The Cauliflower Racket -

or some vegetables are more equal than others

By Andrew Wastling

____________________________________

BY way of reply to yesterday's piece Beggars Opera or Comic Opera? - Strangling Civil Liberties on a United Front, I'd like to raise a few points.

I don't doubt for a second that the nauseating culture of palpable nepotism and political cronyism was once again alive and flourishing  at Rochdale Town Hall  :It was like viewing a tribe of back-patting gangsters as both the Tory and Labour politicians vied with each other to heap on the praise ' writes the articles author. I can almost picture it now.  All we are really lacking is a corrupt City Mayor, a few more henchmen in double breasted suits with Fedora hats carrying violin cases ,a couple of high profile payola busts with a snazzy Bix Beiderbecke soundtrack piped into the council chamber. Retro Gangsterism - its the new rock'n'roll  !

Or maybe a more toned down theme more akin perhaps to a scene from Brecht's famous play The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (1) portraying as it does the rise of a fictional 1930s Chicago mobster - Arturo Ui - and his attempts to control the cauliflower racket by ruthlessly disposing of the opposition to become chief vegetable gangster. The parallels are sometimes striking .We really should have a copy in the Library at The Ministry of Truth as No1. Riverside is to be shortly renamed.

Whichever is closer to the truth our town hall has of late  become an almost absurdist  theatrical experience where some of the performances  would not be out of place delivered in Al Capone pin stripe suits accompanied by gangsters molls with a mobsters getaway car revving up round the Town Hall - just in case anyone has to do a quick runner!

In this fevered political atmosphere its perhaps not  surprising that bashful Councillor Blundell did not intervene to challenge Councillor Sullivan and Councillor Howards motion to extend Public Space Protection Orders to the gates of local schools. Those  well known haven  for anti-social & criminal elements across the Borough ! Makes no difference , as Woody Guthrie said : ' Some will rob you with a six-gun, And some with a fountain pen'.

After all it was only at the beginning of the month that Councillor Blundell was loudly proclaiming across the air-waves of  Key 101 radio station News on 8 March  that unless you were an 'aggressive beggar' you had '  absolutely nothing to fear from PSPO's. The Council 'is not the Gestapo' the Councillor responded slightly nervously . Quite right Councillor and we are here to ensure it never becomes anything close to resembling it. Even  if some members of our council would rather forget it those opposed to PSPO's maintain that :           'the price of Liberty is eternal vigilance.'

#Rochdale councillor @johnblundell993 speaks to Key103 about plans to stop anti social behaviour in the town centre.

When it was pointed out that the proposal document for Rochdale Council does not use the word aggressive beggar but only beggar in the text I was accused of 'splitting hairs' and promoting 'fake news' .I'll leave it to Councillor Blundel to justify to the Public precisely how a PSPO initially proposed for use against aggressive beggars in the town centre ( in the councillors own words) has transformed itself  less than four weeks down the road into a one size fits all quick fix for a multitude of issues the Council have failed utterly to get to grips with?

At this rate by Palm Sunday we can no doubt look forward to the reintroduction of Prohibition, unlicensed Speakeasy's on The Butts, local Protection Rackets & wholesale counterfeiting & gangsters across the entire Borough. Ah, the joys and pitfalls of turbo charged capitalism combined with a soon to be almost unregulated neoliberal global economy.

Just for the record PSPO's outside schools can in a matter of hours after a chat with a senior Police Officer be transformed by a single council official into a ban on parents holding a 'Save Our School Rally' at the school gates in opposition to future closure plans . Don't say you haven't been warned folks.

Recent Twitter comments from bashful Councillor Blundel hardly instil widespread confidence such as :

@libertyhq 's press release on the Rochdale PSPO is not factual, scare mongering and is completely alien to what the council wants to do

( 24 March 2016 )

Or the equally strident if slightly pompous :

Elected local representatives are making this decision. @libertyhq load of London liberal elites looking down their nose at northern towns

( again on 24 March 2016)

Segments of this Twitter feed appear to not only fly in the face of reality but seems to fly directly in the face of Council claims the PSPO proposal was being put out for consultation and not be a decision made by 'elected local representatives' for a start - not to mention fly Icarus style into the truth of the Sun. They are indicative of the kind of juvenile responses some of our local councillors resort to when caught bang to rights with their trousers down by people outside the Rochdale 'bubble', who not only quite obviously know what they are talking about , but are able to run circles round our local 'Alpha-Councillors' with those awfully annoying facts and the even more despised evidence which even our local Rochdale decision makers have to reluctantly number crunch from  time to time. People  who have an in depth understanding of the Law & the Legal System are often problematic for Rochdale Council .Just refer back to the embarrassing public thrashing our council got in the national media from those with a crystal clear understanding  of the Health & Social Care  Sector. Liberty after all have only been advocating on British Law since 1934 so I'm sure we'd all defer to Councillor Blundel's greater breadth of legal working knowledge & experience on the complex intricacies of PSPO's than actual British Lawyers, (2).

It would be illuminating  to know precisely which part of Liberty's PRESS RELEASE is not factual, scaremongering so we can all reset our thought processes from 'thought crime' to acceptable Council approved cognitive dissonance immediately ?

Perhaps Councillor Blundell can clarify for us lowly proles how we should think sometime soon . So none of us get ideas above our station or get into the annoyingly bad habit of asking tricky questions of our betters?

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(1). The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui or That Well-Known Racket .The scenario that Brecht presents is recognisably possible at other times, past, present and future. He points to a time of recession: people are suffering increasing hardship in deteriorating circumstances. Crime is on the increase, unemployment soars, street violence erupts. An enemy is at work, the people are told; a scapegoat is sought and hounded, while the well-off, anxious to preserve their position, join in the hunt or merely look the other way. Under similar circumstances Chicago produced Al Capone, and Germany produced Hitler, who rose to power on the backs of the wealthy establishment, which thought it could both control and use him, but which was blinkered by its fear of the "enemy within"

(2). Liberty is also known as the National Council for Civil Liberties. Founded in 1934, they  are a cross party, non-party membership organisation at the heart of the movement for fundamental rights and freedoms in the UK.

They promote the values of individual human dignity, equal treatment and fairness as the foundations of a democratic society.
Liberty is entirely independent. They're  not affiliated with any political party and they receive no Government funding – which means they're free to fearlessly and robustly criticise Government policy and truly hold the powerful to account. They  promote the values of equality, dignity, fairness and accountability in all that they do. 

Rochdale Councillor's Dependency Culture?

El  Gordo  Creosote

by ANDREW WASTLING
What is being a Street Beggar compared to standing for Town Council?

(In a letter in the Rochdale Observer yesterday, Richard Farnell the Leader of Rochdale Council, wrote complaining about the goal of the human rights charity Liberty for challenging his council for, as he puts it:  'clamping down on swearing and other anti-social behaviour in Rochdale town centre'.  Councillor Farnell forcefully pleads his case:  

'We are tackling a small minority of ne'er do wells who drunkenly shout and swear and harangue shoppers in our town centre.  I make no apologies for trying to make Rochdale a more welcoming place for people to enjoy... because it's difficult enough to make a living nowadays without a few yobs turning shopper away.'

 Below Andrew Wastling asks whether a little 'propaganda by example' might be in order from Richrd Farnell and his colleagues:  as Bertolt Friedrich Brecht once said 'What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?' Editor)

UNDERSTANDABLY, 'aggressive begging' has been in the local news lately.  It appears to be a growing problem in Rochdale.  Especially many of us have noticed in & around the locality of Rochdale Town Hall, which appears to have become a magnet for the worst type of anti-social behaviour.  This is particularly prevalent between the hours of 6PM & 9.30PM or whenever an expenses cheque form is proffered or a single tuna mayonnaise sandwich sliced. Something must be done to clampdown.
The worst case of aggressive begging I have personally witnessed recently was inside Rochdale Town Hall where an loud & intimidating group (possibly drug & alcohol fuelled), accompanied by a bullying air of entitlement & arrogant self justification that was tangible, beneath the wiff of expensive cologne & Eau de Toilette awarded themselves unprecedented 34% to 51 % pay rise.

So just who exactly are these rare & elusive individuals who's sense of self entitlement is such that they think that they are divinely deserving of a 34% pay rise whilst those less deserving public sector workers such as mere nurses, fire men, ambulance drivers and the like are restricted to a miserly 1% pay freeze because their work is of far less importance to Society?

After all must all be truly blessed to have such a superb cohort of councillors in our midst representing us.  At a whopping 34%/51% pay rise must be worth every penny piece they have awarded themselves & our local government be a centre of excellence for efficiency & local democratic accountability!

Its not often these highly paid 'alpha- councillors' are sighted in the heart of the local metropolis , one might think they are scared of being recognised by the occasional educated prole ,even rarer for them acknowledge the existence of, let alone to speak to us epsilon minors  of the  lumpen proletariat, yet they can, bless them , be spotted in diverse graceful abundance, far from their local watering holes , in their natural habitat the Town Hall Buffet Room or even more rarely glumly plodding the streets whenever the Ballot Box looms every few years and they need to remind their constituents that they actually exist ?

One ' alpha-councillor' would have us believe on the council's Twitter feed 

(@RochdaleCouncil) that she: 'works 30-40 hours per week, is on 19 committees and receives the equivalent of no more than £4/hour'! 

Appalling is it not, that such self sacrifice should go entirely unrewarded.  A scandal such as this should , one would have thought,  have been brought to the attention of the local media for discussion long before the Budget Setting Meeting nights  meeting to 'rubber stamp' councillors expense  - we can only assume they were simply far too busy attending meetings & reluctantly claiming the expenses from these 19 committees to raise it previously & not simply trying to elicit sympathy when their avarice was held under the magnifying glass?

Such selfless dedication to the voting masses is highly commendable.  How many other councillors share this councillors evident zeal and attend nineteen committees, I wonder?

Nineteen whole committees councillor!  Really, where are your comrades in the struggle; they must be queuing up to sit on a Committee instead of you to relieve you of the cross you carry with such evident style ?

What does this say about the total inability of other councillors to share this massively unfair workload of one of their over worked colleagues ?

Or what does it say about the quality or the governance of councillors who would surely be in breach of the Working Time Directive were they gainfully 'employed' elsewhere? 

About 'work life balance' or about the possible unwieldy Expenses cheques courtesy of the local tax payer for such a large number of committee attendances?

The sack cloth and ashes was evident in abundance.  Barley warming our councillors from the evening chill outside the Town Hall as they scuttled in, some via the back door again, to rubber stamp their own pay rise last night,  'under duress' because , so we are told, they collectively lacked the mental capacity to make a choice one way or the other of their own volition?

Whilst another, in the role of Judas Iscariot  , washed their  hands of fellow public service workers  facing a 1 % pay freeze saying :  'Is that my fault?' as they rushed inside to avail themselves of the £9.95 per councillor tax payer subsidised free nosh up on the rates.

It was an unedifying and shoddy spectacle of our local political elite, the intellectual glitterati & those who have risen from obscurity to non-entity without so much a single scribble to mark their presence  on the official record of Town Hall proceedings throughout their dedicated  public role as councillor. Some of them are so keen to hide their good works & so modest of accepting praise that it is indeed difficult to find a single recorded example of them having actually done anything at all whilst a councillor - but we the voters are not that stupid, we know in order to merit a 34%/51% pay rise or councillors must keep their noses to the grind stone 24/7, but that they are simply particularly adept at hiding their light under a bushel.  Some indeed are so personally dedicated to their roles of helping their constituents that they hardly escape from the grind of their weekly Council Ward Surgeries, so much so it's doubtful they'd  be recognised in public on the streets & avenues they represent without a preliminary pre-election street leafleting were they ever to visit from their actual homes at the other side of the Borough to meet some real people for a change. 

This dear reader is the ugly mask slipping of our self proclaimed political  'elite'  when under pressure & challenged to justify the indefensible.  Many appear to  have little or no respect for anyone but themselves and their evident contempt for the voters will without a doubt cost many of them their seats to independents in the next local elections.  They are aware that its possible twenty councillors will be axed and that also many of them are waiting to stand down and retire in any case.  For many drinking in the last chance salon this vote was the last chance to quaff down all they can even if it nearly chokes them in the process.

This shocking incident of gross self interest & greed from a 'mindless minority' was also witnessed by a number of decent law abiding citizens accompanied by their children causing great public distress & alarm for those going about their lawful activity in the town centre.In fact it was tantamount to daylight robbery.  Such 'loutish behaviour' is in danger of breeding a local dependency culture where handout dependent councillors are being forced by extreme poverty & circumstances beyond their control into 'soliciting for money in the street' for their daily living expenses. This local hardship is a  distressing sight to witness.  Some of them appear totally unable to feed themselves without regular tax payer funded food parcels at the end of each town hall gathering.
This preferential 'food queue jumping' by some councillors  breeds considerable ill will & festering resentment amongst the majority of the tax paying public who have themselves to resort to the mercy of the local food banks or Church run soup kitchens when they are similarly destitute - councillors don't even require a voucher like the majority of us.
I have reported this shocking incident to the relevant  authorities in the hope this unacceptable 'anti-social behaviour' will  be investigated?
I am hoping the town centre wrecking spree these councillors' seem intent on wreaking on local public services can be averted by them being subjected to a collective ASBO or a 'blanket-ban or curfew' preventing all councillors entering the Rochdale Metropolitan Borough area on a 24/7, such a Dispersal Order should be utilised against the majority of councillors three hundred & sixty five days a year to prevent further damage to our community.
Could we perhaps get the worst of this anti-social element electronically tagged - or at least rehabilitated back into respectable society in some well run, humane, local institution were their evident special needs could be catered for?
It's about time the anti social behaviour of this  bunch of 'ne’er do well' under achievers was clamped down on for the public good.  Since the delinquent behaviour of a selfish element is damming  the minority of  decent, hard working, dedicated councillors by public association.
I just wonder when we can all expect mass arrests and fines to be made with respect to our councillors since gangs of them have been spotted 'loitering around the public purse', with their 'socially destructive' conduct breaching socially acceptable norms of behaviour in the town centre for a number of years now and appear unable to curtail their behaviour without interventions being made to moderate these embedded selfish behavioural traits?
We need to be cruel to be kind to our struggling councillors & act with some urgency lest we get second, or third generation councillor dependency culture developing. We are already seeing repeat patterns of inter-generational dependency developing amongst spouses and families.  With anecdotal evidence amongst locals that some particularly dependent councillors are totally deskilled and entirely unable to independently support themselves at all in the real world.
Could we not for their own health & well being simply ban them from the Town Hall & No.1 Riverside in perpetuity with judicious use of a Public Space Protection Orders to prevent them causing more misery to themselves or our town any more damage?

Danczuk, Feminism & Family Violence?

by Les May

A REVIEW of Erin Pizzey's book 'Prone to Violence' on Amazon has the title 'A revelation that has remained buried for decades'.  Although, as the reviewer says, Pizzey founded the first refuge for the victims of domestic violence in West London in the 1970s she seems to have been largely forgotten by present day feminists who are more concerned with how many women CEOs there are in the FTSE 100 or whether enough women appear on UK banknotes.

The reasons why are explored in the Amazon review and on Wikipaedia but they can be said to revolve around her claim, based upon her research, that one must distinguish between 'genuine battered women' and 'violence-prone women'.  The former she defined as 'the unwilling and innocent victim of his or her partner's violence' and the latter defined as 'the unwilling victim of his or her own violence.'  Essentially she was arguing that in at least some cases one must recognise a 'mutuality of domestic violence.'

Now you may be tempted to apply this thesis to the Danczuk's. Certainly it would explain why Karen initially made to her family accusations against Simon about an incident in Alicante in 2008, only to withdraw them a short while later and why we have recently seen a rerun of the same behaviour after Simon was arrested, again in Alicante, only for Karen to decline to confirm statements she had made to the police two days earlier, when the matter came to court.  But don't be too hasty.  There may be another explanation.

If Karen had followed through and pressed charges the Danczuk 'gravy train' would have come off the track.  Even Danczuk, brass necked though he is, would have found it difficult to resist the pressure to resign as an MP if he had been found guilty of being a 'wife beater'.  If he can stick it out until 2020 he will receive a further £274,000 in salary during that time.  And then there's the generous expenses, parts of which fund his constituency office which in April re-hired Karen as a part-time employee at a reported salary of £12,000.  If she sticks with him after the recent incident that's going to amount to £40,000 by 2020.

As I pointed out in my article 'Simon Danczuk on his way to the bank' from January of this year, as soon as he ceases to be an MP he is 'Mr Nobody' again.  His lucrative line in 'assisting' newspaper with stories of his indiscretions would dry up immediately. Stories like, 'I was drunk and horny' and 'I need counselling for my sex addiction' are only of interest to the press so long as he is an MP.

But it's not just Simon who appears to benefit from his indiscretions.  Check out the pictures which appeared in the Sun over the past week or so.  Initially Karen was shown with a scarf discretely draped over her right shoulder hiding her wound and the picture credited to 'News Group Newspapers'.  Next day we got the works (a.k.a the full monty) with her 'gruesome' wounds on display and the pictures credited to 'Fame Flynet'.  Was this a 'nice little earner' for Karen?

Then there's today's little offering in 'The Sun on Sunday'.  I was expecting 'My night in a Spanish hell-hole' and 'I need anger management' from Simon.  On expenses of course!  What we got was a double page spread of 'Karen Danczuk on terror of hubby's crazed bust up', 'Wild MP yelled and kicked in glass door', 'I feared he was going to kill me', 'Violent row left me paralysed with fear', and 'I woke up in a pool of bood.. I'm scarred for life'.  And that's just the captions!  Was this another 'nice little earner' for Karen, or was she just being public spirited?

Now call me Mr. Cynical but I cannot help noticing that if Karen had been willing to confirm what she appears to have initially told the Spanish policeman it would have been reported world wide as news and there would have been no Sun exclusive.  Just as 'I'm sorry I haven't a Clue' fans know that 'points mean prizes', seasoned Danczuk watchers know that 'exclusives mean cash'.

Explaining her unwillingness to press charges of domestic violence with, 'Do I want to be the person that finally ends his career?  Do I want to be the person who tells my sons their dad is in prison? No.' this interview may bring about both of these.

We already know that a complaint has been lodged with with Greater Manchester Police asking the force to investigate the allegations.  The seriousness of Karen's claims in the newspaper article are of such a nature they may give an impetus to this and will not doubt provide a basis for further complaints.

I'd be surprised if Rochdale Lib-Dems did not have a finger in this particular pie.  But who can blame them?  Throughout 2014 every possible attempt was made to smear them using the using the real and imaginary claims about Cyril Smith's antics.  Now it must be like Christmas and Birthday all rolled into one, courtesy of the Danczuks!

But don't write off the Danczuk duo just yet.  Karen still has the minor problem of earning a living to pay the bills and no doubt Simon still has access to a smartphone and Twitter.

I have repeatedly urged Rochdale Labour party to begin the process of disengaging itself from Simon Danczuk.  He's bad news and it's not going to get any better.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prone-Violence-Erin-Pizzey/dp/0600205517#customerReviews 

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Pizzey 

 

http://danczuk.tripod.com/domestic-behaviour.html 

 

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/simon-danczuk-on-way-to-bank.html 

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3549022/Now-Simon-Danczuk-HIRES-ex-wife-Karen-help-run-office-guess-picking-12-000-bill.html 

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1623573/karen-puts-injured-chest-under-wraps-as-she-heads-off-to-tell-court-to-free-mp-hubby/ 

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1629869/karen-danczuk-spotted-with-gruesome-wounds-after-waiter-bust-up-with-estranged-hubby-simon/ 

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1646861/karen-danczuk-says-shes-scarred-for-life-after-mp-hubby-simon-kicked-in-glass-door-during-crazed-bust-up-on-family-holiday/  

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1636054/mp-simon-danczuk-faces-second-police-investigation-for-attacking-his-ex-wife-on-holiday-in-spain/

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/news-features/2/news-headlines/30065/former-mayor-quits-labour-party-over-danczuk-debacle=

Simon Danczuk | CommonSpace

https://www.commonspace.scot/tags/simon-danczuk 

What the Simon Danczuk newspaper coverage says about British ...

www.theguardian.com  › Media › Simon Danczuk

 

Protesters and skateboarders under threat from Tory Anti-Social Behaviour Bill!

Civil liberties groups are up in arms about what they see as truly shocking restrictions on civil liberties posed by the Government's 'Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Bill', which is currently before Parliament.

Those opposed to measures within the Bill, say that it would give councils carte-blanche powers to allow them to ban everything from protests, to outdoor public meetings and children's skateboarding.

Campaigners point out that under Part 4 of the Bill  entitled 'Community Protection', Town Halls would be allowed to issue 'Public Spaces Protection Orders' (PSPO's) to restrict any activity deemed to have a "detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality." The vague wording, and the failure to define the size of the areas to be covered, have led to fears that measures within the Bill, could be deployed to impose blanket bans on lawful activities. Anyone found to have broken the new laws, would be punished with on-the-spot fines, which could be issued by private security guards working on commissions for councils.

The orders, which would last for three years, would be directed at "All persons or only persons in specified categories", which has raised fears that certain groups such as trade unionists or rough sleepers could be descriminated against.

Clause 38 of the Bill, gives powers to an 'authorised person' (constable, local authority, designated person), to issue 'Community Protection Notices' (CPN), if satisfied on reasonable grounds that (a) the conduct of the individual or body is having a detrimental effect, of a persistent or continuing nature, on the quality of life of those in the locality and (b) the conduct is unreasonable.

Although there is a right of appeal in respect of some of the measures, opponents of the Bill say that processes are so expensive and complex that they will be beyond the reach of most groups. Climate change groups and groups like Occupy London, are likely to be seriously affected by the news laws.