In a devastating news story the ‘Liverpool Daily Post’ reports that Wallasey Tories have allegedly received £50,000 from a local debt collector.          

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE ‘DAILY POST’S’ REVELATIONS ABOUT TORY PARTY FUNDING IN THIS CONSTITUENCY, AND TO SEE THE TORIES’ FRANTIC WRIGGLING, FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW       

Adrian says: "Oily Tory words on glossy paper are less than people are entitled to expect. I think people will understand that distortions even on the prettiest paper are still distortions. We may use local printers and plain paper but our postbag tells us that people like plain words on plain paper. The Tories may slide along on gloss but that's not our way."

 

 http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/03/26/wirral-conservatives-hit-by-debt-collector-smear-92534-26113025/     

 

 

Tories have 'lotsa cash' for glossy leaflets

 

When Seacombe residents see the HUGELY expensive glossy leaflets the Tories have been able to afford for a long time they may have wondered why Seacombe Labour Party does not reply with a constant stream of similar costly glossies.          

 The answer is simple.  We represent the working people who live in Seacombe, Poulton, Somerville and Egremont.  We get most of our funding from the people who live in our ward.  We have taken no money from debt collecters or from big businesses!          

And before the Tory propaganda machine alleges differently, Seacombe Labour Party has not asked for, nor received, a single penny from any trade union.  Every penny we have for leaflets comes from individual members and from our own fund raising evenings. Our (mostly plain black and white) newsletters are either produced ourselves or, mostly, by a local printer.    We may produce a glossy at the end of the campaign - if we can afford it – but we do not share the Tories’ ways of getting funded.      

But we do believe the words on the paper are more important than the glossiness of the paper they are printed on.        

So what is the Trade union link with LABOUR?         

The Tories do their best to give the impression that there are two equal sides in which trade unions are comparable to the big businesses that support their party.  Their subtle propaganda leaves the impression that trade unions are themselves akin to businesses.          

They are not; the unions are organisations set up to defend working conditions for ordinary people and to secure representation for them.  Their link with LABOUR is quite simply that they helped create the Labour Party.        

But Tory propaganda still tries to suggest that trade unions in some way bank-roll Labour in the way millionaire business men bank-roll the Conservative party.  The trade unions established the Labour Party precisely because there was no other party to represent working people.  The Tories and Liberals had always supported and represented the interests of big business and land owners.  Has anything changed?         

When the vast majority of the population had no party to support them, in Parliament or on local Councils,  it was the trade unions, co-operative societies, Christian organisations, and Socialist societies that gradually became the foundation from which the Labour Party was born.    When individual trade union members contribute to their union’s political fund they do so because the Labour Party, that they created, is theirs.          

No trade unionist pays a penny who does not want to – any member can opt out. But as well as trade unionists we have huge numbers of ordinary people who are not in trade unions (eg retired people, small business owners, students, etc)  but join because they want to be a part of the Party that created the National Health Service; the minimum wage; Sure Start; and most of the progressive legislation that still exists.          

Those with memories of the Thatcher and Major Tory governments never want to go back to the dark days of mass unemployment under the Tory Party that opposed all of this.  The very word ‘Conservative’ suggests the politics of fossils ’to stay the same’.    

They say they want change, but they do not say what the changes would be.  We suspect that turning the clock back to the dreadful conditions under previous Tory Governments is what they would like to ’conserve’.         And when their leader David Cameron already has fourteen millionaires in his shadow cabinet do the working people of Seacombe have any doubts about whose interests the Tory Party will champion?   

If YOU might wish to join the Labour Party why not get in touch?        

We have removed the account number and other details for obvious security reasons.

Our sincere thanks go to TGWU Branch no 6/553 for a generous donation to the Allandale from its branch funds following our appeal. 

Our appeal contrasted sharply with the Conservatives’ opportunism when, on 19th January, they put out a leaflet to homes near the Allandale alleging that the youth club had been ‘axed’ because of ‘cut backs’.   Many people reading it inferred that the Council had ‘axed’ the club.  

In fact the Council neither owned nor controlled the club.  It is an independent charity set up as a community trust in the 1950s by the benefactor after whom it is named.  

The very day before the Tory propaganda leaflet was put out there had been a meeting, initiated by Adrian, in the Allandale.  Council professionals were present, together with a representative from ‘Wirralbiz’, to assist the club in drawing up a long term business plan for financial survival and to discuss short term fund raising objectives to get the club over the next few months.  The Tories were well aware of that but chose not to mention in their publicity that it is precisely the Council that is offering a life-line to the club. 

None of this prevented the Tories from continuing to make our local youth club an object of political opportunism.  At the Council budget setting meeting soon after they tabled an amendment calling for: 

• Tory cuts of £500,000 from Social Services
• Tory cuts of £111,000 from Children’s Services – of all things!
• Public subsidy of the Allandale of £20,000 – in constrast with the item above!
• Tory cuts of £606,000 from regeneration
• Tory cuts of £226,000 from Technical Services - (Which covers roads, Leisure Centres, Parks, Gardens, CCTV, Open spaces, etc!!!)

In their next leaflet they trumpeted a headline ‘Council says “no” to Allandale’.   Nonsense.  Council said “no” to a destructive package in which a carrot had beel dangled.  Who could have  ‘”yes” to that appalling package?  A reasonable person might just feel it was a crude ambush in order to have a headline ready for popping through letter-boxes. 

But the best is yet to come.  The ‘help’ for the Allandale was already to hand from money that already exists.  The Tories should have known (and we cannot believe that even they were unaware of it) because Labour had long ago provided community funds to the Area Forums for local use.  Last year’s had a surplus left over and from April there will be a new tranch of funding.   Adrian challenged the Tories during the Council debate to admit that they were making a political football of our kids youth club and to instead support him at the Area Forum in his proposal to use the money that already exists to support the Allandale.  They looked bemused.  Was that because they had been ‘outed’ in a pretty shallow attempt to get a headline?  Or was it because they so lacked competence that they didn’t even know that the money is already there?  It is for the public to judge their motives.  In their latest leaflet they do not acknowledge that they have in fact been obliged to accept Adrian’s challenge to support him in using that money.  Instead they are claiming that it is now their intention – as though they had actually thought of it in the first place! 

Couldn’t make it up could you? 

Meanwhile a local social club raised £320 in a race afternoon; a great local entertainer has agreed to perform this Friday (19th) at the Park View Social Club free of charge and the club has given its premises without charge.  

DO PLEASE COME IN LARGE NUMBERS THIS FRIDAY TO THE PARK VIEW SOCIAL CLUB.  DON’T WORRY IF YOU HAVEN’T A TICKET – YOU CAN MAKE A CONTRIBUTION  ON THE DOOR.  THE EVENT IS AT 7.30PM AND THE CLUB IS ON THE CORNER OF CHURCH STREET AND LISCARD ROAD – JUST OPPOSITE ST JOHN’S CHURCH IN CENTRAL PARK.  IT IS SITUATED EXACTLY ON THE BORDERS OF SEACOMBE AND LISCARD WARDS.  THE ENTERTAINER IS PAUL DREW WHO WILL OFFER A RANGE OF POPULAR MODERN MUSIC TO SUIT EVERYONE. 

Let’s support our local youth club without making it a political football.

Adrian opposed the closure of Guinea Gap Baths and Seaombe Library, to the Council and to the Charteris Inquiry

23rd February 2010

Wasn’t it interesting to see how well the Labour budget was reported in today’s Liverpool Post?  It is a budget providing huge benefits to Wirral.   

One of the really good measures is that Guinea Gap Baths is no longer even under consideration for review.  When defector Denis Knowles was publicly declaring the closure of the baths would be ‘For the greater good’ Adrian took the opposite view and made it clear in writing.  This extract was published on our website some months ago but in view of the good news now hitting the headlines it deserves to be repeated:

January 2009

To:  Leader of the Council

Dear Leader,

 Asset Review – changes affecting Seacombe Ward

You will know that as Mayor it is necessary for me to maintain impartiality over the changes proposed within the recent Professional Officers’ Report, the recommendations of which are the subject of public consultation.

Even though I know I cannot do so within a reply to the party-political campaign presently being waged I feel entitled, and obliged, to make my views known within the present public consultation exercise.  I therefore ask you to ensure that my comments as follows are considered.

I applaud the extensive public consultation and regret that another political party has used the opportunity for partisan campaigning when the wellbeing of Seacombe residents should take priority.

Guinea Gap baths should not in my view be closed unless alternative swimming is available nearby.  It is not necessary for me to argue the case for free swimming for children and pensioners as that is well known to be among the Council’s most popular policies under your leadership.  I therefore request a stay of this recommendation for at least some years until alternatives are available for further consultation.

Even if the present building is not viable the present library facilities in Seacombe could very probably be re-located rather than be withdrawn.  The Seacombe Community Centre, for instance, is potentially under used and there are other possibilities in existing council buildings nearby.  I believe lending and IT facilities should be protected in view of the high incidence of low income families and the high incidence of retired people compared with many other areas of Wirral.

Following the loss of Liscard Hall which (despite its name) was located in Seacombe but bordering closely on Liscard Ward, we have the remaining site.  I request that urgent consideration be given to using that site for the location of the new, and improved, facilities that are recommended for the area.   This would ensure that facilities are not removed from Seacombe, yet would not be inconveniently far for Liscard residents.

Without suggesting that this list of requests is exhaustive , as others this evening may well have further ideas that I could support, I would like you to take these on board.  I believe my proposals would allay concerns that have been whipped up by people who should put the good of the Seacombe community ahead of party-political campaigning.

Best wishes,

Councillor Adrian Jones,  Seacombe