This is the transcript from a letter written to Labour councillors in Hartlepool today. Dear fello - Monday 26 June 2017

By Putting Hartlepool First

This is the transcript from a letter written to Labour councillors in Hartlepool today. Dear fellow elected members, Like many of you, I imagine, I watched in awe as Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke to the crowds assembled at Worthy Farm in Glastonbury over the weekend. Of all the things he said, it will undoubtedly be the quotation from the poem The Masque of Anarchy by Shelly which will live long in the memory. Indeed, I imagine the last two lines from the verse he quoted may well one day adorn the plinth of a statue of him in London, possibly even a statue in the corridors of our parliament. As a result, I felt compelled to write to you, my fellow Hartlepool councillors, with a little more information about the poem Mr Corbyn quoted from. Some of you may already know that the poem is basically about the Peterloo massacre, and its verses are full of symbolic references to the political figures yielding power at that time. One such political figure is Lord Eldon, who is portrayed by Shelly as a figure of fraud. Another, Lord Sidmouth (Home secretary at the time of the Peterloo massacre), is represented as out and out hypocrisy. The foreign secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, is also represented in the poem by a symbolic reference to murder. Undoubtedly, the central symbolism of the poem comes in the form of fraud, hypocrisy and murder. I found this interesting and in light of recent events and also strangely apt. Much has been made by opposition councillors on the issue of fraud, and rightly so. I find it frustrating that the stench of corruption still lingers within our council chamber due to the fraud committed by exLabour Councillor Angie Wilcox. The title councillor in Hartlepool may well be besmirched for a long time due to her actions, together with the inaction of others. Likewise, just this Thursday evening the issue of hypocrisy made yet another visit to our council chamber. Fourteen people professing to be socialists voted through an allowance increase of 31, the like of which nurses and fire fighters could only dream about. The public outcry may well have pricked a few consciences, but lets make no bones about it, the 14 of you who said the word For to that motion are now tainted in the eyes of the vast majority of the Hartlepool public. You are tainted as hypocrites in much the same way Shelly tainted Lord Sidmouth. This leads me to the issue of the symbolism of murder, which is also referenced in the poem by Shelly which Jeremy Corbyn quoted from at Glastonbury in front of millions watching on TV. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Labour Party in Hartlepool is being murdered, murdered from within by a small cabal of pseudosocialists. How we arrived at this situation I do not know. But I would ask each and every Labour councillor (outside of the cabal I refer to) to ask themselves a question. That being, Is this how you want to be remembered in the political history of Hartlepool? Do you really want to be remembered as being part of a group who will, mark my words, be synonymous with a very dark period in the political history of Hartlepool. Ive spoken before about some of our predecessors such as William Grey and Ralph Ward Jackson. These are people who in their governance of Hartlepool essentially built our town. My firm belief is that in much the same way as they built Hartlepool, we are currently under a governance arrangement which will, ultimately, destroy our town. The town will be symbolically murdered due to the local Labour party, which itself is also being murdered from within. Socialism, proper socialism, has been abandoned and instead replaced by what the independent peer review referred to as the pursuit of selfinterest. Its an open secret that my time within Hartlepool council is highly likely to be short lived. At the most I have 11 months to do what Ive been trying to achieve for 3 years. In the 36 months or so since I was elected I have realised it is highly unlikely change will come about from the external fringes of the Labour Party. I and others had hoped Labour North, or even the national executives of the party, would remove the infestation from your group. I accept now that only you can do that. Change can only come from within your party. So please, for the good of the town, take inspiration from Shelly and the lines read out by Jeremy Corbyn. Finally, there is one other theme in the poem The masque of anarchy which I have yet to mention. That being, the symbol of Hope. As the dark figures of fraud, hypocrisy and murder looked to establish an even firmer grip on the territory they had somehow taken a hold of, they end up slain by a mysterious figure who rose from the mist. The figure, a maiden, is represented in Shellys poem as hope. One of you, backed by others, has the ability to be that hope. It surely must be crystal clear to the majority of you that a change in direction is necessary within the local Labour Party. A change in leader is needed within the local Labour party. The evils of fraud and hypocrisy must be removed, and quickly, before our town becomes the victim of a symbolic murder. So please, one of you, rise like a lion. Cllr Riddle

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