“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” Abraham Lincoln
With local elections a month off, what chance a kicking for the utterly hopeless Hapless and her cronies here in Bedsit Bradford? But first some sad news.
It was a sad day last week when I heard that my long-suffering employer, Barclays Asset Finance, had been sold off on the cheap like a knackered Lionel Messi to Bradford Park Avenue.
This was not a surprise as the company had been floundering in the ten years since my exit; I take the blame for its demise squarely on the chin. Of course the usual corporate bullshit flowed as to how this was great news for the customers, at least those they had left.
A sad end to a great business.
Hapless Has A Hissy
This month’s meeting of the Council Executive – watch it here if you want to lose thirty minutes of your life – contained a wonderful moment midway through.
As Cllr Pollard (Cons) questioned the continuing shambolic state of my old school’s finances – see here – in the top right of my screen it appeared the great leader was “off on one”. The screen could barely contain her.
After Cllr Pollard’s slot, back she came accusing him of electioneering. Was this the same woman who only a week or so ago was grandstanding demanding a new train station?
Time to send her back to the call centre.
Things You Must Learn
As I sit typing this the wind is howling and the skies are attempting to blow little freckles of snow dust around. I can see my greenhouse, with two mini ones inside, fighting a most likely losing battle to keep some early tomato plants alive.
I blame my Dad. For years he has set his tomatoes off almost as soon as the Christmas decorations have come down, contrary to most respected advice. Even The Trumpit’s gardening correspondent, Doug Deepley, shook his head as I confessed all.
The odds are stacked against as you nurture weak seedlings, striving for light and warmth, incubated all around the house for weeks. Inevitably, they spurt for the light and end up resembling a drunken supermodel.
Resolving that this was the last time I would follow this method, I potted on my leggy plants, deep into the recently acquired cannabis infused grow pots, hoping they may get a kick of something. Bradford Street Tomatoes – a new breed!
I will not know until after the weekend whether two months of intensive care will have been a complete failure. But nature is both beautiful and powerful, casting aside failures from time to time; more will grow in their place.
Let the great summer of growing begin.
Spivs And Speculators
The chief executive of Bradford City Council, Kersten England, had the highest salary of any official (council) in Yorkshire according to the figures, with a £189,419 base salary. (Financial year 2019-20 – The Yorkshire Post 7/4)
By comparison her oppo in Leeds had to manage on a meagre £183,984. Nice work if you can swing it.
And as Ms England surveys her little empire from wherever she has been hiding the last year or so, more woeful news this week; plans to convert one of Bradford’s most attractive Victorian buildings into housing are likely to be approved. The full article is here.
I confess I had no idea the building was now empty but another testament to a glorious past will now be converted into yet more slums of the future. The planners have little option here.
Central Government policy is directing mass housebuilding and this will tick near enough two hundred from the city centre allocation in the Local Plan.
But is anybody kidding themselves what this will become? And as with numerous other proposed schemes across our failed and failing city, what checks have been done to confirm the capacity of the proposed developers to complete the works?
When a ship becomes too old they scrap it; with a building, especially a listed one, the Bradford options normally follow abandonment, decay, rot and burn.
Bedsit Bradford is here; what a legacy.
Wheeltappers & Shunters Committee Vacancies
Its local election time soon and the first leaflet duly dropped through my door promising the Earth as usual. Amongst the Lib Dem promises was £5m extra spending on children’s services but no mention of where from. A neighbourhood plan would cost at least another £1.5m.
The incumbent councillor was “a real local champion” but he lives nowhere near. Amongst many others the stand out for true localism: surely they would have chosen a local printer not one in Manchester?
Next!
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