Analysis comment Exclusive

Exclusive: Starmer’s ‘new’ team for council means bringing back councillor who tried to join Tories and boasted of undeclared ‘loan’

Bill Gavan seen campaigning for Labour in Sandwell and insiders say he is being brought back into fold along with others expelled for supporting rival candidates against Labour

Late last month, Keir Starmer told local press in the West Midlands that:

My plan to change culture at chaotic Sandwell Council is working

Starmer claimed to be bringing a new broom to Sandwell, sweeping out figures from the council leadership in order to ‘restore voters’ trust’ and told the Express and Star:

We are making changes, and some of those changes are obvious in terms of some of the people who are now not in positions that they were.

More, or equally importantly, the group of candidates we have got going forward into these elections are an excellent, diverse group of candidates.

I’m really pleased to be able to field a team like that, so where we had to do work we are doing work. I’m very concerned that the Labour Party rebuilds trust and reconnects with the voters.

Starmer’s ‘change of culture’ appears to consist of… bringing back figures who left the party or were thrown out for supporting rival candidates – including one who tried to join the Tory party and was recorded boasting of arranging a ‘loan’ for a Labour MP to prevent her being barred from sitting as a Labour MP for bankruptcy.

Local councillor and former Tom Watson employee Paul Moore posted a picture during this local election campaign of himself and a group out campaigning for a West Bromwich East candidate – a group that included ‘independent’ councillor Bill Gavan:

Gavan resigned from the Labour party in 2019 during a council meeting . He subsequently denied that he had left the party but went on to try to join the Tories, who reportedly declined to accept his application.

Gavan was also recorded boasting to a colleague about arranging a loan of £25,600 for now-MP Naz Shah when she was a parliamentary candidate and faced bankruptcy.

The loan appears never to have been recorded in the register of MP’s interests and Shah did not respond to requests for clarification, despite parliamentary rules that say:

any financial or non-financial benefit received by a MP or Member of the Lords which might reasonably be thought by others to influence their actions, speeches or votes in Parliament or influence their actions taken in their capacity as a Member.

Sandwell insiders have told Skwawkbox that Labour plans to bring Gavan back into the fold, a claim that appears to be supported by Moore’s campaign photo – and that the plan extends to other former Labour councillors expelled from the party for supporting rival candidates.

Meanwhile, the ‘obvious changes’ that Starmer claims will ‘restore trust’ seem to be the departure of former council leader Yvonne Davies, who had become leader only in 2019 on a promise of exposing and clearing out corruption that she said had prevailed under previous Labour-right regimes, along with several councillors who were supportive of her clear-out. Davies had already resigned as council leader last July, accusing Labour of covering up corruption and planning a purge of left-wing councillors so that the right could re-take control of the council.

Keir Starmer’s ‘plan to change culture’ in Sandwell appears to consist of bringing back right-wing figures who left under a cloud and were very much part of the ‘chaotic Sandwell council’ scene.

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30 comments

  1. …and, later on 5LiveBreakfast, with Rachel Burden. They managed to squeeze in two of my questions, at the end, with no time for follow-ups.

    He lied, unashamedly. He should resign, as leader, immediately.

    1. Like Johnson, the question is by whom?
      Just like “The Tories”, the question is by whom?
      We NEED a Party FOR THE PEOPLE, that is the only thing we should be focusing our energy on now. Unless we get at least the vast majority of Thatcher’s Neolabour Party Tories OUT of our Occupied UK Labour Party at the next GE, it will make no difference who is in Government or who is leading any Party in Parliament nor how good or how bad they are doing it, because there is NO ONE or NO PARTY, who will be an improvement on the status quo.
      OUR CHOICE:
      Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Party TORIES
      OR
      Thatcher’s Neoliberal Conservative Party TORIES
      The Difference Johnson threatened to get a Journalist beat up and intimidates and Starmer “Don’t you dare to get Cold Feet!!!”

      1. So not only are our Labour party councillors and mps second rate tory tribute band,the Torys are rejecting them as a second rate tory tribute act.ITs got to be the epilogue for the former working class party The Labour party.

      2. Not “Our Labour Party” Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Party PURE Tory NOT “Second Rate Tories”
        “Our Labour Party” is The Host Party to the Parasite Neolabour Tory Party. The UK Labour Party is so infested that just the skin is left and squirming with parasites, but where there are THE PEOPLE and there is HOPE, we will always be The UK Labour Party!

  2. Starmer was saying he was trying to bring back those labour voters that left and he’s the right person to do it so why has him and evens exspeled hundreds of labour members i do hope labour gets wiped out on Thursday then they will come up with some excuse that it was Corbyns fault what a fucking tosser

    1. In mid-term elections as May 6 will be, you’d usually expect massive gains to be made by the Labour opposition party.

      On Friday morning, starting aound 4.00am when the Hartlepool by-election result is announced, Labour will start sitting shiva for itself. Woe with Labour, woe for ‘progressive politics’, woe for Hope.

      And it was all fore-seeable, all avoidable and all self-inflicted – by Sir Keir Rodney Starmer.

      Woe for Labour. – I’m voting Green, me.

      1. Don’t waste your vote, go for the strongest opponent to the Neolabour Tory to ensure they are knocked out. OF COURSE if there ate ANY UK Labour Party or Exiled UK Labour Party MPs/Candidates VOTE FOR THEM.
        By voting for a ‘lesser’ Party your vote adds up a Party that has no chance of knocking Neolab Tories out, by voting for the strongest opponent you will have a much better chance of result.
        You might think I refuse to vote for the other Tories, but the likelihood of Tories winning even if you voted green is high, but also the likelihood of Neolabour Tories winning by just one or two votes is also higher.
        I “have my sword out” and I am going for Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Party TORY Vermin, whatever it takes!
        The End result = Suffering!
        The End result of doing the opposite Prolonged Suffering!

    2. Hodge has already blamed Corbyn, ahead of the election, saying the damage done by him will take longer than expected to repair. Meanwhile, the Hartlepool candidate says people never mentioned Corbyn.

      1. Jeremy Corbyn, Corbynism and Corbynites will be the scapegoats for Thatcher’s Neolabour Tories until the day we VOTE every last one of the Bastards out of our UK Labour Party. Even if there are none left in “The Party” and we are all battling from the sidelines, Their Poor Management and Policies will be our Fault!
        A smaller PLP, but the Largest Party CLP/Members/Unions etc and Parasite Free, no more SABOTAGE! All Corbynite MPs restored, whips, seats and all and Candidates Rearing to Take Government the next GE!

      2. Hodge…an Egyptian Jewess who has paid some 2.9% of her taxes on the millions her family business has brought to the UK to save it being ransacked by successive Egyptian governments! This bitch never apologised for the slanderous remarks she made about JC. Nor did she ever receive the deserved slapping for the 200 false allegations made about socialist members and only taken back when threatened with court!

      3. barriereid – Yes it is disappointing that ‘the left’ couldn’t get their act together when they were gifted the opportunity to get rid of her.

      4. Of course. I see now. It’s all the fault of “the left”. Thanks for the revelation.

  3. “More, or equally importantly, the group of candidates we have got going forward into these elections are an excellent, diverse group of candidates.”
    Hardly ‘diverse’, they’re Tories.

  4. Sorry for changing the subject but I think everyone should know that all healthcare ‘reforms’ imposed on us have been modelled on Kaiser healthcare USA. There have been 5 reforms since 1990 and s new one is coming from Johnson. The aim is to ease us into private healthcare. This is the model: Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest nonprofit healthcare plans in the United States, with over 12 million members.[1] It operates 39 hospitals and more than 700 medical offices, with over 300,000 personnel, including more than 80,000 physicians and nurses.

    Each Permanente Medical Group operates as a separate for-profit partnership or professional corporation in its individual territory, and while none publicly reports its financial results, each is primarily funded by reimbursements from its respective regional Kaiser Foundation Health Plan entity. KFHP is one of the largest not-for-profit organizations in the United States.
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaiser_Permanente

  5. DOH! The “culture change” that Starmer’s proud of amounts to little more than ejecting (or enfeebling) democratic socialists and left-wing liberals and replacing them with pro-likudist neoliberals of the very worst type.

    Yet more reason to not vote Labour on Thursday me thinks.

  6. I look forward to Friday morning, when a new chapter will be added to that well- thumbed tome ” Everyone’s Book of Ripping Excuses”.

  7. “My plan to change culture at chaotic Sandwell Council is working”
    By destroying a Council that was finally on the up, after years of Neolabour Tory chaos!
    This Starmer guy is Goebbels in reincarnate! He has created a level of Fear Propaganda in his Neolabour Party and for Our UK Labour Party that makes Johnson, Trump and Biden look like spring daisies!
    However Shutting up and Clamming Up and bowing to his Fear Politics is the worst thing anyone can do! Be a Martyr or just leave and Fight the Bastard from where it hurts the most! Being a Member to Vote in a Democratic Socialist is as much wishful thinking as a Democratic Socialist actually getting on a Ballot!
    Stand UP! Stand UP! STAND UP!

    1. At least we will not see Corbyn dancing hoping for a Labour party meltdown,he like most of us will be mourning of what could have been but for the treacherous behaviour of the right wing destroyers of the Labour party.I wonder what cheif parasites the Kinnock brood will be doing?

      1. Yup! It is blatantly obvious, but Sadly there are still way to many of Murdoch/Blair’s People if The Sun and Campbell/Mandelson People of the Sun in Lambskin! They are sleep walking off the cliff nothing seems to wake them up!
        https://www.reddit.com/r/UKpoliticalmemes/comments/n3s0kp/boycott_all_msm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 [Little old, but still does]
        However I have noticed that as the breadline crept up the Income scale, popping Comfy Life Fluff Bubbles as it goes, more and more People appear to be waking up in the REAL world a bit! Perhaps as a by-product of Parasite Pest Control and another Tory Term we might even have more than 50% Wide Awake! Every Cloud I guess.

    2. Nope won’t live in a fantasy land either sorry. I won’t give my support and subscription to this cult of new Labour because being a member that is exactly what your doing! Oh you may realise it how you like but here is the reality 95% of all the PLP is cult. I suspect the same of all the staff and backroom people these are the cancer that you will NEVER remove because you have no power over them. SO how do you believe your going to remove them all? You may vote out one or two MP’s but your never get right to recall or choose candidates not approved by this cult.

      Sorry face facts Labour as we know it is dead. I am a socialist like my father and him before us we believe in socialism and it’s power to change and help people. But until we have a socialist party only no right wing cancer ever again.Nothing will change all we have is a zombie party with a rosette a name with no soul. Keep on fighting a terminal cancer wastes our time left. How many generations need to be wasted before we face the truth? See what must really do, either split the party or create a new socialist party.

      I suspect we will soon see the Torys try and have a snap election depending on the covid bounce. Before any truth can start about the mountain of excess deaths. Jeremy Corbin will be prevented from re-entry into Labour and we will finally have a civil war that will distract everyone and get a huge Tory majority.

      1. We vote them out, with their strongest opponent, who ever or whatever their strongest opponent is, as far as I am concerned there is no greater Enemy to Our Democracy and Socialism, in the HoP, than Thatcher’s Neolabour Party Tories!
        We had our easy overnight chance grandad, we blew it, Now we only have one possible last chance left, vote them out!
        Peterloo, Cable Street, Orgreave, etc, etc are exactly why, whilst there is any possible way we must do it! Do you think any revolutionaries anywhere ever expected not to die for their cause, we don’t even need to die or fight, we just need to vote Neolabour Tory MPs/Candidates OUT and UK Labour Party MPs/Candidates IN!
        We will end up with a small 100% Democratic Socialist PLP or a Very small minority of Neolabour MPs soon to be evicted. We should Condemn Zionism and Israel as Racist, Apartheid and Terrorist and insist on an EDM signed by all Party MPs to have The Apartheid Regime’s Ambassador Recalled.
        We might then have a Small PLP, but The Largest Party, Members/CLP/Candidates for Councillor and MP working our buts off to get every seat filled by the next GE.
        I don’t think this is impossible, but it will have to be a campaign for Voters!
        For US The PEOPLE, we do not have to play by Thatcher’s Neolabour Tory Party’s Rules!
        We can Coup as hard as they can and we can get as dirty as we need to!
        Possible!

      2. A Snap Election would be Ideal, we could vote the Neolabour Tories out, Johnson will become even more out of control meaning that we can then Prepare Candidates, get the Socialists back in and call another snap election based on the even worse than before madness of Churchill Wannabe!
        I am not saying this lightly, as I am totally aware of the effects of abject poverty, and am only one brown envelope away from my own demise, I am very aware of the Horrendous CV19 deaths but also the now forgotten Homeless Death Toll, The DWP Death Toll, etc, etc, etc,
        I am sure everyone took all this into consideration when Jeremy non stop campaigned and warned us what would happen if….. and it is happening and he was right.
        We have to understand it is going to carry profound casualties for us to get rid of Thatcher’s Neoliberal Neolabour Party Tories, BUT even if 1 Democratic Socialist is left standing in The HoC, we will have a louder Voice FOR THE PEOPLE than the entire 95% of Neolabour Party Tories put together and outside The HoC we will have an Army of Members/Candidates/CLP/Unions etc, etc, etc!
        I don;t know about you grandad but time is limited, but if there is one battle I would love to see won, it is this one.

  8. Gavan resigned from the Labour party in 2019 during a council meeting . He subsequently denied that he had left the party but went on to try to join the Tories, who reportedly declined to accept his application.

    Which shows that even the toerags have standards – whereas stammerite labour will accept any old duplicitous, treacherous, apostate, backsliding, scruppleless, self-serving sack of shite…Not just peter mandelson.

    They’re welcome to each other. That’s why Hartlepoool will roundly tell them to get to f***, on Thursday.

    And hopefully a lot of council wards up & down the country will be doing the same. And who could blame them?

  9. This is the Mandelson strategy, which is based on the corrupt ‘machine’ politics developed in the USA and widely practised elsewhere.

    It is to replace the mass party idea with a party consisting of office holders, aspiring office holders, their clients and fans, whose object is simply to take office and eventually power in order to sustain themselves. The beauty of it is that every office not only has a salary and expenses but also either dependent ‘patronage’ jobs or contract positions. It doesn’t take long for such a ‘machine’ to become independent of a base-it buys its own ‘astroturf- and able to sustain itself. It raises any extraordinary funds needed-for campaigning- from capitalists who are handsomely rewarded when the party is in office.
    Of course the basis of such a party is very fragile- nobody would die, only fools would make any sacrifices for such a hollow ’cause.’ But so long as there is no direct opposition, organised around real principles and offering people realistic solutions for their problems, such zombie parties, like the Democrats (who were once that) PASOK and the Second International Labour and Social Democratic parties will continue to turn the old loyalties to name and brand, into the gold of great jobs, pensions and jobs for the boys.
    Such parties will, eventually- see Hartlepool- be wiped out. The problem is that, given the inability of socialists to act in solidarity, the sectarianism which is the lifeblood of the ‘left’, it is more likely that the death of these PASOKs will occur at the hands of fascists than a revived socialist party.
    In other words Starmer, Watson and their like are paving their way for fascism- which is something that Max Mosley saw years ago.

  10. Good point Bevin…But the Labour party members and those in the unions always fall for the propoganda especially if it comes from a Lawyer from the millionaire class and sing a nice song…?youve been warned and if you don’t learn then its down to stupidity or enabalism for the establishment system of “Control” ..?

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