Labour are going to abolish Tamworth Borough Council. That’s a fact and it is happening. As leader of the council Carol Dean stated in response to a motion put by Tamworth Conservatives tonight, “this is Labour party policy” and indeed pointed out that it was in their manifesto, that got them elected into government. A salient point considering what happened in tonight’s very frustrating to watch, full council meeting.
With the Conservatives trying hard to point out what devolution means for Tamworth when it comes down to brass tacks. An unapologetic, indifferent Labour group turned down a motion put forward to stop further spending on Marmion House. Spending, that since it was Labour party policy and in their manifesto to abolish local councils, was evidently completely unnecessary and wasteful since the Borough Council will cease to exist in only a few years time. Indeed Councillor Lewis Smith was practically spitting his words out in anger at the audacity of his and his cronies decisions being questioned, in relation to reopening the front desk at Marmion House. Councillor Natalie Statham was also equally as miffed that anyone dare continue to discuss “a decision that has been made and that we should move on from”. Of course Statham brought out her usual argument that a ticket office was not an appropriate place for residents to access Council services, completely neglecting the reality that Labour intend to keep front desk services at the Assembly rooms open, as well as Marmion House. We ask Dear reader, would it bother you going to a multi purpose desk for council enquiries if you needed it, along with people buying tickets for shows? Especially if it saved you the tax payer some cash? Statham has previously stated in a meeting that those presenting as homeless should not be standing in line with people buying tickets. Interesting since at Marmion House you’d quite possibly be standing next to someone who is reporting a leaky tap in their home, which would surely by Stathams logic be triggering for someone who needed a home in the first place? The bleeding heart argument doesn’t stack up. We’d also hope that any forward thinking Council looking to maximise revenue on a people owned asset such as the assembly rooms would be selling tickets wherever they possibly could including the Marmion House reception desk (you can have that idea for free Labour, just don’t tell Natalie).
As ever Labour continue to railroad their decisions on a local level as well as national. They don’t care about you the residents despite their continual bleating that they do. We even had Councillor Richard Kingstone standing up for Labours’ arguments for abolishing the borough by stating that “surely it is better to have more brain power” standing up for Tamworth, only to wipe out his argument acknowledging that Tamworth would be a small fry in a proposed new Council region of 500,000 residents. Quite how you’d expect ‘Tiny’ (his word) Tamworth to get more of the food at a dinner table as big as that to come our way, when as Councillor Jeremy Oates pointed out there would be so many others in competition with us, is anyone’s guess. The answer is clear, Tamworth would not, we would be on the back foot, we would be so much further away from those that make the decisions about where we all live and quite a number of us work. Tamworth will be reduced to a relative small speck in a combined authority with Councillors vying to even mention Tamworth within it’s chambers, least of all get us the best deal and decisions.
Best of all, Kingstone topped it all off by agreeing with Carol Dean that he wouldn’t want to restrict our MP by agreeing with the Tories who in their motion “Asks the MP to both condemn and oppose these changes in the House of Commons”. So much for Kingstones’ mantra ‘standing up for Tamworth’. He’s quite happy to give in and give up, he wouldn’t dream of telling the MP what to do, but he will tell you all how you should vote. As we’ve previously stated, this whole devolution plan will only benefit the politicians who will no doubt get some impressive allowances for being on this remote behemoth of an authority. You can be damn sure your council tax won’t be going downwards either, can you actually believe that would happen, despite the Labour government stating this would save the country money? No, neither can we.
Kingstone also tried tonight to stick his oar in to amend the Tory motion to review further spending on Marmion House, (as usual wanting to play the hero) and have it reworded and thus narrowed down to just stopping further spending on the refurbishment of the Council chamber there. He completely ignored the fact that Carol Dean stated the work was very much in progress, and the fact there will be plenty more spending on it than just the chamber to keep the rest of the building maintained. Dean also bizzarely complained that the lighting in the town hall wasn’t sufficient for meetings, which it has been for years without complaints so far, so make of her judgements what you will. Interestingly we noticed Tory Councillor Sam Smith agreeing with Kingstones’ odd nonsense amendment rather than stick with his own party.
We need to save Tamworth Borough Council, we as people of the Town and indeed Country need to voice our opposition to devolution and the abolition of our Council. Unfortunately Carol Dean believes residents are confused enough with how local government currently works, and we shouldn’t worry them with such things. As usual, Labour walking all over the people to push their own agenda with their ‘we know best for you’ attitude. Quite frankly some of the comments made during tonight’s meeting were abhorrent and showed Dean and some of her vile colleagues for what they are. If you wanted further proof about how inept, indifferent and uncaring our Labour Councillors are about their decisions, you need to watch the meeting.
Tonight also saw Labour hand over the responsibility for overseeing the Armed Forces covenant to opposition member Tina Clements. Whilst she may well have been a member of the armed forces at one point (which is their excuse for handing it over), this is a cop out for Labour, essentially they are saying they don’t care enough about our veterans to deal with it and keep it within the responsibility of a cabinet member who can actually make decisions. We also saw newly crowned (and christened by us in a flash of inspiration in the Mailbag) Tory ‘Demolition‘ Deputy Paul Turner ask a bizzare question:
Will the leader of the council along with me, congratulate our hard working Country councillors for all hard work and endeavour’s in getting our roads fixed?
This was met with a predictable response giving Dean an open goal opportunity to of course say no, and criticise the state of Tamworths’ roads. We aren’t quite sure what Turner was thinking with this question, let alone expecting in response.
It seems the only people who are actually standing up for Tamworth are the Conservatives. ‘Yes we would say that’ you might exclaim, since Debunking is generally Tory sympathetic. Watch that meeting though and decide for yourself who really cares.
