CENSORED: The Liverpool mayor election address the Liberals were not allowed to print
Yesterday we reported how Liverpool mayor candidate Steve Radford had complained of "humourless censorship" after council bosses blocked a satirical reference to Liverpool Direct from appearing in the official mayor booklet being sent to every house.
Above is the uncensored pages that Cllr Radford wanted to appear in the booklet being sent to all 330,000 voters.
Liberal Cllr Radford referred to the council's joint venture IT partner as Liverpool Misdirect as a criticism of its alleged failure to keep records of whether complaints made through its call centre about bin collections and fly-tipping had been resolved.
But council chief executive and returning officer for the elections, Ged Fitzgerald, said the reference was "irrelevant" and should not be included if Cllr Radford wanted the leaflet to be distributed.
Read the full story HERE.
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David Bartlett
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The chief executive has no business telling the people of liverpool what's relevant and we might want to vote for.
No surprise he was appointed by Labour and is now trying to sabotage the campaigns of other candidates. No doubt he thinks it's irrelevant that he rides around in a top of the line Mercedes funded by the tax payer. He should be sacked immediately for bringing the election into disrepute.
An astonishing own goal, all things considered. Presumably Mr Fitzgerald wanted to keep the issue of Liverpool Direct out of the election.
Radford's comment was mild - and might have passed relatively unnoticed. Not any more. LDL is now on the agenda, finally.
And we now know we have a chief executive who thinks he can get away with this kind of high-handed censorship. Even without his conflict of interest (as a director of LDL), he had absolutely no legal right to do this.
Makes you wonder if he has exceeded his authority in other ways. He's paid to execute policy, not make it - and certainly not to interpret election law to suit his own interests.
At the end of the day, he should be concentrating on publishing a brief positive manifesto of what he would do and bring to the table not a campaign of slating people off! Typical small minded people do this to grab attention and smear other peoples campaigns, the real question that should be asked is why was the mayoral candidate steve radford in the club Heaven on victoria street from 0100 hours until god knows what time, why don't you ask him if he was elected as mayor would he still be on the lash every weekend like he has done for years! also ask him where he went after heaven and what time he got home?..... Finally if elected would he still party like a teenager whilst upholding the most important job in politics, running the city of Liverpool or would he just carry on and go in hungover or drunk? Cheers.
Interesting comment to say that it is irrelevant. Would have thought that a prospective candidate gears his campaign round what is wrong and how he would improve matters.
Would have thought that the paid returning officer would have adopted more of a neutral stance.If he is a director of a private company and that company becomes a feature of the campaign should he not declare am interest and step aside ?. Mind you was not the short listing of candidates for the councils chief exec done at a time when Joe Anderson had put LDL's doctor in charge of the council.
Other interesting thing was Steve Radford's statement that he has over 30 years experience with a major international telecommunications company.
Can not find any details of which one. Hopefully not the same BT.
So mickeymouse (are you too afraid to post your own name in case you are sued for defamation), is this the portion of the discussion where we make up unverified and totally unrelated comments about someone in order to suit a political agenda. What's your real name? Are you Labour? why don't you ask Steve yourself, if what you say is true. The nasty politics wasn't away for long was it. God forbid the people of this city will get a fair and clean election.
'brief positive manifesto' from Mickey does sound like a phrase a politico may use.
Not sure there is any defamation in there mind and he may have to keep searching those cupboards.
Given a choice between 2 candidates would a non politico go for one who likes to go down town on the lash of a weekend or one who is good mates with LDL ?
Fitzgerald's behaviour is indeed an outrage. It's a breach of his powers. It's an affront to the democratic process. The candidates of the reputable democratic parties should themselves publicly condemn Fitzgerald's behaviour. Will Anderson? Will Kemp? Will Coyne or Caldeira? Surely political opportunism won't drown out their dismay at this outrage. So let's hear it from them.
Let's hear too from Fitzgerald. Why is it OK for the various Nazi candidates to verbally attack members of the community, but not OK for Radford to gently mock LDL? I guess we know why, really. It's McIlhenney again. When McIlhenney says 'jump', Fitzgerald says 'how high?'
As for 'Mickey Mouse', no Labour supporter would write such offensive nonsense. I'd look elsewhere for 'dirty tricks'. Tory stupids like Mcann & Creek are quick off the mark with smears. Try poking under their stone.
You're right, Ronnie, they all should condemn this, in the strongest terms possible.
But they won't. If they think there's even the slimmest chance they might actually win - any more than Fitzgerald himself will deign to comment.
He doesn't need to.No-one will criticise him or call him to account. Because he's not the only one whose response to McElhinney is "how high".
Anderson is another, just think what he has presided over to date:
- no gardening leave, no chinese wall, no proper legal advice on the LDL refresh (just a phone call, according to an FOIA request;
- appointment of a chief exec who had set up two other LDL clones (a true McElhinney acolyte before he even got here);
- appointment of McElhinney as Chief Information Officer of the Council (a rush job just before the refresh was signed off)
- putting ALL procurement out to tender;
- changing the constitution to allow Fitzgerald to demolish proper management of the contract with LDL, with everything cosily dealt with by his private office - no details of who does this, how much they get for it, or anything else;
- keeping LDL completely unaffected by the cuts.
Etc. etc. etc.
Anderson won't be condemning anybody for anything.
He used to work for Plessy/Marconi in Liverpool until its closure.
@Mickey_Mouse1 - please take your coat with you when you leave the building. We don't want that kind of disgraceful behaviour on this blog thanks.
Why shouldn't LDL be criticised as part of a mayoral race? It's the biggest single item of expenditire by the Council, at £110 million per annum. That's a lot of dosh at a time when the Council is tightening its belt.
What about the report which said we've been overcharged by £10 million pa by LDL for years?
What about the breathtakingly-odd decision to "appoint" David McElhinney as interim Chief Exec while the LDL contract renegotiations were taking place?
What about the recently leaked details that Councillors and Council officers who sit on LDL's Board aren't permitted to know, in advance, what is going to be discussed at the LDL Board meetings which they attend as our representatives? They are also not allowed to make notes at these meetings or to take any paper out of them. The BT representatives thus set the agenda and control all information into and out of LDL Board meetings. Our representatives stand for this nonsense. One of those representative is Ged Fitzgerald.
This isn't a party political point. I genuinely don't care which party Joe Anderson stands for. I do care that he's a shoo-in for the mayor's job, and that he's stood idly by while LDL/BT has made a fool out of in the taxpayer.