WHOLE ROOM LAUGHED AT CLLR YATES

47 minutes ago

4 minutes read

Cllr Yates made the whole room laugh, like a political clown. David Lammy much? Try to find him in the picture above, it shouldn’t be hard. I am glad I caught it on audio, because now I have the opportunity to share that moment.

The Yateses — both of them, Michael and Jane — are caviar socialists who seem to think a Labour badge lets them do whatever they like in Shirebrook, even work against the town’s best interests. I think they have forgotten that the days of Kane and “the other one” are long gone. The Yateses still do not get that more and more people are sick and tired of Labour treating Shirebrook as a cash cow and a political stepping stone. Those residents, like me, want change — not old-Labour games and manipulations.

Shirebrook is not a game. It is not a political asset. It is a town, full of real, hard-working, law-abiding people who are done with Labour selling us down the river.

YATES’S RECORD IS ABYSMAL
Yates at BDC: Jane Yates does not attend STC meetings. Never. Other BDC councillors turn up to parish meetings in other wards from time to time — she does not. She is recorded as absent from the last HMO vote at BDC, and Labour voted to plant another HMO in Shirebrook. On s106, she claimed she had been sending emails about it. The FOI response records no such contact. And then she blocks comments on her Facebook posts, so nobody can point any of this out underneath them. We all know why.

Yates at STC: goes against the whole council and… himself. He accused councillors of illegal actions. Then he admitted that he had been part of it. Then he claimed he had snitched left and right, and when that led nowhere, he came back with a list of grievances. He pointed the finger — and when Cllr Andrew Stevens pointed the finger back at him, underlining that Yates had voted for the very things he now claims were illegal, he answered… well. Listen for yourself:

Cllr Michael Yates (Labour): “And also I address, the thought when you [Cllr Andrew Stevens] said ‘I vote for it’ — and I did. [dramatic pause] I was misled.”

MISLED!
The whole room laughed. Poor old Yates was… misled. Yes. That is what he said. He was misled by… a council with a Labour Chairman and, at that time, a Labour majority. Then he waited three months to address it. How dare they, right? Labour manipulating Labour? Labour criticising Labour? How does that work, exactly?

And he did it twice. Right after that unhinged statement, he accused Labour ex-DCC councillor Christine Dale of a decade of inactivity on the s106 money. Of course, he framed it to sound like it was the fault of the new DCC councillor, Sarah Reaney — but that is what we expect from Labour, right? He ignored the pile of evidence that the current DCC councillor is trying to unlock that money. Two days after that meeting, his wife added to the pile by posting on Facebook. Of course, she blocked comments.

The bottom line is this: Labour sat on this money for a decade. Now people are starting to talk about it and have noticed Labour’s inactivity, and suddenly it is all the fault of… others. Not Labour. BDC is under Labour. The DCC councillor was Labour while this money sat in an account for a decade. STC was 100% Labour. Yet somehow it is not their fault.

I LAUGHED TOO
To be honest, I laughed too. I laughed hard. I was a councillor, and even with no experience at all I knew that I should NOT vote YES on something I was not sure of. “I abstain” exists for a reason. But he is a Labour socialist — when the Labour majority votes ‘yes‘, he follows like a sheep, right?

Then, months later, when it bites Labour back, he starts to think and… snitch. Not solve it publicly and openly, but snitch! Yes. He voted “yes” and then went above and beyond to snitch everywhere he could in order to overturn(?) that vote.

My analysis? Too little, too late, for the wrong reason. Basically, he is opposing the new STC councillors who are saving the day. He wants to keep STC paralysed — without a Town Clerk, without scrutiny, changes, reforms or new projects. He wants to survive until the elections, pretending it is all the fault of… someone else. Not Labour.

EMERGENCY MEETINGS OF STC
They happen rarely, but they always deliver. This time councillors called one not for a single reason, but because the mountain of issues they are dealing with demanded urgent attention and an open, honest conversation with residents. Again, I have to give the STC councillors credit: unlike the previous administration, their efforts are tangible, visible and far more transparent. Not perfect, but a long way from the old days of dealing with everything behind closed doors.

I dislike a great deal of how they do certain things, but I cannot — literally cannot — criticise them for what they do. They try hard, they try to be transparent and open, and they are tackling issues the previous Labour administration simply neglected. Including pellet and solar net-zero contracts, which were discussed at this meeting. Cllr Martin Barber taking closer look at them after overwhelming support from councilors in vote- about that in next article.

That emergency meeting was exceptional in many ways, and it deserves an article of its own. Forgive me, S247 readers: the number of issues raised at that meeting was so large that I have to cover them separately. This article exists for one purpose only — to show you how detached from reality Labour’s elite in our town has become.

Yates. Both of you. Resign. Just go, and let the people who work for the town, not for the Party, get on with it.