ARMS Merseyside Group - AGM 2021

To all ARMS members in Merseyside and Halton:
You are invited to participate in our 2021 Annual General Meeting as follows:

• Date: Thursday 11th March 2021.

• Time: 10.00 a.m. to midday.

• Place: by zoom. The link will be e-mailed to you closer to the time.

Nominations and motions
Nominations are called for:

Chair

Vice Chair

Secretary

Organiser

Treasurer

Committee (4)

Auditors (2)

Please send nominations and motions to the secretary, Dave Owens, (davegowens@hotmail.com) by Monday 22nd February.

We look forward to seeing you at the meeting.

Helping the PCS General Election Campaign

A general election has now been called for the 12 December. In line with policy agreed at our 2018 annual delegate conference, PCS will be campaigning for a Labour vote including targeted campaigning in 40 seats across England and Wales.

As a union we recognise that the election of a UK Labour government under the leadership and policies of McDonnell and Corbyn is in the interests of PCS members. Key Labour pledges include a return to national pay bargaining in the civil service and related bodies, and end to job cuts and office closures, the recruitment of 5,000 extra DWP staff, and large scale investment in HMRC.

The North West region are asking for PCS members to support campaigning and join PCS canvassing teams in the following seats: Southport, Blackpool North and Cleveleys, Bolton West and Crewe and Nantwich. Campaign dates for each of these target seats will be publicised shortly.

If you are able to volunteer, please email nwrc@pcs.org.uk with your name, branch and preferred email and telephone number.

How members vote is entirely a matter for them, and whichever party is in government PCS will always be there to fight your corner.

To see BB-73-19 (General election campaign update & guidance for civil service members), click here.

Register to vote and for a postal vote by the 26 November

Make sure you and your colleagues use your voice on the 12 December by registering to vote by 26 November. It takes less than 5 minutes to register online - here. All you need is your national insurance number.

Please also consider registering for a postal vote and encouraging your branch reps and members to do the same for this election, the deadline to request a postal vote is also the 26 November. Register here.

The British Trump prepares for office

So the results are in. We've endured TV hustings for a vote in which the vast majority of us had no role to play. The contest for the Tory Party leadership has been treated like a general election, but it was no more democratic than an internal leadership battle in the old USSR.

Johnson beat Hunt by 92,153 votes to 46,656. As the total number of registered UK voters in December 2018 was 45,775,800 (source: ONS), this means Johnson will become PM with the support of 0.2% of the electorate. To put it another way, 99.8% of the electorate did not vote for him, and 99.65% had no vote at all.

The Daily Mirror has an article "37 lies, gaffes and scandals that make Boris Johnson unfit to be Prime Minister" which you can read here.

I have a comparison which will ring particular bells with former reps in the civil service.

A long time ago when I was a union rep in the DSS/DWP, I represented a member who was facing dismissal having been accused of deliberately misspending public money, a sum of around £200. I managed to save his job only at the second and final level of appeal when it was eventually accepted that it was a genuine error. The first two decision makers had rejected that argument and had recommended dismissal.

Johnson, on the other hand, misspent £53 million of public money for a bridge that was never even begun. He also misspent more than £300,000 on illegal water cannons which were eventually scrapped at a huge loss. Now he stands to be rewarded with the keys to Number 10. I cannot understand why he has not faced prosecution for massive misuse of public funds. If not prosecuted, than at least barred from holding public office.

His 'election' was little more than a coup d'état and his misspending of huge amounts of public money has been shrugged off. He has a privileged immunity that has exempted his incompetence and arrogant profligacy from any kind of scrutiny or disciplinary investigation, and has denied the people any say in who leads the country. This last point is especially galling because Johnson denounced Gordon Brown for succeeding Tony Blair as PM without immediately calling a general election.

He is our next prime minister - finger crossed, not for too long.

Neville Grundy
ARMS Mersey

NW Regional ARMS Committee Special General meeting

To: North West Regional ARMs Committee members and all ARMs members in the North West.

As you may be aware, following on from the 2016 ARMs Forum held in June, arrangements have now been put in place to hold elections for the ARMs National Committee.

The first step in this process (which is set out in detail on the PCS National ARMs web-page ( ARMS latest news - PCS ) will be for the NW Regional ARMS Committee to hold a Special General Meeting (to which all ARMs members in the North West are cordially invited) to consider putting forward nominations for the National Committee. Accordingly, the Special General Meeting will be held as follows:

• Date: Wednesday 24th August 2016
• Venue: PCS Regional Office, 3rd Floor, Jack Jones House, 1, Islington, Liverpool, L3 8EG
• Time: 11:30 am – 2:00 pm

This is the first opportunity in over two years that members will be entitled to participate in the election process for the ARMs National Committee, so it is hoped that as many members as possible will be able to attend the meeting, As it is a special meeting, the question of nominations will be the only item on the agenda, so that the meeting will not be expected to last more than an hour, even though the meeting room has been booked for longer. Nominations are invited for the following National posts: Chairperson; Vice Chairperson/Editor; Secretary; Assistant Secretary/Organiser; Treasurer and Committee member (6 posts).

In order to facilitate debate at the meeting, any NW Regional ARMs member who wishes to submit nominations for the ARMs National Committee should send the details (via hard-copy or e-mail) to the NW ARMs Regional Secretary so as to reach him no later than 5:00 pm on Wednesday 17th August 2016.

Yours sincerely,

Phil Green
Secretary
PCS North West Regional ARMs Committee

E-mail: p.c.green@ukgateway.net
33 Cambridge Avenue
Churchtown
Southport PR9 9SA