Tory Farmer wants to spend £21m of your cash on complying with Boris’s silent Environment Act 2021

 During the disastrous reign of Boris Johnson running the nation and that's all we want to say about him, a new act of parliament was introduced,the Environment Act 2021.

The ‘act’ unlike most legislation was brought on line in an almost empty format with changes by Councils to be included if they fitted in with the then secretary of state's beauty pageant.

Councils who wanted to lead the pack rushed headlong into changes surrounding part 3 of the act issuing stacks of different refuse containers and stretching the time waste is left lying around at people's homes  sometimes standing four weeks between collection dates.

Farmer and Tory County Councillor John Riddle has proposed a change to try to encourage people to  recycle more, extending collection times into his expensive ‘have another bin service change’ and widening Northumberland's borrowing ‘Black-Hole’ by a massive £21m.

Under the 2021 empty environment act publicity was run out to warn the public they may have to house up to seven containers and food prices would be forced up to cover the supermarkets constant use of single-shot plastic boxes and bags along with huge environmental levies for getting rid of their huge piles of waste. That additional charge to supermarkets has grown out of all proportion with shrinkflation of  goods commonplace and it's Hobson's choice for most families to pay more and get less in supermarkets today.

With the Government so busy trying to save the NHS and strengthen our borders the number of containers has been moved to a maximum of four with that decision yet to be scrutinised in rural areas like Northumberland by MP’s.

Councillor Riddle is proposing four or is it five if you pay the ransom to have a brown bin for your garden waste.

Social media is red hot with people who have little chance of housing four or five bins and dozens of valid suggestions on what the county council should be spending £21m on.

But the real question asked by those who understand the vagaries of local government single status pay agreements, is how much will this seemingly unsolicited rise in self sorting of family waste force up council tax to cover the hike in workers wages bringing in this new scheme in?

Birmingham is in the midst of a bin strike that seems to have no end linked to an increase in responsibilities through their chosen recycling system. Those increased responsibilities must be paid for through the single status agreement.

It wasn't the fault of those on strike now working for a bankrupt city council that Birmingham hadn't honoured the same agreement for another set of their workers who won their case in the high court busting the Council through the result.

Council Tax in Northumberland is already one of the highest in the UK but which resident wants to pay more because a farmer wants to increase your debt and fill your garden with plastic monoliths.

It's a bit rich threatening Council workers with the law?

The current actions on social media from a REFORM UK Ltd., Councillor from the town of Blyth, Northumberland are in question from many Council Workers across the county. 

It appears via the site ‘What do they know’ that the Councillor in question owes thousands of pounds in Council tax. 

Payment of such tax is a legal requirement in the UK which ultimately pays this Councillor the huge allowances he receives each and every month for representing the public who voted him into office.

The public he represents, in this Councillors case have also been vocal on the issue of his threatening behaviour towards the managers and workers who keep their streets clean, grass cut and refuse collected being threatened with being maligned through unproven law breaking by a law breaker.

The Councillor in question, Barry Elliott who represents Newsham Ward is seeking “transparency and accountability from ALL in public office, no matter who you are”.

All except himself, Barry Elliott of course!

Northumberland no longer needs REFORMing? The Tories are up and running with ‘Austerity Always

 With Nigel Farage thinking he has seen the light by accepting Liz Truss into his ‘no salad’ party and his almost incoherent rant this week harnessing Trump’s ‘Austerity First’ into REFORM UK policy, his Councillors in Northumberland have already been beaten to the line by ultra right farmer Glen Sanderson’s secret cabinet Tories and their ‘Austerity Always’ policy which includes a Doge like workforce scatter program to lower its wage and pensions obligations.

Farage’s activity pushed by him and backed up by his public school educated leadership group mates are trying to emulate Trump’s austerity attack on society in America who are suffering the net effects of his massive world-wide slump caused by his on the hoof tariffs that almost led to 42M Americans being starved to death as his austerity program was to be kickstarted by halting food credits.

The Trump administration threatened to suspend all SNAP food benefits, affecting nearly 42 million Americans. This led a coalition of over two dozen states to file a lawsuit to force the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to release emergency reserve funds. The administration eventually agreed to use contingency funds to pay partial benefits, though the full extent of the payments remains in question amidst conflicting statements from Trump and the White House.

In the UK Trump's tariffs have hit hard and ever more people are having to rely on regular handouts from food banks, with this year's figures moving towards 5 % of the population, Tory darling Glen Sanderson’s secret cabinet plans for wage reduction won’t help the County's commerce, retail trade or hospitality sector at all (we’ll come back to that shortly) first we must put to bed the REFORM racist argument of its ‘all the immigrants fault’.

The truth is Food bank users in the UK are overwhelmingly UK-born individuals. While the exact number of British citizens among the total users is not specified in recent reports, a recent study noted that this group forms the vast majority of the 2.9M service users last year, the trussel trust estimate In Northumberland is that 16240 households. There are three foodbanks who publish data regularly use food banks with fair shares aid helping almost as many older people who live on benefits and pensions but don’t qualify for food aid, making an estimated 10% of households in Northumberland use food aid in one form or another.

Nationally this much needed help has forced up retail prices beyond the norm and is fuelling food inflation that will be stretched further by Northumberland Conservatives doge plans to change its workforce into a very low paid entity.

Glen Sanderson’s cabinet has begun a program to rid itself of workers on the top increments of their wage scales without making those posts redundant. Workers will be pushed out of the door on a confidentiality agreement which pays them a lump sum and be replaced with workers on the bottom of his stretched incremental change program with many jobs now covering two or three pay scales before workers reach the top of the grade. Lowering the County pay bill for possibly a decade and beyond.

This plan will demoralise the sectors reliant on the income from Council workers who make up the largest income sector in job numbers terms across the county and force up shop prices even further as its becoming evident that shrinkflation and  high prices are becoming the norm in many of Northumberland’s towns hit by 14 years of Conservative delivered austerity and Brexit failures followed by Trump's international attack on goods and services through his REFORM UK backed tariff scheme and Northumberland Conservatives ‘Austerity Always’ series of policy secrets. 

So who needs REFORM?