As the country struggles with near double-digit inflation and crippling strikes, one group of taxpayer-funded workers are doing very nicely for themselves. At a meeting of the West Midlands Combined Authority Board:
“It was agreed that the Monitoring Officer should write to the Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities to request that the West Midlands Combined Authority Order 2016 be further amended to allow the payment of allowances to all members and co-opted members of the WMCA.”
To cut through the jargon: they’re asking the government for a taxpayer-funded blank cheque…
This wasn’t the only cash-grab made by the council, they also “agreed all allowances should be index-linked and increased annually as proposed”. With inflation at its current rate, that will mean thousands of pounds are dished out in near 10% pay rises. Even nurses are being denied the same privilege.
To be fair, West Midlands Mayor Andy Street has committed to turn down his £16,000 bonus. Let’s not give him too much credit, he is a multimillionaire…
In the Hyatt bar last night, one of the main topics of gossip was the young Tory member who’d been slammed on social media, including by Andy Street, for describing Birmingham as a “dump”. Daniel Grainger eventually deleted the post and put up an apology, claiming the tweet had been posted after an attempted mugging as he arrived in the city. West Midlands Mayor Andy Street told Grainger to go home and to “take anyone with the same views with you”.
Guido can reveal that CCHQ has now suspended Daniel Grainger of his party membership pending an investigation; not over his social media posting yesterday, but rather a tweet from 2019 that led to accusations of Islamaphobia.
A cracking start to conference – we didn’t even have to wait for young Tories to get drunk before we got a swathe of embarrassing headlines…
Stay tuned for the numbers…
Street: 54% (+3.6%)
Byrne: 46% (-3.6%)
The Mayor of the West Midlands Andy Street had a bit of a disastrous time visiting the Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Smethwick last night, calling it a mosque by mistake. He also might want to work on his pronunciation of the word “Nagar”…
Labour peer Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya has implictly endorsed Conservative Andy Street’s campaign to become West Midlands Mayor. Asked by the Coventry Telegraph who he was backing in the forthcoming mayoral election, Warwick Manufacturing Group chairman Bhattacharyya said:
“Well, you know, Andy is here. We have invited the others as well. The university is neutral. But the fact is Andy is here and the Secretary of State is here and my output is here. I think you will have to speculate for yourself.”
The slap in the face for Siôn Simon shows that even Labour-backing captains of industry want a Tory West Midlands mayor…
