Bob Piper is a Labour councillor for Abbey Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands. He also gets £20,000 from the Sandwell taxpayer in allowances. Allowances he says he doesn't need because he is so wealthy, but he claims them anyway. He says an allowance is a salary. It is nothing of the sort, he doesn't need to claim it, and plenty of councillors do not take up theirs.
Bob said that the current furore over MPs expenses had nothing to do with allowances. This guy obviously doesn't pay much attention to the news - the furore is over the additional costs ALLOWANCES that MPs get. You see the words 'allowance', 'expenses' and 'salary' become completely interchangeable to these guys who effectively steal our money.
Bob says that his allowances are 'nothing to do with me' as I don't have to pay them. Wrong again Bob, as local government is 80% funded from central taxation. I do pay them through my taxes, so it is MY concern. When I pointed this out, Bob said 'scum like you shouldn't be in the party'. A famous tactic of right-wingers like Bob is to chuck out people with different views, and try to shut them up. This is why we now have Gordon Brown, an unelected bully as a leader, leading the party into the abyss.
Bob will not say what he does for a living. Surely we need to know, maybe he is on the board of some company that benefits from his decisions as a councillor. What sort of job in Sandwell pays over £40,000 for part-time hours anyway? I think Bob's constituents would want to know how he became so wealthy, he is hardly a man of the people when his average constituent gets less than £20,000 to live on while he is lording it on a massive salary at our expense.
Bob says his constituents can remove him - but 52% already vote against him - he only gets 20% of his constituents to vote for him. In a safe Labour seat, Bob knows he has a job for life - no wonder he defends the present system that elected him so vociferously. He has a vested interest, just like the majority of MPs in keeping the status quo that allows them to pay themselves what they like and stay in their job forever.
All Bob has to do is keep the 10 or so party bods onside. How many votes did you get in your ward party election? Five? Ten at most. This is not democracy, especialy as all the progressive people in the party are chucked out by people like Bob.
We have to stop the Bob Pipers and Gordon Browns that are destroying our party.
This seems a rather stupid post. A quick look through his register of interests would answer these questions.
ReplyDeleteCasting aspersions and inviting doubt on elected representatives without any evidence is, irrespective of their political allegiance, pathetic.
It took me less than 1 minute of research, surely you could at least try to write a post based on something other than what appears to be that you don't like the bloke.
pp, ok, you tell me what he does. The register of interests on sandwell council website is blocked and Bob doesn't say on his website either. Yes, i do not like the bloke, because he is rude, arrogant and ignorant, but that doesn't alter the fact he is very wealthy and admits he doesn't need his allowance. In which case, why does he claim it?
ReplyDeleteFirst up, the register of interest isn't 'blocked', I can quite happily access it. If you are not able to access it then there's either something wrong with your computer or you're behind a rubbish corporate filtration system.
ReplyDeleteIf you do look, it quite clearly states that he is Chair of the Sandwell Mental health Trust and a lecturer in Trade Union studies at the South Birmingham college.
It's really not hard now is it.
pp, thanks for that. I tried on 3 different computers to acess it. Umm. 40 grand for lecturing part time on trade union studies. Something smells fishy to me. Why don't we ever get labour councillors in ordinary jobs?
ReplyDeletepp, Of course, none of this excuses self proclaimed 'man of the people' bob piper from taking his full allowance.
ReplyDelete