Wirral In It Together

Message from our daughters’ school Weatherhead High by Headteacher Miss Whelan, received this morning:

World Class Schools Quality Mark. The World Class Schools Quality Mark is the new standard in education for schools who have moved beyond outstanding.

More about World Class Schools here.

Member for Adult Social Services at the time of the appointment was Councillor Tony Jones

The straight answer to the question posed in our headline above is:

The above 46 councillors.  They all knew.  But there appears to be a “coming together” and a rare example of cross-party unity on this issue.  And they’re all colluding to say absolutely nothing.

Shame on them for their ongoing silence, hypocrisy and inaction.

We first discovered that former Wirral Social Services employee Maura Noone had been appointed as Reading Council’s Head of Adult Social Care on 1st June this year when we browsed across to the excellent Wirral Leaks blog.

Here’s the Wirral Leaks link, which revealed her appointments at both Northamptonshire Council and later Reading Council:

https://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2018/06/01/where-are-they-now-part-5-6-maura-noone-and-mike-fowler/

And the subsequent story, announcing her departure from Reading Council:

https://wirralleaks.wordpress.com/2018/07/14/noone-becomes-no-one/

In between times, we got busy taking the message about her abusive record to the Reading Council CEO, the Reading Council Leader and the Reading Council member for Adult Social Services.

In case you’re harbouring doubts that abuse of disabled people by a council could have occurred, here’s an admission to precisely this brand of abuse by Wirral Council themselves:

Thanks for your interest in this.  We won’t be re-telling the story here but if you’d like to explore the background and finer detail on this, here are some handy links.  The original offences were exposed some years ago, investigated, reported upon, taken to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission – who found disability discrimination – and brought before an Information Tribunal, but no senior officer or councillor at Wirral Council was ever properly held to account.

We made a formal submission to the tribunal, cautioning them that should they fail to act, they would be encouraging a dangerous situation – such as the one that occurred at Reading Council – to arise in the future, but we were ignored…

The full history to this dangerous debacle:

1 An emergency safeguarding message has been left with our representative on Wirral Council, Seacombe Councillor Adrian Jones – 4th June 2018

2 The causal link between a Wirral Council failure and a safeguarding emergency – 5th June 2018

3 Safeguarding Emergency. An updating email to Councillor Jo Lovelock, Leader of Reading Council – 13th June 2018

4 Reading Council latest. We hate saying “We told you so…” but… – 14th June 2018

5 It looks like holding Wirral and Reading Councils to account is not going to be easy

6 Reading Council latest. The emergency safeguarding situation. Here’s some “Private Eye” cuttings.

7 Thousands endangered in Reading. Here’s the FOI request spelling it all out. Yet still… Wirral Council FAILED

8 It’s “Wirral In It Together” ……as the Wirral Tory Leader closes ranks to march in step with his Labour chums

9 Reading Council Safeguarding emergency. Confirmation of Noone and Fowler’s compromise agreements

10 Our local councillor Adrian Jones washes his hands of Wirral Council abuse, then passes the buck to Reading Council

11 A crime suspect is chased through Wallasey by the police. What happened next…? And do we have our priorities right……..??

12 High Noone at Reading Council. Danger averted…

13 We tried exposing a safeguarding emergency in Reading, but came up against an obstacle… er, a journalist!

14 A response is now in to the Reading Council / Maura Noone FOI request

15 https://wirralinittogether.blog/2018/09/09/a-reading-green-party-councillor-fails-to-notify-the-public-that-reading-labour-council-had-appointed-an-abuser-as-head-of-adult-social-care/

Finally, here’s a list of the Councillors / organisations that blocked us on Twitter in response to the news that they themselves had put their own citizens in harm’s way by acting in such a dangerous, negligent and reckless manner:

25th November 2018 

When Abusers Collude

Love and marriage,

Go together like a horse and carriage,

Mutually compatible… nothing is missing,

But who spends a penny and shits without pissing?

Answering the riddle, is one foul creature,

Angry, corrupted, hideously featured, 

Wirral Council Corporate, revolving Janus-face,

Shits in the courtroom, and pisses back at base.

We woke up screaming last night after the most horrific, traumatising nightmare.

We only have ourselves to blame, after stupidly following this link to a Daily Mail article which appeared yesterday:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6357517/Five-men-arrested-sickening-Grenfell-Tower-bonfire.html

In our dream, we were in London, in some noisy pub.  We were sitting with a group of regulars who were having a boozy night out, downing a few drinks at their local watering hole.  As the evening went on it became clear to us that this was the South Norwood Conservative Club.  We also got the names of our drinking companions and the age of another:

Bobby Connell, 19.

Cliff Connell, 49.

Mark Russell, 49.

Paul Bussetti, 46.

A N Other, 55.

But one of these lads put a downer on the whole night.  He’d left us at one point, but returned carrying a 3-foot tall hunk of cardboard.  It looked like a scaled-down replica of a building.  He said, “Wait ’til yer see this lads.  What a fuckin’ brilliant wheeze.”

He’d printed “GRENFELL TOWER” on the top of it and in the windows he’d placed lots of paper cut-out, dark-skinned figures with their arms raised.  As he pointed them out it caused general hilarity to those assembled.

In our dream, we were just stunned.

He explained to the group – between bouts of laughter – how these figures were Muslims and foreigners and on bonfire night, he was going to put it on a stove and set fire to it in his back garden.

We were horrified, thinking this was offensive in the extreme, but our opinion wouldn’t have mattered anyway, because we weren’t even there, just dreaming the whole thing.

The other four were inspecting it in close-up and it met with their approval.  They thought it was “superb, great”, said they couldn’t wait to see it in flames, congratulated him on his handiwork and on “a brilliant idea”.

But then a deep voice piped up from a corner, “You sick bastards.  What the hell do you think you’re doing?”  It was a much, much older man, obviously a pensioner, and probably well into his 90s.  His voice was shaking. “I fought fascism.  My ship was torpedoed on the Atlantic convoys during the war as a lad.  And I was bloody lucky to survive and make it back.  But do you know what?  I never thought I’d live to see Nazis walking amongst us, and even drinking in my own pub….”

The old man had tears streaming down his face as he got up and walked slowly out of the room, closing the door behind him.

We ‘followed’ him in our dream and he was now in the next room, explaining what was going on to a young girl, then asking, pleading with her to use her phone to alert the police.  She rang the police, but after 5 minutes of what seemed to be fruitless conversation with the operator, she threw her phone down in disgust.  “The police aren’t coming.  They said it’s not an emergency and anyway, they’re short-staffed due to cuts and it’s not as if a celebrity’s house is being burgled.”

The old war hero got up.  “I’m goin’ ‘ome,” he muttered as he shuffled off through the club and towards the exit door.

Howls and raucous laughter were still coming from next door, the room at the back of the club.

Our dream then suddenly jumped forward in time.  It was 3 am.  A barman was shouting, GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!!!!!

The building was on fire and filling with smoke.  Screams were ringing out.  The barman was onto the fire brigade and shouting into his phone as he ran for the exit.  I was right behind him as the last few punters emerged safe into the cold night outside.  Turning around, we saw huge, billowing flames leaping from the top of the club.  The entrance we’d just emerged from collapsed onto the street.

Five, ten minutes went by. The barman was shouting into his phone.

Just then, we heard volleys of blood-curdling screams coming from the small room at the back.  Oh Christ.  There were still people inside the building, trapped.  The fire bobbies should have been here by now, but they weren’t, and there was no way any of us could re-enter the building.

Whoever those trapped people were, it was too late for them now…

The barman was slumped down on the pavement.  He said he’d pleaded with the 999 operator and they’d apologised, saying the nearest fire station, just down the road, had been closed by Boris Johnson.  We’d have to wait because the next one that wasn’t too busy to respond was 8 miles away.

So we waited, and we waited, and we waited.

By the time the first fire tender arrived, the building was fully alight and the roof had collapsed in onto the floor below.

It was a cacaphony of noise as the hoses fired up and several thick jets of water forced their way through the flames.

And the terrible screams from the room at the back could no longer be heard, because they’d stopped.

Some excellent, heart-warming news has just emerged from Wallasey’s Leasowe Ward.  The big cheese who’s been stood astride this working class stronghold for the last 22 years – yes, we know it feels like much longer – has been democratically voted out as Leasowe Councillor candidate at a recent selection meeting.

So it’s out with Ron Abbey and in with Karl Greaney.

Ron is the local Labour Council’s Chief Whip, no less.  He’s a long-term public servant, predating even his hero Tony Blair’s entry to Downing Street, but will soon become a helluva lot poorer than Tony as his lifestyle takes an unplanned hit and he loses many thousands of pounds per year in public money.

As a result, he’s absolutely fuming and making us all aware of his unhappiness via happy to oblige, captured, sensationalising local newspapers.  He’s also been busy himself, in his own inimitable words, on Twitter and Facebook.

Wirral Globe: 

https://www.wirralglobe.co.uk/news/17197593.labour-councillor-and-chief-whip-ron-abbey-furious-after-being-ousted/

So Ron no longer fits the bill and his time is up.  But there’s been absolutely no guidance on what to say from Liverpool Central Station’s Martin Liptrot this time (see the resignation of Councillor Mike Sullivan).

And Ron appears to possess little or no concept of what is appropriate or dignified.  His toys have been flung straight out of the pram and he’s hitting out at “loony lefties” in the manner of the UK’s toxic, right wing tabloids and fellow, departing, hard right friends Mike Sullivan and Moira McLaughlin.  Bullying and intimidation doesn’t feature this time Mr Liptrot.  We wonder why?

For us, these antics have both of Ron Abbey’s feet (and Mike’s and Moira’s) squarely planted into the ignorant, nasty, hard right camp of The Sun and The Daily Mail.  Because there’s absolutely no difference in tone.

But let’s face it, he does originate from the same dubious, political stamping ground as criminal ex-councillor Jim “Britain First” Crabtree, another helper to Frank Field (along with Mike and Moira).

Jim Crabtree was Ronnie’s former Boss who chaired Wirral’s Audit and Risk Committee while boasting little Ronnie as his eager Deputy at a key moment in time, helping to conceal the CEO Graham Burgess’, the Leader Phil Davies’ and a barrage of senior officers’ relentless lies about hundreds of thousands of pounds in squandered EU grant money.

Because he doesn’t appear to know any better, Poor Ron has made it clear – unwittingly perhaps – that he’s a throwback to an earlier age.  He looks like a very willing adherent to the hang-em-high style of Jim Davidson, Richard Littlejohn, Jeremy Clarkson and others, with his half-baked, “I say what I like and I like what I bloody well say and sod the consequences” mode of grabbing attention, hijacking the issues, steaming ahead with them and firing off his blunderbuss at phantom, half-formed enemies. 

This was @Ronnieabbey1 on Twitter recently, singling out our esteemed blog with his own very odd take on calm evaluation, balanced appraisal and sober, intellectual scrutiny:

Cheers Ron.  We appreciate your input.  And putting aside your stream of consciousness, the omission of key words and an abysmal failure to punctuate – caused perhaps by uncontrollable, red-faced rage and jets of steam issuing from your ears and nostrils – we’d like to step forth as a calming and steadying influence, put a hand on your shoulder, take a pause and thank you for signposting potential subscribers to our previous catalogue of work – which goes right back to 2011.

Thanks and much appreciated.

So Ron – to address your accusation about the sewer and the gutter, that looks like a hell of a lot of gutter-wallowing and sewer-dwelling we’ve been doing – seven long years of it.

Or perhaps Ronnie is mistaken and the truth is rather more mundane, non-sensational and a lot less incriminating.

You see, readers, we’ve been engaged in steady, boring, intense research of Ron’s abusive Council and the conduct of its senior officers and councillors for the last seven years.  And Ron doesn’t like anybody exposing his sins in great detail, so he’s hitting out in the only way he knows how and summing it all up as “filth”.

Unlike Ron’s councillor duties, our research is all unpaid – yet it seems obvious to us that we’ve been putting a hell of a lot more time into what we do than Ron does for his £multi-thousand pound return in public money.

Here’s a small one to prove the point, on the vexed subject of Councillor performance.  It’s an excerpt from Wirral Council’s official councillor.net performance management system and the total reported figures for constituency cases completed during 2017:

…so Ron’s personal achievement for his constituents (6 items of casework completed in one year compared to Pat Cleary of the Green Party’s 183) is the very least of the problem.  The sheer depth of scandal here on Wirral goes back well into the last century and is far more wideranging.   These hard right Labour councillors have been plummeting a lot deeper into their own chosen gutters and sewers for years.  And to unseen depths that the writer of this blog could only imagine in his own worst nightmares.

We should also emphasise, we’re not keen on Ron’s  impulsive, anger-fuelled, finger-jabbing criticism of our quality back catalogue.  “Hard-left” indeed !

Just so you know Ron, we’ve had UKIP supporters cheering us on behind the scenes, because even they share our disgust at yours and your colleagues’ reckless and wanton negligence over the council’s long-flouted statutory obligation to care for Wirral’s children and vulnerable / disabled people.

We made sure to respond to Ron’s tweet though, using a relaxed, satirical method of approach.  We find irony and humour can be deployed very honestly to defuse a situation, to educate those who are not politically aware and to attune them to Ron and Co’s sickly, unforgiveable, ongoing conduct.

And this job is far from finished:

So the truth is…

… we’ve been wallowing in your sewer Ron, and we’re just off for a much-needed scrub and hose down.

Enjoy your retirement !

Toodle Pip!