Category: Blog

I was really pleased to see this press release from the Local Government Association.

Councils back call for greater involvement in railways

LGA Media Release – 23 May 2011

Responding to the McNulty report’s call for local authorities to have more involvement in rail franchises, Cllr Peter Box, Chairman of the Local Government Association’s Economy and Transport Board, said:

“The LGA has consistently campaigned for greater involvement of councils in decisions about the new rail franchises and it is very pleasing to see this sensible and necessary reform recommended by the McNulty report. We hope the Government will now put this recommendation into action.

“The report recognises that many of the problems with our rail network arise from decisions being taken centrally without the engagement of the passengers, residents and businesses, who will be affected by them most.

“If we are to have a railway that is fit for the future, we need it to operate more efficiently, we need to target investment to where it is most needed and we need to find new ways of raising that investment. More local accountability, and a stronger role for councils, is crucial to all three.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS
1 The McNulty report on the future of railways recommends: “greater localism with more involvement in England of local authorities and/or PTEs, with local decision-making brought more closely together with budget responsibility and accountability.

2 The independent report was commissioned by the Transport Secretary to examine opportunities to improve the value for money of GB rail for taxpayers, passengers and freight customers. The full report can be found here: Realising the potential for Rail

Finally,

We are not getting the local service we need along our railway and that hinders our town centres and employment. The obvious advantage of bringing Trafford into franchise talks is the ‘What are you going to provide locally?” question

Kate Green publishes a weekly blog at www.kategreen.org

Here’s her latest update

This was the week in parliament when the cracks between the Tories and the LibDems really began to show. Tory gloating following last week’s truly terrible election results for the LibDems has blown apart the love-in between the two parties. Clegg might be trying to reassert his party’s independence, claiming he’s halting the NHS changes and will be standing up to Cameron in future, but it rings pretty hollow. I wouldn’t now like to guess whether the coalition government will go the full 5 years.

Labour MPs, myself included have been taking advantage to cause as much upset as possible between the two parties. When David Willets produced his outrageous plans for rich students to buy their way into university, Labour MPs wanted to know what the fair access adviser, LibDem Simon Hughes, thought of the idea? I went into the chamber to ask Willets why he was wasting time and energy on projects for the privileged when the Aim Higher programme, which has helped dozens of students from disadvantaged backgrounds prepare for university in Trafford, will run out of funding in October this year.

The LibDems were all over the place on the welfare reform bill this week too. Jenny Willott, LibDem MP for Cardiff Central, proposed an amendment to the government plans to cut disability benefits. But when Labour MPs on the committee demanded a vote, amazingly she voted against her own amendment! The LibDems really need to work out whose side they’re on.

Disability’s been a big issue in Westminster this week . On Wednesday, together with other MPs on the work and pensions select committee, I listened to evidence about the future of Remploy, which provides supported and sheltered employment for disabled people. This is a very difficult and sensitive issue: many disabled people would prefer to work in the mainstream labour market, but there are still around 3,000 workers in Remploy sheltered factories and they’re very worried about the future as the organisation has just announced hundreds of redundancies. With jobs so hard to come by, I don’t think this is the time to be reducing employment support for the most profoundly disabled people the government’s announced an independent review of Remploy, due to report this summer, and I can’t understand why the redundancies have been announced before the findings from that review are available .

Wednesday also saw more than 5,000 disabled people, their friends, families and supporters join a demonstration outside parliament to protest about the government’s cuts. I was sorry that the cost of the fares meant it wasn’t possible for Trafford campaigners to attend, but the demonstration was a powerful indication of disabled people’s anger and concern at the government’s actions, and this is an issue I certainly intend to keep working on. I raised a number of issues in relation to support for disabled children in the welfare reform bill committee this week.

And Wednesday was an exciting day for me for another reason a night out on the town with the class of 2010. It’s just a year since we were all first elected to parliament, and we thought we ought to celebrate we can’t believe how quickly the year has gone! It has been a privilege to serve as your MP in my first 12 months in parliament, and I very much look forward to continuing to speak out for you in the year ahead.

Firstly, thank you for voting me as your councillor for a second term. I’m chuffed to bits to have got so much support; it’s a huge privilege.

Overall it was an ‘ok’ night in Trafford for Labour without making a massive breakthrough in seats. We just gained the extra seat in Urmston.

Labour’s Broadheath campaign in Altrincham is the one that made everyone sit up and take notice. There we campaigned in a much more community based fashion. It was certainly the most enjoyable campaign and we closed the gap right down to 120 votes.

On the whole though Trafford’s results were very much in line with the national english picture, with the Lib Dem vote collapsing. I’m struggling to see a future for the Lib Dems. Their ability to be all things at once and point in opposing directions at the same time has become a fatal liability.

So, it’s easy to see why the Conservatives are pleased both nationally and locally with these results. The saving grace for Labour is that were we to make the same advance in votes next year, the seats would fall like apples in a gale. But we have to make that advance. Is that through more leaflets, more doorstep conversations or is it a question of waiting for the cuts to bite? I don’t want us to be complacent. We need to be the party for economic growth, and I’m not sure that the Islington set of Guardian writers really get it yet.

On a last note, once again the organisation of the count was frankly embarassing for Trafford, just as it was last year. It’s not fair on the staff, candidates or press that 4 hours after Sunderland is declared, we are just about to begin.

Gorse Hill

Thursday, 5 May 2011

Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Michael Cordingley*	1,787	67.8	−9.8
	Conservative	Samuel Martin	515	19.5	−3.6
	Green	Philip Leape	198	7.5	−4.2
	Liberal Democrats	Renee Matthews	137	5.2	−2.0
Majority			1,272	48.3
Turnout			2,637	32.9	+4.1

Kate Green is working hard in Parliament to get assurances from health ministers over health provision in Manchester. Unfortunately, the Conservative minister they’ve allocated the task to is Simon Burns. This is a minister who in 9 months has already cost the taxpayer £41,000 in chauffeur (so tory!!) driven trips to and from his home. The NHS is not safe in Conservative hands. They no longer pretend it’s safe in Conservative hands. If they’re in a good mood after lunch, you might get a consultation before your hospital’s taken away. But they’re alright, they’ve got a chauffeur that we’re paying for. He’s probably got a Lib Dem to rest his feet on.

Can’t pretend I like the man. But why should I if he’s wrecking the NHS?

My colours were nailed to the mast months ago. I remain in favour of the Alternative Vote for UK elections. This is not a compromise position. It simply ensures that the winning candidate is the person most of us want, nothing more, nothing less.

So I watched the Yes to AV election broadcast from last night. This was the one with the woman on the loudspeaker.

The main arguments presented were that AV would make MPs:

• more responsive to their constituents
• less inclined to fiddle their expenses
• less secure in safe seats

I’m not sure AV delivers any of these. The advantage is that voters won’t have to hold their nose whilst voting. MPs won’t be able to wield ‘Vote for me or you’ll be letting that lot in’ stick at voters. Voters can vote for the candidate that most aligns to their views.

If when the votes are counted, that doesn’t take any candidate over the line, then we’ll look at 2nd choices.

Of the other assumptions, it would certainly make some constituencies less safe, but it might make others safer (If that’s what the voters wanted). And I really don’t see it making any difference to expense fiddling.

The Yes campaign are making the worst of what should be a winning argument.

So what about the no to AV broadcast?

They’re straight in there with it’ll lead to coalitions. The problem is that we’ve been heading towards coalitions for the last 60 years. The Fib / Con coalition was delivered by First Past the Post.

Given the current popularity of the parties I’m inclined to believe that AV will not make a huge difference to the chances of more coalitions; in fact it’s been shown that in both 1979 and 1997 we’d have had bigger majority governments such was the unpopularity of the losing party. Under AV you’ll only get a coalition if that’s what the voters want.

We then had the horse race!. This is the most ridiculous analogy going. We’re choosing an MP not racing horses. If you have to use horse racing as analogy then you’d have to say that none of the horses crossed the line in the race that was shown. They ran out of steam (votes) before the finish and he race is over only when it’s over.

Finally, the broadcast resorts to this idea that some people get more than one vote. No they don’t. At the end of the count their will be two piles, those For the winning candidate and those Against.

There’s no duplication of votes just two piles.

I think there’s a valid argument for wanting Government to be a contest between two conflicting points of view – Labour v Conservative. That everything else is an irrelevance. I happen to think the complexities of modern life no longer allow for that and we damage our own parties if we do not try to respond to the changing nuances those complexities bring.

Given I’m supporting AV, I should be open about how I would tend vote in an election held under that system.

1. Labour
2. Green Party
3. Lib Dems (although their movement to the right is possibly pushing them down my preferences further)
4. Conservative Party
5. Ukip

Our present system is still a democratic system and on the whole, representatives of all the parties do work hard under it. It’s really a ridiculous time to be having this referendum when there’s so much more important stuff to address. But, if we have to have it now, we should take a considered objective view. So let’s not insult voters by making claims or attacks that can not be met.

 

This is a video from colleagues in Altrincham. It just shows we can make a difference. I’ve been out with them and I’ve just been so impressed. I’ve learned a tremendous amount from them; they are showing us all the way. Well done to Andrew, Sam and all the team.