By “Civic Hall Mole”
CUMBERLAND Council could plunge circa £17 million into the red next year with many services massively over-stretched.
But that won’t stop its Labour leadership from racking up time and resources on uncosted virtue signalling, a council mole tells The Cumbria Chronic.
Many council departments have long been up to their necks dealing with a multitude of refugee and asylum seeker resettlement programmes in Cumbria.
Yet councillors on Crumbleland have now voted to roll out the red carpet even further. Full council has just instructed busy council staff to pursue a “Sanctuary Council Award”.
This unashamed left-wing badge of honour opens the door to all manner of local authority undertakings to our newly arrived cousins from overseas.
Among the council’s raft of new commitments – some very worthy, some very weird, are:
- Celebrating Refugee Week in June 2025
- “Strengthening” the voice of migrant groups and refugees on the council
- Working more closely with local refugee and migrant groups
- Becoming “fact checkers” for “anti-refugee” statements in Cumberland
- “Evaluating outcomes” for refugees and migrant groups in Cumbria to avoid any discrimination
- Creating “sanctuary strategies” for Cumberland and signing up to a new Refugee Charter
- Coming down harder on hate crimes
- Making sure all decisions the council makes considers refugees and migrants
- Rolling out education programmes for councillors and staff to understand “the truth” about asylum and immigration
The list really does go on and on, with councillors seemingly oblivious to the fact that the new authority is struggling for money and staff.
My council mole told me: “Nobody working for the Authority minds helping people but everyone is saying they can only do so much and existing budgets will only go so far.”
The proud architect of this uncosted new piece of work is a Carlisle-based councillor, Helen Davison (far left).
Dr Davison is the “leader” of the tiny Green Party on the council, which has only two councillors, including her.
She was elected with less than 1,000 votes and has a majority of just 188.
Despite a miniscule public mandate, Cllr Davison’s motion got the required votes as many Wokeites in the council chamber jumped out of their seats to support it.
There was next to no interrogation of what all this might cost or whether the council has the staff to deliver it.
An unquestioning and supportive article about the decision was published by the uncurious News & Scar. It immediately attracted a public pile-on. Tax-payers in Cumberland branded the idea “self-indulgent tosh”.
The kindest commentators strongly recommended that the council get on with what it’s paid to do – eg emptying bins, caring for the elderly and cleaning the streets (heaven forbid!)
And isn’t it a sign of our democratically bankrupt times that just one councillor on a soap box with no massive public support, can create so much extra work for so many council staff for an unknown future cost.
That’s democracy 2024-style!
Do you work for a council in Cumbria? If you’ve got any inside story, get in touch here…
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