Cllr Iain Lindley – Prospective Conservative MP for Worsley & Eccles South
It was a great pleasure to accept an invitation this lunchtime to speak to students at St Bede’s College in Manchester. I was asked to go along by Matthew who is a St Bede’s student and lives in Walkden.
We had a really interesting discussion covering a range of topics and it was great to meet another set of young people who are politically aware and interested.
I spent a fascinating couple of hours at lunchtime today observing the Fire Service, Police and Ambulance Service conduct a CBRN (chemical, biologicial, radiation, nuclear) mock exercise at Castle Irwell student village.
One can only hope that the equipment they use is never needed in a real-life emergency, but we live in a volatile world and it is reassuring to know that we have the equipment, capability and trained professionals to deal with such a situation should one arise.
I’m very grateful to the Fire Service for inviting the Fire Authority Councillors and the ward Councillors for Irwell Riverside down to view the exercise and explain what was going on.
I note that Gordon Brown’s announcement yesterday of a fire sale of assets to pay down some of the horrendous deficit that Labour have built up (funny how they never use the word “privatisation”) includes talk of “encouraging local authorities to dispose of surplus assets”. Most pressingly, there has been mention of “local authority owned airports” like Manchester Airports Group.
Now, I’m open to a debate about the future of MAG. It is flourishing in local authority hands but there may well be a time that the prudent decision is to sell it. However, the idea that it should be sold off to help pay for this Labour Government’s financial incompetence is unthinkable.
Any decision about the future of Manchester Airports Group should be made by local people in Greater Manchester, and with the interests of Greater Manchester in mind, and hope that our ten AGMA Council leaders will stamp on the Government’s ridiculous suggestion immediately.
There’s an interesting piece in today’s Manchester Evening News about the value of Conservative Party Conference to Greater Manchester – bringing in an estimated £16m of business.
It’s easy to forget that the income brought in does not just stay in Manchester City Centre but benefits Salford as well. Many Salford people will have worked at the Conference venues – it was great to meet local catering students from Pendleton College who were working in the kitchens at the Conference – and of course hundreds of delegates were actually staying in Salford for the course of the Conference. Indeed I lost count of the number of friends and acquaintances staying in Salford hotels – including (I understand) such notables as David Jones MP and his staff. I do hope they had a pleasant stay.
It is an unfortunate symptom of the world we live in that the road closures and the “ring of steel” are necessary, but I hope that most people recognise the benefit that such major events bring to the region. It’s great news for the local economy that the Labour Conference was here last year and again next year, and that the Conservative Conference will return to Manchester in 2011.
David Ottewell has blogged about the Tameside MBC stand at Labour Party Conference. I note from my own Conference guide that they have a stall at Conservative Conference next week as well, as indeed they did last year.
Now, Conference stalls don’t come cheap. David estimates the cost at £10000 per week and this is probably in the right ballpark (and that’s before staff expenses for spending a week in Brighton, although presumably they can commute to the MICC next week).
Can someone please tell me what benefit the good people of Tameside get from their Council shelling out tens of thousands of pounds to attend the Party Conferences? What a colossal waste of money.
Yes, I’m aware the odd Conservative Council does this too, though fortunately neither of the Conservative administrations in Greater Manchester have done so. They should know better.
On Friday, I spent most of the day at the GMFRS training centre in Manchester, on a Member Awareness Training Day for Fire Authority members.
As a Fire Authority we take some really important decisions which affect firefighters and on the front line, and it was really useful to get hands-on and get a better understanding of the work that our firefighters and other service staff do.
It was a really interesting day and I know I learned a great deal. In particular, the work of the Fire Service dogs – one for search-and-rescue and the other fire investigation – was an absolute revelation. Such fantastic animals and trained and looked after with such dedication by the staff member concerned.
I’m really pleased by this week’s Network Rail report about bringing high-speed rail to Greater Manchester and beyond. It is absolutely the right thing to do, and in the medium-term would likely more than pay for itself.
Conservatives are fully behind proposals to bring high-speed rail to Manchester, and I hope that the Government’s lukewarm response can be heated up into enthusiasm over the next few months.
Just a short post to say best wishes to everyone participating in this year’s Manchester Pride festival, and especially to my friends in LGBTory. Have a great weekend!
Over on his blog, David Ottewell has an interesting post about the future of the Greater Manchester Integrated Transport Authority:
Why consult now? Well, as regular readers will know, Greater Manchester is in the process of securing more devolved powers. What powers are on the table? Skills. Housing. Planning. Economic development. And transport, of course.
The theory goes that if we are going to get these extra powers, they need to be wielded in a co-ordinated way. Some would prefer this to be through a directly-elected mayor. In any case, there are plenty of voices calling for ‘rationalisation’ – cutting the number of decision-making bodies, in short.
That means more power in fewer hands. Specifically, the hands of the 10 council leaders, in the guise of AGMA, with a new constitution with binding rules on voting.
One of the options is to essentially abolish the Transport Authority and give the powers to the ten Council leaders in the form of AGMA. This would be a step backwards. What we seem to have at AGMA is Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese calling the shots, and his Labour colleagues following like sheep.
We have already seen with the countless millions poured down the drain on the Congestion Charge proposals, and the fact that Salford’s Council Tax is now rising to pay for transport improvements in south Manchester, that Sir Richard and AGMA cannot be trusted with transport investment. It would be an utter disaster.
Conservative Party News
Iain’s Conference Diary – Day 2
Time for updating this website during Conference is a bit more limited than I had hoped, so here’s a few quick highlights of what I got up to on day 2: