Council don’t like it then let’s a full open public debate about it and let the people decide.

Lastly I would like to thank the countless people who have supported me over the last 13 months throughout these malicious unjustified allegations. Your help and support was so much appreciated.

Regards

Neil Fulcher (power to the people)

BELOW IS THE FULL OFFICIAL ISSUED TRIBUNAL DECISION

Notice of Decision

Ref No: LGS/2010/0504

Subject matter: Reference in relation to a possible failure to follow the Code of Conduct

Applicant: Jonathan Wigmore, ESO, Standards for England

Respondent: Councillor Neil Fulcher of Bramley Parish Council

Tribunal Members

Judge: Patrick Mulvenna

Member: Richard Enderby

Member: Peter Norris

1. The Tribunal has considered an application from an ESO following an investigation of a complaint that the Respondent had failed to follow the provisions of the Code of Conduct of Bramley Parish Council.
2. The Tribunal reached the following decision after considering the written evidence and submissions of the parties.
3. The Respondent did not fail to comply with paragraph 3(2)(b) the Code of Conduct, but did fail to comply with paragraphs 3(1) and 5 of the Code of Conduct.
4. The Code of Conduct provides:
   1. Paragraph 2:

1. 1. ‘(1) Subject to sub-paragraphs (2) to (5), you must comply with this Code whenever you—

1. 1. conduct the business of your authority (which, in this Code, includes the business of the office to which you are elected or appointed); or
   2. act, claim to act or give the impression you are acting as a representative of your authority,

1. 1. and references to your official capacity are construed accordingly.
   2. (2) … this Code does not have effect in relation to your conduct other than where it is in your official capacity.’

1. 1. Paragraph 3 states:

1. 1. ‘(1) You must treat others with respect.
   2. (2) You must not—
   3. …
2. bully any person’.

1. 1. Paragraph 5:

‘You must not conduct yourself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or authority into disrepute’.

1. The Respondent breached paragraphs 3(1) and 5 of the Code of Conduct by mounting continuing and sustained attacks on the integrity and character of two Council officers and another Councillor which were pejorative, unjustified and probably defamatory.
2. The Tribunal decided to impose the following sanction:
   1. To suspend the Respondent for a period of six months.
3. The date such sanction is to take effect is 1 August 2010.
4. The written reasons for the decision will be sent to the parties as soon as reasonably practicable, which is likely to be within 14 days and published on the Tribunal’s website.
5. Any request for the decision to be reviewed or for permission to appeal needs usually to be made to the First-tier Tribunal within 28 days of receipt of the Tribunal’s reasoned decision. Such applications need to be in writing.

Patrick Mulvenna

Judge

19 July 2010