Cllr Iain Lindley - Salford City Councillor for Walkden South Ward
I’ve just completed a walkabout around the entirety of the Birch Road estate with Councillor Turner, our local PCSO and an officer from Environmental Services along with representatives from New Prospect Housing. The wind is gusting and it’s pouring down with rain, so it wasn’t the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done as a ward Councillor!
On the plus side, we picked up a number of concerns from local residents, in particular concerns about litter and dog-fouling which we will be acting upon.
My attention has been drawn to a holier-than-thou piece by John Harris in today’s Guardian.
Harris is the latest in a line of commentators and activists to get wound up by David Cameron’s fondness for the Smiths and other eighties bands who positioned themselves very much on the left of the political spectrum.
Personally I don’t see what the fuss is about. You can enjoy and appreciate the music without having to nod along to the political views of the artist. Cameron is the right age to be a Smiths fan in his younger days. What’s the big deal?
Anyone care to tell me what the political significance of my Green Day albums is…?
I’m off to Newcastle and Gateshead for Spring Forum first thing tomorrow morning.
I’m looking forward to catching up with friends and colleagues and I’m sure it’ll be an enjoyable and interesting weekend.
I don’t know if I’ll have chance to blog from Gateshead - if not then normal service may be resumed on Sunday.
Hope you all have a fun weekend!
Yesterday during the budget debate, Minister for Children Ed Balls MP managed to encapsulate in two words how arrogant and out-of-touch the Labour Party are in power. Louise Bagshawe picks up the story:
In David Cameron’s excellent Budget reply, he said at one point (I paraphrase):
“Under Labour, Britain is more taxed than at any point in its history”.
On the front bench, Ed Balls - The Man Who Would Be King (part II) heckled:
“So what?’
This astounding statement was met with hoots of shock and disdain from the Tory benches and surprised Cameron sufficiently for him to come back: “So what, says the minister for children. I know he wants to be Chancellor so badly it hurts. I have to tell him another Budget like the one we have just heard and he won’t have to wait very long.”
I’m reminded of a Council budget meeting two or three years ago. During the budget debate, Cllr Maureen Lea (Labour, Pendlebury) - then Lead Member for Environmental Services stood up to speak and said something like “well if I had my way, I’d put the Council Tax up even more“. Cllr Merry turned white as a sheet.
Anyway I am very grateful to Mr Balls for summing up for voters both nationally and here in Salford the attitude that the Labour Party takes towards the views of those people who elect them.
Our Council Tax in Salford has risen nearly 80% in the last decade. ”So what?” says the Labour Party to hard-working taxpayers and pensioners on fixed incomes who struggle to make the payments.
St George’s RC High School, one of the best schools in the City, is being closed down without good reason. “So what?” says the Labour Party to the local community in Walkden and Little Hulton.
Hope Hospital’s maternity unit is being shut down despite being one of the top performing units in the country. “So what?” says the Labour Party to expectant mothers and families across the City.
It’s time for a change in Westminster, and it is time for a change in Salford.
Like everyone else I am shocked and stunned by the death of Michael Todd, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police. My thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues.
The Bolton News has reported that St George’s High School has again had to turn away dozens of prospective pupils as it is heavily oversubscribed.
It speaks volumes about the strength of the school and the excellent service it provides to the community that despite the ongoing threat of closure and upheaval hundreds of local parents continue to apply to St George’s. As the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. The school is clearly not broken (far from it!), so why are Salford’s Labour administration trying to fix it?
This evening we held a social event at the Bridgewater Hotel in Worsley. I was delighted to welcome fellow blogger and Clwyd West MP David Jones to Salford as our guest speaker - I am very grateful to David and his wife Sara for taking the time to drive from North Wales and attend our event.
I had a very enjoyable evening and it was good to catch up with a few people who I haven’t seen for a while.
David gave an excellent speech and happily took questions from the floor afterwards. It wasn’t part of his speech, but I’m also amused by his observation that bloggers have more fun:
Research conducted at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, concludes that blogging can help you feel “less isolated, more connected to a community and more satisfied with your friendships, both online and face-to-face”.
Quite right too. I feel more content already. Does having my blog posts shouted back at me in the Council Chamber count as being “more connected to a community” though?
Some time ago - long before my previous hosting service swallowed my old posts - I made a long post about the failure of our Labour Council leadership to make the City Council accessible by switching to evening meetings. At the moment, our daytime meetings mean that it requires highly flexible working hours (or the sacrifice of most of your holiday allowance) to hold down a full-time job and sit on the Council. If you don’t have any flexibility with your hours - a teacher for example - you can forget it. Salford’s Labour administration do not want you to stand for Council - you are not welcome here. A real shame.
Of course, one of the main reasons that Salford’s Labour Councillors do not want to change is that the current system suits them just fine, thank you very much. 31 of their 41 Councillors are on extra taxpayers’ money in addition to their basic allowance.
Now I don’t make a habit of linking to Liberal Democrat websites, but Swinton South Councillor Steve Cooke has been doing the sums and the net result is this must-read post about the allowances accrued by your Labour Councillors.
A Conservative-run Council would scrap the £6006 given to the eight Labour ”Executive Support” members for doing… well, to be honest, I’ve been on the Council nearly four years and never quite worked it out yet. We’d also allocate the supposedly “non-political” scrutiny chairs proportionately, rather than the current situation whereby all the allowances are handed over to Labour Councillors.
I read David Ottewell’s post on the Manchester Budget Council Meeting with great interest. Not for the comedy typo, amusing as that was (for the record, the Salford Liberal Democrat budget statement managed to spell “February” incorrectly) but rather the amount in the Manchester City Council reserve pot. Let’s look at the figures:
Manchester City Council reserves 2008-9: ~£90 million
Salford City Council reserves 2008-9: £5.3 million
The figures speak for themselves. The reserves are there for a reason - to protect the Council (and more importantly, the residents of the City) against the unexpected, and we live in uncertain times. The economy nationally looks far from certain. Locally, the staff pay claim has yet to be settled, our Government grants for 2009/10 and 2010/11 are even worse than this year’s settlement, and the transfer of housing stock to City West Homes still carries huge financial risk if it is not completed on time.
Salford’s reserves were already dangerously low and our Labour administration intends to plunder them even further. This is sheer irresponsibility.
Back Home
I had an excellent weekend at Spring Forum in Newcastle and Gateshead, and my spirits were lifted further on my return by the YouGov poll in the Sunday Times showing a Conservative lead of 16 points. It’s only one poll and nothing to get carried away about, but very encouraging nonetheless.
It was great to catch up with friends and colleagues who I haven’t seen for a while, as well as enjoying some excellent and weighty contributions from our front bench team.
However, the highlight for me was a fringe event with some very impressive young people involved with the Lewisham Young Mayor project. I was extremely impressed with the work they are doing and I am sure there are plenty of lessons we can learn here in Salford from the way in which Lewisham ensures that the young people have their say.