Vote For Who Does The Cuts!

Letter to Rochdale Observer:

20^th, April 2016.

 

Dear Editor,

 

READING Phill Bethell and Stewart Robinson's letters (Your Views April 16^th, and 20^th) mocking Councillor Andy Kelly and defending the local Labour-controlled Council, is like perusing the script of a performance of the Theatre of the Absurd.  It smacks of desperation, and by ignoring the Conservatives and concentrating on the Liberal Democrats, it makes Councillor Andy Kelly seem like a Giant among Pygmies.

 

In his own column, Simon Danczuk, still suspended by the Labour Party, writes:

'The big decisions might be made in Westminster but it is in town halls up and down the country where these polices become reality.'

 

The 'reality', which the honourable member for Rochdale does not spell out, is that the town's citizens may have the luxury of choosing between whether in future the council cuts are to be imposed by an administration led by Labour Councillor Richard Farnell or perhaps alternatively by Ashley Dearnley for the Tories.

 

In that context, it may well be that Councillor Andy Kelly's early departure from the town hall chamber was a rational move.

 

If my branch was based in Rochdale, I would fear for my members whoever gains power.

 

Yours faithfully,

 

Brian Bamford:  Secretary Bury Unite Commercial Branch.

Rochdale Councillor Condemns Cyril!

COUNCILLOR Phillip Bethell has made it known to all and sundry in the Rochdale Observer this week that he condemns Cyril Smith abuse of young men and boys.  He is a good friend of Simon Danczuk the MP for Rochdale, who himself eventually decided to condemn Cyril Smith just over two years ago on the 13th, November 2012, in a speech  the House of Commons no less.

Mr. Danczuk now tells that it occurred to him to throw in a condemnation of Cyril the former MP for Rochdale, while pacing up and down his office in Westminster worrying about writing a speech on child grooming in Rochdale earlier that year.  Councillor Bethell now makes it clear that he is the latest politician to jump on this bandwagon of condemning the now deceased Sir Cyril Smith. 

Councillor Bethell is not of course apologising on behalf of the Labour Party, because Cyril was a leading figure in that party during the time he was beating the backsides of young men at Cambridge House.  But as a late convert to the witchunt against Smith, he is urging others, mainly his political opponents among the Liberal Democrats, to apologise.

In a letter in the Rochdale Ob. last Wednesday Councillor Bethell even seemed to be urging a solemn condemnation from Brian Bamford who reportedly had 'a far better record than anyone else still resident in the town, both in making public Cyril Smith's activities at Cambridge House and keeping them in the public eye' (see letter from Les May in the Rochdale Observer 20th, December).

In the Rochdale Ob. (17, Dec. 2014) Councillor Bethell wrote:
'YOUR frequent correspondent, the self-styled anarchist, Brian Bamford, spends a lot of time obsessing about who is to blame for Cyril Smith's child abuse, but he really is missing the point (Observer letters, 9, December).'

But there is more to his righteousness on the subject of Cyril Smith and the 'self-styled anarchist', Mr. Bamford:
'If Brian Bamford really understands or cares about child abuse then he'd realise that anyone carrying a torch for Cyril nowadays in politics is extremely dangerous.'

Well there is nowt like a late-comer for demonstrating that he or she 'really understands or cares about child abuse'.  Where was Councillor Bethell in May 1979, when Brian Bamford was in David Bartlett's cellar on Spotland Road folding the Rochdale Alternative Paper with the story of Cyril Smith's antics at Cambridge House in it?  Where were Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker for that matter?