Brian Bamford
Independent
Castleton Ward
Address
46 Kingsland Road
Rochdale
OL11 3HQ
I hope that you will feel able to vote for me at the forthcoming local election on the 3 May, where I am standing as an Independent.
I live on Kingsland Road, and have lived in the Castleton area on and off since 1956, when my Mum and Dad rented a Council house on Alder Road.
In the mid-1960s, and later in the 1980s, I lived and worked in Gibraltar, and Spain where my eldest lad was born. There in the 1960s, I campaigned for a free and democratic Spain
All of my children attended local schools in Castleton.
I am secretary of the Bury Unite Commercial branch, and joint-editor of the Northern Voices Blog, which together with John Walker a former editor of Rochdale's Alternative Paper and the Westminster blogger, Paul Waugh, helped to expose Cyril Smith's involvement in the child abuse scandal at Cambridge House.
I last stood for election in the mid-1970s as a candidate for Rochdale’s Alternative Party (RAP) in the then Norden and Bamford ward.
As an Independent, I aim with other independent-minded candidates in Spotland and Norden to challenge the establishment parties who have failed Rochdale over the last decade. We three all reject the 34% increase in allowances for councillors, which was forced through the Rochdale council in December 2016 with the support of Labour and Tory councillors. Only the two Liberals voted against this cash top-up for Rochdale councillors.
Some Labour councillors stayed away on the night, and some claim now not to have taken the extra money, but those who voted for the allowance increase, like Billy Sheerin, and did not take the money, merely threw temptation in the path of others like Councillor Aasim Rashid, who said they wouldn't take the money and then pocketed the lot by mistake. When I asked him why he took the rise in his extra allowance, Councillor Rashid failed to reply. Given that he states in his election literature that he is an economics graduate it is difficult to believe that he took the money by mistake.
Unfortunately, this kind of slipshod approach to probity is becoming a family resemblance in today's Labour Party, with the recent revelations just put out surrounding the participation of Richard Farnell in the Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. Mr. Farnell has been accused of 'lying under oath'.
Similarly, the former Rochdale Labour MP, Simon Danczuk, seemed to have great difficulties filling-in his expenses sheets to everyone's satisfaction.
If you just want another member of a party machine don't vote Independent on 3 May. If you just want a rubber stamp or a nodding-dog that does what the likes of Richard Farnell or Allen Brett tells them, don't vote for Brian Bamford or the Independents at the local elections. f you want people who listen to you and not the party bosses, then vote for Brian Bamford and the Independents on 3 May.
Somehow Castleton and Rochdale has to get back to the politics of common decency, and we must not get lost in the pomp and fake civic pride of the party politicians, who just voted themselves a super allowance top-up.
