Labour denies right-winger Tom Cardwell runs troll account, but he tweeted same message from that account moments after tweeting and deleting it on his own Twitter account
Right-wing Liverpool Labour councillor Tom Cardwell has been outed apparently running a hateful troll account attacking local political opponents. Labour has denied he is behind the account and Cardwell is not answering his phone this morning and has not responded to a text enquiry.
The ‘GorstSpam’ Twitter account was set up to attack Garston councillor Sam Gorst and other Liverpool Community Independent (LCI) councillors and candidates who left Labour over the Labour-run council’s swingeing cuts to services for the most vulnerable – and has put out vile misogynistic and homophobic content.
And Cardwell exposed his link to the account when he tweeted one message pretending to be Gorst, then immediately deleted it and was stupid enough to put the same message out on the ‘Spam’ account moments later:
In fact, Cardwell appears to not be the only Labour right-winger running the account. Skwawkbox understands that a number of the city’s most notoriously odious councillors and their partners and hangers-on have access to post messages from that and other similar troll accounts attacking the independents.
LCI’s Twitter account has noted that the accounts’ output has included truly vile homophobic and misogynistic posts:
A Labour spokesperson doubled down by attacking LCI again in childish terms while denying Cardwell’s involvement.
The troll accounts are entirely in keeping with Labour’s official – though spinelessly near-anonymous – campaign materials in the south Liverpool ward, where Gorst’s hard work as a local councillor clearly has Labour worried. A recent attack leaflet – one that only mentions in the tiny ‘imprint’ text that it’s sent on behalf of Labour’s candidates – smeared Gorst and LCI and gave away how hopelessly out of touch the Labour right is by attacking Gorst for being an anti-Royalist and the group for opposing Labour’s budget cuts, both things that are likely to appeal to Scouse voters.
Labour’s behaviour is also reminiscent of the findings of the ‘Caller report’ that gave the Tories an opportunity to impose extremely expensive commissioners on the city – a move welcomed by ‘Labour leader’ Keir Starmer – as LCI has pointed out:
The LCI group has continued to take the high road, putting out actual policies conspicuous by their absence from Labour’s campaign:
The use of fake accounts to smear the left is a common right-wing tactic. The Labour right has shown itself to be petty, spiteful, void of ideas and utterly unfit to govern – and Liverpool deserves far better than them.
Tom Cardwell works for Garston and Halewood Labour MP Maria Eagle. Eagle did not respond to a request for comment on the alleged conduct of her employee.
Cardwell is currently a councillor for Speke-Garston, but is now standing in Brownlow Hill, some six miles away in the city-wide local elections, after the Tory-imposed commissioners’ changes to Liverpool’s ward structure – Skwawkbox advises Brownlow Hill voters to vote for the Greens in that ward.
Sam Gorst is a councillor in the Cressington area of Garston and is standing for election in the new Garston ward, alongside fellow LCI candidate Lucy Williams.
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[Dec 2015] Jeremy Corbyn has written to all Labour council leaders calling on them to resist calls to set illegal no cuts budgets.
In the letter co-signed by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Shadow Local Government Secretary Jon Trickett, Corbyn points out that failure to set balanced budgets could see “Tory minister deciding council spending priorities”, and warns that “their priorities would certainly not meet the needs of the communities that elected us”.
There have been some calls from Labour’s left for councils to reject cuts to local government spending, and for Labour councillors to refuse to vote through budget cuts – including in the past from the Labour Representation Committee, while John McDonnell served as chair. However, this letter makes clear that McDonnell does not support that view.
You can read the full letter here:
https://labourlist.org/2015/12/corbyn-urges-labour-councils-not-to-set-illegal-budgets/
Glory to Jeremy!
We largely know Jeremy’s line on austerity – and the J*w-hater-level of deceit that his enemies and random neoliberals tried to make from it.
Of course, JC urged labour councils not to set illegal budgets. He did, however, advise Labour councils to publicise the reason for their inability to provide effective local government.
So, thanks for the suggestion that we the letter in full, and thanks for your good wishes.
My local council barely raises a peep to let citizens/voters know that it is Tory austerity that has caused the closure of libraries and overall reductions in service levels and quality. It is easily explained by the fact that they suffer from acute New-New Labouritis, and are generally to the right of Genghis Khan.
With values like that, it’s no wonder one of our seats went Tory in 2019.
Starmer’s problem is how, at the next GE, he gets Labour out of the mess he created with his push for a second Referendum, and the daily increase in problems piling up because of Labour’s current lack of anything that could demonstrate even basic economic understanding, and willingness to move beyond the dead hand of Treasury orthodoxy, based on the dire principles of “serve the City and bugger the rest”.
So lets get this straight in terms of how the actual process works in the real world:
Labour, Lib-Dem, and Green Councillors vote through a’ legal budget’ based on constant reductions in funding from a central Government which;
a) Makes it impossible to run even statutory services in a practical and effective way.
b) Differentiates that funding in favour of wealthier Tory voting and therefore Tory run local authorities.*
* Tory run Local authorities like this one:
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2020-05-22/thurrock-council-borrowed-1bn-from-taxpayers-to-bet-on-british-sunshine
Which late last year was debt to the tune of around £1billion but is not subject to the same rules as non-Tory run Local authorities in that it gets bailed out by its mate in central Government whilst former public services in those non-Tory LA’s across the board – from libraries and sports centers to youth services and bus transport services – are cut to the bone and run by volunteers because the private sector, who we were lectured did not need public subsidy cannot run these services without massive public subsidy.
Unlike Liverpool, no Corporate State media led fanfare of Government Commissioners for places like Thurrock who are in all practical effect running illegal budgets by getting into serious debt and not balancing the books – as other Councils are required to do.
Which we don’t talk about in this bastardised faux excuse for a political culture in which there is one law for the rich and another one for the poor.
And in process terms, because those wearing a nominally different rosette to the Tories don’t bother to constantly explain to those of us they are supposed to represent with an alternative that it is not they who are responsible, those Councillors – Labour, Lib-Dem and Green – who are setting these fixed, as in scam, “legal budgets” are acting as human shields for those responsible. Taking the heat off them.
Again, in process terms the quickest most effective way to turn that around is to refuse to play that game. Let Government Commissioners come into every Council and take the public responsibility for this chicanery. Then people can see who is responsible for this unsustainable nonsense and stop voting for all those, whatever the nominal colour of the rosette pinned to their chest come election time, who go along with this economic illiteracy.
Here’s more on Thurrock Council:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/30/thurrock-council-repeatedly-ignored-warnings-of-risks-to-public-money
“The Tory-led Thurrock council, which is on the brink of bankruptcy after losing hundreds of millions of pounds on failed commercial investments, repeatedly ignored warnings from financial experts over the “unprecedented risks” it was taking with public money, it has emerged….
…They included £655m invested in a solar farms company, Toucan Holdings 1, which went into administration this month, and £94m in Just Loans Group plc, a business lender which went bust in June. These two deals alone have left the council exposed to potential losses of up to £250m.
Thurrock admitted on Tuesday that it faces a near £500m budget deficit this year – thought to be the biggest of its kind seen in local government – after writing off £275m on deals that went sour and setting aside a further £130m to pay back investments debts.
The council has been forced to go cap in hand to the government for a bailout to keep it afloat and has warned it may have to drastically cut services and jobs, sell off assets and raise council tax as it attempts to recover from what opposition politicians called the “catastrophic handling” of its affairs in recent years.”
……and again here:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/nov/29/thurrock-council-admits-disastrous-investments-caused-500m-deficit
“There was astonishment in the wider local government world at the scale of the financial disaster. “What we are seeing in Thurrock is shocking and unprecedented. I have not seen anything like this in my 30-year career in local government,” said Rob Whiteman, the chief executive of Cipfa, the public sector accountants body.
Thurrock had become one of the most indebted of all English local authorities in recent years after borrowing £1.5bn – 10 times its annual spending on local services – to enable a string of investments in solar energy and other businesses.
Three years of investigations by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ) have helped force Thurrock to reveal the full scale of its investments, including hundreds of millions lent to companies owned by businessman Liam Kavanagh to invest in 53 solar farms.
According to the BIJ, Thurrock invested £655m in Kavanagh’s companies, and expects to lose £188m on the deal. It also expects to make a £65m loss on its investment in a company called the Just Loans Group, which went bust in June, and millions more on a series of other deals that turned sour.
In common with many other councils Thurrock attempted to offset the effects of years of austerity cuts to its funding by borrowing cheaply from the Treasury and investing in commercial business in the hope this would provide an alternative income stream. By 2019, English councils had borrowed over £6bn for this purpose.”
That last sentence is worth repeating:
“By 2019, English councils had borrowed over £6bn for this purpose.”
Simply because Thurrock is the tip of the iceberg. The constant cuts from Central Government compared to the largess of throwing hundreds of billions of pounds of printed out of thin air fiat money at the already filthy rich – from banks to corporations and other multinational lobbyists – is unsustainable economic illiteracy.
Labour Councillors, among those of other supposedly non-Tory Party’s, are not doing the Country and its people any favours by continuing to go along with this madness and nonsense.
The local angle hints at a clearer description of how this process operates:
https://www.essexlive.news/news/essex-news/crisis-hit-thurrock-council-owes-7847598
“The amount of money owed to local authorities in Essex by debt-ridden Thurrock Council has hit nearly £20million. Freedom of information requests by the Local Democracy Reporting Service showed Colchester, Brentwood and Basildon councils lent £1.5m, £2m and £5m to Thurrock Council respectively, bringing the total invested by Essex councils to £19.5m.”
What in effect has been happening is that in order to try and maintain at least some basic level of services which are required by Stature – ie a legal requirement – Councils are borrowing money to invest in what they hope will be a money making venture to offset massive cuts in Central Government funding which Government of all nominal political hues would rather give to the already wealthy lobbyists in whose pockets they are.
Much of this is from other local authorities along with police and fire authorities across the Country. When the loan with interest becomes due the money to pay it is borrowed from another Local, Police or Fire authority. A bit like a pyramid scheme and just as unsustainable.
In process terms the context we are dealing with here when numpties like steveH glibly throw around phrases like “legal budget” is a very flexible to suit convenience definition of “legal.”
And the bottom line is that in the real world when something does not work in a very real practical sense – and this clearly does not – it matters not one jot how many people vote for it at a particular time. It still does not work.
And the quickest way to get people attention to that fact and that reality is to stop trying to make it work. When someone is holding your head and smashing it against a brick wall there are two main options:
1. Continue to let them do so by rationalising it as it as a natural occurrence with no other alternative;
or
2. Grab them by the balls. They’ll very rapidly find an alternative to banging your head against the wall.
‘SteveTodayMatthewIamgoingtobe****’ – anything to say about the actual post? No I thought not.
Julia – a quote from the above article
“Sam Gorst and other Liverpool Community Independent (LCI) councillors and candidates who left Labour over the Labour-run council’s swingeing cuts to services for the most vulnerable”
A quote from Liverpool World
“A group of five Labour councillors who were suspended after they broke the whip to vote against the council’s budget plan are forming an independent party.
The quintet have officially resigned from Labour and will join three other members who previously quit the council’s majority party to form a new opposition group.
https://www.liverpoolworld.uk/news/labour-rebels-quit-party-to-form-independent-group-at-liverpool-city-council-3658806
It will be interesting to see how many of these ex-Labour councillors manage to retain their seats now that they are standing as LCI candidates.🤔
Reply to Steve H
Deflection tactics as usual I see – what can’t be defended must be ignored eh?
What deflection would that be, the LCI’s very existence is founded on their votes against setting a legal budget?
I thought LCI’s very existence was to deliver honesty, transparency and people-centred spending. I wish Labour had a similar MO, but alas….
You think that’s wrong?
qwertboi -Really? For true, for true?🤔
…and the following year, poor old JC was forced to increase his majority, in a Leadership Election, from 251,417(59.5%), in 2015, to 313,209(61.8%), in 2016. Disaster!
In 2017 – further disaster. In that years ‘snap’ General Election, The Labour Party only managed a calamitous total vote share of 12,877,918(40.0%), the highest General Election vote share, for The Labour Party, since the General Election of 1945.
The Tories, of course, stormed ahead with an astounding vote share of 12,877,918(42.3%) – a possible Hung Parliament.
For some reason, the 600,000 Members of The Labour Party were euphoric, tempered by 172 PLP MP’s, and some Labour HQ staff being more realistic, briefing against the general euphoria.
The country dodged a bullet, in 2017, didn’t it.
Phew!
Correction : The Tory vote share in 2017 should, of course, be 13,636,684(42.3%).
How many of these ex-Labour councillors will manage to retain their seats now that they are standing as LCI candidates.🤔
“How many of these ex-Labour councillors will manage to retain their seats now that they are standing as LCI candidates.🤔”
That’s the rub – plus, how many of the non-departed members are providing the levels of door-knocking and campaigning that the dearly-departeds achieved?
Although voter apathy is a usual occurrence under “third way” leaders (5m+ at the last count), Liverpool seemed to stay immune to it under Blair, Brown and Milliband. Maybe Sir Keir will have the opposite effect there and LCI will perform unbelievably well?
We’ll all know before what’shisface becomes the new Queenman.
SteveH 02/05/2023 at 3:05 pm :
I wonder how many Liverpool Labour Councillors will manage to retain their seats, now they are standing as Liverpool Labour candidates?
246
Tuition Fees ?
Latest pledge the Bottom Feeder has trashed
Remainiacs are starting to shout loudly for a 2nd Referendum, what say your leader
So he shits on them then you expect Brexidiots to believe he’s one of them
F7ck me Pink with one of Ken Dodds Tickling sticks
“A Labour spokesperson doubled down by attacking LCI again in childish terms while denying Cardwell’s involvement.” – article.
Scum is as scum does.
Reply to Qwertboi
What I’d like to know is how in the absense of an investigation a Labour spokesman could possibly deny Caldwell’s involvement in this disgusting hate account. To me this statement is a clear indication that the party knows all about the posts and given the vile attack dog ads falsely alleging that Rishi Sunak thinks child molesters shouldn’t be jailed it is probable that not only does the party know all about them but it approves of them too.
Just when we think Starmers Labour can sink no lower they always manage to do so.
Maria Eagle, MP, may be more informed than is normal, but then who does know what’s going on inside Liverpool Labour – or North West Labour come to that.
Or – any – of the local, or regional, Labour Parties
I, certainly, don’t.
Yeah, they’re ‘all in it together’ as George Osborne used to say….
QT, Unfortunately, the scum rises to the top. We need to destroy it altogether or it will keep returning.
Yeah they’re all in it together talking shite in the toilets of H.o.C sniffing coke wondering who they can get next to abuse be called a racist fucking scum the lot of them
It’s interesting to see how many candidates are standing for multiple seats in the upcoming local elections.
https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/13577381/embed#amp=1
246
Sunak ahead of Starmer
What say you
Doug – “The pollsters ran a local election voter intention poll in postcodes where elections are taking place which revealed 37% of people will vote Labour and 26% voting Conservative.
The Liberal Democrats came in third on 17% followed by the Green party (9%), independents (6%) and Reform (4%)”.
https://www.omnisis.co.uk/polls/new-poll-suggests-labour-victory-in-high-turnout-local-election/
This from Angela Rayner…..2019
“And we will scrap tuition fees and bring back maintenance grants. Free education for all throughout your life. That is the prospect that [the Tories] would have us believe is so terrifying”
Starmer yesterday….”We will not abolish tuition fees.”