Southport MP challenged over potential misuse of public funds

Southport MP challenged over potential misuse of public funds.

Southport’s Conservative MP Damien Moore has been told he has “questions to answer” over potentially abusing parliamentary funds to push party political messages.
It follows a recent leaflet which the Tory MP sent to constituents which opponents describe as “little more than a series of Tory spin stories”.

The leaflet is produced in parliamentary green to denote that it is meant to be about his work in the constituency. Such information is usually paid for out of public funds allocated to MPs and is meant to be non-party political. Opponents, however, say that the MP’s recent A3 size pamphlet issued during the current election period has “crossed the line” into blatant Tory party political publicity and is often factually incorrect.

Liz Savage, Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Southport explains:

“Damien may claim this leaflet is not party political but it’s little more than a series of Tory spin stories. He’s got questions to answer, I think we should know who is paying for it? If it is publicly-funded as his staff appear to have confirmed in recent media comments, then why is he pushing party political material in them and getting the tax-payer to foot the bill?

For instance, there are items like his complete twisting of the Linaker Children’s Centre story. If his prolonged attack on “Sefton Labour” during that article isn’t party-political, I’m not sure what is?

Whatever it is, it’s certainly not factual as the centre was not under threat of closure by Sefton as he wrongly states but only a reorganisation of its services and so to claim otherwise is also just blatantly misleading constituents. He then fails to mention that the reorganisation is a direct result of the soon-to-be near quarter of a billion pound funding gap in Sefton’s budget caused by his party and the Lib-Dems.

His leaflet also makes claims about a few million pounds coming back to Merseyside Police but it’s nothing to do with him and he is simply pushing the Tory line on this. He vaunts this as a “success” while neglecting to mention that it is against the wider backdrop of a £120 million cut in central government funding to Merseyside police by the Tories and Lib-Dems.
Even worse, he once again tries to fool his constituents by failing to reveal the money has not come from this Tory government but is the result of Theresa May forcing the bill onto tax council payers.

Well over £4 million of this £5.2 million came from the recent rise in council tax bills, which the Tories insisted was the only way the money would be made available. Paying more council tax whilst losing one in four police officers from Merseyside’s service might be a ‘success’ in Tory eyes but it certainly isn’t for local residents.”

He continues to try and hoodwink constituents in the leaflet when, yet again, he attempts to grab credit for the knife wands funding decision when he had no part in it. It was actually made by Sefton Councillor Trish Hardy in her role as Chair of Sefton’s Community Safety Partnership and she’s already admonished him for his claims as he was not part of the process.

“Cllr Hardy also made clear the money was not from the Home Office as the Toy MP states but came from the Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner. It’s pretty shameless Tory publicity making on his part but then so is most of the leaflet, which appears to have been paid for with tax-payers’ money.

His claim in the leaflet of supporting Southport schools is also rather risible when 92 out of Sefton 93 schools are facing funding cuts and he’s just voted against free school meals for over 5,000 of Southport and Sefton’s poorest kids.

He has also used multiple pictures of local headteachers but has put the leaflet out during an election period which is a potential breach of the purdah convention and compromise of their position on top of what we believe is the party political aspect to the leaflet and the funding issue.

Damien certainly likes to pop-up for photo ops to grin while others bear it, much like he recently did with the local foodbank, but he should not be using public funds to spread Tory party tittle-tattle and misinformation and if that’s the case then he needs to answer for it.”