South Tyneside Independents» Expenses

Oink! Oink! Oink!

Oct 28th, 2009 | By admin | Category: Expenses

Shortly after the Westoe ward by-election the Shields Gazette reported on a postcard which was allegedly distributed in the Westoe ward during the by-election campaign.

The Labour Party have now repeated the allegations in a newsletter and stated that the Police were investigating its distribution. Let’s consider the allegations in a bit more depth.

The Labour Party state:

The Police are investigating a dirty tricks campaign – they are not!
When questioned on this a Police spokesperson said they had better things to do with their time!
Over 3,000 postcards were sent out on the eve of the election – to whom? The Independent Alliance campaign team knocked on the doors of approximately 1780 households on the eve and the day of the election and 2 people mentioned the postcard. One person handed a card over to the Independent Alliance canvasser. Since then not a single person has come forward with another card.
Someone had a lot of money to try to influence this by-election – not if only a handful of cards were actually sent out!
False and slanderous statements were attributed to senior Borough politicians

Well let’s look at the facts [from the one card we were given] in more detail. On the card is the following:

Cllr Iain Malcolm [as a pig] ‘Last year I pocketed £32,435 but had to pay 40% tax on it as my earnings were so high.’ Which bit of that is untrue?
Cllr David Potts [as a pig] ‘I did good last year, I got £16,670 for attending just 12 meetings.’ Which bit of that is untrue?
Cllr Jeff Milburn [as a pig] ‘I got £3,260 for hotels and travel and they gave me £11,421 spending money too.’ Which bit of that is untrue?
David Miliband MP [as a pig] ‘I pocketed £134,993 and that didn’t include the bairn’s pram or nappies.’ Which bit of that is untrue?

The Independent Alliance strongly suspects that this postcard was sent to a handful of people in an attempt to make it look like a dirty trick.

What it actually was, was another attempt to smear the Independent Alliance, the implication being that somehow the Alliance was behind this non event. The Labour Party will stop at nothing to abuse the Alliance as it is the only team in the borough who actively opposes the Labour group on the Council.

Now if we really want to consider how much the pigs at the trough get week after week, look out for the next edition of the Independent Alliance Newsletter. Then there really will be a detailed account of what this all means!