Some Subtle Social Engineering Experiment?

 What Are Rochdale's 'Alpha- Councillors' Up To?

by Andrew Wastling

I READ with total incredulity that Council Tax payers in Rochdale will from 1 April be paying more on our Council Tax bills than people in Manchester.

This news stunned even those friends & neighbours of mine tempered  on the hammer & anvil of local council stupidity by serial  antics from Rochdale Council over the years.

After all only last year Manchester was voted the best place to live in the UK beating even London which was ranked ten places lower. Rochdale as we know was not.

The Global Liveability Survey compiled by the Economist Intelligence Unit scored 140 cities worldwide out of 100 in the areas of health care, education, stability, culture and environment and infrastructure. Manchester scored  88.8 out of a 100 and was ranked the 43rd best city in the world to live in.

I am not sure where exactly Rochdale ranked in 'the 140 best cities to live in worldwide' but it must with some certainty have been much higher than Manchester to warrant this years 4.99% increase in Rochdale's Council Tax? Anything less would be Daylight Robbery .

I just wonder what Rochdale folk , (who pay more in all Council Tax Bands A - H  than Manchester residents), get for our money from Rochdale Council  that people in Manchester, (who pay less in all Council Tax Bands A - H  than we), do not get for their money from Manchester City Council?

I can only assume that word must have spread that we have a dedicated, specialist SAS standard trained cohort of 'Alpha-Councillors' invested here in the very heart of our community who have selflessly put Rochdale firmly on the local government map.  So proactive have past councils been that their list of triumphs is both exhaustive & colourful .

A toxic asbestos site - once the worlds largest asbestos factory - has been allowed to crumble into lethal ruin with no regard for the long term safety  of the towns residents for decades' Surely merits the considerable extra money we all pay as tax payers just on it's own?

Councillors who switch party without any due regard to political principle or the voters. Party's that rise & sink without tangible trace except for the extra expenses claimed as a separate political entity  in the Council - incidentally does anyone know what happened to the much heralded but quickly demised Rochdale First from 2014 they showed some initial promise ? Personally I think that for entertainment value alone this episode of local government shenanigans was worth an entire 1 % increase of itself ?

We have seen a £250 Million regeneration programme that has prioritised a £50 Million 'Norman Keep' - AKA ' No.1 Riverside '- ( almost flooded before the ink on the hastily signed insurance policy for the building  was signed !),  above scandalous levels of poor housing, lack of opportunity, local child poverty, and generational social exclusion, employment & skills gap.  Long promised retail developments few locals will be able afford to shop have taken precedence over community cohesion by Councillors that have all but ignored near 1930's levels of poverty & shoddy , damp rented housing, unfit in some cases for human habitation , the ingrained and widely denied second & third generation unemployment in some wards.

It's not just the shocking recent history though is it that calls into question the probity and transparency of local politics in this town.  All the kids on the Working class state I grew up on knew from an early age not to take sweets from a certain local politician in the 1970's so how our local adult councillors at the time remained unaware of the rumours remains beyond most rational people.  Especially when we had the benefit then of Rochdale Alternative Press to keep us informed about 'Fat Man's' activities.  From that edition onwards  it was clear that there was something rotten to the very core of local Rochdale politics and that a culture of historic denial or best just sweep it under the carpet - like the asbestos at Healy Dell - where hopefully it'll all just be forgotten about in time?

Its not just the skeletons still rattling in their  closet from  the 1970's that need concern us still - nearly half a century later - true to local form we still see new closets being crammed full by a political class at several steps removed from the majority of  local Rochdale folk yet again. he attempt to criminalise the homeless, beggars and under 18-year-olds is only  the most recent example of other notorious examples of the total and complete failure of local authorities to protect those they had a clear & obvious duty of care for.  This is an example of a mind set and dysfunctional internal narrative that posits that we - the Council - are beyond reproach , forever above accountability ,investigation and always without blame. In fact it is the victims of our successive failures of governance & policies who are at fault never us.

It's precisely this kind of insidious non-thinking culture that allows some of our more delusional or remote local decision makers still think they are once again unaccountable & above independent public scrutiny and natural justice.

The much heralded Kingsway Business Park was allowed to house a company so notorious for shoddy employment standards & practices that the DWP no longer allows adverts for the company to be carried on the Universal Jobs match site. Despite their near Victorian abuse of worker rights we have a nominally Labour Council recently reward this companies attacks on local working peoples employment rights by allow this Dickensian throwback to:   'extend  their European headquarters at Kingsway Business Park by 600,000 square feet to a total floor space of 2m square feet.'

It's clear that : '£100,000 in planning fee income' buys a lot of acquiescence  from our  'Alpha-Councillors ' who silence merely masks their complicity and tacit collaboration in the systematic abuse of local workers statutory rights exposed so graphically in last years C4 undercover report that should have come as no surprise since as long ago as 2013 concerns had been raised publicly about this new millennium workhouse.

This single handed attempt to undermine workers rights would also possibly warrant the 34%/51% expenses increase for Councillors - especially one would have though those councillors who are trade union members.  It's just this kind of co-worker solidarity we have grown accustomed to from our 'Alpha-Councillors '.  Long may our brothers & sisters in the Town Hall continue to stand with us in the  struggle - lets make the 'birthplace of cooperation' proud shall we comrades?

We best not forget from our list the disgraceful levels of Department of Work Pensions (DWP) sanctions have been imposed on vulnerable local claimants for weeks on end without so much as a whimper of protest from local Red Tory Councillors who continue feed their faces on £9.95 a head tax payer subsidised buffets whist simultaneously imposing a further £39 MILLION of Blue Tory austerity on local public services.  Indeed these quislings and complicit facilitators of central government cuts to northern communities & front-line services remain resolutely  in denial about local malnutrition rates, spiralling debt and food bank voucher use across the Townships.

We have seen also a disgraceful attempt to ride rough-shod over the human rights of people with learning disabilities & their desperately worried families & support workers by a shambolic, barley competent  consultation process  on  a proposed re-modelling of Adult Social Care that looked as if it had been compiled on the back of a fag packet. We have seen the Council widely ridiculed for its crass 'swearing ban ' across the media from Russia Today to the Telegraph for its ill conceived Public Space Protection Order that is so we are told hoped to be extended to schools gates.   Though quite who will pay for this is still open to debate since when the Council proposed schools pay for their own school Crossing patrols in December 2016 they were told that: '30 out of 63 schools were not prepared fund crossing patrols'.  As with the Adult Social Care remodelling proposals after a public outcry this nonsense was also rather hastily quashed.

As to proposals to store hazardous waste near a residential area in Castleton one can't help but wondering whether our 'Alpha-Councillors' are engaged in some kind of subtle social engineering experiment to ascertain how many toxic or hazardous industrial sites can be crammed into a five mile square inhabited area without producing genetic mutations among the local population - not too many more we suspect !

Once the news that Rochdale is a 'Social Utopia' governed by an elite of 'Alpha -Councillors'  extolling True Labour values & principles to the down trodden, huddled masses and their fame spreads far and wide across Greater Manchester we should expect an imminent exodus of aspirational  Mancunians re-locating to Rochdale?  Thousands of fleeing 'Economic & cultural migrants ' fellow workers & citizens eager to avail themselves immediately of Rochdale Councils superbly run public services , our fabulous public facilities , our renowned global cultural identity and international status that we will now all be able to expect as a right in return for our increased council tax bills?

As the great Dario Fo once said of comedy & the essential satire of politicians:

'At the root of everything I write is tragedy.'

More dodgy goings on at Ashton Jobcentre!

LAST week, we heard a complaint from a 19-year-old girl (Stacy) from Ashton, who had gone to Ashton-under-Lyne Jobcentre to accompany her friend (Rebecca) to an interview. Although her friend suffers from epilepsy and severe depression, she was told she would not be allowed to attend  the interview to support her friend also aged 19. 

We understand that the Jobcentre told Stacy that it was impossible for her to attend the interview because it would breach 'confidentiality'.  Consequently, Stacy had to wait outside the building for just under an hour, while her friend was interviewed. 

We often hear complaints from people at Ashton Jobcentre that they have been refused permission by Jobcentre staff to accompany a friend to an interview.  This frequently occurs even when the DWP client is suffering, like Rebecca, from health/mental health issues.  Yet, guidance to staff working for the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), make it clear that: 

'Claimants accessing DWP benefits and services can have someone to accompany them to act on their behalf.'  And, 'Claimants can have a variety of people accompany them such as Representatives, Appointees, Corporate acting bodies or Personal acting bodies.'

As this sort of thing is happening on a regular basis at Ashton Jobcentre, the issue needs to be raised with the DWP and the local MP, Angela Rayner.

Labour's workfare shame: How Labour abandoned support for the poorest over illegal sanctions!

Jonathan Reynolds MP

In February 2013, the Court of Appeal quashed ‘The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Employment, Skills and Enterprise) Scheme’. The three Judges, Lord Justice Pill, Lady Justice Black and Sir Stanley Burton, ruled that the 2011 Regulations were ultra vires of section 17A of the Jobseeker’s Act 1995 because they failed to prescribe a description of the various schemes launched in August 2011 or the circumstances in which, a person can be required to participate in those schemes or the period during which, participants are required to undertake work on those schemes.

The case centred on whether the Secretary of State was able to create programmes and schemes at a whim rather than issuing Parliament with full details of the myriad of schemes in operation. It was declared that the Secretary of State, Ian Duncan Smith, had not given unemployed people sufficient information about their rights to appeal against being made to work up to 780 hours unpaid and the penalties they would face if they refused. The effect of the ruling meant that almost all of the Government’s work-for-your dole employment schemes were unlawful.

The Court of Appeal ruling meant that thousands of unemployed people (approximately 44,000) who had been unlawfully sanctioned (had their benefits stopped) for not participating in these schemes, were entitled to a refund of their benefits of around £130 million. On 30 October 2013, the decision of the Appeal Court was upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Department of Work & Pensions (DWP) stated that they would resist paying out rebates until all legal avenues had been exhausted. However, following the Court of Appeal ruling, the Government introduced emergency legislation -  ‘The Jobseeker’s Allowance (Schemes for Assisting  Persons to Obtain Employment) Regulations 2013’ and the ‘Jobseeker’s (Back to Work Schemes) Act 2013’  that was fast tracked through Parliament with the support of most of the opposition.

What both measures sought to do was to validate the 2011 Regulations retrospectively and undo the decision of the Court of Appeal. This did have the effect of retrospectively making unlawful benefit sanctions imposed under the 2011 Regulations lawful in order to deny people rebates.

When these measures were introduced in Parliament in the spring of 2013, some 44 Labour MPs voted against these measures. However, the Labour Party official line was to ‘abstain’ so the Government could get the legislation through.

One of the MPs, who abstained, was Jonathan Reynolds MP, who represents the constituency of Stalybridge and Hyde. In May 2013, he wrote to a constituent to explain why he’d abstained on the Government’s Jobseekers Bill. According to Reynolds, the DWP’s back to work schemes (2011 Regulations), were struck down – not because they were unlawful – but on a technicality, because the DWP had not provided sufficient information to jobseekers about the penalties involved in refusing to participate in their schemes. He added, “The legal judgement was not about the legality or ethics of so-called workfare schemes (which were introduced by the last Labour government). These will always be political, not legal, matters.” He stated that he thought it only reasonable that people should have their benefits stopped if they won’t try to find work. However, he points out that Labour had demanded two crucial concessions: first, that people can appeal against mistakes by the DWP; “We can’t have carte blanche retrospective legislation of sanctions.” Second, there should be an independent review of the sanctions regime.

What Reynolds fails to mention and must have known at the time, is that in supporting this nasty little bill, money illegally taken from jobseekers who had been illegally sanctioned, would not be paid back to them. Labour’s support allowed the Government to backdate changes to the law so they could steal money from the poor.

Even right-wing think tanks like Civitas,were appalled by this shocking move. They asked, is the Government above the law? Moreover, what is the point in taking the Government to court, when they can simply move the goal posts and ignore the ruling, by introducing retrospective legislation that validates it?

Though Labour and Jonathan Reynolds MP, supported the Tory Government, the High Court subsequently found that retrospective legislation designed to render lawful benefits sanctions that were issued under the 2011 Regulations, was ‘incompatible’ with the right to a fair trial. The court called the move ‘draconian’, stating it was not explained or justified and “incompatible with the European Convention on human Rights.” After the ruling, the Government announced that it would appeal to the Supreme Court.

A Blairite and Labour friend of Israel, Jonathan Reynolds was elected to Parliament at the 2010 General Election, following the resignation of his mentor and predecessor, James (work-or-lose-your-dole) Purnell, who turned the seat of Stalybridge & Hyde into a marginal. According to Labour NEC member, Tom Watson MP, Reynolds was not initially put on the NEC’s shortlist, having failed to impress. However, Watson told ‘The Times’, that Reynolds was put on the shortlist of candidates for the vacant seat, following intervention from James Purnell and Peter Mandelson, who wanted him elected.