Labour-led Nottingham City Council has declared itself effectively bankrupt, meaning it will stop all spending other than services it must provide by law. The council’s chief finance officer has issued a report under section 114 after it was revealed the council was set for a £23 million overspend in the 2023-24 financial year. Not another one…
Wandsworth’s ruling Labour administration voted to hike allowances for the Labour group by 12% last night, awarding their Chief Whip Councillor Sara Apps a whopping 172% pay rise from £10,907 to £29,668. She will also get a a lump sum of over £8,000 in back pay, with her full councillor allowance totalling £40,693. This will add an extra £100,000 to the council’s overall bill. For the few, not the many…
Leader of Wandsworth Conservatives Councillor Will Sweet nailed it:
“Shame on these Wandsworth Labour fat cats. It beggars belief that Wandsworth Labour are using their majority to push through huge pay rises for their own colleagues. Residents are tightening their belts and they rightly expect the Council to do the same. It seems to have escaped Labour’s notice that there’s a cost-of-living crisis on.”
A co-conspirator tells Guido that Councillor Apps went ‘ballistic’ after the vote, telling Conservative councillors to “F*** off“. Nice work if you can get it…
It appears that Birmingham City Council’s “effective bankruptcy” came at an unfortunate time for the Council’s Labour leader John Cotton. According to reports, Cotton was in the Big Apple celebrating his 50th birthday at the time the Council admitted it had ran out of money. Just as the local authority issued a section 114 notice…
Cotton was not able to make the Cabinet Office meeting on Tuesday, though he did manage to make a Zoom call with BBC West Midlands later on. His background – for some reason – was completely blurred out. Look at the (Empire) state of this…
Obviously John didn’t expect anyone to Cotton on…
Not content with slacking off from the comfort of their remote offices, local government fat cats have taken their remote “working” abroad. The Daily Mail today shared damning evidence, compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance, showing that Town Hall chiefs across the country are ‘working from the beach’. The report revealed that 708 pen-pushers have been doing their tasks from abroad in the last year, swapping from sofa to sun in warmer climates as far afield as Brazil, Spain and Croatia. The councils claim this will convince workers to stay. As if the six figure salaries weren’t doing that already…
While Westminster self-combusts, we can be thankful we have Oxfordshire Council to show us what real farce looks like. Last year they banned all meat and dairy products for councillors while providing councillors with exotic fruit, imported from around the world with massive carbon footprints. Tory councillors subsequently abandoned the taxpayer-funded lunches and headed to the nearby Wetherspoons instead…
Last Friday the Lib Dem-run council voted to maintain the ban. One of the councillors in favour of the ban, Bethia Thomas, outed herself as a high-steaks hypocrite when admitting on the floor of the chamber that she’s taken to smuggling milk in to the premises following the ban.
“I just wanted to clear up some confusion because there’s been talk about members of the opposition bringing in cows milk and I think that was me… it is a beef farm and it does honey and eggs and lots of other things too… I have brought things in from my local farms in my division, I have done that and I have offered it around. I’ve brought in milk the only time I haven’t done it is this time because last time county council stole my bottle.”
Surely Councillor Thomas should have stuck to her principles and voted against the ban. Or did she lose her bottle?
The Conservative leader of the opposition in Hyndburn has been forced to apologise after making an ill-judged joke about potentially wanting to “clock a few” local residents during a planning application meeting. Discussing one upcoming application, she told the 200-strong room:
“…a public meeting for all the residents so that they can have a good old barny with them and if you want, clock a few.“
Residents of the St Oswald’s ward were up in arms about the comments and accused Marlene of endorsing violence…
Despite it obviously being a joke, Marlene has now apologised for her comments, telling residents on Facebook that she would “never endorse violence against any elected representative or public servant as I find this abhorrent, and those who give their lives to public service should be able to do it safely.” Guido’s sure plenty of fellow local councillors will be all-too familiar with Marlene’s planning woes…
