Has Mr Monkey sailed off into the sunset?

'Mr Monkey sails off into the sunset but'

From midnight tonight Mr Monkey will no longer be posting any new material on his blog.

The decision to call it day was a difficult one because Mr Monkey knows that he has built up a large following in record time. He’s caused mayhem in the corridors of power and he’s enjoyed every minute of his blogging experience. 

This chimp is especially happy to know that every senior council officer, councillor and the editor of the Shields Gazette are scared shit less at the thought of being featured on Mr Monkey’s Blog. But the icing on the cake was knowing that Mr Monkey put an end to the Westminster ambitions of councillors David Potts and Ed Malcolm and exposed council leader Iain Malcolm as an election fraudster.

Although no new material will be posted on this blog, Mr Monkey has decided to leave the site as it is so that bloggers can trawl through the archives to learn more about Mr Monkey’s crusade to expose the corruption, scheming and cheating that has become so entrenched in local politics.

He will be making a further announcement on September 1st .

highlights: council leader Iain Malcolm rigs ballot to cheat tory Pat Piggott out of victory

Election fraudster - council leader Iain Malcolm

Mr Monkey would like to take readers back to April 2000.

Councillor Iain Malcolm was up for re-election and it was widely believed that he faced a tough fight against Patricia Piggott, a strong Conservative candidate.  

 

Many people including Iain Malcolm believed that he would lose his seat to the Conservative so he decided to take matters into his own hands and rig the ballot to ensure he won and there was no better way to do this than by manipulating the postal vote – Labour’s recently introduced new election fixing tool. 

Councillor Iain Malcolm ensured that every elderly person in his ward was registered to vote and encouraged them to vote by post. He assured them that there was nothing complicated about the process especially as he and his associates would be on hand to fill the ballot papers in for them and even offered to post them on their behalf.

Councillor Iain Malcolm particularly targeted care homes, sheltered accommodation and OAP bungalows. As a sitting councillor no council employee was going to deny him access so he was free to come and go as he pleased.

 

As the election was nearing its climax, councillor Iain Malcolm was increasingly worried about the reaction on the doorstep and decided that it was time for drastic intervention otherwise he would lose his seat.

 

Around the same time the sitting MP for South Shields, Dr David Clarke was planning to retire at the next general election which was due to be held within the next year or so.

 

The only problem was that councillor Iain Malcolm had been selected to sit on the Parliamentary panel and was likely to be selected to replace Dr Clarke as Labour’s parliamentary candidate at the forthcoming election – something Dr Clarke was desperate to avoid, he even raised the matter with the then Prime Minister Tony Blair.

 

Dr Clarke despised everything Iain Malcolm stood for, he didn’t trust him and questioned his integrity. It wasn’t long before Dr Clarke was proved right.

 

Prior to polling day councillor Iain Malcolm instructed all Labour party members in Horsley Hill to go around people’s homes collecting any postal voting envelopes that hadn’t been posted on the pretext of “we’ll post them for you”. But instead of posting them he asked his supporters to hand them over to him.

 

A crucial part of Iain Malcolm’ strategy was to ensure that the postal votes from care homes, sheltered accommodations and OAP bungalows were collected in person. He entrusted this task to an unsuspecting Labour party member called Tom Taylor. He told him to take all the envelopes to his house and that he would come and collect them later.

 

After he had collected them he called Iain Malcolm to tell him that he had finished his task and that they were at his house awaiting collection. Shortly after Iain Malcolm arrived.

 

Tom’s wife Mary, asked Iain Malcolm to step inside the house and when he saw that Tom was as good as his word and had collected a large number of envelopes he sat down and started to sort through them. Then to the total and utter dismay of these life long Labour supporters he started to open the envelopes in their front room and removed the ballot papers. Any votes for Labour were returned to the envelope and resealed for posting and any votes for Pat Piggott, the Conservative candidate were destroyed.

 

In the early hours of May 5^th the election result was announced and as people had predicated it was a close run thing. Iain Malcolm was declared the winner with 785 votes with Pat Piggott polling 709 votes, a difference of just 76 votes.

 

Iain Malcolm celebrated his victory by announcing to a handful of associates that he had cheated Pat Piggott out of victory by destroying her votes and said that he’d done what he’d needed to do to ensure that no Tory took his seat.

 

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT? Part 2 of this disgraceful act of betrayal will follow shortly.

 

UPDATE: Saturday 28th March at 10.35am

Yesterday was a record breaking day for Mr Monkey’s Blog with 4,163 hits being recorded. Bloggers also helped set an all time record for the highest number of hits on a single post.

 

UPDATE DATE: Friday 27th March at 20.55pm
Apparently Mr Monkey’s blog was mentioned at yesterday’s meeting of the full council and by all accounts it caused quite a stir. Some councillors appeared to want a hole to open up and swallow them. Others managed to raise a wry smile but sadly one or two just sat there with a blank expression on their face.

highlights: council leader threatens a member of the public with his solicitor for daring to complain

BREAKING NEWS …

Mr Monkey has been told  by a source close to council leader Iain Malcolm that he’s desperately hoping that the controversy surrounding his election victory in 2000 will go away, especially as he still reckons there’s time to find a suitable Parliamentary seat in the forthcoming general election with so many MPs announcing their sudden retirement.

Bloggers will recall that Mr Monkey revealed that councillor Malcolm personally ordered his supporters to collect postal votes before opening them and destroying the ones for the Tory candidate, Pat Piggott. CLICK HERE, HERE and HERE.

It now seems that a member of the public was disgusted by councillor Malcolm’s antics, he had the audacity to write to his MP to complain about his ballot rigging antics. The MP forwarded the correspondence to Iain Malcolm who responded to the MP’s enquiry by saying that his solicitor would be getting in touch with the person who made the complaint.

Apparently this is a usual Malcolm response when things get too hot to handle.

Mr Monkey is looking into this matter and hopes to get his hands on the correspondence which he will of course publish on his blog. This chimp can’t wait to see whether the council leaders has abused his position once again by sending his correspondence on council letterhead.

highlights: Something for Potts To Think About

Apparently there’s a bit of confusion today over what exactly David Potts got up to at university.

Mr Monkey is busy researching this on behalf of the people of South Tyneside and Edinburgh who deserve to know what a lying little shit Tory Boy Potts is turning out to be.

Well Pudgy I know you visit this site at least 10 times a day so perhaps you’d like to tell us what a tripos is? You should know because according to records that have now come into my possession from around the time you were first elected, you claimed that you were doing one!

Now if I was a betting man I would run into Ladbrookes and put a bet on you never making MP!

Highlights: I Park Where I Want .. I’m Rob Dicks!

"I park where I want because I'm a councillor."

Last week Labour Councillor Rob Dix got away with an alleged incident involving racially aggreveated assault on an employee of the council’s own parking enforcement company Apoca who had the nerve to issue Councillor Dix with a parking ticket, click here.

The councillor was arrested, bailed, bailed again and then after things calmed down and the spotlight shifted to fellow Labour Councillor Eddie MacAtomoney click here no charges were  brought!

Strange then how parking company bosses were summoned to a meeting with the Ed Malcolm & co and were left in no doubt that their contract may not be renewed. 

Around the same time bloggers will recall Labour Councillors attacking their own enforcement company via the Shields Gazette click here, yes the same company that only months before they approved as their enforcers!

Mr Monkey has learned that Apoca bosses then interviewed the traffic warden concerned and tried to apply pressure to have him withdraw the accusations. He refused.

Since then the person in question has been ostracised by some of his bosses and his life has been made pretty uncomfortable. Mr Monkey wonders whether this is a concerted attempt, because of external pressure, to get rid of him.

The traffic warden has also faced hostility and abuse from certain quarters and been intimidated by a number of ‘heavies’ who he claims racially abused him.

When he subsequently called the police the ‘heavies’ stuck to what appeared to be a pre-determined story to discredit the individual and claimed he was lying. The traffic warden was then bizarrely arrested for wasting police time and is currently suspended.

All this before Councillor Rob Dix had to answer bail (for the second time)!

Coincidence, or a deliberate attempt to discredit the individual .. well you make up your mind.

Mr Monkey will be watching with interest who the Labour’s candidates are in in 2010 and reckons that we may well see someone with a police an interesting background. It’s not that long since the Mayor’s chauffeur was rewarded rose to the dizzy heights of Mayor for helping a certain Iain Malcolm recover from a kick up the arse!

highlights: Vodka Lil Worried Sick

Seems Vodka Lil, Councillor Eileen Leask has something else other than being deselected to worry about today.

Apparently she is very worried about the impact of the new ‘drop in’ health centre planned for Cleadon Park on South Tyneside District Hospital, especially the A & E department, click here.

Mr Monkey reckons that the Gazette reporter, Paul Myles-Kelly should pay a bit more attention to spelling. If he had, he would have realised the Vodka Lil meant she was worried about the AA department!

Lets face it, Eileen Leask wouldn’t want everyone to know what a struggle it is to give up the vodka would she?

highlights: public money used in an attempt to silence mr monkey

'Did the council leader use the public's piggy bank to silence his critics?'

Mr Monkey’s has been reminiscing about the past year and has decided to re-post some of the year’s highlights for bloggers to enjoy and what better place to start than here?

Mr Monkey can reveal – thanks to a tip off – that South Tyneside Council has spent thousands of pounds of public money on legal advice in an attempt to shut down Mr Monkey’s Blog.

monkey clip

This Monkey Clip is dedicated to councillor Potts and his latest lackey, Lalon Amin.

Given the Tory Boy’s sudden interest in Bengali weddings, Mr Monkey reckons councillor Potts will find this Monkey Clip very useful, especially when it comes to practising his new wedding dance routine.

councillor’s mental health problems put to good use

'Councillor Potts uses his own mental health experiences to help himself'

Cleadon and East Boldon councillor David Potts who has a history of mental illness is hoping he can use his own experiences to change people’s perception of mental illness.

Councillor Potts, who is till trying to get his life in order after being detained under section 4 of the Mental Health Act following his deselection as the prospective Conservative Parliamentary candidate in the Labour held Edinburgh South constituency at the next General Election, is now backing a national campaign to get a section of the Mental Health Act, which states an MP can never sit in Parliament if they suffer a nervous breakdown while in office, changed.

Under Section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983, an MP automatically loses their seat if detained under the Act for a period of 6 months or more.

He said: “how can this be fair? Basically what this says to people is, if like me, you’ve suffered from a mental health problem, your opinions will never be valid again”.

He went on to say, “this means that people who have the most experience of the system cannot change the system.

“When I was about 14 I started getting very depressed and became paranoid and I’ve had to cope with these feelings ever since. Things became extremely difficult for my family after I tried to kill myself and as you can imagine, I wasn’t a very pleasant person to be around”

“Eventually, my mam took me to the local hospital to see one of the doctors there and he said he wanted me to go into hospital. They basically said to me I could either go voluntarily, or I could be sectioned for up to six months.”

Councillor Potts, who is a self employed financial trader and lives in West Boldon, spent the next few months in hospital, is backing a national campaign by mental health charity Rethink, to raise awareness of mental health issues with MPs. 

He said: “I am taking a big risk being so open about my mental health problems and there are things people can and I am sure will, say, it could also be the end of my politial ambitions, but if you go through something like this, you should be allowed to have your say.

“It’s essential that people who have experienced the system should be allowed to shape it”.

councillor sectioned following sacking

'Councillor Potts cannot cope with his demons'

A year ago councillor David Potts was a rising star in the Conservative party after being selected as the Conservative Parliamentary candidate to stand against the Chancellor, Alistair Darling at the next general election.

Many Scottish Conservatives reckoned that he was destined for great things and even councillor David Potts believed that he would – at the very least become a  minister in the new Conservative administration – that was until Mr Monkey revealed his antics here in South Tyneside to the world.

Within months of exposing the ‘real David Potts’ any ambitions he had to make it to Westminster were over. The Scottish Conservatives took the unusual step of effectively sacking him by removing him as their candidate and replacing him with Edinburgh councillor, Jason Rust who ironically had been pictured with David Potts on a number of occasions.

Councillor Potts found it difficult to come to terms with this rejection and his life quickly spiralled downwards.

Publicly he tried to convince the world that he had ‘resigned’ because of his father’s ill health and when it was pointed out to him by people who knew his father that this wasn’ttrue, he changed his story and claimed that the real reason he resigned was so that he could return to South Tyneside to fight the far right threat posed by the BNP.

He attended one meeting hosted by the leader of South Tyneside Council and to date no further meetings have been held.

Those close to councillor Potts feared for his safety and mental wellbeing as his behaviour became more erratic. They noticed that his drink problem had became more profound, he started to talk to imaginary beings and became increasing paranoid – he thought he was being followed by monkeys and started to see chimps everywhere.

This paranoia was coupled with depression, something he had suffered from as a child. He found it difficult to cope with and eventually retreated into his own world, he refused to answer his telephone, speak to anyone and then disappeared.

Some people thought he’d gone on holiday but Mr Monkey can now reveal that he returned to Scotland in an attempt to tackle his Edinburgh demons, but bottled it at the last minute and ended up in Glasgow.

He thought he was safe there where he could hide amongst the down and outs, tramps, alcoholics and drug addicts – that was until a jogger spotted him in the infamous Glasgow Green on the banks of the Clyde and called the police.

Apparently when the police arrived they found him unconscious on a park bench dressed in khaki shorts, a beige tshirt and a pith helmet. He was surrounded by a dozen toy monkeys, some of which had been mutilated and a fluffy chimp hanging from the tree above him in what appeared to have been a mock execution.

When the police roused him he refused to acknowledge their presence, pulled out a water pistol and started to ‘shoot’ the toy monkeys. He even tried to kiss and cuddle 2 blue monkeys which he kept referring to us Maggie and Smeagol.

At this point the police decided to ‘protect’ him and took him to the Gartnavel Royal Hospital where he was detained under section 4 of the Mental Health Act.

Mr Monkey can reveal that councillor Potts – who has a history of mental illness – is now hoping he can use his own experiences to change people’s perception of menal health and is campaigning for the law to be changed.

PART 2 WILL FOLLOW SHORTLY