“They don’t want to know” – gloomy Vic Thompson

Politicians are not flavour of the month

It is now more than half a year since the MPs expenses scandal broke around us and it seems that the whole affair, unsurprisingly, has had a negative effect on the people of South Tyneside in particular, and they are not alone amongst the general populus who continue to struggle to find much faith in their leaders. 73 per cent say politics is broken in Britain and 77 per cent say there are far fewer people in public life that they admire than there used to be. The poll suggests anger at MPs who have had to repay expenses. A third say that they will vote against their local MP if he or she had been required to repay money.

South Tyneside Independent councillor Victor Thompson (pictured) has probably been door stepping with his colleagues, who at a time when politicians are held in such low esteem, carry on annoying people by turning up in the middle of Emmerdale, X Factor, and Dancing on Ice, they just don’t get the message do they! Joking aside, there is probably an optimum amount of times that politicians should knock at our doors, it ought to be more often than election times only, but less often than every couple of months, there is likely to be a happy medium in between. One of the other things that some of our local councillors in South Shields and South Tyneside don’t get is double standards and hypocrisy, don’t lecture everyone else about partaking in Mayoral hospitality, official receptions in the Town Hall, councillors’ allowances, or enjoying  all the benefits of conferences away from Tyneside – especially if after dishing out your criticisms you then forget the whole lot claim the allowance and join in the party!

Councillor Thompson, not usually known for emphatic remarks or rumbustious debate within the council chamber (in fact some people have wondered whether his vocal chords were in a permanent state of disrepair) has been to a local government conference in north London recently where he bemoaned the fact that voters in Labour dominated South Tyneside were pretty downbeat, Thompson’s remarks were described as “gloomy”, but I suppose some remarks are infinitely better than none at all. He reports of the people of Primrose in Jarrow, who are being harangued by six candidates in a council by election:

“They don’t want to know.”

“The general consensus is that politicians are not really the flavour of the month. I suppose it’s to be expected, to a degree. They still don’t get the message out, MPs, do they?”

Neither do some councillors Vic, but it’s nice to hear you getting some message out from the comforts of a conference centre down in the capital. Instead of your group of Independent councillors fighting like ferrets in a sack with former sickened colleagues, and continuing to bash others in the community as well as councillors in some sort of personal vendetta, you ought to be promoting a positive message for change, you should be leaving the negative campaigning behind and telling us instead what you offer in the way of new ideas and new policies for South Tyneside. You know, I think it’s called a manifesto, a positive vision for the future!

Armed with such a document you might find that folks on the doorstep might change from “Don’t want to know”; we’ve had too many years of bickering, back biting, constant carping and criticising, personal attacks and insults, enough to last a lifetime, hardly any wonder that the Progressives, Steve Harrison, George Elsom, Tom Defty et al left your Alliance and reduced it’s size by approximately 50% .

Good to hear from you Cllr. Thompson, even if you had to go all the way to London to remind us that you are not flavour of the month!

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Iraq war “made the world a safer place”

Tony Blair, and policemen “armed to the teeth”

And he stood there, Tony Blair, he stood there, well, he sat there, and he made that little church-and-steeple out of his fingers and he said the Iraq war had “made the world a safer place”. Really? Really? If it’s so much safer, how come we need all these hired gunmen that we didn’t need before?

Victoria Coren writing in The Guardian, excellent article on the T.W.A.T. – The War Against Terror – and how it really has altered the British way of life (you know, the British way of life that we would never allow the terrorists to alter.)

Read it and understand why we are so fortunate to live in South Shields.

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Labour Secretary to stand down

North Tyneside councillor in protest move

I cannot say I particularly blame Cllr. Eddie Darke (pictured), secretary of Labour’s North Tyneside General Committee who has decided not to stand again for the position in protest at the Labour Party’s moves to force all women short lists on to local constituencies when considering finding candidates for the general election. The move was designed to forcefully boost the number of women in the House of Commons and like Conservative Leader David Cameron’s much feted “A list” almost set up a quota system for candidates from varying backgrounds.

Cllr Darke, one of three Labour members in Longbenton has said:

“It seems to me that the national Labour party could not care less about the membership who do all the work on the ground.”

He reacted after after a meeting to decide on the future of the Wallsend seat was held without him and around 19 women had offered themselves as the candidate to replace retiring MP and former minister Stephen Byers.

In an email to Party leaders seen by The Journal’s Adrian Pearson he added:

“As the national Labour party have shown me no respect, after 28 years as an officer of the constituency I will not be standing for secretary at the AGM in February as I feel that I have been kicked in the teeth by the national Labour party and I will be seriously considering what role I play in the general election, if any.”

It has been suggested that Wallsend was being forced to accept an all woman shortlist in order to maker it easier for NUM president Ian Lavery to go for the Wansbeck seat in Northumberland.
I’m pretty sure that many local parties resent the centre telling them how to run their affairs and I’m equally sure that party leaderships nationally do not trust local Labour parties or Conservative Associations to create a pool of worthwhile candidates covering many diverse interests and sections of the community.

However,direct rule from the centre can never be good for local democracy as it removes far too much choice from local people and local communities and the more favoured option to select Parliamentary candidates surely has to be the open primaries trialled by some Conservative Associations recently and seen as such a big success that they are continuing, by opening up the process to a wider body of opinion and introducing secret postal ballots we are far more likely to appoint candidates on merit and with a wider base of support in the community, thus creating more cohesion between the candidates, the local party, and the local electorate.

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Meet and greet

Karen Allen to meet South Shields shoppers

If you would like to meet the Conservative candidate for South Shields over the next few days then Karen Allen will be manning a stall in King Street under the Metro bridge on Tuesday and Wednesday 9th. and 10th. February. She will have supplies of local Conservative literature with her as well as time to have a chat. If you have not yet received a residents survey and are in the town centre, it might be a good idea to pick one up from Karen as you get your shopping.

This is the start of a number of events that Karen has planned for the coming weeks and if you would like any further information on where you can meet and talk to her you can contact her via this web page.

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Is Britain morally bankrupt?

A bad news week for leaders and role models.

One wonders whether the UK press and broadcast media revel in negativism and bad news, or whether we really are in a situation that calls into question the very moral values that should be the foundation of a strong society.

We have just experienced a week in which four of our Parliamentarians discovered that they are about to face various charges under the Theft Act relating to their activities in the ongoing expenses scandal and yet despite not being arrested and having their DNA sampled they contrive to use a right dating back to 1689 and claim Parliamentary Privilege, thereby asserting that they are for all intents and purposes above the law. More curious is the revelation that some of them appear to have instructed the Labour Party’s own solicitors, Steel & Shamash on the case, and this is the same Labour Party whose Prime Minister has vowed to clean up Parliament!

The whole business of Parliament, it’s remunerations, and expenses has become a long drawn out mess which may yet result in some being found guilty of criminal activity, and it seems some in the establishment are contriving to give a two fingered salutation to the public who remain outraged at the behaviour of some of our politicians, I find it astounding but not necessarily surprising.

We here so much about “broken Britain” yet we cannot allow the current broken Parliament to try and repair the damage, this “rotten Parliament” has long passed the date of it’s effective usefulness and the damage and rot has affected all parties, the general election cannot come soon enough to provide an opportunity to install hundreds of new MPs untainted and unstained by the current regime. The Conservative leader David Cameron realise that radical change is required and with the resignation of many of his current MPs also realises that many newcomers are going to arrive in SW1 with completely different ideas about how the place should be run, I join with his calls to see the Commons remaining in their seats, instead of taking a half term break, and debate important reforms NOW before this Parliament is dissolved. That might, just might, highlight it’s place in restoring some moral values to our political leadership, the watering down of reforms already suggested just cannot be allowed to succeed, a new set of rules must be in place before the next Parliament sits.

Adding to my concerns about moral values has been the veritable morass of mess created by John Terry, his mistress, and his lawyers with their “super injunction”, firstly the use of these injunctions placed to stop the reporting of injunctions per se has to stop, the freedom of the press is grossly undermined by such actions from the likes of libel lawyers Carter Ruck acting on the instructions of their wealthy clients. It was with some relief that a High Court judge removed the restrictions on the reporting of the issue, but it opened a whole new can of worms in respect of the “public interest” and the status assigned upon John Terry as “role model” for thousands of young footballers across the UK. Once the revelations were in the public domain Terry should have taken responsibility for his own actions, his own future, and the England team’s future by resigning the captaincy, instead he piled enormous pressure on to Fabio Cappello and the FA to come to a decision, a situation that they ought not to have found themselves in. It was not the actions of the team coach, management or the FA that brought this about, it was the actions of the team captain, and he could have have righted so many perceived wrongs by taking a moral lead, but alas such a weapon was not to be found in the skipper’s armoury.

As a result, we now have new England captain, Rio Ferdinand, who is currently serving a four match ban for violent conduct on the field, but at least he is now considering dropping his appeal against the lengthening of the original three match ban, perhaps, unlike the politicians, he accepts that he cannot be above the laws of the game?

Amongst a group of extremely highly paid professional sportsmen used to the high life and expensive tastes, I had sought to think of a suitable England captain to replace Terry and provide a good role model for our youngsters, but to find one with the right qualities on the field of play and without any taints off it was indeed difficult.

Even down at a more local level here in South Tyneside we see the destruction of previously held moral values by a creeping acceptance of lowered standards even in criminality itself! Murder most foul it seems these days cannot be simply by a head battering, strangulation, or a fatal stabbing, no it needs to be accompanied by weeks of sheer torture and pain, and at a level that even the most depraved might flinch at, and this is not the only case that we have heard of recently involving immoral behaviour. We seem to accept socially a lowering of personal standards and it is little surprise when we see our leaders and those who should be our role models unthinkingly presupposing that their own behaviour is acceptable, these leadership/role model issues permeate downwards from the top rather like a rotting fish until those nearer the tail are also rotting. Local councillors who serve on Police Authorities find themselves transgressing the law, other councillors face the judge to be told that they are an “overbearing bully“, and others find it acceptable to stay away from council meetings for a whole six months yet happily offer themselves for re-election a few weeks after losing office!

When our leaders and role models play a part in breaking society, just what hope is there for the rest of us to repair the breach? The moral compass itself looks to be broken and unable to be repaired by the very man who proclaimed it was in his possession as a teenager:

And so I say honestly: I am a conviction politician. Call it “the driving power of social conscience”, call it “the better angels of our nature”, call it “our moral sense”, call it a belief in “civic duty”.

I joined this party as a teenager because I believed in these values. They guide my work, they are my moral compass. This is who I am.

Thus spoke the man who sold our gold, robbed our pensions, sent soldiers to war with insufficient equipment, watered down the expenses proposals, gave us the largest debts we have ever had, regulated the banks with a “light touch” and complains when they want to pay bonuses (after he declared he would put an end to that culture), and appears ready to offer a peerage to Mrs. Blair after she saved a violent man from prison simply because he had religious beliefs!

So the big questions this weekend have to be

“Is Britain morally bankrupt, is it broke, and are we capable of fixing it with new leadership?”

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How will we continue to fund local government?

Christine Melsom analyses the current political muddle

Christine writes this guest post on behalf of Is It Fair?, the campaign for the reform of Council Tax

What will happen to Council Tax after the next general election?
The Labour position.
Labour is still wedded to Council Tax.

If they get back in again it is probable – indeed likely – that there will be a property revaluation. This could be disastrous for Council Tax payers. Rather than push general taxation higher (to try to sort out the mess they have got the country into), they will dump as much as possible onto local government and let them take the blame.
The revaluation in Wales was trumpeted as being “revenue-neutral” i.e. the revaluation would not result in any more, or any less, Council Tax being collected: it would just be a redistribution to make the whole thing “fairer”. What they said was that 25% of Council Tax payers would see an increase; 25% would see a decrease and 50% would be unaffected.
What actually happened was that the revaluation ALONE resulted in 9% more Council Tax being demanded. Only 8% ended up paying less, and 32% ended up having to pay more. Some had to pay a LOT more, which is why they also had to bring in a “transitional relief” scheme where people who were bumped up several bands were bumped up one Council Tax band per year until they ended up in what was considered to be the correct band.
If the same revaluation exercise here in England goes the way the revaluation went in Wales – and bearing in mind this government has a record of not learning from past mistakes – the majority of us would end up out of pocket.
And would they also do away with the capping regime?

The Conservative position
The Conservatives also are still wedded to Council Tax. They have said that if they end up with a majority and form the next government, any increase in Council Tax – provided it is not more than 2.5% – will be reimbursed from general taxation for two years – meaning that Council Tax payers will not see an increase in their bills for two years. They are selling this as a Council Tax freeze for two years (which it really isn’t) but – what happens in the third year? Will we see an increase in Council Tax of 5% (actually 5.0625% compounded) – plus whatever the councils think they can get away with in year three?
And – unless we have missed it – the Conservatives have said nothing about how the 2.5% will be calculated, but we understand that this “freeze deal” will apply to each individual precept (County Council, District Council, Police and Fire Authorities).
The Conservatives have also said they would not go ahead with a property revaluation for council tax purposes – but that they would do away with the existing capping regime. They are in favour of the greater use of local referendums to help guide decisions. They claim they will make the local government funding settlement more transparent.

The Liberal Democrats
The Lib Dems still seem to favour a local income tax and/or a land-value tax. Even though they haven’t any chance of becoming the party of government, they may have some influence if there is hung Parliament and if they cosy up to one or other of the two main parties in some cobbled-together coalition.

The others
And – the fringe parties (Greens, UKIP and others – even the BNP) – could have an influence on the make up of the next parliament if it is close-run thing between Labour and Conservative.
Town / Parish precepts
None of the parties has mentioned anything about correcting the anomaly that allows town / parish councils to increase their share of the council tax bill (their precept) by more than the cap that applies to other, higher, authorities.
Being well aware that the cap does not apply to towns and parishes, a growing number of higher-level councils (County/District/Borough/City) are starting to off-load some of their non-statutory duties onto towns and parishes in their area – but keeping the money that they would have had to spend on these duties.
This off-loading has meant that many town and parish precepts have rocketed such that, in a growing number of cases, the amount demanded by the town/parish is as much as, or even more than, the amount demanded by the district/borough council.
In a Green paper in 2000, and in another document issued by the Department for Communities and Local Government in 2002, the current government has admitted that this off-loading can also lead to double taxation, in that householders can be charged twice for the same services.
So – even though the current government have been aware of this possible double-taxation business for 10 years, and have issued Green Papers and other reports about it, neither they, nor any of the other parties, has said anything about putting a stop to it.

The two main aims of Is It Fair are:

• The fair distribution of Government Grants to all Local Authorities
• Replace the present Council Tax system with one that is based on ability to pay (from disposable income)

Although the issue of Council Tax and local government funding are unlikely to be high on anyone’s agenda as we go into the general election campaign, it is clear to see that local government funding from central sources will come under increasing pressure for reduction as the next government struggles with the budget deficit. The great danger, if the current system continues, in the years after the general election, is that some local authorities will attempt to maintain services at current levels or above and pile the additional costs not centrally funded directly on to their council tax payers. The greatest reform required will be in the mindsets of elected councillors who must face up to the fact that money will not be available for every project that they would wish for, and that their local residents here in South Tyneside and beyond will be looking for lower cost services with higher value, efficiency, less “empire building” by extremely well paid officials, and a lower tax local economy geared for growth, as this writer to The Shields Gazette almost alludes to.

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Caption competition (cult personality edition)

Found this on a spoof Twitter site (there are one or two of them about) anyone in South Tyneside care to offer a caption for either Joe McElderry or Cllr. Ahmed Khan, pictured, I believe, in The Old Ship in Sunderland Road, South Shields recently?

PS I would have liked to have given credit to the photographer, but unfortunately the provenance of this picture is presently unknown.

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The fear of facing reality

Politicians don’t want to talk about the pain!

The news agenda has been virtually dominated by the economy, as it should do, over the past few days with the Conservatives wheeling out George Osborne at the British Museum to espouse how they would try and tackle Britain’s enormous budget deficit and our debt mountain which is the highest in the industrial world. Rebuffing it all in a jolly sort of way Lord Mandelson for Labour tries to suggest that “boy George” has his sums all wrong again, but the Prince of Darkness is no expert when it comes to figures himself he just knows how to talk a good game. It’s this glossing over of the realities which really causes me some pain at the moment, noting that leading politicians from both Labour and the Conservatives are painfully unwilling to front up to the facts that our imbalance between tax receipts and planned spending is actually a huge gargantuan gulf, a gulf so large that it has to be supported by the biggest amount of debt in our history and the printing of money.

Neither party wants to be seen as the bringer of pain, yet pain there will have to be in some measure in order to pay off the debt and reduce the size of the deficit, our economy will not enjoy a healthy return to growth and financial liquidity until our international credit rating recovers, and that will not happen whilst we carry these double millstones around our neck. I don’t know how other people in South Shields view the national economic situation but I’m sure that the majority of us are feeling its effects on our own household budgets, and having enjoyed the fruits of a debt induced growth over the past decade there will be some shocks for some as we learn that the national debt needs to be paid down quickly. If we want jobs and prosperity then we need a stronger pound to attract inward investment, steady interest rates to encourage the flow of money, and a reduced size of the state and public sector to encourage a flourishing private sector that supports small and medium enterprises.

Picture via Guido Fawkes

Our national debt as a percentage of GDP is higher than all of our industrial competitors and politicians of both parties are now too afraid to approach the issue in fear of losing popular support, as Guido points out in his post Mandelson, Brown, Osborne and Cameron now appear to be competing on how little pain they can cause to reduce the deficit, this argument is simply not sustainable.

As the general election approaches both major parties need to take some strong medicine and admit to the size of the problem, and the self inflicted wounds to the economy from Brown’s thirteen year stewardship will not be healed by a few headache removing aspirins! It will do us no good at all in putting off the inevitable, there is a job to be done which may well involve some major surgery to stem the haemorrhage and aid the recovery. We need a clear cut choice, perhaps a polarisation of the parties so we know that one will offer hard choices and hard decisions now that may lead to a low tax economy later, and I’ve said for years that standing in the middle of the road is the best place to have an accident, the fact that both the Socialist and Tory economic policies are so similar is not a good option for politics, popularity, or Britain’s weak economy.

Our politicians need to face their own fears and swallow a massive dose of honesty.

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In praise of Upvc doors

They do have advantages

I’ve been out delivering leaflets in the West Park ward of South Shields this afternoon and noticed that as more and more houses have Upvc/pvcU doors fitted, there has been a marked decline in the amount of horrendous top hinged vertical letterflaps. All of the new doors have horizontal letterflaps at an almost uniform height – a Godsend for those whose work involves delivering letters or leaflets, Royal Mail and distribution companies must be delighted, and the risk to the fingers is greatly lessened.

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Recycling gone bad

Gordon Brown recycles old initiatives – again!

Brown promises to scrap first past the post voting system.

“Gordon Brown avoided a leadership election, bottled a General Election, and wants to fiddle the electoral system. Now he is recycling old promises made in 1997, 2001, 2005 and 2007 – and broken repeatedly ever since. It’s not the voting system that needs changing, it’s this weak and discredited Prime Minister. New politics needs a new government”.

William Hague – Conservative spokesman and Shadow Foreign Secretary.

The Brown stuff – Gordon’s record of broken promises

Referendum on electoral reform
Announced in 1997: We are committed to a referendum on the voting system for the House of Commons. An independent commission on voting systems will be appointed early to recommend a proportional alternative to the first-past-the-post system (Labour Manifesto 1997).
Re-announced in 2005: Labour remains committed to reviewing the experience of the new electoral systems – introduced for the devolved administrations, the European Parliament and the London Assembly. A referendum remains the right way to agree any change for Westminster (Labour Manifesto 2005)
Re-announced in 2007: “We will fulfil our manifesto obligation to publish our review of the experience of the various voting systems introduced since 1998” (Gordon Brown, 3 July 2007)
Re-announced in 2009: “in Labour’s next manifesto there will be a commitment for a referendum to be held early in the next Parliament it will be for the people to decide whether they want to move to the Alternative Vote” (Gordon Brown, speech to Labour conference)
No referendum held

Lords reform
Announced in 1997. The right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute. This will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative. (Labour Manifesto 1997)
Re-announced in 2005: “We will complete the reform of the House of Lords so that it is a modern and effective revising Chamber” (Labour Manifesto 2005)
Re-announced in 2008: ‘The government today set out proposals for the next stage of reforming the House of Lords’ (Ministry of Justice Press Release, 14 July 2008)
Re-announced in 2009: Reforms unveiled today by Jack Straw as part of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill will remove the hereditary principle from the House of Lords (Ministry of Justice Press Release, 20 July 2009)
Reform incomplete

Recall of MPs
Announced in 2009: “where there is proven financial corruption by an MP and in cases where wrong-doing has been demonstrated but Parliament fails to act we will give constituents the right to recall their Member of Parliament (Gordon Brown, Speech to Labour Party conference)
Not done

A written constitution
Announced in 2007: “It is right to involve the public in a sustained debate about whether there is a case for the United Kingdom developing a full British Bill of Rights and duties, or for moving towards a written constitution.” (Gordon Brown, 3 July 2007, col. 819)
Re-announced in 2007: “Gordon Brown has announced the start of a national consultation to draw up a Bill of Rights and establish a written constitution” (Number 10 Press Release, 25 October 2007)
Not done

Strengthening Parliament and reducing the power of the Executive
Announced in 1997. We believe the House of Commons is in need of modernisation and we will ask the House to establish a special Select Committee to review its procedures (Labour Manifesto, 1997)
Re-announced in 2005: “Labour will also continue to support reforms that improve parliamentary accountability and scrutiny led by the successful Modernisation Committee (Labour Manifesto, 2005)
Re-announced in 2007: ‘I can today make an immediate start by proposing changes that will transfer power from the Prime Minister and the Executive’ (Gordon Brown, 3 July 2007)
Few measures implemented

Brown’s record is broken, his needle is stuck in the track, the track that plays out with sickening monotony “I will survive”, he has no intention of changing this record and today’s announcement is made surely to tempt the wavering Lib-Dem voters in marginal seats where they hold second place to Labour, pure politics little more.

But what did you expect from a government that is so used to recycling it’s own junk and spin?

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