After a hectic few days Mr Monkey is back in the swing of things.
Next Tuesday the people of South Tyneside will know the names of all the councillors that have either been bought off with paid positions and whose silence and obedience has been guaranteed for another year.
Last year the then newly crowned council leader, Iain Malcolm broke with tradition and made a few more enemies within his own ranks by giving paid positions to a handful of opposition councillors all of whom gladly took anything that was on offer as long as it was paid.
Councillor Iain Malcolm’s motives were two fold – to prevent the opposition from uniting and to exert his dominance over the Jarrow Labour party by rubbing their faces in it- apparently he’s always promised his inner circle that when he grabs power he would put an end to the Jarrow Labour party and shut Jarrow town hall.
Mr Monkey reckons Saturday’s Labour group meeting will be a lively affair as many loyal party members are angry that they have either not been offered a paid position or that they have not been given what they want. This chimp has heard that resentment is growing and that if councillor Malcolm gives any paid positions to opposition councillors this will be seen as a slap in the face by some and will re-open many of the old wounds.
Followers of the local political scene will have noticed that Iain Malcolm’s leadership style has revived the old A and B team split between Jarrow and South Shields and that the infighting began within days of him taking the leadership last May.
The most recent example of this split is the sudden and dramatic departure of senior councillor and cabinet member Tom Hanson who resigned from his lucarative position in the cabinet less than 2 weeks before the new cabinet was announced. CLICK HERE.
'Saturday's gathering of the pigs round Iain Malcolm's trough promises to be a lively affair'
It seems that once the news leaked out, councillor Malcolm was furious and has ordered an investigation into how this sensitive information got into the public domain. He’s also tried to silence councillor Hanson by threatening to remove him from the Integrated Transport Authority which is a well paid postion and gives him free travel.
Councillor Hanson now refuses to comment on the matter publicly but privately he’s telling everyone that he’s been treated very badly and has been “shit on”. He’s also telling peopel that if councillor Malcolm insists on trying to break up the Jarrow Labour party he will reveal what he knows about councillor Malcolm, his leadership style and what the real agenda in the town hall is.
Mr Monkey can’t wait for Saturday and is looking forward to witnessing Iain Malcolm’s pigletts fighting over who gets what from his trough and it will be interesting to see how many people levae the meeting with a bloody nose.
exclusive: an investigation into election fraud and ballot rigging in South Tyneside
'Council leader Iain Malcolm and the South Shields Labour party are under investigation for election fraud'
About 2 months ago Mr Monkey received some disturbing information about a culture of election fraud within the local Labour party.
At first Mr Monkey thought that the allegations were being made by a disgruntled political opponent of the ruling Labour group but decided to take investigate the them further, especially as they concerned the leader of the council Iain Malcolm who several months earlier had been implicated in the scandal surrounding a payout of around £8 million pounds to two former employees of Newcastle Airport when he was the chair of the remuneration committee.
Mr Monkey’s investigation has taken over month to complete. He has interviewed many witnesses including some of those either knowingly involved or unwittingly conned in to doing someone else’s dirty work. Mr Monkey’s investigation left no stone unturned and took him to Newcastle, London, Hull and he spoke to people in Brussels, Strasbourg and Spain.
Within days of investigating the allegations Mr Monkey realised that they were coming from a source that witnessed the events and that the motivation for exposing the culture of election fraud within the local Labour Party had nothing to with politics but everything to do with a exposing the truth about the shocking way Labour has lied, cheated and fraudulently held on to power in South Tyneside.
For years Mr Monkey has heard rumours about election fraud, ballot rigging, fraudulent selection meetings and the manipulation of party membership lists by a group of individuals desperate to hang on to power at all costs.
Mr Monkey can now reveal that the culture of election fraud is much wider than he first thought and was orchestrated at the very top by council leader Iain Malcolm but it didn’t stop there.
Others implicated include; Ed Malcolm, Michael Clare, Rob Dix, Ann Walsh, John Anglin, John Wood, Ed McAtominey, Nancy Maxwell, Mark Walsh and Neil Maxwell – and Mr Monkey suspects that this is just the tip of the iceberg.
The findings of Mr Monkey’s investigation are too long to be included in a single post so he will be posting on this subject over the next week or so – make sure you don’t miss out by visiting Mr Monkey’s Blog frequently.
Part one of Mr Monkey’s investigation will be posted here later this morning.