Investors v Residents Northumberland Conservatives choose Investors, UNTIL?

Storm Arwen has brought out the Leadership styles of those who run the administration at County Council in Morpeth as being nil. Why do we think that here at murky? Read on and find out.

The storm, a natural disaster which will take a disproportionate amount of time and effort to clean up, is still not over for many. Thousands of the Counties' residents were plunged back to a pre-Victorian age as power water and communications were blown away in the wild freezing winds.

Council's throughout the North and down the Eastern seaboard were called together and as democratic bodies dedicated cash to ensure that the ravages and effects of the storm were offset as rapidly as possible and that costs were borne by the companies whose regulation rules cover this type of activity.

But as ever,  in the independent Borough of Northumberland's leadership had slipped out of sight in order to remain out of mind so much that leading Conservative councillors were completely 'conspicuous by their absence'. Particularly so as it took a week to arrange an emergency committee to debate the issues and the Tories en-bloc chose their investor mates over residents some who due to the remote nature of this vast rural County has been without services, without cooked food and some of whom had no local community structure to assist.

At this juncture we will look at how the other local political leaders did as their stories were rolled out via social media as many of the more elderly opposition councillors acted as contact points to inform the officer teams at County Hall and depots where the difficulties lay and delivered two way information to those in need. We saw Councillor Bridget from Rothbury turn into a lion of diplomacy with his extremely strong letters demanding help across some of the most remote areas in England trying to draw the Tories into admitting that an emergency actually exists in the County.

Next up, the Leader of the Labour group Councillor Dickinson who sought the Golden Fleece in the eye of the storm and carried on until he and his team of 'Hadstonauts' had engaged with as many needy in Widdrington and East Chevington as they could locate, all rolled out on social media via go pro.

Councillors from the Berwick area, Hill and Hunter, rattled the very strong cage bars of the utility companies to ensure they knew Berwick existed, somewhere the Tories from Morpeth had tried to ignore for the last five years and they did well.

So it's now back to those running the Council, the mixed power struggling rabble of Conservatives, conservatives with a small c, mad hat neo fascists and Tories, it took them six days to hold a group meeting where they agreed nothing to help residents cut off from the world but five days later than everyone else in local government they felt forced into holding an all party emergency committee.

At that meeting it was clear that the Tories were anti-residents and totally supportive of easing the burden from the utility companies investors until the Chief Executive herself stepped up to the plate and opposed their sentiment entirely. 

As possibly the most bullied officer of any Council on the planet she told Councillors that officers would do everything in their power to relocate those who had not had services for what now appeared like an age to be housed in hotels and the utility companies would be charged for the costs.

Shocking the administration into action that we here believe the Conservative rabble democratically elected to serve, or is that ignoring the public will try to claim as a success story.

This week in local politics needs to be remembered at the ballot box.