Thursday 29 February 2024

Why is Northumberland Conservative Cabinet along with the Mayor for North of Tyne making South-East Northumberland Turdier?

The failure of ‘Levelling UP’ under the guise of devolution is shown up by Tory media and ultra right wing youtube bloggers.

As most people know ‘Devolution’ is a complete and utter lie, invented or is that designed as a paraphrase of ‘we the Government would like to devolve some services out to the regions which do not affect the wealth of the Capital’ and used by civil servants, fed through various politicians including former chancellors of the exchequer as an mechanism to place a oversight buffer to take the blame for everything, regional mayors and their staff.

The Government hasn’t really sent much out to regions with some lesser telephone bank elements and web based Government services such as passport offices having slipped the centralisation noose and been left alone then bragged about by various MP’s.

Regional mayors also have to tow the line when levelling up funds are devolved to their areas and they must both monitor spend and manage change in order to keep communities under the thumb, blurb out positive vibes and keep the populus voting Tory.

The now independent mayor for the North of Tyne combined authority began to know his place early doors when he informed residents of the human side of Tories in an area where poverty is on the increase and the young find themselves moving away to join the brain and youth drain North of Tyne combined authority could definitely do without. He has been doubted by many since making that statement.

Levelling up? Britvolt, the River Blyth energy industry, North Tyneside's cycleways on busy roads and the destruction of Blyth Town Centre to make way for a college (with the posh name Energy Institute) along with the completely useless rural hi speed broadband rollout stopping at the Border with Gateshead missing huge swathes of areas in the West are all examples of Levelling up schemes where changes mid-project have led to problems for communities that local people hate and where devolution initiatives are changed by Councils or local boards led by Tories without reopening consultation with the public or being exposed to the public via the North of Tyne mayors scrutiny, oversight and monitoring responsibilities.

Not doing your job properly has led to the Tories and Independents slipping down the voters league tables in favour of Labour and people of South of Tyne and Durham are right to question the goings on and failures in the North of Tyne combined authority area when an independent mayor who began life as far away from the Tories as its possible to be, kowtows and fails his electorate and residents when Tories do the inhumane drift away from honesty and integrity many in the North-east have come to expect from them and they have not been brought back in line by the person in place as a buffer, their regional mayor.

Those failures have been exposed by the Ultra right wing Turd Towns on you tube and the local newspaper for the West of Northumberland the Hexham Courant.

We can’t understand why the same newspaper hasn’t exposed the Tory County Council and Independent Mayors deal to build a cinema in Blyth as the West of Northumberland will struggle as that cinema which local people do not at this early stage believe is a viable product has to be fully funded by the Council with its surplus revenue for twenty years under Levelling up and Devolution rules and the Hexhamshire area will be the ones where that cash will have to clawed back from as other areas house the most of the quarter of the Counties families caught in the new poverty trap of this current Governments making with Town and Parish councils having to assist Food Banks across the South East of the County. Leveling up for many or having an independent mayor not linked with the Government or the prospective incoming Labour Government doesn’t seem to help anyone and won’t if the Mayor is distant from the Government, get out of that trap.

https://www.hexham-courant.co.uk/news/24146910.northumberlands-worst-places-according-turdtowns-youtube-channel/?ref=ebln&nid=1591&u=1586cdab1e4abe30350c6089110ca114&date=280224

https://www.northumberlandconservatives.org.uk/news/borderlands-initiative-will-be-unique-opportunity-drive-growth-our-area

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/better-broadband-for-rural-northumberland-under-governments-project-gigabit

https://127solutions.co.uk/blog/ultrafast-isp-fails-to-connect-northumberland-village/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0xo4r6w5rw

https://www.northumberlandgazette.co.uk/news/politics/council/timetable-for-demolition-of-keel-row-shopping-centre-in-blyth-and-site-redevelopment-outlined-by-council-4475206

Sunday 25 February 2024

Watching the grievous bad tempered display from Tories at Northumberland’s Budget Day How can we believe a £56m cut won’t affect services.

This week the codgers watched Northumberland County Councils budget meeting on youtube and to say our members were dismayed with the antics of the administration when delivering the only slight crack in their secret tarpaulin that covers everything that happens at County Hall in Morpeth gets its dirty corner lifted once per year.

We are not sure if Councillors received the information that sits in the public domain earlier than when it was placed on the Council's website, three working days before budget day but it appeared to us that most of the Tory backbenchers had no idea what was in the papers and the opposition groups seemed to do their best and had abstracted what they could to challenge the smirking top table.

We codgers attempted to make contact with our friends within the opposition to clarify matters but half term parenting and grandparenting duties led to a weakness within our known confidants.

Then as the meeting rolled on and opposition members had used many of their questions the top table from former Castle Morpeth postcodes began to lose it forgetting they were being televised.

Councillors Sanderson, Bawn and Wearmouth lost their cool and began shouting at the members sitting directly below. The Councils CEX looked extremely embarrassed by the lack of professionalism in a political sense from the Council she is employed to set the right balance across and arbitrate over the different factions who represent the Councils various residential zones. We would like to hope she has had those who showed her up carpeted to explain their antics aren’t wanted or needed at this time when kid gloves should have been used to carry forward a drastic cuts budget.

But the prime tenet of the meeting was to set a small light within the minds of the Counties residents that these massive cuts won’t affect the services the Council delivers very much at all, the pantomime that unfolded illustrated failure.

Of course the reality of the picture the administration attempted to paint and eventually abstracted, is that the reverse is the route the Council is travelling, particularly when they have recently outsourced its leisure services, killed off its youth services, closed down its largest Towns high street, completely lost their much boasted and vaunted ‘war on potholes’ can’t get its farming communities to help with ditch clearance moved road gully cleaning from twice a year back to once every three years, damaged relationships with Health, failed to deliver the needs of the elderly and forced up Council House rents whist not improving the number of children living in deprivation right across the County, and to cap it all they have stripped out the reserves of the Council with their Viv Nicholson politics, all on the back of the nations highest Council Tax bills

After this show of defiance in the face of failure with the Council continuing into year seven and eight without achieving ‘Best Value on behalf of its residents or even getting close to it even once we codgers switched off our sets and spoke about the frazzle of broken leadership that was displayed the lack of support from Tory backbenchers who must have been kept out of the reality of this massive cut and the late issue of information to opposition groups to help them file their amendments and changes.

As reported on social media by others, this budget is a cheats charter! and no matter how wickedly temperamental the top Tories get it won’t improve the broken hearts of our Townships and villages.