Real Northumberland Murky: The unbelievable arrogance of Northumberland’s Tory mouthpiece as he forgets the net effects of his party’s history of cuts, poor financial management and asset stripping.

Some observers have commented on how lucky Northumberland County Council was from its inception in 2008 as an all propose unitary council that they had inherited a top class financial manager in Steven Mason who carried the Council through the austerity attacks from George Osborne from 2010 who as chancellor was following a heavily criticised economic theory from Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff who published their working paper entitled Growth in a Time of Debt, which argued that countries with a debt-to-GDP ratio of more than 90 percent grow more slowly than those with lower debt levels.

With public debt increasing all over the world, the research suggested that cuts to government spending would improve growth rates — contrary to the received economic wisdom at the time, Steven Mason was incredible locking up funds to help the Council manage its way through the destruction of public services which he knew was the aim of the Tories who showed their plans were designed to draw cash from the middle and lower classes to bleed it over to the elite and the rich.

He aided the Liberal Democrats from 2008-2013 to form a working financial pattern that would protect funds and deliver projects which residents needed and reported strongly on wasteful wishes from some quarters that may have slipped the Council into a financial wilderness.

When Labour formed a minority administration from 2013 -2017 history shows that his close work with the then Business chairperson Councillor Scott Dickinson and his deputy Councillor Liz Simpson the Council built up reserves and kept services at a high delivery level and the Labour Party enlisted Mr Mason as their Chief Executive Officer, The Council went from strength to strength right through the high level Osborne and Cameron Austerity years.

Council Housing was built in areas of need across Northumberland; new roads were developed on time and services increased staffing levels as education, neighbourhood services, social services, housing, engineering and planning all flourished under the Labour banner.

Labour’s problem was their inability to fend off the Tories through their low level use of social media by their Councillors and top activists. The Tories well shared spin blaming Labour for anything and everything won the day and the mainstream media backed them at all levels at an election where Conservative Councillors were in the ascendency right across County Councils nationally the Tories took over in May 2017.

They immediately sacked Steven Mason and set about dismantling the Council residents had come to enjoy. Workers disappeared and staff bullying by Tory elected members took its place.

Confidence in the Council disappeared and it began to rely on promises from Parliamentary members to keep up their levels of spin.

Pet projects and secrecy took over from essential spend and services drifted with matters such as planning appeals increasing and costing fortunes as poverty, particularly child poverty increased beyond all expectations and a huge build up of people needing help from food banks grew out of all proportion while ‘fix my street’ reports were the only growth area opposition members could point out to Mr Caller who came in to try to steady this sinking ship. He blew the Council’s image they had developed in secret and called it dysfunctional and he also said the authority was "paralysed" by "large volumes of procedural issues", including almost 4,800 FOI requests in three years, many from "senior officers or members". It's still paralysed as the council wrestles with not enough staff in place and high levels of sickness due to stress.

The Council lost a leader and brought in another, both of whom had been involved with Castle Morpeth Borough Council an area the Council has spent heavily on dismissing others into the wilderness.

The high level Tory promises failed to materialise and secrets grew like pinocchio's nose with ever more temporary officers being recruited to ensure the delivery of costly pet projects instead of essential services. Such as A1 upgrades, 8000 jobs for Blyth no building in the countryside etc.,

Selling the ‘land of opportunity for 40 pieces of silver’: the Tories have failed to deliver best value at any stage for any service since 2017 and with the Council recording that for every person they have accrued £2,091 of debt adding up to (£672.4m)17 Jan 2024 so instead of trying to bring some of the lost jobs to Northumberland’s poorest areas the secret cabinet took the chance and sold the land in a fire sale for £110m just scratching the debt they have accrued since 2017.