by changing the subject!
Councillor Ged Cooney
IN a sickly outburst at a Council meeting last Tuesday, Tameside Cllr. Ged Cooney, who represents Droylsden West and is vice-chair of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, chose to use the fact that an ugly building on Manchester Road, Droylsden, that is being now used as a venue for the Pension Fund, had been dedicated in 2015 to a guardsman who died in a landmine blast in Afghanistan in 2007, to dodge his own responsibility for the fund's long-term investments in dirty carbon fuels.
When the new headquarters in Droyslden of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund was dedicated in 2015, Councillor Kieran Quinn said: 'By honouring Tony in this way as a member of our armed forces I believe we are honouring all our fallen heroes.'
What is disgusting is why the bosses of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund should now be using a fallen hero to excuse their own climate abuse and to distract attention from their unsavoury dirty investments. At the same Council meeting Cllr. Cooney, Cabinet member for housing, planning and employment, had to defend Tameside Council's outsourcing partnership with the now disgraced outfit Carillion PLC.
At last week's meeting, Tory Cllr. Liam Billington put an awkward question of Cllr. Cooney about Tameside Labour Council's historic partnership with Carillion with the previous council leader, Cllr. Quinn bragging about his close relationship with the dedicated blacklister almost to the point of the company's final collapse.
In reply Cllr. Cooney blustered-on about it being difficult of finding an outsourcing company which hadn't been implicated in blacklisting, and he mentioned Laing O'Rourke, which in May 2016, together with Carillion were among eight companies that apologised for blacklisting building workers. Labour Cllr. Quinn knew about this at the time, because I as Secretary of Tameside TUC wrote to him about it in August 2011. Of course I didn't get a reply then or later, because Quinn and the then Labour council were happy to continue doing business despite the squalid existence of the unsavoury blacklist.
The real issue now is will Cllr. Cooney, his councillor leader Brenda Warrington, and his other Labour colleagues now turnover a new leaf?
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3 comments:
Good little article. Particularly like the 'dedicated blacklister' adjective!
This whole episode shows the Greens have to learn to use the 'reverse ferret' And stop apologising. 'Reverse Ferret' means sticking a ferret up the pants of politician like Councillor Cooney, who have themselve a cupboard full of skeletons.
You have to watch the antics of Councillor Cooney at this particular Council meeting to believe it.
This is the labour party's usual effort, in its politics of clouding the issue.
This is to use the Tameside smoke and mirrors routine that will take you away from the issue, in this case, using the pension funds money to invest in what is considered to be "Dirty Products". They then completely turn it around to blame the protesters for protesting!
Some of the protesters for allegedly causing damage to the building by spray painting graffiti, but then lay into the Green Councillor for allowing this to happen.
A vociferous mancunian outburst by the Councillor Cooney then ensued, he went on to berate the Green Councillor, Councillor Huntbach for allowing it to happen.
This displayed to me that the Labour party did not want to respond about the lawful protest and secondly that they are collectively scared to death of the Green party taking even more seats in the next elections.
Stand by for more smoke and mirrors.
The Blue Knight
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