As the Cock of the North plans to throw more millions at his Mayors, what’s Richard Parker doing in the West Midlands?
Enjoying higher business rate income for a start. This year, his fiefdom expects to scoop up £15 million from hard-pressed businesses. This will increase by 10 per cent every year, reaching £19.5 million in 2028, according to the West Midlands Combined Authority’s unaudited report and accounts for last year.
Amid the usual drivel and guff, this tedious document does disclose that Mr Parker is not very good at his job, which is supposed to be spending our money.
His capital budget for building things like Midland Metro tram lines was £653 million but he only managed to get rid of £463 million, a £190 million or 29 per cent shortfall.
He also underspent on his revenue budget. It was £556 million but he only managed to spend £532 million
.
All of which makes you wonder why he needs to treat businesses as a cash cow. Yet he’s still pleading poverty. The report claims Mayor Parker faces a £33 million shortfall next year and £29 million the following one.
We shouldn’t worry too much given that he can’t get rid of his money fast enough. Surely it's time for a rebate?
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Sunday, September 13, 2026
Why Reform’s millions won’t make any difference
There is no point getting cross about the millions of pounds poured into Nigel Farage’s party because all that money will just get thrown away by profligate buffoons.
Political parties are basically run by quasi-civil servants dressed up as political advisers, policy wonks etc who take exactly the same approach to other people’s money as civil servants.
In other words, they piss it away on pointless things with no thought for how the money was made, who provided it or where the next dollop is coming from.
The Reform millions will simply be poured down the drain like the Tory and Labour millions already are and they will make virtually no difference to the party’s prospects whenever the next General Election place.
Crypto-millionaires or trade union bosses might be able to buy a political party but they can’t buy the British people, who are neither as stupid or easily-influenced as some pundits think they are.
At General Elections, the British people get it more or less right irrespective of the millions thrown at the process. Yes, they elected Labour last time and probably didn’t intend to see such a huge majority. But that’s to do with the first past the post system. It has nothing to do with how much money any party spent.
Awash with cash, we can rest assured Reform will pour it down the drain just as other parties do. It’s the attitude all parties take into Government, which his why taxes only ever go up.
Political parties are basically run by quasi-civil servants dressed up as political advisers, policy wonks etc who take exactly the same approach to other people’s money as civil servants.
In other words, they piss it away on pointless things with no thought for how the money was made, who provided it or where the next dollop is coming from.
The Reform millions will simply be poured down the drain like the Tory and Labour millions already are and they will make virtually no difference to the party’s prospects whenever the next General Election place.
Crypto-millionaires or trade union bosses might be able to buy a political party but they can’t buy the British people, who are neither as stupid or easily-influenced as some pundits think they are.
At General Elections, the British people get it more or less right irrespective of the millions thrown at the process. Yes, they elected Labour last time and probably didn’t intend to see such a huge majority. But that’s to do with the first past the post system. It has nothing to do with how much money any party spent.
Awash with cash, we can rest assured Reform will pour it down the drain just as other parties do. It’s the attitude all parties take into Government, which his why taxes only ever go up.
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Restrictive covenant nightmare
Earlier this year, an estate in Bexhill, East Sussex, hit the headlines after residents were presented with bills of £7,500 or more for breaching restrictive covenants on their houses by building conservatories or putting up garden sheds.
A company called Asset Invest Ltd bought up restrictive covenants on an estate of houses for just £1 then issued bills to residents who had breached them – even when the owners had obtained planning permission. The BBC did a piece on this in April which tells us quite a bit about the people behind this.
But it turns out this is not an isolated case. A Worcestershire resident told a meeting held by Nigel Huddleston, MP for Droitwich and Evesham, that Asset Invest had sent him a bill for £70,000 relating to a breach of a restrictive covenant on a recently-built buy-to-let house he’d acquired.
As he told Mr Huddleston, the company has been buying up restrictive covenants, without telling the home-owners who are subject to them, and then enforcing them even if they are decades old. It is blighting properties, making them difficult to sell without coming to a settlement with Asset Invest. ‘It scares people and is clearly exploitative,’ he said.
There are others badly affected. One of those affected said on-line: ‘I am sure you will appreciate that I wish to post anonymously given this company’s behaviour. I live in another part of the country and only know about Asset Invest taking over our covenants as our MP wrote to us, have since discovered they have charged a neighbour over £30k for building works… it’s a living nightmare.’
Another said: ‘We've just had a letter from these people asking for £19500 to remove covenants from my late father's property on an estate near Portsmouth. The planning permission granted for a conservatory and estate agent’s sale notices seemed to draw their attention to us, now they want the money to go away and not scupper the house sale. Has anybody managed to find a way to fight these parasites?’
Though buying up covenants seems the latest ruse, two years ago, Asset Invest put up a 2,000 square metres strip of land 14 feet wide at its widest in Greenwich for £13,500 claiming it had potential for two dwellings. The company also offered 217 square feet of land in Wilmslow, Cheshire, as an ‘excellent Space - Freehold for Events/Pop-Up in Centre of The Carrs Picnic area’ for £8,500.
It does seem bizarre that a third-party can buy up covenants at knock-down prices and then impose what are little more than fines on people who have innocently gone about improving their homes.
Mind you, Asset Invest’s website includes a testimonial from one of its ‘clients’, a residents’ management company in Bedfordshire who seem very happy with them.
It says: ‘We were contacted by Asset Invest who informed the residents they had purchased a strip of land, this being the only access to our properties. Asset Invest gave the residents the option of purchasing the land collectively. The letter came out of the blue for the residents as we understood the land already has been passed to the residents! Asset Invest took time to explain how this would work. We were advised of the pros and cons and allowed time to seek advice. Once we made the decision to purchase Asset Invest were there to help with names of solicitors should we need it. The purchase of the title deed was straightforward and the only hold ups were from our end! The residents trusted Asset Invest and felt happy with the purchase price.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cddqry9zrl6o
A company called Asset Invest Ltd bought up restrictive covenants on an estate of houses for just £1 then issued bills to residents who had breached them – even when the owners had obtained planning permission. The BBC did a piece on this in April which tells us quite a bit about the people behind this.
But it turns out this is not an isolated case. A Worcestershire resident told a meeting held by Nigel Huddleston, MP for Droitwich and Evesham, that Asset Invest had sent him a bill for £70,000 relating to a breach of a restrictive covenant on a recently-built buy-to-let house he’d acquired.
As he told Mr Huddleston, the company has been buying up restrictive covenants, without telling the home-owners who are subject to them, and then enforcing them even if they are decades old. It is blighting properties, making them difficult to sell without coming to a settlement with Asset Invest. ‘It scares people and is clearly exploitative,’ he said.
There are others badly affected. One of those affected said on-line: ‘I am sure you will appreciate that I wish to post anonymously given this company’s behaviour. I live in another part of the country and only know about Asset Invest taking over our covenants as our MP wrote to us, have since discovered they have charged a neighbour over £30k for building works… it’s a living nightmare.’
Another said: ‘We've just had a letter from these people asking for £19500 to remove covenants from my late father's property on an estate near Portsmouth. The planning permission granted for a conservatory and estate agent’s sale notices seemed to draw their attention to us, now they want the money to go away and not scupper the house sale. Has anybody managed to find a way to fight these parasites?’
Though buying up covenants seems the latest ruse, two years ago, Asset Invest put up a 2,000 square metres strip of land 14 feet wide at its widest in Greenwich for £13,500 claiming it had potential for two dwellings. The company also offered 217 square feet of land in Wilmslow, Cheshire, as an ‘excellent Space - Freehold for Events/Pop-Up in Centre of The Carrs Picnic area’ for £8,500.
It does seem bizarre that a third-party can buy up covenants at knock-down prices and then impose what are little more than fines on people who have innocently gone about improving their homes.
Mind you, Asset Invest’s website includes a testimonial from one of its ‘clients’, a residents’ management company in Bedfordshire who seem very happy with them.
It says: ‘We were contacted by Asset Invest who informed the residents they had purchased a strip of land, this being the only access to our properties. Asset Invest gave the residents the option of purchasing the land collectively. The letter came out of the blue for the residents as we understood the land already has been passed to the residents! Asset Invest took time to explain how this would work. We were advised of the pros and cons and allowed time to seek advice. Once we made the decision to purchase Asset Invest were there to help with names of solicitors should we need it. The purchase of the title deed was straightforward and the only hold ups were from our end! The residents trusted Asset Invest and felt happy with the purchase price.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cddqry9zrl6o
Thursday, September 03, 2026
War correspondent's report on the Battle of Worcester
The first report of the Battle of Worcester came in the Government propaganda paper “Mercurius Politicus” which was written by Marchamont Nedham, the leading journalist of the English Civil War.
Nedham, who started writing for Oliver Cromwell as the price for being freed from prison after earlier working for King Charles I until his execution in 1649, declared the battle was “a very glorious day of decision”.
Some historians claim the report was written by his boss, the Government’s “Secretary for Foreign Tongues”, the famous poet John Milton.
But Nedham (1620-1678) was regarded as the most potent reporter of the era and both the Royalists and Parliamentarians valued his services highly. And he may actually have been at the Battle of Worcester 375 years ago today.
His report on the Battle of Worcester said, among other things:
Referring to Charles II’s defeat and flight from the city: ‘Thus seems to be the setting of the young King’s glory…. Their King, it is said, went out very meanly, with only 12 horse.’
On the outcome of the battle: ‘In all the engagements that ever we had, never did a more immediate hand of God appear than in this nor more courage and resolution in an army, though no flesh hath cause to boast because it is the Lord only that hath done all these things.’
Referring to Oliver Cromwell, he wrote: ‘My Lord General did exceedingly hazard himself, riding up and down in the midst of the shot and riding himself in person to the enemy’s foot offering them quarter whereto they returned no answer but shot.’
And he quotes Cromwell as saying: ‘It is for ought I know, a Crowning mercy.’
Nedham points out that September 3 was Cromwell’s lucky day, as he won the Battle of Dunbar on the same date a year earlier. However, September 3 wasn’t always lucky for Cromwell – he died on September 3, 1658.
Nedham, who was born in Burford, Oxfordshire, and began his journalistic career working for Parliament before switching sides to support Charles I and then turning again to back Cromwell, survived attempts by the restored Royalists to have him hanged, became a doctor in the 1660s and went on to write for King Charles II.
“The Man Who Invented the News”, covering Marchamont Nedham’s chequered career, was published in 2022.
Nedham, who started writing for Oliver Cromwell as the price for being freed from prison after earlier working for King Charles I until his execution in 1649, declared the battle was “a very glorious day of decision”.
Some historians claim the report was written by his boss, the Government’s “Secretary for Foreign Tongues”, the famous poet John Milton.
But Nedham (1620-1678) was regarded as the most potent reporter of the era and both the Royalists and Parliamentarians valued his services highly. And he may actually have been at the Battle of Worcester 375 years ago today.
His report on the Battle of Worcester said, among other things:
Referring to Charles II’s defeat and flight from the city: ‘Thus seems to be the setting of the young King’s glory…. Their King, it is said, went out very meanly, with only 12 horse.’
On the outcome of the battle: ‘In all the engagements that ever we had, never did a more immediate hand of God appear than in this nor more courage and resolution in an army, though no flesh hath cause to boast because it is the Lord only that hath done all these things.’
Referring to Oliver Cromwell, he wrote: ‘My Lord General did exceedingly hazard himself, riding up and down in the midst of the shot and riding himself in person to the enemy’s foot offering them quarter whereto they returned no answer but shot.’
And he quotes Cromwell as saying: ‘It is for ought I know, a Crowning mercy.’
Nedham points out that September 3 was Cromwell’s lucky day, as he won the Battle of Dunbar on the same date a year earlier. However, September 3 wasn’t always lucky for Cromwell – he died on September 3, 1658.
Nedham, who was born in Burford, Oxfordshire, and began his journalistic career working for Parliament before switching sides to support Charles I and then turning again to back Cromwell, survived attempts by the restored Royalists to have him hanged, became a doctor in the 1660s and went on to write for King Charles II.
“The Man Who Invented the News”, covering Marchamont Nedham’s chequered career, was published in 2022.
Wednesday, September 02, 2026
Chips with everything
It’s unlikely the great Margaret Thatcher needs defending from a little squirt like the Cock of the North but his analysis of what is wrong with Britain today is so stuck in the past it deserves all the opprobrium it gets.
To say it all went wrong in the 1980s (apart from Brexit, obviously, which according to him is also to blame for our present evils) is to assume the 1970s were days of miracles and wonder.
It was the era of militant trade unions, Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill and the Militant Tendency, the three-day week and the unburied dead. The unions were responsible for the destruction of British industry. Mrs Thatcher rescued the ‘sick man of Europe’ and gave our country the chance to recover.
Old-fashioned Corbynistas like Andrew Burnham may never forgive her (schoolchildren are still taught by their left-wing teachers to loathe her) but the country would be in a far worse state today if it were not for the massive improvements made by Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives.
Of course we can argue it over, point by point: The miners’ strike; council house sales; privatisations; economic reform and liberalisation; lower taxes; less State spending; less State interference. To some people, these are reasons to hate her; to the majority, they are among the reasons why she was one of our greatest Prime Ministers.
Those like Mr Usurper Burnham, who want maximum State control of our lives, can’t move on. But the world is different now. He is fighting the day-before-yesterday’s battles in a desperate, pathetic spasm of self-justification.
His every utterance betrays the chip on his shoulder and if State Socialism is the answer, it’s a bloody stupid question.
It was the era of militant trade unions, Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill and the Militant Tendency, the three-day week and the unburied dead. The unions were responsible for the destruction of British industry. Mrs Thatcher rescued the ‘sick man of Europe’ and gave our country the chance to recover.
Old-fashioned Corbynistas like Andrew Burnham may never forgive her (schoolchildren are still taught by their left-wing teachers to loathe her) but the country would be in a far worse state today if it were not for the massive improvements made by Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives.
Of course we can argue it over, point by point: The miners’ strike; council house sales; privatisations; economic reform and liberalisation; lower taxes; less State spending; less State interference. To some people, these are reasons to hate her; to the majority, they are among the reasons why she was one of our greatest Prime Ministers.
Those like Mr Usurper Burnham, who want maximum State control of our lives, can’t move on. But the world is different now. He is fighting the day-before-yesterday’s battles in a desperate, pathetic spasm of self-justification.
His every utterance betrays the chip on his shoulder and if State Socialism is the answer, it’s a bloody stupid question.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
The slow road to Benefits Central
Sadly, the coalition of chaos now in charge of Birmingham, under the boot of the people who really run the council, is succumbing to the fad for imposing 20 mph zones wherever a hated motorist might once have ventured.
The net result will not be full buses, trams and trains. It will be fewer visitors, fewer businesses, less money, more decline and dereliction. The city may become greener and cleaner but there will be less economic activity and Birmingham’s tragic decline will accelerate as drivers jam on the brakes.
The fanatics will have finally won their long-standing war on the motorist. Nobody will want to drive in or around Birmingham again if there is any alternative.
The city of a thousand trades is already the city of a thousand vacant shops. Unemployment in Birmingham is the worst of any big city, having hit 13.5 per cent of the workforce – almost three times the national average. In Handsworth it’s almost 20 per cent. Youth unemployment is 19.3 per cent.
Only two-thirds of Birmingham’s adults have a job compared with 75 per cent nationally.
Of course, speed limits are necessary and the city’s dire unemployment figures don’t have much to do with the war on motorists. But they do have some impact and forcing people to crawl along at 20 is bound to make the city economy worse than it already is.
It would be nice to think the coalition of chaos would do what it can to make the city more prosperous rather than doing its damndest to turn Birmingham into benefits central. But then the big cheeses are Lib-Dems and Greens so all is lost.
https://www.birmingham.gov.uk/downloads/file/31966/unemployment_update_-_august_2026
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Manchester Express? That’ll do nicely, thank you
The Mayor of Manchester and his gofers spent £56,000 on the combined authority’s credit cards in the second quarter of the year as the Cock of the North was strutting his way into Number Ten.
These payments include the obligatory £4,670 at Amazon, £1,027 to Facebook, £284 with Deliveroo and plenty of ‘subsistence’ at purveyors like Tesco, McDonald’s, Morrisons and so on.
They’re a well-travelled lot, these Greater Mancunians. They’ve even been to Birmingham where they spent £1,050 at a Premier Inn. They paid £675 to Lufthansa, £359 on parking at Heathrow Airport, £3,009 at Hampton by Hilton (in Manchester), £1,338 with Jet2 but a mere £146 with Ryanair. Another £1,485 went on ‘travel training’ with the University of Essex.
They generous, too, spending £1,830 with One4All, who supply multi-store gift-cards, and £215 with Huggg (yes, 3Gs) who supply ‘gifts your team and clients will actually want’.
Some people remember the old metropolitan county councils. They were axed as a waste of space in 1986.
They were replaced by regional development agencies in 1999. These, in turn, were designated pointless and abolished.
Then we had local enterprise partnerships, which were an even greater cunis. Now we have elected mayors like our national saviour.
The Cock of the North is to give us more of pointless, provincial, pettifogging panjandrums and wants to throw more money at them as if, by some miracle, they will transform their regions into economic powerhouses if only the taxpayer would cough up a bit more blood from the stone.
Or they can just use the nation’s credit card. Until we can’t keep up the monthly payments any more.
These payments include the obligatory £4,670 at Amazon, £1,027 to Facebook, £284 with Deliveroo and plenty of ‘subsistence’ at purveyors like Tesco, McDonald’s, Morrisons and so on.
They’re a well-travelled lot, these Greater Mancunians. They’ve even been to Birmingham where they spent £1,050 at a Premier Inn. They paid £675 to Lufthansa, £359 on parking at Heathrow Airport, £3,009 at Hampton by Hilton (in Manchester), £1,338 with Jet2 but a mere £146 with Ryanair. Another £1,485 went on ‘travel training’ with the University of Essex.
They generous, too, spending £1,830 with One4All, who supply multi-store gift-cards, and £215 with Huggg (yes, 3Gs) who supply ‘gifts your team and clients will actually want’.
Some people remember the old metropolitan county councils. They were axed as a waste of space in 1986.
They were replaced by regional development agencies in 1999. These, in turn, were designated pointless and abolished.
Then we had local enterprise partnerships, which were an even greater cunis. Now we have elected mayors like our national saviour.
The Cock of the North is to give us more of pointless, provincial, pettifogging panjandrums and wants to throw more money at them as if, by some miracle, they will transform their regions into economic powerhouses if only the taxpayer would cough up a bit more blood from the stone.
Or they can just use the nation’s credit card. Until we can’t keep up the monthly payments any more.
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