STEVE’S BIG IDEA.
Sandwell council leader Steve Eling has not been teleported into Sandwell from paradise. He has been in the thick of Labour politics in the borough for years.
We waited to hear what Sandwell’s now self-proclaimed Mr. Clean had to propose to rid Labour Sandwell of any hint of corruption and to deliver his promise of “honesty openness and transparency”
At last Steve’s big idea has emerged. He wants to put advertising on Sandwell’s traffic islands.
Followers of Eling speak will be unsurprised that he justifies this daft idea by saying it is to raise money ….. (wait for it, now chant in Unison) “because of the cuts.”
He ignores the road safety Issue that these advertisements would pose. He ignores shed loads of public money spent by the council on these islands which will be wasted as landscaping is replaced by advertising hoardings. But Steve is a good old socialist with a track record of wasting tax-payers money.
Worst of all, Sandwell will lose any chance of appearing in the United Kingdom Roundabout Appreciation Society’s annual calendar. The gent who runs this organisation, as a joke, conned Sandwell’s Labour elite a few years ago into receiving an award for the Best Roundabout in the UK for the Birchley island on which they had spent half a million and which is now due to be bulldozed.
So sadly there will be no Oscar type acceptance speech from Steve thanking those in the Labour regional HQ who secured his election by disqualifying a dozen Labour councillors from voting in the Sandwell Labour leadership election. No tribute to a Mr. Watson. Still Steve can boast that he’s like Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn has the support of less than 50% of Labour MPs, Steve has the support of less than 50% of Sandwell Labour councillors.