Last nights full council meeting, apparently called by Councillor Martin Summers to address the reopening of Marmion House for meetings and front desk services, and characterised by him as ‘the meeting they didn’t want us to have’, gave us a lot to unpack. So much so we didn’t really know where to start, and were thrown off by quite how astonishing it was to watch. To say we were bewildered and fuming by the nastiness, arrogance and sheer incompetence of Tamworth Labour is the understatement of the year. We simply don’t know how else to describe it. You can see the background to this meeting here and here.
Unfortunately, as expected, every single one of the Labour group voted on party lines to throw out a motion put by Councillor Jeremy Oates to pause the reopening and look into viable schemes such as Moorgate School for the ‘Forever home’ of Tamworth Borough Council, as it was described. Saving hundreds of thousands of pounds being thrown at an old and decrepit 70s tower block described only as fit for demolition. Despite being called upon to declare that her group had the right to a free vote on this motion, leader of the Labour group Carol Dean sidestepped this, only declaring that none of her party had been whipped. A few of her party stood up to say as such, showing they’re either amazing liars or really have drunk down the Kool Aid as the Yanks would say. We’ve seen how Starmer has dealt with his MPs who’ve not done as they’re told. We wonder what this group have been threatened with.
Young pretender Lewis Smith, who is ‘in charge’ of this move back to Marmion House, began his ‘defence’ of Labour plans and rubbished spending claims given by the opposition, despite the figures being available for all to see and anyone with any sense knowing Lewis’s claims were bullshit. We are talking a relatively newly elected Councillor who is a junior teacher at a school, apparently ‘in charge’ of hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of decision. If that doesn’t put the willies up the Tamworth tax payer, we don’t know what would. We suspect he’s actually having little to do with the detail since he clearly showed during the meeting he has little grip on reality. Whilst he tried to remain calm and civil, his rhetoric soon became a spat out rant, echoing the rest of the Labour party who apparently feel aggrieved at their motives and decisions being questioned. He was soon joined by ‘Nasty’ Natalie Statham who topped the anger charts to the point where we stopped listening to what she had to say altogether. She apparently can’t stand her group, and likely her employer Sarah Edwards MP being seen as anything but loving caring sharing socialists. Despite the fact they have proven they are anything but.
It was Councillor Richard Kingstone that remarkably got a round of applause for his turn speaking. We are going to give credit where it is due to him, he spoke well and on point about Labour’s ridiculous Ill thought out and wasteful plans. He stated that Labour will bankrupt this town the way they are going. Given that is their usual modus operandi we would not be in the slightest bit surprised if this came true. He also pointed out their lie that they had a ‘mandate’ from the town, stating that in fact they only had seven thousand votes between them and the last election. Which is a sorry state of affairs as it is.
Debunking readers, we could honestly share with you so much about the meeting. But we’d like to think our readers care enough to see the source material and make their minds up for themselves rather than just listen to our opinions. The meeting can be viewed here.
It isn’t the longest meeting to have to watch if you’ve never watched one before. This meeting is not actually boring believe it or not. It is in fact a show of democracy in action. A meeting that would not actually have taken place had the Conservative group not called it in. It was evident that Labour had made their minds up in August that Marmion House would be opened back up again, and nothing was going to stop them. Rather than bring the decision to full council, they snuck it through Cabinet, where it was pointed out, they would have the least challenge. At least the Tories had the bollocks to bring their decision, to close and never reopen Marmion House, to full council in March for everyone to discuss. Everyone including the Labour group had agreed on this, only to turn back on that decision in the most undemocratic way they could get away with.
People who surprised us, and indeed some who have had their say in our Mailbag, were Ken Norchi and Margaret Clarke. Two people who have been Councillors on and off for decades now. People who should know better than just blindly vote with their party and by now at their ages should not be engaged with the hive mind cult of Labour indiscriminately. Their hands went up just as every single one of Labours’ did, to oppose and allow the greatest waste of taxpayer’s money we’ve seen in this town in modern times, and the potential for our historic town hall to fall into disuse again, given Labour have zero plans for what will be done with it. It was rather funny to hear their members state that it was a ‘glorified committee room’ and ‘unfit for purpose’ when that was the reason for it’s existence when it was built.
If you love this town, and care for it genuinely, unlike the trolls that pretend to and the disingenuous power hungry Labour party, then please watch the video. We’ve only covered the reopening of Marmion House. It gets worse from there. If you want to see how obsessed the socialists are with screwing over pensioners in the name of making sure millionaires don’t get the winter fuel allowance, this is the place to go. They also completely missed the point that those that fall in the gap between pension credit and being wealthy are going to suffer and go cold this winter. This was coldly dismissed by Councillor Dean. Watch the video and then spread the word about how Labour are, as described in the meeting “setting fire to the best part of a million pounds” of your money on a vanity project. No-one but the 18 Labour Councillors present agreed with the plans. The independent members and the Tories were for once all united together in an attempt to stop the Labour group from making an incredibly shocking and bad decision for our town. They tried and failed, which sadly they expected. If you’d like a word salad to describe Labour last night, here it is: Arrogant, condescending, out of touch, vile, nasty, uncaring, angry, unscrupulous, inexperienced, wasteful, boastful, incompetent. You get the gist.
Handily, Labour Mayor Gareth Coates abstained from the votes, which stops us from lumping him in with the rest of his group. We’ve got a lot of time for Mayor Coates who we felt chaired the meeting very well. Despite this, apparently he felt he was being slagged off:
We would love to know who by. Since they have no reason to have done so. Do let us know Councillor Coates!
Let us know what your thoughts are on the Labour party performance last night. Do you actually agree with their stance?
