Wednesday 3 December 2008

Blackpool Ex Servicemen's Liaison Committee

It is widely rumoured that the prospective Conservative candidate for Blackpool South is being fostered as next Chair to the Liaison Committee. Having witnessed the damage caused by the incumbent chair, it is noted that things can get worse.
The chair of this committee has access to the Mayors Fund which can give small remuneration to people born in Blackpool, who served in the WAR, who are in hardship. If this fund has fallen into disuse then the financial statement should be made public and the accounts cleared with the auditors. In 2002 there was at least £5000 in the fund as told by several Navy treasurers.
Not that I am impugning the reputation of the prospective Conservative candidate, but experiences have shown that he was incapable of replying to his own membership of his service organisation and demanded that a member would have to travel a seven hundred mile round trip 'just to read the minutes of past meetings'. Very much like being a party to silencing members who do not like the activities of office holders. The right to make public matters that are of a grievance concern to members do not seem to be an issue in some organisation. If service charities wish to be drinking forums for Freemasons then their charitable status should be withdrawn.
Therefore will a character like this be beneficial to desperately needy former servicemen/women in times of massive recession? Does that mean the former soldier in the wheel chair will have to fulfil other criteria to receive the assistance which is his by RIGHT? If the candidate cannot provide access to his members to read past minutes, what chance does a desperate invalid have in receiving all the rights he/she has? I do not hold out much hope.
As for becoming chairman, I have still to be given evidence that the Candidate was ever elected to represent his own branch of his service club, but somehow managed to get elected as a trustee to the national charity? Where are those minutes?

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