Forum Topic

Local Labour pays to cover up Bell's behaviour

Report on SKWAWKBOX (SW) 30/09/2020Exclusive: Labour pays out thousands to settle action brought personally against right-wing MP and council leader over unpaid bill.   Cannot copy full article for copyright reason.  Read it at: https://skwawkbox.org/2020/09/30/exclusive-labour-pays-out-thousands-to-settle-action-brought-personally-against-right-wing-mp-and-council-leader-over-unpaid-bill/I wonder what the hardworking people who pay to support local Labour think of this.  My opinion: morally disgusting. Questions need to be asked: who authorised the payment? etc..  They won't be answered but at least that will reveal the depth of unaccountable dishonesty that characterises Ealing's Labour Party.

Andrew Farmer ● 1670d10 Comments

Mr Southwell, how can you know what my “understand[ing]” in this matter or any other matter is?  Are you a mind-reader?  How do you know that I think that ANYTHING Bell does “must be wrong”.  I don’t even know everything he gets up to in his public life, let alone his private life (and I don’t listen to the rumours), so how could I hold such an all-embracing opinion?  I can’t. It is a fabrication of yours.  All I will say is: in my dealings with Bell, I formed the opinion he was a public liar. And let’s face it, no one on this forum has a good word for him.  It is all criticism, from “two homes” down to today: ENDANGERING PEOPLE’S LIVES BY FAILING TO CONSULT THE AMBULACE SERVICE in pursuing his LTN scheme.  Mr Southwell, there is nothing profound in this affair to understand or misunderstand.  Just what you describe:  the shabby squabbles of small-time local politicians. There is nothing to choose between them.  Left, right or centre, they are feeble fellow-travellers at heart.  I didn’t see them climbing aboard the Corbin bandwagon, cheering and waving the red flag.  No.  Most tagged along in the hope that, if he succeeded, it would bring Labour to power. How different from our Rupa, ever, in my opinion, motivated by self-interest.  She supported Corbin, then, when she realised her constituency was remainer, flipped faster than a weathervane in a hurricane.As to the councillors, even the hard-lefties are softies.  Take South Acton’s resident embarrassment, Sabiers.  Ambitious?  Perhaps.  Before lockdown, he was sniffing along the streets at the backside of Rupa Huq. Is he hoping to be called to higher office with her backing?  I regard him as a poseur and a joke, an aging (fifty plus) student activist.  And no need to invest in an ice pick to rid us of this tame Trotskyite.  A toothpick would do.  Champion of the working class?  Well, at least he can take a detached view of it, never having, for as long as I have known him, ever belonged to it.

Andrew Farmer ● 1664d

This seems to represent a fairly profound misunderstand of what happened here based on your view that anything that Julian Bell does must be wrong. As Andy points out, even his enemies in the party are not claiming Bell or Sharma derived any personal benefit from this event. There is no suggestion of fraud just that proper procedures weren't followed. This smacks more of the entryism that the Labour Party has been prone to in which far left activists key official posts to control the day to day operations of the party and use the rule book as a weapon. It was this sort of thing which allowed Jas Athwal to be effectively excluded from becoming MP for Ilford with a Corbyn crony taking his place. My recollection was that at one point the Southall Labour Party had the biggest membership of any in the country but it now seems to be under the control of a group of people who are at odds with the leadership at a local and national level. The recent no confidence vote seems to have been based on an unstable alliance of far left councillors and centrists in wards that have had LTNs inflicted on them and who now fear for their chances of re-election.

Gordon Southwell ● 1666d

In any other constituency in the country it would be taken as read that the MP would have the authority to arrange a party event and the constituency party would pay for it. The quibble here is that the proper procedure wasn't followed but that does raise the question were any objections raised in advance of the event and on what grounds.What appears to have happened is that a group hostile to Virendra Sharma has got control of the local CLP bank account and are restricting his access to it. Presumably this is the same group that put forward no confidence votes and triggered a reselection ballot.The victim in this is the business that hosted the event which went unpaid for nearly three years for which they will have incurred cost for putting on.You could argue that given the income that both Cllr Bell and Virendra Sharma received they could have paid this out of their on pocket but it is likely the legal advice they were given would have been not to do this as it could be construed as an admission of guilt.There is something clearly rotten at the heart of the Southall Labour Party. It may be that the opposition to Sharma and Bell is well founded but that is hard to say because they don't seem to be articulating their issues with the pair but are choosing to wage guerilla war against them through the rule book.It seems to me that those who are determined to always believe the worst of Julian Bell are becoming blinkered to the much more important and interesting aspects of this case.

Andy Jones ● 1668d

This episode tells us all we need to know about Bell’s free-and-easy attitude to funds over which he has control:  he can do what he likes with them and the Party will pay to protect him.  That tells us all we need to know about the morality of the Labour Party:  happy to cover the cost of cover-up. One can only imagine how working-class people in the North feel about having their party “subs” used to protect the reputation of a rich man down in Ealing with two homes, one scandalously rented from a housing charity.  I wonder if the national party has let them know what it is doing with their money.  This might be regarded as a private matter for the local and national Labour Parties.  No.  The behaviour of Bell is the business of every resident of Ealing.  He is leader of the council and he is accountable to us for his behaviour in every matter in which he involves himself and organisation to which he belongs because it is a question of HONESTY.  Bell needs to answer questions put by us, ones he dodged by not answering them in court.  After all, can a man who passed a dud cheque be trusted with our council-tax. Not mine. 

Andrew Farmer ● 1668d

VOTE THEM OUT

Colin Goodman ● 1669d

I thought it was just Sharma they wanted out. Forget exactly why, he just wasn't very active or something

Kala Mitty Jayne ● 1670d

Not sure anyone fits that description in Ealing Labour.The mischief is in the detail of what happened. Unauthorised expenditure, pre-signed cheques, unilateral decision making. It’s what happens when nobody ever tells you that you are wrong.

Simon Hayes ● 1670d

Yeah, I'd wager there's a LOT of stuff we should know and be told about. 😲Hopefully it's the beginning of the end for both of them, that "No Confidence" vote on Bell was just SO damn close.  😒Very aware that he would have probably only been replaced with a clone, but the clone might have a brain, eyes & ears that work?  😂

Rosco White ● 1670d

Seems like Bell and Sharma were kippered into potential paying a big bill by their enemies within the party. As even they aren't suggesting that the event was for their own benefit, this isn't a case of dishonesty just not following proper procedure. It all seems a bit petty and spiteful but probably is indicative of some very deep fissures within the party. The national party didn't really have much choice other than to pay the bill as to not do so would have brought so much more about what is really going in in the party locally into the public domain.

Mark Evans ● 1670d

Correction.  It appears it was the national Labour Party.  What were they afraid would come out if the case had been heard? Something serious for the national party to get involved.

Andrew Farmer ● 1670d