The Liberal Democrats over the Irwell in Manchester have found themselves in more hot water - following the defection of Cllr Faraz Bhatti to the Conservatives in January, Cllr Abid Chohan who represents Longsight ward has now followed him out of the exit door, this time to join the Labour Party.
I think we are due a timely reminder of what some senior Manchester Labour figures said about the defection of Cllr Bhatti last month. Here’s a quick hall of shame:
This is Manchester Labour Councillor Mary Watson. She represents the same Whalley Range ward as Cllr Bhatti, and this is how the Manchester Evening News reported her reaction to the previous defection:
Mary Watson, a Labour councillor who also represents Whalley Range, called for the ward to be given a chance to back or sack Coun Bhatti through a fresh poll.
“He was elected only very recently,” she said. “He stood as a Liberal Democrat and now has just decided to change his mind without asking anyone. It’s arrogant.”
Presumably Councillor Watson also thinks that Cllr Chohan is “arrogant” and should resign to face a by-election.
This is another Manchester Labour Councillor, this time Mike Amesbury who represents Fallowfield ward. He posted a comment on the MEN website saying this:
“Faraz Bhatti should now do the honourable thing and stand as a Conservative in a by-election”
It seems Cllr Amesbury is in much less of a hurry to post a similar comment about his new colleague Cllr Chohan.
Also the jury is still out on the leader writers at the Manchester Evening News who penned a lengthy leader column calling for a by-election. So far not a peep about Cllr Chohan - it will be interesting to see what they have to say over the next few days.
Greater Manchester’s Labour leaders might be running away from the debate about the congestion charge, but it seems in one small part of Manchester they do things differently.
Manchester City Centre Conservative candidate (and Chairman of Manchester Conservatives) Rob Adlard will be joined by his Council opponents and others for a debate on congestion charging on Wednesday March 19th. The debate is being held at the Central Methodist Hall on Oldham Street in central Manchester, starting at 6.30pm.
It should be an interesting evening and all are welcome to attend.
I must say that my initial reaction to the appointment of Sir Richard Leese to the board of the Salford Urban Regeneration Company is one of scepticism and concern.
Of course the City Councils of Manchester and Salford should work together on issues of common interest. However, that is very different from asking the leader of Manchester City Council to wear two hats and sit on the Salford URC.
Most developers looking to invest in city centre Salford will have the same options in central Manchester. Sir Richard has a clear conflict of interest. Is he really going to put the interests of Salford first?
Let me give you a hypothetical example. The Co-operative Group have already signalled their intention to quit their current Northern Quarter site. Where would Sir Richard stand if the Co-op found that the most efficient site was to build a new HQ at, say, Greengate? These conflicts will arise all the time.
Of course, Sir Richard Leese and the Manchester City Council leadership do not have a track record of good behaviour when it comes to Manchester/Salford relations. Remember the dog-in-the-manger attitude to the BBC decision? Sir Richard and his colleagues acted as if they’d rather the BBC stayed in London than came to Salford - and we are now trusting him with a seat on the Urban Regeneration Company?
Manchester City Council leader Sir Richard Leese - readers on this side of the Irwell might remember his dog-in-the-manger rubbishing of the BBC move to Salford Quays - has launched an astonishing attack on Peel Holdings for criticising Labour’s congestion charge.
The astonishing thing is not that he has criticised Peel’s views, but questioned whether they should be entering into the public debate in the first place:
Sir Richard Leese has accused Peel Holdings of `supporting overt political activity, although not declaring so publicly’ over their opposition to the scheme.
This is utter humbug. Peel are entitled to make representations and public pronouncements just the same as any other company or individual. Kellogg’s did so today, and I assume they will be next in front of Sir Richard’s firing squad.
It seems that Sir Richard is only concerned about companies supporting “overt political activity” when they disagree with him. I didn’t see him ranting and raving in the Manchester Evening News when the CEO of Ask Developments waded into the debate - but then Ken Knott was agreeing with him.
Ask are also of course a major donor to the Manchester Labour Party - and if that isn’t “overt political activity”, I don’t know what is!
I read with horror the story in today’s Manchester Evening News about a man falling between the platform and a train at Greenfield station in Oldham:
A DAD has told of his miracle escape from a ‘death trap’ after getting stuck between a train and the platform.
Paul Steele slipped in pouring rain as he was handing over two-year-old daughter Chantelle’s pram to the conductor at Oldham’s Greenfield station.
The 36-year-old father frantically freed himself and managed to get on board before the train set off.
Greenfield is not the only station to suffer from death trap platforms. Northern Rail and Network Rail have been told by passengers here at Walkden - and reminded repeatedly by representatives from Friends of Walkden Station - that the platform is an unsafe height. There must be many other stations across Greater Manchester that suffer from the same problems. Here’s what FOWS have to say on their website:
The height between carriage doors and the platform is as much as 17 inches in some places, much too high for safe, comfortable boarding and disembarking of trains.
We understand the problem has been caused by track maintenance operations which have steadily raised the level of the railway lines over the years. Northern Rail, Network Rail, and GMPTE have all acknowledged the problem but no rectification work is planned.
FOWS believe the large gap presents a serious safety issue, with at least two passengers having fallen into the gap and onto the track in the last few years.
Latest status … (10 Dec 2007) FOWS have written to the chairman of Network Rail about this specific problem, but been told that Network Rail have no plans to fix it until major construction work is next performed at the station. At present we do not believe any such work is planned, so we have escalated the issue to the government’s rail safety watchdog (the Office of Rail Regulation) to ask for their intervention.
I can only hope that the rail companies do not wait until the horse has bolted before they take action on this issue. It would be a tragedy if it takes a death or serious injury to provoke action.
Without wishing to invoke any further Scrooge jibes… 
Walking through Manchester yesterday I found another reason to dislike the new Santa - it looks absolutely ridiculous and completely out of place without the Christmas market to accompany it. Begone!
I met Cllr Faraz Bhatti this afternoon - I was very impressed.
He was polite, friendly and warm, and happy to talk to everyone even though he has probably spent the last few day shaking hands with most of the Greater Manchester Conservative Party!
It says a lot about the potential the Conservative Party has in Manchester when talented, ambitious and hard-working young professionals like Faraz are choosing to join us. A few years ago it simply would not have happened.
It seems that the Manchester Labour Party are suffering from a strange case of selective and collective amnesia. At least two Labour Councillors (and probably several more) have demanded that new Conservative Councillor Faraz Bhatti should resign and fight a by-election following his defection from the Liberal Democrats.
Presumably they said the same thing when former Chorlton Councillor Angela Gallagher defected to Labour from the Liberal Democrats. Funnily enough, I don’t think they did.
First of all, apologies for the lack of “wish list for 2008″ - I’ve not had access to a computer for enough time to make a detailed post.I’ll update properly tomorrow.
I thought I’d make a quick post however about the good news from Manchester City Council - a Liberal Democrat Councillor tipped as a rising star has joined the Conservatives.
I welcome Cllr Bhatti to the Conservative Party and I am glad that Manchester City Council now has genuine common sense opposition to a Labour administration that has failed so many people in Manchester.
I hope also that this will end the tiresome media line of talking about Manchester City Council as if it was representative of the whole Greater Manchester region. Perhaps they might like to focus on Salford instead, another inner-city authority where we have a 30% share of the vote and ever increasing numbers of Councillors!
Casino War
The last day or so has seen much gnashing of teeth at Manchester City Council and in the media about the Government’s decision to axe the “Super Casino” in east Manchester.
I’ll save the arguments for and against a huge gambling complex for another time, but Manchester City Council are absolutely right to be furious at the way they have been treated by the Labour Government. In fact, all the bidders have been treated extremely shabbily. They all spent significant amounts of their own money preparing bids in the hope of bringing a huge amount of investment into their towns and cities, only to subsequently find out that the prize for victory did not exist anyway!
Now when TV phone-ins were guilty of something similar, they received huge fines and universal condemnation. If a private company were to run a competition without a prize, they’d be under instant investigation and words like “scam” would be bandied about in the press.
What’s the difference?