Leicester Mercury political correspondent
Leicester City Council
The Lutfur Link – Part 2
Dec 20th
Remember this post?
It shows Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman and some of his associates being lavished with praise by city Labour politicians for helping with the election campaign in May.
They included Leicester East MP Keith Vaz, Jon Ashworth, who later that day was declared the new Leicester South MP, and Sir Peter Soulsby who was later voted in as elected mayor. Several of Labour’s city councillors are in attendance.
When I first highlighted this video in the summer I had to dance around Mr Rahman’s background.
I can be slightly more blunt this morning. The PCC has ruled that describing him as an “extremist-backed” politician, with “close links” to an extremist Islamic organisation, is “not misleading”. He denies the links.
Ask your local Labour politician whether they were aware of these claims when he joined them on the campaign trail…
Mayor pay panel member leaves the country
Nov 18th
Is there any room on the flight for the other three, Dominic?
(It’s worth pointing out that he’s off on a long-planned break – rather than fleeing the country!)
The Fall Guy?
Nov 16th
Councils across the country have these “independent pay panels” which only ever seem to send politicians’ pay one way – and that’s up.
It’s never been a problem before, of course. Yes, a grumpy story might pop-up in the Mercury when a councillor pay rise is first announced, people will be temporarily disgruntled, but then it blows over in time for full council where elected members happily accept the proposals for a pay hike.
Start mucking around on these panels by suggesting pay freezes or cuts and you’d quickly find yourself sidelined.
The shock move to almost double the mayor’s salary to £100,000, and his deputy’s pay to £75,000, has a completely different feel to rises which have gone before. Some backbench councillors are outraged and have threatened to quit the party, while city centre vox pop participants are unanimous in their opposition, a sign no doubt of the strong public opinion in general.
Peter Soulsby won’t be drawn one way or the other on the £100k proposal, but has swiftly kicked the can down the street and well into the new year.
Martin Traynor, chair of Leicester’s pay panel, is bravely standing by his recommendations just as every politician in town frantically distances themselves from them. He was due to appear on BBC Radio Leicester this morning to justify his findings.
It’s hard not to get the feeling that Martin’s going to become the fall guy for all of this.
Soulsby Salary Set To Soar
Nov 15th
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City mayor, his team, and councillors in line for big pay hike
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“There’ll be uproar,” says one politico
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See Wednesday’s Mercury for full story
Inside the topsy turvy world of Colin Hall
Oct 19th
Former Lord Mayor Colin Hall bills his website – launched in June – as ‘the blog Leicester’s been waiting for’.
But now it’s arrived, it turns out the waiting has been in vain – there have only been five posts since the summer.
His latest article is about the departure of Mercury editor Keith Perch, in which he levels various accusations about news priorities at the paper.
In the topsy turvy world of Colin Hall the potential closure of the children’s heart unit at Glenfield – the subject of a four-month Mercury campaign and a 3,000 name petition – was ‘marginalised and overlooked’ by us.
Meanwhile an incident where his trousers fell down in public – which made just 200 words at the bottom of page two when it happened, plus passing references during his bizarre year as mayor – was the subject of ‘unremitting focus’.
The rest of his article sees him complain about our declining circulation, the community no longer seeing the Mercury as an essential read, our misuse of influence, the public’s distaste for our political coverage and an obsession with pet causes.
All allegations which would have had slightly more impact if he hadn’t happily used the pages of the Mercury to settle a few old scores just five months ago. Very principled, Colin.
Lock out
Sep 30th
In Leicester City Council’s internal newsletter Face this month, news of chief executive Sheila Lock’s impending departure has been relayed to staffers.
A short article headed Decision on chief executive post reads:
“After a very long meeting last month, councillors agreed to remove the position of chief executive.
“Sheila Lock’s redundancy has been approved and she will leave the council in the next couple of months. Sheila has been with Leicester City Council for five years. Sheila joined the council in 2006 as corporate director of children and young people’s services and became chief executive two years later when Rodney Green retired. She oversaw the creation of a new senior management team in 2008 and the reshaping of the council into the structure we have today.
“This decision marks the first phase of a wider review of the council’s senior management. Over the coming months the city mayor will review the next two levels of management with a view to finding further efficiencies and savings. It is a legal requirement that all local authorities have a ‘head of paid service’ – pending the outcome of the senior management review this role has passed temporarily to Andy Keeling, deputy chief executive.”
No thank you, no goodbye, no good luck. No more than 200 words.
“Pre-May” spin
Sep 28th
There’s an oft-repeated line from the mayor and deputy mayor these days – “this all happened pre-May”.
It’s a way of focusing reader/interviewer attention on the fact that a council decision was taken before Peter Soulsby took over at May’s local election. “This decision was taken under the previous administration,” they say.
Rory Palmer attempted to use the line at one point when I spoke to him about the Market Corner flop on Monday. It didn’t make the paper because I refuse to be a conduit for this naff spin.
The same party ran the council “pre-May”, with most of the same councillors, and with many of the same people at the top table. Many big decisions were signed off at Labour group. They were all in it together.
33 of Labour’s 52 current councillors sat on the council before May. Three of the mini-mayors sat on the cabinet, as did deputy mayor Rory before he went off to help with Soulsby’s campaign. The previous leader Veejay Patel was hardly a dictator either, and often appeared to be swayed by those around him.
The current mayor even had influence over council policy before he was even elected.
Don’t swallow the spin.
Did the Beeb get spun?
Sep 19th
On Friday, BBC Leicester followed-up my story on the city council’s budget black hole with an incredible revelation.
Following a blizzard of Tweets that the station had an exclusive, Unison boss Gary Garner took to the airwaves to claim that 2,000 jobs could be lost at the authority, almost double the original estimate given last year. I’m not too proud to follow-up someone else’s scoop, but the figures didn’t seem to ring true.
The original 1,000 job figure was based on a need to make savings of £100 million. Roughly speaking that’s £100,000 of savings made for every post axed.
Now, my story back on September 9 revealed that the council was struggling with a £5 million black hole. Working crudely you’d expect to see the number of job losses increase as a result, but by around 50 or so, rather than another 1,000.
And while plenty of time was given to both Mr Garner and Sir Peter to parrot the line that it was all Veejay Patel and co’s fault, there wasn’t much of an attempt by Ben Jackson to find out exactly what this figure of 2,000 jobs was based on. If he had, the tale may have fallen flat…
The mayor tells me today that he’s not sure where the figure came from, and still expects the total number of posts lost to be “around the 1,000 mark”.
It’s the figure we first published on July 5. Last year.
