Neil Wilby Media

Few people adjacent to local politics would argue against Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council being amongst the very worst in the country.  Never far from adverse news in the local, regional and national press and, of course, on network radio and television.

The latest farrago to receive widespread attention was the exposure of a recently elected, but already highly controversial, councillor dressed in a German army uniform well stocked with Nazi insignia. But, as is the way with politics in the famous old East Lancashire mill town, things have gone rapidly downhill from that particular starting point.

Cllr Marc Hince, by common consent the most unpopular, indeed hated, Member of that same Council, claimed at the time that it was ‘a bad choice’ made when attending a Yanks Weekend in Saddleworth around ten years ago. But ‘it did not represent his personal or political views’, he added.

A spokesperson for Oldham Council responded thus: “We are aware of a photograph of a sitting councillor circulating online. We expect all councillors to operate at the highest standard of public service in office.”

Which, as bad jokes and inept crisis communications go, that is near the bottom of the rubbish heap. Oldham is a place where anything goes, as far as its elected representatives are concerned.

Recent past and present councillors include a convicted fraudster, convicted people trafficker/tax dodger, convicted benefits cheat, a porn pervert and an anti-LGBT campaigner. Plus a hotch-potch minority of more trivial law-breakers, self-servers, hypocrites, sycophants, apparatchiks, liars, chancers and conspiracy theorists.

A low bar in terms of ethics, professionalism and integrity and an ability to look the other way, and ask no awkward questions, are requisites of almost every councillor and senior paid officer involved in Oldham’s administration. The gravy train must not be de-railed whatever the consequences for the Borough’s long-suffering, and, in many cases, poverty-stricken constituents.

For Marc Hince’s part, he was further exposed by Neil Wilby Media in an article that appeared on 31st May, 2024, following two other excoriating pieces published in the middle of the previous previous month (read here and here).

Those April articles proved several things beyond any doubt: Cllr Hince is a liar and a bully with little regard for the formal duties and responsibilities that come with elected office. His threatened legal challenge to those articles never materialised.

The May article demonstrated, again beyond any doubt, that the wearing of the Nazi uniform was no accident and, in the light of recent events, properly reflects a well-formed obsession with Hitler’s reign of terror and racist, far-right regime.

Apart from the now infamous uniform, it was also revealed exclusively by Neil Wilby Media that the Oldham Labour Group knew, and circulated, Marc Hince was a fascist during the 2022 local election campaign in Shaw. He posted on Facebook at the time: “You couldn’t make it up, but I suppose I should feel honoured. LibDems are claiming I’m a Labour supporter whilst Labour are going around telling everyone I’m a fascist”. 

Another exclusive Neil Wilby Media revelation (for fairly obvious reasons) was that he likened, in a well-shared YouTube broadcast, the journalism of the eponymous Neil Wilby, the author of this article, to the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels. 

More widely reported in the local and regional press was the use of the expression ‘Sieg Heil’ (a victory salute used originally by Nazis at political rallies) during a Shaw Town Council meeting on 21st May, 2024.

For the hard of thinking Labour Leader, Cllr Arooj Shah, and her incurious Party cohort, that took the number of Nazi incidents to four. But worse is probably yet to come.

A short-lived Facebook post by the now infamous councillor, looking inebriated or incapacitated by some other form of stress-busting ‘medication’ (his wife is a general practice Matron), inadvertently revealed other links to the Nazi regime.

On the bookshelf behind him is a copy of the book HHhH: “Himmler’s Hirn heisst Heydrich,” or, translated, “Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich.” The most lethal man in Hitler’s cabinet, Reinhard Heydrich seemed indestructible—until two exiled operatives, a Slovak and a Czech, killed him and changed the course of history. 

Although the handle was given to him, in jest, by Oldham Liberal Democrats‘ resident wag, Cllr Louie Hamblett, Marc Hince now revels in being called ‘The Secret Squirrel’, enjoying the cartoon character parody of the “000” secret agent. 

Nothing to link The Squirrel to Nazism there, but another look behind Cllr Hince’s left shoulder reveals an affinity to Volkswagen. A car manufacturer that was founded during the Third Reich and used both Jewish and non-Jewish forced labour, primarily from eastern Europe. The company operated four concentration camps and eight forced-labour camps on its property.

That fondness for the brand, albeit taken in isolation it would amount to very little, takes the Marc Hince/Nazi links to six and it is a near certainty that the bottom of this particular councillor’s cesspit has yet to be plumbed.

So, where does this leave Cllr Shah and her shameless Oldham Labour Group? Having cut a not-so-secret deal with Cllr Hince to save her own leadership skin she is now left presiding over what can be very fairly described as a Labour-Nazi coalition. However harsh that may seem, the Hince links to Nazism, plus a series of far-right, racist video clips he has admitted to making (the latest one at this link), are inescapable.

To date, Arooj Shah has not uttered a single word of condemnation against her political partner, who now sits on the Labour front bench in the civic chamber and accepted the Chair of the Council’s Planning Committee to seal the ill-starred coalition.

In public, there has not been a peep, either, out of the other 25 elected Labour Members who sit around Cllr Hince (The Mayor, a Labour councillor, is excluded during his non-political year) or any of the Borough’s three former Labour Members of Parliament, Jim McMahon, Debbie Abrahams (with jewish family links) and Angela Rayner.

But there are more than several Oldham Labour councillors, past and present, who are very unhappy at being linked to Nazism, through their new coalition partner, and it is an unholy alliance that is doomed to fail, sooner rather than later.

The next meeting of Full Council in Oldham is on 10th July, 2024. Marc Hince and his Labour-Nazi coalition is likely to take centre stage in more ways than one.

Follow Neil Wilby on Twitter (here) and Neil Wilby Media on Facebook (here) for signposts to any updates.

Page last updated: Friday 21st June, 2024 at 1345 hours

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