Running away while constituents suffer has changed the respect circle in Northumberland.

 

Storm Arwen brought an awful time for many residents of England's most northerly constituency, Berwick upon Tweed, with many Councillors trying their level best to organise help for their neighbour's and constituents. 

The Council is currently run by a Conservative administration who were halted from being able to deliver what people needed throughout the storm period because their Leadership pairing were both away on annual leave.

Then without warning or much consideration for her constituents the local MP, Anne-Marie Trevelyan deserted the people in their hour of need and went off to the USA on a jolly said to bring American business to the UK. But in words of a local from a Berwick Facebook page "she's buggered off to get her Christmas shopping done". Whether that's correct or not remains to be seen on her return, but it was an interesting point of view.

This democratic void brought the spotlight onto a number of opposition Councillors who pulled out all of the stops and were praised so highly by those they had delivered for and to that Anne-Marie Trevelyan will have loads of competition at the next general election.

The four-way split across the circle of respect was extremely interesting to us at murky as the complement numbers rolled out on a constant and even footing shared between both the sexes and the political parties but this point we will form our initial list with girls first in alphabetical order then the boy Councillors, we will expose our not so very scientific run around social media later where we  collected and formed  a rough result.

Councillor Georgia Hill

Councillor Isobel Hunter

Councillor Steven Bridgett 

Councillor Scott Dickinson

All four managed the press and media in an admirable fashion and kept as many people informed as possible while their utility company problems existed. All four were also mentioned in dispatches as being a better bet than the current incumbent to become Berwicks MP at the next General election.

Their differing styles of reaching the same end brought forward compliments from a wide variation of respondents on comment sections of Facebook and the twittering world. With the action pair of Hill and Dickinson and the diplomatic version of council work undertaken by Hunter and Bridgett bringing out supporters by the score, many of whom had not bothered to get involved with any political side taking previously as far as we could see.

Our whole team got stuck in and searched through as many links and comments as possible with the end results very close indeed.

Our scores on the doors looked like this

1.    Councillor Bridgett.  207

2.    Councillors Hill and Dickinson 204 that's after 3 recounts

    4.     Councillor Hunter.    202

We didn’t find anyone praising Mrs Trevelyan, not even her office staff, even though they may be expecting a present from the states on her return.

Oh! We won't be accepting any further admissions to murky the waters of the Tweed and Coquet with a late flurry. Our results are final and as David Dickinson says, "this is certainly the real deal".

Breach of Nolan principles as County Council LEADER and his DEPUTY slip off on holiday as

 

Storm Arwen rushes through!

News leaks from the broken to bits Conservatives in Northumberland appear to centre on the disaster surrounding the act of  having history repeat itself in the wider ranks of the Tories outside Parliament.

It seems to be common knowledge that in a similar fashion to their own Government ministers Dominic Raab and PM Boris Johnson during the Afghanistan emergency, Northumberland Council Leader Glenn Sanderson and his sidekick and Deputy Councillor Richard Wearmouth were on holiday and stayed away as Storm Arwen blew havoc across the County. 

Their actions left the Council without democratic resilience with Councillor's Horncastle and Stewart having to manage through their responsibilities for public safety but leadership of the administration was not in place and decision making non-existent.

The Nolan Principles about standards in public life place special emphasis on Council Leadership and both leader and deputy being on leave at the same time leaves an unforgivable gap which left the Council rudderless in its endeavours to call an emergency, taking six days to politically recognise its responsibilities to the people of the County under their control.

With opposition Councillors seriously aggrieved through these breaches of standards by leading Councillors the administration was unable to take notice of suggestions or rate the cricies in order of importance leaving the cries for help from the residents opposition councillors represent unanswered as the democratic void was left completely unfilled.

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.

'Secret Council's' railway spin amplifies Tory Party splits across Northumberland.

By asking the transport secretary if the levelling up of the North of Tyne is still going ahead through the guarantee of funding to reopen the A,B & T, Northumberland line, Ian Lavery MP caused unbelievable panic amongst the spin doctors linked with County Hall at Morpeth.

Although Conservative Ryan MP spouted eloquently on the subject his statement lacked the keenness required by everyone involved with this project, hardening in the worries held by the differing factions within Northumberland Conservatives.

The well spun tale from local tories regarding the delivery of a new station at Blyth Newsham in conjunction with a dual carriageway development along the
Laverock Hall Road to remove the slow access to the station by rail users from Cramlington were also stymied following a story regarding the lack of design quality from the leaders group in control at County Hall appearing in the Chronicle newspaper.

Within hours a design showing the new Newsham station complete with lifts and Laverock Hall Road passing under the station in single carriageway format was released through the 'department for propaganda' at County Hall then crept out by the leaders group supporters embarrassing Blyth and Cramlington Tories in the bargain.

This spin shows how fractured the Tories in the County have become with this story being followed up by Facebook users insisting the Leader of Cramlington and Blyth Conservatives, Councillor Wayne Daley was completely unaware that extremely valuable Council assets are being gifted to a school where the aforesaid Councillor was involved in youth work for many years.

The outcome for the Tories across the County is a series of questions that must be asked by the opposition to the Tory dominance in the Council chamber or will the new disease variant close down the Council for another 12 month leaving the Leader of Council, Glenn Sanderson, to continue with his attempt to reorganise the County as an independent republic that he can run in his own image from home without interference from the democratic needs of its populous?

Bullying, is it leaching out from County Hall in Morpeth as living patterns change?

Here at murky we have tried to bring you the background stories emanating from the 'secret council' at County Hall in Morpeth whilst the mainstream press get their teeth into the ongoing official investigations into the spin, lies and bullying that's been an ever present for almost the last five years.

As a regular reader of our blog you are aware we glean much of our information from social media or leaks from the sieve which the almost empty County Hall has become, as people wish to tell all about their experiences of working for an organisation which has slipped into wonderland from reality. It's where a number of those democratically elected to represent you and work with professional officers to deliver their manifestos have been reborn and expect that the professionals who guide them through the maze Local Government has become must kowtow and let them direct the staff themselves. This attitude appears to have become the norm and is now affecting the workforce itself.

The trade unions are recording a huge rise in the number of abuses the workforce encounter on a daily basis. The Council workforce across the County of Northumberland were always considered as the home of the 'happy arm of the Council', with the public openly praising everyone involved from the carer to the road sweeper, highways workers and gardeners who look after the beautiful towns and villages across the piece. Yet the spin off to the realisation by the public that Council workers have to put up with bullying from top councillors down has changed attitudes entirely.

As a critic of the Council we here at murky believe the opposition parties at County Hall should make an immediate stand on behalf of the workers and ensure the public know they are doing their duty in both protecting the workforce and engaging the public, gifting them the knowledge that our public workforce is the real prime resource of the Council and workers are not there to take the flak that in the case of Northumberland needs to be directed towards members of the administration In power.

First real test of Northumberland's 'go it alone' declaration as Newcastle gets the North of Tyne 'devolution' jobs?

  

The unbelievable arrogance of Northumberland County Council's Conservative administration in Leader of Council Councillor Glenn Sanderson's  statement declaring his group only want 'normal relations' with the other members of the North of Tyne combined authority has backfired badly as the partners who have chosen to support the regional mayor in his endeavours to improve the regions lot, Jamie Driscoll has hooked in 9000 jobs to be centred in Central Newcastle.

Many of these devolved jobs from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs aren't moving very far but the centralisation of process onto a single site is a coup for the North of Tyne and a snub to its neighbours who like Councillor Sanderson didn't want to work with an elected Mayor and it's the Borough of Sunderland which loses out as a number of the jobs are currently based in the Town of Washington.

The new site is situated in the Pilgrims quarter of Newcastle and will be covered by a clean air zone which in reality requires workers to arrive by public transport as car parking in the city of Newcastle is already at a premium. And that's where if Councillor Sanderson had his head screwed on the right way he could have 'used that loaf' to entice the HMRC guru's to consider a site in Northumberland well serviced by train and bus from the Newcastle-North Tyneside conurbation such as Cramlington, Hexham or attempt to alleviate some of the Council's deprivation by bringing some excellent clean jobs to Blyth or Ashington.

It was our murky hope that Boris Johnson's most recent visit to Kitty Brewster this week was to resolve the issues a local horse charity has which may slow the reopening of the AB&T Northumberland line.  A reopening which should have been the catalyst for the Conservatives to work with the mayor to secure a cleaner and wealthier future for its least well off areas with shrinking GDP's massively affected by Brexit which if still controlled by District Council's would have attracted large sums of EU regeneration funding to help their dire situations.

Rapidly reconsider what 'normal' is Councillor Sanderson and get stuck in to help those residents in need of a supportive team to run their Council.

With the spin unravelling Olly's tale of woe shows how his whinging is a base cover up for failure.

 

This week's leakage to the press illustrates how ultra right wing Gorgons have infiltrated the Conservative Party across the County of Northumberland. 

Firstly with the disgraceful events surrounding the closure of youth services by a Council portfolio holder who has probably never ventured that far south in the County (but he does have a Prudhoe right winger as his assistant). Secondly when that activity is coupled with the release of the investigation into Councillor Homer's  animated reactions to the Hexham Courant in an attempt to cover up potential serious allegations of bullying and harassment of staff now being reported to the Council's standards board by a top independent investigator shows the mess the council is in.

Councillor Oliver of Corbridge tried a similar 'let's all feel sorry for me' tactic, by going public on his sacking from a Council committee chairmanship then being replaced by a member of the Libdem opposition. 

His whinge does show however, if true, how the Leadership pairing of Councillors Sanderson and Wearmouth are when it comes to managing their team of extremists and bully's that they simply didn't point to his four years of pathetic failure to achieve best value on behalf of the public when he sat as the portfolio holder for finance. This tragedy to ignore openly explaining his personal failures to a member of their own party is particularly galling following release of Oliver's own reports into the public domain which led the then chair of the audit committee being conned into having to pay the ferryman to cross the river Styx and not return to high office during this four year term, an act of bullying if ever we saw one.

So our team thought it best to point towards the release of Councillor Oliver's last audit report which will be reported on next Wednesday at the audit committee, overseen by a different auditor which shows his planned borrowing to exceed £1,2Bn shortly. Something he accused Labour of planning back in 2017. 

He, Councillor Oliver, began his new order by telling the world how his prudence will stop borrowing creeping up from happening. For four years under his mighty persona the Council hasn't delivered anything that wasn't already planned and scoped in by Labour. His promises of saviour-ship under his control has led to the Council delivering nothing new of any distinction apart from alleged serious acts of bullying which drove top officers away from the Council's door leaving the skill set required by an organisation of this size with dreadful howling gales whipping through the gaps.

Let's see what he has to say when it's his turn for the investigators report to be released? We bet his spin will be a sight to behold when that happens.