This afternoon at 4:15 pm the Roger Stone appearance at the CLG Committee:
This link will go live at 4:15
This link will be replaced by a link that will allow viewing, when you like and as often as you like!
http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/05913185-e6d8-4f49-aede-03782febc381
The Badger’s choice bits:
“I accept the Jay report but I don’t accept the Casey report” and “I’m not in denial”. Absolutely astounding arrogance and a whole new level of denial.
“I didn’t think there was a problem with the Pakistani community (we always called them the Asian community), we were always working together.” I would have liked to know in what way were they working together.
On talking about rapists (after he was forced to accept the children were raped), he said “Akhtar and Marhoof said they should be locked up”. So THEY knew about rapists in the Pakistani community then!
“We’ve been improving year on year and had strong leadership”, Really?
“Risky Business was not closed down, it needed better management”
“Do you accept you were an unfit leader?” answer “No I don’t accept that”. So here we have a leader of an unfit council that says he wasn’t an unfit leader. Just when you thought he couldn’t deny much more he surprises everyone with that.
He did admit that he accepted responsibility for the failure of the council but he sort of said it tongue in cheek I felt.
What was clear was that decisions were made at meetings prior to cabinet meetings. Not exactly the exemplar of democracy he said Rotherham council was but then had the brass balls to suggest that Eric Pickles had taken democracy away from Rotherham!
Here we have seen a classic example of the stereotypical, not very bright, not very articulate Rotherham Labour councillor who is still in denial about the problem and about the levels of mismanagement. And there are still clones of him on Rotherham council, still denying, still refusing to accept they have got things wrong.
The man is a buffoon of the highest order. I hope his time in court arrives shortly.
Rotherham Politics 
Having watch the committee chairman, Clive Betts, question Lousie Casey, don’t hold you breath. He’s useless.
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Stone is hardly Louise Casey.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/profiles/2160325/Profile-Louise-Casey-the-straight-talking-civil-servant.html
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Betts is hardly Kieth Vaz.
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Er, I’m pretty sure that Betts is from around these parts and given that he’s from a dyed in the wool union dynasty and Stone is similarly a 70s union man, just how impartial is Betts going to be????
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Clive Betts wiki – In 1986 he was appointed as an economist with Rotherham Borough Council http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Betts
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The questions were rather timid, should’ve had that woman dealing with the HSB tax scandal. God he dumped on Wright and Larkin, but praised Aktar and Maroof. Mentor a Asian woman, was always visited the Pakistani’s. Clearly he didn’t give a damn about the abuse of little white girls while he was pally with his Pakistani brothers. What a disgrace.
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http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/05913185-e6d8-4f49-aede-03782febc381
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Even with that working address, it seems to run slightly better on the audio only stream
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Just brilliant, I’m trying to watch the Roger Stone show and it’s not playing properly, just brilliant!!
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this works for me
http://parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/05913185-e6d8-4f49-aede-03782febc381
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Its not working properly for me either.
What I have managed to grab is that Stone agrees with the Jay report but not the Casey report. He saw no culture of bullying at Rotherham council.
I’m sure at one point he started to blame officers (Mike Cuff) for something but the link broke down.
He said he chaired 2 meetings and then left it to the cabinet member and the chief executive.
What I’m picking up is its someone else fault and not his.
Amazing.
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Surprised he hasn’t dumped on Jahangir Akhtar yet?
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He probably read Jahangir’s tweet.
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Nowt to do wi me, right, and then I did everything for these people, right, in fact it’s everybody else’s fault, right, not my fault, right, we weren’t told owt, right, right
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I don’t know if they (the children) were raped or not.
I don’t accept what you’re accusing me of.
Odious man.
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Some choice bits:
“I accept the Jay report but I don’t accept the Casey report” and “I’m not in denial”. Absolutely astounding arrogance and a whole new level of denial.
“I didn’t think there was a problem with the Pakistani community (we always called them the Asian community), we were always working together.” I would have liked to know in what way were they working together.
On talking about rapists (after he was forced to accept the children were raped), he said “Akhtar and Marhoof said they should be locked up”. So THEY knew about rapists in the Pakistani community then!
“We’ve been improving year on year and had strong leadership”, Really?
“Risky Business was not closed down, it needed better management”
“Do you accept you were an unfit leader?” answer “No I don’t accept that”. So here we have a leader of an unfit council that says he wasn’t an unfit leader. Just when you thought he couldn’t deny much more he surprises everyone with that.
He did admit that he accepted responsibility for the failure of the council but he sort of said it tongue in cheek I felt.
What was clear was that decisions were made at meetings prior to cabinet meetings. Not exactly the exemplar of democracy he said Rotherham council was but then had the brass balls to suggest that Eric Pickles had taken democracy away from Rotherham!
Here we have seen a classic example of the stereotypical, not very bright, not very articulate Rotherham Labour councillor who is still in denial about the problem and about the levels of mismanagement. And there are still clones of him on Rotherham council, still denying, still refusing to accept they have got things wrong.
The man is a buffoon of the highest order. I hope his time in court arrives shortly.
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Thanks for those quotes TB
What stuck me most was his endless repeating of the phrase “… at the end of the day”..
I’m just happy that his day HAS ended.
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Wow what an affordable and considerate man Stone was. no bullying by anyone. Relied on information from Cabinets members and officers, always believe whatever the police told him. Grooming is different from CSE . Risky Business needed new management that’s why it was closed down. No one wonder the Pakistani councillors loved him. He turned a blind eye to their misconduct…..what an old fool.
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What really worries me is that Stone’s leadership style and method of working is ingrained within the council to such an extent that it will be with us for as long as the main Labour players are still councillors or if ex councillors, still running the Rotherham Labour group.
I would like to think that the new leadership is different but its not, its a façade. The fact that the Labour party as a collective replied to the Advertiser’s questions suggest two things to me.
1. That there are still some Labour councillors who view things as Stone does i.e. don’t agree with the Casey report, say they didn’t know about the extent of the problems or refuse to accept they have done anything wrong.
2. Individual councillors are not allowed to speak in case they make the same faux pas as Watson et al on Channel 4 news. In other words, the Labour party will only give a collective answer in public that says what people and the Commissioners want to hear but in private, they will still deny and disagree.
The B.
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‘I knew about grooming, but not about rape.’ What the hell did this fool think the children were being groomed for ?
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In any right – thinking country, NON of the sitting Labour councillors would be allowed to stand again. At best, they are all guilty by association and many are guilty by deed. Only a clear out will do. The disgrace on the Labour Party for not seeing to this is second only to the disgrace brought on Rotherham.
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Whilst ever any of the now disgraced ex cabinet members are on the selection list to stand in May, no one will believe for one minute that the current Labour group has changed. What surprises me most is that the Regional Labour group seem to be endorsing disgraced councillors for re election (Beck is a perfect example).
As for Stone, what a disgrace.
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Stone typifies everything that was wrong and is wrong with RMBC.
The same old mantra; ‘Nothing to do with me Guv’. Why, in Labour La La land is something always the fault of A.N.Other?
Louise Casey said RMBC “is not fit for purpose”. In the real world this means accepting collective responsibility and the more exposure Stone, Kimber, Read and Hoddinot get the worse the scale of failure becomes.
Stone has exposed himself as a repugnant denier of the truth. It could also be argued he’s an odious little twerp.
Meanwhile Miliband remains silent…………
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