Green Fingers

**Saba Salman** (0:00)
Page 94, The Private Eye Podcast.

**Andrew Hunter Murray** (0:03)
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Page 94 My name is Andrew Hunter Murray, and I'm here in the iStudio with Helen Lewis, Saba Salman, and Adam Macqueen. We're here to talk about all the hottest matters that have occurred since the weather got a bit cooler.
Nice little weather joke for you there. So Saba, your story this week is about a Green Party politician called Mothin Ali, and it says something very interesting about not only local politics, but also where the Greens are nationally, which we'll get into in a bit. But for starters, can you just tell us about Mr. Ali and how he's ended up in the pages of Private Eye this fortnight?

**Saba Salman** (0:33)
So Mothin Ali is the co-depute leader of the Green Party nationally, and he is also a local councillor in Leeds. What happened was that Mothin Ali was given a councillor allowance, a special responsibility allowance of about £6,000.
It emerged that he had no special responsibility, but it seemed that he was given this, as we reported, for his national role. As an opposition party, you are entitled to not only your basic allowance, so in Leeds, all councillors get about £18,000. And over and above that, if you have what's known as a special responsibility, you get an extra bit of cash, and in Leeds, for that particular group, it's about £5,800.

**Adam Macqueen** (1:21)
And would those be sort of like chairing committees or...? Yes.

**Saba Salman** (1:23)
So it absolutely has to be an additional kind of extra responsibility on top of what you do normally, which is meet your ward constituents, speak at the council. The fact is that Moth and Ali had no such special responsibility within the framework of not only Leeds councils rules, but more widely the government sort of regulations.

**Andrew Hunter Murray** (1:46)
So has this decision been made because he's the, as you said, co-deputy leader or the deputy co-leader?

**Saba Salman** (1:52)
Yes. So...

**Adam Macqueen** (1:53)
Or the leader of the deputy co-leader.

**Andrew Hunter Murray** (1:55)
It works either way.

**Saba Salman** (1:56)
Man of many jobs. What happened was there seemed to be some sort of secret discussions within the Green group in Leeds that perhaps the national leadership, the money he got for that role wasn't enough.
And so in recognition of his national role, he should get an extra bit of cash. Now, the problem with that is that councillor allowances are funded by local taxpayers. So if I'm a local taxpayer in Leeds, I want my money to be... I may not want my money going to the council at all, but if I'm remunerating councillors, it should be for the work they do within the council, within the city. So effectively what you have is extra bit of cash going to a local councillor for a national political role.

**Andrew Hunter Murray** (2:43)
How do the Greens react when you ask them about this?

**Saba Salman** (2:46)
Well, the timeline here is interesting, Andy, because they seem to have retrofitted Councillor Mothenally with a special role, which is a group spokesman, which was not on the website. And indeed, last time I checked this morning is still not on the website to justify this. And also spokesman for Youth Violence Initiatives, which he's done some good work on, and mentoring other councillors, which again, I'm told that he's, you know, that is what he does, which is great, but it doesn't A, justify the extra money, and neither is it right that it's retrospectively added on to justify this extra bit of money.

**Andrew Hunter Murray** (3:25)
But we understand that the Greens are denying that this spokesperson role was retrofitted. They say it's a role Councillor Alley has always undertaken, and that they just took steps to formalise it after the eye asked questions. They also say there are no specific rules about which roles can receive an SRA, and that the spokesperson role qualifies.
Sometimes when we record these, I look forward, as in I anticipate, the comments section. I mean, any American viewers or listeners to this will be laughing at the £5,800. What is this, you know? So I suppose I'm interested in why we're covering this and what makes it a significant story in the context of the Green Party, and why are you having a go at the Greens when they're not even in government?

**Saba Salman** (4:07)
Yeah, take the last point. We have a go at everybody, so it's not just the Greens. But yes, so it is a relatively small amount, absolutely £5,800 is nothing in the great scheme of things. If council controls some sort of £140 billion worth of services, so it's a tiny amount. It's the principle of it. So government guidance and legislation on this means that the Special Responsibility Allowances, SRAs, are meant to be for additional work aligned to the council. So something you do within the council role.