Recently in Wirral people Category

THEY should think about adding it to the job description.

"Mayor of Wirral wanted. Must have joke book bulging with cheap gags that will keep audiences groaning for a whole year".

Conservative Councillor Andrew Hodson carried out 568 engagements and raised an impressive £84,000 for charity during his year as Mayor but I'll remember him as much for the jokes which left me shaking my head and reaching for my pen and notepad.

And he didn't disappoint on his last night in the spotlight at Wallasey Town Hall.

Making his final speech, Cllr Hodson said many people had asked him how he felt about handing over the chains of office to Lib Dem Cllr Alan Jennings.

It was, he said, a time of mixed emotions, "something like watching your mother-in-law drive over a cliff in your brand new car".

Groan.

Fortunately for me, our new Mayor looks to be cut from the same comedy (if not political) cloth.

Dressed in his shiny new robes and the Mayoral chain, Cllr Jennings said it was an honour to become Mayor and he was humbled to be chosen for the role.

Then I started to suspect we had another comedian on the stage.

"When you become Mayor", he said, "Fellow councillors say nice things about you and you don't have to be dead."

A statement of fact. Can't argue with that.

He said it had been difficult to adjust to having car doors opened for him while Deputy Mayor, and at one point his driver had jokingly threatened to put the child lock on.

Then he started to tell a story about driving through Saughall Massie and seeing a man standing in a field.

On the way back he was still there, so Cllr Jennings decided to stop the car and see what the problem was.

"This is serious stuff", I thought. "Maybe he saved a man's life while being driven back from an engagement?".

I started to think of the headlines. It was definitely a front page story.

Then the punchline came.

"He said 'don't you know Nobel prizes are only awarded to people out standing in their field?"

Groan. Enjoy your year Cllr Jennings.

The Egg Run takes place this Sunday, March 28, starting in New Brighton.

The charity event raises lots for local children's charities and has become a key fixture on Wirral's calendar.

Below is the council press release with details of road closures and the route the bikes - hopefully thousands upon thousands of them - will take.

COUNCIL TAX DEMAND WIRRAL (including fire and police precepts)

   2009-10     2010-11     % Increase     Annual Increase     Weekly Increase

A  960.11      976.14          1.67              16.03                     0.31

B 1,120.12   1,138.82         1.67             18.70                      0.36

C 1,280.15   1,301.51         1.67              21.36                     0.41

D 1,440.16   1,464.20         1.67              24.04                     0.46

E 1,760.20   1,789.58         1.67              29.38                     0.56

F 2,080.24   2,114.96         1.67              34.72                     0.67

G 2,400.27  2,440.34          1.67              40.07                     0.77

H 2,880.32  2,928.40          1.67              48.08                     0.92

NO names have yet surfaced locally for a Labour candidate in Wirral West.

It appears increasingly likely that Labour NEC's subcommittee will provide a list of five or six candidates for the local constituency party to choose from.

But so far - according to former Wirral West CLP chairman Brian Kenny - no one locally has come forward. He said: "Within the constituency if people were interested I would have thought they would have put their names forward by now."

IT LOOKS more likely than ever that Labour will have an all-women shortlist to choose a candidate to replace Stephen Hesford.

Wirral West constituency Labour party has - in line with party policy - said it wants an all-women list and is now awaiting their National Executive Committee (NEC) to draw up a choice of potentials.

The Wirral West Constituency Labour Party met recently to discuss the options, and is now awaiting the party's NEC subcommittee, which meets next Thursday

WIRRAL MPs rarely speak to us about matters of national - or dare I say, international - importance - preferring to stick strictly to the local stuff.

Bus services? Muddy fields? Derelict buildings? Allotments? Not a problem for some (in particular Wirral South's Ben Chapman).

And, while that might not be your cup of tea if you want investigative journalism and in-depth analysis of politics, it's bread and butter for a local, weekly newspaper.

But if you want an opinion on everything from agency workers to disaster relief in Haiti, Neston and Ellesmere Port's elected representative is your man.

This story appear to have ruffled feathers and (again) made me unpopular at Wirral Council.

Essentially, the story was about a report done done for the authority about retail in Wirral. To be able to compete against out of town centres such as Cheshire Oaks, along with Liverpool One and Chester, the borough needs more capacity.

The recommendation was to focus on Wiral Waters (and possibly Birkenhead too). However, today the council has issued the following statement:

WITH THAT story taking all the headlines this week, Hamilton Squared is declaring this blog post a strictly a lib**** free zone.

With just months to the General Election and the spotlight firmly on Steve Foulkes, Jeff Green, Simon Holbrook et all, Wirral's MPs are bound to be feeling a little bit left out by now.

So we thought it was time to redress the balance - here's a little look at what three of our five elected representatives are doing this week.

The leader of the Conservative opposition group has responded to the libraries report:

Cllr Jeff Green said the "public of Wirral owe Sue Charteris a huge debt of gratitude".

He added: "She has exposed the way this administration has treated the Wirral public and how they disregarded the needs of the most vulnerable in our community."

Lib-Dem leader Simon Holbrook has released a candid response to the report by Government-appointed library inspector Sue Charteris.

Cllr Holbrook said they withdrew their library closure plans because "having been unsuccessful in challenging Sue Charteris' interpretation of the 1964 Libraries Act, we simply considered the risk of being found in breach of the Act too high for the Council to take".

He reiterated the comments made after the council abandoned the library closure plans that the delays were also affecting setting Wirral's budget.

But Cllr Holbrook added: "In any event, we believe that many of the opinions of Sue Charteris expressed in her report will be superseded by the results of the national consultation on the future of libraries which we understand the DCMS will launch tomorrow. We hope that the Government's consultation on the future of libraries will provide the guidance on the Libraries Act which this inquiry has shown is sadly lacking."