The Rumour Mill Pt 2

Just for the record, my earlier claim of an Executive councillor not standing in the upcoming elections did not refer to Hassan Ahmed, so that means there two of them leaving in May.

Also, I've heard of another councillor no longer standing so, if all my rumours are true, Labour have lost two key executive members and three rank and file.

Update - Cllr Newton's 'Independent' status now confirmed on NCC website.

The Rumour Mill

I recently heard a rumour that Cllr Mick Newton was no longer a Labour councillor and was sitting as an independent. I wasn't going to write about it as I couldn't reasonably verify it but, after a look at the 'Nottingham Labour' website I feel confident enough to do so.

Have a look at the 'Labour Team' page. Third row down, the Basford councillors Cat Arnold and Rob Lee are there but where you'd expect to find Cllr Newton is someone called Bill Ottewell, who has cropped up elsewhere as a 'campaign team member' amongst other things. Whether he'll be running for the seat at the upcoming election I've no idea, nor do I know whether Newton jumped or was pushed. Either way I can't think of any other reason why he wouldn't be up there but if anyone knows different please let me know and I will correct forthwith.

However, I DO know that the Standards Committee was meeting to consider a case a couple of weeks ago and I do know that Cllr Newton was one of the councillors who was being investigated for something. However it's a bit of a jump to automatically connect the two for now.

Other rumours that I've heard are that an Executive Board member is not planning on standing again and that another Labour councillor had been effectively deselected. No names on these as I can't cross reference with anything but the next full council meeting is the last before the election and it's apparently tradition for there to be official tearful farewells. We'll see.

I Thought 'Legal Graffiti' Had Been Banned?

Here's an odd one.

Last year JoCo went on one of his occasional macho trips about banning stuff and this time it was 'legal graffiti' that got it in the neck. Apparently, even legal graffiti of the sort done by youth groups etc in an attempt to get young people engaging in art forms that they are better able to relate to makes the place look untidy and the realm of yobbos.

Unless of course it's three of NCC's councillors who want to install a 'wildlife graffiti mural' under the bridge over the Leen near the church, then it's all ok.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice idea, I just can't understand why one form of graffiti done with full permission is 'bad' when another is 'good'. I would email one of the councillors concerned Cat Arnold to find out but she doesn't reply to emails so there's no point.

Respect is Due

Perhaps unusually for this blog I want to congratulate a councillor, in this case Cllr Mick Newton, for telling his story of his own struggle with mental illness in today's Post.

It's rarely an easy decision for anybody to be public about suffering from mental health problems, as Cllr Newton says, "...some have treated [him] as though I have the plague." It's probably even more risky for someone in public life to do so but so often, that's the only way people find out how debilitating depression and other mental health problems can be. Very often depression is seen as the 'least serious' of mental illnesses and, while I acknowledge that its effects are less dramatic than those of, say, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, it can be very disabling and sometimes deadly; suicide is approximately 5 times more likely for someone with depression compared to the general population (6% vs 1.3%).

Regular readers of this blog will know that I suffer from depression and I recognise many of the experiences that Cllr Newton describes in his article. Unfortunately, one of the many people and/or organisations (along with Nadine Dorries) that shows a lack of understanding of my own illness is Nottingham City Council. This combined with the fact that it was them that caused my illness in the first place is a cause of considerable, um, frustration for me.

There's no point in pretending that the establishment of this blog had nothing to do with this frustration and anger at my treatment at their hands. However, I always wanted to ensure that it was very much a way of channeling this anger into something useful rather than just be a ranty mess. It is a ranty mess in places I accept but I do believe I am starting to have a small effect in making NCC accountable for some of the dodgy things it does. I think that's more constructive than taking a baseball bat to Lisa Black's face (as a hypothetical example of a completely unacceptable reaction) and, as an added bonus, it's less likely to end up with me being Big Ron's 'special friend' in the prison showers.

I don't know how things are going to end up in the long run. I have yet to find a route out of this situation and it's certainly not helped by NCC's ongoing abuse of statutory processes to harass me. I'm very pleased that Cllr Newton is back on his feet but unfortunately I feel a little way off that just yet.

Please note - it is Mental Health Awareness Week, the Post has a list of events and activities here.

NCCLols is Billy No Mates

I recently wrote to my three local councillors, Cat Arnold, Rob Lee and Mick Newton, as well as my MP Graham Allen about the CEHRNN debacle. Thought I'd update you on the response I've had so far.

Of the councillors only one has replied, Mick Newton. Not a peep from Cllrs Arnold or Lee, despite my sending a reminder.

I've written to Cat Arnold a few times now and I've never heard anything back. Previously I'd never bothered with Rob Lee after, having voted for him as a Lib Dem, he then defected to Labour over the issue of housing benefits sanctions for alleged anti-social behaviour. I put that to one side for this issue due to its importance but my initial assessment that he is little more than a worker drone for JoCo has yet to be challenged.

Who knows, they may well be so busy campaigning behind the scenes that they haven't found time to reply to lil ole me and if that turns out to be the case I'll be more than happy to take it all back.

As for Graham Allen not a peep, on this issue at least. I know that technically he has absolutely no jurisdiction over NCC affairs (and made that clear in my email) but he does have influence and surely would and should have a view,

On the other hand, today I got a rather chummy letter from him about the Robin Hood Tax. Thankfully, GA supports this measure and was obviously keen to highlight our common ground, a couple of days after the general election was called.

Maybe I'm asking too much, after all I'm only worth one vote.

Full Council Meeting

Now if I was a proper journo, or even a half dedicated blogger, I would probably by now have set up a regular system of writing about full council meetings when they happen. However, as I'm neither of these things (I tend to rate myself as being somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 dedicated) I do it when I get round to it.

So I had a brief look at the minutes of the 12 October meeting to see if there was anything to point and stare at and there were one or two little gems.

I recently wrote about the District Auditor again having to have a quiet word about communications straying into the political and Lib Dem Cllr Sutton decided to ask the Deputy Leader about that. His reply warrants some attention -

"...the District Auditor is happy again that the communications initiative that has been the subject of challenge was lawful. Lawful is lawful, you can’t have half lawful or quarter lawful, it is lawful..."

Well, I suppose you can't have 'half lawful' but you can certainly have 'borderline' lawful which is what the District Auditor said so I'm really not sure how Cllr Chapman can equate that with being 'happy'. Broken bulshitometers all round I suspect.

He went on to add -

"...the Chief Executive has discussed this matter with the Director of Communications and Marketing, with whom final responsibility for sign-off and compliance with the Law and Code on publicity remains.

He will ensure, whenever similar initiatives are run in the future, that more time is allowed for responding to the comments of the Director of Legal Services and any other Director..."

That'll be that Stephen Barker then who has already been hauled up once before for dodgy marketing.

Talking of SB he seems to have pretty much disappeared from the old internet social networking, wonder if that's anything to do with his former habit of posting up videos of his staff on the web? Perhaps the Chief Exec had a word with him about that too mind you it's pretty clear he's another of the 'untouchables'.

Local elections are still a while off in Nottingham but I think we saw an example of something that will become more and more common the nearer we get to them. Here's a question from Cllr Newton that he no doubt thought up all by himself -

"Would the portfolio holder agree that given the cost pressures on local government, how realistic is it at this stage to be promising 0% council tax increases as many Conservative controlled local authorities are doing?"

NCCLols translation service came up with -

"For gawd's sake look at what that loon Kay Cutts is doing south of the river, we might be dodgy as hell but at least we're not the Tories, please vote for us, pleeeeeEEEEAAASE!"

I predict that we'll see more of this pointing at local Tories to inspire terror among the electorate and to be fair they've got a point. By 2011 Cutts and her minions should just about have grown their own devil horns and, the way they are going, are just about the best bunch of next door bogeymen a Labour Councillor could wish to have.