Making sense of the elections by Brian Bamford

IN THIS weekend's editorial in the Financial Times the editor writes:

'An old rule of politics is that British governments tend to lose midterm by-elections. That makes the resounding defeat of Labour in the centre-left stronghold of Hartlepool by the Conservative party in power for 11 years all the more extraordidary... Extrapolating too much from a town that is the 10th most economically deprived and one of the most pro-Brexit in England is unwise. Yet coupled with the early signs that Labour lost ground to the Tories in council votes too, Thursday's elections in England have provided a boost to the government - and left the oppostion searching questions.'

One thing that is odd in this context is that while in the North Boris Johnson is so popular in places like Hartlepool in the North East and yet he is almost persona non-grata north of the border in Scotland. I know an anarcho-syndicalist retired miner from the North East who voted Tory at the last General Election because of his support for Brexit. Yet in Scotland there are reports that some Tories voted tactically for Labour to try to keep the SNP out.

The 'i' newspaper had an article by its political editor, Nigel Morris, titled 'Labour in turmoil: "shattering" results plunge party into crisis' arguing 'The poor showing reopened wounds within Labour ranks as the party as the left blamed Sir Keir's lack of policy direction for its slump in support, while leadership loyalists said the party was still suffering an overhang from Jeremy Corbyn's time in charge.'

The Labour Party last 'Super Thursday' seemed to lack a serious strategy depending on sneers about sleeze and the claims about a 'chumochracy'; this led John McDonnell to write a post-election column in the 'i' entitled 'No wonder we lost: there was a vacuum instead of a vision'.

The FT editorial I referred to earlier suggests:

'Confounding Labour's urgings that it is time for a change after a decade of Toryism, many voters perceive this as a new government. Johnson has not just disassociated himself from the Cameron and May admisitrations but the Thatcherite past ....[and] has shifted Tory politics away from its former devotion to the free market.'

The conclusion is that there has been demographic shifts in politics and not just in England, Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK. Currently the expections of the centre-left in Germany now depend on the Greens more than the Social Democrats. Some like Boris Johnson are managing to combine right-wing popularism with the offer of more public spending. In this way the Johnson government appears to offer a breach with the past. We'll just have to wait and see how this plays out in the long term.

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'Fire and rehire': National day of action

TODAY, 26 April, we’re holding a national day of action, demanding the government end fire and rehire now.

While the pandemic continues to create misery, unscrupulous employers – many in profit and some even claiming government financial support — are cynically exploiting the crisis to force workers to sign up to thousands of pounds of wage cuts and worse conditions or lose their jobs.

It’s estimated that one in 10 workers have already been threatened with fire and rehire, and many more will be as furlough comes to an end.

We need Unite members to come together, up and down the country, to show solidarity with members under threat of fire and rehire and make clear to bullying bosses that we won't stand for it.

Businesses have been supported by government. Workers should be treated fairly too. Yet although some government ministers have described fire and rehire as “bully-boy” tactics, it’s still legal. That’s why Unite is calling on the government to bring legislation to outlaw fire and rehire.

We will be working with the Unite group of MPs to maximise all available opportunities in Parliament. With your support your MP will get the message loud and clear – this intimidation should be banned.

There are a number of ways that you can support this campaign:

1) A socially distanced, covid-safe group photograph with a banner/posters – materials are available in regional offices.

2) Distribution of leaflets within workplaces

3) Share images and videos on social media using #EndFireAndRehire hashtag and tag @UnitePolitics

4) Invite your local MP/Councillor candidate to visit demonstrations to show solidarity

7) Write to your local paper

8) Email your MP and get them to sign this Early Day Motion (EDM) in Parliament.

Resources such as leaflets will be available on www.endfireandhire.com

Please do get involved, and help us show that Unite members are front and centre of the fight against this abhorrent practice.

We are winning the fight in workplaces, now let’s win it in Westminster.

Workers fighting fire and rehire

Aerospace members refused to be bullied

Strikes at the aerospace parts firm SPS have been called off after a deal was reached to end ‘fire and rehire’ threats that would have resulted in staff losing up to £3,000 a year.

Read more.

Jacobs Douwe Egberts bosses acting like they’re in Victorian times

Despite a forty per cent increase in profits, bosses at coffee-makers Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) are threatening their workers that they could be fired and rehired. They are now trying to stop workers from taking summer holidays to thwart industrial action taken in response to these threats. Read more.

Elections across the UK on 6 May

With last year’s elections postponed due to the pandemic, polling stations will be open across the whole of the UK on 6 May as directly elected mayors, councillors, London assembly members, the Scottish parliament, Welsh Senedd, and police commissioners are all up for elections.

This is a huge set of elections, please make sure you vote and have your say. Unite Hospitality's political power

Ahead of the Scottish parliamentary elections, our hospitality branch in Glasgow provided a great example of just what can be achieved through member-led organisation that uses politics to achieve industrial aims. They organised a hospitality hustings, inviting politicians from across the political spectrum to talk about what they, and their parties, will do if elected to support hospitality workers.

Caitlin Lee, Chair of Glasgow Hospitality and Service Industries Branch said: ‘Getting those politicians in a room and pledging support for our Charter will make the industry a safer, fairer and better industry. Organising in this way gives us so much more power and clout. As trade unionists, we should be engaging politically.

“It was so important this was a member-led, member-organised hustings. It was us, as workers, who are bringing the pro-active change towards our industry.

“Our industry is one that we struggle for equality, health and safety, and this year financially, and the only way you can get accountability for these situations is to get the stories out there and get politicians to understand. We got all six candidates to sign up to our Charter, and we can now move forward in making Glasgow a Fair Hospitality city by 2022.” Workers Memorial Day

Workers' Memorial Day, held on 28 April every year, brings together workers and their representatives from all over the world to remember the dead and fight for the living. This year’s theme is: Health and Safety is a fundamental workers' right

Read more about how to get involved on our website

Thanks for reading this month's update! For more updates, follow Unite Politics on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

ROCHDALE's FRAUD WARD UK

IT is a sad reflection on the state of local politics in our town - especially in my ward.  Any reasonable person would agree that the postal vote fraud councillor isn’t fit to serve our town, and neither are any councillors who have supported him.  Such is the low standard of councillors in our town,  that some appear to think that he’s the greatest thing since the invention of  microwaveable chapatis.  It’s quite bizarre.

THE FRAUD WARD in Spotland & Falinge:  The Story So Far:

• 2012 - A permanent police presence is required at Spoland Road polling station after claims of voter intimidaton.
• 2016 - Crucial anti-fraud documentation 'disappears' from Spotland Road polling station.  Spotland Labour councillors remain silent.
• 2017 - A complaint is made to the police about a Labour activist spoted with multiple postal votes in his van just off Spotland Road.
• 2018 - A Spotland Labour councillor admits postal vote fraud after being caught using a bogus Spotland Road home addressto fraudulently obtain an extra postal vote.
• 2019 - A Postal Vote Fraud councillor is now the Election Agent for the Spotland Labour candidate at the 2019 local elections and as such is responsible for ensuring that the candidate complies with electoral law.   

Votes lost and gained by Rochdale Labour Party for the wards it won in 2016 & retained in 2018.

► GAINED

◄  LOST

Spotland & Falinge______________ ► Labour GAINED 272 votes

  

◄  Labour LOST -475 votes____________________  Balderstone 

◄  Labour LOST -705 votes ______________________Castleton

◄  Labour LOST -414 votes ___________________ Central

◄  Labour LOST -166 votes ________  East Middleton

◄  Labour LOST -41 votes __ Healy

◄  Labour LOST -138 votes _______ Hopwood Hall

◄  Labour LOST -187 votes ________ Kingsway

◄  Labour LOST -184 votes _______ Littleborough Lakeside

Milkstone & Deeplish __ ► Labour GAINED 45 votes 

◄ Labour LOST -346 VOTES ______________  North Heywood

◄  Labour LOST - 250 votes ____________ North Middleton

 Smallbridge ________► Labour GAINED 116 votes 
  
◄ Labour LOST - 179 votes __________________ South Middleton 

◄ Labour LOST - 378 votes ___________________ West Heywood

◄ Labour LOST - 256 votes ___________________ West Middleton

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Rochdale & 'Fair Do's' in selection process

NV Editor:   Below is a description coming from Labour sources of how the Spotland & Falinge ward Labour Party in Rochdale went about setting out to select their candidate for the forthcoming local elections next May.  Clearly some people in the Labour Party think it is slightly skewed, and see it unfair to allow Rachel Massey's husband to have insider knowledge, which should he may be tempted to divulge  to his 'nearest and dearest' would give her an unfair advantage in the selection interview.

********** 

To show you how bad the Spotland & Falinge selection was. Here is the post they have put on Twitter after the vote. As you can see they had already had posters printed out with Rachel’s name on it as the candidate before a vote had been cast.

 'HONESTY', 'INTEGRITY', & 'VISION'

At the Spotland & Falinge short listing meeting the week before, Rachel Massey’s husband, Phillip Massey – who is also on the panel of Labour candidates - was allowed to remain in the meeting when the questions to the candidates were being formulated.

Despite objections from the meeting Cllr. Liam O’Rourke who was chairing the meeting on behalf of Rochdale LCF ruled that he could stay. Commenting: “I’m sure that Mr. Massey will not divulge the questions to his wife”.

The response came back that this would not happen.

A week later at the selection meeting, it was commented upon that Rachel Massey’s presentation was very smooth, and seamless. Reading and barely lifting her eyes from an iPad containing prepared statements for each of the eight questions asked. Could it be that she had knowledge beforehand of the questions put to her?

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

Speak Up Mr Rana!

by Les May

ALTHOUGH it took place a month ago I have only just got round to looking at what Faisal Rana had to say to Sky News about the police caution when he was caught voting twice in the local election last May.

https://news.sky.com/story/rochdale-councillor-accepts-police-caution-after-voting-twice-in-local-election-11473294

The bit that caught my eye was when he said:

‘I legally registered my votes by providing my genuine national insurance number, date of birth and addresses and when I received these through the post I thought it would have been OK and that is why they issued me two ballots for two constituencies’.

Now it looks to me that here there is more than a hint that he is trying to shift the blame onto the people at Rochdale MBC who run the electoral process.  Is there a suggestion here that someone at Rochdale MBC should have spotted that two national insurance number and two dates of birth on separate registration documents were identical, and told him that applying for two votes was illegal?

Now my recollection is that registering to take part in the ballot is an active process.  You have to provide an address at you are resident in order to receive a ballot paper at that address.  Ditto for a postal vote. I assume that Mr Rana is quite properly registered at the address at which he resides permanently with his family and that he legitimately used that vote in that ward.  But what about the ‘other’ address which I assume was in the ward in which he stood as a candidate.  What legitimate interest did Mr Rana have in that address which made him think that he had a right to register himself at that address and apply for a postal vote to be sent to that address?

The interview Mr Rana gave to Sky News offers no explanation. In the absence of any explanation we, the voters of Rochdale, are left in the dark about the mechanism by a sitting councillor fraudulently obtained a second vote.  In the circumstances I think there are a few questions that we can expect Mr Rana to answer:

What was the address used by Mr Rana to apply for a second vote?

What legitimate interest did Mr Rana have in that address?

Was Mr Rana a tenant at that address?

Was Mr Rana the owner of the property identified by that address?

On Wednesday 17 October there will be a full meeting of the Council.  If Mr Rana has not answered these questions by then I suggest that a member should put these questions to him and ask for an answer.

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Letter: Rochdale's Political Establishment

THE letter below first appear earlier this month on the Rochdale On-line website:

 

Dear Editor,

Rochdale's political establishment

It must be time for a change of Rochdale's political rulers. Time has moved on for the political establishment. Councillors from the largest parties have run the town over a considerable number of years and are no longer serving the best interest of residents and voters. Too many seem to think that they are so self important that they are entitled to a (34%) pay rise when their employees suffer..The Labour Party nationally may have moved on with fresh policies but the local Labour Party is rooted in the past and bears little resemblance to it. The local party, it should be remembered; promoted, supported and continually excused and defended a person who, as MP, brought this town into disrepute. They have also turned on the one Labour councillor who vocally objected to the 34% rise and stopped him from standing in next May's local election. There appears to be little tolerance for an alternative view,

It is time to replace greed, self interest and intolerance with positive actions and policies.

The councillors rise of 34% should betaken away with them making sacrifices like everyone else.We need positive policies for this town, not greed and self interest and intolerance. The councillors' should be making sacrifices like everyone else. For most councillors, an additional 10% cut in their pay would not be a great hardship.

The way in which the council allows builders to get out of legally binding agreements to provide community improvements is a scandal. If a figure is agreed when a planning application is made, the council should insist on full payment.Other issues are also worrying, the ongoing secrecy over the Turner Brothers site with the council being run ragged by the foreign based owners and the destruction of the Green Belt.

The local elections are a good time for independents and smaller parties, such as the Greens, who are concerned with promoting policies for the benefit of all of us. Remember, the May elections are about local issues and I would encourage people to vote for the best candidates with the will to improve the town.

Regards,

M.Coats

ROCHDALE ONLINE BREAKS STORY OF FRAUD PROBE

ACCORDING to the website ROCHDALE ONLINE the police have begun an investigation into a report of electoral fraud in Rochdale, concerning to the 2015 local elections.

A Greater Manchester Police spokesperson has said:
'On Tuesday 7 February 2017, police received a report of electoral fraud, which relates to the 2015 local elections in Rochdale.'

A spokesman for Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council has said: 'We are aware a complaint has been made.'

We have no idea of which ward or wards that the police are investigating, but Northern Voices was always concerned about the apparent statistical anomaly of the odd results in Central Rochdale ward, and particularly in the Milkstone and Deeplish ward seen below: 

Milkstone & Deeplish

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±
	Labour	Mohammed Zaman	3,335	77.7	+10.5
	UKIP	Rifat Mahmood	364	8.5	+2.4
	Liberal Democrat	John Swarbrick	260	6.1	+2.0
	Conservative	Keith Taylor	211	4.9	-9.0
	Green	Sarah Bibi	120	2.8	+2.8
Majority			2,971	69.2	+17.6
Turnout			4,290
	Labour hold		Swing	+4.1

Petition to Amend Local Government Act 1972

NEWSPAPERS with a bias for the main political parties refuse to publish this link!  Why are they afraid of giving people real Democracy?

Please click on the link below to find out more & to sign the petition:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104553

If you can also forward and share this petition with as many people as possible I would be extremely grateful.

Many thanks!

Carl Simmons

Local Elections in Manchester

Dear Editor,

I have started a petition to Parliament calling for all councillors to be elected at the same time, every time in ALL local elections.  If successful this would effect the local elections in every Greater Manchester borough.

This national Tory Government may or may not be thrown out at the next General Election. People can chose whether to keep the same party in power or to elect a different one - and that is how it should be!

The same thing does not happen with local councils across the region. Only one third of the councillors are elected each year, which means that people cannot simply elect another party to power - and that is wrong!

All-out local elections will encourage all-out campaigning and all the parties will have to campaign for every single vote - just as in national elections. There is always the danger in a properly functioning democracy of not having the right result in an election, but that is how it should be. No political party has any right to power. It is up to the party to convince the people to give it power through strong arguments and not through manipulating an out of date system!

The result must cease to be the foregone conclusion which it currently is, otherwise we will just continue to have the one-party state which, at present, exists in many local authorities - and a large dis-illusioned, non-participating, unengaged electorate which believes that voting is a waste of time, nothing ever changes and that politicians never listen!

Click this link to find out more & to sign the petition:

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104553

The vote should always have power to change politics. If the vote cannot do this, then it is worthless!

Kind regards

Carl Simmons

4 Castleton Court

Haughton Green

Denton

M34 7NX

Mobile: 07799730708

Tameside Election 2014. More Labour married couples join the council!

Carl Simmons is one of two ‘independent’ candidates who are standing in the Tameside 2014 local elections.  He is a reforming candidate, who seems to think that local government is badly in need of a shake-up. He wants to see councillors standing for election at the same time and not the current system of a third standing annually.  He also wants to see one councillor per ward and not three as at present. More significantly, he wants to limit the term of office for councillors so there are no jobs for life and wants to stop family members, also being elected to the council.

Anyone, who is familiar with the Shenanigans within Tameside Labour Party, as Simmons undoubtedly is, will be aware of the nepotism and cronyism that is endemic within it. Labour politics, in this part of Greater Manchester, has become so incestuous, that it is now a family affair. There are so many spouse’s and partners and family members on Tameside Council, that its begun to resemble the game show Mr and Misses that was once hosted by that jovial northerner, Derek Batey.

Two of the three Tameside MPs, Jonathan Reynolds and Andrew Gwynne, have wives on the council. Then there are the ‘Chuckle Bothers’, Jim and Philip Fitzpatrick, whose father Joe, was once on the council. Jim’s partner, Jan Jackson, is also a councillor. The leader of the council Kieran Quinn is married to his fellow councillor, Susan Quinn. Barrie and Anne Holland, are also item, and are councillors for Droylsden. Dukinfield councillor, Jacqueline Lane, also sits on the council with her hubby, Dawson Lane. Councillor Denise Ward also sits on the council with her partner David McNally.

Although the Conservatives, who are standing 19 candidates in the elections, have been highly critical of the number of Labour couples on the council, they now seem to be trying to play catch-up with their Labour rivals. In Audenshaw, Colin White is standing for the Conservatives and his wife Carol, is also standing for the Conservatives in Denton North East. A former Labour councillor, Colin White was banned from standing in the local elections by his Labour colleagues following allegations of ‘unauthorised spending’ and poor performance as a councillor. He then defected to the Conservatives.

In Mossley, former Ashton Town Centre Manager, Frank Travis, is seeking election so he can join his wife Lynn on Tameside Council. And over in Dukinfield, Eleanor Ballagher, is seeking election as a Labour candidate. Both her father and mother were also Labour councillors.

Apart from the Labour and Conservatives, the Greens are standing 19 candidates. The BNP are standing 2 candidates. There is a candidate standing for ‘Trade Unionists and Socialists against the Cuts’ and a candidate standing as a ‘Patriotic Socialists’.

Although the majority of people will not be voting in either the local or European elections and would be unable to tell you the name of a candidate, UKIP seem to have caused some anxiety amongst the time-serving Labour elite who make up the one party state of Tameside. We understand from sources that postal votes that are already in, show an upsurge in votes for UKIP in Tameside, and that this is giving some people within the council the jitters. UKIP are standing 11 candidates in the local Tameside elections.

Green Party & Rochdale's Labour politics

IN one-party states such as we have the equivalent of in a number of our northern towns, it doesn't matter how the vote goes in several of the coming local elections up North, including Rochdale in Greater Manchester.  Philip Gilligan in a letter in the Rochdale Observer (7th, May) writes:  'Given the number of seats that they hold, it seems clear the Labour will retain control of Rochdale MBC [and that] who emerges as leader of the (Rochdale) Labour group on the council will have more immediate impact than the group's number of council seats.'

This is particularly important because former Rochdale MBC leader, Richard Farnell, has been tipped to stand against the current Labour leader of the Rochdale Council Colin Lambert, after the local elections are over later this month.   Mr. Gilligan writes:
'It may also be a particularly pertinent question in wards where the Green Party candidate is one of those expelled by the Labour Party in 2009 after calling for an investigation into the then Prospective Labour Parliamentary Candidate, Simon Danczuk or is one of those who resigned in protest at those expulsions.'

Gilligan then asks:  'I presume that Mr Danczuk also has views about who he would prefer to see as leader of the Labour group.'

This represents something of a challenge to the Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk, at a time when he is about to be probed by the Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee to answer questions about his recent book 'Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith', that builds on the original case presented in May 1979 by the editors of the Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP).  There is not much love lost between the current leadership of the Rochdale Labour Party and what may be called the Danczuk tendency, which has at times criticised the Rochdale Council over its management of sexual grooming in the town and its investigation into the Knowl View school scandal in the 1980s and 1990s.

The presence of the Green Party in the local elections may cause a bit of an embarassment to the ruling Labour group and Mr Danczuk; more so with a couple of disgruntled and expelled former Labour Party members standing as Green candidates in two wards.   The Greens in Rochdale have been particularly active in the anti-asbestos campaign to Save Spodden Valley to which Danczuk was a Johnny-come-lately, and the departure of the malcontents from the Labour Party in 2009, two of whom are now standing in the forthcoming local elections could add to the pain.  The expulsions of these malcontents in 2009, had something to do with Simon Danczuk, a holiday tiff in August 2008 with his nearest and dearest while on holiday in Alicante, and a letter they wrote at the time to the Rochdale Observer calling for an investigation into the domestic 'tiff', which it was later decided, after an official Labour Party hearing into the malcontent's behaviour, brought the 'Labour Party into disrepute'.

It`s a family affair as Tameside Labour prepare to fight local elections!

A third of Tameside councillor's are up for election this year as voters go to the polls on May 3rd.

Although Tameside Labour have led and dominated the council for the last 30 years, and are standing a candidate in each ward, the Lib Dems (who cannot even retain their deposit nowadays when fighting by-elections), are not standing any candidates in the borough's 19 wards. Last year they also failed to stand any candidates in the local Tameside elections. In contrast, the Green Party are fielding a candidate in each ward as are the Conservatives.

In Droylsden East and Hyde Newton, the British National Party (BNP) are standing two candidates. Although in 2009, the BNP received the third highest number of votes in Greater Manchester from Tameside voters during the European elections, their share of the vote in Tameside has been declining over the last five years. In Dukinfield, Roy West who in past elections stood as the BNP candidate, is now standing as an independent against the sitting Labour councillor, Brian Wilde. Another defector from the BNP, is John Shorrock, who is standing as the candidate for the English Democrats in Dukinfield/Stalybridge.

As we reported in January, Dorothy Cartwright a former Conservative councillor, was pushed out of her seat in the Dukinfield/Stalybridge ward to make way for Claire Reynolds, the wife of Jonny Reynolds, the MP for Stalybridge and Hyde. As a consolation prize, Cartwright, was nominated to fight the seat of Stalybridge South ward for Labour which is currently held by the Conservatives.

Labour Party politics in Tameside is gradually becoming a family affair. The leader of the council, Kieran Quinn, is married to Susan Quinn, the Mayor of Tameside who is also a Droylsden councillor like her husband. Other married couples on the council, include Barrie and Anne Holland and Jacqueline and Dawson Lane. In the forthcoming May elections, Janet Jackson has been nominated by Labour to fight the Stalybridge North ward. She is the partner of councillor Jim Fitzpatrick whose brother Philip, is also a Labour councillor. In nearby Audenshaw, the former Mayor Jean Brazil, was given a nudge using sharp elbows to make way for Teresa Smith, the wife of Labour councillor Mike Smith.

Some people might see this sort of thing (trying to get your Missus on the council), as nepotism or cronyism of the worst kind, but jobs are hard to get in Tameside these days. A recent report in the Manchester Evening News, claimed that Tameside was one of the toughest places in the country to find a job. Seemingly, Tameside is one of the 10 worst council areas in the north of England for employment prospects. Even the 'Experians' poverty map of England, ranks Tameside 55 out of 326 local authorities for the biggest risk of poverty and ranks it 78 for child poverty, and 45 for financial exclusion. It seems that if you want a job around here, your best hope lies in getting on the council gravy train.

Former GMB union rep wins seat on Tameside Council!

Local government politics in Tameside, is beginning to resemble something out of a farce by the 17th century French playwright, Molière. It grows more hilarious by the day. One instinctively thinks of Molière's character, 'Tartuffe', the irreclaimable hypocrite who exaggeratedly feigns virtue.

As we predicted, in this months local elections, Yvonne Cartey(pictured) the former GMB union representative, easily romped home to win for Labour the Ashton ward of St. Michaels, securing 1,627 votes. In her victory speech a jubilant Ms. Cartey, told her supporters:

"I'd like, to thank everybody for my excellent team, and I`d like to thank the voters of St. Michaels, who have put their faith in me."

Until recently, Ms. Cartey, was the tax-payer funded GMB union representative at Tameside Council. But she recently took voluntary redundancy from Tameside Council and then stood for the council in the St. Michaels Ward. Having abandoned the ship herself, so to speak, and leaving her crew to their own fate, Ms. Cartey, was nevertheless in a defiant mood on election night. In a speech that would have made the charlatan Tartuffe, cringe with embarrassment, she added:

"Cuts are malicious attacks against our people and we are going to fight them every inch of the way."

Though councillor Cartey talks of fighting the cuts, in February, there were no union protestors outside Ashton Town Hall when the leader of the council, Kieran Quinn, announced £35 million cuts this year and the loss of 600 jobs. Indeed, councillor Quinn, told councillors:

"The Trades Unions bring massive expertise, working with them, we have already cut 400 jobs and reduced management by 25%".