From the Canal to Sevenways

Author: Mike Cordingley

  • Posh And Posher

    I watched last night’s programme from Andrew Neill with interest and would recommend it. The former editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times newspaper looked at the increasingly narrow social spectrum from which our MPs are drawn. He exposed the similar route to parliament taken by David and Ed Miliband, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Boris Johnson, Ed Balls, Michael Gove, Yvette Cooper….the list goes on.

    It’s a genuine problem. Andrew Neill seemed to be suggesting that we needed a return to Grammar Schools and went back to his old school which was now a comprehensive. Sadly the 6th formers he interviewed, despite being more articulate and worldly-wise than those interviewed from Eton, didn’t believe they had a chance to gate-crash the old school/University ties that had created this stasis. Neill’s right that it worsens Government, but he’s wrong about the remedy. There is nothing inherently essential about an Oxford PPE (Politics, Philosophy and Economics) that is required for high office. Given the visible decline in the public standing of MPs, it could be argued that the opposite is true.

    Frankly the onus is on the Labour Party to sort itself out. The Conservative Party has a tendency towards choosing its candidates from a certain privileged section and since it represents that class, I have no problem with them recruiting from it. Labour though does have a problem and it was sad to see Alan Johnson on the programme as the exception that proves the rule. However it seems somehow appropriate that he should have left office just before the programme was screened.

    Andrew Neill focused in his programme on Labour’s parliamentary selection in Stoke in which the Constituency Secretary Gary Elsby was not shortlisted by Labour’s NEC to his eternal resentment. It needed to be clarified that the NEC plays no part in the vast majority of Labour Party selections. It’s only in by-elections and vacancies declared as the General Election is due it’s the NEC that decides the shortlist from which the local party chooses the final candidate. Technically (apart from the separate question of All Women Shortlists), the Labour Party allows local members a great deal of autonomy in the selection of candidates except in this small number of by-elections and late selections. However, interestingly (and Neill missed this), this minority of selections made on an NEC shortlist seem to have had a disproportionate impact at the top of the party.

    Looking at the top of Labour’s current shadow cabinet it’s interesting to see how many came through the NEC shortlist:

    Name Position NEC shortlist
    Ed Miliband Leader Normal Contested Selection

    Harriet Harman

    		 Deputy Leader

    By-Election – NEC shortlist
    Ed Balls Shadow Chancellor Normal Contested Selection
    Yvette Cooper Shadow Home Secretary Late Vacancy NEC shortlist
    Douglas Alexander Shadow Foreign Secretary

    By-Election NEC Shortlist
    John Healy Shadow Health Secretary Normal Contested Selection
    Andy Burnham Shadow Education Secretary Normal Contested Selection
    Sadiq Khan Shadow Justice Secretary Normal Contested Selection
    Liam Byrne Shadow Work and Pensions

    By Election NEC Shortlist

    Amongst those that did have normal selections, support from people at the top of the party played a part particularly for Ed Miliband and Andy Burnham. Ed Balls already had established his reputation before his selection.

    It’s not that the party establishment overwhelmingly chooses all its MPs. It just seems that there’s a fast track to ministerial office that’s already in motion before the search to find a safe seat even begins. And if you’ve not established yourself onto that conveyor belt before you enter parliament, it’s going to me so much harder in parliament. That conveyor is a bit like the chute used on the Barclaycard adverts, it begins at Oxford PPE, weaves it way by ingratiating the chosen graduate into the world of a ministerial sugar daddy and then via a parachute into a seat ready to fight a quick election. No nursing of the seat wondering when the election is going to be called. No fighting unwinnable seats to cut your teeth and establish a reputation. Andrew Neill was partly right but he really missed the point that most Labour MPs still do it the hard way. And Blessed are the chosen few.

    It’s not all bleak though, and I do think that the party is interfering less. Encouragingly both the Oldham-Saddleworth and Barnsley by-elections have been given strong shortlists to choose from. And my own experience in Stretford and Urmston was that once we’d got the decision on whether we were one of the seats designated as an All Women Shortlist, we received absolutely no interference from the national party in our choice. Labour is certainly more representative than it was. Unlike Sky Sports, the party is moving in the right direction. I want to see Ed Miliband look to the new intake for more of our shadow ministers; there’s absolutely enough talent there. Let’s move away from this transfixion with the old college network and make it a meritocracy within the Parliamentary Labour Party.

  • Weekly Update 24th January 2011

    Budget Process Begins

    Trafford’s Draft Budget – On the Agends for Exec

    It’s been well aired that Local Government is taking the biggest hit in the Conservative Govt’s attack on public services. Trafford. However, the Tory Govt has targetted the most deprived areas, so in comparative terms we have not been hit as hard as Manchester and Salford.

    Trafford’s ‘spending power’ is reduced by 3.8% compared to Salford’s 8.5%. Whilst we’re not facing the massive redundancies of Manchester and Salford, we are going to lose services. Personally I found Tory crowing at the expense of Manchester extremely unedifying. I was pleased to see the Manchester Evening News was also critical

    It is disappointing enough that Westminster MPs should indulge in Manc-bashing. It is a tragedy that we should hear the same from local politicians on our patch. Carefully built-up cross-party alliances in Greater Manchester – alliances forged for the benefit of the entire city-region – are crashing down around our ears.

    Trafford Tories should remember how many local residents have family connections with Manchester and its Council. People are losing their jobs, putting their homes at risk – in Trafford as well as Manchester. Our Tories are behaving according to their DNA “If it ain’t hurting, it ain’t working”. Shameful.

    Apart from scrutinising the budget which dominated the week, I also attended

    • a Health Inequalities Workshop in Manchester
    • Labour Party Quiz
    • Urmston Labour Street Stall
    • Overview and Scrutiny

    Lastly, I went to see the mobile libary as it made its way through the areas not served by local fixed libraries. What a great service it is. The users I saw really appreciated the chance to get outside and choose a book with friends.

    Trafford is scrapping the mobile library to save £8000. By the time they’ve paid for reduncdancies and paid up on the lease of the van it’ll probably cost them to remove the service, but they’ll still do it anyway.

  • Weekly Update 17th January

    Catching up

    Barton Power Plant March

    Urmston had its first demonstration/march in forty years or so with the Clean-air march against the incinerator. It was great to see so many good-folk taking a stand. I’ve been on many marches, whether it be supporting Lostock College against closure, anti-Iraq war in London or in support of sacked GCHQ workers at Cheltenham. Whilst marches don’t always succeed in getting the powerful to change their minds, they do make a statement that people are not going to quietly accept being ignored. It’s heartening that so many people have been engaged in defending their environment. I was proud to have marched against Tony Blair’s war and I’m proud to have marched with the Breathe Clean Air Group.

    I have submitted my objection to Development Control

    Link to objection (Google Docs)

    Trafford Heath Trust

    A scrutiny meeting was held focused on Trafford Health Trust’s decision to seek a takeover from a larger trust.

    This has huge implications coming as it does as we prepare for GP consortia. The Trust currently has three hospitals, Trafford General, Altrincham General and Stretford Memorial. The trust has a historic debt of £8.3m and any trust that takes it over will need to take on that debt. The trust has commitments to the redevelopment of Altrincham General but is not yet in a position to go-ahead and this proposed surrender of automony does not help to allay fears.

    The uncertainty has led to the postponement of the move to an Integrated Care System that would involve hospital staff working much more closely with GPs and community health services to improve care for patients.

    The Strategic Health Authority had released £7m of additional capital spending for the current year which will enable the Trust to bring forward projects that could be completed early. The intention is to clear capital committments in later years to reassign to Altrincham General. I wanted to be reassured that any incoming trust would not be able use this capital surplus to pay-off the debts and in doing so abandon the Altrincham General project. I was given some assurance on this but I’m not totally satisfied.

    The Healthcare Trust is holding its next Board Meeting at 2pm on Wednesday 25th January and I’m hoping to get along to that.

    Greater Manchester Transport

    Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority (GMITA) Budget Seminar

    The authority is controlled by Conservatives and Lib Dems. The budget for transport in Greater Manchester is going to be extremely tight although you wouldn’t have known it from the way that the chair was inviting suggestions for further spending. The truth is that there will be cuts to supported services and the concessionary flat rate fare of 80p for elderly Train and Tram users in Greater Manchester is also under threat. AGMA are meeting on the 28th January to consider options which include replacing it with a half-price fare.

    Link to report to AGMA on Cuts

  • Weekly Update 10th January 2011

    Picking up after the Christmas and New Year lull

    It wasn’t completely without council business over Christmas. I received the usual bits of casework and of course the Barton Biomass Plant consultation period was running throughout. I’ve been pursuing a Health Impact Assessment on the plant through the Director of Public Health. We know that the current air quality is costing lives and the tolerance within that state for further particulate emissions has to be measured.

    Bins

    On a more positive note I have nothing but praise for the refuse collections carried out over Christmas and New Year. I didn’t receive any complaints in Gorse Hill and I thought that to maintain collections through the snow and Bank Holidays was brilliant. I was forced to defend the service on the www.urmston.net forum. Understandably there were residents who would have preferred a blue bin collection during Christmas week. I made enquiries with the Contract Manager at Trafford and the reasons were not just for bureaucratic convenience. The companies who receive the waste paper and cardboard need to do so in a regular pattern – they couldn’t cope with four weeks of collections in one week. The fact that there wasn’t a great deal of green waste meant that crews could be transferred to the grey bin collection.

    Planning Applications

    There’s lately been quite a few major applications come through. We’ve got the Town Hall application, the Victoria Warehouse Hotel/nightclub conference facilities application, Coronation Street studio application.

    Connected to the Town Hall application, we’ve also had the welcome news that whilst the building work is progressing the Council will be using Quay West, opposite the Lowry Centre, keeping the staff in Gorse Hill ward.

    Just outside Gorse Hill ward we’ve had the license application for Bowlers in Trafford Park to hold weekend dance events with a capacity of 4000. That’s a lot of people. There’s poor transport connections and they’d rely on coaches and cars so there’s potential for trouble if people are unable to get away. I’ve been to see the applicant and made representations to licensing at Trafford.

    Meetings

    During the period I’ve attended a number of meetings at Barton Clough in preparation for a possible regular Ofsted inspection. I’ve also met with Trafford’s corporate director for Transformation, Theresa Grant along with Sharon Richardson, head of Access Trafford. We discussed the changes in library opening hours (see below), preparations for the local elections / AV referendum and Trafford’s reliance on recruitment consultancies for senior posts.

    Libraries

    Really disappointed to see the contraction in opening hours particularly at Lostock Library which now has no late afternoon closures (the library is closed after 3pm throughout the week). We are not tolerating this and looking to develop a campaign to adjust the times. We’re deeply angered that there was no prior consultation to this move and it was implemented within days of the announcement. Typical Tories.

  • Environment Agency Presentation on BREP

    I attended a presentation from the Environment Agency last night along with Labour colleagues and other councillors. The presentation also included an update from Simon Castle, Trafford’s Chief Planning Officer. I’ll deal with Simon’s presentation first:

    • There is no date set for when the application will come to committee. It could be a few months before that happens.
    • Although the consultation period is closed, representations are still being received and will be taken into account right up to the decision.
    • The Health Protection Agency have been added to the standard consultees, although there’s been no request for a Health Impact Assessment (see letter from the Director of Public Health in previous post)

    Presentation from Environment Agency

    The slides from last night’s presentation will be added as soon as I receive them. The main point is that the Environment Agency’s permitting scheme is a parallel process to planning but runs entirely separately to the planning process. The project needs to pass both hurdles in order for it to operate. If the project was to gain its Environment Agency approval but be refused planning (after appeal), the project will not go ahead. The converse is also true.

    • The application for a permit has not yet been accepted as ‘received’. There’s a little bit of to-ing and fro-ing as the final details of the application are refined.
    • When it is received there will be a 20 day consultation exercise.
    • Unlike planning, the regulating authority issues a draft permit for consultation – so it’s a two stage process
    • Permits can change over time and the Environment Agency apply ‘Best Available Technique‘ standard to their permits. As technology improves, the operator must apply that technology. (This particular issue raised questions from Labour Councillors over Plasma Gasification which has been mooted by opponents as a cleaner and environmentally friendly means of extracting energy from waste). The Environment Agency representatives had received no guidance on Plasma Gasification and it seems they do not consider it is yet sufficiently mainstream for a view to be offered. It’s clear to me that the Best Available Technique is a notion that only applies to elements within a process and not to the nature of the process itself. I do not believe that even were plasma gasification to become be accepted as mainstream and the preferred model, that the Environment Agency would order the plant to be rebuilt to adopt that process. I do not say this right, I just believe it to be the reality.

      My view is that we have to be assured that the plant is safe from its inception and not take a view that it will become safer as technology develops. I take no comfort from the Environment Agency’s adherence to Best Available Technique.

    • There was a lot of discussion around the inspection regime that will operate. Clearly this has become a contentious subject and views are polarised. I’m not reassured that even were the inspection regime be foolproof, that the poor air quality we already experience will not be impaired further and there’s the rub. It is already accepted that our air quality is shortening lives (in reality that means some of us are dying early as a consequence). Our focus should be on improving that air quality – actions to reduce road traffic etc, not allowing the air quality to deteriorate further.

    I think the main message from last night’s presentation is that we will have to follow the progress of the Permit Application and contribute to the consultation process. I am particularly interested in any Health impact Assessment that is submitted with their application. If I understand the Friends of the Earth Guidance (page 6), there will be such an assessment submitted – although it may be called something else.

    The Environment Agency will notify us when the application is accepted and we’ll be able to view details at the Environment Agency Consultations Pages

  • BioMass – Reply from Trafford’s Director of Public Heal

    I have received a reply from the Director of Public Health who has made enquiries of the Health Protection Agency. The reply infers the strong causality between airborne pollution and reduced life expectancy of 6months per newborn baby nationally (Clearly this will be more where particulate pollution is more). Whilst acknowledging that the additional emissions in themselves may not exceed allowable levels the reply does confirm that “any increase in particle concentrations should be assumed to be associated with some effect on health”.

    Mike Cordingley