The Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government
Eland House
Bressenden Place
London
SW1E 5DU
20 January 2011
Dear Mr Pickles
May I congratulate you on the speedy and robust way you are tackling the very many important issues facing local government:it is very refreshing.
Living as I do in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea I was surprised to be told that Sir Merrick Cockell boasts that he is to be advising you, on a regular weekly basis, wearing his Conservative Councillors Association hat.
Like you, and many other Conservatives in the Borough we abhor profligacy. Yet in Merrick Cockell we have a Council Leader whose Town Clerk earns-at £245,000 per annum, far in excess of the Prime Minster, and who has expressed no intention of reducing his salary-an utter rejection of your well reported guidance to all chief executives.
In RBK&C we have councillors whose allowances are some 40% greater than neighbouring boroughs, and whose leader and deputy pay themselves twice that of Councillors Lister and Greenhalgh of Wandsworth and Hammersmith and Fulham respectively.
Not so very long ago Merrick Cockell was the subject of considerable adverse press comment for spending taxpayer's resources on First Class trips to the United States, stays at 5 star hotels, limousine hire and $200 dinners for two-with a guest he refuses to identify.
I don't even talk about his purchase and use of a brand new Mayoral Bentley at the beginnings of the financial crisis.
I would have thought that were you were seeking wise counsel on London local government matters Councillor Lister or Greenhalgh would have been far sounder choices.
The profligacy of Councillor Cockell is a source of constant comment in this Borough and his associating himself as your adviser sends out a very confusing message.
Keep up the terrific work.
Yours sincerely
'A bemused resident of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea'
'A bemused resident of the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea'
This is news.... that someone writes a letter - It looks like a re hash of stories that Hornet has been publishing over the past 6 months
ReplyDeleteNothing new here
Is it true that Sir Cockle has appointed someone from the useless PR department to make this stream of tedious comments? It bears all the marks of desperate attempts to halt the soaring popularity of this great site...38,000 viewers can't be wrong.
ReplyDeleteOh yes, the story the letter conveys it the utter folly of Pickles taking advice from an ex African fag salesman
who now lives the lush life 'on the taxpayer'. Got it now?