At the Hemsworth Town Council Meeting held on the 04/08/22, an important item on the agenda was the vote of no confidence in Jean Eccles, who has only just been elected to the position of Chair of the Council in May of this year.
This must be a record and not a good one, for a Chair of the Council to have lost the confidence of the majority of her fellow councillors after just 3 months in office.
That is another low for this independent or any council.
However Ferret can reveal Jean did not go down not fighting.
It has now transpired that in a desperate effort to attempt to win the vote, at least one councillor was subjected to intimidation by Jean Eccles, in an effort to win their backing prior to the meeting starting.
The councillor was confronted by her and she demanded to know how they intended to vote.
Well you may think, perhaps this was nothing more than a genuine enquiry in an effort to win their support?
However she was supported by both her husband, Gordon Eccles, who is a man of very large stature and a long criminal record, including incarceration at her majesty’s pleasure for very serious offences and her mentor and casting vote supporter who enabled her election, Jim Kenyon, who is known for both his ability to throw a punch and being verbally abusive.
Despite this, as we know, Jean Eccles went on to lose the vote of confidence but no surprise she has refused to take the decent course of action and resign.
Ferret can reveal that one course of action she did take was to claim the £2000 Chair’s allowance within days of being elected…
Why would “a self made multi-millionaire” want £2000? There are many food banks in the area who could’ve benefited from a share of that instead. I hope she will think about donating it to some of them.
Why would “a self made multi-millionaire” want £2000?
Simple, you don’t become a millionaire without grabbing every single opportunity to grab or extract cash that comes your way. Whether it’s needed isn’t a consideration. Of the ones I have met through various employments, most didn’t have much of a conscience, never mind a social conscience (with one or two notable exceptions). Personally I think it’s a disease of the mind, to constantly acquire more purely for the sake of doing so. What an awful view of the world it must be, to see everything through a sight glass with a price on it. That the Eccles’ can now extract cash from ‘the poors’ probably just nurses the contempt they seem to have for their locality.
I’m pretty sure in their mind, indeed the whole cabal, we’re all a resource to be plundered while they can. We exist to feed them. That’s infinitely more depressing than merely having representatives of differing political opinions.
At least some millionaires can purport to care about social issues, even if it’s thinly veiled for popularity or profit. These people don’t even seem to give a toss about pretending any more.
Hmm.. Intimidation comes in all shapes and sizes. It’s also a serious matter, as there is the implicit threat of either physical or socioeconomic consequences if the intimidated party doesn’t acquiesce. If intimidation has really taken place, then why isn’t the Councillor in question spoken with the police? Maybe fear runs deep, and we have to ask if the community really wants it’s council to be tainted with this myth or legend… Whatever you want to call it.
On the other hand, isn’t it human nature for an under pressure Chair to ask such questions? Isn’t that exactly what we gave just seen in the House of Commons over the last six months?
Either scenario isn’t doing the reputation of these councillors any good. Maybe the electorate will have the last word on the matter….
In the meantime maybe we all need to remember that words do have consequences. Our councillors would do well to remember this too.