A Bit Of A Deadleg? by Les May

EARLIER today in a telephone conversation with a friend he commented that he thought his local MP was ‘a bit of a deadleg’. Now I’ve not had any dealings with this gentleman, who is the MP for Heywood and Middleton, so I cannot comment on the veracity of this statement. But it did take me back a few years to when our old friend Simon Danczuk, or as he is now more commonly called ‘the disgraced Simon Danczuk’, was MP for the neighbouring constituency of Rochdale.

MPs (and Councillors) hold their position thanks to the trust of the public so if you want to shift them because you don’t think they are up to the job or not being honest with the people who voted for them, it’s the public you have to find a way of telling.

After Danczuk published his book about Cyril Smith in 2014 the Letters page of the Rochdale Observer was for the next 18 months or so filled with correspondence challenging Danczuk account, asking that he produce some evidence for his attempts to link Smith with the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View school and pointing out that a story in the book involving the Northamptonshire Police was completely untrue.

If my friend wants to use the local media to publish his disquiet about his MP Chris Clarkson, he won’t be so lucky. The reader’s letters page of the Rochdale Observer has shrunk almost to the point of invisibility. In 2015 it occupied a full page and there was enough room for the editor to allow a three quarter page letter from Andrew Wastling, who now sends material to Northern Voices because he cannot get it published elsewhere.

Those of us who contribute to NV don’t fool ourselves into thinking that it is read by as many people as read the Rochdale Observer so it is no substitute for an inquisitive and questioning local paper with a boisterous letters page.

NV’s readership is more likely to be drawn from the subset of potential Observer readers who would identify themselves as to the left of the political spectrum, but who refuse to be be swayed by the present vogue for identity politics and the drift towards ‘cancel culture’, so in no sense does it compete with other local news outlets. Seeing it as a competitor was the mistake Rochdale Online made when it wanted to use material from Northern Voices without attribution to its author.

Local News Partnerships, which include both the Rochdale Observer and Rochdale Online, are a well intentioned attempt to support local news outlets and maintain their viability at a time when they have come under pressure from the availability of news on the World Wide Web 24/7. But the unintended consequences have been that the sense of place and local identity which local newspapers provided has vanished because essentially the same story can appear in a regional and local paper, and a diversity of voices has been replaced by what is essentially a single uninquisitive ‘foghorn’.

This lack of scrutiny has emboldened some of our local politicians to start down the track of believing that they no longer accountable for their actions. Rochdale already has one local councillor who first solicited a postal vote then voted twice in the 2018 local election, seemingly without suffering any consequences. In recent weeks we have seen that one councillor did not seem to think he had to even accept e-mails sent to his Rochdale MBC account. We have also seen that at least one councillor think it unacceptable that he should be questioned about why a council official who is supposedly doing a full time job with Rochdale MBC is being allowed to ‘moonlight’ in another well remunerated role.

In about eleven weeks time people in Rochdale are going to be asked to choose who they want to represent them on the Council. If all we are treated to are press releases from councillors because they are ‘good copy’ how can we do this in any meaningful way? It is time to shine some light on the murky political world of Rochdale.

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Distracting Dilemma of Deserving Councillor Class by Brian Bamford

WHO'S JUMPING JAB LINE-UP FOR VIRUS IN ROCHDALE?

NICK STATHAM of the local Rochdale democracy service, in last Saturday's Rochdale Observer delivered front-page story entited: 'Warning to Covid queue jumpers' with a byline 'Evidence some school staff have been "gaming" the system'.

On page 7 of the same Ob. issue he claims: 'A leaked emal from Rochdale council to all headteachers in the borough said some staff had been using an "inappropriaterly-shared" link intended only for NHS workers.' Furthermore, according to Gail Hopper head of children's services, this practice could 'scupper the borough's attempts to hit its vaccination targets, and even lead to doses being withheld by government.'

And Mr. Statham continues: 'The message reads: "Rochdale has a tight target to vaccinate all care home residents over 75 years and "clinically extreamely vunerable" residents, along with NHS and social care staff by February - if sufficent vaccine supplies reach us. This is a really challenging target. For every vaccine given to someone outside the priority groups, the risk is increased of our most vulnerable residents being delayed in receiving it".'

The message warns: 'The publicity of this happening would be very damaging for the borough. It will also increase the risk that NHSE cancels future supplies until it can be assured that the borough follows required process.'

COUNCIL CONFIRM COVID WARNING LEAK

A spokesman for Rochdale councile has confirmed that an e-mail was sent out to the Rochdale schools in the borough.

Their statement concluded: 'This letter was about a wider concern over the vaccination booking link being shared inappropriately, which has happening in many areas of the country. the letter is not about a specific school but an attempt to prevent abuse of the system.'

A LACK of INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM IN ROCHDALE

It is worth mentioning that local journalism in Rochdale in recent times has been notable for its lack of curiousity and penitrating investigative powers. The journalist Nick Starham himself was drafted in from Ludlow to take on the role of 'democracy service' to manage to see that local reports are circulated regularly and that the locals are informed about what's going on in their area.

It has not worked well, because the effect in the local media including the Rochdale Observer, Rochdale Online, and even the Manchester Evening News, has been that what we have got is a form of megaphone journalism in which people in power like the Rochdale Council issue press statements and the local news outlets obediently echo what they have to say. In normal circumstances Northern Voices would have welcomed the revelation of this leaked e-mail by Nick Statham. Perhaps we would have even labelled it an exclusive. But it does take much imagination to consider that this e-mail was deliberately leaked to the media by the top brass at Rochdale Council to distract the public from the fact that local councillors themselves have found a way of side-stepping the vaccination process and getting the innoculated ahead of schedule.

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Who does Tony Lloyd MP think he is kidding?

Is ROCHDALE Becoming Queen Of The Rotten Boroughs?

EDITORIAL NOTE:

PRIVATE EYE may yet award Rochdale the prize of the 2020 Queen of the ROTTEN BOROUGHS if things carry on as they are at Rochdale Council. At least two of the town's wards have given cause for serious concern in recent years owing to the curious customs of some of the residents, and both are within the boundaries of what is Tony Lloyd's constituency of Rochdale.

Readers may be well aware of the distasteful historic nature of the politics of Rochdale stemming from Cyril Smith's terms in office first as a Rochdale Labour councillor, and later as the town's Liberal MP from 1972 to 1992; then there is Simon Danczuk's time as Rochdale MP from 2010 until 2017 when he ended up in fifth place standing as an independent candidate following his suspension from the Labour Party for what he himself called "inappropriate and stupid" behaviour in 2015, when he exchanged perverse messages with a young 17-year-old girl; thus it was that Tony Lloyd became the new Rochdale MP on the back of Simon Danczuk's disgrace. In both the earlier cases of Smith and Danczuk it was suggested that the authorities turned a blind-eye to what was taking place in Rochdale's political arena.

Now the concerns raised by Carl Faulkner in his letter below suggest that Rochdale's current MP, Tony Lloyd, may be oblivious to some strange goings on inside the Rochdale Labour Party: for example in 2018, Rochdalian Faisal Rana received a police caution after registering himself at two different addresses and managing to vote twice, he later became a local Rochdale councillor. Most decent people would regard this as disgraceful conduct, but not it seems some in the Rochdale Labour Party. Now, it seems, Councillor Rana is promoting himself as a possible heir to Tony Lloyd and a future MP for the town.

What is perhaps even more worrying is that some weeks ago Carl sent this letter to the Rochdale Observer and it has yet to be published. The Rochdale Observer, it will be recalled, was one of the newspapers that failed to report the story when Rochdale's Alternative Paper first tried to expose Cyril Smith.

The leopard, it seems, cannot change its spots!

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Dear Sir/Madam,

WHO does Tony Lloyd MP think he is kidding? He has recently raised concerns about the fairness of elections in a faraway country called Belarus. This is not a one-off. He has a long standing record of ‘concern’ about fraud in elections. Back in 2004 he stood up in Parliament and said that electoral fraudsters should know they would be sent to prison. His own website boasts of his multi-country involvement in helping to ensure fair and fraud-free elections.

So, it would be easy to assume that this man would speak out about electoral fraud wherever it occurs. Especially if it happened here in Rochdale. Anybody believing that would be wrong.

This is because in 2018, electoral fraud came to Rochdale and made the national news. It was the year a councillor in his own Rochdale Labour Party, was outed as an electoral fraudster. A man who had dishonestly registered himself at two different addresses, applied for two separate postal votes and then voted twice in the Rochdale’s local elections. Despite being caught out, the hard-faced electoral fraud councillor refused to resign. This person was not unknown to Tony Lloyd. It was someone who had been closely involved in Tony Lloyd’s 2017 General Election campaign.

At the time of the fraud, decent folk quickly and publicly condemned the councillor and called for him to resign. From Tony Lloyd there was only silence. But his hypocrisy did not end there. I wrote to him, asking that as my MP, would he make representations to the Attorney General and request a change in the law that would automatically prevent future electoral fraudsters from serving as councillors.

His initial response was to try and fob me off. He then attempted to ignore me. Eventually, he simply said it was something that I could do myself. Not quite what you would expect from an MP who likes to portrays himself as the protector and promoter of fraud-free elections.

However, his hypocrisy knew no bounds and he still wasn’t finished. In 2019 a Tony Lloyd General Election leaflet dropped through my letter box. There, staring out from the leaflet was the gurning fizog of his friend, the electoral fraudster Labour councillor.

What a shameless hypocrite of an MP we really have. Rochdale deserves better.

Regards,

Carl Faulkner

ROCHDALE

NB All the above can be verified if requested.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/councillor-who-voted-twice-rochdale-15028865

Cyril Smith and Faisal Rana

by Les May

NOT two names you would ever expect to see together, but as I was reminded when I read the somewhat garbled story by Jennifer Williams in the Saturday edition of the Rochdale Observer, there are some remarkable similarities.

Let’s forget the speculation and recap what we actually know. Smith indecently assaulted young men at the Cambridge House hostel in the 1960s.  Had he not been guilty of this he would have sued Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) for the article in the May 1979 edition.  Rana voted twice in the May 2018 local government election. When found out he admitted it. Two guilty men; two sets of blind eyes being turned.

What are the similarities?   For a start neither of these men ever stood in the dock and answered for their crimes, though the reasons for this appear very different. Another similarity is the way that people who could, and should, have taken non-judicial actions against these two guilty men have excused their reasons for not doing so.

David Steel who was told of these accusations against Smith by the RAP editors, David Bartlett and John Walker, has excused his inaction by saying;

‘These allegations all related to a period some years before he was even an MP and before he was even a member of the party, therefore it did not seem to me that I had any position in the matter at all. He accepted that the story was correct. Obviously I disapproved, but as far as I was concerned it was past history.’

How remarkably similar this is to the response I received when I raised the matter of Rana voting twice with the RMBC monitoring officer.  I was told that Rana’s criminal behaviour had taken place before he became a Councillor, hence no action could be taken.  Just as party leader Steel was able to avoid taking any action against Smith, these seems to have been enough to have allowed party leader Alan Brett to avoid taking action against Rana.

In fact the excuse from the monitoring officer was nonsense.  Rana’s crime was committed on polling day 3 May 2018 and his term of office runs from that day until the day before the next poll is held.  I feel justified in using the term ‘excuse’ here because when I later asked for clarification about Rana’s failure to declare his interests within the stipulated time period the officer who dealt with this during an extensive correspondence squirmed and did everything possible to avoid having to admit that Rana had failed to comply with the rules.

So why did neither of these men appear in the dock?  We know that in the case of Smith the police pursued a rigorous investigation, that the file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and that no action was taken against Smith.  No evidence has yet been produced that this was a ‘cover up’ and the most likely explanation is that even though a number of young men has made similar accusations against Smith as the law stood at the time this could not be taken as corroboration that he committed the crimes he was accused of.  This seems absurd to us now and the law has since been changed.

In the case of Rana things are much less clear. We don’t know whether the decision to allow him off the hook with only a caution was taken by Greater Manchester Police (GMP) without referring the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or whether it was a decision made by the CPS.   If the decision was made by GMP alone then it seems to me to be a significant error of judgement on someone’s part.

Voter fraud strikes at the heart of our democracy and whether it be GMP, the CPA, a council officer or a party leader no one should do anything which appears to excuse or condone it.  Smith is dead, Steel is yesterday’s man and Rana is still a councillor. Which do you think we should be most concerned about?

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2019/03/what-rap-said-about-smith-in-1979.html

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Rochdale Council and Institutional Racism

by Les May

I BELIEVE that Rochdale Council is tainted by institutional racism.  I rest this claim upon the fact that its members appear to base some decisions about whether to act to give some sort of leadership to the people of Rochdale upon skin colour and ethnic origin.  The evidence I have for this is the response, and in most cases, lack of response, I received when I sent an open letter to all members of Rochdale Council regarding an attack on four white tree surgeons by a gang of about twenty Asian men in the Newbold area of Rochdale.

I provide below three paragraphs of this letter.

I am writing to you not as a representative of a political party, or of a particular ward, or because you happen to have been born with skin of a particular colour, but as someone who was elected to represent the people of Rochdale.

Two weeks ago the Rochdale Observer reported that a thug who had been ‘disrespected’ in ‘his country’ organised a gang of about twenty males who were armed with weapons such as knuckledusters, claw hammers and an axe to attack four men working as tree surgeons.  One of the men had his hand hacked off in the attack. Before the attack the four men had been called ‘white bastards’.

In the name of common decency I call upon all councillors, both individually and collectively, to condemn this attack and the language which preceded it, by bringing a motion to this effect before the full Council at its next meeting.

The full letter can be read at:

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2019/11/an-open-letter-to-rochdale-councillors.html

I print below the responses that I received from individual councillors and my reply to them.  As I believe that the racism is present at an institutional level because it exists as a shared understanding, whether conscious or unconscious, amongst members of Rochdale Council that some things must never be drawn attention to, I have chosen to remove the name and anything that would identify individual Councillors.  This was impossible to do without mutilating the response in one case so I have excluded it.

Dear Mr May

Thank you for the information of which I knew nothing.  Unfortunately the next Council meeting is a short meeting with no motions due to the Freeman and Alderman meetings to follow.  I will discuss with colleagues, but if I had been asked for a comment I would condemn this attack as indeed I would any attack regardless of colour, creed or sexuality.  There is no support for any form of violence I would hope from any member of Council, and this and any attack should be condemned by all.

Dear Councillor ***,

Thank you for your response to my e-mail.

I believe that this is a matter of such importance to the promotion of harmonious relations within the town that I would like to see it debated and condemned by the full Council at a later meeting, if the next one is not appropriate.  This is the reason I have written to every councillor in every ward in the town, I believe it should be condemned by every councillor both individually and collectively.

If you or your colleagues wish to obtain further information a report which includes material taken from the court hearing can be found in the Rochdale Observer of 23 October and on the GMP website below.

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2019/october/Four-men-have-been-jailed-for-their-part-in-a-brutal-gang-attack-which-left-a-man-with-life-changing-injuries-after-being-hit-with-an-axe-in-Rochdale/

I would be grateful if you would share this with your colleagues.

Les May

Hi Les

I have no idea why you’d want me to comment on this particular incident, given I have never commented on any police investigation.  I’ve had a look through my inbox and it seems you’ve never emailed me before demanding I call out racist attacks in Rochdale.  I have no idea why this one might be different.

It seems to me that the legal system has dealt with the criminals - not being involved in the case or having any legal training, I can’t say either way whether there are any issues here.

To be honest it’s the first I’ve heard of this terrible incident, not some cover up of anti-white racism.

It’s a shocking incident.  All racism is wrong.

Do you have any potholes or grot spots in **** I can help with?

Dear Councillor ***,

Given the nature of the incident which involved an unprovoked attack by a gang of up to 20 young men armed with an axe, knuckledusters and a claw hammer on four workmen which resulted in one of those attacked having his hand chopped off, I think it is self evident why some comment is needed.   I am not aware that there has been an attack of such a nature in Rochdale before.  I am not asking you to 'call out' racism, which I note that you clearly identify this attack as being tainted with, I am asking that you use your best endeavours to have this attack debated and condemned by the council.  Twenty young men being assembled quickly and carrying weapons, coupled with the use of the term 'my country' by the leader who claimed he had been 'disrespected', suggests to me that what we have here is a case of gangsterism which may well spread into the wider community. I would like to see it halted before it does.

This attack was reported on the front page of the Rochdale Observer of Wednesday 23 October 2019, so quite a lot of people will be familiar with it.

I should add that every councillor in Rochdale has received the e-mail I sent you.   I will file your response along with theirs.

Les May

Hi les

Thank you for including me in your email.  I have and always will stand up against any form of racism and will continue to do so

Regards *** ***

Dear ***,

This is not about racism, though there are clearly racist overtones. It is essentially 'gangsterism' when someone justifies the attack by saying he has been 'disrespected' in 'his country'.  That is why I want it condemned by councillors individually and collectively. The racism will be if there is an unwillingness to condemn it because it was carried out by up to 20 young men identified as Asian.

Les May

Hi Les,

I am saddened to hear what you have alluded to in your email. ******* I am not aware of the matter you mention but will establish the facts and contact relevant officers.   I apologise that you have not had a response before now.  Please let me have a few more details abut the incident such as when, where etc it occurred. I realise you may be further upset by my asking for this but it will save me some time.  I am grateful. ***

Dear ***,

Thank you for your very positive response.

The incident occured on October 17, 2017 and came to court in October 2019.  It was reported in the Rochale Observer of 23 October but the story was very garbled and differs somewhat from what was reported on the Greater Manchester Police website. I have given the link below.

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2019/october/Four-men-have-been-jailed-for-their-part-in-a-brutal-gang-attack-which-left-a-man-with-life-changing-injuries-after-being-hit-with-an-axe-in-Rochdale/

Although there is a racial element in this attack which I think has deterred people from commenting on it, the main problem appears to be gangsterism.  If this is indeed the case it will be very detrimental to everyone in Rochdale and especially in Newbold.  I believe there was a similar, but much less serious, incident in the Greave area during the summer.   This is why I would like it condemned by individual councillors, and debated and condemned by the full Council.

Thank you again for your positive response.

Les May

I have absolutely no doubt that had this been an attack on four Asian men by a gang of some twenty white males armed with an axe, knuckledusters and a claw hammer, it would have been publicly condemned by most, and probably all, of our Councillors.  I believe that this view would be shared by many people in Rochdale. If this belief is correct then our Councillors do not represent the views of the people of Rochdale.

I can only offer four possible reasons for the unwillingness of Councillors to go on the public record and condemn this attack for what it is; gangsterism exacerbated by racial abuse.  These are: a desire to keep certain councillors ‘on side’, a desire not to alienate what is seen an individual Councillor’s ‘natural constituency’, a fear of being called ‘racist’ by others and not considering an attack in which a young man had his hand hacked off with an axe to be sufficiently serious that it has to be publicly condemned.

To Rochdale Councillors I say this: ‘Telling me in a private e-mail that you are not racist and how you have always been against it, is not good enough.   I will start to believe you actually understand what racism is when I see that you are willing to stand up and be counted by publicly condemning gangsterism and similar crimes, irrespective of who the perpetrators are’.

I stand by my belief that Rochdale Council is tainted with institutional racism.

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When is a Hate Crime not a Hate Crime?

by Les May

Last Wednesday 23 October my local paper, the Rochdale Observer, carried a report of an incident in which a tree surgeon had his hand chopped off with an axe in an attack carried out by an armed gang of up to 20 men some of whom were carrying knives, machetes, knuckledusters and a claw hammer.

Further details of the attack, the attackers and the sentences received can be found at:

https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2019/october/Four-men-have-been-jailed-for-their-part-in-a-brutal-gang-attack-which-left-a-man-with-life-changing-injuries-after-being-hit-with-an-axe-in-Rochdale/

 'Black & White Bastards'?

Before the attack, which took place in the Newbold area of Rochdale, the four tree surgeons had been called ‘white bastards’ who were ‘in his country’ by one of the attackers. (This is taken from The Observer article and I assume that the ‘country’ referred to is the Newbold area of Rochdale.

What the Rochdale Observer did not make clear is that this attack was a ‘hate crime’.  We seem to have become so used to hearing these words to describe what in many cases are little more than hurt feelings being reported to the police, that we have lost track of what the term actually means.  What the term means is that a crime, in this case a violent and brutal attack with an axe, had coupled with it an aggravating factor involving one of several ‘protected categories’, of which a person’s race is one. We are not talking about references to ‘pillar boxes’ here, we are talking about a young man being subjected to an attack which left him with injuries which will affect him for the rest of his life.

See: https://www.cps.gov.uk/hate-crime

I do not believe it to be improper to suggest that had the attack been preceded by the words 'black bastards' it would have been reported as a 'hate crime'. 

Counter Productive Coyness!

If the intention of the wording of The Rochdale Observer report was to ensure continued harmony between the different communities in Rochdale then I suggest that it was counter-productive and was a potentially dangerous path to take, because it lays The Observer open to the charge that it treats reports of violent crimes differently based upon the colour of the victim's skin.

It would seem appropriate for all Rochdale councillors, and perhaps especially those who may feel they have some affinity with the perpetrators, to take the opportunity to utterly condemn this attack and the thinking behind it, both criminal and racially motivated.   By speaking for the people of Rochdale in this way it will deter those who try to exploit incidents like this for their own racially inspired motivation from claiming that it is they who speak for us.

Already we are beginning to see references being made to this attack on websites which contain material derogatory to people who would self identify as being of a different race.  Being coy about condemning racially motivated hate crimes when they are perpetrated by people who would not identify as ‘white’, only gives the conspiracy theorists ammunition.

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An Open Letter to Rochdale Councillors

Dear Councillor,

I am writing to you not as a representative of a political party, or of a particular ward, or because you happen to have been born with skin of a particular colour, but as someone who was elected to represent the people of Rochdale.

Two weeks ago the Rochdale Observer reported that a thug who had been ‘disrespected’ in ‘his country’ organised a gang of about twenty males who were armed with weapons such as knuckledusters, claw hammers and an axe to attack four men working as tree surgeons.  One of the men had his hand hacked off in the attack.  Before the attack the four men had been called ‘white bastards’.

Since at least the late 1980s Rochdale Council has operated an ‘anti-racism’ policy in its schools, has fair employment practices to combat discrimination and has a public stance which gives voice to these.   Why then has there been no words of condemnation of this horrific attack and the term used by the attackers?

It suggests to voters that our councillors are among the few people in Rochdale who do not believe that if a gang of twenty white men had attacked four men of asian origin and had preceded the attack with the term ‘black bastards’, it would have been roundly condemned by all our councillors and received massive publicity both in our local Rochdale Observer and in the national press.

If the complete silence from councillors and the Council as a body, and the evident reluctance of the local press to give adequate prominence to the underlying nature of the attack, is an attempt to promote community harmony it is the most ‘cackhanded’ move I can imagine, because its effect will be to do precisely the opposite.  Silence may seem an effective strategy in the short term, but what will your response be the next time our town has a group marching through it whose raison d’être is the promotion of disharmony between communities?

What is remarkable is that this attack has been condemned and aroused more interest in the surrounding towns of east Lancashire, than it has in the town in which it happened.

In the name of common decency I call upon all councillors, both individually and collectively, to condemn this attack and the language which preceded it, by bringing a motion to this effect before the full Council at its next meeting.

Les May

Rochdale

Humbug from a Guardian Columnist

by Les May

TWO days ago The Guardian columnist Yomi Adegoke wrote:

‘The silence surrounding the Duchess of Sussex’s treatment by the press has become a roar. This treatment can be described as only one thing: racist.  Not saying so explicitly is part of a growing trend – the word “racist” is now dodged with more fervour than racial slurs themselves.’

You can find the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/30/the-treatment-of-meghan-is-racist-we-should-feel-able-to-say-so

Now this was published in a newspaper which did not even bother to mention that a Rochdale man who felt he had been ‘disrespected’ in his ‘country’ by workmen, first called them ‘white bastards’ then got together a gang of about twenty, who first tracked the men to where they were working, then attacked them resulting in one of them having his hand chopped off with an axe. But it raises the question about whether the Rochdale Observer and all the people who are remaining studiously silent, so dodging having to mention the words ‘racist’ and ‘hate crime’, are themselves behaving in a racist manner. Or do four workmen count for less than a Duchess?

When someone who might reasonably be seen as something of a ‘community leader’ was approached with a view to obtaining some background information on the gang, the response was in effect ‘are you blaming all Pakistanis?’ To which the answer is ‘No! But it might be nice if you were to give some sort of lead in condemning this sort of behaviour.’ And while he’s about it he might like to use his influence to get this attack debated and condemned at the next full meeting of Rochdale Council.

I’m not going to ‘call out’ the individual involved as I have no wish to pillory him for what is in my opinion an error of judgement, but he might like to reflect on the fact that at the next election he will be soliciting the votes from everyone in his ward irrespective of the colour of their skin and religious affiliation. Now might be a good time to show he serves them all.

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BOLD & the local media

How much freedom of speech do we really have?
John Wilkins

THIS article summarises the problems a local campaigning group BOLD (Building Our Local Democracy) based in Middleton, has encountered with regard to freedom of speech.

It is an issue which is central to much of what the group is about as illustrated by the first two aims of the group:

1. Encourage more people to exercise their democratic rights, in order to bring power and decision making closer to the people.

2. Promote more democratic accountability and transparency in central and local government, public and private bodies.

Our last but one meeting focussed on the latest of a catalogue of scandals involving Rochdale councillors.  This being the caution accepted by the now Councillor Faisal Rana for casting votes in two different constituencies in the last round of Council Elections. Individual members of our group have contacted the Council, Heywood & Middleton Labour CLP and even the Local Government Ombudsman.

The last meeting concentrated on why many local people in Rochdale Borough will be oblivious of this and earlier scandals as there is inadequate coverage of local politics in the media here.  The local printed papers rarely print a letters column these days which was a way of getting more exposure on local issues.  Until recently Rochdale On – Line was an outlet for those wanting more political stories being put into the public domain.  A prolific contributor on politic issues as well as some of our members have complained about the dearth of comments from residents being published now as well as the archive of previous letters being deleted.

We have to speculate on the reasons behind this weakening of political expression. Could it be that the financial problems reported to be afflicting this news outlet means they are even more dependent on advertising finance from adverts placed by the Council?

In some ways this is not a new issue as a member claimed the child abuse scandal at Knowl View only became covered properly after exposure in 1979 with articles in Private Eye and later The New Statesan.

One member directly asked a local journalist why there was less coverage of public's letters in the local media.  His response was to the effect that there was little enthusiasm from management for printing views that were challenging to local politicians!  Some members regretted the loss of a political reporter for the local papers who was always willing to publish views from them.  One can only guess that his career change might have been due to the stifling of freedom of expression.

With regard to the national media there has long been an in-balance in newspapers with a more right wing agenda being pushed in 80%.  The BBC was also felt not to be always neutral and quite selective of issues it promoted.  A few years ago I asked the organiser of a meeting on TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) which such an important topic rarely got coverage.  The response was he had asked the same question of a senior BBC presenter to be told 'they 'were leaned upon' not to give the topic much exposure!

An example of the suppression of freedom of expression had been experienced by a member who edits a more left wing periodical.  The paper edition was blighted by the deliberate lack of distribution by the two conglomerates who have a virtual monopoly of it. Since then he has struggled to get just a few on-line editions out having suffered from a vendetta instigated by a local politician and taken up by the blogger Guido Fawkes. Unfounded insinuations of anti-Semitism have resulted in extensive abuse and also death threats to many contributors including a local MEP!

We explored some solutions to this impasse, one of which was more use of social media which is where most of the younger generation got their news.  Northern Voices kindly offered us space to put our views out.  Following a jocular observation that we could fly-post our views on lamposts another suggested the group could produce newsheets to give out in the town centres, particularly as the older generation still often preferred a written format to digital.  The member editor of the paper, The WORD, suggested a leaflet on local issues could be inserted in his paper when it gets back into print again. 
 

It is ironic that as we come up to the 200th. anniversary of Peterloo, an event that captured the attention of newspapers at that time and led indirectly to the creation of the Manchester Guardian, that we are in such a situation now.  We might in the interim return to the spreading of ideas through being like the 'Pamphleteers' of previous centuries!

Follow us on Facebook at BOLD = Building Our Local Democracy or for more information on our group e-mail j.wilkins248@yahoo.com

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Trump & Greater Manchester Police

by Les May

FORGIVE me for asking, but is it just possible that Donald Trump has taken control of the GMP City Centre Twitter page?   I ask this because yesterday the Rochdale Observer had a story which ran as follows;

Police say ‘99 percent’ of beggars arrested are addicted to drugs or alcohol - including one who ‘commuted’ from Rochdale to Manchester’s Christmas Markets to ‘earn up to £50 an hour.

The story was based on 3, yes that’s three, arrests last Saturday, which hardly seems like a large enough sample to make any kind of generalisation, so where do they get figures like 99% and £50 an hour from?

I thought the times when the police ‘knowing’ someone is guilty was enough to convince a magistrate were long past, at least as far as ‘respectable’ folk like you and I are concerned.  Such courtesies it seems do not extend to people who beg.

Perhaps in the future tweets from GMP can be confined to operational matters, like warning people about pickpockets, street thieves, traffic congestion etc. Opinions are not required and disseminating them via Twitter seems to me to be an improper use of police resources.

And by the way a lot of ‘respectable’ people take drugs and drink too much. 

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Considering Political Cheap Jacks?

NV EDITOR:    
A 'Cheap Jack' according to one English dictionary is described as  'A seller of cheap inferior goods, typically a hawker at a fair or market' 

Rochdale despite not now having an open air market of note has had more than its fair ration of political cheap jacks.  As I write this today a headline on the front page of the Rochdale Observer declares:  'Council boss set to face standards committe'.   Last August a draft report of an independent investigation found the Rochdale council leader Allen Brett had 'brought his office and the council into disrepute'.   The reason being that an audio recording had been released suggesting he may not spend money in non-Labour voting wards.
Soon after these revelations of Brett's hubris came to light, we were treated to another cavalier character, Faisal Rana who chose to break the law and vote twice in the Spotland and Falinge ward.  In the light of these two recent trangressions by two local politicians, Carl Faulkner sent the letter below to the Rochdale Observer.  After some weeks it has yet to be published, so Northern Voices has now decided to publish it.

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Dear Sir/Madam,

When a sportsman or woman are found to have used illegal methods to gain even the smallest of advantages over their opponents, they are suspended and then banned from further participation. Their achievements wiped from the records.  It does not matter whether they were clear winners or whether they finished last. The issue is all about fairness and maintaining the integrity of whatever it is that people hold dear.  The accompanying excuses are always the same:  ‘It was a genuine mistake’;  ‘I thought it was legal’;  ‘I didn’t understand the rules’ etc.

But in Rochdale, the local Labour Party takes quite a different approach to cheating.   At the most recent meeting of the full council  (Observer 20th October), councillors were asked to support a simple motion directed at a Labour member.   This councillor had previously received a police caution after admitting his guilt to two separate acts of electoral fraud, committed in order to obtain an extra vote.  In a disgusting display of arrogance and self-interest, every Labour councillor present opposed the simple request that the councillor concerned should consider his position.   In opposing this request, Rochdale’s Labour Party councillors were effectively saying that such dishonest behaviour doesn’t matter.

The irony of this, is that not many months ago, most of the same councillors were eager to parade their ‘one man, one vote’ credentials at any event that was celebrating 100 years since some women and all men were allowed to vote (once).   I wonder what the first three Rochdale suffragettes, jailed in 1907, would make of it all?

Perhaps once-upon-a-time, it’s possible that some of the councillors would have actually done the right thing.  But on display that evening, I only witnessed the politically pickled minds of councillors who are, in truth, a disgrace to the historic Labour movement and what it once meant to the people of this town.

Yours,

Carl Faulkner

Rooley Moor Road

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The Slow Death of an Institution

by ‘Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells’

A COUPLE of years ago the Rochdale Observer published a report of a march by one of those three initial right wing groups ostensibly protesting about the grooming of teenage girls by a gang of Asian men.  The then leader of Rochdale Council, Richard Farnell, castigated the paper because he objected to the prominence given to the report. He wanted powers to ban such marches in future ostensibly on the grounds that they ‘scapegoated an entire community’. In other words he did not think that the people of Rochdale had any right to know what was going on in their town if he did not approve of it.

A week later the ‘Your Views’ section of the paper devoted to letters sent in by readers carried a contribution praising the report and objecting to both Farnell’s attempt to prevent legitimate protest and his attempt to keep residents from knowing about it.

In 2014, Simon Danczuk published a book about the town’s former MP, Cyril Smith, who had died four years earlier. I will be charitable and say that the book was not very good.   It contained material taken from Smiths ghosted autobiography, material that was clearly derivative from a 1979 piece in Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP) about Smith unsavoury antics at Cambridge House hostel, material that was later shown to be demonstrably wrong and a lot of assertions for which there was no evidence produced, but which had the effect of making any further claims about Smith’s behaviour unreliable.

Throughout the summer of 2014 the Rochdale Observer carried material, thought by some people to have been placed by an associate of Mr Danczuk, which tried to implicate the local Lib-Dems in a ‘cover up’ designed to ensure that other things about Smith did not become known.

Also throughout the summer the ‘Your Views’ section of the paper regularly carried letters pointing out the deficiencies in Danczuk’s book and why it was not a reliable record.

If Richard Farnell had been allowed to get away with his objection to the original report it might just have had the effect of making the editor a bit more cautious next time.  It wasn’t the Home Affairs Select Committee which challenged Danczuk’s fanciful stories about Smith’s supposed antics being covered up by Special Branch and of Westminster paedophile rings, it was letters in the ‘Your Views’ columns of the Rochdale Observer.

In recent years there’s been a competitor to the Observer in the shape of the web based media outlet Rochdale Online which included a vibrant ‘Letters’ section.  Whichever of these news outlets a letter writer chose one thing was certain its contents would be scrutinised by local politicians.

Sadly that is a thing of the past. The Rochdale Observer first cut down the space devoted to letters from readers, then reduced the frequency of the column to the point where some things are out of date by the time they appear. Rochdale Online went the whole hog and got rid its letters pages completely.

A liberal democracy like ours needs these self correcting mechanisms.  Politicians need close scrutiny. Ideas need to be challenged.   We are moving to a time when politicians and journalists will have a monopoly on the dissemination of ideas. Twitter and Facebook are no substitute for a vibrant ‘Letters’ page in a newspaper or its web based equivalent.   With both Twitter and Facebook it is easy to become locked into a world in which we only hear the views of people we agree with.

Contributions to ‘Letters’ pages in newspapers aren’t perfect.  They can be badly written, erudite, bigoted, idealistic, trivial, important, liberal, conservative, revolutionary or reactionary.   But in local newspapers they give people a sense of belonging because they allow them to have their voice heard.  Our society will be all the worse for their loss.