DEADLINE on complicity in Council Corruption

Rochdale Chief Exec. on Two Jobs & Milking Owd Folk!

Praise be to GOD for Corruption!

For men are Human

And Judges are Bribable

And With Corruption!

Even the Innocent may get off.

by BERTOLT BRECHT in the Three-penny Opera.

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LETTER FROM MARK BIRKETT:

To: Brian Bamford

Date: 1st March 2021

Re: Rochdale Council Vote / Huge Hike to Care Home Fees Whilst Ignoring Whopping £50k Pay Rise for Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow

Dear Brian,

You heard it here first; two days from now, on March 3rd 2021, all 60 x Rochdale councillors will be 'considering' hiking care home fees to Rochdale's elderly by 5% in order to 'save' £80,000 / year on the council budget.

Unfortunately, what they won't be considering is reviewing the second full-time job the Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow has at the NHS. This NHS job pays Continue Mr Rumbelow no less than £50,000 / year on top of the £140,000 / year he was already earning as Chief Executive, taking his salary just a fraction under £200,000 / year ... half as much again as the Prime Minister.

The money is eye-wateringly insulting enough, but the key issue here is that no-one can do two full-time jobs simultaneously. And there isn't a workplace on earth that would pay someone two full-time salaries for two part-time jobs. Yet on July 18th 2018, that's exactly what Rochdale's councillors voted to happen.

That's why - on 19th January - I wrote to each of them to suggest that they put forward / support a motion to review this indefensible situation. But not one of them has agreed to do so. Most haven't even acknowledged my letter. Our councillors don't seem to mind enabling Mr Rumbelow to trouser an extra £50,000 / year for this NHS role but it's the elderly in Rochdale that are now likely to end up paying for it. The moral horror of this 'proposal' should be obvious to everyone.

Neither the NHS and RMBC are benefiting here. And certainly not the average Rochdale taxpayer, many of whom have lost jobs and businesses (not to mention loved ones) over the last year. The only beneficiary is Mr Rumbelow. That's why there should be an immediate judicial review of this untenable and intolerable situation, with Mr Rumbelow's pay packet reduced by whatever proportion of his working day now being handed over to the NHS.

Sadly, Mr Rumbelow has turned the entire machinery of Rochdale Council into ignoring my complaints, including allowing the Borough Solicitor Asif Ibrahim to advise all RMBC councillors "not to respond" to my communications about this which, in addition to being a disgraceful interference with everyone's right to democratic representation, breaks their own RMBC Member Code of Conduct on multiple points (inc. their legal obligations re: 'scrutiny', 'accountability', 'transparency'). And he refuses to answer any further letters from me about this.

The perenially useless Rochdale Online won't cover this pay abuse. Neither will the truly pointless Rochdale Observer. Both 'media outlets' are thus a total disgrace to the town. Exactly the same can be said about Tony Lloyd MP. Another politician who refuses to respond to constituent concerns. He knows about all this and has done nothing to stop it.

The local elections are in May. So, don't forget what happened here folks. Don't waste your vote. Rochdale Council and the entire 'body politic' here is rotten to the core with cronyism, nepotism and sheer incompetence. It needs to be stopped. We urgently need caring, principled, decent and intelligent people running the Council and our town ... right now, we have nothing of the sort.

If you are horrified by this proposed care-home fee hike, or horrified by the greed of RMBC Chief Executive Steve Rumbelow who is taking home so much of your hard-earned money for an impossible-to-do second job (and who has the gall to refuse answering ANY questions about it), or horrified by the sheer incompetence of Rochdale's councillors who voted for all this to happen ...

then ... PLEASE SHARE THIS POST WHEREVER AND HOWEVER YOU CAN

Best wishes,

Mark Birkett

Taxpayer, Kingsway Ward

Rochdale

Comment on the importance of being a Blundell

 "What's picking a lock compared to buying shares?  

What's breaking into a bank 

compared to founding one?  

What's murdering a man 

compared to employing one?" 

 

From the 'Threepenny Opera' by Bertolt Brecht

************ 

Before red banner Cllr. Blundell is wearing glasses looking
adoringly at his bearded mate

AN Anonymous comment  on this NV Blog questions the arguments of Rochdale Councillor John Blundell with regard to his views on homeless beggars.  'Anonymous' cites the finding of the End Child Poverty Coalition that 'child poverty in Central Rochdale (After Housing Costs) at a staggering 57.04% and for Rochdalr as a whole at 45% (some 14,198 local children)'.

 

Then 'Anonymous' asks what is the opinionated Cllr. Blundell's view on this problem given that statistics are now suggesting that child poverty is so significant?  

 

'Anonymous' must know that Rochdale's Councillor Blundell holds the cabinet position for Regeneration, Business, Skills and Employment under the Labour administration of his leader Cllr. Allen Brett.  Cllr. Blundell has some ideas about how to discourage homeless beggars based on his economic theories, and in an article written in Manchester Confidential in December 2017 he announced some of his simple text book views:

'The fundamental principle of economics is that people, or agents as we like to call them, respond to incentives.'   

Then Cllr. Blundell tells us:

'Often money is the means of incentivising people to do things they wouldn't opt to do otherwise, like work. Conversely it is also used to disincentivise things we like to do but shouldn’t, like smoking, which is heavily taxed.'

Last week, sitting in the Flying Horse pub, I remembered these words by Blundell as I watched him ensconced at a table outside in Rochdale Town Hall square stuffing himself in the company of a woman I believe to be the new Kingsway Labour Cllr. Elsie Wraighte.  What, I wonder, would 'disincentivise' the already pleasingly plump Cllr. Blandell from eating too much?

Or what was it that was incentivising last January when he became a non-executive director of the Manchester Airport Group?  At the time Cllr. Blundell declared : "I am ecstatic that I have been chosen to join the board at Manchester Airport Group as a non-executive director and look forwarding to being part of the major growth the Airport is currently going through.”

Indeed, the local beggars may wonder with the playwright Bertolt Brecht:  'Why be a homeless beggar when you can be a Labour Councillor and non-executive director like Councillor Blundell?'   After all, even when the councillor is an electoral fraud like Councillor Rana from Spotland and Falinge, or an unbelievable witness like Cllr. Richard Farnell, or a philanderer like the former disgraced Rochdale Labour MP, Simon Danczuk; a spirit of tolerance prevails rather than any attempts to 'disincentivise' their waywardness, and this  seems to have become very much part of the culture among the Rochdale councillors of all parties.  Indeed, recently  Cllr. Blundell even sort to defend the dalliances of Simon Danczuk saying what he did was 'Only Human!'.

Given their recent political history the Rochdale councillors, all of them, should really be asking themselves what kind of example they are setting to anyone?

*************

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?

______________________________________________________________________________________

(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. 

Beggar's Opera* Or Comic Opera?

Strangling Civil Liberties on a United Front
by Brian Bamford

Tonight, at Rochdale Town Hall's Full Council meeting of the Rochdale Town Council, it was more like watching a stage show of Bertold Brecht's 'Threpenny Opera' than serious politics.  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.  Talk about cosy council politics!

Councillor Liam O'Rourke even pontificated on how often the local Tories would join up with the governing Labour lads and lassies to proclaim and pass proposals and present a united front, no matter the perverse political origins of the proposals.  At one stage we were left wondering if the bashful Councillor Blundell was having an affair with one of the Tory lassies, so intimate was their demeanour.

There is much of the tragi-comedy about politics in Rochdale these days, which even in its own petty way rivals Brexit and Trump on the stage of national and international politics.

A major asbestos scandal has dogged the town for decades, the site of the former asbestos factory is now fast becoming a dump for waste which is being fly-tipped on an industrial scale; buildings surrounding the town centre neglected for decades are now cracking and disintegrating to such an extent that recently the trams to the town centre had to be stopped and buses diverted; travelling people now threaten Cronkeyshaw Common; market traders disappointed with the poorness of their trade in groceries have formed a co-op and are threatening to leave the town and now the Greater Manchester Spatial Strategy threatening the Green Belt around Rochdale.

But recently, it has been the proposals for issuing Public Space Protection Orders with on-the-spot penalties that has been causing consternation.  And this seems to be where the Tories and labour parties are uniting most.  Tonight, Councillor Sullivan and Councillor Howard moved and seconded a motion for extending the imposition of Protection Orders to the proximity of schools.  The motion stated:
'This Council welcomes the future consultation on potential use of Public Space Protection Orders in the Town Centre and recommends the introduction of similar Orders to enhance road safety outside schools.  As a Council we are committed to protecting the safety and welfare of the Borough's children, which is often put at risk by irresponsible parking outside schools.  The Council calls upon the Cabinet to develop proposals to trail Public Space Protection Orders around schools with known parking problems to tackle the associated risk to children, parents and carers; and following a period of monitoring to establish the success of this intuitive, the Council should explore options to roll out a programme of Protection Orders around schools.'
What this means is that extra unnecessary laws will be brought in by the law-makers of Rochdale to duplicate laws that already exists.  Natural justice, it seems, will now be binned in Rochdale!
What began with a Labour Party campaign to clean-up Rochdale Town Centre of beggars and other  'wrong-uns' , is now moving relentlessly on to a campaign against improper parking around school yards.  To get support for the motion one councilor last night even invoked images of car-keys being snatched by an angry schoolmaster trying to restore order and cat-fights by parents outside the school gate over parking spaces as mothers hung up their handbags to freely sally-forth in a fiery frenzy claiming the right of place to a space nearest to the school gates.
Bring on the 'On-the-Spot' Fines for Rochdale's disabled beggars and down and outs! 
Let's have more 'Public Space Protection Orders' against irate parents who park badly! 
The good Councillor Jane Howard, the Shadow Portfolio Holder for Adult Care and seconder of the motion relating to good order at School Gates, even whinged last night about not just swearing, but about one councilor actually 'blaspheming in this Council Chamber' she said, as had happened at the last full council meeting. 
With such examples of innate wickedness, the good councilors of the Metropolitan Borough of Rochdale couldn't vote the motion through quick enough!  The band-wagon to corral the public is underway!  Bring on the Zoo-Keepers!



*  The Beggar's Opera is the story satirised politics, poverty and injustice, focusing on the theme of corruption at all levels of society. Lavinia Fenton, the first Polly Peachum, became an overnight success. Her pictures were in great demand, verses were written to her and books published about her..   Elisabeth Hauptmann (with Bertolt Brecht) and Kurt Weill adapted the opera into Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) in 1928, sticking closely to the original plot and characters but with a new libretto and mostly new music.

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?

Spain's Superior Sins!

Is Danczuk in trafficing in toenails lowering tone of Political Sin?

THE historian, Felipe Fernández-Armesto (10^th, February 2016) in El Mondo below ponders how Simon Danczuk, 'Pobre Simon Danczuk', may be devaluing the corrupt  practices of politicians to the level of something like comic opera.  While at least Spanish politicians approach a swindle in an intelligent worthwhile way with an eye for the economic value of the transaction Danczuk's dalliances in 'delinquencies' seem 'tonterias' or 'stupidities' by comparison.  By being titillated by a prostitutes toenails Danczuk would seem, on the face of it, to put even Mack-the-Knife from  Bertolt Brecht's 'The Threepenny Opera' in the shade.
For original article in El Mondo go to  

Política y sexo, mala conjunción | Opinión | EL MUNDO

www.elmundo.es › Opinión

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FELIPE FERNÁNDEZ-ARMESTO. 10/02/2016 03:02.

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Política y sexo, mala conjunction

by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

HOW MUCH, dear reader, for a bit of toenail?

The idea  would never have occurred to me to sell my toenails until I read the narratives of the journalists in the sex scandal that has raised big interest in the United Kingdom.  I refer to the case of the Labour MP, Simon Danczuk, who denounced his predecessor in the House of Commons,  the liberal Cyril Smith, known for his supreme fatness, yet also for his fame for his frankness that alarmed his colleagues.

Thanks to the intervention of Danczuk, Smith is now disgraced as a pedophile homosexual.  Now   Danczuk, since the failure of his marriage, has started a correspondence with a young girl of 17-years, proposing various sexual options that have been specified in reports published but that,including a good 'whipping'.  It is thought that he met a web fetishista where the girl sells – I cite the text of the Daily Mail:  'bits of her toenails' and samples of dirty underwear. 

I am very old and understand little of what's happening in the world of today.  Yet this history is very disconcerting, I suppose for everyone.

Two aspects , above all, are for me incomprehensible.  In the first place, the revelation that there exist such situations on the web leaves me perplexed.  How does one decide to announce an asset which will produce an offer?  How do you calculate its value?  Is the underwear that has been used to a state of great filthiness worth more than that that is only slightly soiled?  And the toenails, are they worth more more if they've been well used?  Is a big one of more value to a small one? Or is one of the small finger or of the attractive foot worth more for its daintiness than that of the fat foot?   Or maybe it is a question of colour.  One very brilliant, perhaps, will be more desirable sexually than another painted....

I don't want to have the cheek to imagine what the consumers do with the products obtained in the situation embraced by Señor Danczuk.  The underwear that serves let's suppose to wash-up the dishes, that results may work out more economic and more efficient, if I don't equivocate....  But, these toenails!  I confess that I am preoccupied.  Which perversion serves me? I don't suppose they are edible, like the rich feet of the pig that you cook in Galicia on the days of San Lázaro accompanied with chorizos or laurel sauce.  I don't go to connect to the web to realise investigations, nor go to register with a client and a pour over pornographic messages to fall over  Yes I have enough problems for me to inscribe on Skype with the object of making contact with persons whose names are evidently fictional, such as 'SexyKitten' and 'Spankykins'.  In case how then does a reader get things clear.  The requirement, in each case, should I maintain a decent silence and turn to the English poet, Alexander Pope, who said 'ignorance is bliss'.

Now I'm left perplexed with the persecution that we have in England with the disgraced sexually frustrated MP (Simon Danczuk).  In Europe, we are not wanted to bar our leaders as a consequence of sexual questions.  Making propositions to prostitutes is not, until now, the most grave offense.  Clearly Danczuk had thrown the first stone in denouncing Cyril Smith, and could be accused of hypocrisy.  But the 'pecado' that Smith did was presumed homosexual paedophilia:  quite distinct, from Danczuk's proposal of a session of 'ñaca-ñaca' to a lass that sells dirty underwear on the internet.  I know that the sexual practices we permit in one society, may be distinguished from that of others who would not accept those same practices.   These are always difficult to compare.  What one can say is that the important thing is that that the sex act is consensual.  For this reason, within the current legal doctrines, we would permit routine fornication, while always denying paedophilia and, within the sexual propositions, we'd admit good humour and condemn the repulsive...

In the case of sexual excess played out by politicians I can't find any coherent criteria.  In the United States, for example, Bill Clinton was able to keep the presidency despite having entertained Monica Lewinsky in the White House, while the Senator Gary Hart had to renounce his aspirations for the presidency for having an intrigue with a divorced woman.  In the 'case of Clinton', the consensus is not clear, because the young girl was working under the orders of the President, meanwhile in the 'case of Hart', the mature Señora was independent, and seemed to participate with enthusiasm with her lover. 

Eliot Spitzer, in another manifestation more recent example of the prudishness of the United States,  led to the resignation of a governor of New York for consorting with prostitutes.   The evidence that these relations were consensual and that they were paid special elevated prices – which, according to the citizens contributes most gravely in this case.  In France, we see, (Holland) abandon a series of women didn't damage a president of the republic, meanwhile in Italy , in the 'case of Berlusconi', the promiscuity without discernment only served at once to realise the machismo of the former Prime Minister.  Then we have poor Danczuk, who did no more than exchange text messages with a sales-woman of toenails.  He never met her or went to bed with her.  We don't even know if he had the consolation of acquiring toenails or garments of used underwear.  Yes,  we can accuse him of  bad taste; yes he may be stupid or pathetic; but he is not a monster like his predecessor in the House of Commons. 

There is no value to extend the sexual discussion, that would be basically irrational.  Nor does it deserve the trouble of studying the attitude of the public regard for the sexual stupidity of politicians because we can see this has an echo of the same irrationality.  Cases like that of Danczuk are part of the real world, even though some may think it alien, and throughly intelligible to a person of my generation.   Yes one can comment about the fraud of the electronic posts or drink powdered coca, or spend ones time following celebrities on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.  Until now one can vote on Celebrity Big Brother.  Also one is able to show interest for the pieces of toenail  of a prostitute.  For me, they are all are equally stupid!

But at least a clear conclusion that we can get out of this mess in over the interest in Danczuk:

In Spain in political life we are lucky to experience cases with much more frequency in financial corruption than sexual scandals, the body of interest of the Spanish public is in the sex lives of singers, actoresses, sportmen and the members of Royal families.  I agree that a councillor in the town of Toledo  ---- who had to resign for performing in a pornographic homemade video; but this was more for the difficulty of maintaining the dignity of his position than for the supposed erotic vice.  In Italy, we have the examples in the general elections, like the notorious Ciccionina, without any consequence.

In Spain, for a change, we are immersed in a list of hundreds of politicians implicated in frauds or bribery...  Therefore, the proper question to ask in the New Year with the cases of 'ERE' in Andalucia, 'Gürtel (with his 'Bárcenas' case' ), 'Nóos', 'Pujol', 'Púnica', 'Rato' and 'Torredembarra', 'the Popular Party of Valencia' ... without mentioning other examples of rumours or accusations that have been brought the courts, like that of Gómez of the Serna and I don't know how many more.

I believe we should be happy about our major affliction of our sexual corruption. But what are we make of the fiscal fraud, the bribery or the embezzlement of funds compared with the delinquency of Danczuk!   Which is a more logical, clever, coherent and practical of all those (economic) sins our own politicians commit  or those of the less fortunate people (like Danczuk)?  We don't have a major elite in the moral respect, but compared to the rest (Danczuk etc) our sins are more intelligent.