Talk:Shirley Porter

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" and served as Lord Mayor in 1991-92"

Lord Mayor of....?

-FZ 16:02, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Political surcharges

"In 1996, after much complicated legal investigation work, the District Auditor finally concluded that the 'Building Stable Communities' policy had been illegal, and ordered Porter and five others to pay the cost of the illegal policy, which were calculated as £27,000,000. This judgement was upheld by the High Court in 1997 with liability reduced solely to Porter and her Deputy Leader, David Weeks."

Penalties on politicians for abuse of public office vary all over the world. Surcharges are rare - especially of such magnitude. For example, should politicians be surcharged for spending a country's blood and treasure by flouting the global rule-set - the UN Charter? The answer seems to be no. Surely Dame Shirley was discriminated against.

Yes. She should not have been surcharged, she should have been jailed instead. David | Talk 14:45, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
However Dame Shirley Porter was indeed surcharged many millions of pounds for a political ploy. Not only is such a colossal punishment rare in the UK, it is almost unknown worldwide. We'll probably never know why she was singled out.
Could be something to do with the fact of being responsible for the biggest scandal in British local government history. Could also be to do with shoving homeless families in two tower blocks she knew were full of asbestos. Still, don't know why you're complaining - she settled with Westminster for only a quarter of what she owed, unlike the Labour councillors in Clay Cross, Lambeth and Liverpool. David | Talk 20:27, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
The biggest scandal in local government history in the UK? Much bigger scandals in the public sector outwith local government don't count, strangely. Why was Dame Shirley singled out for such a huge penalty?
I disagree with both of you. She should have been surcharged and jailed. 81.178.106.227 16:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
The undernoted paragraphs are very relevant, if the District Auditor is indeed "currently revisiting the issue" as the main page says. The auditor might very well recommend that Dame Shirley is repaid - but the recommendation is unlikely to be heeded as the UK's audit/surcharging process lacks independence. (9 August 2006)

But sticking with local government in the UK, Parliament complains that they can't get the Government to cut back on waste. On the basis of calculations by UK political parties the Taxpayer's Alliance reckon that around £80 billion of taxes are wasted annually. No one has been surcharged for the refusal to cut back. Perhaps Dame Shirley should get a refund. The rules are definitely in need of attention.

The House of Lords Constitution Committee think we need to make a start on changing the rules for present and future deployments of UK troops. It is a timely matter. "The House of Lords Constitution Committee has called for an end to the Government’s unfettered power to deploy British troops abroad." Radio link
Bollocks to that. Parliament is sovereign, which is the way it should be; keeping power in one place makes it easier to keep an eye on. Anyway, Dame Shirley got hit for those millions because not only was she so utterly brazen in her corruption, she had the stupidity to do so from a position of great personal wealth. For all their faults, at least most of our current crop of politicians aren't insultingly wealthy.
Oh, and sign your name, unless you're afraid to back up your words. EdC 23:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, government is sovereign in many matters. Secondly, the decision to penalise so severely a public servant for wasting public money is astounding. Finally, I note from all the comments that this gross injustice can't easily be defended. Incidentally, nobody was surcharged for the losses on 'Black Wednesday', when tens of billions of taxpayers' funds went strangely missing; most national Treasuries are easy prey.

Please sign your posts. There's a difference between flawed economic policy and electoral policy, and if you can't see that then you probably shouldn't be writing here. –EdC 23:39, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No counter arguments? There seems to be agreement in this forum that it's a disgrace one public servant was victimised so severely when others were let off for wasting billions of public funds.

Firstly, may I point out that this is not a "forum" to allow you to vent your spleen; it's a page for discussing the content of the associated article with a view towards improving it.
Secondly, if you mean that you're unanimous in agreeing with yourself, I suppose that's true; that's one of the advantages, of course, of making anonymous edits. The facts are that Shirley Porter was blatantly corrupt, the evidence was clear, and she was appropriately dealt with. The thrust of your argument appears to be that because so many others managed to get away with it, she should have been let off as well. Unfortunately the defence of "well, everyone else was at it so I thought it was OK" doesn't usually play too well. --Stephen Burnett 10:19, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Public servants have lost the UK taxpayer billion of pounds of public funds and, for some reason, they haven't been surcharged. Lots of emotive language is being used to distract attention from this uncontested fact.

You've now made this point at least 3 times. Do you actually have anything new to add which is relevant to improving the article? As you seem to be a little confused about what this page is for, I suggest you read the [talk page guidelines]; you may also find [this] helpful, especially the advice to "Be focused singlemindedly on writing an encyclopedia, not on Usenet-style debate". I have also left some advice on your talk page on the subject of signing your talk page contributions. --Stephen Burnett 12:11, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. I'm glad that the "talk" page has highlighted the spectacularly harsh and unfair punishment meted out to one public servant (the reason for the article in Wikipedia?), and not to the countless others who were hugely more wasteful of UK public funds. At present the article demonises 'Shirley Porter', when instead the key issue is the victimisation.

No, the key issue is Shirley Porter. Who, not incidentally, was not a public servant, but rather an elected politician, and wasted local government funds to personal political gain. And presently, this talk page is serving no purpose other than to give you an echo chamber to agree with yourself while ignoring everyone else. –EdC 14:18, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

And thanks also for your various opinions.

NOT Sirley, Lady Porter. Dame Shirley Porter. Shirley, Lady Porter would be a daughter of a peer, or wife of a Knight, at least. She earnt her honour herself.

[edit] Content taken from gerrymandering article

I removed the content below from the gerrymandering article, perhaps it can find a place here. The gerrymandering article is getting very long and this example doesn't involve changing district boundaries, so while called gerrymandering it seems like a separate topic. Scott Ritchie (talk) 09:21, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Dame Shirley Porter case

An interesting, albeit unusual method of achieving the effects of gerrymandering is to attempt to move the population within the existing boundaries. This occurred in Westminster, in the United Kingdom, where the local government was controlled by the Conservative party, and the leader of the council, Dame Shirley Porter, conspired with others to implement the policy of council house sales in such a way as to shore up the Conservative vote in marginal wards by selling the houses there to people thought likely to vote Conservative. An inquiry by the district auditor found that these actions had resulted in financial loss to taxpayers, and Porter and three others were surcharged to cover the loss. Porter was accused of "disgraceful and improper gerrymandering" by district auditor John Magill. Those surcharged resisted this ruling with a legal challenge, but, in December 2001, the appeal court upheld the district auditor's ruling. Despite further lengthy legal argument Porter eventually accepted a deal to end the long-running saga, and paid £12 million (out of an original claimed £27 million plus costs and interest) to Westminster Council in July, 2004.