PRE CHRISTMAS CRACKERS

My apologies for the short delay in normal service, (lack of blogs) but a family bereavement and high work load temporarily threw me off course.

So to play catch up and give regular readers an insight into all things politically malignant I thought I would treat you to some short inputs and comments.

THE COMMISSIONING COMMISSIONER

Adam Simmonds as Northamptonshire's newly elected Police and Crime Commissioner has certainly not wasted any time in making himself and the Tory Party even less relevant and popular by announcing his appointment of up to 16 staff to help him in his newly elected role!

These include Assistant Commissioners dealing with a whole host of specialist areas, including advisers on Youth, Neighbourhoods and even faith.

But what is extraordinary about his employment rest is that most of the applicants are not applicants at all! They are just self appointed Tory party members. All it seems very eager to join the new Conservative Party managed gravy train. His election agent and the Tories current Political assistant at County Hall are just two among many new "crime" experts who will now be paid from the public purse.

He has though now, after much pressure, announced that some of these 16 posts will only be filled after a proper interview process has taken place. Late but laudable you may think?, until that is you see that he has already announced who will fill the posts before the interviews have even taken place!

Of course whilst making it clear he is quite prepared to spend way beyond the previous £800,000 revenue expenditure for the decommissioned Police Authority to make sure he gets the right staff, he is at the same time telling Police Officers and Staff that he cannot protect their jobs in the forthcoming budget round.

This man is doing more single handily to undermine and destroy the Conservative Party's future local and general election chances than all of the opposition parties in Northamptonshire could muster as a collective effort. (although Binners is a good second option at the moment)

Long may he continue in post!

LABOUR PAINS

Whenever I mention the ongoing troubles within the local Labour Party I get the same tired old complaints from over zealous members accusing me of not moving on or blaming the regional Labour Party for all of the Party's ills.

So let me make it very clear, I care little for what happens in the Labour Party's regional office or about who is currently responsible for their steady supply of political own goals, but I do find it astonishing to hear that the Local Party is once again to be suspended.

This means that since my expulsion way back in May 2007 that the local party has been suspended for longer than even my own personal expulsion lasted! I work out that of the 5 years and 7 months since that date, that the party has been under suspension for a total of 5 years and  2 months? But I stand to be corrected.

The latest suspension I am told is because there were so many complaints and counter complaints flying around related to individual Cllrs on the Labour Group of the Borough Council that the region thought it best to just once again pull the plug. In fact from just the small snippets I hear I doubt if there is a member of the Labour group left who currently is not complaining against a fellow comrade or who hasn't had a complaint lodged against them! So much for Fraternity!

Funny though really how the region always ensure that the party is suspended and never up and running when selections for election candidates are on the horizon, so once more their County Council candidates will need to be "appointed" by region rather than selected by local members. Now given that the last two panels of candidates for the County and Borough elections have been hand picked by region who should they blame for the infighting currently ensuing?

Meanwhile some even more disturbing news reaches me about serious criminal investigations in respect of one of their other elected members in Northampton, But in order to allow justice to be done I will of course refrain from revealing all or any of the details, but those inside the party may feel a little aggrieved that they didn't heed the warnings some including myself were giving them at least a year back!

PAYBACK TIME

Whilst focusing on the local  Labour Party's current (constant?) woes I must share with you the misgivings many party members are now expressing over the Party's choice for candidate at the next general election in Northampton North.

Now of course myself and Sally Keeble never really got on when we were both in the house , we were chalk and cheese, and I could never get away from the feeling that she felt my election in Northampton South was a distraction to her, she certainly seemed happier after I had gone and seemed to prefer having a Tory next door to shout at rather than a nuisance neighbour.

Another area where we were both miles apart was in respect of Sir Thomas Legg's enquiry into the MP's expenses scandal. I was pleased to receive early on in the enquiry a letter from Sir Thomas  saying

 "having examined the records in the light of my interpretation of the rules and standards in force at the time, I have not identified any payments made to you under the ACA during the review period which I consider call for any repayment or further supporting evidence to be provided by you. Accordingly, my conclusion is that no further action is required from you in this matter"

Not surprising really, as my office staff at the time will confirm that I wouldn't even claim insanity despite having more than enough evidence to boot!

Sally on the other hand you may recall got her self into a spot of difficulty by claiming for a whole host of "improvements" to her second home in Northampton including  according to the Daily Telegraphs expose:

"£5,000.00 worth of repairs to the kitchen of her constituency home in 2005, along with £2,403.00 on new appliances and work surfaces. She later claimed £950.00 for the “essential” replacement of her shower, toilet and washbasin, £3,072.00 for a new boiler and £7,669.00 for new windows., not to mention all those tree works in the garden!"

So concerned was she at the time that her largess may influence the way people voted that she along with many other "embarrassed" MP's made voluntary payments back to Parliament to prevent further criticism of the claims. The payments were made at the height of the furore over MPs’ expenses, as the public vented its anger about the widespread abuse of the system.

However, it has emerged that since then, nearly two dozen current and former MPs had quietly asked for the "repaid" money to be returned to them , after receiving lower than expected demands from the House of Commons authorities to repay any over claimed expenses.

And so it was that our Sally in 2010 after no longer being an MP and perhaps feeling less guilty about all those items she felt she had wrongly claimed for and therefore wanted to pay back,  joined 26 other MP's and former MP's in asking for a refund of their refund!

The Commons authorities therefore quietly and secretly sent her a cheque back for £3,737.74

But now she is standing for election again! So can she tell us, was she in her own eyes right in claiming the money for all of the above on her expenses in the first place? If so, then was she then wrong when she said after the scandal broke that she felt she had duty to pay some of the money back to Parliament?
And if she was right in paying "some" but not all of her claimed expenses back to Parliament in 2009 then why has she then secretly claimed it back since when she is no longer an MP?