Liberals find their voice

Four months after the relaunch of the Waltham Forest Liberal Party they have finally had something to say.

Former Waltham Forest Councillor, James O’Rourke, suggests he was responsible for getting the council to collect rubbish left “festering for the last three weeks” and is quoted as saying “Cllr Loakes has presided over the introduction of a contractor worse than the previous contractor – Verdant. Something I thought would not have been possible.”

He may well be correct?

Do we remember some years ago when the refuse collection contract was transferred from in-house to Verdant? Remember the uproar on blogs and local newspapers?

We do. The then politician responsible for bin collection was former councillor, Bob Belam. Bloggers and commentators filled Waltham Forest Guardian’s website with hundreds of criticisms – much of it threatening and personal – in what looked decidedly like a ‘politically’ [sic] organised campaign and also included many of Mr Belam’s former political colleagues!

What intrigues us is the ‘uproar’ to ‘Loakes the Jokes’ latest wheeze of engaging Kier to collect the boroughs refuse. Over three Guardian web articles a mere 31 comments have been recorded.

The lack of ‘official opposition’ in Waltham Forest from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats leads us to conclude, sadly, that we will have to watch the Labour Party destroy our borough until our next opportunity to remove them at the May 2014 local elections.

Waltham Forest deserves, and needs, to have elected people who put the boroughs interests above that of Party or personal interests.

Sound of silence

Only a year ago local newspaper comments pages, bloggers (many suspected to be Labour supporters) and Labour leaflets were attacking the man responsible for our streets, former Lib Dem Cllr Bob Belam, for the alleged poor refuse collection and street sweeping services. Strangely, even the Lib Dems in Walthamstow, spearheaded by Parliamentary candidate, Farid Ahmed, were calling for Cleaner Streets in their campaign literature.

So, how are things going now under the ‘leadership’ of  the current incumbent responsible for these services –  Cllr Clyde Loakes?

Labour's overflowing bins

Well, the Truth will Out Team can report that, under Labour, our streets are not clean and a bit of snow has seen refuse bins overflowing as the Council alleges they were unable to carry out collections due to “…last week’s severe weather conditions…”!!! Interesting the Council were unable to collect bins whilst dfs were able to deliver a three piece suite to one of the Truth Will Out team last week.

No bloggers complaining of dirty streets and overflowing bins. No Lib Dems calling for cleaner streets.

The silence is deafening.

Stupid stunts

It seems not a week goes by without a PR stunt from members of Waltham Forest’s Labour administration.

The latest wheeze (forgive us for the carbon emissions pun) involved Loakes the Joke parading 15 trucks full of fly-tipped rubbish in Walthamstow Town Square earlier this week in the hope it would shock people into “thinking twice” about dumping waste in the streets. Even the Waltham Forest Guardian described this act as an unashamed stunt.

The Truth Will Out team agree with the many angry bloggers that Loakes and his Labour cronies have abused taxpayers’ money with this blatantly political stunt. Loakes should spend more time catching the fly-tippers and clearing up our streets, and less time using unwitting council officers to further his Party’s interests.

This stunt clearly demonstrates Labour’s facetious governance style and is an illustration of their commitment to spin over substance.