Wirral Council leader Paula Basnett has also chosen to fall silent, a situation helpfully facilitated by the Liverpool Echo and the Wirral Globe who have chosen not to ask her for a statement, AND who are both ignoring my repeated emails. Being a reasonable person, and a critical thinker, I have to wonder how deep the connections go and whether they’re strictly above board?

The following Contact Company internal item was leaked to me but got hushed up by the local press. This dubious conduct served to defend and protect Asif Hamid in his criminal activities back in 2024. It’s an internal memo from the Head of HR at Hamid’s Birkenhead Contact Company. The Local newspapers were told at the time, but chose to sit on their hands. However, the Liverpool Echo were very pleased to host the 2014 regional business awards where Hamid was granted Business Person of the Year award.

Maybe now that the criminal cat is out of the bag, our Council Leader (Paula Basnett) will act in the wider public interest and make a statement…?

So here it is, affecting ‘support’, and vaguely confirming that an unknown number of staff’s monthly pension contributions went missing, whilst dishonestly describing them as ‘arrears’ (and not loot) FOUR times, failing to explain what actually happened, how much money was involved, and where the stash ended up. Meanwhile the public can relax because their money was used to bail the crook out. Even this ‘admission’ was couched in weasel words:

There are further crime stories available at the British Newspaper Archive. Presumably this service is beyond reach for the relevant UK authorities who’ve been given the task of vetting candidates for UK Honours?

That’s my assumption, because Asif Hamid was bestowed with an MBE many years after his crimes and without any apparent problems: