'Two Homes' MacShane Must Go! part 2

The Legg letter details for the Rt Hon. Dr Denis Macshane MP are out. He received his letter whist away on a jolly to Canada to sell his book, sorry, to brief Canadian politicians on anti semitism.

He is the only Rotherham MP to be required to make a repayment, Kevin Barron is in the clear and John Healey has had to supply further documentary evidence of his claims.

Denis MacShane has been required to repay £1,300 for excess claims for cleaning, can't these MPs do this for themselves? - the rest of us have to!

MacShane also has a great deal of 'form' for trying to water down or delay all proposed changes to this corrupt system of MPs expenses, always making sure that it is never publicised, unlike everything else he gets up to, which you can be sure, will be done in a blaze of publicity.

It has now become a matter of public comment that MacShane has done little for his constituents, apart from angering many of them that is. This man simply has done nothing of note for his electorate if his recent leaflet is anything to go by, no substance but plenty of nice pictures. His most conspicuous success therefore may just be in spending your money and in self aggrandisement.

Labour Party members, aware of a catastrophic loss of confidence in them, are privately very concerned about the challenge posed to them by the rise in support for Peter Thirlwall and the Rotherham Independents, as indeed are the Tories who stand to lose even more votes than Labour in some areas, as even their current numerical strength on the Council has not led them to become an effective or credible opposition or even effective scrutineers of Council Business.

That is the backdrop against which the recent leaflet distributed to his constituents should be seen, as an attempt to shore up support for MacShane and Labour for the General and Local Elections to come (Who paid for it?). The fact that MacShane could actually lose Rotherham in the current circumstances is beginning to embolden MacShane's principal critics and hope still remains that he will not be Labour's Candidate next year. A week is a long time in politics, so anything is still possible!

Attention now focuses on what MacShane really means by

"All I want is that there is a fair, transparent and acceptable system that allows MP's to have a base in their constituency and in London and which allows MP's to see their children grow up" and speaks of "natural justice"*.

Is this simply a thinly veiled attempt to justify some of his previous actions in advance of more close scrutiny of his arrangements which would appear to show that he has financed both his London 'base' and his constituency 'base' from the public purse, something the regulations specifically prohibit! It is also a bit rich coming from him to refer to 'openness and transparency' when he has spent so much of his time and energy trying to prevent this from happening! Already the epithet 'Two Homes' MacShane is reportedly in circulation.

Only full public disclosure of MacShanes claims can now dispel the many questions now being asked and dispel the rumours about this that are currently circulating throughout Rotherham. They are doing so much damage to Labour's prospects for next years elections. The electoral damage will not be confined to MacShane himself but will have an effect on all of Labour's candidates locally and seats will be lost.

*Natural Justice in this context means, that what ever I did in the past I should be forgiven for it 'because it was within the rules at the time'. This threadbare argument would hold water if it were not for the fact that they were so loose that almost anything was within them and neither were they properly policed, it therefore comes down to a judgement whether they stayed within the spirit of them and whether they were greedy or not. Against these measures it is beginning to look as though MacShane has some serious explaining to do!

Labour Party Dirty Tricks in take over of Community Group!

The grassroots community group, the Meadows Community Partnership based in the area of Meadowbank in West Rotherham, has experienced a takeover by labour activists.

This group came into being under the sponsorship of the Council in 2004. Formed under the Councils Plan for Community Involvement and had the encouragement and support of the local Community Development Officer from the Council and the, then, Independent Councillor Caven Vines. John Prescott the Deputy Prime Minister, who was the Government Minister responsible at the time, was involved and also praised the success of this Partnership.

This group came together under the Chairmanship of Mrs Carol Dobson and has been very successful in involving the local community with two well attended community events and at directing funds for local priorities. Objective One monies to the tune of £200,000 were drawn down and given to Kimberworth Junior & Infants School for a new centre. They were a model non political community group engaging with both the local community and the Council.

They were members of the councils Pathfinder Housing Project and were encouraged to participate and made very welcome.

The involvement of the labour party or its members during this period of success was minimal to non-existent.

As part of the Pathfinder Housing Project they had a representative as a Panel Member. They were asked for their opinion as to the future of housing in their area and after community consultation on the issue of what should be done with a piece of land, Shrewsbury Terrace. The group let the council know that the results of consultation indicated that the people wanted bungalows to be built and Meadows Community Partnership supported this.

Needless to say this was at variance with the desires of the Council and the local Labour Councillors.

Involvement by the Labour Party began in earnest as soon as the money became available to spend, apparently led by Councillor Jahangjir Akhtar and the newly elected, Councillor John Foden, they infiltrated then eventually took over the partnership lock stock and barrel.

Invitations to meetings including that of The Pathfinder Housing Project (that they had previously been invited to) from the council ceased, their attendance was no longer required. No satisfactory explanation has yet been provided. The councillors, it was realised, had changed the rules to exclude them.

When the Annual General meeting of the Meadows Community Partnership convened in October 2007 there were eyebrows raised at the attendance. The local Labour Party had come to install their members on the Steering Group. The Chairman, Mrs Dobson feeling that she could not continue in these circumstances, resigned.

Her replacement? Labour Party Stooge, Kath Sims, Denis MacShanes Parliamentary Secretary and Labour Candidate in Rotherham West in this years May 1^st local elections.

Under this woman's leaden hand the Partnership has virtually ceased to function and to top this, she wants to be elected as this years Labour puppet on the Council!

Mrs Dobson has since said “they have demolished a fabulous and strong community partnership” and Caven Vines described the situation thus “The Partnership was used by Labour as cover to draw down valuable sums of money for the community then effectively shut down”. Another local resident who does not wish to be identified said “the Partnership had given us a strong feeling of community spirit, Kath Sims and her Labour chums have strangled the life out of it”. There is a strong feeling of frustration, despondency and anger in the community at this turn of events that has yet to have its voice.

Why was it necessary for the local Labour Party to abuse their position and take over this group?

This was after all just the active and effective community group that according to the Councils policies4 should be encouraged and supported, not infiltrated and rendered ineffective by those who claim community leadership.

Clearly the contempt that the Labour Party in Rotherham have for those they claim to represent knows no bounds. This example of the misuse of power is a lesson to any group that succeeds in getting getting genuine community involvement outside the control of the Council or Labour Party. If you dare to represent community views, different from the wishes of those in power, you will be neutralised by any means at their disposal.

MacShane PFIM No 2

The current (for how long we wonder?) Rotherham MP Denis MacShane does it again bigstyle.

Being exposed as an islamaphobe cannot be a good career move for him when his constituency has many of Rotherhams Moslems living in it. No small wonder his support has collapsed recently, at the last election thousands of loyal labour voters stayed at home rather than vote for this arrogant, self absorbed boor. He is an accomplished writer and self publicist with the unfortunate ability to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, this is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

In 2003 MacShane delivered a speech in Rotherham in which he said:

"It is time for the elected and community leaders of the British Muslims to make a choice – the British way, based on political dialogue and non-violent protests, or the way of the terrorists, against which the whole democratic world is uniting."

The Guardian article explains.

Angered, local members proposed a motion calling for him to go in the following terms which was was carried at a meeting of the Rotherham constituency Labour Party.

"Denis MacShane is inciting racial and religious hatred, by publicly implying in the press that the Muslim community elected members and leaders are in favour of terrorism and being anti-British.

"We feel these comments are ill-informed, designed to portray us in the media as conspiring against the state. The Nazis in world war two similarly accused the Jews, disputing their patriotism, which was so well executed that it led to what we now know as the Holocaust."

Councillor Jahangir Akhtar said Mr MacShane's claim to have local support for his comments was "absolutely disgraceful","I don't think this is going to blow over. We have been put in the position of having to defend ourselves," he said.

Councillor Mahroof Rashid said: "Feelings in Rotherham are very highly charged indeed."

Aafreen Khan, of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, said Mr MacShane was a "blatant Islamophobe" and should not stay in his post.

His attempts to apologise were rejected by The Muslim News Click Here.

MacShane Puts Foot in Mouth No1

Denis MacShane can get himself into trouble with remarkable ease, this is a pretty good example.

On his constituents:

'the number one issue for my constituents in Rotherham is the loutish, often violent, sometimes feral behaviour of different groups in working-class communities'.

Clearly he must love all of his constituents and fully understands local culture.

This opinion was published on Spiked click the link to read the full article by Mick Hume.

If you have an example of MacShanes foot in mouth behaviour please share it by leaving a comment by clicking on the comment button.