Published on March 23, 2008
in Salford.
I was pleased to read today that Smiths fan David Cameron has finally managed to thwart the Salford Labour Party spoilsports and have his picture taken outside Salford Lads’ Club.
Perhaps now Hazel Blears can spend less time on pointless, pathetic vendettas against opposition politicians and actually concentrate on making things better for local residents and communities in her Salford constituency.
I’m not holding my breath though.
On 1st April, thanks to the Labour Government of which Salford MP Hazel is an integral part, thousands of hard-working but lower-income families across the City will pay significantly more income tax due to the abolition of the 10% rate of tax.
This follows on from the huge double-whammy of the withdrawal of Salford’s LABGI grant (earmarked to pay for the Philharmonic orchestra) and the worst formula grant settlement for Salford City Council in decades, both decisions the responsibility of the Department of Communities and Local Government (Secretary of State, one Hazel Blears MP - clearly no relation!).
This itself follows on from the decision made by the Labour Government to close the excellent maternity and neo-natal services at Salford Royal (Hope) Hospital, and the decisions made by Salford City Council’s Labour administration to close good schools which give excellent service to their local communities.
Locally and nationally, the Labour Party have let Salford down. It’s time for a change!
Published on March 23, 2008
in Salford.
Salford Labour have got themselves into a spin over Peel Holdings - there’s a bit of a rant on their website about Peel and the Liberal Democrats to follow up comments made by several Labour Councillors at Wednesday’s Council Meeting.
Personally, I find the idea of Peel working with the Liberal Democrats to unseat Roger Jones more than a little fanciful - the LibDems struggle to even nominate paper candidates in Irlam & Cadishead and last year came a poor fourth in both Irlam and Cadishead wards. Local residents in Irlam and Cadishead fed up with the lack of representation provided by their Labour Councillors should vote Conservative on 1st May.
The most interesting comments on Wednesday were made by Cadishead Labour Councillor Keith Mann, who compared meeting with Peel Holdings to “supping with the Devil”, and even went so far as to produce a long spoon to illustrate his metaphor. It was clearly not an off-the-cuff remark.
Presumably this is a completely different company to the Peel Holdings who are key partners for Salford City Council in a number of flagship projects, including the BBC move to mediacity:uk at Salford Quays. I don’t know whether Peel are yet aware of Councillor Mann’s comments, but he is a senior Labour Councillor and I would be very interested to hear whether the Labour leadership condones and supports his remarks.
I also assume that, as Labour clearly object to political parties being involved with Peel, they will be removing all references to mediacity:uk from their election literature. What do you think?
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