Category: Blog

The 2010 Labour Leadership race was from the start a two-horse race. Not because of any great difference in quality between the 5 contenders, but constrained by the media narrative; which Milliband would win? Personally, I would have liked the contest to have been broadened to include the Alan Johnsons, John Denhams, Harriet Harmans or even Jon Crudas’s of the party, but for whatever reason we were presented with the 5 choices.

Given that the race was so clearly between the two brothers but the voting system was AV, really all that mattered was how you listed one brother against the other. My choice was Ed rather than David but I wasn’t bowled over by either and I certainly didn’t want to give either the sort of endorsement we gave to Blair those years ago that allowed him to be contemptuous of cabinet government, party democracy and ultimately international law. That latter point was the sole reason for placing Diane Abbott as no1 on the ballot paper. She’d scare me to death as leader and had there been any danger of her winning, I wouldn’t have given her the vote, but she did actively oppose the war in Iraq and that mattered. I’m glad I gave her my no1 choice.

My second choice went to Ed Balls. Ed had ran by miles the best campaign in the contest, the only candidate to argue coherently for a winning argument on the deficit. The shame is that he is condemned for the bullying and ruthless behaviour of those in the Gordon Brown camp. He deserved his position as highest non-Miliband in the ultimate result. A strong vote in this election shows to him that he has a place at the top of our party; and if he can lose his reputation for the dark arts, this might not be his last chance at leadership.

My third choice went to Andy Burnham.

My fourth went to Ed Miliband – There is a great deal of potential in Ed and it is my view that at this stage he is the only one who could win the next election for Labour. (I just don’t think David could project the emotions and character as well as Ed can). I don’t buy the idea that there’s much between them politically.  David Miliband has handled himself incredibly well since the result.

Had it been first past the post, I would have voted for Ed Milliband.

I’m pleased with the overall winner, but not happy with the manner of the win. Elections should be fair and free from interference. There’s no point in pretending the behaviour of a single union hasn’t left a bad taste. We don’t know how much that influence made a difference; and we can’t rerun the whole thing, but GMB haven’t left themselves smelling of roses.

Mike Cordingley

image: “Labour Leadership Hustings 2010 – 18” by Young Fabians, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I’ve received the following reply from Trafford regarding the state of the road surface. Whilst acknowledging the unsatisfactory appearance of the road, the road has not yet risen to the top of the schedule.

Dear Cllr Cordingley
I refer to your recent inquiry concerning the surface condition of the Raglan Road, and apologise for the delay in replying.

It is obvious that the carriageway has a number of areas that require substantial actions and I understand that some of these patches have now been repaired. It would appear that Raglan Road has not previously been identified as requiring inclusion in the current year’s Structural Maintenance Programme because the majority of the concrete surface is structurally sound, whilst there are very poor isolated areas of re-instatements in bituminous materials that have failed and therefore do not look particularly attractive. It is this general condition that has meant that Raglan has not previously been prioritised whilst other adjacent streets have.
We will however continue to monitor the situation, and I will speak to my colleagues in the Operation Services division and ask that, in the short-term, they undertake more extensive patching of the poor areas of re-instatements.
I will also arrange to have the road inspected with a view to see if it would warrant inclusion as a priority in next year’s programme. We will take into account the point you make regarding the cul de sac being use as a cut through for cyclists to Kellogg’s and Trafford park

I trust that this is satisfactory to you at the present time, but should you require any further information please do not hesitate to contact me again.

Regards
Peter Townsend

I have written to my neighbours on Raglan Road with the letter linked here.

Editor’s note: the featured photograph shown is “Typical Torontorian Pothole(s)” by Michael, CC BY 2.0 . As you see, it has nothing to do with the original photographs which were stored on picasaweb, a long discontinued web service. I don’t think I have the original photographs, but if I find, I’ll replace.

My postbag is increasingly dominated by the proposal to build a biomass powerstation at Barton near to the M60. This is a major scheme and we have to be careful that we’re not allowing dioxins and black carbons to be pumped into the air. Gorse Hill is very much downwind of the plant and we need to get it right. We value your views and by all means use the comments facility below to post a comment.

I’ve added a page to our website here and posted resources from both sides of the argument. I’ll add to the page as the debate develops.

Mike Cordingley

image source from scheme proposers

Speaking at a press briefing in advance of the TUC Congress, TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said:

‘Next week the TUC holds its most important Congress in decades. We face government policies that will do great damage to this country.

‘Its programme of cuts, privatisation and redrawing the state is far more radical and dangerous than we have seen since the 1930s. Almost no part of the country, our economy or society will be left untouched.
‘The spending cuts threaten to choke off what is an extremely fragile recovery. At worst we face a double-dip recession. At best, we will have years of jobless growth and a dire start in life for a generation of young people.

‘Our opponents often portray us as a vested interest simply defending public sector jobs. Well it’s certainly our job to protect our members, but this is just as much about private sector workers and the wider economy too.
‘As the figures we release today show, the public sector wage bill makes up just 25p of every pound raised by government through tax. Half as much again – 38p in the pound – is spent directly on private sector goods and services.

‘The scale of cuts we are promised in the Comprehensive Spending Review will inevitably bite deep into that. And with public and private sector staff losing their jobs and companies losing orders, it is absurd to pretend that private sector growth will fill the jobs gap.

‘It is now clear that there is an economic alternative available. We can have a more sensible time-table for deficit reduction, a fair tax system and policies to stimulate green growth.

‘Only last week IMF research showed that the UK economy faces nothing like the problems of Greece or even Ireland, and has far more flexibility than ministers suggest. I’m certainly no deficit denier, but I do see a government that denies that there are alternatives.

‘We can only conclude that the government is acting through political choice, not fiscal necessity.

‘This is not a period of temporary austerity – nasty medicine that will do us good in the long-term – but a radical programme to hack away at the role of the public sector and public services, nothing more than a radical transformation of the role of the state.

‘That’s a valid political point of view, but it is not the majority view of voters. No party has won an election on that kind of platform in recent years – and nor did they do so in May 2010.

‘We were told that cuts could be achieved through efficiency, without hitting the vulnerable, without touching front-line services and without increasing inequality or opening a new North/South divide. But each has turned out impossible to deliver in even the first round of cuts.

‘Our right, our duty is to oppose this deeply mistaken programme. In a General Council statement that we will put to Congress, we recognise that workers have the right to challenge changes to their terms and conditions. But a political programme can only be defeated through political means.

‘That is why at our Congress we will launch a great campaign to make the government think again. We will invite the British people to join with us. We will look for every opportunity to work with service users, those whose pensions and benefits have been hit; and all those who worry about the future of our society and economy. The poll tax was defeated when government MPs returned to Westminster to report that their constituencies were in revolt. The poll tax offended the British people’s basic sense of what’s fair. So will the spending cuts.

‘Every coalition MP with a small majority and every coalition MP who fought an election to oppose deep early cuts needs to feel the pressure from their constituents to change course. That is why we will put heavy emphasis on grass-roots community organising.
‘But the campaign will also have a strong national profile. This is why the TUC is organising a rally and lobby of Parliament on 19 October – the eve of the Comprehensive Spending Review. And why we are already preparing for a great national demonstration against the cuts in London next March.”

These are serious times and Brendan Barber is to be applauded for spelling out how this Tory Government is getting it so wrong

image: Wikimedia

Rwendland, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

According to GMB, Trafford’s Chief Executive was paid an annualised salary of £170,000 last year, which makes her one of the lower paid chief execs in the North West. But it’s hard not to agree with the GMB’s view that the pay levels for senior directors in local government have become unsupportable.

It’s not just that the ethos of public service is degraded by such pay levels, it’s the extent to which the pay of chief executives has pulled the wage levels of others at the next level up in their wake. There are many brilliant managers in local government but we still seem to supplement through the constant use of consultants.

I’m pleased the GMB have raised this. We’ll have to see whether councils are brave enough to take the issue on.
GMB Latest Pay of Chief Executives

image: https://pixabay.com/photos/porsche-targa-car-porsche-museum-1621744/

There used to be a link here to a very dry (almost Open University c1980s) discussion on council efficiency. Despite its dryness, it did capture the serious debate going on in councils across the country. In this case, it’s the procurement directors of Lincolnshire and Worcestershire; it could easily have been Trafford and Salford.

Responses to the cuts that were aired in the programme included a centralised project hub and greater reliance on the voluntary sector. My nagging worry was that those project hub’s or Transformation (Trafford’s version) always recruited new staff and added to the bill; in times of crisis we always seem to need a new level of management to tell the old level of management what it should do.

Using the voluntary sector; all for it. But do council chiefs really understand the dynamics of the sector?

Anyway, it’s heavy stuff and you’ll have your own views. I’d be interested in hearing them.

link to localgovernment channel

Photo by Lukas: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-survey-spreadsheet-590022/