James Purnell to lose seat at next election?

Following the election results last week, it was reported that if the results were repeated at a General Election, the Tameside Mafia's latest recruit & Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell, would have lost his seat.

That being the case, we'd better do our best to get to work to ensure that the blogosphere knows all about James' little exploits, both in Tameside and prior to his arrival in the North, so we can be sure that there's plenty to read about him by 2010.

For impatient types, here goes: he was sued for libel by a fellow Labour Party member Liz Davies following accusations of her inciting violence (later settled out of Court); he was given an easy ride on BBC's Newsnight because he was riding a producer at the time; he colluded in faking photos for a press shot at Tameside Hospital (no link needed there surely); he told House of Commons authorities one thing about his financial affairs and the Inland Revenue something else (again, no link needed).

...locally, we have the aforementioned Tameside Hospital photos; his backing for Active Longdendale, and then attempts to remove it from the internet; and the 'local home' he has. Well, we'll have more about the latter in due course.

For now, we're sure James is anxious about how the next 2 years will go, but we're very excited.

Sack Parker Perry

Perhaps one of the most prominent members of the Tameside Mafia is Sean Parker-Perry, and today he is standing for election in the Longdendale Ward.

Local blogs No Mottram Bypass & Active Longdendale (a parody and expose of Sean's own Active Longdendale blog) have recently been publishing a series of articles on this most interesting of Councillors:

Questioning the motives and necessity of the touted 'environmental clean-up' group Active Longdendale

Revealing the previous role of Stalybridge and Hyde MP James Purnell in Active Longdendale, and the removal of material linking him to it from his website

Revealing Sean's dabblings on the internet and general shit-stirring from his computer in Purnell's office

Noting his failure (up until last week) to campaign on the Bypass issue

Looking at the funds raised - but not noticeably spent - by Active Longdendale

Sean may well win tonight - Longdendale is a very 'safe' seat indeed - but the evidence accumulated by these blogs has surely strained the relationship between Sean and his employer Purnell. By removing information about Sean's pet project from his website, Purnell has begun to distance himself from Sean. It will be interesting to see just how long Sean can last, even if he is elected for another term later tonight.

Thanks to No Mottram Bypass for use of the image above)

Election night

By the end of tonight, or at least by tomorrow, we'll know the full extent of the changes to the local political makeup, this being local election day.

If you want to know how things are panning out, your best bet is to follow Tameside blog Tameside Eye's Twitter feed. It'll be regularly updated through the evening.

Like Father (in-law), like Son

It's not that well-known, but Longdendale Councillor Sean Parker-Perry is very fond of the internet. So much so, that he takes a keen interest in what's been written about him, his fellow Councillors, his employer James Purnell, the Longdendale Bypass, Swallows Wood and his father-in-law, Tom Pendry.

How do we know? Well, it seems that there's a weblog which chronicles all of the (known) edits that he has made. All in all, it's a fascinating piece of detective work.

The latest series of edits show how Sean is attempting to enhance the reputation of Tom Pendry.

Well be keeping an eye on this to see what happens.

Wars & vendettas

War has broken out in Tameside, with tit-for-tat exchanges between Roy Oldham and the local incarnations of the Guardian Media Group.

The latest spat all started last month, when Roy Oldham publicly berated a Manchester Evening News journalist, Brian Lashley, over a recent article regarding TMBC's spending towards the Glossop Spur (No Mottram Bypass had the scoop).

Oldham's ire was further stoked by a later article on the rise in Council Tax in Tameside, which featured a comment from the local Tory Don John Bell comparing Oldham to Fidel Castro (in that they're both past it & authoritarians - any other similarities stretch the imagination somewhat. After all, Castro booted the Mafia out of Cuba - Oldham is the Mafia in Tameside).

Oldham then launched an attack in the following week's letters page, directing his venom at the Advertiser rather than the Tories:
And last week, both the Manchester Evening News and the Advertiser carried articles about how the (TMBC run) Greater Manchester Pension Fund invests in the arms trade.

Who has the moral high ground? Well, it's clearly the GMG: via their associations, Oldham & Co are financing the arms trade - at arm's length - but their investments in it via the GMPF are undeniable.

GMG seen to have the upper hand at the moment - their article about the GMPF was a clear warning to Oldham: you go after our journalist and we can lift the lid. But this will only go so far. Like Corleone and the Tattaglias in the Godfather, it's possible to forgive almost anything and come to an 'accommodation'.

Not so for this blog. We have all kinds of dirt to spread. Watch this space.

Mike Doherty sleeps with the fishes

The Reporter Group newspapers carried a rather nondescript item this week, one that has so far been missed elsewhere.

It carried a report that Mike Doherty, assistant to James Purnell MP, has resigned from his job following a disciplinary hearing over his use of a false address when writing to the newspapers. This seemingly solves the problem of troublesome staff that Purnell has been burdened with - as far as the general newspaper reading public may be concerned.

But for those who follow anything on the internet, one wonders why Purnell would stop at Doherty.

We'd be very interested to know whether or not another member of his staff, Barbara Charlesworth, lives on St Michael's Road in Hyde. If she did not, presumably Purnell would accept her resignation as well: No Mottram Bypass pointed out that she has also written to the press.

And that's nothing compared to the record of one Sean Parker-Perry. This blog is chronicling his exploits on the internet. Parker-Perry's reputation is all over Google - just type his name in and it's all revealed to you. How long can he last?

We'll see...

No Irish need apply

It's well known that the Sicilian Mafia are, amongst many other things, deeply racist. You only have to watch the Godfather to know that. And it seems that the Tameside branch share this characteristic.

At the full Council meeting on Valentine's Day (no massacre took place this time), Roy Oldham returned to a favourite subject of his - the state of Tameside's roads. He repeated his comments from two years ago that potholes were a 'traffic calming measure' (Oldham code for 'potential death traps for cyclists') and then laid the blame for this firmly on the shoulders of one company in particular. A witness to his comments has told us his comments were broadly as follows:

"Murphy's, the Irish builders, just come along, lay a load of tarmac, lay a wooden board down and start jumping up and down on the board to get the tarmac flat"

We presume Roy is referring to the local Civil Engineering firm from Audenshaw he is referring to. Whether the Proprietor is actually Irish or in fact had ancestors who once were (much like Oldham's brother-in-law, Mike Flynn) is irrelevant. Oldham is content to make defamatory, libellous and racist comments. And we can only presume that the other Councillors share his views, because none rose to challenge him.

Oldham conveniently forgets that large parts of the original industrial infrastructure of this land were built, at a horrendous cost, largely by (at the time Irish) migrant labour. Anti-Irish racism at that time used much of the same language, tone and caricatures as more modern-day racism does, when similarly applied to people who come here to do the jobs no-one else will do. It is still as offensive as it is ever was and also archaic, much like Tameside's Councillors.

Were the minutes of Council meetings as comprehensive as they should be, no doubt Tameside Racial Equality Council would have something to say to Mr Oldham.

Welcome to Tameside Mafia

Tameside Mafia is a new weblog that will focus exclusively on the private and public dealings of the power elite in and around Tameside MBC. The cast of characters is long & the stories largely unknown, but we will bring you the info that has been largely kept out of the public domain about the workings of this secret society with a benevolent public face.

Keep watching the site for updates and new stories.