Mosaic Academy Trust

So some time ago I wrote about how Standish high School had applied to become an academy. All went quiet.

I can reveal that from the 1st May both Standish High School and Southlands in Chorley will become Mosaic Academy Trust.

What is disgusting is the changes which are happening right now and parents need to know, especially those in their last year about to start exams.

Standish High are going through redundancy and have just got rid of one maths teacher, another maths teacher has gone down to 3 days per week but is now on long term sick, I can see why. One music teacher gone and there are more to come.

What is disgusting is that students who are about to take their GCSE are now having stand in teachers for subjects inc Maths. What a disgrace? And have the higher management team been effected?

The Dictator that is Donna Hall

So a few days ago I wrote this blog post. This blog post was how Wigan Council and their Chief Executive has spent over £500,000 on trying to oppose and shut up opposition Cllrs. Yes it was a hard hitting blog post and so it was meant to be.

But yet again the Chief Executive has now taken her actions further. I say this because an opposition Cllr has simply shared the post on their personal Facebook page and the Chief Executive has found out about this and with out ANY kind of investigation she put a formal complaint in on him on Thursday of last week and by Friday that Cllr was punished by removing his Brighter Borough money away. Wow she just makes it up. Where is the natural justice here?

I say the above because in the interest of being fair ( that's a joke in Wigan council and Donna Hall) any complaint needs to be put to the monitoring officer. They should consult with an independent person and then they decide whether it needs to go to a Standards hearing or not. If it does then it gets investigated that Cllr who has had the complaint against them gets a chance to put their side forward and then a panel of Cllrs decide if the Councillor has breached the protocol.

But now Donna Hall has decide not to have a fair and open process, which is covered by the Localism Act. She has no right to be complainant, judge and Jury but then again we live in Wigan where Donna Hall believes that she is above Cllrs and residents.

Also what is unbelievable is how she runs the Council. Again I say this because the opposition Cllr has been at my house doing some work for me and the Cllr has had numerous phone calls from a person in the Legal Dept and in one of the calls today she confirmed the Council have been looking at at what they believe to be his Girlfriends Facebook account and more worryingly when the Cllr said that was bang out of order and who told her to ring him she reply Donna Hall and the Head of Legal Services. If Donna Hall puts a complaint in she should then be so far away from that investigation but she is getting internal solicitors to threaten opposition Cllrs. I heard it all today with my own ears. You simply could not make this stuff up!

Wigan Council losses £8m

Regular readers of this blog will know that I often call Wigan Council for their incompetence. December 2015 I wrote a blog post where by Wigan Council sold 175 acres of contaminated land for £1 and then gave the private developer £8m to clean up the contaminated land. What a stupid group of idiots. Why not pay the £8m to clean the land and then sell it and you get more than £1. Here is the original story. http://garethfairhurst.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/wigan-council-give-millions-to-private.html

Now the plot thickens as the private company went into administration last December. We have asked the council did they pay the £8m before they went bust and if they did is there a way the council can get their money back. You guessed it Wigan Council fail to answer the question and therefore one can only presume that they have paid the money and we cannot get the money back.

Heads must role if this is the case as where was the due diligent. I raised it at the meeting that we should not be paying the company the money in the first place. I seem to have read that when the company did go bust they had debts of about £160m. When a company had so much debt and so little assets it was a concern for me at the time and that was why I and we as a Party was against that deal. Looks like we were proven right again too. When will this Labour Council learn?

As Wigan Council motto goes. - It is easy losing tax payers money!

Either or both the Leader and Chief  Executive should resign or be sacked for this. No due diligent completed or the Council would never have have done this deal.

General Election Looms

So after months and months of denying it the PM has now decided to call for a General Election. This is the first confusing issue. Say one thing and do another. She always called Gordon Brown for not calling a General Election when he took over from Tony Blair, so you would have thought on principle she would have called a General Election but she didn't. When she took over from David Cameron she said the General Election should be in 2020.

The SNP want a referendum on staying in the UK and the PM says no because now would be the wrong time.The PM says that time for a Scotland referendum would be once Brexit deal has been decided. So why would that not be the same for the rest of the UK?

 So why has the PM decided to go for it, so to speak? Probably because the Labour Leader Corbyn is so weak that the PM could kill off a number of Labour Seats and with that it is clear that the PM is trying to put her own and the Tory Party first.

However, with the remainers trying to make this a second vote on the EU this would be the wrong time to call a General Election as some say the Lib Dem could take seats like they did in Richmond and with that could it mean another coalition or Tory minority government. That could then put Brexit deal at risk. This would demonstrate that as a Country this is the wrong time to call for a General Election.

Tax Payers pay for Political mission

You couldn't make this up. With the austerity that Local Councils are facing due to the Conservative Cuts you would think the last thing that would be on Councils agenda is to waste money on shutting up Opposition Cllrs.

It is long been known in the Wigan Politics scene that the Chief Executive is political biased, something that is against the rules. Over the years the sitting Chief Executive Donna Hall has made it her job and mission to get outspoken opposition Cllrs out of office, something she always denies. Mind you she has been caught out lying a couple of times on BBC Radio shows. But if being political biased, lying on BBC Radio isn't bad enough she has then used tax payers money to carry her mission out.

As well as myself the Chief Executive has targeted Cllr Jim Ellis, Cllr George Fairhurst and Cllr Bob Brierley.

With regards the later Cllr it is clear that he has taken a lot of the heat. Including her making an allegation of harassment towards her. In this allegation she said at one incident he was pressurising her staff to allow him to she her. At that time she popped her head out of her office to ask for her PA to get a member of staff for her and get them into her office. In this case she said to the police she was that scared that her heart was racing because she was that scared and her legs were shaking and she thought she would collapse. Now this was a serious allegation and Cllr Brierley was arrested and questioned under caution. When asked about this incident he denied it. they asked could he prove it? Sure I taped the whole incident! We all know in the political circles in Wigan Cllr Brierley tapes everything. So when he said he was in the reception area for all the PA's and dropping something off for the deputy leader and then Donna Hall bobbed out she said, "Hi Bob." As soon as the tape was passed to the Police guess what? The charges were dropped. Now had he not got lots of evidence inc this tape then he could have been sent to jail for this crime which he was being alleged to have done. Good job he records everything after all.

Questions come to mind and say when the crime was exasperated to get Cllr arrested and charged and that was not the case why was the Chief Executive not arrested and charged with wasting Police time and or mis use of public office. I have asked Greater Police for a comment on the matter and they said because of Purdah they can't say anything more than this case was investigated and after a review of the evidence it was dropped. Now just for those that are not aware of what Purdah is, this is where authorities cannot comment on people in elections. Neither Donna Hall nor Bob Brierley are in the elections for Greater Manchester Mayor.

Also on the day of his Election last year she was seen causing Criminal Damage by ripping Cllr's Brierley posters down off Private Property, which he had been given permission to put his posters on. Because they were fixed on quite strong she ripped them down and cut them off with scissors. She said she had the power to do this as returning officers, which is false again just like her role as a Chief Executive she has to be impartial. Something she obviously finds hard to do.

You would think the embarrassment to the Chief executive on the Police matter would be big enough to stop all these lies. O no! She has got external solicitors to send and threatened the Cllrs named above, with the exception of Cllr George Fairhurst. Now Wigan council legal dept already costs over £500,000 a year but they have used costly external solicitors. In one incident just weeks before last Yrs local election the council paid just short of £40,000, that's right £40,000 in one month, to try and keep Cllr Brierley quiet and threaten him if he didn't. I have seen these invoices and can confirm them. And yet again he had done thing wrong and no action was ever taken up against him. In fact the total bill for all the Council's political work against the Cllrs above is again just over £500,000.

Along with all of this, if this was not enough she refuses to allow Cllr Brierley to hold surgeries and also refuses him to have a Council email address, so residents cannot contact him either via email or surgeries. All these sanctions are illegal under the Localism Act but the Chief Executive does this because she knows that it would cost Cllr Brierley 10,000's of pounds to take it to Court.

To date Donna Hall has used the police to try and get this Cllr and failed. She has wasted tens of thousands of tax payers money to get this Cllr and failed. Maybe it is time that she respects that he has done nothing wrong,

Is this really how Tax Payers money should be spent? The Chief Executive should not be political in her role and also stop wasting tax payers money. She also should not be political in her role. Maybe if she stopped wasting our money then we can keep a few more front line services.

PC Brigade out again

In the last day or two we see the PC brigade out again making a fuss where there isn't one.

First were the words of David Moyes who had just been interviewed by a female BBC reporter and obviously she had asked an awkward question at the end because after the interview David Moyes said words along the lines you got a bit cheeky there at the end do that again and just because you're a female doesn't mean you can;t have a slap, or words similar.

PC brigade are kicking off saying he was threatening her and he should lose his job. Everyone was laughing and the BBC reporter was not offended by it, so where is the fuss? No one should ever threaten to hit anyone,unless it is self defense, but don't turn it into something that it isn't. If people truely thought he was saying she may get a slap why, if you believe it,  aren't they kicking off about him poss slapping men - or do the PC brigade think that is acceptable and OK? Threatening physically is unacceptable but don't make something that isn't there.

Also when he says slap does he mean a physical slap or a slap a ban on her attending the Press conferences? Food for thought.

For me it just shows what a great job that reporter did because I guess that all reporters don't just want nice sound bits and they want to get a hard hitting question in. I guess this reporter did. Good on her! Many that I have spoken to and lots on the TV are saying this is being turned into something that it isn't

Secondly the National Trust have got rid of the word Easter on theirs and Cadbury's Easter Egg Hunt. They just call it a Egg Hunt. So the PC brigade don't want to offend people with the word Easter. Wrong! Missing it out offends millions. If they don't want to recognise the Christian festival there should just have a Egg Hunt in October but O No they want to piggy back the christian period but not recognise it.

For me the PC brigade should leave well alone.