This Red Wall Looks Shoddy

The photo I’m attaching below shows a wall in the Crematorium under construction—notice how crooked it is. The picture comes from the Facebook SOS group (Save our Shirebrook), and if you’re not familiar with them but you’re on Facebook, I encourage you to follow them. This page isn’t as heavily censored as other “residents’ pages,” where all posts critical of Labour/Shirebrook Town Council are blocked.

RED WALL IS CROOKED
The crooked wall isn’t the only scandal related to the Crematorium. As a councillor, I was the only one who voted against this investment (Labour voted 100% for). I did so because the profit percentage supposedly going to STC was so insultingly small that the whole investment looked like another money grab and an opportunity to employ Labour Party family members, activists, and friends at taxpayers’ expense – just like at the Leisure Centre.

The Leisure Centre is a swamp of corruption, theft, cronyism, and nepotism. (Example? On the invoice for pellets, you can see a price of 190 pounds per kWh of energy- and not a single Labour councillor spotted that). No one controls it because there is no opposition at STC, and 80-year-old councillors prefer to talk about war at council meetings than corruption today.

I know the Leisure Centre is corrupt (especially the solar panel and pellet deals), but at least it offers something to residents. Some of their employees are doing their jobs and suffer under the crony Labour friend’s regime. They got a 27% pay rise, so… they should be last to complain. With more careful political oversight, this place could be even better. The Crematorium? Well…

ANOTHER SCANDAL
The most significant element of the Crematorium scandal is that councillors were misled before voting on this investment. We were told that all the land where BDC planned to build the Crematorium belonged to STC. After the vote, it turned out this wasn’t true. STC gave away the land practically for free (for a promise of sharing in “potential” profits). Someone else gave away a small piece of land described as a “footpath” and received thousands of pounds for it. He could ask for more but was polite enough not to go to court. This matter should be under police investigation – not only were councillors lied to, but civil servants deliberately created a situation where taxpayers must pay for something they shouldn’t.

In the “Red Wall”, such scandals are swept under the carpet. The two-tier justice system has been working here for years. The rest of the country is waking up to it now.

LEADER OF STC SCANDAL
For years, rumours about the STC leader’s criminal activities have circulated in the political corridors of the region. Finally, someone pressed the BDC Monitoring Officer about a particular matter, and… I know nothing. Facebook exploded with definitive statements about another scandal. Allegedly, Chris Kane was removed from the regional Labour Party Chairman position. However, I haven’t found any official confirmation about the conclusion of this potential scandal and criminal case against a prominent politician of the Labour Party. So, until I get some real documents – I will refrain from commenting this issue.

I wanted to attend the November STC meeting. I even checked the calendar, and I’m 99% sure it was planned. However, when I check the calendar now, I see that there isn’t a single full meeting scheduled for November. Absolutely all councils in the region have a monthly full meeting. Shirebrook is the exception. Why? I don’t know, but I can guess…

LEISURE CENTRE SCANDAL
Still unresolved. Labour swept the yearly discrepancy of 30 tons of missing pellets from the Leisure Centre under the rug. Nobody talks about it; nobody mentions it. The matter exists only in documents, numbers, mathematics, and… in my memory. I will remain there until I can resolve it. No thieves- I didn’t finish with you. This scandal will end when I say so- not corrupt Labour Party voting to “never ever talk about it again”.

OTHER SCANDALS
I don’t have time and will to write about new Labour scandals, so I’ll list what the town is currently talking about:

1. The Market Square reconstruction scandal.
2. The scandal with the absent MP who won and… disappeared. About that- below.
3. In the Dragonfly scandal, Steve Fritchley was dismissed (or resigned) from the Board of Directors. The company is 100% funded by taxpayers yet shrouded in mystery like the most secret CIA operations. The SOS group was successful in obtaining some documents, but when I read them, I had more questions than answers.
4. Construction of two houses for 600,000 pounds. Another case of “golden toilets”?

Labour councillors are completely anonymous, hidden behind STC walls. I think it’s time to change that—I think it’s time to interview them. The question is: Will there be anyone in Labour brave enough to answer a journalist’s questions? I’m not holding my breath, but it will be fun to try.

I’M STILL HERE
If you’re one of the 232 people who voted for me in the last election – I want you to know that despite losing, I haven’t stopped working for our town. Since taking a break from my art project, I decided to focus a little more on Shirebrook. This is what I did in just one day of “Shirebrook focus”. Results from that list will come in the following weeks:

• I wrote and sent a letter to the MP requesting an interview appointment. The previous MP agreed to an interview (you can read it here). I’m still waiting for a response from our current representative. I heard she is MIA, but maybe I will have more luck than others trying to contact her.
• I contacted every councillor from the Shirebrook South-ward (excluding two who gave a damn about residents and didn’t publish their contact e-mail) to try to interview them about recent events at STC (no response so far). If I can’t find anyone willing to talk in the South region, I’ll contact councillors from the North. If they refuse, I will show up at the STC meeting and ask them questions there. They can try to hide from me. They will fail.
• I sent an FOI request to BDC regarding illegal immigrants being placed in hotels and council-owned houses in Bolsover District (I’d like to know how many have been moved to Bolsover District and how much we paying for it);
• I sent an FOI request and a letter to the Monitoring Officer regarding the alleged scandal involving Chris Kane. Why an FOI request in this case? After the previous scandal with Chris Kane (who was found guilty of breaking the law but NOT PUNISHED FOR IT- a two-tier justice system at work), the monitoring officer stopped responding to my emails. To this day, there’s no official confirmation from him about the investigation’s conclusion. I only received a brief letter from the Executive Director of BDC. This in itself is a scandal.
• I wrote and sent a media request to SportsDirect regarding rumours about their departure from Shirebrook;
• In addition to that, I’ll also try to do my weekly litter picking (weather permitting). I need to change my route since it becomes a bit boring, but usually, I go from my house to the cemetery, and from there, I head to the town exit roundabout, where I turn towards SportsDirect. After reaching the Meadow View roundabout, I turn towards the estate through Stinting Lane and Bracken Road to the playground. Usually, when I reach Stinting Lane, my bag is already full, so I only go to the playground when I have space in the bag. If you want to join Litter Pickers of Langwith and Shirebrook, this is the Facebook page. It’s weird, but litter picking is a very relaxing activity, and I have started to really enjoy it.

THE END IS NOT NIGH
In conclusion, if you’re a fan of my articles and you’re disappointed that I’ve been publishing less lately – I apologize. Writing has always been my passion, and recently, I’ve been working on the second part of my book. Since creating a world is much more exciting for me than writing about yet another scandal of the corrupt Labour Party – I’m dedicating all my time to building my book and creating illustrations for it.

Since I’ve reached the final chapter of the book’s second part, I decided to take a break before continuing work. It’s normal in the creative process that sometimes you must do something different than what you’ve done for an extended period. That’s why I decided to detach myself from the world of a spaceship captain and return to Earth to write some articles about Shirebrook.

If you’ve enjoyed my articles and love sci-fi comedy, you’ll definitely want to check out my book. After reading it, you could give it to someone as a Christmas present: a two-birds-with-one-stone situation, right? In the Labour economy, you need to think like that.

You can buy my book on Amazon here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/N95-Mission-Guide-Sylvester-West/dp/1805177311

It’s a comedy sci-fi novel written in epistolary style. The action is set on the spaceship N95, heading toward Galaxy MD-33 to create a detailed map of that galaxy before the arrival of colonization forces. I illustrated the entire story using an AI art generator called Midjourney. It’s a perfect stocking-filler Christmas gift for any fan of comedy, sci-fi, or sci-fi comedy. I published the book using a pen name, so don’t be surprised that the surname doesn’t match.

Below is an example illustration from the first part of the book. I think this illustration perfectly reflects the sense of humour in the book – in our eyes, aliens are grey creatures with big black eyes, but we never think that if we land on an alien planet, we will be the aliens.

The second part is almost ready although I doubt I will manage to finish it before Christmas. There are over 70 illustrations in the first part, and at the moment, the second part has only text, no illustrations and no last chapter (I still don’t know how to end – I have 7 possible options and I can’t decide: hence the break in writing to think about the ending).

Sylwester Zwierzynski