NEWS UPDATE December 1, 2010

Several readers have enquired as to why we’ve failed to publish an article about the arrest of former Bolton councillor Sean Hornby in connection with allegations of fraud. The answer is, of course, that we don’t want to risk prejudicing any trial which might follow. We’re sure that you share our appetite for a just outcome to this affair!

Stuart Lever, the councillor for Astley Bridge who was so lazy that he managed to get thrown out by John Walsh’s Conservative group, has apparently decided to run again in May 2011 as an Independent. No news yet as to who the official Conservative candidate will be but we wish Lever every success in his attempt to destroy the local Tory vote.

Also running again in Astley Bridge are our own favoured candidate, the Independent Neville Mercer, and the Labour Party’s Asif Ibrahim. Mr Ibrahim demonstrated the kind of campaign he intends to run at an early stage this year by issuing a leaflet taking credit for routine road repairs on Oldhams Estate.  Next month he will make the sun shine. He is of course a local authority solicitor (see Alan Eastwood!).

COUNCILLOR MORRIS, YOU ARE A PUBLIC DISGRACE October 21, 2010

Under pressure from this website and its vociferous readership, Bolton Council Leader Cliff “He’d always dreamt of being a Horse” Morris was finally forced to make a public statement regarding our proposal that councillors and their executives should take pay-cuts before asking anyone else to make their own sacrifices.

Unfortunately his response was to say that he wouldn’t even consider asking the councillors and their hired hands to take pay-cuts in the current economic climate. Bin-men (who are set to lose between £40 and £80 per week from their own pay) may like to note this response and address their complaints to Morris at 2 Armadale Road on Ladybridge.

No sooner had the ridiculous, greedy, and bovine Councillor Morris made this statement than we discovered his image on our TV screens, starring in a piece on council budget cuts on BBC North-West Tonight. The report itself was a travesty of journalism and asked randomly selected Bolton residents to cut up pieces of cardboard to show where they would make the reductions in council spending.

Even more annoying was their reporter’s introduction of Cliff Morris as someone who had devoted more than 20 years of his life to public service, making him sound like Bolton’s answer to Mother Teresa. No mention of his current salary of more than £800 a week for his “public service” or of the fact that during his career as a councillor he has received almost half a million pounds from Bolton council tax payers.

We tend to think that Vlad the Impaler or Bernard Madoff might have been tempted to be Leader of Bolton Council in exchange for such generous payments, especially if they’d had a nice little earner like Smithills Coaching House for most of those 20 years and the council money was just extra cash for their arse pockets.

Incidentally, we’ve still not found anybody who can tell us if Morris is still a part owner of the Coaching House. Will somebody please grass him up to us at the usual (completely confidential) email address? Your anonymity is assured – let’s face it, if the council could violate our system they’d have closed us down long ago!