Cllr Thomas Hoof

Donnington & Muxton, Lilleshall Parish Councillor - Published by T Hoof at Wellington, PO BOX 297, TF1 9AL

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

Nice to hear from you, Andy. Thanks for the by election. We live for such things.
I’m in no doubt life is tough for lots of folk in Makerfield. But it’s hardly a poster child for urban squalor/deprivation.
Thatcher left power in 1990. She was followed by seven years of unThatcher Major and 13 years of Labour government, of which you were a part. So it’s quite a stretch to blame her for any continuing woes. Unless we blame Labour for failing to put anything right.
On the other hand the houses you were walking past were bought by the tenants under Thatcher’s right to buy scheme, which has given them some pride in place and some wealth they once could only have dreamt of accumulating.
I assume your pledge to ‘renationalise housing’ does not include taking these homes back into public ownership ... even if that would constitute a proper, radical reversal of the Thatcherism you’re (some what bizarrely) campaigning against.

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

16.51 @tfwrail telford to Bham ain’t - WiFi broke - WiFi giving out APIPA addresses. Tell your IT they’ll know what it means.

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

@virginmedia Took you 3 days to respond, what hope for we have your engineers would turn up on time 🤣

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

.@virginmedia internet on and off in TF2 8QA now since Saturday, updates have the same time resolution time each day of 06.03pm - getting a joke and had no comms from Virgin at all on what is happening.

[Andrew Neil @afneil]

This will be a tough weekend for the Chancellor. She knew almost six weeks before the Budget from the OBR there was no ‘black hole’. Yet she and the Treasury still stoked up the idea that there was — and it would take big tax rises to fill it.
By Oct 31 she knew from the OBR there was actually £4bn headroom rather than a black hole. Yet still on Nov 5th she commandeered breakfast media to roll the pitch for big tax rises.
Even by mid-November she was telling the BBC if Labour stuck to its manifesto commitments (ie no income tax rises) she’d need deep cuts to capital investment.
None of what she said in the run up to the Budget was true. The Treasury select committee needs to ask her why she so misled the Parliament, the markets and the British people.
She raised taxes to give herself some more headroom and to pay for yet another increase in (largely welfare) spending.
The tax burden is going to all-time record level for a simple reason: the Labour manifesto said public spending would be around £10bn higher than Tory plans by 2028/29. In reality on the latest projections it will be £179bn higher!!! Nothing to do with filling in black holes.

[FletchFletchington @TerfTerfington]

@piersmorgan So Paschal Robinson-Foster, the Fresh Prince Of Ipswich, wants quotes of him celebrating Kirk's brutal murder?

No problem Paschal. Here you are...

[Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1]

😂

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

Great news!

[AFC Telford United @telfordutd]

Stenson again, Olè, Olè.

Welcome back, Matty.

#WeAreTelford

[AFC Telford United @telfordutd]

👋 @FootballManager

[Samantha Smith @SamanthaTaghoy]

Dear Lucy Powell MP,

You think child rape is a “dog whistle”?

Well, I was sexually abused from 5 years old.

And it’s politicians like 𝙮𝙤𝙪 that are the reason little girls like me are still being raped, exploited and murdered across the country.

In my hometown, those in power dismissed victims as 𝙩𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚𝙧𝙨, 𝙥𝙖𝙠𝙞 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙧𝙨 and 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙩𝙚 𝙨𝙡𝙖𝙜𝙨.

They shamed and intimidated little girls like me into silence. They accused us of lying, or putting ourselves in risky situations, or even 𝙬𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 to be raped.

They stood by and did nothing while young girls were being brutally abused.

And, as many other girls systematically groomed in Telford have testified, I was made to feel as though I was to blame. The system criminalised the victims, rather than going after the perpetrators.

I remember being asked by a detective whether I “consented” at any point to sexual activity, and told by a social worker that “my actions had led me to where I was today”.

All the while the Labour-led council tried to block an independent inquiry into CSE for years and their Council Leader (now the MP for Telford), along with 10 other powerful local men, even wrote a letter to the Home Secretary saying they felt an inquiry would unnecessary.

In Rotherham, Rochdale and elsewhere, victims were continually swept aside by those in positions of power, as if they chose this lifestyle. The attitudes that social workers, local services, authorities had towards children was so skewed, and so deeply unprofessional.

It broke me. And I spent years in silence because I thought I would somehow be judged or penalised for the abuse I had suffered. Because I had been conditioned to feel like I was somehow responsible for my own victimisation.

The Telford scandal made headlines when it broke in 2015, then again when the Crowther Report was released in 2022. Yet, The news cycle moved on far too quickly.

This isn’t a 60-second-and-then-done issue. For change to occur, there needs to be constant attention brought to this issue because, otherwise, silence and ignorance only serves to support the predators and the paedophiles.

This is a crime that thrives on misinformation, on fears of “racism” and a lack of awareness, and on being swept under the rug.

They rely on girls not being taken seriously, the media not caring and the police not taking any action to investigate.

These are not crimes of the past. Kids are still being exploited, groomed, raped and even murdered in council estates like mine. It isn’t enough to have empty words and hollow promises.

CSE is not a “dog whistle”.
It is a national epidemic.

But those in power like Lucy Powell refuse to address that fact for fear of being forced to confront their decades-long failure to protect young girls from abuse.

It’s easier to ignore victims, especially when they come from communities, social classes or demographics that are already disenfranchised in Britain. And for those who do speak out, it feels like you are screaming at a brick wall that would rather label you as the problem than take you seriously.

Our trauma isn’t a “dog-whistle” or a “trumpet” to blow against the Labour Party.

It is the harrowing reality of the institutional blindness and contempt that allowed little girls to be sacrificed at the altar of political correctness, while politicians sneered and branded us troublemakers and attention-seekers for daring to want justice.

Shame on Lucy Powell.
Shame on Labour.
Shame on all of them.

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

Couldn’t make the final but cheering on the bucks and listening on live at @BBCShropSport #upthebucks @telfordutd

[Narinder Kaur @narindertweets]

This one is HILARIOUS because there are actually NO..ZERO DEI officers in Lincolnshire council. They had a training course on DEI and Reform will abandon that too making a total savings of...wait for it...£15,190!!!!! Way to Go @andreajenkyns

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

Shocking…

Donna should resign, standing for reform but openly planning to defect after elected is misleading to the residents who voted for her.

[Donna Rachel - The Dissident Councillor 🕊️ @Donna_Rachel_]

Yesterday I woke up feeling very proud to be one of Reform's 677 new councilors. This morning I woke up to an email from @reformparty_uk Head Office advising me that I have been suspended from the party "pending an investigation."
Why? Because I urged people here on X to lend Reform their support for the short term - for Thursday's elections - even if they felt they couldn't for the long term. According to Head Office, "This has brought the party into disrepute and damaged the interests of the party."
Let's be clear here, it is not me who has brought the party into disrepute. The party leadership did that when they unceremoniously ditched @benhabib6, and again when they suspended @RupertLowe10, our hardest working and most popular MP, back in March. His suspension provoked a wave of resignations; whole branches resigned as one in protest. I was tempted myself, but hoped things might yet improve.
The atrocious press conference held a few weeks later, in which former Tory Council Chairs and Lib Dem Councilors were paraded on stage as Reform's newest recruits, was a step too far. These were people who had already been tried and tested as a councilor, and had failed to bring meaningful change to their region. Many Reform supporters feared that the newcomers were only defecting to save their seats, not for any love of the party or desire for the real change that Britain so desperately needs. I called my branch chair to resign my membership; he asked me to stay on as we were struggling to find candidates. Out of loyalty to the party at the local level - all good, hard working people who merely want to live in a country that works for them - I agreed and remained on the ballot.
This campaign has been a difficult one. For every resident in my ward who supported Reform, I found another who wanted an alternative to the failed Tories and vindictive Labour, but couldn't bring themselves to vote for a party who would behave so shamefully toward their own. One of my fellow Reform candidates missed out on winning his seat by a mere 15 votes, another by a painful 5 votes. Those are seats on Shropshire council we should have won, and likely would have won had the party not decided to attack its own.
In posting the messages for which I have now been suspended I was merely trying to control damage that had already been done - not by me, but by head office. I was attempting to shore up our vote in the face of widespread dismay and disillusionment. And for that I have been treated in the same way as Ben, Rupert and so many others across the country: suspension, pending disciplinary action.
To head office: you wanted a response to your email so that my views "can be taken into consideration by the Emergency Disciplinary Panel." Let this post serve as that response.

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

@meganjones_star @ShropshireStar https://t.co/nGQ7hCCuCy

Now remembered by Pains Lane, a new road built on the Taylor Wimpey estate.

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

Whoever decided @TelfordWrekin decided to move to this awful webcast system rather than YouTube needs sacking.

[Cllr Thomas Hoof @OnlyHoof]

@MartinSLewis Don’t use it at all.

[Correne - Telford Survivor @Telford_Escaper]

So I'm struggling with my mental health since all the grooming stuff has come out. It's brought back alot of nightmares that I wasn't expecting to come back to me. I rang mental health today in crisis and they gave me an appointment for the 21st. I have to wait 2 weeks for an appointment!! At least sort this out for us @Keir_Starmer not all of the survivors and victims are as strong as me

[Samantha Smith @SamanthaTaghoy]

I don’t care who talked about Pakistani-Muslim grooming gangs first.

I care about who 𝙙𝙞𝙙𝙣’𝙩 talk about them.

Who turned a blind eye when they saw little girls getting raped above takeaways, plied with drugs and alcohol, or driven to be tortured by 20+ adult men.

Who blamed victims for the atrocities they endured, called them “paki shaggers” and “white slags”, and arrested them while letting the monsters who abused them walk free.

Who downplayed the scale of abuse, tried to block independent inquiries, or refused to investigate because they were scared of being called racist.

This isn’t an opportunity to stroke your ego or claim credit for a decades-long story that was being told by victims and survivors far before the great and good cared enough to listen.

So, to all those bickering over who did what and when: this isn’t about you.

[Correne - Telford Survivor @Telford_Escaper]

I'm happy the whole world has woken up about the rape gangs in England, but the affect on me is unreal. I have had a constant headache for about 4 days now. Panic attacks are uncontrolable and my anxiety is through the roof. I'm so grateful for all the kind messages and all the tweets and comments I'm getting, there keeping me going at the moment so thank U ❤️