Labour MP John Healey has a go at grieving UKIP councillor

Labour MP for Wentworth & Deane, John Healey, has been called on to apologise after claiming that a UKIP councillor in Rotherham "walked away from [his] job".

The offending tweet is referring to former UKIP councillor, Ian Finnie, who recently resigned from the council because he refused to take public money when he couldn't put in the hours. He lost two of his brothers last year and another has serious health problems which has itself brought on health problems of his own.

Numerous people have told Healey the circumstances around Ian Finnie's understandable and entirely honourable decision to stand down but he has yet to apologise.

Former Labour deputy leader of Rotherham Council accused of rape

The former Labour deputy leader of Rotherham Council has been accused of rape by one of the victims giving evidence against three brothers who have now been convicted of child sex offences.

Jahangir Akhtar - a relative of Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain who have all received prison sentences for grooming, pimping and trafficking young girls - has been accused of rape by one victim and possibly two others.

Akhtar was vice chairman of the South Yorkshire Police & Crime Panel but resigned after the Times published details of him doing a deal to avoid Arshid Hussain being prosecuted if he handed a missing girl to police at a petrol station.

Investigations into allegations of sexual abuse of children in Rotherham by Pakistani men have found evidence of decades of abuse allowed to continue because police, councillors and social services were scared of being accused of racism. Despite evidence of social services and the police failing to carry out their statutory duty of care, not one social worker or police officer has been prosecuted for their part in knowingly allowing child sex trafficking and paedophile gangs to operate in Rotherham with impunity.

Akhtar lost his seat to UKIP in the local elections last year. He denies the allegations.

Lefties protesting against UKIP in Rotherham

A small group of left wing protesters are milling around outside UKIP's office in Rotherham where Nigel Farage has come to talk to Jane Collins and local councillors about child abuse in Rotherham.

What is it about these people that leads them to help the people who covered up and facilitated child abuse?

Entire Rotherham council cabinet resigns, DCLG send in administrators

The entire Labour cabinet at Rotherham Council have resigned over a damning report into child sexual exploitation in the town and the Secretary of State for Communities & Local Government, Eric Pickles, has sent in five administrator to run the council until elections can be held next year.

A report commissioned by the DCLG found that there is a deep-rooted culture of cover-ups and silencing whistle blowers and an unwillingness to accept that there was a problem which resulted in the council's Youth Services team being disbanded because they kept reporting the child abuse. The report found that when child abusers are discovered by the council "little or no action is taken to stop or even disrupt their activities" and that former council leader, Roger Stone, was a bully.

The National Crime Agency, which deals with serious and organised crime, has been passed a file to consider criminal charges which includes a former and current councillor. South Yorkshire Police are also investigating 10 police officers over their handling of child sexual exploitation.

The resignation of the Labour cabinet is a start but all those councillors, council officers and police officers who helped cover up the abuse of over 1,400 children need to face criminal charges.

The leader of the opposition, UKIP councillor Caven Vines, has meanwhile called for immediate elections to enable the people of Rotherham to decide who they want to run the council in the wake of this report.

The whole council needs to be disbanded and the people of Rotherham should be given the immediate opportunity to vote for who they want to lead them moving forward in the wake of the Casey report.

Eric Pickles has announced that elections in the town will not be held until 2016. This is simply too late. It is only by giving the people of Rotherham a full say in the future of the town, that we can build the community support that we will need to move forward. What Mr Pickles is suggesting is that the people of Rotherham cannot be trusted to vote for a better future, it is a dereliction of democracy.

The simple fact is that Rotherham is in desperate need of direct help and support to deal with this crisis, which deepens with each new report. Labour has failed the people of Rotherham in letting the abuse happen in the first place and then failed them again in the wake of the Jay report, as little direct help has been given to victims. Labour must not be allowed to fail the victims and the town again.

Shaun Wright resigns

South Yorkshire Police & Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright, has resigned today after finally taking the hint that his position was untenable because of the part he played in the cover-up of child sex abuse in Rotherham.

Shaun Wright was the cabinet member for Childrens' Services at Rotherham Borough Council for five years before standing down to stand form PCC. The council was well aware of the scale of abuse in Rotherham but allowed it to be covered up because officers were more worried about being accused of being racist than they were of the welfare of 1,400 vulnerable children who were preyed on by gangs of mainly Pakistani and Kashmiri men.

UKIP MEP Jane Collins has called for a criminal investigation into Shaun Wright's failure to protect children who were known to be victims of abuse during his time in charge of social services at Rotherham and for all the councillors and council officers involved in the cover up - especially chief child snatcher Joyce Thacker - to resign.

Police install panic button in UKIP MEP's home

South Yorkshire Police have fitted a panic button in the home of UKIP MEP Jane Collins and plan to install a panic room after she started receiving threatening emails and phone calls trying to stop her uncovering more details of the Rotherham child abuse case.

UKIP has played a big part in uncovering inconvenient details of child abuse in Rotherham and clearly it's getting a little too close to some important people. As South Yorkshire Police & Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright, is implicated in the cover up I'm not sure a police panic button would give me that much comfort.

Jane Collins MEP said:

I think every Labour member in Rotherham should tear up their membership card.

Do they not care about the victims? People are saying they didn't know the scale of it but surely one child is enough.

Labour councillor in Stoke resigns over party's handling of Rotherham child abuse

Stoke-on-Trent Labour councillor, Janine Bridges, has resigned from the Labour Party over their handling of the Rotherham child abuse scandal.

Morally I cannot subscribe to a party that has condoned the events in Rotherham.

Personally, I am deeply disappointed in Roger Stone and the National Party over handling of events. After much deliberation and careful consideration, I cancelled my membership of the party last Friday.

I will continue to serve the residents of my Packmoor ward as a non-aligned councillor.

The embattled leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Mohammed Pervez, says he is disappointed and that "the Labour Party acted firmly and quickly immediately the situation in Rotherham came to light". The first report warning the Labour council that there was a problem with child abuse in Rotherham was given to them as early as 2002.

Three reports into Rotherham child abuse have gone missing

Three reports warning of child abuse in Rotherham are missing from council archives and two of them weren't even discussed in council meetings.

The suspicious absence of these reports means that anyone new coming into the council would be unaware of the problem and would have to "discover" the extent of the problem for themselves.

Joyce Thacker, the chief child snatcher at Rotherham Social Services, was asked if the reports had been removed from archives in a "deliberate attempt to suppress information" and replied that she was unable to answer. Presumably because she doesn't want to incriminate the people who refused to do anything to stop the abuse of 1,400 children in Rotherham because they were more worried about being accused of racism than the welfare of the children they were supposed to be protecting.

The deputy leader of the council, Cllr Paul Lakin, says that he is dissolving the current Labour cabinet and appointing a new one. Replacing a cabinet full of Labour councillors who negligently allowed 1,400 children to be abused with another load of Labour councillors who negligently allowed 1,400 children to be abused is unlikely to satisfy the people calling for the mass resignation of Rotherham's Labour councillors.

UKIP councillors in Rotherham call for all Labour councillors to resign

The opposition UKIP group on Rotherham Borough Council has submitted a motion to today's full council meeting calling on all Labour councillors to resign and call a by-election.

The motion says that Labour can no longer command public support after helping to cover up the abuse of 1,400 children in Rotherham and all their councillors should resign and "all current Labour members should be required to submit themselves for re-election, in order that we implement a new council with a new mandate to govern the town".

UKIP councillors in Rotherham have pledged to seek justice for the abused children let down by Rotherham Borough Council.

Rotherham Labour councillor was checking cricket results during no confidence vote in Police and Crime Commissioner

A Sheffield Labour councillor is to be disciplined by his own party after being caught checking the cricket results on his mobile phone instead of paying attention to a meeting about the council's facilitation of the systematic abuse of 1,400 children.

Cllr David Barker was caught on camera keeping tabs on the Lancashire versus Yorkshire cricket match whilst his colleagues were debating a vote of no confidence in the Labour Police and Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright.

The motion calling on Wright to resign was passed unanimously despite Cllr Barker's disinterest in getting justice for the raped and abused children of Rotherham.

UKIP Rotherham councillors campaign for justice

UKIP councillors on Rotherham Borough Council are appealing for other councillors, MPs, senior police officers and the Asian community in Rotherham to join their campaign for justice for the 1,400 children who suffered abuse because of the negligence of the council's social services department.

Cllr Caven Vines, leader of the opposition, said:

We want justice for all the children that came forward and were let down by the authorities.

We also want justice for all the victims who were too afraid to report the abuse they had to endure in silence. UKIP councillors will endeavour to hold any councillors, police officers or council employees to account for these disgraceful acts, if wrong doing or dereliction of duty is identified.

UKIP Councillors invite all councillors, MPs for the Rotherham area and the relevant senior police officers, together with the Asian community, to join them in seeking justice.

Labour suspends four members over Rotherham child abuse

The Labour Party have suspended four members in Rotherham over their part they played in the cover-up of the systematic abuse of 1,400 children over a 16 year period.

Three councillors - Roger Stone, Gwendoline Ann Russell and Shaukat Ali - have been suspended along with former councillor Jahangir Akhtar. The Labour Party says that the four will be investigated for the part they played in letting down the abused children. They have also said that the Police & Crime Commissioner, Shaun Wright, will have to apply to their NEC before he will be allowed to rejoin the Labour Party.

Jahangir Akhtar was investigated by the police last year over allegations that he knew about a relationship between a 14 year old girl in care and a known child abuser. He denied the allegations and the police cleared him of them. Does that case feature in the independent report into child abuse?

Roger Stone resigned as leader of Rotherham Borough Council when the damning report into child abuse came out. When Rotherham Social Services hit the headlines last year for taking two children off their foster parents because they were UKIP members, Roger Stone said "If the professionals give advice, we take it. We are going to investigate — we always would if somebody complains". Except the independent report into child abuse in Rotherham clearly shows that they don't take the advice and they don't investigate when someone complains. Quite the opposite in fact - they discredit the victims and cover up the abuse because they don't want to tell people that almost every child abuse allegation is against Pakistani and Kashmiri men.

Gwendoline Russel and Shaukat Ali were present at a meeting of Rotherham Borough Council in 2008 when sexual exploitation of children was discussed. The report (page 33) said that the council had been contacted 118 times in 2007/08 expressing concerns about child sexual exploitation. The action plan shows that the council was well aware of sexual exploitation of children.

There is more to this Rotherham case than meets the eye. The scale of the abuse, the minutes of council meetings showing they were aware of the abuse happening, the botched police investigations. It all points to more than incompetence and fear of accusations of racism. I think that in time we will find that some people at Rotherham Borough Council - councillors or officers or both - have done more than turn a blind eye.

Shaun Wright refuses to resign over Rotherham child abuse report

The disgraced Police & Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire, Shaun Wright, has resigned from the Labour Party but is refusing to resign as PCC.

The former Labour councillor was responsible for the social services department of Rotherham Borough Council for five years while it facilitated the rape and abuse of 1,400 vulnerable children. Nobody at Rotherham Borough Council has been punished for their criminal neglect, nor have the police launched an investigation into the staff and councillors who knew about the abuse but failed to act on it.

Shaun Wright's position is simply untenable and if he had a shred of decency in him he would have resigned as soon as the report came out instead of clinging on, maintaining the pretence that he still has credibility in the role.

Rotherham Council child snatchers allowed 1,400 children to be raped and abused

An independent report commissioned by Rotherham Borough Council into child sexual exploitation in Rotherham from 1997 to 2013 has found that the council covered up and facilitated the rape and abuse of as many as 1,400 children as young as 11 years old by Pakistani and Kashmiri paedophiles.

This is the same council that took two foster children off a couple because they were UKIP members and the social workers didn't agree with their politics. The very same people and their predecessors allowed 1,400 children be subjected to rape and assault over a 16 year period by Pakistani and Kashmiri paedophiles because they didn't want to be accused of racism. Nobody at Rotherham Council has been punished for this and there are no plans to punish anyone.

This level of neglect has surely got to be criminal, why aren't the police prosecuting? Could it possibly be because the Police & Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Police was Cabinet Member for Children's Services at Rotherham Borough Council for five years while this was going on? Still, he's said sorry. That makes up for 1,400 destroyed lives.

Former Cabinet Member for Childrens' Services at Rotherham Borough Council, now Police & Crime Commissioner for South Yorkshire Police, Shaun Wright.

UKIP Rotherham councillor offers to give up allowances to save children's centres

The leader of the UKIP group on Rotherham MBC has offered to give up nearly £12k of his allowances to help save children's centres.

Cllr Cavan Vines said he would give up the £10,723k allowance he gets as leader of the opposition and £1k from his councillor's allowance to help fund the 10 children's centre faced with closure if other councillors would do the same. They all refused.

Rotherham: second, Middlesbrough: second, Croydon: third

Yesterday's by-elections in Rotherham, Middlesbrough and Croydon North saw fantastic results for UKIP with two second's and a third.

In Rotherham UKIP's Jane Collins came a very strong second, head and shoulders above the rest of the pack and securing almost half the Labour vote.  To put this into context, Rotherham has returned a Labour MP at every single election since 1933.  The worrying result in Rotherham is that three extremist parties took third, fourth and sixth places - the BNP, Respect and the English Democrats (that said, I know the former-Lib Dem who stood for the English Democrats and he has no truck with the extremist element of his party).  The Lib Dems (remember them?) came an embarrassing eighth with less than 10% of the UKIP vote and lost their deposit.  The turnout was just 33.8% which is appalling for a mid-term by-election and suggests Labour voters stayed at home to punish their party.

Rotherham
Lab	9,966
UKIP	4,648
BNP	1,804
Respect	1,778
Con	1,157
Eng Dem	703
Simon Copley	582
Lib Dem	451
Trade Union & Socialist	281
Paul Dickson	51
EDL	29
Turnout: 33.8%

In Middlesbrough UKIP's Richard Elvin came second, some 318 votes clear of the third-placed Lib Dem and 927 votes clear of the Tory candidate.  Middlesbrough is another safe Labour seat and Labour candidate Andy McDonald secured over 60% of the vote.  The Tory only managed to beat the fringe Peace Party candidate by 3 votes.

Middlesbrough
Lab	10,201
UKIP	1,990
Lib Dem	1,672
Con	1,063
Peace	1,060
BNP	328
Trade Union & Socialist	277
Mark Heslehurst	275
Turnout: 25.9%

In Croydon North UKIP's Winston McKenzie managed a comfortable third, 540 votes clear of the Lib Dem candidate and 2,737 votes behind the second-placed Tory.  Labour retained this safe seat with an increased majority.

Croydon North
Lab	15,898
Con	4,137
UKIP	1,400
Lib Dem	860
Green	855
Respect	707
Christian Peoples' Alliance	192
National Front	161
Communist	119
Loony	110
911 Was an Inside Job	66
Young Peoples' Party	63
Turnout: 26.4%

Vote UKIP in Rotherham, Croydon and Middlesbrough

UKIP is contesting three by-elections tomorrow in Rotherham, Croydon and Middlesbrough.

The highest profile is of course the Rotherham by-election where Jane Collins was already expected to rock the boat before the child snatchers at Rotherham social services took three children off their foster parents because they were UKIP members.  UKIP has gone up in the polls, bookies have shortened the odds of a UKIP win and the party received 750 new membership applications over the last few days.  It seems slightly distasteful to be profiting from the misfortune of three innocent children and their foster parents but this is the reaction of the general public, it's not been planned or instigated by the party and if it means we get a UKIP MP to help stop this sort of thing happening again then at least something positive has come out of it.  Rotherham has been Labour since 1930 and this vacancy only came up because their previous troughing Labour MP, Denis McShane, admitted stealing from the taxpayer.

Richard Elvin is UKIP's candidate for Middlsebrough, another pretty safe Labour seat which has become vacant following the death of the incumbent Labour MP, Sir Stuart Bell.

The final candidate is Winston McKenzie who is standing in Croydon North.  This is another Labour seat which has become vacant after the incumbent Labour MP, Malcolm Wicks, died.  Winston hit the news this week for his stupid comments on gay adoption which he has since withdrawn and which has led to him being removed from his post as a UKIP spokesman.  Despite his antiquated views on gay adoption Winston is a passionate campaigner, an energising speaker and committed community worker.

A day of outrage against Rotherham social services

There has been almost universal condemnation of Labour-run Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council's social services taking three children off their foster parents because of their UKIP membership.

Whilst some Labour activists have taken to Twitter to denounce UKIP as racists and extremists, the response from members and supporters of all parties has been largely united in condemning what has happened in Rotherham.  Red Ed Miliband has expressed his disappointment and said that there should be an investigation but David Cameron has been less than forthcoming, leaving Michael Gove to issue the Tories' condemnation.  Cameron was asked in a radio interview about his accusation in 2006 that UKIP are fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists and he appeared to backtrack on that slur but Downing Street later retracted his retraction, confirming that David Cameron still thinks UKIP members are fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists.

Meanwhile, a Labour councillor on Telford & Wrekin Council - another Labour-run council - took to Twitter to condemn what happened in Rotherham but at the same time said that UKIP members and supporters were "right wing xenophobes".  When a local radio presenter took an interest he denied having said it and demanded an apology from UKIP Telford & Wrekin who had been seeking clarification on why he thought their members hated or were scared of foreigners.

The Labour leader of Rotherham MBC has told the media that there will be an urgent investigation into what has happened.

Rotherham Social Services remove children from foster parents for being UKIP members

A couple in South Yorkshire have had their foster children taken off them because they are UKIP members.

Yeah, right.

According to the Telegraph, the unnamed couple fostered three young children (one of which is a baby) who settled in well.  So well that the two eldest children even started calling their foster parents mum and dad.  But social services decided that their membership of UKIP meant they had racist views on immigration and were therefore unfit to care for the three black children and they were removed from their home.

This is absolutely outrageous and this social worker needs to be sacked.  Not only does the social worker need to be sacked but every one of their colleagues and managers who supported the decision (it's not one that will have been made unilaterally) needs to be sacked.  Even if it means sacking the entire social services department and starting again. These disgusting lowlifes who conspired to take three young children from a loving home because of their own ignorance and intolerance should never work in social services again.

The couple want to remain anonymous to protect the children they fostered but the council responsible for this is named as Labour-controlled Rotherham where an election is being held next week to replace the disgraced former Labour MP, Denis McShane, who has been forced to resign after admitting to fraudulently misusing taxpayers' money.  Needless to say, if Jane Collins becomes UKIP's first MP next week you can expect some serious questions being asked about Rotherham social services in Westminster.

In the meantime, you can contact the relevant department on 01709 823987.

Update:
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council are on Twitter - @RMBCPress. You might like to let them know how you feel about them right now.