KNOWING NOTHINGSEEMS TO BE POPULAR IN MURKEYLAND.

Over the Easter holidays it was noticeable that the hot weather led most Tories to dine at barbecues with lashings of grog.

The murkiest team of all were at lidl’s best from the moment the firelighters were thrown on and the charcoal tipped on top.

After a while the chatter turned to whom they thought was responsible for giving them as good as they have dished out for several years.

As they slurped and gassed it was decided that the former leader of the Labour Group and the Clerk of Berwick Town Council and their spin doctor, witness C, were responsible for some of the anti-tory truths that have been issued in response to their Murky Blogspot on Council servers and that the whole package was put together by Grant Davey when he was leader of Blyth Valley Council shows how strong and how much damage white lightning mixed with lidl larger can do to one's mind.

Their blame game rant shows that the Morpeth %&£ ring leader, the cuddly boys and their northern chick have actually lost the plot and expect to con all of the people all of the time, when in reality they have gone out on the airwaves with spin that shows they were too blasted to check that Grant Davey never held the post of Leader at Blyth Valley., or for reference, I would hope has no access to County servers from a domestic dwelling in the Town of Blyth and for security reasons only known to the current ‘secret council’ in Morpeth, neither has Northumberlands Parish Councils.

Keep trying team, but try to get at least one of your facts correct or just pack it in and accept Labour are coming back stronger than ever.

Northumberland Tories in a Mess

The recent changes in the leadership of Northumberland Labour Group have exposed the flanks of the local Tories to a massive blow from which they won’t recover from before the next local government elections or the local North of Tyne mayoral elections for that matter.

Although given three months notice of the impending change of leadership in the Labour Party in Northumberland the Tories massive internal mess at all levels has left them unprepared and extremely ill equipped to manage and plan for change in their oppositions ranks.

Tories in Northumberland have used the constant attacks filled from a stream of degradation, that criminal acts had taken place in the company ARCH. Although they have known for over seven months that Northumbria Police had found no criminality at ARCH they shelved release of that report until they could put together a cover all web to state their false disbelief.

They used their ally the chair of the audit committee at the council to legitimise their plans, letting her expose what little reputation she has to public ridicule as she tried to spin out falsehoods centred on the fact that the Northumbria PCC is a Labour Party member, wrongly attacking the Chief Constable into the bargain.

Their crumbling empire, based on spin and accusations of bullying and truthlessness, has led to them not being able to recruit a local candidate for a by-election in Holywell Ward, and having to rely on the aging Sir John Hall to endorse their candidate for North of Tyne mayor as Cllr Peter Jackson and his team fight and fail to prove they aren’t disgraceful bullies at an industrial tribunal.

The local Labour Party’s new team isn’t tainted or even linked with ARCH, have already had their wider party supporters expose the extreme costs to the ratepayer of remaining in County Hall at Morpeth and are seeking a full investigation into the costs of audits and investigators who purport to be experts at ARCH and let the public know how much those costly decisions, along with the legal protection bills to cosset the current Tory Councillors through the legal minefield their rougery has got them into has been ripped from services the Council Taxpayers expect to be delivered on their behalf.

Lifting the curtain on Daljit’s Kremlin

County Hall has become a strange and fearful place since 2017. Secret meetings and conspiracies are the order of the day, and constitutional abominations like the informal cabinet are accepted as if they’re reasonable and normal.

The outcome of the employment tribunal brought by Sarah Kirk and Chris Stephenson has shone a little light into some corners of Daljit Lally’s ways of working. What’s interesting is how little interest is shown in what’s been revealed by the self professed queen of transparency, Georgina Hill.

In case you’ve not followed the tribunal story, here’s the short version. Two senior HR managers were made redundant in 2016. Both went to tribunal with a skip load of claims about why their redundancy was unfair. Amongst the skip load of complaints was an allegation by Sarah Kirk that she’d been discriminated against because she complained about Barry Rowland leaving NCC with a compromise agreement and a confidentiality clause.

Barry was an Executive Director, and a former chief exec at Newcastle. He was pretty divisive; people either loved him or hated him. Sarah Kirk’s allegation was that Barry was manouvered out by Daljit Lally, who went to an employee who worked under Mr Rowland, and persuaded her to complain that he was bullying her.

NCC’s defence to that claim by Sarah Kirk wasn’t to deny her version of the facts, but to claim that she hadn’t blown the whistle in the right way, so shouldn’t be protected as a whistleblower, and any way, she deserved to be made redundant.

So what we’re left with is an accusation that Daljit Lally chose to reward a bully with a payoff and a secrecy agreement in order to secure a swift exit for him, and the job of Deputy Chief Executive for herself. What’s odd is that Daljit Lally hasn’t chosen to speak against that accusation.  Nowhere in the findings of fact made by the judge is there anything to suggest this was a fantasy or a fiction; instead there’s just the suggestion that Sarah Kirk went about it the wrong way, and got some of the details of who she told and when she told them wrong.

Now amongst the odd things, like the way Daljit Lally chose not to give evidence, is Barry Rowland;s response to all this. He could have offered to give evidence to rebut the central accusations about his behaviour. Instead he made an application to have the tribunal hushed up, because he had a confidentiality agreement. He failed, but he’s said nothing in public to defend himself against these accusations. Given that he’s still a public servant, in the Falkland Islands, you might wonder why that is.

What does Georgina Hill have to say about the use of public funds to pay off and silence an employee accused of bullying? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. She’s got lots to say about anyone who agrees with Northumbria Police that her ‘investigation’ into Arch has produced no evidence of any criminality, but on the subject of senior managers hiding each other’s disciplinary offences behind confidentiality agreements, she says nothing.

In all the circumstances, anyone with a shred of credibility would be asking how it can be that public money could be used in this way. The problem for Hill is that there’s no way for her to smear Labour politicians from such an investigation. Instead there’s a risk she’d sabotage the career of Daljit Lally, who is throwing money at Berwick to ensure Hill can continue pretending to be an independent advocate for the town while doing whatever her patrons at County Hall want. In Daljit’s Kremlin that appears to be how politics works.