What are Blyth Valley Conservatives thinking of? attacking hundreds of constituents instead of helping people through the current crisis.

 

Rachael Reeves summed up the nations situation really well, speaking from the platform at the Labour conference here in Liverpool while the Tories en-mass supported their chancellor's mini budget which drove the pound down against the dollar to its lowest level ever since the dollar was first printed.

The lack of understanding by local conservatives to the needs of almost 69% of the residents of Blyth Valley under their care who are graded from feeling the pinch badly down to struggling more than ever before is shameful.

With child poverty racing away to a level that may take decades to get back on track and working families looking over their shoulders as the state of the nation through the decisions of the conservatives have many facing unemployment in the current recession now that ordinary people have to cut back on day to day essentials ruining both retail and the building trade, Blyth Valley conservatives have missed it all and are wholly engaged in attacking almost 750 social media users who shared a video criticising their MP.

Local conservatives blinded by their new Prime Minister and Chancellors rhetoric are beginning to reap rewards on behalf of their local MP and are joyful for it, filling their hearts with mirth while they completely ignore the plight of those living in some of the poorest areas of the UK across Blyth Valley where residents dwell who will feel no benefit whatsoever from the governments ridiculous mini budget. 

A budget designed to make the rich richer, as their conservative councillors and party members fill their time up with their gross attacks on local people who are not just struggling through the attitude of the current Government but wrangling with life itself through 14 years of austerity and the huge reduction in publically available services such as sure start and educational maintenance allowance stripped away from the public through ideology and needless conservative cultural values.

The time has come for Blyth residents to make contact with your local MP and ensure he is guided in the right direction to help you his constituents in need and not leave it all to Blyth Valley's Churches, Labour county councillors and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to serve and voice the needs of local people.

 

Can Leopards Change Their Spots?

 

Rudyard Kipling's ‘Just So’ stories include How the Leopard got his spots.

They are stories written by the famous and very keen freemason Kipling and thought to be essential reading by nannies of children whose fathers ‘follow the craft’.

In Northumberland County Council recently as well as its nefarious and nasty reputation reaching the mainstream press over the allegations that Conservative Councillors bullied staff and brought a toxic influence into the workplace, when the motion from opposition Councillors that Freemason’s should openly declare their membership within their declarations of interest in the public domain you would think the sky had fallen in!

The damning Max Caller report to Council was partly nullified by the buying out of challenges through the Council's standards board regime using public funds to safeguard the reputations of certain Conservative Councillors. That process was fully supported by the Councils Leader Glen Sanderson who it's believed led on the negotiations to pay off several of its top officers although he hid from blame by strong opposition Councillors and didn’t turn up at the Council meeting which ratified his decision. His negotiating belief in himself is driven probably by Rudyard Kipling but mostly him being the Lead Improvement Peer for the North of England for the Local Government Association.

Following this debacle, the Conservatives making up the administration have brought in what has been described as an ‘independent body’, a Challenge Board assembled by the Local Government Association improvement team service to ensure a bleached view of how the Council will progress into the future is produced.

‘Just So’ the public are not being conned by this ‘judges judging judges’ oversight and expect that the Councillors involved in driving the toxicity and keeping so many secrets from public scrutiny will be absolved from all blame and sit at the right hand with angels following their eventual demise.

We expect that the leopards involved with the Council will act like their nannies told them whilst having Kipling read to them sitting on their knees. Although that cherub currently in the corner giving blessed answers to their ‘Peers’ from the Local Government Association is not John Milton in whose ‘Paradise Lost’, Uriel the Archangel defended Eden and directed Satan to earth. As we now know whilst history is being created that Uriel's sword pointed towards Loansdean where County Hall sits in Morpeth and the congregation of Kipling's followers who don’t wish to declare their allegiance to a secret organisation or especially its Morpeth arm, sit closer to Urials enemies and are ‘Just So’ right in their own eyes every time in their actions words and deeds leading to the conclusion that spot changing will never take place under their banner.

But with the regional press at last coming to recognise the ‘Secret Council’ nature of the goings on behind closed doors at County Hall in Morpeth as the Conservative administration expose a huge projected overspend in a press statement without informing any of the three opposition Group leaders, illustrates that life at County Hall will carry on regardless of whatever the improvement team comes up with, as that improvement team can only drive matters forward if all parties can work together.

‘Just So’ you know, we will wait here at Murky with the ‘Leopards baited breath’ until the door clicks shut behind the challenge board and view what happens then as the angelic cloaks come off and the spots are re-revealed in all their glory.

Notes to Editors:

Confirmation of the ‘Secret Nature of the Council’

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/northumberland-county-council-compulsory-redundancies-25040623#ICID=Android_ChronicleNewsApp_AppShare

https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2022-06-08/damning-report-northumberland-county-council-operating-in-a-dysfunctional-way

https://www.change.org/p/the-residents-of-northumberland-have-no-confidence-in-the-current-ncc-administration

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/members-of-new-independent-challenge-board-for-northumberland-county-council-revealed-3817876

 

'Morpeth protected in aspic'

 

The rest of Northumberland doesn't matter?

An article in the Times this weekend showed exactly how Northumberland Conservatives only have eyes for the centre of their universe, the Town of Morpeth.

We here at Murky have nothing against the population of this very attractive market Town but the workings of its less than open politicians leaves a lot to be desired.

The County Council who control planning have helped to increase the protected green belt in the UK to almost 12.5% of all land protected from development through the most recent change to its spatial strategy. It has placed huge swathes of land around Morpeth tightly into its now massive green belt. And with almost a quarter of the geographical area of Northumberland sitting in a national park which is not covered by County planning and also protected from development, diabolically massive pressure for growth is being placed on its current settlements outside Morpeth.

The Council has a target of almost 850 homes per year but by taking land out of the Green Belt in Hexham, Ponteland and Prudhoe for employment uses and ensuring that Hexham, Ponteland and Prudhoe accommodate as much housing as possible to meet future demand and needs shows they are guiding travel in the west of the county towards Newcastle, Gateshead, Washington and Durham which will lead to a decline in future need for a dualled A69 beyond Hexham.

The pressure will also increase on land surrounding Cramlington, Blyth, Bedlington and Ashington with an expected growth in jobs for the future of 15,000 new jobs 17,700 new homes are required with large growth planned for Alnwick and land taken out of the green belt surrounding Berwick upon Tweed to push up housing numbers in the North of the County. 

The Tories plan proposes to deliver the right types of homes in the right places as long as it isn’t Morpeth!.

Ain't achieved 'best value' for the last five years and still the wasteful Tories have developed a £17m black hole.

 

Georgeous Glen Sanderson, gentleman farmer and ultra well dressed Leader of Northumberland County Council, announced a huge deficit in the Councils budget going forward. 

The mess they find themselves in brought about through taking their eye off the ball, infighting amongst the various factions of Tories and Conservatives and the complete lack of openess leading to a void with no power sharing or idea challenge between the wealthy Conservative group and the opposition parties has led the County Council to the brink and like the lemmings they wish to emulate will dive over the edge very shortly indeed.

After doling out Britains highest level of Council Tax last year onto an already pressed public across the County the Tory led County Council fell heavily reliant on Town and Parish councils bailing them out. The cost increase on Parish Councils was enormous but the attitude of the Tory group at County Hall is to suck the life out of their lessor neighbours to scaffold their collapse using other councils money.

The crisis the Tory Government finds itself in through sponsoring a war and allowing shareholders to wring the nations neck, causing bleeding to Britains population enmass, other Europen neighbours have closed the door to their profiteering, is now being felt by Councils across the country, but Northumberland has placed itself front and centre in eye of the cameras as Glen was unable to control his pals battles against Council officers and had to spend oodles of Council cash buying out contracts to protect his protagonists from disgrace.

Currently a team has been placed into the Council to help it improve its ways, but their findings havent yet been published and the leadership team have announced a £17m black hole, whether for sympathy from the improvement team or because the leadership knows better than the officers we are yet to find out. 

The public across the County dont have the time to wait as many are allready in crisis themselves and the breakdown of the current administration who are looking to sack even more officers and workers to cut back on expenditure will undermine the confidence in the Conservatives in Northumberland for decades to come.

 

Ofgem and their Tory masters choice is woefully wrong for levelling up? and will Kill our High Streets?

 

The well publicised 400% rise in energy costs for small businesses is abhorrent. It not only spells disaster for many businesses, it is the catalyst for the collapse of the ‘house of cards’ rhetoric from the Conservatives since BREXIT of full employment.

The nation and the national workforce confidence relies heavily on people wishing to work locally and small businesses are where lots of people prefer to be employed and feel safe in that type of environment. The Government has stretched those businesses to the limit in recent years.

They have had to suffer the Government refusing to grant business rate relief to many, they have survived loss of profit in most cases through the lack of footfall through the pandemic and now find themselves being cast aside and punished by a Government that just does not care and prefers instead to support investors who tend to offshore their profits and would never spend on local high streets or with many local businesses.

The leveling up agenda from Government is now foundering on the rocks as the projects have never been fully funded but with Councils who lead and manage the necessary change having to borrow at higher rates due to the state of the economy to complete those projects they now find themselves as organisations financially stretched.

With all bodies commentating on the economy predicting a huge rise in Council Tax benefit and rebates as people are driven into poverty or become unemployed, repaying borrowing for Councils will become ever dangerous and subject to high and strong levels of scrutiny and criticism.

The Tories in Government are spending £Millions on weapons for the war in Eastern Europe with excalibur shells running at £60,000 each one just needs to look around your local high street and the price rises in your supermarkets to notice that the cost of funding Boris Johnson’s promises to the Ukraine is placing Britain in a very negative position and millions of its population into deep poverty that will take years to recover from.

The Government needs to cut the cap, own ofgem and don’t hide behind the apron strings of ‘it wasn't us’ ‘it was him!’

The Boris Legacy? Imperial Measurements.

 

Warning: some of this story is written in ‘Pans’ a sub dialect of ‘Geordie’, increasing in popularity and spoken when surrounded by tourists. It's a well understood dialect and interpreters can be hired from Shiremoor, Burradon, Killingworth, Blyth, Bedlington Seaton Delaval, Seaton Burn, Dudley, Earsdon Seghill, West Monkseaton and the Pans itself, etc: at great expense to our non-regulars.

You may ask what is the legacy and what will slip into the history books regarding the ‘self serving reign’ of the self imposed Liar, Cheat, Womaniser and Wallpaperer, Emperor Boris Johnson MP?

His final thrashing as a dying Emperor is not to push UK residents into building a Nuclear Power Plant that can’t be defended from rocket attacks a decision that were sure will be changed now that the Pound has slipped to an all time low against the Dollar (making energy even more expensive than it currently is and will feed the corporations and friends of the outgoing Emperor’s families for centuries) its his decision to reintroduce another rip off to set against the British people, the reintroduction of Imperial Measurement into the UK.

The metrification of the UK was gradual and began in 1965 under Harold Wilson’s Government but from 1975 was pushed heavily by the Tories during the Thatcher years.

So we have a Prime Minister who is trying to emulate politicians from History and just like Margaret Thatcher, Boris Johnson is leaving us with the cost of a war, massively high inflation, a depleted treasury, a lack of investment in UK infrastructure outside London and working people and the elderly becoming poorer every day.

Murky reporters have been out and about chatting to people about the reintroduction of an Imperial system of measurement and we thought we would feature a conversation heard outside the ‘Pans store’ this week as only the older generation has experience of an imperial system and how it works. Our story features two older ladies, an older man and a young woman with a child who may have gone to grammar school.

“Hello Ida, I've just been lisnin to wor Joe's Ginney’s, Willie's Grandson ye knaw the Gingery won and he’s tellin me that were ganna be forced back to using ancient measures he’s nivvor hord of and Boriiss has sed its ganna happin”. “A knaw pet its bloody pathetic that a bloke thats meant to be cliver wants to gan back to the past an the owly folk itll cost at first is us. Jus luck at who we were corned when the metric was eventually forced through ages after it was towt at school, we had nowt as Thatcher had closed the pits and the shipyards and things shot up just like noo an all the lasses in the factrys, were gettin paid off and sewing went to Afirica an places”. Old Man joins in” Wey am worrit that all these yung uns ill find it tough cos this lot o Tories are the worst weev ever had, an a remember them thrashins I got cos a couldn’t add up in 12’s fast enough and a couldn’t de me fathas bets until I was shown about the half a croon times table an all this change ill cost a fortune an that fortune ill come from us. Young Woman “Well I’m a little disappointed as the adopted metric system is so easy to understand and I have started teaching the bairn about it as we like to holiday in France regularly and I have never been taught this what seems odd system that my friends in France don’t know about at all”. Wey pet we lived throoit and divent naw why an its just ganna force bait cost at the store here up forther. An ya naw tha’s nee need forit he just needs to retire wi grace an a hope a niver hear aboot im again, but a bet we de!”