Posted by JLW on Thursday Jun 09, 15:12
A message on Shareholders United:
I wrote to my new MP on Feb 14th asking him for support in the fight against Glazer. Although I received a quick reply it was just a short note asking what he could do? I mentioned what Keith Bradley had done but was a little fuzzy on the detail. I directed him to speak to the Sports Ministers of each party but also gave him contact addresses for SU and for Oliver Houston, Sean Bones and Nick Towle. I'm disappointed to report that unlike his predecessor who was excellent in keeping in touch when I contacted him about any local issues, I've as yet heard nothing. I was wondering if he's been in touch with any of the people at SU mentioned above.
Has anyone else had any difficulty getting a response from John Leech when they have contacted him? When we have emailed him regarding the site he has got back to us after a couple of days via email although he has still to respond to questions about Christie Hosptial addressed in the emails.
+ tags coming soon
( 37 Comments )
Val
Thursday Jun 09, 19:33
I thought Mr Leech was elected on May 5th?
I suppose when he was e-mailed about Man United on Feb 14th and he sent a reply, he replied as a Councillor, not MP?
Anyway I hear Mr Leech attended a meeting of over 1000 United fans last week at the Manchester Apollo to offer his support for the campaign!
Perhaps this resident should contact leechj@parliament.uk which I think is his new e-mail address.
Steve
Thursday Jun 09, 20:00
The post doesnt really make sense. Perhaps the poster contacted Keith Bradley on 14th?
Dave H
Thursday Jun 09, 20:01
Is John Leech a football fan? Perhaps he supports city and couldn't give a shit about salford fc doing down the drain
Mike
Thursday Jun 09, 20:04
"Shareholders United Letters Ignored" ???????
That's hardly fair, is it?
The truth is that when John Leech was contacted by Shareholders' United, he accepted their invitation and request for help, and attended their recent meeting.
Why don't you give the man a break?!
Administrator
Thursday Jun 09, 20:12
Fairer?
Len Draycott
Thursday Jun 09, 20:13
Have just checked out the link and it's self-explanatory...a bloke complaining John hasn't replied to his letter for quite some time.
Mike - perhaps you should refrain from using phrases like "the truth" when you are not prepared to provide an answer to the original issue.
A bit like your man's form on Christies..
Laura
Thursday Jun 09, 20:42
Is Val John Leech's new PA?
dave
Thursday Jun 09, 21:15
This is a post I made trying to find out whether the 3 mentioned members of SU had heard from Mr Leech as I hadn't heard from him. It wasn't meant as an attack on him and seems to have been blown a bit out of proportion. I had no idea it was going to pop up on other sites. Mr Leech has been in touch with SU and has been supportive of them.
dave
Thursday Jun 09, 21:27
This is a post I made trying to find out whether the 3 mentioned members of SU had heard from Mr Leech as I hadn't heard from him. It wasn't meant as an attack on him and seems to have been blown a bit out of proportion. I had no idea it was going to pop up on other sites. Mr Leech has been in touch with SU and has been supportive of them.
dave
Thursday Jun 09, 21:53
That bloke is pretending to be me. I'm actually quite pissed off that he hasn't been in touch.
dave
Thursday Jun 09, 21:56
er.......can someone please remove the copy of my last post. I seem to have managed to post it twice.
dave
Thursday Jun 09, 21:58
.....and also the post from 16:53:34 which is most definitely not from me.
Alan
Thursday Jun 09, 22:42
How very confusing... which Dave is which?
Steve
Thursday Jun 09, 23:01
I don't really uderstand whats going on either. Which Dave is which seems a little irrelevant really, but they both seem to be saying pretty much the same thing.
dave (the real one)
Thursday Jun 09, 23:24
I was afraid of this.The false dave is the one in the middle (posted at 16:53:34)
Administrator
Thursday Jun 09, 23:32
Actually it would seem unlikely that dave (the real one) is who he says he is. I've taken a look at which IPs the messages were posted from and the person who has posted the most messages from dave has also posted as Tim from their home NTL account.
So, Dave, or Tim whichever you prefer. If you continue to post messages impersonating other people your IP will be banned from accessing this site and your comments will be removed.
Alan
Thursday Jun 09, 23:43
Posting under someone else's name, misleading people!! You can see why Tim is an avid supporter of Mr Leech!
Alan
Thursday Jun 09, 23:55
Where has Peter Hardwick gone, I might not have agreed with him but at least you could be assured of some intellectual debate!
dave
Friday Jun 10, 00:12
Yes it is from my home ntl account, but the posts from me in this thread are the only posts I've ever made to this site. There is nobody called Tim with access to my PC (unless one of my cats has learnt how to type under a pseudonym).If your records show that someone else has posted from this IP address then I'm afraid they are inaccurate.
The repeat of my first post was probably caused by pressing refresh on my browser a 10 mins or so after I first posted. While I was writing an explanation of this some wag put another comment in under my name which i didn't see until posting my third post.
I just came here to clear up some confusion but seem to have created more.
zoe
Friday Jun 10, 00:54
Yes Peter H was good at debating. He went on a business trip to the far east. Hopefully he will be back soon. I think we might get somewhere on consumer debt and house price inflation when he comes back.
Alan
Friday Jun 10, 02:12
Completely unrelated to this topic I happened across the political blog of Jeremy Hunt, Tory MP for Surrey. Although the thought of voting Tory is almost as bad as the thought of voting Lib Dem, one of his postings reminded me of the campaign in Manchester Withington. I quote:
"..When canvassing in Milford, I knocked on the door of someone whose garden has a huge LibDem poster on a tree that overlooks a busy roundabout at the start of the Petworth Road. To my surprise, he told me he didn't even vote for the LibDems.
One of our frustrations is that a lot of our posters are being "mysteriously" taken down in the middle of the night (a tactic we have not reciprocated).
So we were even more surprised to find someone displaying a LibDem poster who didn't even support them. Apparently two LibDems came round and asked if they could put up a poster, and he agreed in order to "shut them up".
Clearly it wasn't just the Lib Dems in Manchester Withington that used these methods then.
Tim
Friday Jun 10, 04:50
I feel a little bit annoyed I have been dished out some 'Administrator Justice' here. But I have only ever posted as Tim. In fact I have been at work all day.
Dunno why th 'IP' is the same, but I am no web techie.
Plus, I knew nothing about this Football stuff anyhow.
Sarah jackson
Friday Jun 10, 19:11
Sorry, not really anything to do with footbal, but does anyone know if the Leechster has an office yet? Upon reading this weeks issue of the SM Reporter (page 2) i noticed that there is an ex public toilet up for sale- between 25k-50k. The estate agent said its suitable for a person with two wages coming in.
Any bidders?
John
Sunday Jun 12, 00:37
I see Alan on another thread accused me of being a lib dem stooge (which i'm not) but an ex-labour voter. But hey, Labour always thought they were entitled to my vote all those years or rather I did unti l decided to switch allegiance.
Sarah however is most polite calling John Leech the leechster. But ho hum you labourites keep on thinking to yourself that you own the world and the lib dems will eventually provide the competition you are so afraid of. Then us progressive voters will have a real choice to keep you on your toes.
peter h
Sunday Jun 12, 03:46
Very kind comments of alan and zoe. I've been in Shanghai for a few days helping undermine western economies by flooding them with cheap imports. Somebody has to do it. Any way back to dear old manchester and good to see everybody still is kidding themselves into thinking Manchester United is a football club.
It isn't, lads. It's a business. A PLC (for the moment) till Glazer takes it private.
And you are no longer fans, or club members.
You are customers, to be profited from.
Like any business, MUFC PLC only has one objective. To make maximum profit for minimum outlay. That is the fundamental bottom line of any business, and Mr Glazer will be no different. Decisions will be made for commercial reasons. They have to be, or the companies collapse.
The football is not the raison d'etre. It is a product which the club is selling to you.
And those people on the pitch are not a team. They are an asset.
It is merely a means to an end , the end being profit.
It's too late to argue it. The cause is lost. It was lost years ago when it became a PLC and the fundamental nature of the entity was changed for ever. You want to be fans? Go find a football club. Supporting Manchester United now is no different from supporting TESCO. They're both businesses .
And Glazer will pay no attention to Shareholders United. He'll sit back, knowing full well that 99% of the customers will still turn up and all his overseas audiences won't give a damn.
I was sat in a factory in Shanghai this week listening to various chinese people arguing about the teams they support . They were mostly Arsenal. They used to be Man U, but it lost some of its glamour for them when Beckham left. They know nothing about who owns what. They don't care. They're avid consumers of British football via satellite TVand the merchandise that goes with it.
That's what Glazer wants, and Rupert Murdocj etc all want. It's got sod all to do with sentiment or loyalty to a team. It's all about selling product .
MCFC Fan
Sunday Jun 12, 04:34
I'm glad that they are going under... a couple of years with no investment and no titles they'll have no fans, no ground, no money...
There was only ever one team in Manchester.
Zoe
Sunday Jun 12, 18:23
Welcome back Peter H. I completely agree with you on consumer debt - many MPs (eg Labour John Mann (Bassetlaw), are trying to get the financial businesses to restrict the amount of debt they can pile onto people. Yes expensive designer clothes that are manufactured in the far east (sometimes by children on poverty wages) are a con. There are many issues where we are all in agreement about the problems. We do not always have to disagree with solutions that are suggested by other political parties.
Constant cynicism in the media often leads people to think things are worse than they are. This is why I am so worried about people not going on to higher education without checking out the facts. They are told by the press and the Libdems that they cannot afford it - they will be in debt. Student loans are paid back after graduating when you income is above £16k a year, and repayments are graduated according to income (just like a graduate tax?). If you are not working- you pay nothing. People need sensible advice - not political rhetoric - to manage debt.
We have many values in common - We would all like to be idealists - but you have a business to run and the Labour Government has a country to run.
peter h
Sunday Jun 12, 23:07
But Zoe, there's no need to be in debt.
It should be possible to start adult life with a clean sheet.
All governments resist hypothecated taxes- taxes earmarked for specific purposes - otherwise it chains them into how they can use tax revenues.
But taxing graduates is reverse hypothecation. You are taxing people for using specific state facilities, so they cease to be free.
I find that immoral.
The only argument I've heard in favour of it has been "Why should I pay for somebody else's education", an argument beneath contempt.
Kids should have a right to free education and be encouraged to take it as far as they can stretch.
Society will get its investment back in higher tax receipts from those who benefit financially, and in in higher quality workers from those who don't.
The Labour party dreamt this nonsense up for political expediency - it is frightened of being called the high tax party by tories. They are terrified of the Daily Mail. There is no moral underpinning to the policy whatsoever. They lack the courage to say they need more money to pay for services. So they come up with this hotch potch.
And the result is that people start their lives in debt. And the moment you are in debt you lose some of your freedom of movement. You're trapped.
Of course, my son won't be trapped. He's got a dad who will be able to pay for his education. So the better off kids start off with a head start, and the kids from less well off homes end up in debt.
Zoe, if you really believe in Labour party principles, you must know that that is an utter perversion of them.
When I was a student, we marched and fought against USA in Vietnam. I also had the singular privilege of throwing rocks at French Riot police in 1968 in Toulouse and being thrown out of France for looking subversive.
And we won on both fronts. USA got out of vietnam, UK stayed clear of it, and De Gaulle was humiliated into capitulation.
We were socialists. Most of us were the first generation from our families to get to University thanks to the welfare state, and eventually the Labour part seemed like our natural home.
I never thought I would live to see the day when a LABOUR government would lie to its own people in order to send troops to support rightwing US colonialism, make it harder for ordinary people to study, and preside over tax systems designed to pander to the rich. But I have. And it disgusts me
Zoe
Monday Jun 13, 04:38
Peter
I don’t think you should be boasting about your exploits in chucking stuff at the police, to us kids, as you think of us.
Actually I’m over 40 and I did spend every Saturday going on a demonstration to save the world from Thatcherism all through the nineteen eighties – though even in those days I was the one with a stewards armband going ‘no, please don’t jump over that barrier’.
Of course no-one is saying that tuition fees are something to be glad about. I would rather talk about all the policies to be proud of : the first ever minimum wage, Surestart, Tax Credits, After School Clubs, Investment in the NHS – things that are part of Labour’s values.
We are not scared of the Daily Mail! Personally I would wear it as a badge of honour if they burned me at the stake (metaphorically).
Tuition fees were a hard hard decision, the Labour Party has grown up. We no longer just write a big long wish list of everything we want to do straight away and say we will pay for it with higher taxes and massive Government borrowing.
You sound like a chap with a good degree in economics – you must know more about the perils of irresponsible Government fiscal policy for the economy and jobs, than I do?
I lived through the 1980’s mass unemployment was evil. Labour lost 4 elections in a row. Good intentions and sacred principles did not get a single child out of poverty.
Alan
Monday Jun 13, 23:03
I read an article in the MEN last week about this guy who had spent £15,000 on 'doing up' his car. It had 4 TV's a Play Station, CD player and changer etc etc. When asked where he had got the money from to do it he claimed that he worked a part time job and funded the rest with his Student Loan. Yes, he was a student at university and to think that such individuals are in the minority is wrong. I don't criticise this person for spending his student loan on his car because he will be paying it back once he has graduated.
It is all very well painting an idealistic picture about teenagers having the right to grants and their tuition fees paid for them; but let's face it, I don't think that anyone would be happy with taxpayers money going towards a new playstation for a student car.
If education is to be free then there should be stringent tests to ensure that the money is not wasted and the people that do go to university really want to be there to study for their future.
peter h
Tuesday Jun 14, 02:28
Zoe
Sorry, but I'm very proud of throwing things in demos. But that was France 1968. It was not against police. It was against CRS - armed, extremely violent paramilitary forces which have no equivalent here. The French government unleashed them against peaceful demos to break them up by brute force. We fought back whilst running for our lives. You'd have to be there to understand it. It is far removed from anything you ever saw in UK.
Actually I'm a languages graduate and the economics is the result of running companies over the years.
Economic principles are simple. Identify your objective, make a business plan to achieve it, cost it and work out how to fund it.
The government seems pretty good at that in many ways. And it does achieve lots of things.
But a supposedly prudent chancellor is presiding over a period of unparalleled increases in personal debt to the long term detriment of the people of this country. We save less than anybody else in Europe. We are not putting enough into pensions to fund retirement. We are being encouraged to spend by banks who beg us to borrow money. Their reckless lending policies have pushed house prices to obscene levels which suit nobody but banks. My house cost £27000 in 1984. By 1997 it was worth £150 000. During the 8 years of Labour governance it has risen to over £500 000. That is a direct result of allowing banks free rein in lending. In 1984 you could borrow maximum 2.5 times your annual salary for a mortgage. In 2005 the average house price in UK is around £176000 - about 7.5 times average salary, landing younger borrowers with lifelong debt. Running up debts on credit cards at usurious rates of interest is now the norm. Money that should go into savings goes into servicing debt. The people of this country are being encouraged and allowed to live beyond their means.
That , Zoe, is irresponsible Government fiscal policy in spades.
As for the 1980s, agreed, Labour was a spent force and had to reinvent itself and come to terms with the modern world, and it took a long painful time. But they did so spectacularly. We were cheering like mad in 1997. But something's happened over the last 4 or 5 years. I don't know how to describe it, but it reminds me of the pigs in Animal Farm.
In the end, power always corrupts. This government has forgotten that it is the servant of the people. Tony Blair talks in terms of having to take decisions he knows to be opposed by the majority of people because he believes them to be right, and that is what leaders have to do . He talked in those terms during the election about Iraq. And that showed clearly that power has corrupted him and those around him.
I wonder, Zoe, if , when you demonstrated against Thatcher 20 years ago, you thought you would ever see the day when a Labour Government would lie to the people of this country in order to take it to war in support of an extreme-right US invasion of a foreign country in order to secure oil supplies for the USA and to provide the first stepping stone in the Far Right's PNAC (project for the new american century. Heard of it? Wonderful reading)? Of course you didn't. You'd have scoffed at the idea.
Enzo
Tuesday Jun 14, 14:07
Sad that ManUre fans can't keep on topic!!
Dave Wilson
Tuesday Jun 28, 17:45
Zoe, £16k a year and start paying back your student loans is fair you say? Well I was on £17k a year before I went to university, to get the qualifaction I needed to go further up the career ladder. However, I work for the public sector (you know, the one the Labour government is slowly but surely selling off to Wal Mart or whoever) who pay very little, and for the first year after qualifying, I was worse off dues to the amount the Student Loan Company deducted from my wages! How fair is that? I think the threshold needs to be increased, but then that wouldn't affect many Public Sector workers, only private buisnesses, and we know which one Tory Blair lieks to keep happy! (oops typo error, I mean Tony of course)
Dave Wilson
Tuesday Jun 28, 17:49
Alan,
(in reference to what students should and should not spend money on) Same could be said for those on benefits, as well as those who work to gain money. For example, we know that Alcohol and Cigs are bad for people, should we not let people spend money on those items? A playstation is about £100, once bought, no need to buy another for a long long time. Cigs £5 a packet, last a day, soon adds up. Lets ban works, the unemployed and the students from banning cigs! See my point?
Dave Wilson
Tuesday Jun 28, 17:55
Sorry that I went off the topic, but hey, seems like the vast majority of people seem to do the same.
But getting back to the original topic, why (if you all claim to have an interest in a Manchester MP) are we talking about a football team, that most fans come up from London to see? Why not talk about a good local team (and believe when I say, I am not a football fan!)
Alan
Tuesday Jun 28, 18:54
No Dave, I don't see your point. If, as many people are claiming, people are not going to university because they can't afford to then why are a certain section of students spending their loan on things other than their education.? Thant's my point.
Dave Wilson
Tuesday Jun 28, 20:34
There are always going to be people out there (regardless of how they got their money, be it welfare, student or bank loans, wages, etc) who will not spend so "wisely". Yet, our society hasn't collapsed! That is because those people tend to be a minority. I suspect the student you refer to came to the tabloid media attention, after all, they tend to paint students in a very negative way, yet without students, we wouldn't have teachers, engineers, social workers, journalists etc etc, and more importantly (with relevance to this site) we wouldn't have doctors at Christies.
Students get get the loans regardless of parental income or their own income from part-time jobs or savings. I suspect the students who spend money on DVD players for cars, play stations etc, are the ones who could afford it due to mummy and daddy topping up the bank accounts of their little son/daughter.
The ones relying on loans alone, who spend in this way, I doubt will be able to complete the course anyway, and will soon learn a lesson in the art of debt/money management. Just like those work or claim benefits who take out loans/credit cards etc.
These comments are owned by the person that posted them. They are not necessarily indicative of public opinion and their content has not been checked for accuracy. If you find a comment you think violates our Terms of Use please report it.
Sorry, posting on this entry is disabled to prevent comment spam.
