Amazed, astonished and baffled

All term used by Cllr Macgregor (Labour) of Bolsover DC in the six press releases issued last year regarding benefit fraud (the last one being on the 16^th January 2013). Cameron and Osborne must be delighted that by making sure the local headlines are full of terms like “benefit cheats” it is so much easier for him and his chums to slash welfare spending on “scroungers” whilst handing out tax cuts to millionaires.

The truth as Bolsover Councillors (should) know is that for every £1 lost in benefit fraud £17 goes unclaimed because people are too frightened to claim them. For comparison another £15 is lost in tax fraud and £70 in tax avoidance). But during the year not a single press release was issued to encourage benefit take-up let alone show a comparison with tax fraud.

So why is Cllr Macgregor all of a dither over this? Is it because in 2001 it was reported in the Guardian that he was “being investigated by fraud squad officers in Derbyshire over allegations that he used his position as head of a regeneration trust in a rundown mining area to line his own pocket”? The article went on to say “further investigations revealed that on numerous occasions between 1997 and last year, Mr MacGregor's separate expenses for representing Bolsover district council and the regeneration trust showed him to be in different parts of the country at the same time”, and that as a result he along what another person “agreed to pay £5,000 each and legal costs of £16,000 to Creswell parish council”. See: http//www.guardian.co.uk/society/2001/may/04/regeneration.communities

What is amazing, astonishing and baffling is that Councillor Macgregor still has a seat on Bolsover DC at all let alone that he has been given a Cabinet position for Corporate Efficiencies (some irony here methinks). It would be nice if he showed some empathy for those on the sharp end of the Tory cuts, but instead he, along with his colleagues, are quite content to continue to rake in the highest basic allowances of any District Councillors in the Country.

When you live in a glass house and continue to throw stones and denigrate others it is not surprising that you end up amazed, astonished and baffled.