Friday, January 26, 2007

HENSHAW THE HYPOCRITE DOES A RUNNER - AFTER BLAMING EVERYONE ELSE FOR LIVERPOOL!
















DISGRACED former chief executive Sir David Henshaw changed the day of his Grauniad lecture to avoid an angry public confrontation with his former media chief.
Sir Diddy begged organisers of the conference to let him speak a day early than scheduled so that he could escape a public mauling from Matt Finnegan, the city council's former AED (Media).
Sir Diddy was due to speak at the conference on Friday when Finnegan, who had been framed and suspended by Henshaw, planned to join other Merseyside delegates in questioning Henshaw about his record at Liverpool, which cost council taxpayers millions.
But when Henshaw read this blog and found out who was amongst the delegates in the audience, he pleaded with the Guardin to allow him to speak on Thursday instead, in an unadvertised slot, because he feared an embarrassing scene.
A Guradian staffer said:"Sir David has kept up to date with what is being said about him on the blogosphere and elsewhere and was clearly concerned that there would be people in the audience who were not amongst his supporters and there might be some inappropriate questioning after his speech. He asked us to bring his slot forward a day to avoid any
unpleasantness - and we were happy to oblige."
As Henshaw escaped from the Guardian Public Services Summit Finnegan, who has become Henshaw's sworn enemy, warned there would be 'no hiding place' for Henshaw.
He said: "I am obviously disappointed that Henshaw did a runner and scarpered early. He did the same in Liverpool of course, to avoid embarrassing and difficult questions.
"He will find that he can run, but he can't hide - eventually his sins will catch up with him."
During his Thursday speech Henshaw, chairman of the North West Strategic Health Authority, had the gall to blame everyone but himself for the fall-out in Liverpool and being finally shown the door.
Henshaw conveniently ignored his own personal greed, attempts at blackmail and attempted coup d'etat, and his own abuse of his personal position and power.
Astonishingly, Henshaw who took early retirement after a no confidence vote by Executive Members following his feud with Mike Storey, blamed "additional pressure from central government on council chief executives" for his bust-up.
Henshaw, who was paid £250,000 a year and left Liverpool with a £360,000 pension pay-off, said local authority chief executives were faced with pressures from the government, which 'sometimes conflicted with the ambitions of locally elected councillors and caused tensions on the ground.'
This of course, has absolutely nothing to do with his departure from Liverpool.
The tensions on the ground at Liverpool came from his own personal style - his bullying, lying and uncontrollable rages had finally become too much for the politicians to stomach any longer.
They feared that his huge ego, control freakery, arrogance and obsession with his own image was harming relationships inside and outside the city and damaging Liverpool'e reputation.
In his Guardian speech, Henshaw tried to rehabilitate his shattered reputation by posing as a defender of democracy, when as has been revealed, he had personally orchestrated an attempt to remove Liverpool's democratically elected leader.
"We are seeing more and more clashes between managerial and political leadership," said Henshaw, trying to excuse his own extraordinary behaviour and implying that the Liverpool debacle was not unique.
"Pushing responsibility towards managers by central government creates a displacement of power at local level which leads to tensions."
In other words, it was all Mike Storey's fault because he was jealous of Sir Diddy's power (and his intellectual superiority, political astuteness and personal charm no doubt, ed)
Utter bollocks.
Henshaw's immense ego, self-importance, arrogance and control freakery were beginning to alienate everyone who came across him (see Maggie Boyle's resignation, ed)
He had simply become too big for his boots (even with his Cuban heels on, ed).
There was a genuine fear for the future of the city if he carried on a moment longer.
Henshaw is now so desperate to try and re-write history (like every other dictator, ed) that he personally briefed The Guardian reporter at the conference on the civil war in Liverpool, trying to pass it off as "a professional feud" with Storey.
Wrong.
It was both a deeply personal and highly political feud which, if it had happened in Islington, the Guardian would have been splashing all over the front page as a threat to democracy.
Henshaw is well aware that he has now been publicly identified as an anti-democrat and plotter of coups.
To try and rebuild his reputation he, apparently straight-faced, told the Guardian audience:
"Unless we empower local elected politicians with real responsibility and real accountability we will not refresh the local politics that need to be refreshed and therefore reengage at local community level."
What a hypocrite the greedy little man truly is...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is there no end to that man's arrogance and lies?

Tori Blare said...

where would one aquire a full version of this magnificent speech?

Didn't anyone at Thursday's conference ask any awkward questions?

It is nice to know that Henshaw feels he is being persecuted as that is what he did to most of the council staff and including elected councillors.
The people ofLiverpool did not have a say in who was employed as the Chief executive, the people of Liverpool DID have a say in who they wanted to run the City.

as a person from Liverpool I feel that I should be given information on people seen fit by my elected councillors, to help them run the City Council. More say should be given to the electorate given the mess they have made of the last 2 chief executives they selected!

Anonymous said...

I think that this is a fairly unique version of Google guerilla warfare, which should be studied by other members of the establishment, who may try to do what Sir David has obviously tried to do. It is proving very effective in getting out a message about their activities and behaviour and is also very healthy for our democracy, I would have thought. But I think this site has become a bit of a cultural phoenomenon in Liverpool, which deserves some wider study.
On a separate note, it can also be very funny. Which is the most effective form of attack anyway.

Tony Parrish47 said...

This is the Guardian's version of it. You may need to take some strong smelling salts first, most people who have read it have ended up physically sick.Central dictates 'causing council clashes'


Helene Mulholland
Friday January 26, 2007
SocietyGuardian.co.uk


Council chiefs are caught in the cross fire between demands placed on them by the government and locally elected councillors, a former local authority chief executive has said.
Speaking on the first day of the Guardian Public Services Summit yesterday, Sir David Henshaw, former chief executive of Liverpool council who resigned following a long-running feud with his council leader, blamed the additional pressure from central government placed on council chief executives for the rising spate of local "clashes" in town hall corridors.

Sir David, now chair of the North West Strategic Health Authority, said local authority chief executives were faced with pressures from the government, which sometimes conflicted with the ambitions of locally elected councillors and caused tensions on the ground. Sir David said the government needed to step back and restore real power to locally elected councillors.

"We are seeing more and more clashes between managerial and political leadership," he told a session themed on devolving power away from the centre. "Pushing responsibility towards managers by central government creates a displacement of power at local level which leads to tensions."

Sir David retired last year from the Lib Dem flagship council after more than six years at the helm following a professional feud with the then council leader Mike Storey.

He said central control hampered efforts to reengage residents in local democracy. "Unless we empower local elected politicians with real responsibility and real accountability we will not refresh the local politics that need to be refreshed and therefore reengage at local community level," Sir David said.

Lucy de Groot, director of the local government Improvement and Development Agency, said local strategic partnerships and local area agreements were the best means of establishing what a local population needed.

Central government targets on reducing obesity for example, may not be a real concern in some areas of the country, Ms de Groot said. "We really need a more fine grained approach than saying everybody has to do obesity. It is not a priority for every [area]."

**** knows what Henshaw's mate lucy de groot is on about....

Anonymous said...

I feel sick, is there a darkened room I may rest my spinning head, so many lies I just can't take it any more

Anonymous said...

I can tell lies!!!
Giz a Job???