There’s some scum out there, Lou. And they’re all working for me. ibid. Peter the sidekick
I should have killed her when she wanted me to. ibid. Michael
They’re closing in on me. ibid. Michael to Baba
Michael: I’m a hypocrite. I’m a liar. I’m associated with evil, terrible things.
Baba: But, Michael, you’re a politician. ibid.
I could pay for someone to assassinate me. ibid. Michael to Baba
I need Eileen Critchley! ibid. Michael
Who will I be destroying Murray for? ibid. Jim
Michael: Mother, I think I might be going to jail.
Michael’s mother: You’re going to Hell, Michael. That’s where you’re going. Eternal Hell. ibid.
Burn everything! Alan Bleasdale, GBH: Over and Out VII starring Robert Lindsay & Lindsay Duncan & Michael Palin & Julie Walters & Tom Georgeson & Andrew Schofield & Jane Danson & David Ross et al, director Robert Young, Michael at the office
Do you know why my sister killed herself? ibid. Baba to judge father
There’s worse things than dying and the fear of dying: it’s the fear of being frightened of living. ibid. Jim to quack
I knew I should of got a bigger shredder. I was offered a real big shredder once, but I had nothing to shred. ibid. Michael to Teddy
It’s as if you’re allowed to win so much. ibid. Michael to Jim
Too often lions are led by donkey jackets. ibid. Jim’s defence
We would want to be remembered for the good that we have done. ibid.
Eileen Crichtley’s dead. She killed herself in 1965. Hung herself with her own scarf. ibid. Philip to Michael
I was easy picking from the world go, wasn’t I? ibid. Michael to Baba
Dispatches reveals how councils can play fast and loose with your money. Dispatches: How Councils Waste Your Money, Channel 4 2013
Wigan Council is so keen on the idea of twinning they've even appointed an ambassador. ibid.
Fenland District Council spent £205 on golf lessons as a gift ... £1,300 was spent by a different council on a five-star hotel booking ... York City Council spent £180 on pedicures and manicures. ibid.
The Mayor who has his laundry delivered by his council chauffeur. ibid.
Some councillors get paid their allowances even if they don't turn up for meetings. ibid.
Some of the biggest spending councils on chauffeur-driven cars are in some of the country’s most deprived areas. ibid.
Vote for my husband. Vote Walls. The Casual Vacancy III, wife distributes leaflets, BBC 2015
The town of Mugsborough was governed by a set of individuals called the Municipal Council. Most of these ‘representatives of the people’ were well-to-do or retired tradesmen. In the opinion of the inhabitants of Mugsborough, the fact that a man had succeeded in accumulating money in business was a clear demonstration of his fitness to be entrusted with the business of the town. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist
These brigands did just as they pleased. No one ever interfered with them. They never consulted the ratepayers in any way. Even at election times they did not trouble to hold meetings: each one of them just issued a kind of manifesto setting forth his many noble qualities and calling upon the people for their votes: and the latter never failed to respond. They elected the same old crew time after time. ibid.
They thought of the Town Council as a kind of Paradise reserved exclusively for jerry-builders and successful tradesmen. ibid.
‘Come to think of it,’ observed Rushton arrogantly, ‘why should we trouble ourselves about the opinion of the ratepayers at all? Why should we trouble to fake the books, or declare a dividend or ’ave the harticles in the papers or anything else? We’ve got the game in our hands ... ‘ ibid.
The hostility of most of the working men to the proposed rate was almost as bitter as that of the ‘better’ classes. ibid.
Councillor Rushton said that several influential ratepayers and employees of labour had complained to him about the high wages of the Corporation workmen, some of whom were paid sevenpence-halfpenny an hour. ibid.
Wealking withdrew during the singing, and afterwards, before the band dispersed, it was agreed that a certain number of them were to meet the Chief of the Cave, on the following evening to arrange the details of the proposed raid on the finances of the town in connection with the Electric Light Works. ibid.
One thing that always strikes me as mysterious is that so many of the northern towns see fit to build themselves immense and luxurious public buildings at the same time as they are in crying need of dwelling houses. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
Now, Labour councillors were seen as another bunch of officials closing libraries and taking four months to process your housing benefit … The only difference now between them and other faceless officials was they named clumps of wasteground after African leaders and made people trumpet like an elephant on surreal courses. Mark Steel, Reasons to be Cheerful
The magnificent town hall like this one here in Bolton is a grand example of Victorian civic pride … It really was the great age of Victorian splendour. Fred Dibnah’s World of Steam, Steel and Stone e5: The Victorian Gentleman, BBC 2006
The Victorians went to great lengths to make things very beautiful as well as functional. ibid.
Pugin called St Giles his gem. ibid.
Four out of ten council homes sold under the right-to-buy policy are now owned by private landlords. The failure to replace these homes is a key reason for the current lack of affordable housing. Due to budget cuts from central government, councils are working in partnership with property developers to ‘regenerate’ council estates and meet demand for social housing in inner city areas. But the demolition of homes, replaced with housing that is unaffordable to the original residents, has led critics to describe the process as ‘social cleansing’. Social Housing, Social Cleansing ***** Channel 5 2018
20 years later, residents of the Aylesbury [estate, Southwark] might wonder what happened to New Labour’s bold vision of the future. ibid.
The Heygate estate: forecasted profit from sales to Lendlease: £194m; forecaster profit from sales for Southwark Council £0. ibid.
‘I believe it was a deliberate strategy by the local authority.’ ibid. Steve Turner, assistant general secretary Unite, re Heygate
In 2003 Glasgow City Council transferred its entire housing stock to the Glasgow Housing Association, a new private company. ibid.
With only 4% voting in favour of demolition, Lambeth opted to proceed with plans to demolish all 306 houses on the estate. ibid.
In 2017 there were more than 19,000 people on the waiting list for social housing in Tower Hamlets, 3,018 of whom had been on the list for ten years or longer. ibid.
In 2016 the number of affordable homes built in Britain fell to a 24-year low. ibid.
‘It is the biggest case of municipal fraud in history. The tiny town of Dixon, Illinois, lost an astonishing $53 million to one government employee [Rita Crundwell].’ All the Queen’s Horses, television news, 2017
Washington DC: A network of friends and family stole $48 million over a twenty year period. ibid. caption
Rita was given close to the maximum sentence: 19 years and 7 months. ibid.
In the 1990s strange things began to happen in the small town of Corby. Mothers began to give birth to children with severe deformities. As the number of cases grew, the mothers demanded to know why this had happened to their children. This is the unknown story of the worst child poisoning case since Thalidomide. A case that changed our understanding of the dangers of air pollution. Horizon: Toxic Town: The Corby Poisonings, BBC 2020
‘Mothers all from the same small area all of whom had given to birth to children with very similar deformities.’ ibid. Stephen Bevan, Sunday Time journalist
The waste sites were located on land where the town’s steel works once stood. Corby started life as a village but in the 1930s one of the largest steel plants in Europe was built. But in 1980, faced with huge government cuts, the steel work shut down, leaving 11,000 people unemployed. Corby Council devised a plan to regenerate the town (1983). This tiny council took on the biggest land reclamation project in Europe with a ten-year regeneration programme to help bring Corby back to life. But demolishing a steel work is a complex process: steel-making generates toxic waste that must be carefully disposed of. ibid.
As this story spread, more and more mothers started coming forward. ibid.
‘It was such a cover up.’ ibid.
With the Council claiming no evidence of a cluster, the mother’s fight for answers seemed to be over … ‘My reading the article in the Sunday Times was complete happenstance … I had back in the day worked in the steel works.’ ibid. Des Collins, solicitor