"Bob, not a penny? It seems you received £17,217 TAX FREE in 'allowances' from Sandwell Council in year ending March 2006 (the last year I could get figures for, it is probably much more now).
This is equivalent to a job paying around £25,000 a year. This is more than the national average wage, and certainly more than most get in a poor area like Sandwell. What do you spend this money on? You probably only have to attend a couple of meetings a week at most".
01 June 2009
Bob Piper: Not A Penny?
I posted the following to Councillor Bob Piper's blog in response to Bob's claim not to have had a penny of taxpayers money - just in case it somehow doesn't appear there, I'll repeat it here.
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You asked me what I claimed in expenses, and the answer was that I do not claim anything at all, and I never have.
ReplyDeleteThe allowances are determined by an independent body appointed by the Leaders of the three main parties and I have never voted for an increase in the allowances, When I first got on the Council 10 years ago, from memory, my allowance was somewhere around £3,000, (a very small percentage of my annual earnings) which would hardly indicate I was doing it for the money.
I don't vote for the allowances because I don't actually need the money. I have more than enough money from my employment.
Of course, what you are attempting to do, in the time honoured manner of the sneak, is smearing me as someone who is 'on the make' because you disagree with me politically. You are welcome to do so, it is not unexpected from right-wing political factions and I am quite used to it. It was what made Damien MacBride a twat, and you fit the mould nicely.
No, Bob, you are the one who trys to label and smear people. What I am trying to do is show you to be the liar you are.
ReplyDeleteYou are angry because you cannot justify why we taxpayers have to give you £17,000-£20,000 tax free every year. If you don't agree with the allowances, why not pay them back, or not claim them? Some other councillors have done this.
Just answer the question. What do you spend it on?
Your ignorance knows no bounds. My allowance is not tax free, it is taxed at 40%.
ReplyDeleteSo, I think you will find that if anyone is spreading lies, it is you.
You have never asked me to 'justify' why I earn my allowance, so I fail to understand why you are accusing me of 'failing' to justify it. The allowance is paid by Sandwell Council, not by the residents of Brighton, so you have not been asked to contribute towards it. However, Brighton has a similar independent panel which determines their allowances, so perhaps you could ask those councillors to justify their performance to you.
We publish our allowances in the local media, and I justify my performance as a councillor to the people in my Ward, not some sad little nob who confesses to being an anorak.
What I do with my money is none of your business, actually, any more than what you do with yours is of any concern to me.
The councillors I know work very hard and, in the most deprived wards, put over 30-40 hours work a week into being a councillor. It is certainly not just a couple of meetings - it is meeting after meeting after meeting with casework too on top of that. I actually think it's reasonable for them to get paid for this work. I don't think we should expect it all to be free.
ReplyDeleteIf any councillor isn't doing the necessary work they should be voted out.
Actually Bob, we ALL pay for wankers like you, 80% of local authority funding comes from central government.
ReplyDeleteAs for taxation on allowances, are you telling me you never get a deduction under section 198 ICTA 1998? which states "A deduction for tax purposes may be claimed by councillors for such expenses provided they are incurred wholly and exclusively and necessarily in the performance of their duties as councillors and are met from their taxable allowances".
tim f: Bob may well be a councillor who works very hard, or he may be one of those councillors who does very little. We do know Bob seems to have a lot of time to spend blogging. The problem is councillors all get paid these allowances whatever they do.
ReplyDeleteAnd Bob loves the present system because being in a ward that always votes Labour no matter what donkey is put before them, he is unlikely to ever be held accountable. His ward has been Labour for decades and will remain Labour long after Councillor Bob Piper has left the scene. How do we know that Bob's election has anything to do with Bob? We know his fellow Labour Abbey ward councillors get more votes than him. He might be deeply unpopular but people who have voted for the Labour party all their lives have no effective choice to remove him.
All you have to do to get elected is brownnose the party leadership long enough to be given a safe seat. That is NOT democracy!
What a bitter and twisted little man you are. Presumably you are unable to secure meaningful employment or get elected, so you spend your time polishing your head and writing this blog.
ReplyDeleteBoth of my Ward colleagues are excellent councillors and have been councillors much longer than I have, and I would expect them to be more popular. Which particular method of PR doesn't get a candidate with over 50% of the votes cast elected?
Sad, sad man.
You live in a seat with life-long Labour voters and you think that gives you a mandate? Just think about it?
ReplyDeleteKeep up the personal attacks - I work full-time (shift-work) and more than earn what I get paid thank you very much. I am beginning to think maybe you don't work that hard - shouldn't you be at a meeting or something? (as I am sure you will tell us you work 100 hours a week or some such nonsense).
When you are stuck for anything sensible to say, which seems to be most of the time, you resort to making up things I would say, which is a strange thing to do.
ReplyDeleteI have never said I work 100 hours a week. I would average out my average time on Council business to be around 30 to 40 hours a week, depending on the time of the year. I am lucky. I can work at home a lot of the time, and that allows me to spend some of the time taking the piss out of muppets like yourself. Which is quite good fun, actually.
You are very lucky indeed, Bob. I suppose as we have no proof for what you say about allowances and work hours, we will have to take your 'right honourable' word about it.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to making things up, I don't think anyone can beat the lies you make up about PR and anyone who advocates it. I just pointed out your allowance from the taxpayer which is hardly 'not a penny'. Are you sure you pay tax on all of your allowance? No porkies now, these things have a way of being found out.
Please feel free to check. I pay tax on all of it. My personal allowance is used on my other income.
ReplyDeleteYou pointed out my allowance, and tried to imply I was lying for giving a straightforward answer to your question. You did it entirely to try to discredit any point I might have been making about PR.
This simply displays what a piece of lowlife crap you are. You haven't had the good grace to apologise.
The party can do without scum like you.
Bob, Apologise? Have you read the rubbish and insults you have posted? I have shown you to be wrong on so many things, but you cannot admit it. You are going to get caught out with your lies. Example- you said you do 30-40 hours council business 'on average'. As you pay 40% tax i assume you work full time, so thats 70-80 hours 'on average. Add in 50 for sleep. That only leaves 30 hours for household chores, leisure, family etc. As we know you spend countless hours blogging. Either you are a liar or a freak. And you called me sad?
ReplyDeleteThat is because you assume wrongly (why am I not surprised?). I do not work full time. But unlike you I am not a complete blithering idiot.
ReplyDeleteI am not obliged to explain any of my personal affairs to idiots like you. I am accountable for my Council affairs to the electorate in my Ward, not some simpleton twat from Brighton. As for my non Council earnings, piss off and mind your own business, and I promise not to poke around in your personal life.
I have had some fun ripping the piss out of you today, but frankly, it is getting a bit like poking a toad with a stick, and you're boring me.
Boys, boys! This back and forth in the comments is so unseemly...
ReplyDeleteSurely this should be settled by a-no-holds-barred cage fight? 'Two men enter, one man leaves', and all that...?
:D
Keep out of this JuliaM. Let them fight their own way. Besides, the wrong man might well win a cage fight, whereas dear old Bob is clearly going to take down the odious Harding here, given time. After all, it's a battle of wits with an unarmed man. B^)
ReplyDeleteLeave 'im, Tom, 'e isn't worth it! ;)
ReplyDeleteI think you are being unfair to Bob here Neil. Councillors allowances are always taxed. They may be called allowances but its really wages for the job.
ReplyDeleteThe Sandwell allowances do look a bit generous compared to what I am used to, but I notice that this authority makes it explicit that the basic 'wage' is intended to also cover any out-of-pocket expenses. (Is that common? I haven't heard of it before)
When I was a councillor the basic allowance was smaller (though it was a smaller authority of course) but you could claim for various expenses incurred - I rarely bothered. The Sandwell model looks quite interesting
Skuds, As far as I can tell, they can claim for expenses as well. Some councillors earn their money, others do not. Bob says he pays 40% tax and works part time - I wonder what he does? Certainly doesn't sound like the sort who would understand the working class area he supposedly represents.
ReplyDeleteI could go through a list of all the things Bob has got wrong - I do pay his wages (80% funded through central government), MPs expenses are called allowances, councillors don't have to pay tax on their allowances (if they class them as expenses) - then there are all the juvinile insults unbecoming someone elected - telling a party member 'the party can do without scum like you' for instance. Which sort of gives a clue to his democratic instincts - all the lefties have been shut out of the party by people like him, chuck em out rather than trying to beat them in debate. It is people like Bob in the party who have brought it to its knees (and 17% in the polls).
Bob says he is accountable to his electorate, but is he? Living in such a safe seat, Bob is only accountable to the dozen or so party bods that selected him. Considering internal party democracy is so bad in the Labour party, Bob is no more accountable or elected than the average CEO. And Bob, clearly no democrat, likes it that way.
I used to briefly live in Bearwood I think it was in Bob's ward (back in the 90s). I am going to do some further research on this guy, because something does not smell right about him.