formspring.me

Would Tory cuts put economic recovery at risk?

There is no doubt that in places like Barnsley the proposed cuts in public spending would do huge economic damage.
To deliver the sort of savings they are suggesting through the council could lead to major job losses. A 10% reduction in the workforce is 1200 jobs at BMBC. And with almost a third of the jobs in Barnsley reliant on the public sector 10% would translate to nearly 13,000 jobs overall. That sort of unemployment is something we have had before and cannot face again.
Joblessness is the biggest danger to the economy, the Tories have never accepted that, as demonstrated by their economic policies in the 80s and 90s and their rhetoric now.
Savings must come, but not at the expense of the jobs that fuel the economy or the services that people rely on.

Ask me anything

Change We See

As we enter the election fever epidemic there will be dozens of campaigns on various issues. I'll probably get involved in most of them. One I particularly like is the ChangeWeSee campaign highlighting some of the achievements since 1997. We have undoubtedly got some things wrong in that time but it's well worth reminding ourselves that we have also got many more things right.
I wanted to add a few local views of how Barnsley has changed for the better under a Labour Government.
The investment in building has been like nothing this town has seen before.
The Award Winning architecture of our new Transport interchange has been a huge symbol of the modernisation and investment in the town. A hub for travellers and a boon for workers, it is recognised as one of the most stunning bus/train interchanges.

Westgate Plaza 1, one of the most modern office buildings in the country, and the hub of council services.

The Core, a centre for training and a home for many of our great third sector organisations, placing them at the heart of what we do.

Almost complete is the largest of our new buildings to date, Gateway Plaza. Council Services, NHS facilities, offices, car parking and a hotel are just some of the things which are already or will shortly be in this gateway from the west and the M1.

The magnificent Digital Media Centre, a home for innovation and creativity, a European centre of excellence and an example of the way Barnsley is seizing the future digital agenda and making it part of our reinvention of the Town.All of these buildings and more, like the renovated and modernised Civic theatre and gallery have been part of the investment and regeneration by a Labour council backed by a Labour government that meant what it said about rebuilding the damage done by the Tory destruction of our industrial landscape.

Even, on a parochial note, in my ward, like every ward, things like our new library and lifelong learning centre have seen the building and development boom touch all parts of our town.

And what about the social structure rebuilding? This is a good week to ask. At the end of the Tory recession of the mid-nineties the number of people here claiming the dole was almost 11%, after the recession of the eighties it was over 20%. At it's height, when unemployment here was 'a price worth paying for prosperity in the southeast' it peaked at around 30%, but the country wasn't in recession then. Only we were. On the day this globally caused UK recession ended the equivalent jobseekers claimants was only 5.1%. This is because of the policies we have put in place to keep people in work and put them and their families at the top of the economic priority list. We still have issues and problems with worklessness and will continue to work hard to address them but our approach has saved many families from the despair that they faced under the Tories.

And finally, I would select a project that brings together the investment in infrastructure and social regeneration. Our School Building programme. Having rebuilt dozens of primary schools and equipped and them with the latest technologies and facilities we are now doing the same for our secondaries with The Biggest School Building Programme in Western Europe.
But don't take my word for it, Please do click on that link and see it for yourself.
This is the change we can see.
It's a change we can feel.
And it's a change made by Labour.

DisabledGo Barnsley

I was pleased to chair the launch event for the Barnsley section of the brilliant DisabledGo website recently. It is a fantastic resource giving loads of quality information for disabled users about accessibility across the borough.
Have a look.

Here is my brief introduction to the event;

Access to goods, services and facilities is important for everyone. It symbolises independence, gives choice and defines what equality means.

In Barnsley, because of our aging population and as a legacy of our industrial heritage, we have a higher proportion of people with disabilities and challenges that can prevent access.

One quarter of the population of Barnsley fall into that category.

We have higher rates of claimants for attendence allowance, Disability living allowance, incapacity benefits and severe disablement allowance than the England average.

In 2006 almost 13% of our working age population were claiming incapacity or severe disablement allowances. Almost twice the national average.

This is related to the fact that there are an estimated 29,000 adults in Barnsley suffering from mental health problems.

These issues occupy a great deal of our time and resources as a council and over the last few years we have been able to make great progress in improving the situation for many people.

But we are in a unique position over the next few years to make a real difference, a huge difference to many more people.

Our plans to redevelop the town centre as part of our Remaking Barnsley initiative give us an opportunity to embed accessability in the new design, layout and facilities of the whole town centre.

It's our ambition as a council to make Barnsley not just a 21st century market town but the most accessible town in the country.

Todays launch is a great step on the way to achieving that ambition and will see disability access surveys of over 1100 venues across Barnsley from NHS facilites to shops, restaurants and other leisure venues.

Support from an unexpected quarter...

I was surprised but honoured to find myself shortlisted in the Councillor of the Year awards this week. Five Councillors are shortlisted in eight categories and from the eight winners an overall Councillor of the year is selected.
I'm on the list for 'online councillor of the year' (The only Labour councillor but we are a rare thing these days).
I wouldn't mention it (because why would you care?) but for the fact that I was even more surprised to be told that 'betting I would win' was no less a body than the Barnsley Chronicle!
Er...Thanks?
I suppose it may bring me some comfort, when I don't, to think of you being out of pocket on that bet...

Employment, The Environment and Health. All the big issues in one small village.

At the eastern edge of Royston (that's the ward I represent, if you haven't been keeping up) is the Monckton Coke and Chemical works. It casts a shadow (literally in the picture shown here) over the village.
It is the only independent plant of it's kind left in Britain and is the only one placed so closely to residential properties. Several thousand people live with just one mile of it.
When I was growing up here, there was also a lot of mining done around the area, including on this site. There was pollution. The sky was often blacked out by it but it provided all the local work and we were used to it. It caused a lot of premature death, we were the national blackspot for respiratory disease and other related health issues. The life expectancy here was as low as anywhere in the country. It is still among the lowest.
We put up with it. We probably didn't even think about it then. Times were very different.
As I may have mentioned before, that all changed in the Eighties when the Conservative government decided that buying foreign coal was cheaper than subsidising the British workers and closed all our pits. A bit like the call centres today who move to India, because it's cheaper. And we all love that, don't we. You can't keep a capitalist from a bad idea if there is a couple of quid in it for them, can you.
Anyway, here is the Coke and Chemical works. It pollutes. There is no question about it. Residents complain constantly about smell, soot, smoke etc. There is even an attempt to get a civil case into court over it.
It is certainly a nuisance. A point we, the local members, hammer home at our regular meetings with the plant management and the Environment Agency who are the official body charged with doing something about it.
Recently, being a researcher, I came upon a few new facts which changed things a little.
The number of Deaths (For stat-heads this is under 75s, per 100k population, aggregated over five years. That's how they are calculated.) from any cause in the East of Royston are 391.8, higher than the Barnsley average and compared with the England average of 319.5 that is a staggering 22.6 % higher.
Deaths from circulatory disease are 121.7, higher than the Barnsley average and compared to an England figure of 90.5 that's 34.5% higher.
Deaths from Cancers are 158.6 which is 13.5% higher than the Barnsley average and a frightening 33.3% higher than the national average.
(Source;BMBC information services)
That is one full third. That means that every fourth cancer death in the East of Royston is one that does not occur elsewhere.
Naturally, I had many questions to ask about this. The Public Health Director and I exchanged a great deal of communication on the issue. Ultimately, we aren't certain why this is. So I asked the question, looking at the major environmental issue here, is it related to the pollution?
The fact is, we can't prove that it is. There is no direct link we can show that would be conclusive. The causes could be something else completely. We just don't know.
I ultimately tried the Councillors call for Action method to try and engage more research to show a link one way or the other.
I've had a lot of support for the work I'm doing on this and, inevitably, a bit of vociferous stick. More than 160 residents signed a petition expressing the support for the concerns I was expressing and 3 letters in the Chron. berating me for my ignorance and stupidity on the issues. That's balance for you.
There are jobs at stake! the oppositionists are quick to say.
I know. I don't want to see anyone out of work. I know people who work there and they are good people who are in no way responsible for the nuisance caused by their employer.
But does it mean we shouldn't ask the questions?
And in the end, if, and I want to emphasize the word IF, a link between the health of the residents and the operation of the plant COULD be proven, how many jobs is that worth?
I think if it ever comes to that straight choice, everyone would see the right course was clear.
For now, no such link can be made and we just don't know what causes the health figures I'm quoting. Much more work needs to happen and I'm going to keep right on campaigning for it. No matter how many people that annoys.
And for the nuisance pollution, which I think is more easily demonstrated, changes need to be made. The plant is 130 years old and badly in need of investment to radically reduce the emissions it causes. Despite the economic environment, the company in question have actually posted profits for the last year up almost 50% to around 25 million. I'd like, at the very least, to see a substantial amount of that invested in the plant to improve pollution standards.
It won't please the large number of residents who just want it gone, but it would be a long needed step in the right direction.

'Buff' Hoon, Patricia ****wit and other 'colleagues'

Another week, another bullet hole in the foot.
While some people were chuckling at the hammering Cameron got at PMQs as the PM pointed out how quickly and completely his policy programme was unravelling before his eyes, most were distracted by two former (that word is significant) senior ministers of state calling for yet another leadership contest in the Labour party. It made a much better headline than 'potential government haven't really got a clue what they are doing'.
What depresses me most about the announcement they made, and the slobbering agreement that came from all the usual quarters, was that there was nothing about why. No mention of what policies ought to change. No talk of the new direction we should be going in. Not even a quick 'boot in the nuts' for anything they thought we were getting wrong. Just a personality driven call for leadership challenge.
Why don't we just buy a new hat then?
I don't care who the leader is as long as we are getting the policies right. I quite like Gordon, I've met him a few times, he is nice enough bloke. He's a clever bloke, I know that much. He doesn't do media very well but that's not what counts in my book. Getting it right is what matters and by and large he does that more often than not. We'll keep at him on the bits he's getting wrong.
Equally dispiriting though has been the response to this coup from beyond the political grave.
Lots of calls for 'unity' and 'not looking divided'. I like unity but it is too often used to silence the debate on key issues.
Now is exactly the time we should be debating hard and openly with each other to agree the policies for the next labour government. They have to be radical and there must be real change in some areas. They will cause disagreement and passion in Labour members and supporters and that is a good thing not a bad one. And when the debate is done we will have a manifesto born out of 'collective wisdom' that we can all get behind. And if we disagreed along the way, it won't matter. We will all find things in our manifesto that we lost the argument on. We can live with the fact that our arguments weren't as good as our comrades'. If the Labour party AS A WHOLE thought the other way was better, do any of us think we know better? That is what being a 'democratic' party is all about.
I have said before that trying to convince people that we all agree about everything all the time is an insulting lie. Other parties can try to that if they want to. Solidarity comes from the base, not from the face.
And that is what the worst part of the Loon/Halfwit rebellion and the response to it has been. 'we should be fighting the Tories not each other'.
No.
This is not just about us and them.
We shouldn't be fighting anyone. They aren't the enemy. They just believe something different to us. Debate with them, disagree with them, mock them even, but bitterness and personal enmity are not needed.
The Tories, and indeed all other parties, are an interesting and indeed worrying irrelevance. Politics has to stop looking so inwardly at everything. That attitude, born in the Westminster enclosure among Elected members who can see no further and fuelled by the Journalists and 'professional' bloggers who feed off them, is what is so very, VERY wrong with public service.
Elections shouldn't be a 'fight' between parties where party reps debate among themselves. They shouldn't be run by commentators who spend all their time around politicians and think they can ask questions on behalf of the REAL people they never meet.
What we should be doing is talking to the voters. Just like the old days. It is all about them. It is only about them. Not about politicians and the media machine. Elections are not a private party, politics isn't a closed shop. That has been the problem. Time to start the change for the better and make it all about ideas not individuals, the public not the papers and the Direction NOT the Driver.

Merry ****ing Christmas Councillors

In my occasional series of 'the life of a councillor' here is another tale of the dehumanising of politics. In my ward, we have been spending what little freetime we have, trudging the cold streets, delivering our annual Christmas card to local residents. You can see I'm playing for sympathy already. Actually I'm not. Though I don't consider it to be primarily about campaigning, there is no question that part of the reason we have the biggest majorities in Barnsley is because we keep in touch, we are accessible and everyone knows who we are. A Christmas card is a part of that, though, like the ads we take out thanking voters after the elections, it is mainly a genuine message to the people of the village. In this case, Merry Christmas.

So when I received this email yesterday, and we get them every now and again, it was a bit of a slap in the face;

Dear All
Many thanks for the Christmas card everyone in Royston received today. However I question it as a waste of money, I very much doubt that it came out of your pocket, surely the money could have gone to something more deserving. I do not know who paid, was it the Labour Party trying to gain votes? Public money?

Lets have a think where it could have gone?
new facilities in the park?
someone to clean up the enormous amount of dog mess in the village?
more than the paltry decorations in the town?
romoval of graffiti around the village?
Towards the investigstion towards the life expectancy in the east of the village?

The village is a nice place to live but there are issues I have brought up several times on the council website to no improvement..

If you did pay for the cards out ouf your own pocket I appologise, however can you come and collect the card as I do not want to put it in my recycling bin, especially with reduced collections over christmas

(It was, interestingly, copied to the three local members and the editor of the Chronicle, form your own judgement about that)
My reply, will take the following form;

Dear Mr. XXXXXXXXXXX (That's not his name, I'm granting him Anonymity even though by invoking the local press it's public domain really)

To address your various points in order, firstly I will accept your apology, the card along with all the leaflets and newsletters you receive from your local members is indeed paid for out of our own pockets. No public money is ever used. We spend considerable amounts of our own money and a good deal of our time on them because we believe that people need to be kept informed and it's our duty to be as accessible as we can.

You raise a number of other points about spending priorities;

New park facilities. We have invested heavily in Royston park in the last few years, the new play facilities, the new pavilion ,the new lighting , the increased parking and more have all contributed to this becoming one of the best used and best provisioned parks in the borough. We do think that facilities of this sort should be spread a bit wider across the community and this year have used the bulk of the community fund to commission two new play areas on the periphery of the village for young people who live too far from the park.

Dog mess is a problem. We've spent more of your and my money on extra dog bins and increased the cleaning up three fold. We could spend all the money cleaning it up really but the problem is actually that people let their dogs foul and don't pick it up. I'd like more fines and more wardens but people don't like 'snoopers' and it's a controversial step. The majority of dog foul occurs within 100 yds of a dog bin. This is the sort of antisocial people the council has to deal with. I resent spending more and more money cleaning up after them. Now there is a waste. They should pay.

The next point is somewhat lost on me. More decorations? If spending under £100 on cards is a waste (your view) isn't spending several thousands on lights which will spend 11 months of the year in a box in a shed somewhere an even bigger waste? We have scaled them down this year in favour of spending the money on the play areas I mentioned earlier, which will be available all year round. A better use of our limited resources in my view, but, not wishing to be a complete Scrooge, we have a cheaper light display too.

Graffiti is removed within 48 hours of it being reported (same day if it is offensive, racist for example, in nature). It's not cheap but that is what we have been doing for three years now. It is a shame you haven't noticed the difference that has made. We have mentioned it in some of the newsletters we have delivered.

On your last point, you will be aware that I am already calling for action on the health concerns in the East End. I suspect that is why you mention it. Several activities are taking place which will make a real difference to people. A few hundred quid won't do it though, which is why I am campaigning so hard and getting so many other people and agencies on board. It is my priority.

On the card in general, you will see that it contains a range of contact numbers, something people often use over Christmas. If you feel you are not getting a response via the website (I am not certain whereabouts on the site you have raised these matters) then several of the numbers will help you report dog fouling, graffiti etc. much more effectively.

As you questioned our motives for sending the card, I feel I can consider your motive in responding as you have. I don't imagine you respond to everyone who sends you a Christmas greeting with messages like this. If you do, perhaps you could ask any of your dog owning friends to stop wasting their money on cards and buy more bags for cleaning up their excrement? Or perhaps to spend the time encouraging their older children to graffiti less? Perhaps you could even ask them to contribute the money they save to the community fund to buy more Christmas lights?

If your intention however was to take just a little more shine off the festive period, to make the role of being a local councillor that little bit more dispiriting or continue the myth that politicians aren't human beings and don't deserve to treated like 'normal people' too then you were successful.

But as it was genuine and sincere the first time, I'll say it again anyway whether you care for it or not, Merry Christmas to you.

p.s. The card will be fine in your green bin. Collections are not being reduced, for domestic waste (the priority) collections are being doubled. And recycling saves the council money.

A proud day

This is well worth a watch. We were all very proud of the event we held on Monday and you will see why. I am of course biased but Well Done to Barnsley on this. And well done the boys and girls of the Light Dragoons.

The Homecoming and Freedom parade in Barnsley.

The Caine Mutiny

It's been a while. People often say 'I don't know where you find the time to fit it all in', well, I haven't known either lately.

Anyhoo, in amongst the things I haven't had time to blog about over the last few weeks was the news that Sir Michael Caine would be breaking his lifelong Labour voting habit and 'giving the other bloke a go' at the next election. His main reason, and he did say he hadn't a clue what the other bloke would do (join the club), was a bit of grumble about tax and spend.

In common with a few quite wealthy folk, he decided that he didn't want to pay any more tax and it wasn't being spent properly anyway. He might leave the country in fact. There was a lot of waste in the spending said he. Not a lot of people know this, he said, living up to his own stereotype, but we now pay out more in benefits than we bring in in income tax! Scandalous!

Is it? It could be argued that it's brilliantly efficient and indicates hardly any waste in our redistributive welfare system. I won't argue that though. We know what he means, some people claim things they shouldn't. Which is true. I'm not sure we would reduce the benefits if they didn't. We might just be able to better care for those who really need it if greedy, lazy, self interested people claiming things they don't need would just pack it in.

It's not the majority of people though. We need to remember that. The Tories won't. They will punish all benefit claimers to get at the guilty. They will cut benefits across the board. They will say it is to starve the bogus claimers into submission but it will hurt the genuinely jobless, the sick, the needy and the vulnerable even more so.

I'm all for stopping the bogus claimants. Benefit fraud costs to the UK treasury are estimated at between £800 million a year (House of Commons, public accounts committee) and £3 billion (The Conservative party/Daily Telegraph). Sir Michael, like many people, focus on this as the greatest example of Government waste. It's looks pretty paltry compared to Tax evasion by the wealthy whingers though. Tax evasion costs the UK around £25 billion per year (tax research UK, [actual quote is 'not less than £25 billion]) and for the year 2006-7 tax investigators caught enough reluctant payers to force another £9.17 billion to be paid (HM Customs and Revenue). You have to think this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Now, as a lifelong leftie, I'm sure Sir Mike has always paid his taxes in full and never tried to dodge any by hiding them overseas etc. But a lot of his mates, and the people he works with and for, have. Rather than have a pop at the people living on the estates you drive through and occasionally film in Sir Michael, why not have a bash at them? Rather than threaten to do the same because someone is claiming £60 a week jobseekers allowance and shouldn't be. When was the last time you ate a free lunch that cost less than that?

He also complained about tax rates, using the popular 'soak the rich' propaganda of the Tories and their media business partners. The truth, again, is that the richest 20% of the populous pays 34.9 pence in total tax for every pound they earn. The poorest 20% pay 38.7 pence in the pound. That's over 10% more. (The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes 2007-8, published by the Office of National Statistics). You aren't being soaked and upping your contribution would only bring you into line with the poor.

The fact is, if we want to reduce our financial burden the message should not be 'soak the rich' but, in the words of one of my heroes Dennis Skinner, on another Queen's speech day, 'Pay your taxes!' It would be enough.

A new campaign website.

My better half has become the new face of a campaign website.
The site will be an important reminder of the jewel in the crown of our caring and generous society, The National Health Service.
I am proud of it (and of her).

Some Home Truths

Thanks to Martin Hickman of 'Get BNP out of Rotherham' for the following piece.

British National Party attempts to befriend the mining communities are in sharp contrast to their attitude during the miners' strike. Then, the racist BNP not only refused to back the strike but called for a return to work and even demanded the Army be brought in to deal with the pickets.

Even worse, a former BNP parliamentary candidate in Yorkshire, Lady Jane Birdwood, once led a shadowy group that funded scab miners during the 1984 strike.

The Dowager Lady Jane Birdwood (pictured) ran Self-Help, a right-wing pressure group dedicated to smashing trade unions. She went on to stand for the BNP in a general election in Dewsbury in the 1990s.

Birdwood was a life-long racist but she was better known for her rabid antisemitism. Her hatred of Jewish people, who she believed were trying to take over the world, got her prosecuted twice.

Her far-right politics led her into alliances with Second World War Nazi collaborators, including people who had fought in the SS. The SS was the organisation that ran the concentration and death camps and carried out the worst Nazi atrocities.

Birdwood saw the miners' strike as a communist plot to take over the country and she set out to break it. She felt that Thatcher was too soft on the miners.

Documents that have been revealed show that she set about to smash the strike. Soon after the strike started her group tried to prosecute Arthur Scargill, the miners' leader, for sedition, inciting violence and intimidation of working miners.

They were even advised by a leading barrister to hire private detectives to spy on the NUM.

Gathering the evidence was a lengthy and costly business. To speed up the process they decided to buy into a small private mine and seek a confrontation with striking miners.

Birdwood found many mine owners willing to help. "So far we have eleven mine owners ready to negotiate," she gleefully told her supporters in July 1984. Once in control of a pit the group were going to take the NUM to court and seize its funds.

Birdwood eventually bought a share in a Durham mine but she was quickly overtaken by events as others had begun legal action to sequestrate the union's funds.

That did not stop Birdwood and she went on to back several other legal actions. "We are promoting and assisting a number of new applications to the courts for further injunctions, including the action by 16 supporters of the National Working Miners' Committee," her group boasted to supporters in December 1984.

This was not the first time Self Help had backed the Working Miners' Committee.

With the strike nearly over she reflected on a job well done. "By backing Silver Birch's Working Miners Committee we have played some part in the court actions against the NUM."

Birdwood also boasted of putting "certain proposals to the Working Miners' Committee which we hope will lead to them taking the necessary legal action with our financial and political support" to remove Scargill from the leadership of the NUM.

However, she was always keen for Self-Help's role to be kept secret.

Birdwood's hatred of the NUM was shared by John Tyndall, then the BNP leader. He even suggested bringing in the Army to deal with striking Yorkshire miners. Even Nick Griffin, who was then in the National Front, has proved time and again that he is no friend of the trade unions and the miners in particular.

Twenty-five years on, the memory of the strike still burns strong. The miners were fighting for their jobs, their children and their communities.

The BNP is now trying to gain support in the former mining communities but back in 1984, when it really mattered, it was doing everything it could to undermine the strike

National Get Online Day

This morning was a big day in my ward.

We were proud to host the launch of National Get Online Day right here.

The Government Digital Inclusion Champion Martha Lane Fox joined us at our very own Lifelong Learning Centre in Royston for the launch of more than 750 events nationwide designed to get people online for the first time today.

I am particularly proud to have been instrumental in the choice of my own village as the location for this prestigious event.

Here is my introductory speech;

Good morning everyone, I'm glad to see that you all managed to find us though I understand some of you have had the grand tour of the village this morning. I'm only slightly concerned that some of our invited guests are even now sitting in someones front room, sipping tea and thinking 'this isn't the place'.

Most of you who came here today will have come through the crossroads at the centre of Royston which we call locally 'the wells' for obvious historical reasons.

My Great Great Grandfather, the awesomely named Septimus Wilson was actually the last person to draw water from those wells at the end of the nineteenth century.

The reason I'm not still plying that family trade is that it was then that first great household utility was born. The golden age of internal plumbing.

So for me to be involved, in my role on the council with the birth of, what we are now calling, the fourth great utility, Broadband access, is especially significant to me.

Some of you will know that, as we speak, our South Yorkshire Digital Region project is rolling out a broadband infrastructure that will be as good as anything currently available in the world.

But as I keep reminding people it is the connection of people to the opportunities this network will provide is where the gains will come.

It is why we have our own Totally Online Barnsley scheme to get everyone in the Barnsley borough online, which of course mirrors the ambition of national Get Online Day and is why we are holding this event here today.

It is, as I understand it, the first time this event has been held outside London and I think that is very important, because it is not in London where the biggest advantages will be gained. It is here, in places like Royston, a little pit village in the wilds of South Yorkshire, and among the people who live here where the gains will be felt most.

Places who have long fought being economically excluded, geographically excluded but who WILL NOT be digitally excluded.

So it is with enormous pleasure and a very great sense of pride that I welcome the National Digital Inclusion Champion Martha Lane Fox and invite her to launch National Get Online Day 2009.

Another link

I am described as many things. Most of them not so good. This one though is ok with me.

It's in the Wednesday edition of The Star.

A real hero. Then and now.

Take the time to watch this. Really. This man is a hero. It is a fantastically moving speech.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=GB&v=GrEbJBFWIPk

Diary: Tuesday 20th October

Today is a day for community engagement. Our travelling roadshow of consultation about the area is in my ward today (in the Co-op car park) and we have teams asking local people about their priorities and concerns in the local area. I have spent all morning alongside them because it is a useful way to pick up on issues and often people like to take the chance to discuss some of these things with their local councillor. It's good to be on hand so they can do that straight away.

It's been very useful and informative and we've had a great response with lots of very positive things being said about Royston. I'm having to take a break (while a ward colleague picks up the role) to respond to more than a dozen emails, make a couple of calls to the press after inquiries (lot of talk about the BNP membership list leak) and then off to a briefing with the head of Performance and Delivery to run over the current policy areas for this week.

We are entering a key period for performance data, so there is a lot for me to read and discuss. As the mid year budget review comes up we need to be aware of where we might have to invest/intervene/etc to make service improvements where we are not performing as we expected. Luckily we seem to be performing much better than expected in most areas which makes the process easier. That good performance is part of why we did so well in last weeks byelection and is certainly being reflected 'on the front line' with the people I'm speaking to today.

Hypocrisy and the Daily Mail

The latest twist in the wretched Daily Mail saga of Jan Moir and her appalling attack on Stephen Gateley is that they are now claiming the record number of complaints to Ofcom about it is just because of an 'orchestrated campaign'

Odd that they were not so dismissive of orchestrated campaigns to get complaints into Ofcom when they were orchestrating the campaign over Jonathon Ross and Russel Brand.

Classic Hypocrisy but by no means the best example of this from the Daily Mail. My personal favourite remains this;

The Daily Mail: Campaigning both For AND Against the HPV Vaccine in Different Countries Simultaneously

Diary: Monday 19th October

I have made a 'just after the middle of October' resolution. I must try harder with the blog. So I am resolved to post a couple of quick 10 minute entries at least a couple of times a day. Let's see if it works.

What I hope to do is give a bit more detail about my day to day work, in the hope that I can educate and inform about the work of a councillor.

The main business of the morning has been the regular meeting between the lead councillors (Leader, cabinet and opposition group leaders) and the Trade Unions. We meet in the Council Chamber of the Town Hall to discuss various workforce issues raised by both sides. It is not the only meeting with the Unions, HR maintains a constant dialogue and meets almost weekly to run through our plans and their reactions and issues. It's why we have such a good relationship and is very important to us in the Labour party for obvious reasons.

It is why Barnsley council is, as far as I am aware, the only local authority in the country to complete the Job Evaluation process and settle all our equal pay issues without losing a single day to industrial action anywhere in the authority. If you look at the issues in the Bin Strike in Leeds, which is based on these two processes you will see how important that is.

There were a number of things to discuss today and agreement was reached on all of them easily. We then shared our thanks with the unions for the work many members did during the recent byelection in campaigning against the BNP. The Trade Unions are at the vanguard of this anti-fascist work and it is important thing to remember that while the BNP try to pick up the working class vote they are an organisation which has campaigned to outlaw Trade Unions. Their previous incarnation was very active in trying to break the miners during the dispute of the eighties.

The remainder of the morning was taken up with casework, one property issue, two housing repairs and a school inquiry. I've moved all of them on though can't report a full resolution as yet, not one that I'm happy with anyway.

After a quick private chat with the Leader on a couple of things I have now returned to my home office to read some of the weighty reports in preparation for the rest of what looks like a busy week.

(As well as doing the school run, picking up a prescription, getting O2 to fix my phone and, in a break with tradition, having lunch. Remember, politicians have lives too! I'll be delivering my eldest sons guitar to school shortly also, as we forgot it AGAIN this morning and his lesson is this afternoon. I am at least lucky enough to be able to do that.)

What do you say?

It has been a perplexing week. First there was a massive campaign to support the rights to free speech over the Trafigura/Carter Ruck attempts to block reporting of Parliament and the dumping of toxic waste. Then we had a massive campaign to sack a Daily Mail hack for using her right to free speech in voicing her obvious and appalling homophobic bigotry. Then there is the lifting of the banning order on Geert Wilders the Dutch politician allowing him to bring his extreme and objectionable views on Islam to Britain.

Later this week there will be the same confusing debate about Nick Griffin appearing on Question Time on the BBC. Should he/they/we etc.?

Where do we go with this? This freedom of speech thing. It's a been giving us philosophical headaches (like democracy in general I suppose) since it was first mooted by the Ancient Athenians. Their belief 'that the power of persuasion is the most enduring force in a culture, one that must not be stifled.' I've wrestled with it over the years.

The world is changing again with the advent of the web and the speed of communication. Freedom is now absolute whether we like it or not. We can object to Griffin and his ilk with their lies, misrepresentation and outdated ideology but on the web there are places where it is promoted and written everyday. Even in the pages of the Daily Mail. We couldn't stop it if we wanted to. And when some of us want that freedom, like with the Trafigura incident, we would fight for it. Extol it's virtue and demand it's protection.

So it's a brain bender. I'm not sure we'll ever get the hang of it, but if I have to take a side I will stick to my basic view that being open and honest is better than banning and gagging. How we respond to that as a society is something else.

Reflection on a Byelection

I have once again been blogging less for a while. It's been a busy time. More Hospital time for Tracey, parents away meaning childcare problems and for the last six weeks a byelection in our St. Helens ward. In what could be laughingly described as my 'spare' time I've tried to get out and campaign whenever I could.

It's the election brought about by the sad loss of colleague and friend Cllr David Bostwick in the summer. It also represented a significant milestone for Barnsley. After 76 years of Labour control, defeat would mean that we no longer held a majority of the council seats.

There were six candidates; Labour, LibDem, Tory, Ukip (a new departure), the Barnsley Independent Group (no, it doesn't make sense to me either) and the wretched BNP.

The BNP were cocksure they would do well here. Last time they finished around 300 votes behind and many of their racist members live in the ward. The Hater of all things Non-white, Nick Griffin was three times out in the ward himself campaigning.

On Thursday I dropped the kids at school and went straight to the campaign HQ to begin a long day of door knocking and lift giving for the final day push. Labour activists from all over the country joined us too, as well as members of anti-fascist organisations.

The response we had been getting was very positive and I was never really worried about losing (apart from those moments of desperate paranoia that you always get every now and then). The question for us was; Has our local manifesto message made a difference? We took the decision to make the Barnsley Labour message clear and get back to our roots. To offer a range of local policies that were designed to help those who needed it most. The hope was, that this byelection would be a chance to see how the public had responded.

Obviously, the national regard for politicians in general and Labour in particular would be a factor too.

After a long long day, at about 9pm I decanted to the Town Hall for the count which was due after the polls closed at 10.

The press were there (I was in the press area) and the BBC were broadcasting live, their reporter waxing about the 'shock-waves' should Labour lose and the various scenarios of disaster that would ensue for Labour if they did. It was a common theme.

When the result finally came in at about 11:30 it was remarkable.

Labour got 1520 votes, around two thirds of the total. Almost a thousand more than the fascists, whose vote declined considerably despite their massive campaign efforts. It was an expensive and humiliating bloody nose for Griffin and a massive vindication of the Labour message.

The local independents who have been in disarray recently compounded the night with their worst showing in years, a feeble 171 votes. The other three parties couldn't even get into three figures.

The Scum of the BNP left looking crestfallen, and it was hard not to enjoy that. They lurked about outside making personal insults and stupid accusations of 'ballot stuffing'. It was in keeping with their campaign which had caused a number of complaints about intimidation and threat. It was also just as ineffective.

But politics is a funny thing, it is on occasion a matter of the highest importance and at other times just silliness and trivia. Defeating fascism, eradicating racism and turning back the rise of the far right is vital for humanity and the future of society. But as I finally left the Town Hall I did so with Kathy Bostwick, wife of David. She had been at the heart of the campaign along with their children. It was an emotional night for them, closing another chapter in the loss of David. It brought home again just what the really important things in life are.

It's an important lesson even I am still strugging with.

Scooping up the cash.

I was in London yesterday, at the national meeting of representatives of all the regional RIEPs.

(What the hell are RIEPs Tim?)
RIEPs, or Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnerships, are a body set up to allow (or make) local authorities work together more. Their basic role is to help us share our good practice, explore ways to work better by combining our efforts and identify common problems and look for solutions. Sharing good practice enables councils like Barnsley, who are outstanding at things like Adult Social Services to share our expertise with councils who are struggling with this. Schemes where we all work together can produce huge savings (bulk purchasing for example). In fact Yorkshire and the Humber (the region I was representing at the meeting) has been particularly good at this. The Government set us a three year target of making a combined saving of around £150 million across the region. I was delighted to report yesterday that we had actually achieved £180 million.

The biggest part of the extra saving came through a scheme called YorBuild. It is essentially a region wide way to manage large scale building projects. These can be hugely expensive (obviously) but may of the costs associated with them cause us particular pain. Consultancy fees for things like Architectural services, legal, etc. are extraordinary. It's a pricey market. Most authorities have no option but to fork out for them because they don't do enough big building projects to justify having the experts on their staff. This leaves us all the mercy of the sharks. By creating a single agency that can do all this, effectively employed by the councils, it means there is always enough work to justify the jobs and it reduces the overall costs of building projects by around 10%. Which may not sound a lot, but when you consider that between us we spent maybe a billion pounds on building across the region last year, you'll see that it is. In fact we estimate that between July this year and today it's saved £20 million of public money.

It occurred to me that many of the proposals we are seeing through the RIEP, like in all the other regions, are similar to the scheme I've outlined. Doing things 'in house' is producing massive efficiencies. Not out-sourcing. Not contracting with the private sector, which has been costing us a fortune. You may remember the recent revelation about price-fixing among building contractors on public sector projects.

The whole of the conservative strategy on local authorities is to drive us into more such costly ground. Trim the 'big' government they say. Use the private sector they say. And in their flagship Tory councils that's what they do. Cutting 20% of the jobs and farming more and more out to the market. Shortsightedly cutting their budgets and handing more and more public money to private profit makers. While all the while we are showing time and time again how delivering these services throughout the public sector is the most cost effective option.

They'll cut your council tax today by cutting jobs. But they'll soon be back with a bill for the extra consultants they are having to hire in to fill the gaps they have created, and for the profits the private providers are now adding on top. It's just another example of why the Tories have it all wrong on local government.

Right now, we are scooping up as much of your cash as we can and it all stays in the public coffers for your benefit. The Tories want someone else to scoop it up, take their own cut, charge what they think you'll pay and, if recent history is a guide, not compete with each other to deliver the cheapest price but cooperate to maximise their own profits.

Big government isn't always a bad thing. But Smart government IS always a good thing.

Fourth hard hat of the year

I was wearing yet another hard hat this week. No, nothing to do with angry overreacting religious people. Another site visit.

The long awaited reclamation and landscaping of Rabbit Ings (the old pit stack) began in earnest. We went to tour the site and see where the great new parklands and recreational facilities will be.

Playing fields, an open air classroom for local schools, wildlife areas and lots of great walks will replace the ugly heap that has loomed over our village for many years.

I even got to wield the ceremonial shovel (it's a councillor thing!)

What a year it's been. A lot of schemes, some dating back many years, have come together at once. Transforming the village of Royston.

The Lifelong Learning Centre, The new care home, The new extra care facility, The new school, the list is growing constantly. All for the benefit of the community. I couldn't be more proud to be a part of it.

And for those who have been following the process, here is a picture of the legendary Newt Fencing. £25 a metre!

There is, after we kicked up such a mighty stink, considerably less of it than was originally demanded. A victory for commonsense. Or at least a score draw with bio-diversity requirements.

The Extraordinary World of David Cameron

I decided to watch The Andrew Marr show this morning. Having missed the controversial question from the interview with Gordon Brown last week I didn't want to be missing anything this week. The main item this week, live from the Tory party conference in Manchester was an interview with 'the man who would be king', David Cameron.

I wasn't, like many people, waiting for Marr to question Cameron on the alleged drug use in his youth. Firstly because he has asked him that question on three previous occasions but mainly because it has sod all to do with us, him or the reason why Cameron isn't fit to be PM. We've all done things we regret or that were 'not the sort of thing I would do', but as I keep saying, normal people make better leaders.

What I did see was a pretty hard nosed interview (this fulfills my promise to 'my mate' Marr to be nicer to him) and Cameron really struggling.

Firstly on his European position where he couldn't make it clear, refused to commit to anything (including an opinion) and as ever had nothing to offer as an explanation of his policy approach. It is a shame he wasn't pressed on his new European parliament political group colleagues (Racists, Homophobes and Nazi-worshippers) but as Marr asked him repeatedly about where he saw Britain in relation to Europe without getting an answer there wasn't time for everything.

The thing that really made me sit up was when Marr moved on to the economy. He asked, again repeatedly, about how the Tory spending cuts would affect unemployment. With their proposals, clearly more 'savage' than anyone else in terms of cuts it is fair to say, Marr rightly pointed out, that Jobs would be lost. Indeed Marr quoted various expert economists with figures of 700,000 to over a million job losses as a result of Tory proposals.

Cameron initially dodged it, saying that the priority was debt reduction. Marr persisted. Cameron repeated that it was about deficit first and then went on to say he didn't accept that this would mean job losses. Now this alone is economics nonsense, it's dishonest and it's wrong. To say it you must either be stupid or think your audience is stupid. I don't think Cameron is stupid.

Marr tried again, pointing out how nonsensical that comment was. He pressed Cameron on the 'human cost' of his economic proposals. This is when it got really interesting. Having thus far had a poor interview, Cameron went on the offensive.

He said it was 'extraordinary' that the question was being asked that way round. Extraordinary that the human cost in families without income and people without jobs was being prioritised over the percentage of GDP that was being used in borrowing. Extraordinary that society might be placed before the economy.

Both are clearly important. The level of borrowing and probably spending needs to be reduced over time. All countries are facing this and we are nowhere near the worst placed. We are however the only one with anyone suggesting proposals like the Tory ones.

The difference between Labour and Conservatism has never been so stark. Between the Tories that believe the economy must be put before people, that unemployment is a 'price worth paying' and that the capitalists and markets can be trusted to look after everyone and do the right thing. And Labour, who believe that the economy serves the people not the other way around, that society, through it's government, should intervene to ensure the protection of those who capitalism would abandon and that, as we know all too well in Barnsley, Employment (turning welfare dependants into tax payers) is the most important part of any economy.

I don't care where he went to school, I don't care about the £30 million fortune he has and I don't care what drugs he took then (or now). I care about my town and the people in it. That's why I think he should never be Prime Minister.

Anyone who thinks it 'extraordinary' that people could be put before money is simply not fit for the job.

I believe it was P T Barnum who said 'all publicity is good publicity'. P T Barnum was clearly an idiot.

On the whole, I much prefer to bring pleasure than outrage. I'd rather cause a smile than a frown. My sense of humour and my brand of 'warts and all' honesty are not to everyones taste though and every now and then I get the latter when I was going for the former. And sometimes I even get both.

The local paper, my friend as you know, The Barnsley Critical has done a major hatchet job on me today and tried to spread my inadvertent offence, see earlier post, as far as they can.

I am genuinely mortified to have caused offence to anyone. It is, as I said to a fellow political activist earlier today (a tory, as it happens, who was very understanding), for those of us who campaign in the hideous environment of politics currently to forget how easy it is to do. It's water off a ducks back to us, you see. We get abuse, and some pretty strong abuse, all the time. A bit of light-hearted mocking is a pleasure for us, it's at least engagement with us. But as for the rest (example, re Cllr Jim Andrews below) we can't let it bother us or we'd all quit within a week. And we are not in it to be popular but to help other people in our communities.

I can't pretend that we don't bring it on ourselves quite often. The more passionate we are about something the more likely we are to get 'abusive'. I am quite often a 'zealot' about socialism, and will overstep the bounds of polite society in promoting or defending it. I am, I hope, at least listening and trying to see other points of view before I dismiss them. I didn't have strong feelings about David Cameron or George Osborne until they started speaking. Now I do. Is that prejudice? I'm not pre-judging them, just judging them, on the fact that they are wrong about pretty much everything. (see how I said 'pretty much everything'? open minded you see, don't press me on what they might be right about though, I may struggle to back it up)

So, if I'm here to help, how was that daft thing I said helping? Not very much, as it turns out. But here's the thing. Everyone complains that politicians are distant and separate creatures, set apart from the people they represent. The last year has shown us with the expenses row etc. just how damagingly true that can be. People have for a long time complained about 'spin' and political speak. We are all supposed to think so carefully about everything we say that we say nothing or something so cautious that it doesn't mean anything. Widening the gap between us and society even more. I don't want to be part of that system. I want people to know that if they ask me something I will answer them honestly (whether they like the answer or not) and that they know enough about who I am and what I do to trust that. So I'm there in my community, as I've always been. I'm here on the Internet too, I'm wherever I can interact with people. I'm trying to create and embrace the new politics of openness and of honesty.

It's a gamble on my part. It's a gamble because it means you'll see the good and the bad. It require an acceptance from the public (the voters) that they are represented by someone who is human and who makes mistakes. If they aren't willing to do that, if they actually do want their representatives to be a 'cut above' and not to do the things they do or say the things they might then I'll be consigned to the dustbin of political history and go do something else with my time.

I've had a lot of response over the last week, much of which I have been unable to publish. Some are unreasoning and angry, some delightful and interesting. Some against, some in support and some just interested without having a strong view. There has been unpleasantness on both sides which has shocked me. The lack of a forgiving nature, the savagery of attacks and the anti-Islamic rants from some claiming Christian views is incredible. The similarly, and I have to say in my view, worse attacks on the various church sects by some others (with other faiths or none) accusing them of everything from child abuse to genocide has been amazing also. This has at least given me a real reminder and an insight into the issue of religious tolerance. It is no surprise that extremism is on the rise when so little can invoke such strength of feeling. I'm not sure how to feel about my experiment in sharing all of my life as a tool to engage with people and show that politics is something that 'normal' people like me (and all of you) can do.

The vast majority of politicians, as I keep saying, are well intentioned and dedicated people. As are most Christians, Jews, Muslims, etc. that I know. I've always liked to think I was too. Maybe I'm wrong. Not for the first time recently, I find myself wondering if I'm really cut out to be a politician. I am let's say, considering my position. As with everything else, I imagine opinion is divided on the matter.

To Be or Not To Be (Human), That was the question.

As part of my way of trying to de-stress and deal with the internal and external turmoil of my existence without climbing to the top of the the Town Hall tower with a sniper rifle, I didn't watch my new friend Andrew Marr this morning. (We had dinner last week, charming man, good company) Also he was live from Brighton, where I am not, rubbing my nose in it.

I had promised to be nicer to him in future, I usually rant about him and his guests on a Sunday morning.
But this morning I discover, he's done something a bit shocking. He asked the PM if he was 'taking any prescriptions medication, like painkillers'. Probably alluding to the rumour that Gordon has been taking anti-depressants.

The question, in response to THAT question, is; is that something you can ask?

There are thoughts that it's in the public interest (the press defence for everything from Watergate (where it was) to publishing intimate family details and rooting through peoples bins (where it is MUCH less so, if at all). Why is it in the public interest though? If the suggestion is that someone under stress or treatment for stress is incapable of serving in public office then Nobody will ever be suitable to do the job. Stress comes with the office.

Would it have been appropriate to ask if he was having marital problems? Sleepless nights because of the kids? Worry about anything? Recently had any bereavements? A lot going on at work? All these things affect all our moods and mental health reserves. Some require treatment. But if it's fair game to ask about them and to suggest it is in the public interest because it might affect ones judgement then we are on a slippery slope indeed.

It's fine to talk about these personal things if someone wants to, if it is going to be viewed in context and accepted for the normal state of affairs that it is. But to just throw it in, in a political interview was a bit out of order I think. People, all people, deserve privacy and respect and should be entitled to keep things to themselves.

I have never subscribed to the notion that politicians are our moral leaders. I believe in the separation of church and state for that reason. I don't believe that it's necessary to always do the right thing to know what the right thing is. That's just daft. We are human beings, flawed and unwise and wonderful and often stupid. Even Nelson Mandela has an off day sometimes and he's the finest of people. I'm sure Thatcher sent her mum a card on her birthday, despite being an appalling monetrist society-destroying despot. That's humans for you.

We really must get beyond this nonsense notion that our leaders, our representatives or indeed anyone else are perfect, faultless or never make mistakes.

I, for one, would hate to be represented by someone like that. Just open and honest will do for me. Even above being right.

And the other issue with the Marr question is, it cannot, in the crazy, unforgiving, bile-filled world we live in, be answered honestly. If Gordon had said 'Yes, I'm on Prozac, it's been a tough year' there would have been foaming-at-the-mouth screams for his immediate resignation within minutes. And little if any sympathy or understanding.

That's even more depressing than the demand for saintly politicians. I'm off to have a cup of tea and some Valium...

The best laid plans of Mice and Men (note to self; Stop inolving the mice when planning things, they are getting it wrong too often)

There is a train heading south right now with an empty seat on it. I am not going to conference.

My wife having been just released from her latest unscheduled hospitalisation I am, of course, staying at home and caring for her and our children first. Nobody is at fault, not even the Thatcher, who is of course responsible for everything bad EVER. Leave it with me though, I'll find a way to hold her responsible eventually. But there we are, a disappointing (and expensive!) turn of events.

I can't pretend not to be upset not to be there, it's an important time for the party, the country and for me. Most of all though, I really needed to spend some time around like-minded people. Having been plagued of late by some of the most obnoxious and unpleasant people at almost every department of my life, I'm suffering with a bit of a downer on the world.

It can be a lonely life. As a councillor you often work alone, you meet a lot of people at their lowest ebb needing help or expressing their frustration (usually at you) because someone somewhere has let them down. It's my job to sort that out and not to let them down myself. As someone in politics (particularly Labour at the moment) I also find a lot of really malicious venom directed at me and the things I believe in. Often while I'm trying to do the best i can for them. And while I may attack, mock, question and refute the things I disagree with, (particularly Conservatism at the moment), I never do so with malice. Passion, yes, malice, no. As my conservative chums (yes!) know.

I was with council colleagues recently including a Tory member, hatcheting Tory policy with some vigour and sweary gusto, when I thought to interrupt myself to say 'I don't mean you obviously, you are the acceptable face of conservatism'. He just grinned at me and said 'You ****ing ******'. We laughed and finished our pints. Because that's how it ought to be.

Yet so many people are so incapable of disagreement without bitter aggression and vitriol that it is a constant test of my faith in humanity. And I include many of my own party colleagues in that. In fact I include members of my own family in that! One of the key features about party conferences is the recharge in the human spirit you get from being around people who care about the things you care about (mostly) and feel a bond because of it. That's the thing I'll miss the most, because it doesn't happen often enough.

In which I am to be burned at the stake for religious intolerance

I was watching the BBC breakfast news this morning and there was an interesting piece on the tour of a christian relic around the country (indeed it has evidently been around the world).

Have a look for yourself.

I tweeted (that's a short message on the Twitter site, but you probably knew that) about it.

There are lots of people lining up to see a box, behind glass, in which there's a dead French nuns foot. I'm a tad bemused by this.

Which I was. I am a student of theology, I'm actually ordained and can legally conduct weddings and stuff would you believe (It's a long story..) but I am an atheist and I question the value of many things related to religion. Maybe I'm an atheist because the more religions I study the more bewildering and contradictory they are. Maybe because I see little evidence to support any of the claims religions make yet do see daily examples of the intolerance they often promote. It certainly has something to do with the time I spent in Africa and the way the Church (specifically in that case the Catholic church but I by no means single them out) conducted their business in a socially damaging and dictatorial way. Most likely though I am an atheist because any god with the power to prevent my wife and the mother of my children getting cancer who would then let it happen anyway, isn't going to get my vote, faith or worship. And that's all of them.

Anyway, that aside, I understand a lot of people do have faith and that's fine for them (as long as it doesn't bother anyone else) but I really don't get this veneration of relics.

Well, maybe that's not entirely true, I do get quite excited to be in historically significant places like castles, battlefields, Hadrian's wall that sort of thing. I was quite moved once to stand on the very spot where Napoleon crowned himself Emperor in Notre Dame cathedral in Paris for example. Not that I revere him, just because it was one of the most significant moments in European history.

And when the actual F A Cup was at the Asda I got a bit giddy. But I wasn't about to queue up and pay £20 to get a picture. Though football is my only form of regular collective worship.

But this particular icon, some parts a French nuns skeleton, hidden away in very ornate box, all covered over with a glass screen, was lost on me. And there were loads of people there. Some of them were approaching the glass and kissing it. This really puzzled me.

The whole thing about this 'saint', which isn't really explained well in the coverage, and which interestingly many people there didn't really know, is her message. She, according to the church, believed in doing something little but useful everyday. A random act of kindness, if you will. I like this. I liked it when everyone else who has ever suggested this has said it. Like Danny Wallace and his cult. Why all these people at the cathedral aren't out doing nice things, instead of paying a 'voluntary contribution' to the church to stand about looking at a box, I don't get. Go buy a Big Issue with that money and you've done both! Actual useful contribution to society and appease your religious belief in one handy action

If you actually study her writings more closely that's not quite what it was all about, it was a bit more christian self promoting of the church but the little acts idea is better.

Among the replies I had to my Twitter message was this;

@CllrTim me too - especially as the history is not of success - didn't stop the Iraq war

This in reference to one of the uses of this relic, when it was taken to Iraq to prevent/stop/reduce the conflict there. I will let you form your own judgement as to how effective that was. As you can see though, there is probably not a widespread view of it's success.

I replied to this myself, still really dumb-struck by the whole 'kissing the protective glass' business, with this;

With all those slobbering zealots kissing that glass case, I hope it has some mystical power to prevent swine flu.

Now, regular readers will know, I am prone to outbursts of brutal honesty. I appreciate that the phrase 'slobbering zealots' is a bit...judgemental...on my part. I was trying to convey the sense of exuberant fluid transfer that caused me some discomfort. The thing with Twitter is, you gotta keep it short. But the glass was clearly smeared as a result of the kissing, which would indicate some 'slobber' and 'excessive fanaticism' (the definition of 'zealotry') could easily be implied about the action of kissing a glass box, around another box, containing a bit of the leg of dead nun. You are welcome to disagree, that's my view though. It strikes me as a bit 'grisly' or 'macabre' and ever so slightly 'creepy'. I may be making things worse. I think it's a bit 'over the top' let's say. Like when the evangelists do baptisms where the whole body is submerged, or when devotees of a number of faiths thrash/beat or spin themselves in a quite harmful way. Seems a bit much to me, is what I'm trying to say.

And I am genuinely concerned about the potential for disease, as are the church, who have issued new guidelines for many ceremonies this year to reduce the risk of a flu outbreak. Communion has been radically changed to prevent many people putting their mouths on the wine goblet as an example.

I thought I would explain this short Twitter message because I was accused, albeit indirectly, of being a bigot. The views I have shared here with you are apparently bigotry in the view of Louise Bagshawe, a Tory candidate, apparently devoted catholic and author of what is described (rather patronisingly in my view) as 'chick-lit'. Also by some raving Anti-Islamist and his readership (which includes Homophobes, Plain racists and others) on the Telegraph website.

My comment on those few hygienically unaware people became instantly about 'all catholics'! Which a fool could see it wasn't. Just not, apparently, that particular fool.

I don't think it is bigotry. It is a fairly strongly held view on my part, it is one I am open and honest about. I don't consider it to be a prejudice though (as would be required for real bigotry) because it doesn't really inform the way I conduct myself with anyone. I am strongly opined on Tories, as you may have noticed, but it doesn't form a prejudice in any personal or social sense. Ironically, the reply I quoted earlier came from a Tory councillor friend, who I enjoy sparring with and wouldn't fall out with or judge regardless of how radically we disagree on many things.

So I don't accept that I am being a bigot. I don't accept that I was wrong to say what I said either, though I may have used better words. I certainly do not think it a crucifiction offence, for the reasons I have outlined here.

But in the spirit of St Therese of Lisieux (and Danny Wallace) I will make my random act of kindness to apologise to anyone who feels offended by my beliefs or the way I choose to express them. I never seek to offend with my open and honest bemusement at the people and the world around me. Even Ms. Bagshawe. Who, if she can suspend her own bigotry, might come to realise that the fact that I do not share her faith, politics etc. and am prepared to express that, does not mean I am wrong. It means we disagree. As we are all entitled to do.

For those who were unable to attend...

I gave a speech to the Institution of Engineering and Technology last night.

Should you be even remotely interested, here is the text;

Good evening everyone and let me echo the Mayor's welcome to Barnsley on behalf of the council. I understand this is becoming an annual tradition and we are delighted to be able to host your event in Barnsley again this year.

And thank you particularly this year, through Councillor Bill Gaunt, for extending an invitation to me to come along and have this opportunity to say a few words, particularly about Barnsley council's plans, commitment and enthusiasm for the digital future of the borough. I'll be leaving the technical and detailed explanations of what we are doing for our later presentations and to those more gifted in your field than I but I wanted first to give you the overview of the strategic drivers behind our plans here in South Yorkshire.

Now, those of you who have been to Barnsley before will know this, but for those of you visiting us for the first time, we have a slightly annoying tradition. Whenever beginning any discussion about Barnsley's future you first have to have an object lesson in Barnsley's past.

I'll forgive you for groaning at the prospect, I groan at the prospect of saying it most of the time.

But we are obliged to break it down into three distinct periods,

We first talk about the period up to and through the 1970s, when everything was apparently brilliant? I was only little so I just remember it being mostly dark and slightly smelly if I'm honest. There are many of my more 'senior' colleagues who can speak with much more authority on this 'golden age'.

We then have to discuss the 1980s and the apocalypse that befell our coal and steel industries. I do remember this period all too well and it still sets the economic backdrop for South Yorkshire today.

But I'm going to skip on to the period since then because that's the bit that really explains where we are, and why, on the digital agenda.

The story of Barnsley, in the twenty years since the 1980s has been one of 'catching up'.

In areas like the local economy, local income levels, educational attainment, social aspiration, employment rates, etc. and I could go on, we have been relentlessly and doggedly pursuing the national average.

It's not a position we relish, it is not a position we volunteered for but it is one in which were placed through no fault of the people of Barnsley. We found ourselves wounded, forgotten and behind and below other parts of the country.

And though the gaps have narrowed a great deal in the intervening period, we still spend much of our time and effort working hard to catch up, to get Barnsley 'on a par with' those parts of the country who's economies and communities fared better in that period we aren't going to dwell on.

On the face of it, this looks like the desperate pursuit of mediocrity. And for those of us on the council who have a genuine and passionate ambition for our town, it can, all too often, feel dispiritingly like that too.

But in the last few years, things have changed.

Opportunities have presented themselves to take our vision for the town of Barnsley a step further. To more than just 'catching up' and to a place where other people start to look at us with envious eyes.

Not just 'in the game' but among the front runners at last.

Things like our Building schools for the future programme, transforming our fourteen aging secondary schools into nine brand new, state of the art, advanced learning centres. in turn transforming the education and employment prospects of our future generations here.

Like our exciting plans for Europe's first true eco-park, right here in the Dearne Valley, a world leading project and at the very forefront of the climate change agenda.

Like our transformed architectural landscape here in Barnsley, from the newly modernised civic theatre and galleries, our award winning new transport interchange, the wonderful digital media centre; a hub for creative business, the core building, Westgate plaza, the almost completed massive Gateway plaza building and our, thankfully now back on track, college campus developments.

All part of our 'Remaking Barnsley' project. Our vision for casting off the 'former mining town' label that shackles us and creating a '21st century market town'. A place for people, enterprise, entrepreneurship and employment.

And of course, the 21st century market and opportunity will exist largely in the digital world.

So none of these schemes will be able to reach their full potential without, perhaps the most exciting and ambitious of all of them, the South Yorkshire Digital Region.

A joint venture by the four South Yorkshire local authorities, with partners, to build our own broadband network across the region. And only the local authorities would do this, if we were to leave this to the private sector market, then South Yorkshire would not get this advantage first. We would get it in maybe 10-15 years, after everyone else. And the many opportunities it presents for us would be lost.

This is a scheme that is going to deliver, and it is underway today, not just the national lead, but the only place in Europe, possibly the world, to be able to offer a high speed, next generation broadband network of it's kind and capacity.

And it is thanks in large part to the vision and commitment of our chief executive here in Barnsley, Phil Coppard who has lead the charge on it's development.

He has been able to deliver for the region a scheme that many said was too ambitious, many said could not be done and many walked away from thinking it too difficult to do. And has done so by securing hundreds of millions of pounds worth of investment for the area.

Phil's belief in the digital engagement agenda has, as some of you may know, been recognised by his inclusion on the national board charged with delivering the government's 'Digital Britain' Plan.

In common with many government documents, I can't, with a clear conscience, recommend this plan as a riveting read. I have to read these things, it's sort of my job. But for those who do want to read it you will find some truly fascinating and exciting things within.

One of the key debates, for example, is around the real significance of broadband networks. Are they as vital as the transport infrastructure of a place, the roads and rails? Is broadband access even, as many now suggest, as vital as the utilities of gas, water and electricity?

Regardless of where you stand on those questions, the very fact that they are being asked shows the huge importance of the issue.

But this is about more than just the, almost two billion pounds worth of, investment in the area that the various projects I've spoken about so far have brought in.

We are just launching our 'Totally online Barnsley' campaign about which I am especially excited and in which I, personally, place great importance. And this takes us back the economic and social position of Barnsley I spoke about earlier,..

The most important connection for the future of Barnsley will not be the copper wire that connects A to B, or the fibre-optic cable which connects B to C, or even the WiFi network that connects C to D, E and F.

The most important connection,

The reason why we as an authority see the true value in this,

and the part where our focus will be located first and foremost,

Is the connection between the people of Barnsley and the opportunities presented by the new digital world.

I'll leave you with this one story, if I may, about something that happened earlier this year.

I lead a team down to the National Digital Inclusion conference in Westminster, essentially to talk about the plans and schemes we are now making a reality.

After we'd described our plans to the assembled hundreds from all over the country, there was much drooling and a representative of the London Local authorities stood up and with a very real tone of outrage said, 'what are we playing at here in the capital? Barnsley is years ahead of London on this agenda!'

It was then I think I realised that, not only were we doing the right thing but that we were doing it at the right time and in the right way.

The sense of vaguely astonished amusement I felt when that happened may have waned but the huge sense of Pride and Excitement has only grown. And it's that enthusiasm that I really wanted to share with you this evening.

Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to do so.

And thank you for listening.

And so it begins...

Just read this good but depressing piece by Peter Oborne in the Mail. Among it's demolition of the Tory shadow cabinet and their veil of concern for public services and the people who need them is the revelation that George Osborne will "... implement swingeing cuts after the election. Indeed, I can reveal he has ordered the Treasury's permanent secretary, Nick Macpherson, to find savings of nearly 30 per cent in departmental budgets which would come into effect immediately if the Tories gain power."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1212911/PETER-OBORNE-Tony-Cameron-Why-Tory-leader-David-Cameron-doomed-like-Tony-Blair-tries-things-men.html#ixzz0QtH4fBQa

That joke isn't funny anymore.

It is in my nature to have a laugh at things. I am, people who know me may have noticed, a bit of a wise ass. I think, in amongst the hard times, the serious issues and the sadness that I see everyday there needs to be humour and a joke. It's good for us all.

I tend then to be fairly forthright and a bit name-cally when discussing fellow politicos. Especially them there Tories. Mr. Cameron, the smooth talking, lightweight leader of the conservatives is a prime example. I almost always refer to him as 'the policy vacuum'. This is because wherever he goes, his mouth opens and all hint of actual policy disappears from the vicinity. We all know why this is. The Tories are so smugly convinced that they are just breezing into government and Cameron's coronation as PM that they don't need to explain themselves. They aren't Labour, you idiots in the public don't deserve to know any more than that. And if you did, you almost certainly wouldn't like it anyway. So they say nothing. It's been laughable. Until now.

I watched Tory shadow chancellor, George Osborne this morning on the Andrew Marr programme. It's not something I enjoy doing, but it's like work research, I have to do it. Particularly at the moment.

I have, along with my council colleagues, and indeed like councillors all over the country a lot of meetings going on to look at our forthcoming budgets. Planning our strategy, our investments our workforces for the next three to five years.

There is of course always some uncertainty in planning for the future. It is the skill of the finance directors and their teams to reduce that uncertainty to a bare minimum and to present us with alternatives for the worst case scenario.

Currently we have the added uncertainty of a looming general election. We have to plan (uncomfortable as it is to consider) for both possible outcomes. This where the stupidity of the Tory soundbite and waffle is causing more than amusement and ridicule. We need to know what they intend to do.

Without the vaguest clue we can't plan. We can't plan for the public services we all rely on. We can't offer protection for the one in ten people who work in them and we can't set rates and policies for our towns.

So we are forced to hang on their every word and try to guess what they'll do. Which is even less help. They say so many conflicting things. No frills services one day, world class services the next. Defenders of the NHS one day, Daniel Hannan the next.

Our biggest clues come from the flagship Tory councils like Hammersmith and Fulham or Chorley. Both have slashed services. And while both have frozen council tax or cut it by tiny percentages, they have done so by both reducing their workforces by almost a quarter. Thousands of jobs have gone. Thousands of people paying for Tory cuts with their family income.

But the plain truth is we just don't know what they are going to do. Or even when, as they are talking too about an emergency cutting budget on the first day in government. Wrecking what few plans we can make and taking away what little certainty we have immediately.

The Policy Vacuum is real. It is the Tory strategy for fooling the public into voting for them. And that joke isn't funny anymore.

Ooops!

Here is a link to Barnsley Councils regular newsletter to residents, Open Door magazine.

You'll notice on the front cover a nice picture of couple of Barnsley residents enjoying an ice cream in the town centre on a lovely sunny day. Warms the cockles etc.

We just had a call from the lady featured, who was a delight, saying how pleased she was to be the cover star. She's the talk of the street! Particularly because the Gent featured in the picture is NOT her husband. Her husband was standing on her other side and got chopped in the edit of the photo. She thought this hilarious (thankfully) and just wanted to share the joke. Priceless.

Collective responsibility; There's always one...

It's cabinet this morning.

I couldn't get to the last one, hospital duties, and I am slightly irked because I think in my absence they made a wrong decision.

That's controversial.

Yeah, I know it doesn't seem it, but it really is.

As a member of a cabinet I'm not allowed to say things like that. It's called collective responsibility. For those who don't know what that is, I'll try to explain. As a cabinet we make decisions. To reach decisions we have debates. Often quite good ones. By 'good' I also mean passionate and argumentative, like they should be. All views aired and argued we then vote on the issue. Then we all accept this as our 'cabinet' position. Regardless of where we were with the original argument.

A lot of people think this means we are somehow selling out our 'principles' by promoting something we were against or that we didn't believe in. They are wrong. My most abiding principle, the one that guides me first in all I do, is that 'Nobody knows everything and Nobody is always right'. Importantly, this includes me. I believe strongly in the collective wisdom, and if my arguments aren't enough to convince my colleagues then I accept they are right and I am wrong. That's how democracy actually works in practice.

The odd element of this is the way we have to pretend we agreed all along. I think it's nonsense and I've said so before.

The reason I mention it this morning, is that, Nationally, it would make it much easier for me to support some of our policies if I felt there had been a proper, wider debate on them. As I've also said before, the party keeps doing things without this mandate, indeed it has done things against a mandate to do otherwise.

As conference approaches it's a big issue again. But as the calls for 'Unity' begin, as they doubtless will, I am sure it would be easier to get if we had a 'collective' position to unite behind. This is the biggest change the Labour movement needs.

As for the decision in question, well, I spent my time before cabinet forging a compromise to the earlier position. Now none of us happy. But, collectively, we have done the right thing.

New month, And I'm getting off the fence.

Today I had a epiphany.

Enough new information came in to start it and something changed permanently and completely in my head. I am politically in a very different place than I was previously.

The mounting evidence of widespread birth defects in Iraqi cities that were bombed heavily by the allies during the war can no longer be a minor story, swept under the carpet by western media and politicians. IT MUST BE INVESTIGATED FULLY.

This link is not for the faint hearted but shows the horrific extent of the issue.

As I have previously said, I was always uncomfortable with the Iraq war but could not fully engage with the anti-war campaign because I had actively called for action to be taken against Saddam and his regime. The Chemical attack on Halabja in 1988 was, in my view, an open wound on the conscience of the West, it was an affront to the Geneva Convention and while ever the world stood idle and did nothing about it, we were all guilty. Saddam should have been on trial then, but of course, it didn't suit the U.S. and other powers at the time. But that's why, though I was very uncomfortable with the American opportunism and Economic rationale for the invasion, I found a place where I could live with it, in the names and faces of the dead men, women and children of Halabja. Saddam had these weapons, Saddam used these weapons, a fact that nobody could ever dispute.

So now we begin to see the outcome of 'our' use of white phosphorus and depleted uranium in the munitions used against Iraqi targets. And again it is the innocents, the children, the parents, the people who just want to live their lives in health and freedom who are the victims. The use of these chemical and irradiated elements in our weaponry makes our regime as guilty as the Saddam regime. It flouts the principles we championed and the treaties and conventions we signed up to. It is a war crime, a crime against children and must be treated as such.

I share the cynicism many will feel that any 'Investigation' will be partial and will seek to absolve the allied powers of 'clear' responsibility in the health nightmare which now exists. There are already though brave scientists who are pointing the finger and who have evidence to offer. I am convinced, the use of 'chemical' weapons is to blame.

While I have great sympathy for some of the military personnel involved at the lower ranks, under the legal principles laid out clearly at Nuremberg, all are responsible. No man or woman can rely on the defence that they were 'only following orders'. So it is now my belief and determination that everyone involved must face justice. The arms manufacturers, the traders, the personnel who used them, the officers who ordered their use, the senior military officials who recommended their use and, yes, the politicians who approved those recommendations. Each proportionate to their crime.

Once again, while ever we ignore this breach, we are all guilty by association with this heinous act. I will not be party to that ignorance any longer.

War crimes have been committed. There must be trials. NOW.

In which I consider the life of a local councillor (again).

It's Sunday morning and I've just taken a call from a resident. Couple of issues, one of which is the number of Heavy Goods Vehicles going down the lane they live on (apparently because the SatNav is telling them to). I can probably sort that out this week, an email to highways, a call to the company and there's a website I can register it on. I've dealt with something similar before.

I know this sounds like the beginning of a very dull Blog post (it probably is!) but the thing I'm thinking about is the way in which being a councillor becomes a 24 hour/ 7 day thing. It's a sort of follow-up to a post I made last month.

I've been on a kind of enforced leave this last week or so, kids on holiday, parents away and my wife once again under the surgeons knife have filled my schedule with family and care duties. It's August, which is a quiet time usually anyway, so I haven't had to miss many meetings. Even so, I've still not been able to get away completely. I was out with the kids the other day at a local beauty spot and while they were playing I was sending e-mails from my iPhone. Not by choice, but press releases have deadlines and I have to approve them all (and often write them). Rarely does that take just one e-mail, more often it's a complex negotiation across departments and with the press office. Likewise the e-mails I sent while the kids were having the lunch I'd made for them about a industrial relations issue. HR, Unions and staff shouldn't have to wait longer than is needed when it's an important issue. Even when I was sitting in the hospital waiting room, as my wife was having her pre-op preps done, I was writing a lengthy email to the local police team about a suspected drug issue in my ward, after a chat I'd had with a resident while getting a Sunday joint (the legal kind, y'know, meat!) from the local butchers.

I'm not complaining, you understand, it's good and helpful to everyone that I'm always available. Because I usually do the school run I'm constantly being approached on various issues while doing that. It's all part of the service. Some of the early morning calls while I'm trying to get the kids ready and breakfasted can be a pain, but people are always understanding if I have to call them back. It doesn't happen often.

Even when through the 6 months when I was struggling to look after 3 kids and deal with the fortnightly chemotherapy (and all the accompanying sickness) of my wife, there were still calls about 'my neighbours overhanging trees' or 'parking problems' or 'my planning application'. A colleague, who went through a similar time, used to find it very difficult to care about some of the 'comparatively' trivial issues. I always found it strangely diverting. I suppose, at the time, being a councillor was one of the few things I felt I was still being effective at. Turns out I was probably right, I got promoted to the cabinet and my workload trebled! No good deed goes unpunished etc.

And then there's the 'voluntary stuff', the local groups and committees. Being a school governor, for example, isn't part of being a councillor, it's something I already did. 'It's only a couple of hours a month', they say. It probably is, as vice chair it's been touch more, and I'm on two different governing bodies too. When you add in the friends of the park group, friends of the cemetery, local partnership, allotment holders, housing group, etc. etc. it begins to add up. Add in the four or five different Labour party meetings every month and I figure I've got about 20 or so different such things to go to. That, at 'a couple of hours a month' is an extra full working week every month! It makes me a more effective community councillor (I hope) but it does take over your life in the evenings and weekends a bit, because that's when they happen.

The amount of stuff I have to read too, it's huge. I spend hours wading through reports, proposals and the like, before and after meetings to discuss them. Which takes longer still if I'm actually writing them! A lot of this is built in to the hours of the council role, but a lot, like manifesto plans, new suggestions, political lobbying etc. are not.

So without just considering the actual meetings a local councillor has to do, which for a cabinet member in a Metropolitan authority like Barnsley are pretty much a full-time equivalent, this really does become more of a way of life then a job. And you don't even have much control of when your working hours will be.

It's certainly made working another job virtually impossible. So, I'm up for election again next May and I don't even have 'job security', though performing well, that's politics for you.

I suppose this relates a little to my previous post about members achieving qualifications etc. It would be nice to come through four years with at least something to show for it that might help you in the future. There isn't anything currently and the skills are only vaguely transferable.

What's my point? Aside from apparently whingeing at you about it all? (which I'm really not, by the way, it's just a bit of political education!) Well, there are still people out there who think we should do it for nothing. Even if that were possible for anyone but the most eccentric and very wealthy retired person, (and we don't need any more of them in politics and public service!) I don't think it would be a very fair reflection of the role of a local councillor.

Member Development; A survey

Make yourself Useful while you're here!

Among my recent meetings was one about the issue of member development. In short, it is how we make the people who get elected as councillors better at what they do.

There are some issues and debates around this so I'm opening it up to you (the virtual public!) to have your say. Here are a few of the issues (with my opinions to start you off..)

Firstly, should we be doing it?

I think it is important in any role (or job, and being a councillor these days is neither and both of these in reality) to get training and development to serve the public better. It is particularly important to encourage younger councillors by offering some sort of future career advantage to doing it.

Which leads to a second point, Should it be JUST for the benefit of the authority or for the individual too ?

This is public money we are spending. You can't ignore that. But if we are going to address the issue of how damaging a spell on the council is to someones career prospects then there has to be an element of personal achievement. It is fair to say that being a councillor does nothing for your home/work life and there is very little (apart from the honour, which it is, of course, apparently?) to recommend it as a valuable way to spend four years of your life. Which is why it is the almost exclusive remit of the retired. That, in my view, is a problem. Retired people play a valued part and have lots to give, but the domination by any one demographic is a terrible thing for the council in general. I stood originally because I was unhappy that key decisions about education were being taken by people who had children in school 20 years ago and didn't always fully understand how society had moved on and what the concerns of today's parents were. I am still only one of three (out of 63) councillors on my authority who have kids in school now.

If we believe in training and developing staff, which of course we do, shouldn't members get the same ?

There are many differences in the positions obviously, but then there are many similarities too. Nobody needs to have any qualification to get elected or to stand, and nor should they. But once elected they often require new skills to fulfill their role. I can think of a couple of councillors over the years who have been elected without having basic reading/writing skills. More detailed skills in research (that's a big part of the role), public speaking? (this is a controversial one), legal responsibilities (got to know these!), etc. etc. are all areas to consider.

Well, you get the idea. What do you think? I'm keen to know.

2008; Releasing the Inner Skinner

Here's the second of my old conference speeches.

2008 was a very different conference. It was in Manchester and all the talk going in (according to the media) was of Doom and/or Gloom. Gordon was going to get hammered and we would be fighting each other constantly. Charles Clarke (yes, him again) was the Witchfinder General and was stirring the pot to any journalist who would listen. Which was most of them.

The week began for me with the regional briefing, where our Yorkshire and Humber ministers came to give us a pep talk and urge us to 'show unity' and 'not give the press what they want'. With all of my legendary subtlety I pointed out that 'we' out on the frontline were getting abuse on the doorsteps and getting voted out of councils by the hundreds and yet soldiering on. Perhaps, I went on to say, the Parliamentary Labour party were the ones who should stop squabbling like 4 year-olds over the last bag of Monster Munch and help us out with some unity of their own. Didn't play too well with some of them, Caroline Flint was one, I guess she was offended AND didn't listen.

As it turned out, conference was nothing like that. We were united, we debated policy and there was a genuine feeling that change was possible. As for the PM, well, anyone who spends time with him in that sort of environment soon realises that the public image is nothing like the man himself.


I also got to meet a few people, like Colombian trade unionist, Congressman Wilson Borja,(pictured here meeting GB) who were inspirational. Trade unionism in Colombia is a deadly activity, and assassinations are commonplace. Wilson Borja has survived more than one and spoke of witnessing others. To maintain his belief and his determination to protect and represent his fellow human beings in the face of the stories he told us, is an amazing thing.

My favourite memory of the week (other than the speech) was leaving the security area on the last day and seeing Charlie Clarke in the window of Pizza Express, sitting at a table for one (with all his friends!).

As for the speech, well they say 'don't just slag off the Tories, say what's good about Labour', I think you can do both. And if you want some applause at conference, it the best way I know.
Best of all, one of my real heroes, the legend that is Dennis Skinner, was front row and loving it. That was what made the week for me.

Conference Speech 2008

2003: It's all about planning

As a break with the usual business (it is August after all) and in a shallow bit of blatant self promotion I thought I'd post a couple of old conference speeches of mine. This first one is from 2003.

It was the end of September, Tony Blair was PM and the election was 18 months away. Labour conference was in Bournemouth and I was the delegate from Barnsley Central. One of the topical political stories of the previous few months was the controversy over the Blairs purchase of some 'student' flats in Bristol (remember that, it's important later)

I don't want to disillusion anyone about party conferences (as if you could care less) but in recent years they have become increasingly stage managed. Mainly because they have become such a media affair. There are almost as many media passes issued as delegate passes. It has become less of a chance for activists to come together and exchange ideas about policy and more a shop window for the party policy, which has been, one way or another, determined already. This is a rubbish thing for party activists, it's a frustrating and disappointing experience. Like a lot of attempts to get an input into national policy making. The various 'off camera' fringe meetings and sessions are often better for speaking your mind. Getting your point on to the podium mike often involves a bit of..well...planning.

The Yorkshire delegates had already had a get together in Leeds town hall and a bit of a briefing session. I'd even rehearsed a bit of my speech with them and it'd gone well (with delegates, less so with party organisers). I was against the proposed policy of 'top-up' fees for university students. I was going to say so.

Because the Yorkshire and Humber delegation was stationed at the back of the Hall there was some discontent that we weren't being called to speak enough during debates. At the very beginning of the morning session one of our number took to the platform and raised this as a point of order. The top table said they would make sure they did not overlook us in the forthcoming debates. Effectively assuring one of us a speaking slot in the Education debate. When the debate began I stood and raised my hand to indicate my desire to speak and, knowing most of what I was about to say, I was delighted to find that everyone else in our regional contingent sat down and pointed at me. With a sort of resigned and slightly fearful nod, I was called to take my place at the front.

It was Tuesday, or 'leaders speech day', which means it was the busiest of the week. ALL the press and media were there. All the celebs and commentators. All the day visitors. The leader speaks in the slot straight after lunch and the education debate was in the morning. It was pretty daunting, truth be told. A lot of people I respected were in my eye line, Charles Clarke (then education secretary) was behind me. He and I had already had a few 'run-ins' in the past and this was going to be the worst yet.

In the previous days of the conference there had been no controversy, no dissent and things had, from the party point of view, gone swimmingly. So getting up and saying we were wrong wasn't going to go unnoticed. In fact, what followed was, within 30 minutes, the lead item on the BBC lunchtime news. The following morning, my deliberately written and delivered soundbite was in every national newspaper. In a couple of them, there were more quotes from my 3 minute speech than from Charlie Clarkes.

Overall, I'm pretty proud of the speech itself, the delivery could have been a bit better but 4 to 5,000 people (plus television) was my biggest audience yet and it was unsettling. Ultimately, it was to no avail of course, the policy came in anyway. But I did what i could, and maybe, because of the support my speech got, a small message was delivered.

Anyway, here it is.
.

2003 conference speech

Various wounds to the head

I have, on four occasions, been hit with a police truncheon. I say Truncheon because they were all in the days when batons were just things we had to drop in school or college relay races. They were four stout blows from hard wooden truncheons. And they chuffing hurt. Of the four occasions, Twice were in my home county of South Yorkshire, twice were in the hub of protest that is that London. All four times however by officers of the Met. As someone who has been on the receiving end of some police unpleasantries I have personal reasons to dislike them. I don't though, even though I don't think I deserved any of the whacks I took, each time the rozzer in question went too far.

I am reminded, twice today, of my unfortunate record with the 'wooden caution'. Latterly by the documentary about the Miners Strike which I have just watched, during which I managed to get my first two. Even though I was only 17 and at sixth form college. The first reminder was earlier when I was trimming my facial hair and examining the numerous little scars my face has picked up over the years (two of which come from the long arms and armaments of the law.)

Someone, via Twitter, asked me, as the Documentary was running, what the point in rehashing the miners strike was. They thought it all so long ago. I couldn't bore them with my usual lecture on the subject but did try to point out that the damage done was still very raw in places. Places like my village.

It's difficult to really get across what it was like in 1984 in Barnsley. To try and explain how things changed over the strike year, sometimes overnight but almost never for the better. It takes time to do that. It was one of the most significant periods in my life, I left school in 1983 and spent some formative years living through it. It was the most significant time in the lives of anyone in mining areas who didn't remember the war and are 35 or older.

I can though give one example of a change that still affects us in very negative way.

There is still a total lack of respect for the police. Something which was not true before 1984 but has been the case ever since.

The village bobby, our local sergeant, who we all knew and grew up in fear of was a good man. He was a Labour man too. People who knew him in his Labour days say he would have been Mayor of Barnsley one day. Such was his popularity and commitment. He always went to party meetings. He was active and he was respected. He had to leave the party after Orgreave, when attacks by the police changed relations and they broke down altogether. He was a loss. He took abuse from NUM members at meetings and probably unfairly so. So he quietly accepted that he wasn't welcome and stopped going to meetings. Just one example of how the changes happened.

We had a bunch from the Met staying in our village. They used the pit buildings but were under strict orders not to use any local shops or businesses. The extent to which the state attacked this area economically cannot be underestimated. It didn't help to mend relations any. The waving of their overtime pay on the picket lines and as they drove around did even less.

Some family friends had the dad and youngest son on strike and the eldest in the force. That family was destroyed. Food was individually labelled in the house (under orders) and eventually the police son had to leave. He never returned.

There are plenty of old miners who will ring me even now, when they should really ring the police. I asked one of them once, 'why don't you ring them with this?' 'Because I still don't talk to them Bastards,' was his straightforward reply. I knew why. The policing of the Strike left damage that will never be repaired for some. Damage which has been passed on to their children and grandchildren in the attitude they all have to Police.

This huge lack of respect does us no good at all. It undermines the police ability to do their job by being in the community fully and by getting to know what they need to, because people won't talk to them.

While it is certainly true that Government has historically used troops to quell it's people on many occasions, and that individual protests and events had seen police over use before 1984, the sustained and tactical use of the force by Thatcher was something new. The employment of the 'public defenders' as an instrument of state control in the way it was, represented a dynamic change. Many senior police officers trace back the drop in public respect and the change in attitudes to this period. Even the earlier inner city riots had less impact on perceptions of the police. But afterwards the police stopped being 'on our side' and started being 'on theirs' in many peoples minds.

It is probably true to say that, as communities did, so the attitude of the police changed too. Being used as tools of state violence and oppression is bound to leave a mark on the psyche. Spending so long ostracized by society certainly will. They too need to make some changes. Though most of the force today were either at school or not born during the strike they have become part of an organisation with the scars. The way police operated during recent protests is more a testament to the attitude they have developed since than any current Government pressure.

Our communities would do better, be nicer places and function much freer of crime if we mended these fences. I work closely with the local police, they're are local people. Good people. They work hard in a difficult job and they, like so many people who don't get it, deserve respect.

The former chief constable of Durham said it would take decades to repair the damage done by the strike, he was of course right. He is a more convincing witness than me, I blame Thatcher for almost all societies ills, on this, plenty of people agree. Like so may of her wretched legacies, it is easy to change policies (something we haven't helped ourselves with, looking at our protest policing and civil liberty issues), but much harder to change attitudes.

I can shave off my silly little beard and reveal some of my scars from 1984. The scars we all have on the inside are less easily revealed but more obvious to see.

They said, ' If you're going to be a councillor, get a hard hat.' They were right!

For the second time in a month it was hard hat, high vis jackets and safety boots as I was on a site tour of the latest new development in my ward.

The Oakwood Grange care home (being built on the site of the former council care home) is due for completion in the next few months. Here's me with ward colleagues Cllr Bill Newman (left), Cllr Graham Kyte (right) and Mark Greaves from the developers and providers, Ideal Care Homes.

Mark, who is originally from Barnsley gave us a full tour and talked to us about what we can expect from the home when it opens at the end of this year. We also met New manager Susan, who lives in the village, and heard about the 50 local jobs that will be created when it opens. And when they say 'local' they mean it, they are looking for the best qualified care workers in Barnsley. Ideal are a one of a small breed of companies that really operate in a community friendly way. Even the materials in the building are sourced locally.



The home will provide 24hr residential care for upto 62 people and will charge only the local authority rates with no top up fees. This means they will be taking local residents regardless of circumstances, exactly as the previous home did. They also believe it is immoral to charge extra for residents with dementia and make no additional charges for this and many other features. I visited one of their homes in Leeds some months ago and spoke to the owner (a genuine millionaire philanthropist) and was very impressed by what I saw and heard.

They are also enthusiastic about playing a full role in our community and I look forward to working with them for years to come.



With our investments in technologies and adaptations to allow people to stay in their own homes while ever they want to, our new extracare facility for when their needs increase and now this, we now have a full range of care options for older people in Royston.

This is why Barnsley lad and older persons champion Michael Parkinson said (at the LGA conference) that he was delighted and proud of the standard of care available in the town of his birth. Standards of care, he said, which others should aspire to.

5 things I hate about you.

Most Labour folk, because we are entering the difficult 'redefining' phase of our existence, often get berated with a big list of reasons why we are crap. People, who never liked us anyway or (as is most common, because everyone seemed to like us in 1997) people who did but feel let down or angry about something we've done.

It's something we will have to live with probably for the next 30 years or so. Like the Tories do. They don't deserve forgiveness or understanding for things they did. Can't imagine we'll be treated any different.

But what I thought I'd do is examine one particular list of stuff I got this week. Just to see. I'll take 5. Here they are.

1. Illegal war. Well yes, We cop for that, it is the one most people start with. I could argue the silly way, about the 'legal' basis for the claim. Technically all wars are illegal under the charter of the United Nations. Including the Falklands, the Balkans, etc. But I won't go down that route. I will make a couple of points about this though. I think the Government WERE wrong, I think they were pressured by the Americans into the war and I think they should have refused. I am no conspiracy theorist (except for fun) but the Americans undertook the Iraq invasion for their own reasons. Anyone who has read the Project for the new American Century papers over the last 10-12 years can see it clearly. I would remind people that this was a decision of the Government which was supported fully by the Tories. More importantly it was a decision which was NOT supported by the Labour party. The Party members were against the war and indicated so (in the only opportunity we were allowed) in a conference vote. Polls of members showed the overwhelming lack of support among the wider membership too. Don't blame us for the war, blame us for not standing up to our own controlling leadership and party management.

I would add, because it matters to me personally, that the issue of WMD is also represented falsely. While dodgy dossiers and inflated claims about capability abound I have to make an admission; I had been lobbying for action for some time. In 1988 after the poison gas attack on Halabja, I began asking why there was no global intervention against Saddam's regime. To my mind, this was flouting all international convention and law on the use of such weapons (weapons of mass destruction) and something should have been done. So no matter how we all felt about the justification for the war, we must remember that they had both the capacity and the will to use such weapons more than once. It was not a complete fiction to presume they might again. Even though that seems to have been forgotten in the discussion of the Iraq war.

2. TU links slashed. I have no defence of this. It is a shameful thing that we have lost touch with the people who made us. it is another example of how the Labour party has been taken over by a power clique and doesn't want to be democratic anymore. It's wrong and it should change. Sadly, in the period that has seen Labour membership drop by a half, Union membership has fallen even more drastically. We both need to redefine our relevance and position in society and for me, we must do that together, as we always have.

3. Thatcherite economic policies. Yes, some of them. Far too much reliance on the market. Far too much private finance. But with the levels of capitalist control on the media it was inevitable in the beginning. We would never have been elected on the old ticket. The failure to move the debate on during the last 12 years has been bad. Particularly when the majority of the country regularly call for more nationalisation (like the rail network, utilities, etc.) and state interventionism (regulation of markets, subsidies on some things punitive taxation on others and protection for consumers, savers, employees etc.) and we haven't moved back to the left with them yet. Bewildering. Arrogance in the ruling clique again, refusing to acknowledge the collective wisdom and the will of the people.

At the place and time we are now, with the choice and circumstances ahead of us, people need to look at our policies today. The hack and slash, new austerity, putting finance before people and the fabric of society offered by the Tories is the same old same old. It is what we had in the eighties. And for the Trolls who will come back on 'the fabric of society' and this Broken Britain garbage we are constantly spoon fed, it was the eighties that saw crime at it's highest ever, violent riots on the streets of major cities, no-go areas with actual walls around them and a divide across society more marked than just the career prospects of rich and poor children. (Social mobility issues are important, but, as with education, raising standards for ALL is the goal, not increasing the chances for some).

Our economic policy today is as socialist as it has ever been, (I'm not saying it is yet perfect, I have issues with public sector pay) and is a million miles way from Thatcherism, monetarism and Reagonomics. The priority is supporting employment against the capitalist tide of reductive markets. It is actively protecting the fragile remnants of our economic base on a wage by wage, house by house basis. Whatever blind allies we have gone down in the last twelve years (and even I cannot deny the astonishing building and infrastructure investment boom we have had in this period) the tide is turning and the lessons are being learned. We are not the party peddling the same old failed policies, we are the progressives, finding new ways to make socialism work in the capitalist controlled world of the 21st century.

4. Student fees. Indefensible. I spoke against it at conference in 2003 before it came in. We were denied a vote on it. Denied by the party managers. Denied because once again the party was against it and they didn't want to have to listen. There is a real theme emerging here.

The lengths the party hierarchy went to, in order to prevent a debate on this issue as a separate topic were appalling. And pointless, as at the same conference there was a vote on the foundation hospital programme calling on the government to stop it. Despite it being passed by conference it lead to not one amendment, not one days delay and no policy change whatsoever. If the party can be ignored so blatantly and so often, we may as well have had the debate anyway.

5. Civil Liberties. ID cards, SOCPA, Prevention of Terrorism act, human rights in general have seen some pretty awful bits of legislation under Labour. We have of course lived in 'interesting times'. Terrorism (while still entirely less dangerous than seasonal flu, road traffic accidents, heart disease, cancer and peanut allergies, all of which kill more people every year) has been an obsessional issue for the politicians and the media who feed on them. It has always been the reason given for some of these abhorrent and often just plain silly laws. Why has there been less attention paid to other issues and such a disproportion paid to this? Maybe, national security and all, there are things you and I don't know. Maybe. But regardless, we had the terror of the IRA for much longer and were ultimately able to solve the problem without a "war on" something or an erosion of our freedoms. We solved it by listening and negotiating, which is, historically, the only way we ever solve anything without millions of people dying. I don't support this stuff either and I suspect, should anyone ever care to ask the Labour party, most would feel the same way.

So there are 5. There are more and if I can be bothered, and find the time, I may try them too. Supporting Guantanamo/Rendition ?, Threatening to kick people off disability benefits and out of their council houses ?, Immigration ? I'm open to suggestions.

Anyhoo, I guess my 'Jerry Springer' closing thoughts are, the gap between the Labour government and the Labour party has been the cause of much of our policy blunders. The top-knobs should take heed of this. We, the party, are much closer to what the people really want, judging by the criticism we get. Obvious really, don't you think?

A sad loss

At this time on a Wednesday I would usually be in a cabinet meeting. Today that meeting was cancelled as a mark of respect (and in no small measure because of the shock) after the sudden and unexpected death of Cllr David Bostwick. So instead I find myself sitting in my office, where only two days ago I spoke to David about this and that, trying to come to terms with this tragic news.

He was in good spirits and apparent good health on Monday, though I'm told he became unwell later in the day and was admitted to hospital where he passed away last night.

David and I sat on a number of committees together. Workforce and Community Cohesion were two areas we worked together on, as well as being from Neighbouring wards and on the area bodies for the North of Barnsley. We were also cabinet colleagues, David being the longstanding spokesperson for Adult Services. He was a thoughtful and intelligent comrade, quietly spoken but sure of his mind and determined when required. I enjoyed his company and working with him enormously.

He leaves a wife, Kath, another long time party member and a stalwart of the A and E department at Barnsley district general hospital, and two children. My heart goes out to them.

I will miss him, as will the whole Labour group, and the constituents he has served in the St. Helens ward for 20 years as their councillor.

This is a very sad and terribly unexpected loss.

Shaping a place is more than delivering services.

Barnsley is in the headlines again this week thanks to a thinktank called the centre for cities.

They are highlighting areas where there is a high proportion of public sector employment as being 'at greater risk' of job losses during periods of public sector spending cuts. A fairly simple analogy and you would expect it to be the case.

I'm not attacking the report per se, but there is a smack of Thatcherite conservatism at the heart of it, albeit maybe inadvertantly.

The notion that the private sector is coping better with the economic climate is patently untrue. The idea that it is going to cope better going forward seems equally unlikely. The notion being promoted is that these public sector jobs should be replaced by jobs in the private sector.

The problems with that are numerous for me. Firstly it is built on the presupposition that the private sector is 'better' than the public. The core mistake of right-wing small governmentism. The jobs, we are encouraged to think by conservatism, should be relocated in the private sector because it is 'better' able to cope during hard times. This is true only if one believes that cutting hours, cutting wages and cutting jobs is 'better'. This is how the private sector deal with hard times. Effectively dumping the problem back at the feet of the public sector in terms of reduced tax revenue and increased benefits.

The private sector will also show little concern for the location of the jobs or who they might ask to do them. In Barnsley we have to concern ourselves greatly with maintianing the local economy. After the closure of all deep mine coal industries between 83 and 95 (mostly between 83 and 86 in one apocalyptic period) the local economy was essentially unsustainable, it had failed. Only the local authority was working to try and rebuild it. We spend our time chasing mediocrity almost, trying to get down to the national average unemployment rate, up to the national average wage, etc. To do this we have to get work for people. In the last few years 600 jobs have dissappeared in the private sector (The image of Barnsley is against us) but we have attracted 650 more jobs in the public sector (because the governments local and national now realise how important it is). Making the same case to the private sector employers is more difficlult and more expensive. It is also something the local political opposition (and to some extent media) have no grasp of. Promoting Barnsley has to be our priority, above the petty differences. We will not succeed without outside investment.

For some authorities this is not a concern. They don't appear in this report. Tory flagship councils like Hammersmith and Fulham. They are championed because they have reduced council tax by 3% for 3 years and people really like that. Or Chorley council who have frozen their council tax over the same period and increased public satisfaction with that move alone. What they don't say, until that wise ass councillor from Barnsley asks them in a public forum, is that they have both cut their workforce by more than 20% in those three years. That would be two and a half thousand job losses in Barnsley. We cannot allow that. Hammersmith and Fulham have relocated their call centre to Rochdale, we couldn't afford a move like that either. We need the jobs here. Not to mention the impact these reductions have on service delivery.

I believe that we have a greater responsibility to the local area, the 'place', to maintain high levels of employment, whether that be public sector employment or private. But further I believe only in the public sector are we able to protect the jobs when there is a need to do so (as now). Unemployment is rising currently, not because the public sector are laying off but because the private sector are putting margins before society and doing so. That is what got us here in the first place.

The figures and percentages and totals are, we must remember, people. People and communities. Communities that are our society. This is why I believe the Government approach to recession is right and why, on this occasion, I am 100% behind Gordon Brown on the issue.

We are more than simply service providers and tax collectors. We are the shapers of place, the guardians of our communities and the supporters of families.

And this is why I'm Labour and proud. Because no other UK party would do this. And yet all over the rest of the world, governments are following our lead. Anyone who still thinks there is no Real Labour left in us should bear this in mind.

'Do you enjoy it?'

I like to get out and about and try and explain the role of a local councillor. I've been to various schools and colleges, even to the civil service training programme. The level of knowledge I find doesn't vary much from primary to politics post grads Which helps with presentation if nothing else.

One of the first questions I get from the people who are still awake when I've finished is; 'Do you enjoy it ?'

Stock answer is, 'enjoy isn't one of the top ten words I would choose'

Take this week. A brilliant day breaking ground on the new school, big for Barnsley, hugely well received, in my ward, all good news. What's not to enjoy about a day like that?

Well, apart from the little nagging complaints from the handful of people who aren't happy. That's a bit of a downer. Mostly staff who didn't get the post they wanted in the new school staff structure, for whom I some sympathy. But we employ professionals to make these decisions and my opinion of what constitutes a good teacher is informed by them. Or the odd Luddite who just wants to serve out their time the same way they always have putting their own interests ahead of student and community. Thankfully there are only one or two of them.

So even the really good stuff gets tarnished a bit for your elected member.

Worse than that though is what I had to do the day before. All day Monday, I had to chair a disciplinary panel of school governors.

It's a duty I hate. I get lumbered with this because of my employment law qualification and because, over the years, I've done a fair amount of these things in all roles. Representing defence, management and judgement panel. I have the procedures down, sadly. If this experience has taught me anything it is that I should keep quiet about this experience and dodge the duty.

I am of course not about to dodge my duty.

As with being a councillor in general, it's something I feel I ought to do. As I have said in previous blogs, I'd quite often rather be doing something else but I really worry about who would do this if I didn't. The alternative candidates don't inspire me. The only personal gain I'm making that I wouldn't make otherwise is confidence that decisions are being made the right way.

This is the thing about duty. If I tried to persuade a passer-by to give up a whole days work, for nothing, to sit in a tension laden room, listening to unpleasantness, make decision affecting peoples lives and be loathed by at least half (but usually all) the people in the room when you have done it, I doubt many would volunteer.

Someone has to do it though. And for no reward whatsoever, it can only be described as 'a duty'. Once again, I'm that guy. The one who can't just shrug and say 'not my problem' or whine about it happening without doing anything to help.

In a post script to this and my previous post about a day in the life. The following day someone (just someone) signed up to twitter, followed just one person, me, and was 'disgusted at the way some people enjoy having power over other peoples lives'.
Their one and only tweet.

Ill-informed, judgemental and wrong. It did achieve the aim of being a bit depressing for me though.

That'll teach me to volunteer to do something positive for my community. Makes missing my 5yr olds first sports day on Monday all worthwhile. Perhaps I should claim some expenses to make myself feel better about it all? Then again, maybe not.

Virtue is apparently it's own reward. Handy really.

A day in the life of an elected member

This is my colleague and friend Cllr Jim Andrews. Jim is a good councillor and a thoroughly nice bloke. He cares about what he does and if he has a fault it is that he can be too nice. Here is a short tale about what councillors have to put up with.

One of Jimmy's roles is being the Chair of the South Yorkshire Fire Authority. He's been on the committee for ages and has a good relationship with the senior officers and is well respected. Last week, as part of the ongoing efficiency agenda, the fire service management proposed a minor change to working practice in the near future. Essentially the start times of the shifts would change, moving back three hours.

Seemed fairly innocuous, even straightforward. By lunchtime however he was being accused by some in the local media of altering employment terms and conditions 'wholesale'. By the evening the National Media were ringing him and he was being asked why he was threatening to make 700 firefighters redundant. The following morning he got this e-mail;

From: Greigssmith@aol.com
To: Andrews , James Councillor
Sent: Tue Jun 30 19:43:44 2009
Subject: (no subject)

Dear Labour Low Life,

So you're going to sack our Firefighters?

You Labour scumbag, you and your obese carcase could never do their job if you had a rocket up your fat arse.

Let’s hope and pray it's your house that goes up, and when you and the Labour scum get voted out next year, it will be the best thing that’s happened to the area.

Try screwing some more expenses, it's all you tossers seem to excel at.

G. Smith


That was 24 hours in the life of a public servant who just wanted to get the best service for the people he serves.

We get this sort of thing regularly. More regularly recently for obvious reasons. If you dare to publicly oppose the BNP it gets even worse. Nothing is too much for people like the e-mailer above. Families, children, you name it, they all become fair game for abuse.

Just in case anyone was thinking this is a life of expense financed luxury and civic dinners. It's a part time job attracting not much reward and this sort of response from the opposition. Volunteer at your peril. And be prepared.

Changing the world with a shovel

It was just a July morning in a field in the little village of Carlton in Barnsley in the great county of South Yorkshire. No great fanfare, just a few dozen people gathered around a strategically positioned digger. With some decorative shovels.

The significance of what happened there today though will change the town of Barnsley forever. A three hundred and twenty million pound investment into the secondary school buildings of the town physically began today. The Leader of the council, the local members, the officers from the Chief Executive down who have got us to this point and few assorted governors, students and partners gathered to plunge a shovel into the ground and lift up some ceremonial dirt.

There has never been a investment of this size and scope before in the history of this town. It will replace our 14 existing secondary schools with 9 brand new state of the art Advanced Learning Centres that will educate the next generations of Barnsley youngsters for years to come. The vision of the council,to 'remake learning' in Barnsley still has a long way to go. But what we did today was more than symbolic, moving onto the next phase of the programme, it is the tipping point. There is no stopping it now. It has become real. No longer a plan or strategy, no longer a contract negotiation, no longer a vision for the future. Today it became an outcome, a delivered project and a reality we can see and touch.

I don't know if I will be at a more significant event in the history of my town. I don't know if there will ever be one this momentous. But I do know that I'm proud to have been there today and I will always remember this ordinary July morning in a field, in Barnsley.

An unashamedly personal blog

Haven't blogged much lately and there is no great political insight here even now. It's been a busy busy few weeks but, and apologies for my bluntness, it's been a shit few weeks too.

To be more specific it has been the time when the events of the last couple of years have really hit home to me. It's made me take stock of my life.

I've always been pretty political, but that has never been my ultimate ambition. I became a councillor because I was alarmed at the malaise and decline in Labour in Barnsley and felt I could bring something to help. Being 20 years younger than the average councillor for example. Many people were walking away from Labour instead of fighting to keep the socialist values that defined the party I joined, I had to do something. It wasn't easy and still isn't to be in a party that doesn't seem to listen to the left enough anymore. No quitting though, people need the Labour party as it was intended to be and when the party realises that (a day which may be upon us) then it will be those of us who stuck it out who will be needed to rebuild it.

I never intended to stand again as a councillor either. I figured one term and I'd be in a position to do something else with my life. My real ambition was to write. Also I've always wanted to do my doctorate. The two things go hand in hand. These are the things I wanted to do, politics is something I felt I ought to do.

I'm a bit of a high-achiever, I'm not being smug about that, it's actually been a lifelong problem. I have got to be the best at what I do. I got a part-time job working behind the bar in a nightclub while I was at college, for example, and ended up after successive promotions over four years being the club manager (of one the North's biggest clubs). Running my own business, managing director at 23 etc. all followed because I'm ambitious and can apparently make the best of my meagre talents.

Getting elected 3 years ago (in the same month as I graduated with another first class honours degree in Politics from Huddersfield Uni, maybe I am being smug, bear with me though) was a turning point. Even if I didn't realise it at the time.

I was shortly thereafter accepted as a PhD student doing the political research I had always wanted to do. Things were coming together.

Then my wife Tracey was diagnosed with breast cancer and everything changed permanently. I went from being a married parent with three small children and options to an almost lone carer for, effectively, four dependents with more responsibilities than time to fulfill them. For a hellish year I had to try and hold our entire world together while surgery after surgery and months of Chemotherapy threatened to take it away. I still managed, somehow, to be thrown into a cabinet position on the council after only a year. I guess the lack of control I had over what was happening to Tracey and the family made me throw myself into being a good councillor, something I could control.

The events of these last two years have changed everything. And everyone. You spend the time getting through it and focusing on a time when you can put the trauma behind you and get back to normal. Of course the truth is, that never happens. Things are never as they were after something like that. And putting life on a new track has been harder than I imagined it would be.

Seeing what is happening now to the Labour party, the hideous rise in racism and the far right, the Euro results, the prospect of losing the council because of national factors even though we are doing a good job, coupled with the stress of trying to study and the realities of rebuilding our family life too have been really getting me down. Change had to come, something had to give and for the first time in my life, I was going to have to give something up.

So it was decision time last week. The easiest and best thing to do would be to quit the politics and go back to a more secure job. Concentrate on my career and study and get the benefits of the hard work. Maybe all the Labour quitters are right. It is just too hard and too soul destroying.

I can't though. I really can't. Everyone else is walking away and look where that has got us. Fascist MEPs. And the whole principle of socialism means too much to me. I can't see it fail.

So I've had to give up my doctorate. A heartbreaking decision. My focus is on Labour and improving the lot of people who have it worse than me. Life may not be how I imagined it but there are always people who have it worse.

Why am I sharing this ? Well, firstly I'm surprised you're still reading, I figured you'd have stopped a while ago. But one day (actually it already happens) someone will say 'you politicians are just in it for yourselves' and mean me, maybe we can both look back at this moment when I gave up what I wanted and took the decision to work harder for society as a whole, and realise that all politicians aren't self interested careerists. Some are people with purer motives. It's probably going to cost me. But one thing that has improved in the last two years, my belief that people are more important than money, has become a proven fact.

Now, where are those application forms for the parliamentary list...

"You can't say that !"

I was writing something on Twitter the other night and my wife, ever the voice of caution (unless shopping), says to me, "you want to be careful..."

The Gist, of what followed, was that I should be cautious not to risk offending any potential voters by saying what I actually thought. Because what I thought was phrased 'exuberantly' or might not meet with universal agreement.

The thing about blogs, facebook, Twitter and such things is that you don't know who might be listening. The thing about my approach is, I don't care.

The thing about being an elected representative is that people say this to you all the time. It's like a constitutional requirement that after you are elected you have to be slightly dishonest. You have to think about everything you say and decide if it is 'politically' correct to say it. I hate giving in to that. I believe that what people want in the new politics is open honest talk. I think people want to hear what we think and whether they always agree with us or not, they will know when they hear us, they are hearing us being honest. It is no surprise that people are so cynical about politicians speaking when they hear a constant stream of the least controversial drivel from them.

I think it is why we have so many of the new breed of politician who can't or daren't argue their case anymore. Because by shying away from saying something that other people might disagree with, they have lost the skill of debate.

I understand that not everyone will agree with me, not everyone will vote for me, I'm not losing sleep over that. I just want people to know that they can trust me and that they will know enough about the way I think to know what decisions I might make on their behalf. And in the world of open honest communication with them, they can tell me what they think too. And I know that I'm not always right, pretending that I'm not normal is another insult to the voters. When we aren't prepared to make mistakes and admit them we are setting ourselves above the normal people we represent. I have a bit more respect for them.

I keep hearing that politicians need to be more transparent. I think the public can see straight through us already. Time to accept it.

If I'm wrong it will cost me en election, but it will be the people who decide. As it should be. I'm not going to pretend to be someone else to steal their vote under false pretences. Those days are over. And good riddance to them.

A real addition to our community

I just got this picture of me, ward colleague and Labour Group Chair (and Godfather to my eldest) Cllr Graham Kyte and local resident Sarjo Bayang.

Sarjo is a refugee from the Gambia who has settled into Barnsley with his family. I thought I'd share this as an example of the positive impact people like Sarjo and his family bring. Particularly as an antidote to the stain of racism that has recently been visited on my town by the ignorant racists voting BNP.

Sarjo was originally an 'asylum seeker'. You know them, the ones the right wing media would have us believe are responsible for the fact that Northern Rock collapsed and were probably behind Diana's death. It's an easy label for them. But each of them is a person in their own right, Sarjo is one of them.

Since coming to Royston Sarjo has been really active in his community. He volunteers, he attends public meetings, gives up his time to better the village and he really contributes something. There are people born and bred in this village who have never bothered to do a damn thing for their community. Some of them would vote BNP because they want to blame people like Sarjo for things that they wouldn't lift a finger to help with themselves.

After having his case looked at, Sarjo was granted refugee status last year and given leave to remain. I'm delighted, I wish more people in my community brought as much to it as he does. His friends and neighbours even got up a petition to keep him and his family in the community after his residential status came through. An indication I think of the affection people have for him.

I was proud to be pictured with him at the opening of a new community building recently and I look forward to his contribution to our community for years to come.

Things REALLY can only get better.

Haven't blogged much of late.

Number of reasons, started one of a personal nature and it just keeps going on, is one. But mostly because, in a good and bad way, everyone is already talking about politics.

Seems everyone has an opinion again suddenly. Mostly the sort of unhelpful, negative cynicism that makes me despair but people are really getting interested again. Many in a positive way. It's been many years since I can remember so many people joining the Labour party in such a short space of time. Which is really optimistic for the future. Seems there is a generation out there who agree with me that it is time to stop walking away and complaining, stop absolving yourself of responsibility because you can't agree on every last detail and return to the 'broad church' or the 'collective wisdom'.

We have a common foe too, that makes a difference.

Reclaiming the Democratic Socialist party that is Labour really can't be far away now.

#dadfail !

In a tribute to fathers day I'm going to recount the conversation I had with number one son yesterday.

As I am busying about the house, preparing for yet another disastrously popular BBQ (I had no idea so many of my family and friends were alcoholics!), boy (10) starts watching ZULU the movie.

For anyone who doesn't know the story (you need to watch it at the next opportunity), it is a dramatisation of the real events at Rorkes Drift in South Africa. Where a handful of British soldiers (portrayed as Welsh because it was a welsh regiment though actually many were drawn from the Black Country and Birmingham) survived a sustained attack by around 4000 Zulus.

It's all about Heroism and is essentially a 'western'. I loved it as a boy, the stirring rendition of 'Men of Harlech' at the end swells even the most pacifist breast with pride.

Anyway, boy, as is his way, begins asking questions about the whole affair. I explain about the red jackets, the preceding battle of Isandlwana etc. and all is well. Then comes the curve ball. "why did they go all the way to Zululand to start fighting the Zulus anyway?"

Err...well...err.

What followed was a potted history of Imperialism, Colonialism and the exploitation of weaker nations natural resources by a Mighty military power. You know, the British Empire.

Boy was shocked. I felt like a failure. I had ruined a great film by unpicking the political backdrop. Why didn't I just say 'because they're the baddies' like everyone else would.

He ruminated on the new information for ten minutes. 'Well I think they should have just left the Zulus to live the way they wanted to' he then said.

Suddenly the boy was enlightened but was now rooting for the Zulus. This is going to be bad, I know how the film ends. He's in for disappointment.

I shared this #dadfail on Twitter. Many people rightly observed that I had in fact produced a intelligent, compassionate and wise boy. Which I am delighted to say that I have. I am hugely proud of his reaction.

But still slightly sad that I have spoiled the 37th best British film of all time for him.

And also for me.

Better stay away from the biblical epics for a while yet.

'Looking after our own'

The much used line of the BNP and their supporters is 'we can't help everyone, we have to look after our own'. Sounds, like so much of their masquerade policies these days' pretty reasonable if you are that way inclined.

One thing that occurs to me about it though is how short sighted that is. We enjoy a fabulously high standard of living in the UK compared with the rest of the world. We take it for granted. Support for the view above shows how much we take it for granted. But it is built on the exploitation of people overseas. The cheap consumer goods that we all assume to be ours by right are mostly made by people in sweat shops in the far east or Indian subcontinent. They earn little and live poorly so that we can all afford the goods cheaper. We send the broken stuff back to them often too, reducing their standard of living rather than our own. Companies relocate their call centres and factories etc. something we all object to, to make their business more profitable and our goods cheaper. We only complain about the out-sourcing though, never the lower costs that come with it.

My point I guess, and it's a quick one, is that we do not live in isolation and the things that make this country what it is have always been based on some level of exploitation abroad. Whether the Empire as was or the imported goods as now.

Complain about the cost to this country of overseas aid and inward migration all you want. But face the responsibility and consequence of the good life you are seeking to protect.

Not a very proud day for Yorkshire or the North West.

I'm rarely on the same page as the dwellers on the 'wrong' side of the Pennines. It's a white rose/red rose thing, we have history. But as my pride in Yorkshire was tarnished on Sunday, so my feelings for the North West were reborn. We are truly brothers in arms now, sharing the pain and shame of our fascist MEPs. We have let the nation down together and have to live with it until we can regain our honour and get rid of them.

My home town of Barnsley has a particular problem, 16.7% of the voters here voted Nazi. I'm even less proud of that fact.

There are a number of reasons why this happens here. Labour is weakening, we suffer from the disenchantment of the left wing of the Labour movement who are increasingly distant from the New Labour leadership that dictates policy. And I say dictates because we find as staunchly socialist members our voice is seldom the guide in policy making. Members have leaked away alarmingly as the party has chased the marginal middle ground and somewhat taken for granted the party heartland areas like ours. Only in party terms have we been taken for granted, we have had all the help we could have hoped for as an area under this Labour government. But the Labour vote has shrunk as the Labour membership has shrunk and there are fewer and fewer of us left to campaign and tell people how much we are actually doing for them. We are still in power because it is obvious to most people just how far we have come.

The LibDems are virtually inactive, the Tories, well they're Tories and this is Barnsley so there aren't a lot of options if you don't want to stick with us.

It is more complex though. My wife, who grew up in a multi-cultural area in the Black Country, once said that moving to Barnsley was like travelling back in time to the 1950s. As she was shutting up and putting the kettle on, I found myself having to agree. There has been no historical diversity here. We had the wonderful Charlie Williams, that was about it.

Times are changing though and places like Barnsley are finding it difficult to adjust. Where there is so little ethnic diversity (less than 3%) any is pretty remarkable and frightening to people who think they don't have much to share.

And frighten them the BNP have. Campaigning hard across the borough. They set up stall in the town centre every Saturday and spout lies and distortion, partial facts and fabrication. People can see change, so the Nazis have told them it is bad change and they should fear it and fight it.

In an area where pay is low, work is hard and around 20,000 people live on benefits, there is an appetite to blame 'someone else'. It's easier than the alternatives.

For anyone who thinks their voters aren't racist, I can tell you that most of them really are.

There are of course the ignorant and the deluded among their supporters. Those who believe the hype and don't question it too deeply. But mostly they just don't like 'foreigners' because 'they get everything' and we get nothing. Wrong and racist. Like the party they are now voting for.

On the upside, we have finally stopped ignoring them and hoping they'll go away (something some of us have been saying was wrong for years) and are now fighting back.

The vote this year for the BNP was down by more than a thousand from last years local elections (around 15% lower)on the same turnout. And after they've thrown the kitchen sink at the town in terms of campaigning, it's clear they have peaked and are now failing as they always do. People are seeing through the front they put on and realising the evil beneath. It is a pattern that, thankfully, follows wherever they have been in Yorkshire.

We are going to see them off now, campaigning harder then ever to expose their lies, their criminality and their bigotry. There are far too many good people here to sit by and allow the fools and the racists to vote the BNP into office.

We've made that mistake once now. It isn't going to happen again.

Are they our fault too ?

I've long harboured the belief that the third way was a dangerous ideological course.
Like many very sensible ideas, it is, in practice, flawed.

The current state of politics seems to bear that out.

Some time ago, for reasons that were misguided, campaigning became a science.
We all became obsessed with 'turning out our vote', profiling the electors, working to the 'marked register' of voters etc. I think that has damaged democrasy. We complain about voter turnout falling and then spend most (in some cases all) of our time just talking to the people who voted last time. We largely ignore the non-voters and then wonder why they don't start voting. We don't do that here, because I believe that if what you say is right the majority will support you, we have courage enough to let the public decide without trying to manipulate them by 'focussed' campaigning on only those we know support us already. That's partly why membership has dropped so badly too. A limited pool of supporters just dwindles, where is the new intake coming from?

And so it is with the obsessive pursuit of the 'middle' ground of voters. People are turned off by it. By 'scientifically' searching for the most popular line to capture the vote, I think we are cheating the people and being cowardly. Give them a choice, trust them to make it. Put real clear space between Labour and Conservative. The notion of the Third way as a political solution has brought us to the point where people no longer trust politicians and no longer respect politicians. Because politicians no longer tell us what they passionately believe in and ask for our votes, they tell us what we want to hear and try to 'capture' our vote.

This is why people say 'they are all the same', we argue with them about that, maybe they're right.
This is why people say 'they can't be trusted', because we don't let ideology guide us and show that we believe what we say.
This is why people say 'we don't believe in them', because we, in return aren't believing enough in the them. We aren't setting out our stall and having faith enough to let them decide.

This is why, people are turning to extremists. Not because they buy into everything they say, but because they want to exercise a choice. They need a choice to have.

The nationalist lunatic elected to the mayoralty of Doncaster is the best example. He campaigned to everyone, he set out his policies warts and all and he was the only one in Doncaster to do that. And despite his awful rhetoric and extremist lunacy the people voted for him. It was our failure, as it will be if the Bnp win Euro seat, that did this. We cannot hide from that any longer.

If we are to put the interests of the country first, before party, we have to look long and hard at what this means. It is in none of our interests to deliver the country into the hands of the far right Nazis. WE have to have the courage to face that, whatever it may mean for the Labour party in the short term. It's our duty to protect people, not from making their own mistakes, but by being there when they have and rebuilding the country with them afterwards.

'Time for the ship to leave the sinking rats'

If the Expenses crap has taught us anything, it is that the public take a simple and correct view, Duty comes before Personal Gain. Clearly it has taught some people nothing.

The political world is full of personality and that is by no means always a bad thing. But when it spills over as it has this week, no more so than today, it is the worst thing of all. With politics at it's lowest reputational ebb, with the far right Nazi party pushing for a breakthrough and with so much hope developing over the economic recovery signs, now just wasn't the time.

More importantly on the eve of an election, it is inexcusable. For all her faults (and they aren't as many as some people seem to think) I always believed Hazel Blears would put Labour first no matter what. I feel disappointed, I feel angry and I feel let down. The fact that, no matter what the personal dispute between her and the PM, she wouldn't 'suck it up' for 48 hours disappoints me utterly.

By Friday she could have done this and been supported for it, but by doing it today she has kicked the hard-working party activists in the teeth as they pound the streets for Labour.

Though she is Blairite, from the wrong side of the pennines and a whole foot and half shorter than me, I always quite liked her. Though often disagreed with her on policy. She always seemed like a solid Party comrade who believed in the collective membership and supported the activists. She blew that away today.

If that is the depth that the senior Labour figures have descended to then it is time the membership took back the control that we have released to the leadership over the last 15 years. It's time for the ship to leave the sinking rats.

Why it's all our own fault.

It's a desperately depressing time for politics. There are Nazis all over the place, thankfully it appears not enough, but as many as 1 in 20 people are backing the Hitler lovers of the BNP. And the mind-numbing, saddening cynicism with the legitimate political parties brought on by the expenses and the spin and the distance from the electors.

Well, hands up, it's our fault. Labour has done this. We may not have been alone but we were the ones that made it happen.

The whole New Labour project is responsible. While I'm pretty left wing (old labour) I'm not wholly embarassed by some of the things we've done in the last 12 years, I'll patronise you with; the minimum wage, the social chapter, tax credits, the massive public building investment etc. down to free museums, tv licenses for pensioners and swimming for the old and young. I'm proud of these things, mostly because the conservative party would NEVER have done them.

But enough of the good stuff. Politics is screwed and so are we. And that's our fault too.

Here's why. The New Labour project was built on slick communications and spin. It was obsessed with doing things in a way that the public wouldn't react badly to. The whole expenses lunacy was created in a focus group meeting. Increasing the wages of MPs was found to be too controversial, but necessary, so they concocted a way to do it by stealth. By inviting 'supplement' by expenses. It wasn't an entirely new idea but we sold out to it. Rather than have the debate openly and act openly we took the path of least resistance and 'spun' it. We've done that on so many things, more and more intricate ways to dodge the hard debates and avoid having to convince the public about our argument.

That's New Labours ultimate failure. It lacks the courage of it's own convictions. It dare not make it's case and let the public decide. It was never prepared to stand or fail for what it believed in.

We stand now at our lowest ebb. Facing electoral armageddon and not because anyone thinks there is a better option. Not because the majority of the country isn't still fundamentally left leaning. But because they are sick of the arrogance, the spin and the deceit. They are onto us, they always were, and they are right.

If we believe that something is the right thing to do we should say so and we should do it. We shouldn't hide or spin it. If we believe in it, If we believe in ourselves then we must say so openly and honestly. The Public will back us with votes or they won't, that's their right and their duty. By trying to manage their response we insult them. I happen to believe that they will back us because I believe we are right and I think if we make our case they will too.

It's an easy trap to fall into. There are so many childish attempts to derail proper debate, to allow the media to frighten us into secrecy with their childish soundbite driven agenda. 24 hr news management has been allowed to turn us into this monster. In the age of the web 2.0 it will be impossible to continue to control or manage the debate and we should stop trying. We should never have given into it in the first place. But equally we now have more opportunities to make our case to have these debates. The public are just as aware of the idiotic news agenda and the cheap way they present things out of context and laden with their own 'spin'.

It's time we stopped fearing the public and controlling public. It's time we realised that they are OUR boss. And they got that job on merit.

Enough of 'what's wrong with it', how about 'what's right with it' ?

I thought I would wade in to the reform debate, as the media and their willing thralls, the public, are dissecting our British democracy and coming up with ever more extreme ways to change it. As opposed to the people in it, which has been the actual problem. Unless you really fell for the whole 'it's the system that's wrong not the fact that I trousered thousands to secure the electric fence around my servants quarters' argument. Did you ? Really?

I thought not.

So, among the many deficiencies we have in our ancient system, some of the chief debates have been around the number of MPs and the party system. Two things I think have a lot going for them.

I heard on the radio the other day, some guy saying we had too many MPs and in India they only had 600 for 700 million people. Try ringing them with your problem though. Indeed, try going to see them at their constituency office 1500 miles away. It is precisely the locality and accessibility of our MPs that make our system more genuinely responsive than any I know. If you want to speak to your MP on 99% of occasions you can, within a day usually. You can call them, write to them or go to their office and meet them. Unless, they are hiding from you, like some have been recently. But even Andrew McKay had to face his constituents in fairly short order. And if you can't, or they don't respond, they will be kicked out at an election. No other system gives the people such an easily accessible MP. They are almost as accessible as us councillors, and for the same reasons.

The other issue is the party system and the new wave of 'independent' candidates. Everyone has a right to stand, let's say that now and make sure that we are clear. But for those of you who thinkn it's a great idea to have celebrities you think you know (but probably don't know as well as you think) standing for parliament, I have just two words for you, Kilroy Silk.

Now, I know, that he is among the worst examples and there are good ones. Oscar winning actress Glenda Jackson turned out to be a fine MP and Michael Cashman (Colin from Eastenders, for our younger viewers) is a very good MEP and politician. But Martin Bell was hopeless and Kilroy was worse and Boris only got to be Mayor because of his celebrity profile and..well..embarassed much? They are as 'hit and miss' as anyone else I guess but the real issue is their 'independence'.

I know a thing or two about this, here in Barnsley the main opposition is from Independent councillors. They are not Independent at all, they form a political group and always vote according to their leaders orders (more often than the Labour group does actually!) As for what they stand for, who knows? They are such a mixed bag of Labour-splitters, Tories who can't admit to it (because it's Barnsley), Racists, Idiots and one or two genuine community reps that it is impossible to get a coherent sense of policy or direction. And this is where the party system scores.

When the public go to vote they tend not to do a lot of research. They tend to vote on a simple basis and all the research shows it is mostly by party. They do this becasue the party label gives them at least a reasonable guide to what the person they are voting for thinks about the issues. The parties have vetting and training and that gives the voter some security in their selection. Independents don't. So when Esther Rantzen stands as an anti-sleaze candidate the questions you need to ask are; Where are you on the NHS? What about education investment, What's your foreign policy direction? Because for all your consumer campaigns and your fundraising to set-up Childline (all very laudible) we don't know much about you or your views.

You might be a champion of the free market in Healthcare, a fan of Grammar schools and the 11+, you may even want to carpet bomb Belguim as a warning to others. Who knows? So for you and Terry Waite, Lynn Foulds-wood, David van Day and all the other 'famous' people wanting to turn politics into the American 'personality' farce, I say, hold on a minute. I'm not sure I want Shwarzenegger here, or Clint Eastwood or Jerry Springer as a mayor someplace. I like them and all but I want someone who is committed to the job, the place, the people and an actual set of beliefs that will guide them and allow me to have faith that when they are off making decisions on my behalf that they'll be making the right ones, the ones I might make.

Being 'famous' is, in my view, a second job. And that's a whole other rant.

If HE goes, SHE goes !

I'm a Republican. There. I've said it.

Not an American-style, right-wing, warmongering, creationist republican you understand. An 'I believe in the people', stop funding the Royals and retire them, political reformist republican.

I don't subscribe to the apologists for the antiquated system of cap-doffing to the crown. I take the view that an accident of birth is no qualification to own half the country. Especially since it was hard-won, built and defended by the many men and women of this country who deserve better.

Anyway, I could rant about this all day, I often do. The reason I raise it today is twofold. First, the ridiculous spectacle of the Queen wading into the expenses row and complaining about public figures living it up at the taxpayers expense. HELLO!!!! er...civil list? Palaces? Don't we pay for furniture and repairs on your seventeenth home madam??? WHO DO YOU THINK PAYS TO HAVE YOUR MOAT CLEANED?!?!?

But, secondly and more importantly, she has now invited all the members of the London Assembly to one of her garden parties. We pay for those too by the way. This includes one Richard Barnbrook, the BNP member. Who will, apparently, be taking his mate Nick Griffin as his 'plus one'. Charming. Fascists at the palace. I don't know why this suprises me (yes, I have heard Prince Philip) but it really does.

This CANNOT stand. If she wants to wade into political debates then she better step up to the plate and tell them they aren't welcome.

I'm starting a campaign. A nice simple one. If HE goes,SHE goes! Permanently.

Who's with me?

A family trip to an anti-fascist march

Me, the wife and kids, all went into Barnsley on saturday morning. Nothing unusual about that you might think. We weren't shopping or anything though, or visiting one of our many fantastic town centre market events. We were there for the Unite against Fascism march to oppose the presence of the BNP in the town centre where they peddle their lies and hate every week.

There were a good number there, from all types of organisations, political, trade unionist, church, student and other were all united in our fear and loathing of the extreme right and their policies of hatred and division.

I was proud to have my kids there. I was prouder still that they really understood why.

We all had our reasons for being there on saturday and for our commitment to oppose the rise of Nazi parties which is so sadly occuring across the world again. Just as the memory fades so the human race makes the same mistakes again.

My reason for being there was simple. My grandfather fought for this country in the war. He risked his life to fight the German Nazis in North Africa and he did the same alongside Montgomery against the Italian Fascists at places like Montecassino. It was here he earned one of his many medals for bravery. Last month the leadership of the BNP scum were in Italy shaking hands and swapping Nazi salutes with the ancestors of Mussolini and his extreme right wing thugs.

It made me furious. It made me more angry on Saturday that the uneducated skin headed yobs of the BNP were waving the flag, my flag, the flag my grandfather fought for and wore so proudly on his sleeve while they were secretly conspiring with the forces that sought for so long to undermine everything it stands for.

It dishonours his memory and the memory of all the heroes like him to see Nazis waving that flag. It would shame me to stand idly by while they get away with it. And, if they secure a seat in the forthcoming elections, it will shame us all that we didn't do enough to stop it.

I won't be partisan, I'll be voting Labour because that's who I am and I'd obviously like you to do the same, but for anyone reading this who can't do that I just ask that you get out and you vote for anyone but the BNP. That is the very least you can do and it will, no matter what else you disagree with me on, bring us together in a common cause. Exactly what Fascism seeks to destroy. Don't let it happen.

The Public Purse and Me. In answer to a question.

I was asked by a reader, after announcing my expenses for the year, what my allowance was. It's public knowledge and anyone has a perfect right to know.

The basic allowance for a ward councillor in Barnsley is £10k. That includes a lot of the costs too though, like your communications and stationery budget (Phone bills, Stamps, printing etc.) It's pretty good I think for the ward work and committee stuff. The work amounts to about 2 to 2.5 days a week so it equates to about £9.60 an hour. Which is a good rate. I reckon that when you deduct the costs that are built it's nearer 7.50 an hour. No complaints but bearing in mind the evening and weekend element and the permanent 'on call' position, it's not much more than minimum wage with anti-social hours supplement really.

Because I'm a lead cabinet member I also get an additional Special Responsibility Allowance of £14k.

A cabinet role is a completely different position. It's a full time job in effect, I actually average 50 to 60 hours a week with the amount of stuff to read and research. It still includes all the ward work, but some committee work is done differently as an executive member. It's a bit less than I was earning before I was elected and the biggest worry is, I have what amounts to a fixed term contract too. I would never have accepted a new job on a lower rate and certainly not on a fixed term basis. The particular worry about political positions is I could end up out of work, even though I think I do a good and professional job for the council and my constituents, because of National events which are out of my control. I end up with a 4 year hole in my CV that doesn't really skill me for much else. This is not the sort of gamble I need with my career having three young children. I understand why younger working men and women are reluctant to stand.

I don't consider this to be a career in itself but it is a calling. I stood originally because I looked at the council, the average age of which is above the national average of almost 60, and thought 'how can this body make decisions about education when they were parents so long ago?' and 'how can retired people, who probably only had one or perhaps two jobs in their lives, understand the concerns of working people today who have had an average of 6-8 jobs by the time they are 40?'. Times change and political bodies must reflect the society they represent.

It's a decent 'wage' and I'm not complaining. I could, if I was like some councillors, claim for every trip to the town hall and every other journey and other costs besides but I don't. I don't because most of the people I represent don't get to so I don't want to. Actually all people are entitled to claim for travel to work at a place other than their normal one (thanks to Labour and the Trade Unions). I just don't because I think I earn enough. It's not something I talk about, I don't use it as a campaign gimmick, it's my working class principles I suppose.

Standing for election in the first place represents a pretty hefty cost, in both time and money. That is, and really shouldn't be, a factor that puts people off. I say this because it is impossible to separate the financial from the public service parts of standing for an elected position. We've heard the nonsense about doing it for the honour but I don't eat honour and the shops don't take it as currency. It IS an honour and a privilege, but it can't be left to only those who can afford to do it for free (like the retired or the wealthy) and it shouldn't be punitive for people who live in the real world either (like most people I know).

So that's my relationship with the public purse. And some of the whys and wherefores.

Judge me. That's your job.

The Leopard (and the despicable, uncaring, right-wing fossil) never changes its spots.

So I read with interest that 'on your bike, leave your family and community behind' Tebbit has finally thrown in his lot with the tax-dodgers elite of UKIP. Don't vote for the main parties he says. Don't concern yourself with whether your local council performs or who will represent you in Europe. Give up your democratic rights and just make a pointless and dangerous gesture of protest that will last a day and condemn the nation to the shame and ridicule of more Nigel Farage and Godfrey Bloom for years.

At least, the man who once observed that 'the nation is not possessed by an overwhelming urge to fill the shadow Cabinet with 25-year-old black lesbians and homosexual, asylum-seeking Muslims.' and was described by fellow Tory Steve Norris
as 'a racist and a homophobe', did urge people not vote BNP.

Well, almost. He didn't quite say that. He wouldn't would he, being a racist and homophobe. He'd be right behind them wouldn't he.

He has a bigger problem with the BNP apparently in his warped and fossilised Thatcherite brain. He doesn't want people to vote for them because he thinks they are 'socialist'.

His tentative grasp on reality, which lets face it was only ever as firm as his wizened old claw could manage, has finally gone completely.

New campaign; When Thatch succumbs to her much anticipated demise lets bury Tebbit alive at her feet, Egyptian Lapdog style. Who's with me ?

My expenses in full

£64.
For the year.
It was for travel.
I don't usually claim at all but I'd been sent to three distant places in the same week and it was costing me.
So I claimed one. It was Coventry I think.
Thanks.

75 years of Labour

I don't say it often enough, in fact I'm forever picking at his faults, but I have a massive amount of respect for the Leader of the council here in Barnsley. I was reminded of why in a meeting with him today. Listening to him talk to visitors about the town and what we want to do for it was, as it often is, a very positive and inspiring experience. Though if you tell him I'll deny everything.

We recently celebrated 75 of Labour control of Barnsley Council. It's a an impressive record and I hope it will continue to a century without being broken. It will be a real challenge though.

It isn't a challenge because I've lost faith in Labour. I'm never going to do that, no matter what the leadership clique at the head of my party does next. I'm not sure my faith in them is as unshakeable. In Barnsley we have never lost sight of where Labour came from and what it still means.

For the first 50 years in Barnsley there were three pillars which supported the town. British Coal, the National Union of Mineworkers and Barnsley Council. It was a paternalistic arrangement among it's many other faults, but it worked and we thrived. Recessions came and went and coal went on, so Barnsley never noticed. It was a town built on Geology, not geography or travel like most towns but because of the coal beneath the ground. That was it's purpose, it's reason to be.

Of course, She came along, and two parts of that three-legged stool were kicked away.
The pits closed, the union was castrated and the economy collapsed. And worst of all the whole town lost it's reason to exist. The burden of this fell upon the last remaining pillar, Barnsley Council. The council has worked, with all our problems and all our hardship, to remake our town in the last 25 years. To raise it from the ashes and to give it new life and new purpose. To re-invent Barnsley as a town worth the name. And inch by inch, mile by mile we have strode forward and made things better. I read a depressing piece in the Times today about the BNP and a few people in Barnsley dismissing Labour as having 'done nothing'. What a strange world these people live in. Where business appears out of nowhere and jobs are created by magic. Where crime is reduced tenfold by imaginery means. Where houses are built and maintained by I know not who. While all the time, the council has done nothing. Economic development has only happened here because of BMBC. This town would have died without it.

It is a sad but very real prospect that Labour will eventually lose control here. We don't deserve anger at our national government to be our reward for the way we have stewarded this wonderful place through 75 years of history. The current Labour leadership here, and I'm proud to be one of them, doesn't deserve it to happen on our watch. Most importantly, the people of Barnsley, my people, The people who Labour exist because of, don't deserve to be left in the hands of leaders who don't share our commitment to their welfare. It's been a 75 year marriage, we've faced the ups and downs together and supported each other through them. That sort of marriage is built to last.

I will not tolerate intolerance!

Returning to an earlier thought; there are those whose political and personal views are so abhorrent as to be truly worthy of distaste.

From my point of view, as a pretty well travelled sort, who has been in some of the hellish places this world has to offer, this would include the BNP.

Now, and my leftist chums will blanche here, this does not apply to all of their supporters. I can no more bring myself to condemn their entire cohort than I can accept responsibility for everything that every member of my own mixed bag of party colleagues chooses to say/think/believe/do/shag/claim expenses for.

This is mostly due to an incident from my youth. I remember being in America in the eighties and being held responsible (in a polite debating way) for 'my' governments foreign policy. Me. Responsible in any way for Thatch? No! That's so unfair! Just because I'm English...

So, as a believer in democracy and debate, I have to engage with the nationalists arguments. Utterly wrong and often totally reprehensible as they are. They need to be debated. Putting our fingers in our ears and shouting 'la-la-la' just isn't going to work. It's the sort of division they thrive on.

All that said, I'm also a serial protester and accept that sometimes it just has to be the way. So I am delighted beyond measure that when the truly appauling criminal, convicted holocaust denier (Dachau and Aushwitz are a couple of the places I include in my earlier travels), racist, bigot, homophobe and crackpot Nick Griffin came to my town last night he was greeted with well over two hundred people wishing him ill. Loudly. And that the meeting he hoped would be chock full of hundreds of locals was populated only with a few dozen, shipped in, hardline Nazis. Trade union banners, Students and Musicians were all there to protest his very presence in an area his beliefs and policies would destroy.

The message was clear, you will not ban our trade unions, they have and always will bring us hope and support when we need them most. You will not dismantle the welfare system, it too has been a light in the darkness when capitalism has turned it's back on Barnsley. You will not divide us by race, religion or sexuality, you will not divide us at all, we stand united and with generosity as among the poorest areas we are the largest givers to charity. You will not prosper here Griffin, not you or your criminal, gun toting henchmen who live among us preaching hate and despair.

Selfish politics has never been the way. That is what nationalism is, selfish. Just like Thatcherism.

Soon, I hope, it will be chased back into the shadows where it came from.

In which I am all over the shop, literally.

'You've been very quiet this week Tim'

'Yes I suppose I have, thanks for noticing'

'Why is that ?'

'Well, imaginary questioner, even though you asking me is clearly a sign of a deepening mental illness, I'll tell you, I've been in London.'

There is a surprising amount of travelling in this job. You would think being a ‘local councillor’ you would be...well...local, mostly. I suppose in the beginning, when I was just a plain old ward councillor it wasn’t so bad. It was pretty much walking around my ward, Royston, which was handy because that’s where I live. I spent a lot of time walking about Royston anyway so it wasn’t a major strain. There were the occasional trips to Barnsley, for various council meetings of course but it’s not like that’s very far away. Oh, and once a month there was the planning board meeting, where those of us on the board were put on a bus and driven around the borough to look at stuff. It helped us to make more informed decisions about major planning applications. Apparently.

In actual fact we were driven around to see the places where stuff would be, if we gave people permission to put it there. So I suppose we were just driving round looking at places. Mostly empty places. And imagining the stuff, and what the empty places might look like if it was there. I’m making it sound more exciting than it really was. Anyway it was travelling, that’s the thing I’m getting at.

The consolation for this thrilling bus trip around the empty places of Barnsley was
that after we’d done, and before the actual meeting proper in the afternoon, we would get a lunch. It was like the bait to get us on the bus. Think of it as a lamb chop on a bit of string dangling above the bus door. Actually, that might have been cheaper AND worked better.

Essentially, this was the extent of the travelling for me as a regular ward councillor.

After only a year though, as penance for my apparent adequacy, I was immediately hurled into the senior ranks of the cabinet. My portfolio, `Corporate Services’, didn’t immediately strike me as one that would attract a lot of mileage.

I have,as you may have noticed explained what ‘Corporate Services’ is. I think the job description goes into more detail, HR, ICT, Communications, Policy and Performance, Equalities are all in there but what you really need to know is, that’s quite a lot of stuff.

It soon became evident, that being in the ‘executive’ meant working for Barnsley, but quite often outside Barnsley.

There are regional boards, national conferences, a national government which exists primarily in London and occasionally there are awards (regional and national).
It’s the awards that are the really plum gigs. Usually evening affairs, costly, because I have to get my own full dinner jacket outfit (unlike my MP comrades I don't get expenses for stuff like that), but often entertaining. Especially if you get to be a winner.

The ‘local government awards’ is the biggie. It’s like the Oscars except for every possible thing. But it’s big for us. When I went last year, we were up for two. Didn’t get either but the food was good and Jon Snow was a genial host. And unlike the rest of the party from Barnsley I slept soundly that night and didn’t have to stand in Regents Street in my PJs for an hour at 4 in the morning while the fire brigade were at work. Luckily those of us on the top three floors of the hotel were not disturbed by either the sirens or indeed the fire alarm which failed to function on those floors. Of course, I was less happy when I discovered this in the morning, what with the narrow escape from the threat of a hideous burning death and all.

Last year also saw a South Yorkshire win at the 'third sector' awards (that's voluntary and charity). It was held at the prestigious (evidently) Hurlingham Club. No, I'd never heard of it either but my wife, whose job it is to know such things, informs me it's a millionaires fun house, Jonathon Ross plays tennis there (Though I didn't see him. Mind you, it was dark) that sort of thing. I did see his brother Paul though, who was hosting. And the Blokes from Aardman animations who were getting an award for the disabled creature comforts adverts. They are eccentric little men.

This week has been the National Digital Inclusion 2009 conference. We launched our big scheme to get everyone in Barnsley online within 3 years. We smugged a lot about the £100 million we got in the Budget for our South Yorkshire broadband infrastructure too. It was a real success for us, mostly because for the first time I can ever remember, Barnsley is the national leader. In fact, we will be the world leader in broadband technology. Barnsley. My town. How ace is that? I'm smugging again.

But it was a big part of a very busy week and has kept me from blogging. It didn't keep me from my branch meeting though, where I was unanimously reselected as the Labour candidate for the Royston Ward in next years local elections. Thanks to my branch and colleagues for the vote of confidence.

The branch is the nearest meeting I have to my house and the 'award' of selection is the one which I am probably most proud of.

There's a punchline or moral somewhere there about travelling.

It's been a long week though, so you'll have to figure it out for yourself.

My secret shame..

I'm usually quite scathing about people who can't disagree on politics without the bile-ridden personal animosity that all too often results. Politics at the moment is poisonous and it's a terrible state of affairs. I always get the hump when I'm out and about 'politic-ing' and someone just hears the word 'Labour' and, without knowing anything else about me, has a passionate dislike for me immediately. It's sad.

I like to debate politics with people and talk about policy and choices. It's healthy. I have many friends who are nowhere near me on politics but who I like to listen to. It is sometimes a reality check for me. I had a friend at university who was a euro-sceptic arch-tory and devout mormon creationist. We could not have been more different in our fundamental philosophy but I enjoyed his company and liked to 'get into it' with him about the stuff we disagreed on.

So I always try to stop myself from doing the same thing, from taking a position on someone based on their political label. My secret shame is; I do it with celebrities.

I'm putting my hands up and admitting it.

When I read a tweet from curly-haired QI stooge Alan Davies recently and realised that he had had the same party member e-mail as me, I liked him more. I'd been a bit indifferent to him before.

When fish-lipped wannabe-estate-agent Kirsty Allsop started working for Cameron's tory rabble I stopped approving of her full-figured TV presence and began to be annoyed by her. Especially her voice. It grates on me now.

I know it's wrong but I can't help myself. And I keep finding out more and more about people and their politics.

Kate Garraway, was very annoying on GMTV, met her at this years party conference and, despite her marriage to infamous clod Derek Draper, she is clearly 'one of ours'. I like her now. She isn't the lisping chunky idiot she looked on telly, she's quite petite and charming, and stylish. Kay Burley from SKY is another, she's not easy to like, but seeing her in a Labour club helped. I forgive her abrasive style and arrogant manner. Actually that hair colour suits her.

Nancy Dell'olio was at conference this year too, I was in a lift with her. Telly doesn't do her justice, it turns out it isn't all just painted on. Izzard was there too, but I already liked him.

Sometimes it is acceptable to do this feeble partisan judging of people. Like when Jade Goody, who I always disliked on every possible level, was asked if she would take legal action over her cancer mis-diagnosis she said no because she thought it was wrong for people to sue the NHS. That's just admirable socialism, I liked her very much for that.

Which brings me to the incident which made me 'fess' up to my weakness. I was listening to one of the BBC hatchet jobs on the budget this week and they were talking 'top-rate tax'. They had Michelle Mone on as a successful business type to discuss it. Now, there are many reasons to like the six-foot former model and millionaire lingerie magnate Michelle Mone, perhaps her delightful scots lilt, maybe her working class pedigree, I dont know. But I have been drawn to her previously. Listening to her self interested rant about how she had talked to her friends and they had concluded that they ought to flee Britain and live in a country where they could keep more of their millions safe from the clutches of 'redistribution to the needy' I had somewhat of an epiphany about her. Her admirable self confidence is now just smugness, her success is exploitative and her nose is big and funny-looking.

I'm weak and pathetic, I know, I'm ashamed. I can't help it.

Regional Minister happy too

Rosie Winterton chuffed with Budget measures for Yorkshire

Jobs, No cuts and a £100 million investment.

In amongst all the scare-mongery and right wing economic foaming at the mouth there was a budget yesterday.

A lot of people who will now be paying a new higher tax rate have been on the telly or writing busily for their newspapers about how terrible it all might be.

A few, like Jim Davidson, are packing up to fly off and join Phil Collins in a tax haven somewhere because they've earned their money and don't want see it taken off them and given to some pensioner or schoolchild who has done bugger all at the London Palladium to deserve it.
Well to hell with them (and in the case of the racist/sexist/offensive scumbag and toeless moron, good riddance). Maybe it's just me but I don't much like being blackmailed by 'entrepreneurs' saying 'we'll leave if you tax us too much.' If you want to do business here, you can pay tax here.

In Barnsley, it is pretty much universally good news. Excepting the penny on a pint and two more on a litre of fuel. But that won't kill us. Not like losing a job, or an entire industry, which is what happened when the tories faced recession and what they say they would do again now if they were in government.

We've got money to save jobs and even create new ones here. That will protect us better than a tax cut would. Certainly better than massive service cuts would.

We've got to find savings in the council budget, but not much more than we expected to already and we just dug out an extra £5 million this year without a single service cut or, more importantly, a single redundancy as a result. And that has all been spent giving money back to Barnsley people with council tax freezes for some, free sports and travel for others and support for all.

And best of all, the pledge on new technology investment includes our South Yorkshire scheme for a next generation, state of the art, broadband infrastructure. Something that will bring in more companies and jobs, help business which is already here and support our economy for years to come. Not to mention the £100 million plus investment that comes straight in to build it.

Of course the tory establishment are almost apoplectic over debt levels. Debt will be nearly 70% of GDP. That means we will owe 70% of what we make in a year. Shocking. Mind you I have a mortgage, like a lot of people, so I owed 175% of my personal GDP when I took it out. Doesn't worry me too much. Japan has debt levels about the same as me. As a percentage, obviously, not the same amount.

Actually the US, Canada, Russia, France and Germany all have debt levels which are a higher percentage of their GDP than ours. And they are all doing what we are doing and borrowing to invest.

In Barnsley, we know what happens when you don't keep people in work. Income goes down, benefits go up and society collapses. That's the tory alternative again. We know here how bad that would be, in fact a leading Tory policy paper concluded last year that our economy in Barnsley had never recovered from the 1980s. It isn't just me that says so, they do too. That's 25 years ago. Remember THAT when you see that ****** Cameron talking about a decade of problems. (NB deleted word is not 'David')

So while the carping southern media and tory sponsoring bankers and economists weep and wail about the budget, just remember where they were when it was they who were getting rich and places like Barnsley that had 30-40-50% unemployment in the 1980s. They were nowhere, just quietly coining it in and ignoring the carnage being wrought in the North. We were a price worth paying, they said, for prosperity in the south east.

So we'll enjoy our moment in Barnsley, we'll continue to use our money wisely and we'll consider the wealth tax and the half percent on National Insurance to be the price worth paying for economic protection here. And most of all we'll try very, very hard not to lose too much sleep over Rupert Murdochs tax bill, Jeremy Paxmans investments or the pension prospects of all those poor darlings writing for the Daily Mail.

Happy St. Georges day!

Hooray for brave St. George!
He's one of my very favourite Turkish people.
How typically uneducated of the BNP to rally behind a refugee as a way to attack others and behind someone who travelled the world defending the abused minorities in order to foster their doctrine of hate and division.
Also Happy St. Georges day to all my German chums! For he is of course their patron saint too! Not sure what flag they'll be flying though..
Likewise the good people Aragon, Catalonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Palestine, Portugal and Greece; and of Moscow, Istanbul, Genoa and Venice (where he is second to Saint Mark).
He's also patron saint of soldiers, archers, cavalry and chivalry, farmers and field workers, riders and saddlers, and he helps those suffering from leprosy, plague (and syphilis!!)
In recent years he has also been adopted as patron saint of Scouts, who will be marching past the Town Hall on Sunday.

Welcome Barnsley Chronicle Readers!

I'll start by filtering out that welcome if that's OK.

First, welcome to everyone, genuinely, I approve of and am delighted by anyone who is interested enough to find out for themselves about politics and the Internet. Now, if you are here to be shocked or outraged (or even just disappointed) then now is a good time to leave.

No, really, off you go. Would hate to offend any sensitive types like those moral guardians in the media for example.

I'm not selling my blog to you, if you want to read it that is up to you, but if you don't like what you read just remember you can, with a simple click of your finger, just turn me off and get on with your life. It's not like I've charged you 60p for lots of pages of mostly adverts before annoying you with my opinions. Not like some people do. That would be bad and you wouldn't get your money back. I'm free (apologies to John Inman) and you get what you pay for.

This isn't a council site, or a Labour party site. It's my own expense, in my own time which leaves me free to express my own opinion. Which I happen to believe is something you have a right to know. If you want to. You also have a perfect right to ignore it too. I'm not forcing you to read here.

I mentioned in previous blog entry about the fake morality that the press can portray to try and make a story. Today, the Barnsley Chronicle (I'll get back to them later) has tried exactly that on this blog. Desperate to find a issue they pick out one line in my bio (you'll see it in the corner there) and try to stir something up with it. I'm the cabinet member for 'everything nobody else wanted and that the leader can't be arsed with', wow (they say) wonder what the Leader thinks of that!?!? (nudge, nudge). Well he's heard me say it often enough as have most people who ask me about what I do, and it usually raises a rye smile. It's practically the national definition of 'corporate services' according to my opposite numbers in other authorities. They go on to talk about my 'foul-mouthed' tirade about the state of politics in this country. Well judge for yourself how my language is, I'm not changing any entries, (I wasn't exactly sure where they meant in truth?) but I do occasionally speak as plainly as everyone else I know.

If you want 'foul-mouthed' ask me to talk about the Barnsley Chronicle anytime.

What? now? OK!

I dislike the Chronicle. Well, no perhaps that's not fair, on principle I like local papers generally. It's the editorial policies and standards of the Chronicle I don't like. The Chronicle is, I should explain for the 90% of Barnsley who don't read it and for readers from outside the area, Anti-Labour. This in itself doesn't endear it to me, but wouldn't summon up the loathing I quite often feel toward it either. Anyone is entitled to be Anti-Labour, I know a lot of people who are, many of my friends are. Hell, listening to some of my 'colleagues' in Government, I have my days too recently. Where the Chronicle overstep the mark is by being Anti-Barnsley. The hatred the editor has for Labour and the desire to see Labour voted out has driven the Chronicle to become a propaganda piece for his own views. This, all too often, presents itself as a desperate attempt to talk Barnsley down in order to make the Labour council look bad. They refuse to report the success and the positive advances we have made here in the last few years and they damage the reputation of the town in doing so. It undermines our good work on things like education and social services because we spend so much time dealing with their petty nonsense and attempts to cause trouble and controversy. (see todays piece on this blog)

Around the country, Barnsley has a good reputation as a place and as a council. It is well respected and often a looked to as a leader and as an example of how to do things right. You won't hear that in Barnsley though. Conversely, when I meet other local press editors they chuckle about the Chron and it's political bias, it's a bit of joke in press circles apparently.

Now I don't want a sycophant paper. That's not what I'm saying. When we get it wrong I expect to get it in the neck, that's their job. But when we get it right for people in Barnsley they should know about that too. That's how it works in other places. Fairness. Balance. Proper local reporting.

It's a shame really, I periodically want to build bridges with the Chronicle, they could be such a useful partner in some of the work we want to do. I quite like some of their reporters, I feel sorry for them in many ways. Only last week I had genuine hope they might help us with a blitz on litter dropping and that would have been great. It's not real hope though, it never is, it's just another way to try and further their own political agenda at our cost.

Today though, perhaps they will have done me a favour after all. If anyone is reading this because of what they said, maybe they will read some more. And maybe, just maybe, they will like what they read. Who knows, even agree with some of it. But it will give us all the chance to be honest and straight with each other without the filter of a newspaper editor and his personal issues.

So, please leave a comment, good or bad (foul-mouthed if you are really annoyed! though I do, as you will see, usually edit the naughty words slightly) and if you want to know more sign up.

I'm all about dialogue. That's what Blogs are for. Let's have some...

Arguing.

It occurred to me this morning, as the Leader was telling me to stop shouting in the closed cabinet meeting, in case the opposition members or press outside heard me, that there is a problem with politics.

Yes, yes I know, 'No sh*t Sherlock?' There are loads of problems with politics, but one in particular caught my attention. Why is it that we can't argue properly any more?

If we argue with the opposition it too often spills over into stupidity and personal attacks. Too many people can't argue policy and issues without falling out. And worse than both of these is the terrible sin, what I was doing today, of arguing with my own party colleagues.

Arguing is, as a politician, part of my 'trade'. Making sure all sides of an issue or problem have been explored before a decision is made. That's what I was doing this morning, mostly. But because we have to appear totally united in front of opposition and media, I have to do it quietly.

So, let me ask you this; Do you believe that every cabinet is universally agreed on every issue?

Of course not. They would be failing in their job as a committee if they did. You might as well just have one..I don't know...err... elected mayor or something making all the decisions on their own. That would never work, it'd be rubbish. Absolute and utter bloody rubbish, just so we're clear. Anyway, if we accept that we think cabinets do disagree, in fact we expect and need them to, why do we have to hide it?

It could be the way the opposition try to use it to make us look inconsistent or hypocritical. Maybe it's because the media do the same thing, using our own arguments against us later. It does make a convincing case against us. But it shouldn't.

I have no difficulty arguing tooth and nail against something with cabinet, party or group colleagues and then, after the vote has duly gone against me, putting up my hand in council or anywhere else for the party line. That's how democracy works. I'm under no illusion that the people who voted for me mostly voted for Labour, so it's mostly the Labour position they expect me to take. Not just my own. I'm a firm believer in the party system, I think that it helps busy people who don't have time to scrutinize their candidates make an informed decision at the polling booth. I'd like to think people would find out more about the candidates but I'm realistic. Political parties help democracy.

It would be nice to think we could be open and honest all the time. It would be nice to stop pretending that we are all like one hive-mind who never disagree. It should be reassuring for everyone to see their politicians are individuals and have the brains to make policy the proper way, by arguing.

When it's bad news it's everywhere. When it's good...well...

Remember when the economy fell apart. Of course you do. It was in all the papers and the telly was full of it. Doom and it's seldom far away sidekick Gloom stalked the media overshadowing everything else. It's going to be dreadful for years they all said. Brown has lost his economic magic wand and all his ideas aren't going to work. He says there are things we can do that will get the downturn over quickly and save a lot of heartache for a lot more people but he can't they said.

Some things have happened in the last month or so which, considering the interest we all now have in economic affairs, and the massive media coverage of such things, you would think would have been front page/lead story material.

This for example;

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/apr/09/weak-pound-helps-exports

Great business news. Great economy news. The sort of news that, if reported widely, might stop companies making Knee-Jerk job cuts to save money now instead of making the investment in looking to export more.

This one too;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/propertynews/5075528/Mortgage-approvals-leap-by-19-per-cent.html

After all the 'hoo-haa' about banks not lending, the government (that's us by the way) laid it on the line for them and now they are doing what they are supposed to. Another story that needs to be told. Maybe it might reduce the number of building and development projects that are being shelved because of low confidence and risk aversion.

That one was from the Telegraph remember, who have an interest in talking things down, but couldn't disguise the positivity of those facts. This one is even more stunning, it's from the Doom-monger in general, the Daily Mail;

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1169013/Are-green-shoots-The-UK-economy-revive.html

The OECD said six months ago that we were three years from recovery at least. Smart action by world leaders (including again, ours) have made them seriously revise their forecasts. Particularly for us, who they originally said would suffer more and are now saying will suffer less.

And finally, from the people that brought you the Northern Rock panic, this gem ;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7995850.stm

The VAT cut that was an 'expensive failure' (David Cameron), 'would only make things worse' (George Osborne) and 'would do little for consumers it was designed to help' (Vince Cable) is, can you believe it, working.

There are still problems, rising unemployment (mostly in the North, hardly in the South) for example. News outlets were announcing that 'figures due out today are expected to show unemployment has gone over 2 million' every month for six months before they actually did, just. And people are worried, why wouldn't they be, the news is telling them to be, constantly.

But let's report the good when it happens. One swallow doesn't make a summer, I know that. Though it does indicate summer is coming. (And this is more than one.)

The question we should all be asking now is; why isn't all this stuff getting the headlines?

Why aren't the people who were talking the economy into an early grave now delighted to report that we may just be able to sleep a bit easier in our beds after all ?

Our own private world

Wow.

What a day in politics it's been.

Lots of people the public don't know have been all over the news all day. Culminating in a bloke almost nobody has ever heard of resigning for suggesting some things no-one would care about should be put on a blog that nobody outside the political in-crowd ever reads.

We've been awash with it in the political blogosphere. Apparently.

It'll rumble on tomorrow I expect. Across all the papers and TV.

That revolution that is happening in Moldova, the dozens of bombs exploding daily in Baghdad, the terrifying rise of the far right in Britain will all be ignored, again, so that computer geeks with opinions and no mandate can argue with each other for cash about trivia. Bill Gates really is taking over the world.

Then we can scratch our heads some more about why people are just switching off from the vital business of political activity. All the while cocooning ourselves in this secular world where we talk about each other and ignore the real business at hand.

It must be really easy to be like the top political bloggers and most of their followers. Personalising attacks and nay-saying everything with casual thoughtless cynicism without ever having to engage in the policy issues in a serious way. I could do that. I could look at someone like Daniel Hannan, another bloke 99% of the country have never heard of, and talk about how he is an 'oily, plummy twat' or 'posh public school oik who has never had to do a hard days work in his life' then pat myself on the back, publish and turn in for the night.

That's your Guido Fawkes way, apparently sometimes your Labour way too.

But where does this smug, lazy, self-absorbed garbage get any of us?

When I actually wrote about Hannan I wanted to talk about what he said of the NHS and why he was wrong.
When I wrote about yesterdays Daily Mail rubbish I wanted to explain why I thought the argument put forward was wrong and what I thought the real causes were.

This is the stuff we should be doing. Not name-calling and saying yah-boo. I don't care who is sexing who? What someone did at uni 20 years ago? Or who's husband stroke wife is stroking what over whatever.

I care about getting the policy, the country and my community right for the people who need it.

How are we ever going to get decent politicians, if we don't have decent politics.

Sometimes I just get angry...

Whenever I get Bloggers Block the instant cure is to visit the house of all things objectionable and wrong; the Daily Mail website. It has to be the website, I can't exchange my actual money for the 'hardcopy'. If I wanted to hold to hold stuff like that in my hand I'd fish some out of the local dog bins, it's free there.

Today's lump of astonishing right-wing tripe is a piece by Jan Moir. In which she explains to us all about how Edlington in Doncaster (scene of several truly horrible incidents culminating in last weeks shocking attack by two pre-teens on two other pre-teens) came to be the way it is. As someone who was born and bred in South Yorkshire, in what was a mining village, not unlike Edlington, I was very interested to read it. I fully expected to hear how the closure of the local coal mine, and neighbouring steel works had started the rot. How the accompanying closure of more than one hundred other mines and support works within a sixty mile radius of Edlington, more than two hundred country-wide made it almost impossible for workers to find other jobs or families to find other income. All this within a four year period, and all just to make the nationalised electricity generating company a more attractive share issue when the Tory government subsequently sold it off.

I also expected her to go on to highlight how the unemployment rates, which peaked in Edlington at 50% some ten years later, left whole communities ruined. How children grew up seeing their parents dumped onto benefits and desperate to get off but abandoned by the spiteful governments determination to punish them for their truculence during the strike that tried to stop them. How a whole generation, possibly two, saw education and skills bring no benefits and struggles against unemployment just bring depression and defeat. Suicide rates soared in South Yorkshire because lives were made cheap by a government that told us that we 'were a price worth paying for prosperity in the south'. Families changed to cope with these things, they become damaged. They were further damaged by conflicts that developed between the police and the rest of society here, creating divisions which help none of us and continue to this day. More damage still was done to the integrity of family life by the mass exodus of my generation, a trend which still exists.

All this has lead to the poorly educated, economically deprived, policing nightmares that are Edlington and places like them. Surely this would be the reason why such terrible things happen there.

Not a bit of it. The real reason for the social degradation in Edlington, according to Moir, is the welfare state.

The welfare state. The only thing that stopped most people there starving to death fifteen years ago. It's coddling them apparently, providing for their every whim and making them live in blissful ignorance. And who is going to solve this imaginary problem ? Moir has a champion in arch-tory Chris Grayling, a BBC news producer in the late eighties, lets not forget their role as Thatchers allies during the strike, altering film footage and producing propaganda against the strikers. Grayling and the tories will apparently now sweep in and solve the social problems of South Yorkshire by removing the safety net and abandoning us again. this time because they care, apparently. The poorest areas in Britain will be made poorer for their own good. And presumably, the regeneration efforts those of us here have worked so hard on, funded first by the EU and latterly by our own labour government will disappear too as the Tories pull away from the EU and use the UK money to give tax cuts, benefiting only those who pay lots of tax.

It's been long enough they think. People have forgotten they think. The lower class are scum and we can scapegoat them they think. Not on my watch. We in South Yorkshire remember.

Help, not judgement.

Support, not dismissal.

Labour, not tory.

Liberties, Responsibility and taking both.

I don't like the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008. There are many terrible, over-the-top measures in it, and it genuinely undermines many of our basic civil liberties. Particularly our rights to protest and interact with our elected parliament and government. It also contains the stupid section 76, which makes it an offence to photograph any police officer, at any time, in case it happens to provide assistance to any terrorist, any friend of a terrorist or any act which may contain either nuts or terrorism.

I know a number of people who have been dragged in under that section. Never once with the least justification.

Today, oddly, I'm all for it.

There was a big terror raid in the North West today. Rushed through because some twit in the force pulled the 'holding the file' blunder while walking into Downing Street. He's an idiot, nuff said. But what about the photographer who took the snap and the editor who decided to publish it? Could it be a more obvious case of photographing a rozzer and providing assistance to potential terrorism? I wonder then, when we can expect to see arrests? I'm not holding my breath.

I’m not advocating this, though I’m not averse to the idea for some journalists and editors either, but there was a time when this would have been a capital crime and for the first time ever I think the government should have stopped any publication. Something they could have done under existing legislation by the way.

Of course, it was also illegal under the same crazed legislation for anyone to film the assault on innocent bystander Ian Tomlinson which almost certainly lead to his death during the G20 protest.

Thank God some people did film it and this ridiculous law didn't put them off doing so.

Do you want Regular or Super?

I always feel sorry for the political spouse. They didn't (with a very few notable exceptions) sign up for this like we politician-types did. Those of us prepared to stand for public office accept a certain amount of scrutiny is necessary and desirable. Having the Daily Mail Journo's rooting through your bins is clearly beyond the realms of 'acceptable' but we know when we start down this road that it isn't like a normal position. The poor fools who marry us are seldom as aware and even more seldom as accepting of the unique position we are taking up.

So poor Richard Timney (Mr. Jackie Smith...The Home Secretary ?...have you been to the moon??) has all my sympathy for conducting his entirely normal business in the howling glare of a media whirlwind. He shouldn't have to put up with this. The media have really put him under the spotlight though. It happens all the time to the poor spouse. When the media, as they occasionally do, start on the kids too, it tends to dry up pretty quickly because we, the public, look darkly upon that. But the husband or wife of a politician seems to be fair game for endless cruel and bullying mockery. Whether it be how they look, what they do or any other thing they might be picked on for, there is no mercy. Of course, helping yourself to state sponsored 'hand-shandy' films is a bit of an open goal.

But to hear the endless nauseating debates about the state of the Home Secretary's marriage and the rights and wrongs of Porn, etc. just makes me cringe. Neither the politician nor the family shouldn't have to go through this. We don't volunteer to be moral leaders, just community leaders. We should stop trying to be both. Politicians doing what everybody else does is a good thing, having normal lives, normal problems and normal faults is a good thing. I don't subscribe to the Daily Mail, Victorian values approach, which feigns shock at normal behaviour and encourages outrage at the tiniest failing. We are 'representatives of the public'. In every sense, we need to represent what the public want and what the public are. If you expect us to be perfect you will get falsehood and inappropriate superiority.

You'll end up with the sort of politicians you really don't want.

My response to Tom Harris MP

Tom says on his latest Blog;

"

I REALLY hope The Whip is wrong in predicting that Labour strategists are planning to resort to the failed “Tory toff” tactics during the general election.

It didn’t work in Crewe and it won’t work in a nationwide contest. And I’m not against it just because it’s ineffective: even if I thought people would respond positively, I would still be against it.

But for most of my 25 years in the Labour Party I’ve argued for the notion that class warfare is irrelevant. And I’ve argued that Labour can only win by being the party of aspiration. Slagging people off for being wealthy and for having privileged backgrounds would be utterly self-defeating — literally and figuratively.

Cameron and Osborne would be bad for Britain, not because they used to be members of the Bullingdon Club or are former public schoolboys or whatever, but because their political philosophy and policies will damage and divide our nation.

And by focussing on class, we would effectively be conceding that we don’t have anything to say about Tory policies."

My response is this;

I agree that it was a poorly employed tactic in Crewe, but to just dismiss class as no longer an issue is wrong. The landscape may have changed but the new one has new problems.

The demonisation of the underclass by the right-wing is damaging and must be stopped. They need help not labels. The crazed pursuit of the middle class vote by all of us must stop, it is damaging politics. It leaves us seeking to serve the majority and excluding the groups we are duty bound to protect. And the ruling class image so crystal clear in Cameron, Osborne and Hannan but as worrying in some of our own ministers who were educated and trained into political office rather than thrust by events they could not ignore, will destroy politics entirely.
Representatives of the people must BE representative of the people. To allow the stately progression of the born wealthy, clique educated and socially privileged into government without highlighting that fundamental flaw in their credentials, that exclusive separation from the people they ‘represent’ would be unforgivable.

If we can do that rationally, by making the case, without following candidates round dressed as Butlers, then I don’t think it is a bad thing. More than ever, politicians need to be brought closer to the people, to come from the people, to be the people. That’s what democracy was supposed to be, not a form of elected aristocracy, which is what we are becoming.

A socialist experiment indeed.

So the new darling of the right, MEP Dan Hannan, has appeared on a (very, very) right wing US talk show and laid bare the conservative rights view of the NHS.

It is, he has decided, a failed socialist experiment, a mistake we poor Brits have had to suffer with for 60 years. Please America, he implores, do not follow our lead and socialise your healthcare provision, it will be disastrous.

Presumably he prefers the American system where, upon arrival at a hospital, the first question you are asked is not 'where does it hurt?' but 'what is your policy number?'. Get that question wrong and you'll be referred to a backstreet free clinic run by a charity, if you are lucky. If you are not then you will go untreated. What the right wing fails to acknowledge, on both sides of the Atlantic is that this is the biggest social issue in America. More than a quarter of Americans, almost 30% have no health insurance. When you look at lower income families that figure rises to almost 60%. When you look at people with chronic or long term conditions the figure is higher still. Presidents and presidential candidates have been wrestling with this issue and these stats for more than 20 years and still they get worse. As does the health of Americans.

I do not quote these figures to critique the US system though. I use it as a reason to be thankful for the NHS and it's principle guiding rule 'universally free at the point of need'. Whatever shortcomings it may have, that is it's success and there is no greater success in healthcare.
The apologists for Hannan are quick to join his prep school name calling of the NHS, quoting the 'estimated' 40,000 avoidable deaths in the UK each year. Estimates from a right wing think tank and estimates only.

It is easy for the wealthy and privileged to decry the NHS, they do not have to rely upon it, they have options. When my wife discovered a lump in her breast, we did not. The NHS was there for us, and after the dreaded diagnosis came her care has been of the highest standard. We did not have to worry about how we would fund her treatment, we just had to worry about her getting through it. Statistically it is true that her survival chances are slightly lower here than in the US. But if we factor in the lower income bracket we belong to, the US stats are far worse. What an indictment of any healthcare system it is, that income is such a determining factor.

If we wished to dwell upon the comparison though. What we now do not face is a lifetime of debt because of the cancer treatment as we would in the US. A lifetime of spending money on drugs to keep my children's mother alive rather than on their own life chances. Only the NHS offers this economic health insurance as a free extra.

Another reason for the right to hate our NHS is the staff. They demand that Nurses and Doctors treat patients and don't spend time filling in forms. But if you employ someone to fill in the necessary forms for them to make sure they are treating patients they cry 'there are more managers than doctors'. In the US, administrators actually do outnumber health care workers. In the UK that is simply a myth for those who seek to run the NHS down. The NHS is one of the five largest civilian employers on the planet. While this will make the right wing detractors foam at the mouth, I am proud of it, proud that again we gain an additional social benefit from it's existence.

Dan Hannan is a fool. An eloquent, plausible fool. He has charmed the dim right with his assault on the PM in the European arena and has become a celebrity on the Internet for his debating society style and his ruling class manner. God forbid that he or his ilk should ever have authority over this nations health service. At least he, unlike Cameron, has been unable to conceal his true agenda, but there can be little doubt that they are both cut from the same 'saville row' cloth.

Why is there a housebrick in your office? (people have asked)

Thanks for understanding...

Good editorial in the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/02/local-democracy

How we are going to deliver real localism and genuine 'local' government on less money every year remains a bigger mystery.

Policy Forum

At the Mark Thomas gig last week we were discussing policies for the future peoples party. Many suggestions (scrap trident, cut fuel duty, etc.) but in the end came down to a straight choice between 'make Thatcher pay for her own funeral' or 'make people who work in the city wear bowler hats again, so we know who to punch in the street'. Being a northern audience, it was the former.

Going unnoticed in all the fuss.

What with the G20, economic mullarkey, the desperately important matter of what politicians families watch on telly etc. an important anniversary has crept up on us all virtually unnoticed.

Today is the tenth anniversary of the introduction of the minimum wage. Now I know a lot of people are hacked off with Labour. Mostly wrongly but sometimes with full justification. Even I have my moments. But one thing we did get right is this.

Opponents of the minimum wage cried about how it would lead to mass unemployment. They were wrong. Unemployment today is a mere 100,000 more than it was when the minimum wage came into being and there has been a bit of an increase recently, what with the banking crash and all. And yet still only 100,000 more than ten years ago. Nobody in this country is forced into virtual slave labour so companies can be 'competetive' and support their own share price. We have allowed companies to shift their operations to countries where they can pay slave wages, but until people start to boycott them for doing so instead of supporting this immoral practise, they will continue. The government can't stop them doing it, it's the free market that opponents of the minimum wage champion, which allows companies the freedom to relocate. But even when this is taken into account I will say again unemployment is just 100,000 more. And there are other reasons for that as we can all see.

So in an entirely political and partisan way, Hurray for us and Hurray for the minimum wage.

"What the...."

Shoppers and workers in Barnsley town centre were confronted with the unlikely spectacle of 300 people on yellow and green Space-hoppers appearing without warning and bouncing around to a pre-rehearsed routine

The Space-hop (featuring school children, university students and council employees) was a brilliant and hilarious way of launching Barnsley’s new season of cultural activities.

I was unable to secure a hopper of my own but did blag a press pass and got onto the media balcony to secure pictures and video of this bizarre and unique occasion.

Little did the occupants of Barnsley Town Centre suspect what was about to happen...

Barnsley Town Centre at noon! 300 Space Hoppers!

The Great Barnsley Bounce

Post Options

I'm feeling very conflicted...

Hurray! Down with capitalism! power to the people!

Who doesn't enjoy the sight of protesters smashing the windows at RBS in London ?

Hang on though..don't I technically now own those windows?

As do some of the people smashing them...

It's all very confusing.

A cheque, the king of Lesotho and six buns for a quid.

Yesterday, after chairing a conference on consultation and engagement, (No, it was interesting. Really!) I got to do one of those councillor things that make it all worthwhile.
Chums at the TUC who have a charity for worthy 'educational' causes had given some money to my ward high school (where I'm vice-chair of the governing body). Every two years we send a delegation of kids from the school to a place called Malealea in Lesotho (which is itself in South Africa for those who don't know). They have helped with a number of great projects there including, most importantly, funding the local school and its students. We are immensly proud of the work.

As an aside we had the chief of the village at the town hall about four years ago for a visit, priceless! He was a splendid, wonderful fella.

Anyhoo, they were struggling for funds this year (who isn't) despite their titanic fundraising efforts and they applied to the TUC training charity. Thrillingly they were granted a hundred pounds per student, £2300 in total which is the single biggest donation they've ever had and has really made a big difference. Colleagues on the charity board asked if I would present it to them and naturally I was chuffed to bits to do so.

These are the intrepid travellers. And me. I should have shaved.

The other bit of good news they had this week was official notice from South Africa that they have all been invited to the royal palace for an audience with the King of Lesotho no less. Makes the local councillor with the cheque a bit of a non-event I suppose but what-are-you-gonna-do!

From here I then go to the local Church School for the Easter Fayre. I was just taking my kids but while I'm there I can't walk past the home baked goodies and as a result I fall victim to the 'six buns for a quid' offer. I've put on nearly a stone for that chuffing church roof with all the coffee and bun affairs that have been put on to raise funds. Still, the flapjack was majestic.

In which, shockingly, I advocate the strangulation of a protected species.

Just on the eastern edge of Royston, the ward I humbly serve as local councillor, is the site of an old drift mine. For those under 40, that’s a place where coal used to be taken out of the ground to provide power to Britain. Twenty five years ago, (this week) a wicked witch razed it to the ground and turned all the miners into toads. Unemployed toads. The wicked witch said it would be cheaper and safer and better for Britain in the long run. So now we rely on some nice Russian gentlemen to provide us with power. It’s staggeringly expensive and they keep turning it off and threatening to kneecap us all if we don’t pay them protection money. They aren’t gangsters though, they are the Russian government. So, that all worked out okay then.

That is a bit of an edited down version of the story but it will do for the purpose of this weeks Blog. If you want to know more please ask and I will happily roll my eyes, complain about the ‘right wing media’ or ‘education today’ and then bore you rigid for an hour on the subject. Maybe two hours.

Anyway, among the many, many negative legacies left by this foul witchcraft are some pretty ugly areas of polluted slag heap and derelict buildings. In this case, just on the eastern edge of Royston. It’s called Rabbit Ings, which makes it sound delightfully twee and rural. It isn’t. It’s an old spoil heap with a bit of ill advised growth on it. As well as the rubble of an old club and recreation area long since left to fall into disrepair through lack of use.

There is an ambitious regeneration scheme to cover it in soil and plantings and playing fields and landscaping and paths and…

You get the idea. But it’s a massive area and this isn’t going to be cheap. It’s one of those multi-million pound affairs. It will make the area a much nicer place to live and move us further back to the rural nature of this part of South Yorkshire. It will make a corner of this green and pleasant land, green and pleasant again.

The scheme has been many, many years in planning and I can’t really pretend to claim any credit for it (Note; for electoral purposes I will later be claiming some credit for it) and work will finally be starting this year.

There have of course been several obstacles to overcome along the way. The small matter of finding the money, for example, planning, consultation, stopping the anti-social tossers in 4x4s off-roading on it, etc.

I will however be focussing on the most headscratchingly befuddling obstacle, possibly in the history of mankind.

There’s a nice bloke, called Mick, who is the environmentalist for the site. He’s very enthusiastic and knowledgeable, and really cares about the site and the area. As part of the whole process he did an ‘environmental audit’ of the whole site. Basically counting and recording every growing, crawling, swimming thing on it. It was fascinating. There are, amongst other things, dozens of butterfly species, owls, foxes, one hare (I call him Philip), no rabbits (ironic) and a colony of great crested newts. It’s the latter, the newts, which cause us the problem. They are protected you see.

They aren’t rare. Just protected.

I mean, they can’t be rare. We find the little b******s every time we try to build anything for a start. They are anything but rare.

Anyway, what this meant firstly is we couldn’t do anything during the breeding season. Wouldn’t want to upset the sensitive little fu..

Calm.

We had to time the very expensive works around newt nookie season. That was the first thing.

I recently had a meeting to discuss the forthcoming works where another issue came up. In order to get full planning permission for the project we are, apparently, required to submit our…

Newt licence.

I’ll just write that again in case you think it’s a titanic typo. What with it being an unexpected combination of words that neither of us ever expected to see together in a sentence.

A Newt licence.

We are told of this requirement by an organisation called Natural England. They care about such things. It’s their job. Co-incidentally they also happen to be the august body who issue Newt licences. They are the Newt licensing board, if you will. The Newt licensers.

Licensers of Newts.

OK. Move on.

Keen to become Newt licensees, and so be able to complete this monumental regeneration project, we duly apply for our Newt licence. We get a communication back saying that we can have one. Everything is fine then.

Well, there is one thing.

A sort of condition.

We need to put up a bit of...

I’m going to do it again now, so stay with me. These two words can apparently be combined too.

Newt Fence.

A fence.

For Newts.

Now it’s worth mentioning at this point that Mick, being very good at his job, has counted every creature on the site. Including the Great Crested Newts. There are 13 of them. Just 13. That’s all.

So it’ll be a bit of ‘Newt Fence’ around their pond, or pool, or whatever it is they live in. Detached bungalows maybe, little fu...

Calm.

Really Calm.

Actually No. Not just around their bit. Around the whole site. The whole one hundred and fifty eight acre site. Newt Fence. HAVE A MINUTE!

That will cost nearly one hundred and seventy thousand pounds!! That's more than thirteen thousand pounds per newt!! We have actual human people who don't get that!!

One hundred and seventy thousand pounds!!!

For Newts.

And their fence.

Newts.

13 ****ing Newts.

You cannot make this stuff up.

Now here is the kicker. Who do you think are the largest supplier and manufacturer of Newt fencing in the UK? Sorry, I should have warned you about the mind-bendingly unlikely question you were faced with there. How the hell would you know? How the hell would anyone know? And why should anybody even care? There shouldn’t even be an answer to a question that bizarre! That question should never be asked. No-one should ever have a reason to ask a question like that! There shouldn’t be a manufacturer of Newt fencing, let alone a ‘largest’. There certainly shouldn’t be a supplier. Maybe one old eccentric gent, with a beard, might make some in a shed somewhere. Just for the newts in his garden. And people will smile and say, ‘Aww. He loves his newts, Bless. Old Ned is off his rocker. But he’s harmless, don’t stare kids, let’s go..’

But I asked it. Who do you think are the largest supplier and manufacturer of Newt fencing in the UK? And when I asked it there was a slightly uncomfortable silence.

It’s an organisation called, Natural Engla….Hang on!

Natural England? The people who issue the licence! It all makes sense suddenly! What a scam! There probably isn’t even such a thing as a great crested newt. The whole thing is probably a giant con. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were sneaking round the country in the dead of night supergluing crests onto regular newts and trousering the cash later. Well I’m onto them. It ends here. We are not about to fork over pots of cash for Newt Fences, Newt licences or Newt chuffing anything else.

There must be another way…perhaps I’ll go out for a walk and think about it…a walk to the east…where are my gloves….

In which I am, in no way, inconvenienced or annoyed by a Royal visit.

Let me start by saying that I love the Royal family as much as the next bloke. Presuming of course that the next bloke is a belligerent republican with a big axe to grind on the subject of unearned privilege. Okay, so when I hear people (of all political parties) moaning about the scourge of families who live on state handouts, I tend not to think first of the sink estate, ‘shameless’ generation, but rather the Windsors (formally the Saxe-Coburgs for those of you who have a problem with immigrants). Claiming benefits like you wouldn’t believe and filling the country with kids whose only escape from a life of anti-social behaviour (in OK magazine) is a spell in the army.

You can imagine then my delight when I got an e-mail telling me that HRH the Duke of York was paying a visit to Barnsley. Now don’t get the idea that I immediately start planning to go and throw eggs or anything, that’s reserved for people I particularly dislike, this is just a general dislike. And as an advocate for my beloved town of Barnsley I am naturally delighted that anyone should come here. Mostly. But I am further informed (in the e-mail) that he will be visiting the Town Hall. Where my office is. And that the car park will therefore be closed. That’s where I park. I’m becoming less pleased now. He must be bringing a large contingent of dignitaries with him…

There is a further e-mail, later. Sections of the Town Hall will be closed during the visit, half the first floor and some downstairs corridors. And the door. That’s where I come in. Must be a security thing, seems a bit much though. I’m getting a bit narked.

The big day finally arrives, and by ‘big day’ I of course mean nothing of the sort. I have to gain entry to my office so I roll up half an hour before HRH is due to avoid the crowds. And by ‘crowds’ I of course mean absolutely nobody. The car park is closed (all fifty or so spaces) and the Town Hall is surrounded by crowd barriers. Seems a bit much considering this is an unpublicised visit and not one single person is here. It does however mean I have to walk that bit further from the pay and display to get into the building though. Annoying. Then it really starts going downhill.

The less said about the fondling of my meat and two veg by, what I take to be, a burly special branch rozzer, the better. I am later to discover that he is actually a retired school caretaker who is moonlighting for the cash, I feel violated and can’t escape the nagging thought that he lingered just too long in his ‘duties’.

There are roped off areas all over the place and a number of staff who can’t get in because they don’t have their ID pass. I only have mine by chance and it’s only the second time in three years I’ve had to flash it. By the time I get to my office I’m already considering going on e-bay to look at second-hand guillotines.

“Dear Mr Robespierre, saw your portable timber framed regicide device on the web, was wondering if it came with integral head catching basket?”

When his nibs finally rolls up, in just one Range Rover (yes, that’s fifty spaces and one car), I begin to foam at the mouth.

Now of all the Royals, ‘Randy Andy’ has always been the one I disliked the least. He never really pretended to be anything but a bit of a playboy and waster. Who’s to say if I’d been blessed with a bottomless pit of cash and nothing better to do I wouldn’t have slept with a succession of glamour models and Bond girls. Perhaps I too would have been repeatedly scooped into publicly funded Bentley’s by my own personal members of her Majesty’s constabulary, pissed as a newt, and delivered safely home to bed. I’m only human after all. And he did serve his country with distinction in the Falklands, for which he, like every member of the armed forces, has my utmost respect. It has to be said that most of his Navy comrades haven’t found quite as much time to play golf since they left the service though.

Now the final indignity. Another e-mail. The canteen and kitchens will be closed for the day as they are preparing food for the Royal lunch. They regularly prepare large scale civic lunches and open the canteen. Not today though. No. It’s not even a very big group for lunch. Can’t have Prince Andrew eating food that has been prepared in the same room as working class vittals though. Apparently. Turns out HRH has specially requested Pie and Peas. Now I’m furious AND patronised!. Oh and Hungry! That’s not it though, oh no, there is still worse.

The toilet on the ground floor nearest to reception (also nearest to my office) is reserved for the day for our Royal guest. Staff and Members are requested to use the one at the other end of the building. Seriously. The *$%&ing toilet! My *$%&ing toilet! So I am to walk round to the other side of the building to have a crap because hundreds of years ago some bloke in a suit of armour with a flag on it, hit some other bloke in a suit of armour with a different flag on it, with a spiky stick! If it was that easy today I’d be on my way to London with a spiky stick and I’d be coming home on my own personal train.

In the end I decide to work at home for the day. It’s probably for the best.

I arrive early the following morning, normality has been restored and the Town Hall can conduct business as usual. My first port of call is the Gents.

There’s a ‘skiddy’ on the bowl.