Monthly Archives: July 2008

Tory u-turns and in less than a week – classic

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Ah, the joys of living in Walsall. OK, Walsall’s always had a reputation for being a bit of a rotten borough and even at times when the other workings of our political system sometimes seem lifeless, there’s always the prospect that Walsall will come riding to the rescue and liven things up a bit.

So without further ado, I present you two rather curious pieces of reporting courteous of the last remaining bastion of impartial news reporting, our veritable own region’s favourite newspaper, the Express & Star.

First article here and second here.

At the risk of being accused of having some personal vendetta against Cllr. Rachel Walker as this is now the third time I’ve dared to criticise her/department I think it’s just fair to say I simply don’t like muppets with a propensity for cocking things up.

Here’s the scenario then. The other week local Government workers undertook a nationwide bit of industrial action over pay. Nothing wrong with that but it seems unlike every other local authority in, well the country I think, Walsall seems to have cocked this one up royally.

Unlike the others who seem to have sorted out any bins not collected on the days in question Walsall has ever so wisely decided in true huggy cuddly New Tory fashion to turn this into a nice bit of union bashing.

So up pops Cllr. Rachel Walker with the “we’re not going to pay those oikish filthy trades unionist scum extra money to collect the rubbish mounting in the streets that wasn’t collected while they we’re being filthy lazy sods and just so you hideous little proles out there know, we’re not going to let them pick up any extra bags the following week either so don’t even think about getting the service you’ve already paid for through your council tax either, what do you think this is a public service or something?”

OK, not the exact words but you get the gist of it.

Then, oh hang on, people ain’t happy about this. Bugger bugger the proles are complaining and it’s getting into the meeja, better call in the Walsall Council Communications Unit to sort this one out.

So now we have a new litter ‘hit squad’ with the obligatory “we’re still not going to let those oiksome trades unionist types get any extra money for striking because they’re scum I tell you, scum.”

Except, hang on a moment here. According to Cllr. Walker herself, these ‘Hit Squads’ (sorry have this really perverse image of blokes dressed all in black with balaclava’s on roaming the streets of Walsall SAS style) are made up of “extra teams of binmen”. So here’s a question.

These ain’t binmen on their normal rounds picking up a bit of extra rubbish on top of the normal. They’re dedicated teams that have required additional organisation and presuming that Walsall council doesn’t have an army of binmen sitting around doing nothing to be called in to sort stuff like this out then where did they come from because presumably all the other binmen would be working on their normal rounds.

They’re not by any chance binmen doing a bit of overtime perhaps?

I wonder how much all this extra organisation and staffing is costing the council to sort out a cock-up that could so easily have been managed within normal services at no cost whatsoever.

Incidentally, kudos to the local Tories for managing to get the timing spot on. Let rubbish mount in the streets during the hottest week to date this year, you couldn’t make up this level of incompetence.

Strangely the comments section on the two articles on the E&S’s website are closed. Heaven forbid people might be critical of a Tory council eh? Got to be trailblazers for freedom of speech you know.

Credit where credit’s due

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I don’t much go in for nationalist based political parties even if they do have a broadly left of centre agenda but in all fairness it’s heartily encouraging to see the SNP getting something right.

Not like I’ve been banging on about the importance of bottle recycling for ages like but a bit sad to see that it’s the SNP that are the first to promote it’s introduction while south of the border we still seem to be obsessed with sticking microchips in everything and building dopey databases.

EXCLUSIVE – Brown to face challenge from Walsall MP

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I’ve just had it confirmed that Gordon Brown is to face a leadership challenge from my own neck of the woods.

Apparently the steps are already in motion. I missed the meeting last night but it was decided that our current MP David Winnick intends to step down during summer allowing a by-election to take place.

The meeting agreed that current Labour Group Leader in Walsall Cllr. Tim Oliver will stand to replace him and then will mount a challenge to Gordon Brown’s leadership.

Speaking, Cllr. Oliver said, “I’ve already secured enough support from members of th PLP to mount a challenge and I don’t think we’ll have any problem in winning a by-election in Walsall North.”

Should be reported on Sky News shortly.

*PS, for the hard of reading, this is satire. ;-)

Uk Border Agency’s illegal worker

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I might be missing something here and please don’t let it get in the way of any Tories popping up with the usual ‘shows the rank incompetence of the government’ line but there seems to be a glaring point that’s being missed and indeed with other cases of illegal immigrants working for various Governmental departments.

That of them cropping up as having worked for a contractor (cleaning agencies being popular). This isn’t as much as the Tories would like to portray it a failure of Government or even individual departments but is symptomatic of the failure of the private sector and the curiously fetishistic obsession we have in the UK of outsourcing our public services to private contractors who are obviously bloody useless at doing the proper checks.

One hopes that somewhere along the line someone thought to insert a bit in the contractual agreement that if said contractor screws up big time or employs someone who isn’t even supposed to be in the country then it’s tough chum, end of contract see you later, or not as the case may be. I think I’m probably hoping a bit too much there.

Rainwater diverters redux

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Following on from the follow-up post to my original post on rainwater diverters and honest, the site hasn’t turned into some kind of pseudo green DIY forum I’d just for information’s sake like to put up the results of my inquiry to Marley.

Marley unfortunately at this time don’t sell anything in the UK comparable to the DN75 that they sell in Germany and this of course doesn’t fit to British Standard UK downpipes. (Mine was a funny size that it actually fitted quite well)

However they point me in the direction of another company called 3P Technik UK Ltd based in Cardigan, Wales, who appear to ironically be a German company that makes diverters that seem to fit UK downpipes.

They have two diverter type models as far as I can see. The ‘Rain Collector’ model and the ‘Filter Collector’ model.

The sizes aren’t clear on the Rain Collector but the Filter Collector does specify the size of a normal UK downpipe and I may look into this further for my own uses.

So there you go, hopefully that helps a few people although I’d certainly drop them a line beforehand to check out any specifications that anyone might require. That’s my bit of public information for today.