With the Conservatives nationally stampeding towards a takeover of REFORM UK Ltd., Northumberland Conservatives seem to be ignoring reform opposition members faux pas, probably just in case they are vying with each other for County Council seats in the ‘New Transformer’ Party UK Co. LTD’.
It's expected that the now disgraced tax dodger Mr Farage will be forced by public opinion strengthened by ACTIVE UK members on social media to resign with full on Tory toff Jacob Reece Mogg lined up to take his place.
But just in case we codgers have read the runes incorrectly we need to ask what if anything is the Leader of Northumberland County Council, labeled dysfunctional, going to do to ensure Councillors on this massive authority follow the rules of constitution and in some cases the laws of the land.
We have a Town littered with flags which are being used to signal the rise of the right, a Town where right wing activists have displayed racist comments at the Towns monument to the fallen, a monument naming those who fought and died protecting the world from the extreme right wing views of the Nazis, now being glorified by Citizens who have ‘decided to forget’. Councillors on this Council are littered with those who have broken the Nolan principles and possibly the equality laws of the UK.
Let's begin by looking at the Nolan principles: which contains the need for Leaders of Councils to uphold those principles has this Leader decided to ignore them?
A local Bedlington councillor has written to the press (article in the editorial notes) the Leader of Council has responded in the weakest way possible, drifting from the Nolan principles as far as he possibly can. With Universities supporting the view that flags put up for the enhancement of the ultra right of politics is frightening off the Bedlington Councillor’s residents.
The Leader of Council whose rose tinted glasses must have missed the huge higher education development rising from the ground right beside Ashington Town Centre whose students may feel the same way as their peers.
We next want to know what the Leadership group of the Council is going to do about Councillor Fitzgerald, an elected member who seems to be going to the extreme and is possibly an anti-multiculturalist in his personal beliefs when he demanded at a full council meeting that only Christian values should be taught in schools. Putting this mess on the back burner raises several issues and the Council’s leader needs to act quickly and not in his usual dysfunctional fashion.
The next collapse of the Council's very weak constitution has raised its head placing even more pressure on the Council’s Leader.
A Councillors who it was reported can not take part in any discussion on the Council’s budget as he owes the Council money.
It's come to light through a freedom of information request that Councillor Barry Elliott representing Newsham in Blyth owes the Council more than £10,000 in unpaid Council Tax. Yet the Council’s leadership has allowed him to raise issues about finance and sit on the Council’s audit committee, a complete breach of the Nolan principles.
Councillor Elliott has expressed the view that the Council needs to spend its revenue cash reserves. It appears that the Councillor who wants to be heavily involved in the Council’s finance does not understand how those finances need to be protected and what they can be legally used for while ignoring his responsibilities towards the public purse by allowing his debts to accumulate yearly denying the Council the opportunity to spend Councillor Elliott's cash to benefit the Counties communities.
Will anything be done by the Council’s Leadership group to resolve some of these issues or have the caretakers at county hall in Morpeth removed the tacks holding down the carpet yet again so that matters can be swept under?
Notes:
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