Archive for August, 2008

Poster Overload

Published by Iain on August 31, 2008 in Greater Manchester. 8 Comments

Apologies for the lack of updates over the last day or two, I’ve been in London this weekend visiting friends.

One thing I noticed on the bus back from Manchester this evening is the sheer proliferation of TIF “consultation” posters. They’re everywhere. It is multi-million-pound political campaigning at the expense of the taxpayer and it is absolutely outrageous.

Manchester Labour – Taking Their Ball Home

Published by Iain on August 28, 2008 in Greater Manchester and Salford. 10 Comments

At last night’s Congestion Charge Debate – ably hosted by Manchester Junior Chamber of Commerce - the message from Sir Richard Leese was clear and unequivocal: “agree with me or get nowt”. It’s a depressing way to conduct political debate but also entirely inkeeping with the way in which the Labour Party do business in Greater Manchester – Salford’s Labour administration tried exactly the same sort of blackmail throughout the Building Schools for the Future consultation, making it clear to the RC Diocese that unless they agreed to close St George’s High School then Salford would lose all the BSF PFI credits.

I therefore wasn’t at all surprised to read the allegations made by Terry Christian about BBC Manchester “going soft” on representatives from Manchester City Council for fear of them taking their ball home. If true, this doesn’t say much about the editorial policy at BBC Manchester but it is even more damning about Manchester Labour. It is entirely within the modus operandi of the Labour Party locally to say “my way or the highway”. That is how they are trying to push for a “yes” vote in the TIF referendum. That is how they tried to push through the closure of St George’s.

C-Charge Debate

Published by Iain on August 27, 2008 in Greater Manchester. 0 Comments

Thought I’d try to make a quick test post on my phone – hope it works!

I’m at the Methodist Hall in Manchester for a congestion charge debate. More later when I get back home.

Time To Scrap This Expensive E-Folly

Published by Iain on August 27, 2008 in Salford. 5 Comments

Back in 2005, Salford City Council spent (if I recall correctly) around £30000 of taxpayers’ money on signing up to the Councillor.Info website project. John Cullen, then a Swinton South Labour Councillor, was appointed as the Council’s e-democracy champion to encourage his colleagues to sign up for the project. Unfortunately John didn’t set a terribly good example in terms of making use of the websites, and things have stalled completely since he lost his seat in 2007.

As things stand, only 10 of 60 Salford Councillors have signed up to the scheme, and of those 10 only a handful have updated their sites recently. The entire Salford Councillor.Info site is as good as dormant.

When the scheme was launched I gave it a cautious welcome in principle, although the cost was (and still is) utterly obscene. It clearly hasn’t worked. Councillors have not been keen to sign up and I don’t blame them – the format is very restrictive and you can’t say anything “political”. This makes even a regularly-updated Councillor.Info site very dry and dull.

We should call time on Councillor.Info before we sink even more taxpayers’ money into it. This weblog gets many more visitors than my Councillor.Info profile, and it costs (literally) small change to run compared to the thousands of pounds per annum spent on Councillor.Info.

English, Scottish AND British

Published by Iain on August 25, 2008 in National Comment and Salford. 1 Comment

As some readers will be aware, I was born in the William Smellie Memorial Hospital in Lanark and lived in nearby Carluke until my family moved to Walkden when I was 8 – long enough to consider myself Scottish, English and British.

It’s no surprise, then, that I find the comments of Alex Salmond and the SNP about our Olympic team thoroughly depressing, and I’m delighted that Chris Hoy has poured cold water on the idea. What is far more telling is some of the rabid reactions to Hoy’s comments by SNP supports at the foot of the Scotsman article. It’s pretty grim stuff, and it’s clear that the grassroots SNP supporters are not interested in what is best for Scotland – only the chance to build their own little empire.

I’m sure a large number of Salford residents will turn out to welcome Hoy and his colleagues back to Greater Manchester at the Salford Nocturne on Saturday night.

David Ottewell’s blog is also worth checking out – he has made some sensible comments on the same issue.

Manchester Pride 2008

Published by Iain on August 22, 2008 in Greater Manchester. 14 Comments

Best wishes to everyone taking part in this weekend’s Manchester Pride parade and especially to my friends in LGBTory. I hope you all have a great weekend.

Agecroft Fire Station Open Day – Tomorrow

Published by Iain on August 22, 2008 in Salford. 0 Comments

A quick reminder that the Agecroft Fire Station Open Day is tomorrow (Saturday 23rd August). It promises to be a great day and I hope to see you there!

Salford Garden Party – 6th September

Published by Iain on August 21, 2008 in Salford. 0 Comments

Just a quick post to draw the attention of local residents to the Salford Garden Party being hosted at the Civic Centre in Swinton on Saturday 6th September. This was held last year and was an excellent event, covering a lot of the areas that would otherwise occur in local democracy week.

Of particular interest is the “Big Ask”, a panel debate involving senior Councillors. You can submit your questions on the Council website and the fun and games kick off at 2.30pm on 6th September in the Salford Suite.

Another Month To Conference

Published by Iain on August 20, 2008 in National Comment and Salford. 0 Comments

Although I’ve attended numerous Spring Forum events (especially when they were in Harrogate and I was at University in York) I’ve never actually managed to make it to Party Conference before, so I’m looking forward to heading to Birmingham at the end of September. I’ve started to get information through about fringe events and receptions so any suggestions or advice for events will be greatly appreciated.

As I think I’ve commented before, I’m a big fan of some of the work done to improve the centre of Birmingham, and especially the Gas Street Basin area from the Convention Centre and Symphony Hall (where the Conference will be held) around to the Mailbox. It’s hard not to be reminded of the work going on at Salford Quays – I can’t wait to see the finished developments at MediaCity:UK which will be even better and on a much bigger scale.

C-Charge Poll – Strong Smell Of Rat

Published by Iain on August 20, 2008 in Greater Manchester. 13 Comments

Yesterday the Manchester Evening News splashed on the results of a leaked opinion poll claiming to show that local residents in Manchester would vote in favour of the congestion charge. I’m sure I’m not the only one smelling a large rat at the moment, for a whole host of reasons:

  1. How full is the data leaked to the MEN? David Ottewell who wrote the story has admitted that he did not at the time of writing have the full dataset. Most political hacks will be familiar with the Yes Minister opinion poll sketch, and I’d want to see the full data before drawing any conclusions on the results. If the “yes/no” question was preceded by a barrage of questions and information about the TIF bid then it is entirely worthless.
  2. Why has this data been leaked to a newspaper? This is a taxpayer-funded survey, which to the layman observer has been selectively leaked in order to obtain positive press coverage. Given the information available it would be very difficult for David Ottewell and his colleagues to sit on it – but that doesn’t mean that his “source” wasn’t playing games.
  3. Local polls are notoriously unreliable. The national opinion polls we see in the newspapers are the product of years of refining. Sampling of regional and local areas is a much less refined art – have a look at some by-election polls to see how far out they can be. Pollsters had Labour retaining Glasgow East comfortably and they severely underestimated the scale of the Conservative victory in Crewe & Nantwich.
  4. The local sampling of Ipsos/MORI is even worse. They had predicted that Ken Livingstone would comfortably retain the London Mayoralty.
  5. Where is the turnout filter? In a local referendum, only votes in the ballot box count. Do these figures take account of propensity to vote? I suspect not. All we can extract from the figures provided is that people are more likely to be strongly against than strongly for – which suggests that “no” voters are more likely to turn out in a poll.

Perhaps the most interesting question though is “why is this poll happening at all?”. We are having a full poll of all local residents before Christmas. Professional opinion polling is an expensive business, so why is taxpayers’ money being spent on an opinion poll – as distinct from consultation – when we are going to have a proper poll anyway…?

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