Rodney McAree Forever!

The end of the line

2009-04-21T21:43:00.002+01:00

Time to change the blog. Seeing as I've moved, and I haven't been motivated to blog here since, I might as well put a close on RMF. A new site might give me the motivation to blog a bit more often, but I can be incredibly lax...

Farewell, to whoever still reads this. And if you want to read more (assuming there is any), then pop over to The middle of the line

Toodles.

New Way New Life

2009-01-18T20:49:00.003Z

It's funny the way life works out sometimes.

My girlfriend is originally from Brum, and moved down to Crawley in 2001 to live with me. Since then, she's never been totally happy there, but as there is work and I am there, she's stayed but always maintained that at some point we (or she) would move up to the Midlands.

Last year, the contract I was working on took a bit of a knock. Nothing to do with the credit crunch, but our customer decided to outsource most of their IT development to Tata, and so over the last few months of the year those of us from other third parties were gradually moved off.

My employer does have other work around the country, but of course it is not easy to find work at the moment (and that is partly due to the credit crunch as much that I could do would be in the financial sector).

As it happens, the job I have been offered (and which I started at the beginning of the month) is in exactly the kind of work I have been trying to get into for a year or so - Business Analysis. However, it is based in Northampton, which is not too easy to get to from Crawley.

What this has done is present an opportunity to relocate to pretty much the area that Jas wants to be in, and so this weekend we have been looking for a place up in Rugby (25 miles from work, 30 miles from her family). And yesterday we found almost a perfect house for rent.

It's going to take a while before we are fully moved out of Crawley, but chances are I'll be up north rather than back there most of the time. I'm not sure what this will mean for a blog that has in large part been based on Crawley (and is named for a former Crawley Town player).

Optimism? Quick! Pile on!

2009-01-14T19:12:00.003Z

Today saw a bizarre set of events...

A minor Labour minister, Baroness Vadera, has been pilloried because she apparently said that she had seen some 'green shoots' in the current economic situation.

What she actually said, in response to a question about when we would see 'green shoots' of recovery, was:

"It's a very uncertain world right now globally... I wouldn't want to be the one predicting it.

"I am seeing a few green shoots but it's a little bit too early to say exactly how they'd grow."

Which in context I think means that she can see some positive news, but there's no way that she's prepared to say that they are going to herald a recovery right now - they may wither away if things do not go well.

The positive thing that she sees, being involved in the banking side and trying to get banks to lend to each other and to the wider economy again, is that the bond market is opening up again. That is a good thing, it's what we need to happen - for banks to get the confidence to invest in bonds, which are a form of lending.

She's not a frontline minister, and is dealing in the back end of the economy, so yes, she may well not be totally in touch with the reality on the ground, but the glee with which the Tories have piled into her is disturbing. It's almost as if they only want bad news to be heard, and anyone making positive noises has to be shouted down.

Food retail has recently had a good set of results (Tesco's were the poorest, but they still saw sales grow from the previous year, while Sainsburys, Aldi and Morrisons all saw good growth and most supermarket chains are looking to create new outlets and so jobs). But you wouldn't know it to read the headlines.

What highlights the hypocrisy of the Tories is, of course, their leader, who today was stressing the importance of getting confidence back into the economy, while fueling the 'doom and gloom' mood. In what way does constant sniping and complaining that measures aren't working increase confidence? In what way does his colleagues slamming anyone who makes positive noises increase confidence?

The Tories are still determined that this recession should be as bad as the one they presided over in the 1990s, and will use any rhetoric to help their cause.

The wheels on the bus (probably) go round and round...

2009-01-09T20:22:00.002Z

There's been a story bubbling up for a while, which has reached the public conciousness this week. So, instead of writing about the substantial imminent change to my life, or stupid wars in the Middle East, I will discuss the Atheist Bus Campaign.

Back in the summer Ariane Sherine, a comedy writer and Guardian blogger, wrote an article about an advert she'd seen on a bus. The advert was placed by a religious group, and directed people to a website which as well as proclaiming the existence of God and the advantages of becoming a Christian (fair enough, I see nothing wrong with them evangelising if they want to), also informed visitors of all the horrible things in store for unbelievers.

So, she suggested a bus advert to promote atheism. A few people took the idea up, and in the autumn the campaign was launched with a target to raise £11,000 (£5,500 of which would be a matching donation from arch-atheist Richard Dawkins). Within a short space of time, it had raised £100,000 from small individual donations.

So, this week, instead of 30 adverts on buses in London, the slogan "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" adorns 200 London buses, as well as another 600 across Britain.

So far, so good. The 'probably' was added in because they were advised that just saying "There is no God" would be more likely to lead to complaints, but as it goes, it does satisfy the broad atheist creed as far as I understand it - we do not believe in a god, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we believe that there is no god (and logically it can never be proven that no god exists anyway).

But yet, the complaints have come in. over 50 so far to the ASA, led by the stalwart religious nutter, Stephen Green of Christian Voice. Green claims offence, and yet he's not above being very offensive towards Islam. He also claims that the ad makes an unsubstantiated claim, but the 'probably' means that it makes no hard claim in reality.

So, I was watching from the sidelines, until the Christians who seem to be able to take offence at anything stuck their oars in. Now, I have donated to the campaign.

Edukashun, Edukashun, Edukashun

2008-12-10T09:37:00.004Z

Every year, we go through a familiar cycle. Exam results come out, and they are usually better than the previous year's. The government hails them as an example of increasing standards. The opposition pooh-poohs them as an example of easier exams.

So who is right? Certainly in the national conciousness, the apparent view is that the Tories are right. But is this view backed up by the facts, or is it just a collective set of prejudices based on tabloidism and nostalgia?

Well, the US based International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement has report that comes out every four years - The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (Timss). The latest report covering 2007 has just come out, and it compares 60 countries around the world for 10 and 14 year old students' ability and the standards used.

So where is England?

In the top ten for both science and Maths for both age-levels, ranging between at 5th and 7th places. Above Germany, Sweden and the US in each case. The top five are dominated by Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, with Latvia, Russia and South Korea doing well.

Was this better than last time?

Yes. Last time (2003) England came 18th for Maths at age 14. This time England came 7th. What is more, the previous years were even worse - in 1999 we cam 20th and in 1995 we came 25th. So clearly there is a trend of improvement over the past 12 years, accelerated in recent years.

But guess what, the Tories are claiming that it's still a failure. That's right, we've moved up from 'mid table mediocrity' under the Major government to the top ten, and Michael Gove calls us 'Second Division'. Just as with the economy, the Tories will talk down the country in order to attack the government.

(hat tip: Bob Piper)

So, what would you do then, Dave?

2008-12-09T13:01:00.004Z

Do the Tories care?

Well, I still have no answer. They do want to hold an election (because they think they'd win it), and Cameron today has launched an attack on the Government's policy to spend money and give tax breaks to combat recession.

Thing is, if the Tories want an election over the economy and the recession, they could do worse than to tell us what they would do.

Well?

In the meantime, a couple of weeks ago the Tory Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley wrote the following on his blog:

"Interestingly on many counts, recession can be good for us. People tend to smoke less, drink less alcohol, eat less rich food and spend time at home with their families."

Lie detectors?

2008-12-03T12:07:00.007Z

James Purnell (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions), is talking about bringing lie-detectors in to help find people who are lying in order to get benefits.

Problem is that lie detectors don't work (last item). They tend to give many false positives, which means more work for people to do to investigate claimants (and despite the idea that the benefits agency won't take a failed test as evidence, the suspicion will likely be there for some time) but they can also be beaten by people who look up a few ways to do it. More info here.

EDIT 5 Dec 15:33 - I saw a very interesting (and far more detailed) analysis from Unity today. Essentially he's saying that lie detectors can 'work', but for detecting stress, rather than for detecting lies (honest people can be stressed under questioning, and liars can be ice-cold)

Do the Tories care?

2008-11-26T17:56:00.003Z

A little history first. In the 1990-1, we had a recession in the UK. It was pretty bad, and it was the first one to seriously affect white-collar workers and middle management rather than just the manual trades.

The John Major government, through the genius of Norman Lamont had the job of seeing us through this period, and it was from these two giants that the following phrases came:

"If it isn't hurting, it isn't working"

"Unemployment is a price worth paying" (for low inflation)

As a result of their careful stewardship, the 1990s recession took us years to recover from. You can see how compassionate they were about the effects of their policies.

So to today, and have the Conservatives changed? It appears not. While the government is taking action to reduce the threat of recession and to help those affected (rescuing banks, extending lines of credit so that they can lend, reducing VAT, increasing income tax allowances and tax credits, restricting repossessions, assisting small businesses with their tax bills, investing in public services etc etc etc...), all the Conservatives can do is to oppose.

Take our local Tory councillor-blogger Duncan Crow. He's quick to tell us that everything is the fault of Gordon Brown, but a little reticent to actually come up with any concrete proposals. It's easy to sit around pronouncing doom and gloom, and using the benefit of hindsight, but surely our 'natural rulers' have some actual ideas for how to best deal with the current economic situation.

What is it that the Tories would actually be doing now, if they were in power? Doing nothing didn't work very well last time, but I seen very little, other than to say whatever the government does is either bad or would have no effect.

For example, when the government announces a cut in VAT by 2.5%, the Tories tell us that it's insignificant. Yet when they think that VAT may have been going up by 1% it would have been a disaster. Surely it would have less of an effect, being a smaller change, but I don't suppose such logic comes into play when you are on a mission to oppose the government at all costs

Social Services

2008-11-18T21:35:00.003Z

Again, the UK seems to be falling under the spell of hysterical moral outrage. A few weeks ago it was Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand who had roused the ire of the public (not that they are in any way excused, but what on earth possessed thousands of people to add their complaints to the already lodged ones?)

Now it's Baby 'P'.

Some of my friends have joined the Facebook group " Campaign to get justice for Baby P". I'm not sure what the point of such a campaign is to be honest. The only reason we know about the case is that the mother and the two men involved have been tried in a court of law and found guilty. There are at the last rough count three enquiries into the situation, not to mention the whole media circus which has led to the calls for sackings and all-but lynching of anyone who was anywhere near the family.

There are some islands of sanity in this deluge - notably the eloquent Unity at Ministry of Truth, and Aaron at Tygerland - but I'm just glad that I'm working at home this week instead of having to put up with inane chatter about the whole thing from anyone I have to avoid shouting at.

I have never had to deal directly with Social Services myself, but I do know people who have. In one case that I know about (not in West Sussex), Social Services were overly cautious about taking a child into care. Two years after they backed the abusive parent in a custody hearing, they have removed her after incontrovertible evidence came to light. In another (also not in West Sussex), a child was taken into care and the parents spent a long hard battle to show that they were not guilty of abuse.

Social Workers are damned either way. If they are too cautious, then it only takes the odd case to make them look complacent. If they are too protective of children, then they are accused of 'stealing' kids in order to make up imaginary quotas for fostering or adoption. The main problem with their job is that it's rarely black-and-white. A child can be accident prone. A seemingly respectable parent can be a sadist behind closed doors. Children can lie, and they can also be unbelievable when telling the truth. It's all very subjective and there must be many marginal cases all of the time.

It's not a job that I could deal with, as most of my day-to-day work involved precision and clear yes/no decision-making. Even politics as a profession often comes down to a more objective view than a lot of the tough situations that Social Work involves.

What makes the job harder, of course, is that it is unpopular and difficult to recruit for. Areas with known problems have an even harder time, and those with unfilled vacancies are going to end up with backlogs and high stress. The pay is hardly fantastic, and if you make a mistake either way you could end up on the cover of half-a-dozen tabloids. Unfortunately, of course, we need social workers because there are a large number of children and vulnerable adults who are at real risk and who need some kind of intervention.

However, let's not get facts involved. Let's not try to understand how the real world works, or even consider for one moment that hindsight is a lot clearer than prediction. Let's just have a media-inspired national panic and collective howl. It'll make us feel better, even if it solves nothing (apart from declining circulation figures, of course).

Harumph!

It's the Economy, Stupid

2008-11-17T11:41:00.002Z

Is George Osborne an idiot? Or does he just think that the voters are all fools?

Over the last few weeks, the Tories have been demanding tax cuts, saying that they are the best way to release cash into the hands of people and spur consumer spending and company investment to help take us out of recession.

Then at the weekend, Osborne was saying that we can't cut taxes because it would cause a run on the pound (which is is bit odd, because the currency rate is not directly related to the government's finances, it's to do with the value of the overall economy and predicted returns compared to other nations, and is more likely to be related to the interest rate).

It sounds to me like opposition for the sake of it. You can't credibly go around contradicting yourself in the space of a few days and expect people to think that you have a clue about how to run the economy. Of course, if your plan is to attack the government for political gain at a time of national uncertainty, it might just work - as long as people don't have those inconvenient memory things.

So, why can't we....

2008-11-06T23:10:00.002Z

We are going into recession. We have banks who are reluctant to lend. We have housebuilders stopping work all over the country. We have thousands of people (25,000 in West Sussex alone) on local authority housing lists. We have houses that are falling in value but people still can't afford to buy them.

So, how about a bit of actual socialism? Or, Keynesian economics anyway...

Let's start building public housing again. Let's use public money to buy out empty houses and half-finished building sites so that they can be worked on and rented out. It creates jobs, it makes housing more affordable and it could help spur activity in the wider economy.

If we can bail out banks for half a trillion quid, and reduce interest rates by a third at a stroke, can't the government allow and push local authorities into this?

Henry Smith and the truth - not easy bedfellows?

2008-09-29T19:53:00.003+01:00

I expect that our Henry is up in Brum this week, hoping to bask in the glory of his leader. Maybe he's still down in Sussex, but keeping a bit quiet after being caught not quite giving the correct facts again - 'Cock up' over hospital mortuary - telling people that the mortuary at Crawley Hospital was closing, when it fact it is not.

Gosh, it's not like the Tories are trying to get votes by doom-mongering or anything?

He's been caught uttering mistruths before, by the Police. He's also been noted voting a nice big backdated pay rise for himself last year, while putting our Council Tax up by over 4% again*. Oh, and the 'Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital' is doing so well that it's had to be relaunched by the puppet press this week, despite the fact that two years ago it was supposed to be a concrete plan and was in no way opportunitistic or flimsy (the 'full outline proposals' from December 2006 are still there, with the spelling mistakes and the back-of-a-fag-packet sums)

* Actually WSCC regularly puts up Council Tax by more than CBC does (pretty much every year except for the one in four when the County Elections are about to happen...). How they are going to manage if the Tories get in with their promise to freeze Council Tax? WSCC spending went up from £1.218bn to £1.441bn in the past year, which is an increase of 18%. George Osborne wants to cap councils to only increasing spending by 2.5% a year.

And while I was near Midhurst...

2008-08-10T21:20:00.003+01:00

In the context of Potholes, it had been said to me that Midhurst didn't have many of them - Col 'Tex' Pemberton the Highways Cabinet member until recently is from up the road in Haslemere - and I can say that the roads did seem quite a bit smother than they are around here. Not just the main roads, like the A272 or A286, but the little country lanes in between (we got a bit lost and then decided to look for the Three Moles in Selham).

Also, at West Dean we saw several police officers. Some were dedicated to helping direct traffic on and off the site, despite there being marshals who were doing the same thing. Yes, it was a busy place, but at least half a dozen coppers? I know that crime in Sussex went down recently, but I didn't think that the boys in blue had nothing better to do.

And while railing at the West Sussex establishment as we drove around the area, I realised that we were moving into the area that is known as the 'West Weald' and which was going to be in the South Downs National Park before WSCC and Chichester District started to complain at the loss of power that it would represent (they don't really want the National Park at all). It's beautiful around there in the Wealden heathland, and the Black Down dominates the area.

Why would 'conservatives' oppose a National Park, which is aimed at 'conserving' the character of an area? Well, they want to have control of planning and a NP Authority would usurp that. You see, while they would be happy to agree with conserving things from some developments, there are some very influential parties in that part of West Sussex who take an entirely different view when it means that money can be made. It is these who would lose out if a National Park restricts development, even if it is supposed to be keeping the countryside beautiful. The same people who ensure that their local roads are well kept and that the local police are there in force for rural shows even if they are missing in urban areas don't want their little paradise spoilt by not being able to control it as much as they can

Festival Week

2008-08-10T20:16:00.002+01:00

In the past few days I've been to two different festivals, each dedicated to a single comestible.

On Wednesday I went up to Earls Court to the Great British Beer Festival, where real ale nuts from across the country gather to down halves of warm brown beer and stroke their beards. I did try to grow a beard myself, but it was still at the scraggy stage and started to go ginger, so the next day it was gone.

Still, I do love real ale, and for the past few years I've met up with old friends from university there for a catch-up and some serious drinking. The best beer I tried there was a local one - Hepworth's Prospect, an organic beer with a taste like smoke (but in a good way).

We didn't stick to British Ale, though, because we often like to end up at the 'Rest of the World' bar (or 'forrun muck' as it is sometimes known) for some Belgian beers, Czech Pilsners, German Weissbier and some American brews.

American? Yes, the Americans can definitely brew decent beer. Anything from Anchor is great (and I went around the brewery last year to see how they made it and to spend as much time as possible 'checking' the quality). One sceptic among us last year, who had unfortunately only experienced the mass-produced dross lagers that the US is known for was totally changed around by a bottle of Brooklyn Lager

Anyway, it was a great night and a shame that I had to go to work the next day.

Today, I went to the Chilli Festival at West Dean, which is a place that deals in horticulture and other traditional arts, and is set in the middle of the South Downs on the road between Midhurst and Chichester.

There was chilli infused everything - chutnies inspired by Asia, sauces from the Caribbean, smoked chilli, pickled chilli, chilli in chocolate, chilli in beer (oh, and there was plenty of beer at this festival too), chilli on sausages...

I found a really potent chipotle sauce (chipotle is smoked chilli) and some cheese with chill in it, which will both go down rather well. And a couple of plants, a nice ornamental one and one of a grade 8 'Super Chilli' variety. Oh, and the beer stall had a bottle of Hepworth's Prospect, which rounded off the week very well.

Yum

It's not just roads that don't get repaired

2008-08-04T19:16:00.004+01:00

It's paths too.

It came out today that West Sussex County Council has over £19M worth of outstanding repairs to make on pathways across the county.

Every part of the county is suffering from this, but Crawley has been left with the worst of the backlog - well over a quarter of the work (by monetary value) - £5.6M.

I suppose that rural areas have fewer paths by the side of the roads, but I'm sure that Horsham can't be too far off having the same amount as Crawley, given that the district includes the town itself as well as some large villages. Mid Sussex has a few towns (East Grinstead, Haywards Heath, Burgess Hill) and must also have a similar number of paths. Surely between the two districts there would be as much, if not work to do on paths. And yet the backlog for both combined comes to about £4.2M, still a fair amount less than Crawley.

When I was a councillor, I was always getting complaints about poor footpaths and roads. And whenever I passed them on to the County Council I would get the same reply, pretty much - that there was a programme of repairs and upgrades, but that particular road/path was not going to be dealt with soon.

Things have changed since then - WSCC has lost £6M on Fastway, has cut it's Highways budget and has grown a sizeable long term debt. Under such circumstances it's easy to see why they have got so far behind. What isn't so easy to see is why Crawley appears to have borne the brunt of postponed work.

Hat tip to the Crawley Observer

Two kinds of hole

2008-07-24T21:26:00.004+01:00

West Sussex have a problem with holes at the moment, it seems.

The first is the kind that any driver, cyclist or motorbike rider in Crawley can tell you about - potholes. There are more and more of these things popping up all over town, along with growing cracks, raised or sunken metalwork, uneven pavements and any other signs of poor maintenance and the use of cheap materials.

To help them to know how people feel about the state of the roads (that we pay our ever increasing Council Tax to WSCC to maintain) a new website has, as trailed, been set up.

If you have tales of potholes that are not being fixed after having been reported, or were the repair is inadequate, pop along and either leave a comment or use the email address: Join the Crawley Potholes Club

One possible reason that WSCC could have for it's failure to keep our roads up to standard could be that they are rubbish at handling money.

Firstly, they managed to overspend on Fastway by £6 millions and not notice until right at the end of the project. Cause - piss poor project management, and who led the project? West Sussex.

Secondly, when Henry Smith became leader of WSCC it had pretty much no debt. Now, even though they have been flogging off playing fields and old-people's care homes* they have managed to accrue about £300 millions in long-term debt. Much of this in Government-enabled credit, where WSCC were lent money so that they could build all the new schools and things that Henry would like to take all the credit for. The Government arranged to pay the interest for the first few years, and WSCC should have been working out a way to minimise the balance before that interest holiday ended.

The holiday is over, and instead of reducing their debts, the Tories at County Hall are racking them up further, and the interest is being piled on top.

In contrast, the Tories at Crawley have inherited a well managed pot of money - £100 million. How long before they widdle that lot up the wall as they close down services?

And potholes? Well, I have been looking at the West Sussex council website, and in particular at the amount that they spend on roads. In 2005/6, the amount gross revenue amount spent on Highways and Transport was £63M. In 2006/7, it had fallen by over £5M to £58M. In the same period, they increased Council Tax by over 4%.

What's more amazing is that in the budget for that year, the Tories has promised to increase spending by several million quid. So are they so inept that they can't stick to a budget, or were they avoiding spending money on Highways & Transport so that they could pay for the Fastway SNAFU?

Who knows? All I know is that some Tory councillors are more concerned with arguing over who goes to meetings or not, rather than how the authority that they sit on and help run is seemingly unable to handle money. I thought that the Tories were supposed to be savvy with cash...

* I was going to put a note in here about the débacle following the sell-off and contracting out of care services for the elderly, but it deserves a post of its own

Closing down fun

2008-07-24T21:18:00.003+01:00

In case anyone is not fully aware, the Tories at Crawley Borough Council have recently announced the following Play Centres are or will be closed down:

Ifield
Pound Hill
Northgate
Southgate

The first two are already closed. The second two will be open for the Summer Holidays and then close in September.

This comes after CBC has been given money by the National Lottery to improve access to services. What did they spend the money on? Partly to pay for a bus so that kids in Ifield and Pound Hill can get to the places that haven't closed. Seems to me like they used the money to help mitigate the removal of services.

There is talk of a school-based replacement service, but as WSCC would have to be involved, and the schools themselves, I think it has been incredibly premature of Crawley to cut services before the fall back is in place. After all, WSCC are a year behind their programme to restore hot school dinners, and I know of at least one school (Southgate Primary) that is apparently refusing to join in.

How long will the children of Ifield, Pound Hill, Northgate and Southgate have to wait if the same people are supposed to be providing after-school activities?

Vexation

2008-07-22T12:25:00.003+01:00

Duncan Crow, Tory councillor at both West Sussex and Crawley has got himself a blog, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago.

He recently put this little missive up: Our last honest Prime Minister, about John Major. Of course, Major was fairly well respected for his honesty and integrity (if not his competence or personality) until it came out afterwards that he'd had an affair with Edwina Currie.

However, the bit of his post that I was most struck by was where he was trying to wriggle out of flat out calling Blair and Brown liars with this little disclaimer:

I am not sure I can say lying as it may tempt a certain Labour Councillor who seems to habitually make vexatious complaints to the Standards Board about Conservatives Councillors to complain about me.

So who is this 'certain' councillor, and what 'vexatious complaints' have they been making? I've heard of the use of complaints for political purposes in other areas, but not around here very much. Is Duncan actually going to be able to tell us who it is that he is talking about, because it ought to be a matter of public record if vexatious complaints are being made.

Skuds (see comments from number 21 onwards) had a look at the Standards Board for England's website and found nothing that looked like a vexatious complaint from a Labour Councillor. I know, however, that often complaints are referred back to the local authority for their Standards Committee to investigate, so I have looked back at the last few years' worth of meetings in Crawley (I have a day off, waiting for Jas' car to be fixed, and can't be bothered to do the washing up yet). Since April 2004 the committee has met eight times, and all except for the last have published minutes. I see no reference to a single complaint investigation in all of that time, and the last meeting has no explicit reference to one in it's Agenda papers.

I have found a reference to the case of a Crawley councillor from before 2004 - he was a Labour councillor, the complaint was upheld (and he resigned as a result) and it originated from an officer over non-declaration of his financial interests and his response to it being discovered.

But nothing at Crawley stands out as being in any way as Cllr Crow describes.

What about West Sussex? Well I looked at the WSCC site and found their Standards Committee papers. It seems that it met more often - on average about three time a year - and I have found the following complaints:

In March 2004 a complaint was raised about Cllr Jake Clausen (Lib Dem) by the leader of the his own group, following a conviction for harassment. Cllr Clausen resigned shortly after the complaint was raised, and he was banned from standing as a councillor for two years by the Standards Board. His ban expired last year.
In December 2004 a representative of a Travellers group raised a complaint about Cllr Alan Phillips regarding remarks made at a public meeting (among other remarks he had suggested the slogan "if you want a traveller for a neighbour, vote Labour", a crass reminder of the racist leaflet that Tories in Smethwick put out in 1964 which used the word 'nigger'). He was no longer on the council by the time that it saw a report on the matter, and although he was found to have breached the Code of Conduct in respect of bringing the council into disrepute, no further action was taken. I don't know which party Phillips represented, and it's actually very hard to find the election results from 2001.

Neither complaint was 'vexatious', as both resulting in a finding of a breach, and neither of them had been raised by a Labour councillor.

So, I find absolutely no evidence for Cllr Crow's allegation that there is some Labour councillor out there in the habit of making 'vexatious complaints'. Indeed, if that were the case, it would only be known about if the cases were completed, and that sort of behaviour ought to have garnered a complaint to the Standards Board if it were going on.

Of course, Cllr Crow could be referring to cases that have yet to be determined - complaints that are still going around the system. In which case, it would appear to be prejudicial to say that they are 'vexatious' before it is actually known that the complaints have been rejected or not.

So, I'm wondering to myself about this one. In a post about honesty, is Duncan himself playing a little fast and loose with the truth, in order to play up the victim card?

Since May...

2008-07-22T10:31:00.004+01:00

I've been meaning to get back to posting more regularly for a while, and I notice that back in May, almost 2 months ago, I promised to discuss Crewe & Nantwich.

Of course, since that by-election there's been Henley and Howden & Haltemprice. Before the local elections, and even with them, it could be claimed that Labour was just in the middle of a normal 'mid-term blues' patch.

The local elections in May 2008 were not much different for Labour nationally than the results of the previous year or (perhaps more significantly) 2004 - a year before the last General Election. However, the main difference is that the Tories are now a more credible force and they are able to maintain a sustained lead in opinion polls.

The economic situation is also confused and likely to become harder in some way. The problem is that oil and food prices have risen sharply (the price of oil has a major impact on the price of food, due to increased transportation costs and the surprising amount of energy used to grow food crops and create fertilisers). This is having an inflationary effect, making life harder for people on low and fixed incomes.

At the same time, the US-born credit crunch has combined with the long anticipated peak in the UK property market to start affecting economic growth. I remember way back in 1999 I was a bit worried when I bought my house that prices were unsustainably high. Since then they have more than doubled and every year various 'economic experts' have predicted a 'correction'. Now it's here everyone has suddenly begun to panic a bit.

However, we are not in recession, and even now there is likely to be a small amount of growth in the UK in the next year (technically a recession is two successive quarters of a shrinking economy in GDP terms). Of course, some sectors will be affected more than others. The current strength of the Euro means that the Pound is cheaper, making our exports more competitive - which is good for manufacturing. On the other hand, construction is getting hit hard and retail (having been able to rely on a steady stream of customers on credit) appears to have been doing poorly. Unemployment is going up again, although it's still relatively low for now.

The problem with the combination of low growth and high inflation is that the usual solution is to adjust interest rates, but the direction is different for each. To encourage growth (and counter the credit crunch), lower rates would allow more cash to flow. However, higher interest rates are the usual salve for inflation, the idea being that it restricts cash flow to reduce the demand-led pull on prices.

My opinion is that as the inflation is not demand-led but comes from the supply side, increasing interest rates is not likely to have as much of an effect as usual. However, the Bank of England was tasked (by Gordon Brown) with keeping inflation under control, but not explicitly to prioritise the rate of growth of the economy.

Anyway, all of this leads to uncertainty and pessimism. This will naturally reflect on the government whichever party ran it. As Labour has been in power for eleven years, and as Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer for ten of those years before getting his promotion, it becomes even easier see it as down to Gordon and the party. That the credit-crunch was precipitated by the even more loopy borrowing rampant in the USA, and that oil and food price inflation are both global phenomena make little difference to most people.

So, the economy is leading to a wide-scale malaise in Britain, and is also leading to two problems for the government. Firstly, a slowdown in economic growth puts pressure on government spending but inflation leads to higher wage demands from public employees, so we are seeing more complaints and strikes from them. This adds to a picture of a government losing control - and is particularly bad when a Labour government is in open conflict with it's affiliated Trades Unions.

Secondly, the malaise is self-perpetuating. Just as a boom is often fuelled by people being confident and borrowing against a rosy future, a slowdown can be worsened if it becomes the main topic of discussion and people start assuming the worst. It is possible that we could 'talk ourselves' into a recession. At such a time, we would need a very confident leader who could project a more positive image. Gordon Brown, it seems, is not that leader. As much as I was opposed to Blair (and to Blairism) within the party, I did think that Brown would make a decent Prime Minister. A year ago it all looked very positive - even flooding in East Yorkshire seemed not to have a negative effect - and Brown appeared to be a welcome change after the populist and PR-led Brown. But while Brown is good during the good times, and while he was able to react well at first, there have been several areas in which he's been less than impressive and has appeared to be letting things get out of his control.

Last autumn, during the media-frenzy over whether Brown would call an early election or not (I still think he was right not to), there were a couple of wobbles where it seemed that the Tories were pressing the agenda, particularly on Inheritance Tax. However, the real seed of Brown's current unpopularity stems from his last Budget as Chancellor:

Brown did something very silly with Income Tax, using the abolition of the lower rate of 10% to help pay for a cut in the main rate of tax from 22% to 20%. For anyone with an income below £18,000 who was not on tax credits, this meant a loss. This was bad enough, but the worse thing was that Brown denied that anyone would be worse off. Frank Field and other Labour backbenchers had been questioning this for a year, but it was only when it became more immediate and Alistair Darling had missed the chance to deal with it in his first Budget that the media and the Tories started to really press the issue. The 'fix' was to play with Allowances, which did reduce drastically the number of losers among the low-paid but also meant that people on medium earnings got a further reduction in tax. As this 'fix' doesn't actually come into effect until the Autumn and is only really going to be in effect for this tax year unless further changes are made.

What this did was to undermine the claim that Labour was working for it's normal 'core' support, the working classes. Combined with higher prices for basics and greater worries about employment and debt, the last thing that people on low incomes needed was an increase in taxes. Even though that increase was small in cash terms, it was in some cases nearly 4% of total income.

Thing is, changing the Prime Minister (again) won't make a jot of difference. What is needed is what was needed about five years ago - a government that listened to it's own backbenchers and the party that got it into power, rather than being overly concerned with process and the latest polls.

Quiet, innit?

2008-07-20T19:23:00.005+01:00

No particular reason for my being quiet, and the only reason for this posting is that I noticed that the links needed a serious sorting out.

Renewed Labour and Let's be Sensible have stopped months ago, and Labour Humanist hasn't written anything since Christmas so they are gone. I can't get on to Adam Brown's site - or all I can get is a blank page - and I notice that Duncan Crow now has a blog so that was an easy 1-for-1 replacement (can't have too many Tory councillor blogs getting publicity from me, can I?). Richard Symonds doesn't use the Crawley Independent to blog anymore, he's got his own forum which (once does contain the odd pearl of information about local doings, in amongst all the rest of what I can only call conspiracy theories, as much as it riles him).

The Crawley News site has been moved and relaunched. It's much better, you get most of the paper's stories and people can comment on them. The old one was shared with about three other papers based in Surrey (and was on icsurrey.co.uk) and was very difficult to navigate. I'll not comment on the quality of the journalism though. If you follow my other new link to the Maidenbower Forum, you will probably find someone moaning about grossly inaccurate reporting.

I know that there are probably a couple of new local sites that I should add in - Such as Ian Irvine's blog, but I can't remember what the url is and I'm about to eat my Sunday lunch soon.

Also, there's going to be a new blog for Crawley to 'celebrate' all of the holes that appear in the town's streets. When it's up and running, it will get a trail here.

The godless meme

2008-06-22T12:52:00.005+01:00

Like Unity, I'm not big on memes. But like Unity, I like this one

Q1. How would you define ‘atheism’?

The lack of belief in God/gods.

Q2. Was your upbringing religious? If so, what tradition?

No. My parents were not religious at all. My first introduction to the concept of 'God' was at school. Apparently I was pretty annoyed at Mum and Dad for not having mentioned this whole thing about one bloke making the whole world. It's not as if they 'made me' an atheist, they just didn't see any point discussing it, and left me to find out for myself.

As a child I was generally agnostic until I was about 11 or 12. The religion I was agnostic on would have been that fluffy Anglicanism that we English cling on to. I was a cub scout and in St Johns Ambulance as a cadet, so every week I had to pledge to God (and the Queen), and I knew that I was lying (on both counts).

Q3. How would you describe ‘Intelligent Design’, using only one word?

Mistaken

Q4. What scientific endeavour really excites you?

That's a really tough question, as there are loads of possible answers - the Human Genome project, space travel, quantum computing....

My background is Mathematics, and so it may not be 'sexy' or have an immediate impact, but I'd say Game Theory is a favourite, and I can apply it to playing Diplomacy.

Q5. If you could change one thing about the ‘atheist community’, what would it be and why?

I'm not sure that there is a 'community', or that there could or should be one. I'd rather that atheists as individuals didn't attack religion for the sake of it, but on the other hand I'd also want them to defend each other more robustly when the religious attack some of us.

Q6. If your child came up to you and said ‘I’m joining the clergy’, what would be your first response?

I don't have kids, so I don't know how I'd react. I'd like to think I'd have some clue that a child of mine was religious already, so it shouldn't be a massive shock. I'd probably make a joke about them getting a free house.

I would not force my atheism on my kids, just as my parents didn't force theirs on me. I would, however bring my kids up to question everything, and I would certainly make sure that they were equipped to question their own beliefs (or lack thereof). If they decide that they want to become a priest, nun, whatever, then fine. As long as they are happy, and don't try to convert me.

Q7. What’s your favourite theistic argument, and how do you usually refute it?

I'm not sure about it. The most common one is the idea that everything has to have had a beginning, and that beginning is God. The challenge (if not a refutation), is that this is unknowable. Time could be infinite, in which case there is no beginning.

Q8. What’s your most ‘controversial’ (as far as general attitudes amongst other atheists goes) viewpoint?

Dunno. Perhaps continuing to support the Labour Party even though Blair and Brown (and most leaders in fact) have been religiously motivated in some way.

Q9. Of the ‘Four Horsemen’ (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris) who is your favourite, and why?

I've not read much Dennett or Harris, but what I have is a little too confrontational for it's own sake. Likewise, Hitchens just likes to take an argument and let loose the rhetoric to show how clever he is. When I agree with CH I can nod along vehemently, and when he's wrong (as he is on Iraq in my opinion), he's an annoying git.

So it's Dawkins then, by default. Actually, I've read The God Delusion and it's pretty well presented (and is often misrepresented in order to demonise him and through him all atheists), so it's not just be default. He does, however, sometimes go a little too far when speaking.

Q10. If you could convince just one theistic person to abandon their beliefs, who would it be?

I can't think of a specific person. Perhaps a Jehovah's Witness who's refusing to accept life saving treatment as a result of their beliefs.

Right, there it goes. I don't nominate people to pick up a meme (in fact, if a meme is a true meme, it would be taken up without me needing to).

A crushing disappointment

2008-05-23T19:18:00.004+01:00

Manchester City qualified for Europe in the Fair Play League, with Fulham only 3 points behind.

The next placed team who weren't already going to Europe were West Ham, which might draw a wry smile to one or two passing readers...

(oh, and not only did the Tories win in Crewe and Nantwich, they hammered us, but more on that later on)

Talk about leaving it late...

2008-05-11T22:00:00.002+01:00

Today was a nerve-wracking day. A lovely sunny afternoon wandering around Horsham was overshadowed by an ominous threat.

On the last day of the Premiership season, Fulham started just outside the relegation zone, only on goal difference over Reading and with a single point more than Birmingham. This mean that at Portsmouth, Fulham had to win to guarantee another season in the top division, or at least to do as well as Reading (playing at already relegated Derby City) and Birmingham City (home to mid-table and nothing to play for Blackburn).

I managed to drag the gf into a pub, but unfortunately it had no tv, and she wasn't in the mood to move. So I was forced to tangle with my phones' WAP in a low signal and a low battery to keep up with events.

It went a bit like this:

3:00pm. In the Crown, with a pint of IPA, breaking the news to Jas that I might be a little preoccupied for the next couple of hours.
3:15. See that Reading have scored against Derby. Oh. Still, it's early on.
3:35. See that Birmingham have scored against Blackburn. Damn. We really need to score a goal here. More beer required.
3:45 to 3:50. Keep checking to see if we've managed to take the lead going into half time. We haven't.
4:15. Blackburn have equalised at St Andrews. Come on Derby, you can get one back too
4:20. Derby 0-2 Reading. Come on Derby, you can get two back.
4:30. Derby 0-3 Reading. Ok, Derby, three goals in fifteen minutes, should be doable...
4:35. Birmingham get another goal. So we need more than a hugely unlikely recovery at Pride Park. We need someone to actually score for the whites
4.36. YESssss!! (three people in virtually empty pub stare at the odd man waving a phone about) Danny Murphy, who I have rated since he was playing at Liverpool, scores - on checking it was a header from a Jimmy Bullard free kick. Ten minutes to not throw away the lead...
4.45. No change in the scores, but no sign of games ending. Some signs of nervous drinking.
4.50. Reading and Birmingham have both scored again. Please let it be meaningless.
4.53. No whistles at all? Come on. According to Vodaphone, no games have ended yet? Are they trying to give me an ulcer?
4.54. Text from my dad, simply saying "yes", suggests that there have been some whistles going.
4.55. Call dad - turns out Birmingham scored again to make it 4-1, but the game at Fratton Park is definitely over.
4.56. Text from dad, simply saying "yes" (hmm, he really needs to learn not to keep hitting the 'send' button.
4.57. Phone dies. More beer. I rejoin whatever conversation I was supposed to be having with the gf. All is right with the world (and as Brum were relegated, the gf is happy, coming from the 'other' side of Birmingham, but only to the extent of disliking the Bluenoses rather than supporting Villa).

Now, I'm eagerly awaiting the update of the Fair Play table. Why? Well, England topped the European Fair Play league, and so get an extra UEFA Cup place. Which goes to the team at the top of the domestic Fair Play table who haven't already qualified for Europe.

Fulham were lying in 7th place last week, which sounds bad, but the top four are Spurs (in UEFA for winning the League Cup), Man Utd (in the Champions League for winning the Premiership), Liverpool and Arsenal (both through for their league positions). Everton were in 6th, and clinched a UEFA Cup spot today. So the only team ahead of Fulham for the Fair Play qualification were Man City, by 8 points (1199 to 1191)

And Man City had a player sent off as they lost 8-1 (Eight! ha ha ha) to Middlesbrough. They only lose three points for that, but it's entirely possible that the players were a bit 'robust' and showed their frustration as they were being taken apart.

So, we go from desperately fighting relegation (in every game for the last three weeks) to possibly qualifying for Europe.

Another poor day at the polls

2008-05-02T20:02:00.002+01:00

Given the results in the previous two years, and the national political picture after the debacle of the 10% tax band, there was no real surprise at the outcome of yesterday's Crawley Borough Council elections.

Last year I looked at the trends in each ward and for each party, and I thought I'd do the same thing. We have now had a full cycle since the 2004 boundary changes and all-out-elections, so we can compare over the past 4 years and see the overall trends. In each seat this year, the person who was in position before May had been the most popular candidate of those elected in 2004.

Bewbush
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 193/216/275
2006 - Labour, maj 192
2007 - Labour, maj 374
2008 - Labour, maj 281
Again the largest Labour majority in Crawley. The incumbent had stood down due to ill health, and may have had some personal vote, but it does seem that there was a slip in support. The Tory got a similar percentage of the vote to last year, and Arshad Khan managed over 100 votes. The main difference to previous years was that the Lib Dems put no-one up and the BNP had a candidate. As is usual, the BNP took about 15% of the vote at the first attempt (they tend to slip back in later years).

Broadfield N
2004 - 2 Labour, maj 99/261
2006 - Tory, maj 0
2008 - Labour, maj 150
A popular local incumbent was re-elected here, and the Tories got fewer votes than in 2006. The Lib Dems lost about a third of their vote. Now the only ward with councillors from more than one party.

Broadfield S
2004 - 2 Tory, maj 22/52
2006 - Tory, maj 112
2008 - Tory, maj 165
The incumbent was Marcella Head, elected as a Conservative and who defected to the Lib Dems in 2006 over the Council Housing issue. She apparently endorsed Ian Irvine the Labour candidate this time, but in the end the Tories extended their lead in a two-horse race.

Furnace Green
2004 - 2 Tory, maj 155/318
2006 - Tory, maj 547
2007 - 2 Tory, maj 524/568
Tory ward, although was Labour until the late 1990s. No election this year.

Gossops Green
2004 - 2 Tory, maj 33/47
2007 - Tory, maj 150
2008 - Tory, maj 281
The Tory vote was about the same as last year, with Labour down and a BNP candidate in third. The Lib Dems lost half of their vote.

Ifield
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 96/100/191
2006 - Tory, maj 21
2007 - Tory, maj 59
2008 - Tory, maj 236
Last year I had this as marginal. The BNP have stood here several times and for the first time increased their vote, getting back some of the losses since 2004. The Tory vote went up by 100, and Labour lost about 80. The Lib Dems vote pretty much held. Where we had two independents last year, none stood this time.

Langley Green
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 268/303/352
2006 - Labour, maj 406
2007 - Labour, maj 148
2008 - Labour, maj 232
Safe Labour seat, although one of the councillors is always convinced that it is dead close. The Labour and Tory votes both went up, with the Lib Dems losing half of theirs (the normal candidate stood in Maidenbower instead, perhaps there's some personal vote there).

Maidenbower
2004 - 3 Tory, maj 682/744/779
2006 - Tory, maj 1132
2007 - Tory, maj 1215
2008 - Tory, maj 1386
Safe Tory seat. The Tory vote leapt up in 2006, and has been creeping higher since then. The Lib Dems and Labour tied for second place (and last place).

Northgate
2004 - 2 LibDem, maj 292/334
2006 - LibDem, maj 276
2007 - LibDem, maj 250
Liberal Democrat haven. No election this year.

Pound Hill N
2004 - 3 Tory, maj 778/795/831
2006 - Tory, maj 1280
2007 - Tory, maj 1001
2008 - Tory, maj 1082
Safe Tory. The Lib Dems overtook Labour to come second (the only ward in 2008 where the Lib Dem vote was more than the Labour total), and the only reason that I can see for the slip in the Tory majority is lower turnout, which is natural such a safe seat.

Pound Hill S and Worth
2004 - 3 Tory, maj 707/760/828
2006 - Tory, maj 1210
2007 - Tory, maj 1072
2008 - Tory, maj 1189
Safe Tory. The Lib Dems were in second in 2006, but Labour overtook them last year and maintained second place. The BNP stood here for the first time and came last - the only place where the Lib Dems beat them.

Southgate
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 3/50/51
2006 - Tory, maj 198
2007 - Tory, maj 179
2007 - Tory, maj 254
Marginal but getting safer for the Tories. The Tories won this seat in 2003 by 3 votes, probably helped by the Greens standing. The BNP and Greens used to stand here but didn't this time. The Labour vote went up, but the Tory vote went up faster. The Lib Dems gained votes (probably from ex-Green voters).

Three Bridges
2004 - 1 Labour , 1 Tory
2007 - Tory, maj 356
2008 - Tory, maj 297
The Tory vote did fall slightly, and the Labour vote went up slightly, but from being a knife-edge seat is firmly Tory for now. Last year there was an English Democrat and a Green, but they were absent this time. The Lib Dems did pick up votes (from the Greens again?)

Tilgate
2004 - 2 Labour, maj 84/87
2007 - Tory, maj 355
2008 - Tory, maj 97
Like Three Bridges, a major gain for the Tories last year. However, unlike Three Bridges, Labour came much closer to holding a seat as the Tories dropped 180 votes. The BNP beat the Lib Dems to third, both gaining a few votes.

West Green
2004 - 2 Labour, maj 147/274
2006 - Labour, maj 117
2008 - Labour, maj 180
Usually safe Labour. The winner this year was Bert Crane, who must be in contention for the longest serving councillor in the country (over 50 years). The Tory vote did go up slightly, the BNP shed votes and unlike previous years, no others stood.

Tories
Overall, a fairly stable set of results. Where they have made gains in recent years these have been consolidated (except for Broadfield North which was unusual). The only bad spot was Tilgate, which was won with a very large swing in 2007 and was much closer this time around. Now have a majority of 15 on the Council.

Labour
Another bad year. Some glimmers of hope where the vote went up (despite the national trend), but could not hold on to the remaining seats in Tilgate, Southgate or Ifield.

Lib Dems
Overall, the trend is down again. Back down to two seats after Marcella Head (who was elected as a Tory) stood down and no replacement candidate was put up in Broadfield South. In some wards shed a third of even a half of their vote, and did well in few wards where they couldn't pick up Green votes.

Greens
First making an impact in 2003 (after a Labour Councillor defected in protest at the Iraq war), they tried to expand with several candidates across the town in later years. This time no Green candidates stood at all, apparently to avoid splitting the non-Tory vote.

BNP
Stood in six wards this year, more than ever before. In most places where they stand for the first time, they get between 10% and 20% of the vote, and thereafter the trend is slowly downwards. Ifield is their best ward, where they picked up some votes this year, but not as many as in 2004/5.

English Democrats
Came in last year, stood in two seats, did pretty badly and not a word of them since.

Far Left
No candidates from any of the left-of-Labour parties this year, as was the case last year.

Independents
After last year when several independent candidates stood, only Arshad Khan with his self-styled 'Justice Party' remained. He did actually pick up some votes this time.

Interesting Answer

2008-03-28T19:23:00.002Z

Nearly a year ago I signed up to They Work For You's service which sends you an email every time your MP speaks in the House of Commons. It's really quite useful if you want to keep an eye on what an MP is saying.

Yesterday, Laura Moffatt asked the following question in the 'Business of the House' debate:

The issue of children has rightly come up already in business questions. Would my right hon. and learned Friend consider a debate on the importance of play? The excellent children's plan published earlier this month demonstrates that organised play for children is a key part of their development. I want this debate to put off local authorities that are short-sightedly thinking of closing play centres on financial grounds alone. I want the issues properly explored to stop them doing so.

Well, clearly the MP shares suspicions that the Crawley Tories are planning to close Play Centres in Crawley (Northgate and Southgate have been suggested as targets), and are hoping to save money by doing so.

The answer, from Harriet Harman, was more interesting than the question though:

No local authority should cut play services. The Government have put an extra £250 million into children's play services and I know that my hon. Friend has been a great champion of children's services in Crawley. If the Conservative council in Crawley is cutting children's play services, it should not do so, and I suggest that my hon. Friend applies for an Adjournment debate.

So, if there's more money available, why would Crawley Borough Council wish to reduce provision in the town? What is the idea?

Local Tories at Play

2008-03-15T11:31:00.002Z

The local Tories, having gained control of the Borough Council, have certainly been revealing their true colours.

First they tried to sell tenants a bunch of lies (or were they just ridiculously awful calculations that no-one bothered to check?), but thanks to the tenants, local opposition, the Government of the South East, the Audit Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority they failed. Still, the people of Crawley in their wisdom returned even more Tory councillors last May.

Now they are going for the Play Service. Last year proposals came out to 'rationalise' the play areas, which appear to have been put into abeyance for a while. Maidenbower will get a new play area though (which is fine, no problem at all, although the developers should have put it in years ago, not the taxpayers).

Instead of shutting down play areas, looks like the Tories are instead going to close down Play Centres. These are the places that stay open after schools close so that children can play in a secure environment before parents pick them up. They are incredibly popular during school holidays, because parents can't all get time off in six week blocks.

The two centres that I know of being under the knife are Northgate and Southgate. Southgate has in the last two years voted for a Conservative councillor. In order, presumably, to avoid the risk that people around here see what the Tories are up to and vote accordingly, the decision has been postponed until June.

Typically, the Tories will tell you all about the 2% increase in Council Tax, but won't tell you which services will be cut as a result. The truth is that they will be hitting the children, and given that delinquency is linked to a lack of provision for kids, adding to the problems of youths hanging around with 'nothing to do' until they get into trouble. It's not just hugging hoodies, it's increasing the problems for and associated with youth.

Vote Tory - have more kids hanging on the street corners!

Cheers mate!

2008-01-07T19:16:00.000Z

Skuds has dedicated a recent post to me, all about a subject which has already appeared on RMF a couple of times - the odd relationship between the media and the sex industry.

Not only is the Crawley News still advertising adult services (albeit with a 'disclaimer', which I like to think was a result of this humble blog's attention) near the back pages while reporting the case of a woman trafficked into the country and forced to have sex in a local brothel, but there was an outcry when the South Wales Echo did the same thing late last year.

As a result of a meeting with the government in November, it would seem that the Newspaper Society will be revisiting their guidelines on acceptable advertising. It would be good to know what those guidelines are, but they are available to NS members only. I can't even find how much it would cost to get the 'PERA' membership required to look at the 'Ad Points' section of the website, so I suspect it's not something I'll be buying. If a friendly journo / advertising editor happens by and can let me know what these guideline are?

Only I'm pretty sure that they already suggest that adverts for massage or escort services clearly suggest that 'extras' are also on offer, or if the publication could reasonable expect that to be the case. I'm not sure if the ads in the back of the News cross the line, but they are pretty close.

Is this value for money?

2008-01-06T20:56:00.001Z

The Crawley News reports that the Tory leader of Crawley Borough Council went on a 3 day training course in South Africa, partly funded out of the Council budget.

Obviously, Lanzer will justify the cost of the trip, as he learnt a lot and was fired up on his return. The CBC payment only amounted to about £675, which is not a huge amount. The rest was from grants, which may or may not be funded by the national taxpayer.

The course involved looking at 'law and order' issues. The thing about this is that the Borough Council doesn't have a great deal of responsiblity for these. The Police Authority is a seperate body, with delegates from local authorities, but from West Sussex, not Crawley. So Bob Lanzer isn't on it. He might be on Police Liaison, but that's not really a 'leadership' position.

Of course, councillors do need to be trained up, and they should be exposed to external practices, otherwise they risk being too ingrained in parochialism. However, it appears that there will be some raised eyebrows at this particular item. Especially as the News has put it on their front page this week.

Money and Politics V

2007-12-23T20:53:00.001Z

To illustrate the perils of believing what you read in the newspapers, Skuds has suggested that the figures quoted in my last post (about how Henry Smith and his chums on West Sussex County Council have had large increases in their allowances despite an independent review concluding that no such increases be given) were incorrect.

Good job too, because it meant that I read the actual reports, and there are some differences.

Firstly, the Special Allowance for the Leader, Henry Smith, has gone up from £26,523 to £29,394, an increase of 10.8% (about the same as the Argus' 11%).

Secondly, the Cabinet members allowance has risen from £15,691 to £18,283, a jump of 16.5% (which is 2.5 percentage points more than reported by the Argus). Eight councillors receive this allowance.

Thirdly, it's not clear what is meant by non-Executive Chairmen, because under the old scheme there were two levels of allowance for committee chairs. For six of the posts, the old allowance was £8,375. For three others, it was £6,582. If the increase applies to all, then they will all now get £8,989. That's 7.3% for the first six, and 36.6% for the other three (The Argus report refers to three chairmen getting 24%, which I can't see from the figures at all).

Fourthly, all of the other Special Responsibility Allowances are increasing as well, by an index-linked figure, which was actually what the panel recommended for all posts. There are 32 councillors who receive these allowances, out of a total of 70. The number affected by the self-determined increases is up to 18.

Fifthly, all of the above will also be getting the standard councillor's allowance that all councillors receive - £10,546 in the 2006/7 year. I believe that this is also index linked.

Links
Money and Politics IV (my previous post on this)
Original Evening Argus article

From WSCC:
The Scheme as it stood before 14 December 2007 (pdf format)
The report of the Independent Review Panel (pdf format)
The Report before WSCC on 14 December with the large increases (pdf format)

Money and Politics IV

2007-12-20T22:35:00.000Z

Henry Smith was apparently happy to complain about our MP's expenses. Of course, we all know that our Henry would never, ever, put himself in a position where he could be accused of putting his nose into the trough.

Or would he...

According to the Evening Argus, West Sussex Council recently reviewed the councillor's allowances. What happens is that an independent review panel is set up, and they make recommendations. The same happens at Crawley Borough Council, and when I chaired the relevant committee (the excitingly named 'General Purposes Committee'), it was certainly expected that the review body's recommendations would be taken as they stood, and certainly that councillors would be very careful before voting for more cash.

The WSCC review panel recommended a freeze on increases. So what did our elected servants in Chichester do? Did they accept a pay freeze, because as the panel's report said, "Public service, rather than material reward, should be the primary motivation for involvement in local government."

Well, er, no. They instead voted for increases. Three committee chairs will get an increase of 27% (that's about 10 times the rate of inflation). The Cabinet members, such as Lt Col Tex Pemberton, get a 14% increase (a mere five times the rate of inflation).

Henry will have to make to with only an 11% increase (four times the rate of inflation) as Leader.

Now, WSCC will claim that because they didn't spend money on a pension scheme for councillors, they've saved money. However, it's only a matter of time before such a scheme is set up, and of course it will more than likely be a final salary one, so an allowance increase now just makes the scheme more expensive when it does come in. I predict it will arrive some time after the next County elections, or before if they can suddenly pull out one of their rare low tax increase budgets (rare? they happen every four years, by some sheer coincidence).

The allowance increases are apparently backdated to April.

link

When is rape not rape?

2007-12-18T22:20:00.001Z

Apparently, according to John Redwood, rape isn't that bad if you know the woman first. Who knew? I'd always thought that 'No' means 'No' was a pretty universal truth, that it's a horrific crime whether the rapist is a total stranger or whether they are someone they though that they could trust.

Here's what he said, on his blog:

They [the Labour government] decided to set date rape alongside stranger rape. Again, none of us want men to rape women, but there is a difference between a man using unreasonable force to assault a woman on the street, and a disagreement between two lovers over whether there was consent on one particular occasion when the two were spending an evening or night together.

Labour's doctrine of equivalence has led to jury scepticism about many rape claims, in situations where it is the man's word against the woman's and where they had agreed to spend the evening or night together. Young men do not want to have to take a consent form and a lawyer on a date.

When I read that this morning, my immediate thought was what if we replaced the crime of rape with another one. The Provisional BBC beat me to it with murder. You could try it with robbery or with child abuse if you like, just in case the full ridiculousness of the MP for Wokingham's views aren't immediately apparent.

Essentially, Redwood is saying that because it's a bit hard to tell whether an alleged 'date rape' is genuine or just a woman getting revenge, we shouldn't bother to treat in the same way as any other rape.

There is this attitude from the right that certain crimes are not really crimes. Speeding, for example, even when there's pretty clear evidence and any driver ought to know what the limit is. And now it appears that rape can be added to the list of things that 'law abiding' people just happen to do, as if they aren't in control of themselves.

It's total rot, it really is.

In the same article, he argues that corporate manslaughter is being made 'equivalent' to murder (when in fact it isn't, but it is being made equivalent to manslaughter), presumably because corporate negligence that leads to a employee's or customer's death shouldn't be punished in the same way as any other deadly negligence. Under the Human Rights Act, limited companies are considered to have the same rights as people. So, under that basis, they should have the same responsibilities, surely?

Ahh, but of course the Tories don't agree with the Human Rights Act. Despite the fact that all it is incorporating the European Convention on Human Rights into our law, so we don't have to keep having cases heard at The Hague, and despite the fact that it is something that their great hero, Sir Winston Churchill, was fully in favour of.

David Cameron is trying hard to convince us that the Tories have changed. Redwood is giving the lie to any such claim.

Money and Politics III

2007-12-18T22:15:00.001Z

oops!!

Cameron's constituency accepted illegal donations

Money and Politics II

2007-12-03T20:03:00.000Z

The local press have been giving Laura Moffatt a lot of hassle recently about her expenses, and the nearby Tories have not been avoiding the opportunity to crow about it.

However, as Skuds shows, there are two sides to the debate about the cost of someone's work - the output. For example, Laura has voted in 89% of Commons divisions. That sounds a bit low to you?

Well, Nicholas Soames, who we remember fondly as our MP before 1997 (when he agreed with cuts at Crawley Hospital in a way that Laura has never done), manages 46% in his new capacity as MP for Mid-Sussex. Francis Maude barely manages to represent the voters of Horsham a third of the number of times that he could. Both claim lower travel expenses than Laura Moffatt, but should we be surprised if they don't bother to exercise their votes, and so don't need to go up to Westminster as often as more committed parliamentarians.

Why are these MPs absent so much though? Could it be that they have something better to do? Oh, it turns out that Soames and Maude are pretty active outside their jobs as MPs. Seems that Soames has five other jobs and Maude has eight. They presumably are spending some of the time that could be used for representing their constituents out earning money that they don't need (the MPs salary is fairly generous). If they aren't doing what they were elected to do, no wonder they don't generate as much of an expenses bill. However, despite the fact that Maude votes about two-fifths as often as our MP, his expenses are proportionally much higher.

Laura costs more in expenses, but on a per-vote basis, Skuds' figures show that Maude is far worse value for money.

Money and politics I

2007-12-03T19:35:00.000Z

What can anyone say about the ongoing scandal concerning party funding?

As a member of the Labour Party, I have to say that I'm absolutely hopping mad about the Abrahams 'dodge' of paying through third party's, and utterly disgusted that people at the top of the party organisation knew about it and didn't think it was a problem. I'm no expert on the law, but I think it's pretty obvious that this is a no-no.

Personally, I don't care how high up they are, if people working for the Party knew about this and didn't question it, then they should be sacked.

The problem of how we pay for our political parties will not go away, although I think that stiffer spending caps would be a good way to reduce the pressure and would mean less expensive adverts cluttering up the screens.

The media are loving this, and there's always potential for an error (such as Hain's campaign not fully registering all donations properly) being blown up into part of the mire. It's quite clear that the person who makes an illegal donation is the prime wrongdoer. If due diligence is carried out and a problem is not carried out, then the recipient can't be blamed. However, if they did know that the donation was iffy, then they have acted outside the law. If they didn't check and a such a check can reasonably have been shown to show something up, then they have at least been negligent.

However, it's strange that all this focus is put on to one party. The Lib Dems had a real problem with a major donor who turned out to be ineligible - and quite possibly giving them other people's money. The Tories are being very quiet about Lord Ashcroft (who was ennobled after he started bunging them large amounts, but apparently 'cash for honours isn't an issue for him) who appears to still be a tax exile, despite promising to regularise his affairs with HMRC, and who gives the Party a lot of money through third parties - companies, not individuals - as well as flying the leader and shadow cabinet out on top-class jets all over the world at bargain basement prices.

Of course, Labour would have less of a problem with money if the income from the unions and members wasn't on the slide. My view is that the decline of union participation is not something that the Party has taken seriously enough. For some reason, the unions have been regarded as trouble-makers (when often they have been the stalwart supporters of the leadership against us uppity full members). Party membership has slipped over the past ten years, and I detect that quite a bit of that is down to disappointment with the course of the Government, and with the way that the party changed under the New Labour ethos of centralised control.

The main issue that I have about the centralised control links back to the start of this piece - that they may think that they know what they are doing, but at times the organisation of the party leaves a lot to be desired. The historic problems with membership systems appear to have been solved after many years of complaints, but regional and central offices really are not responsive and as we have seen, have been complacent about something as fundamental as keeping within the law on donations.

Luckily, the party central office have very little to do with the Government. However, with civil servants ignoring the Data Protection Act at the same time...

Can Tories add up?

2007-11-01T21:06:00.000Z

Got Henry Smith's new leaflet through my door. It's very nice, a shiny full-colour A3 folded jobby (must have cost Lord Ashcroft a few quid for all of them across town).

There are lots of pictures in it. Lots of them. And in most of them Henry is grinning at me. Great, we know he can smile at a camera. But what else can he do?

Well, adding up and sums might be a bit of a problem for someone.

Taxing sums
There's a bit on the front page slagging off the tax credits scheme, claiming that 'fraud and error' have cost the taxpayer £5bn. However, checking the latest National Audit Office report, I can see that the outstanding debt from overpayments from 2003 (when the scheme was introduced) to 2007 was less than that - £3.9bn, of which only about £0.7bn has been written off. A further £1.6bn has been allocated to underwrite the possibility that not all of the remainder can be collected. That's a total of £2.3bn on the worst case. Half of Henry's figure. Not that I'm saying that it's a good thing, but the Tories are inflating the effect, and have come up with a nice round number to scare us poor taxpayers.

He also claims that the money could build 150 hospitals. Hmm. That works out at less than £35M per hospital. If we look at the figures used by Henry's Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital, we see that the hospital he's telling us he can get built would cost £168M, about five times as much. And to run it for one year would cost nearly £100M. So, assuming that you want to run a hospital for some time after you build it, £5bn would pay for more like 20 hospitals.

The article ends with a Henry quote:

the sick irony is that Crawley only needs one hospital

Umm, we have one hospital. I thought we needed a better hospital, but maybe Henry's less ambitious for us than he'd like to think.

Swings and roundabouts
Also on the front page it says that Henry

achieved the highest national swing from Labour to Conservative (over 8.5%)

but he didn't (assuming that what they actually mean is 'highest swing from Labour to the Conservatives in the country'). David Burrows had a higher swing (8.7%) to win in Enfield Southgate. Sir Patrick Cormack had a higher swing (9.1%) when he held South Staffs.

Yes, Henry did get one of the largest swings, but not the largest. On it's own a small inaccuracy, but given that he can't work out how much a hospital costs, or count how many we have, perhaps there's a pattern emerging...

Costs of investments may rise as well as fall
Page 2 now. It's welcome that West Sussex County Council has invested money into new schools. The figure quoted is £80 million. However, according to a press release from 2003, it was a £54 million PFI project. The remainder of the money was found by selling off land (largely school playing fields), and the PFI part of the deal will still have to be paid off over the next 30 years. Some of the capital will have come from government grants anyway, and WSCC could not have done all of that work without help from the Labour government. Besides, I remember the pain we had to go through in Southgate when involved in the scheme were plans to close one of the local primary schools. Thanks to local opposition (and I like to think I helped the parents out there) we retained both primary schools.

Also, we are getting a 'state of the art' library. Wonderful though I expect it to be, the Tories and County Hall have been promising us a new library for over 15 years. I know it's that long, because I was working in Crawley Library on Saturdays in 1992. And it was considered to be long overdue then. So thanks, Henry, for finally coming through, but let's hope it doesn't take 15 years for anything else to happen.

Of course, one local invesment that Henry's leaflet completely misses out is also one of the most well known: Fastway. Why could it be that a West Sussex County Council led project, investing millions of pounds into local transport infrastructure, is not worth shouting about? The plans were launched by Cllr David Dewdney, the Tory councillor from Pound Hill, and were set to cost £30 million.

Perhaps Henry doesn't want to be associated with Fastway. Maybe it's related to the events of spring 2005, when the County Council found that it had gone over budget by £6 million. It was known at Easter that year, but apparently Henry, then the leader of West Sussex County Council, was totally unaware of the overspend until after May. Coincidentally, he was at the very same time standing as the Conservative candidate for Crawley in the General Election. As far as I can see, he either did know but decided it was a bit embarrassing, or he really didn't know, which begs the question as to whether someone who can avoid knowing about a £6 million snafu is really in touch with what's going on under their own noses.

Blimey, numbers and money really are not Mr Smith's strong points, are they? I've only got to the first column on page two, and my confidence in the guy is shot to pieces...

Inheriting the wind

2007-10-10T18:25:00.000+01:00

Inheritance tax. Apparently, it's a bigger issue for voters than any other political subject.

Why would this be? After all, currently less than 10% of estates are liable to the tax. When it comes to tax, it's far less widely felt than VAT, National Insurance, Income Tax, or duties on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes. Of course, everybody who owns a newspaper is likely to be affected. Many of the senior journalists on national newspapers and on the TV could potentially be. I'd be surprised if most of the Tory front bench are not likely to need to pay some death duties.

However, the vast majority of people will be totally unaffected by increases to thresholds for Inheritance Tax. So why are people so worked up? Of course, everybody hopes (can I use the Brownite word 'aspires') to be rich enough by the time they die to leave a substantial amount. More to the point, everybody secretly hopes that aunty Mabel is sitting on a pile of cash and that she's put it aside for us. However, the reality is that the average person is unlikely to be so fortunate. Even if you are lucky enough to inherit, say, a 1 million pound estate, the current taxes would still leave you with over £700,000. If aunty Mabel was only worth half a million, you'd get 84% of the value.

The Tories may have wanted to get rid of it completely, but have come up with a new threshold of £1 million. Given that it's the super-rich who are likely to be able to spend a bit of time and money on tax planning away much of their obligations, and they'd be getting a cut of £280,000 anyway, this would be a long way towards removing the tax completely. Given that the Tories are not telling us that we can cut overall taxes, that means that billions would have to be found somehow.

Alistair Darling has announced changes, which effectively mean that the £300,000 allowance is transferred to a widow(er). As no inheritance tax is liable on estates passed between husband and wife (or, I believe, civil partners), it means that when the remaining partner dies, the estate gets an allowance of £600,000. Fine if you're married, a but annoying if you aren't.

Skuds has an idea - rather than tax the estate, why not tax each inheritor according to how much they get? Lateral thinking there.

My feeling is that Inheritance Tax is fair - it's no more unfair than any other taxation at least - although the quick increase in property values has caused people to worry that the middle classes might come under the cosh (and we can't have that now, can we?). I think that it would make sense for either the main home to be exempt, or for the average house price to be a factor in determining the allowance (I quite like the idea of a formula rather than the Treasury every now and again picking an arbitrary number for allowances on tax).

Mind you, on a related note, it's quite odd to hear the Tories complain about their policies being stolen. They nicked the idea of a flat rate for non-domiciles from the Lib Dems (and they attacked it as unworkable at the time).

Local lad still doing well

2007-09-27T21:33:00.001+01:00

I wonder if he knows it, but Iain Dale and his contributing baying Tory commenters have put our Skuds in the top 100 'left of centre blogs' for the second year in a row.

More from Burma

2007-09-27T20:22:00.000+01:00

Unfortunately, my fears of violence in Burma have been well founded. Every day the Guardian has been providing updates and links to more information about the events there. The official death toll is nine, which is likely to be a massive understatement. A Japanese reporter has apparently been killed, which may well bring more opprobrium from the international community. More importantly, hundreds of monks have been arrested, with many being beaten.

Tues 25 Sept GU newsblog
Weds 26 Sept GU newsblog
Thur 27 Sept GU newsblog

One glimmer of hope is that it appears that there is a group within the Burmese army who are sympathetic to the monks and people.

There's not much that we can do as individuals, and sanctions are unlikely to have an immediate impact. As it is, I don't use Total petrol stations, so I can't even hurt them (the French oil company is a heavy investor in Burma, laying a new pipeline there). If by chance anyone who reads this ever thinks about filling up their car with Total, please don't, while they help provide financial backing for this odious regime.

Talking about suppression...

2007-09-25T23:54:00.000+01:00

Here's a place where they do it properly - Burma (or as the military junta would have it, 'Myanmar').

I've been keeping a little eye out on the growing opposition demonstrations there in the last few weeks, starting with protests over escalating fuel costs, and this week seeing the Buddhist monks marching through Rangoon ('Yangon') and other cities.

Yesterday there was the bizarre sight of a military chappy kneeling in a temple, imploring the senior monks not to go out again today. It would seem that the Burmese hold monks in very high esteem, but this display was sinister because the leaders were really saying "Please don't do it because we might have to send the army in".

The monks went out again today, and as the Guardian newsblog updates showed, there are a lot of rumours and whispers about hospitals being cleared and riot police moving in. However, no actual reports of a crackdown, although apparently Aung San Suu Kyi was moved from house arrest to prison this afternoon.

The odious regime really ought to fall, to be replaced with democracy, but they have largely been allowed to get away with oppressing their own people for decades, with China helping them out and no-one else wanting to intervene in a liberal-humanitarian stylee in case it causes ructions.

President Bush has announced extended sanctions (good move, but years late) and the rest of the world is trying to convince the Burmese government not to use violence to restore 'order'.

However, a curfew has been declared, and gatherings of more than 5 people have been banned. I have a bad feeling about tomorrow.

Hey look! A bandwagon!

2007-09-25T22:59:00.000+01:00

But one that I have no shame whatsoever in jumping on to.

As mentioned in my previous post, Alisher Usmanov has been accused of using his influence to get Fasthost to suppress criticism of him, resulting in the taking down of not only Craig Murray' and Tim Ireland's blogs, but also those of Boris Johnson, Bob Piper and other innocent bystanders.

This exertion of corporate financial muscle to try to stifle people's opinions has had the effect of bringing far more interest in the activities of Mister Usmanov, who has a shady past and (perhaps more worryingly) a large stake in Arsenal FC.

And this is (as of the time of this post) the list of 251 blogs which have spoken out against the heavy-handed use of lawyers to shut down free speech:

Curious Hamster, Pickled Politics, Harry’s Place, Tim Worstall, Dizzy, Iain Dale, Ten Percent, Blairwatch, Davide Simonetti, Earthquake Cove, Turbulent Cleric (who suggests dropping a line to the FA about Mr Usmanov), Mike Power, Jailhouse Lawyer, Suesam, Devil’s Kitchen, The Cartoonist, Falco, Casualty Monitor, Forever Expat, Arseblog, Drink-soaked Trots (and another), Pitch Invasion, Wonko’s World, Roll A Monkey, Caroline Hunt, Westminster Wisdom, Chris K, Anorak, Mediawatchwatch, Norfolk Blogger, Chris Paul, Indymedia (with a list of Craig Murray’s articles that are currently unavailable), Obsolete, Tom Watson, Cynical Chatter, Reactionary Snob, Mr Eugenides, Matthew Sinclair, The Select Society, Liberal England, Davblog, Peter Gasston Pitch Perfect, Adelaide Green Porridge Cafe, Lunartalks, Tygerland, The Crossed Pond, Our Kingdom, Big Daddy Merk, Daily Mail Watch, Graeme’s, Random Thoughts, Nosemonkey, Matt Wardman, Politics in the Zeros, Love and Garbage, The Huntsman, Conservative Party Reptile, Ellee Seymour, Sabretache, Not A Sheep, Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion, The People’s Republic Of Newport, Life, the Universe & Everything, Arsenal Transfer Rumour Mill, The Green Ribbon, Blood & Treasure, The Last Ditch, Areopagitica, Football in Finland, An Englishman’s Castle, Freeborn John, Eursoc, The Back Four, Rebellion Suck!, Ministry of Truth, ModernityBlog, Beau Bo D’Or, Scots and Independent, The Splund, Bill Cameron, Podnosh, Dodgeblogium, Moving Target, Serious Golmal, Goonerholic, The Spine, Zero Point Nine, Lenin’s Tomb, The Durruti Column, The Bristol Blogger, ArseNews, David Lindsay, Quaequam Blog!, On A Quiet Day…, Kathz’s Blog, England Expects, Theo Spark, Duncan Borrowman, Senn’s Blog, Katykins, Jewcy, Kevin Maguire, Stumbling and Mumbling, Famous for 15 megapixels, Ordovicius, Tom Morris, AOL Fanhouse, Doctor Vee, The Curmudgeonly, The Poor Mouth, 1820, Hangbitch, Crooked Timber, ArseNole, Identity Unknown, Liberty Alone, Amused Cynicism, Clairwil, The Lone Voice, Tampon Teabag, Unoriginalname38, Special/Blown It, The Remittance Man, 18 Doughty Street, Laban Tall, Martin Bright, Spy Blog The Exile, poons, Jangliss, Who Knows Where Thoughts Come From?, Imagined Community, A Pint of Unionist Lite, Poldraw, Disillusioned And Bored, Error Gorilla, Indigo Jo, Swiss Metablog, Kate Garnwen Truemors, Asn14, D-Notice, The Judge, Political Penguin, Miserable Old Fart, Jottings, fridgemagnet, Blah Blah Flowers, J. Arthur MacNumpty, Tony Hatfield, Grendel, Charlie Whitaker, Matt Buck, The Waendel Journal, Marginalized Action Dinosaur, SoccerLens, Toblog, John Brissenden East Lower, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Peter Black AM, Boing Boing, BLTP, Gunnerblog, LFB UK, Liberal Revolution, Wombles, Focus on Sodbury…, Follow The Money, Freedom and Whisky, Melting Man, PoliticalHackUK, Simon Says…, Daily EM, From The Barrel of a Gun, The Fourth Place, The Armchair News Blog, Journalist und Optimist, Bristol Indymedia, Dave Weeden, Up North John, Gizmonaut, Spin and Spinners, Marginalia, Arnique, Heather Yaxley, The Whiskey Priest, On The Beat, Paul Canning, Martin Stabe, Mat Bowles, Pigdogfucker, Rachel North, B3TA board, Naqniq, Yorkshire Ranter, The Home Of Football, UFO Breakfast Recipients, Moninski , Kerching, e-clectig, Mediocracy, Sicily Scene, Samizdata, I blog, they blog, weblog, Colcam, Some Random Thoughts, Bel is thinking, Vino S, Simply Jews, Atlantic Free Press, Registan, Filasteen, Britblog Roundup #136, Scientific Misconduct Blog, Adam Bowie, Duncan at Abcol, Camera Anguish, A Very British Dude, Whatever, Central News, Green Gathering, Leighton Cooke (224), , Skuds’ Sister’s Brother, Contrast News, Poliblog Perspective, Parish Pump, El Gales, Noodle, Curly’s Corner Shop, Freunde der offenen Gesellschaft, otromundoesposible, Richard Stacy, Looking For A Voice, News Dissector, Kateshomeblog, Writes Like She Talks, Extra! Extra!, Committee To Protect Bloggers, Liberty’s Requiem, American Samizdat, The Thunder Dragon, Cybersoc, Achievable Life, Paperholic, Creative-i, Raedwald, Nobody’s Friend, Lobster Blogster, Panchromatica (251).

Mr Usmanov, how very dare you!

Anyway...

2007-09-25T21:48:00.000+01:00

I know I've been a bit quiet lately. August was not a good month, basically because not much happens to comment upon anyway, but primarily because my grandfather passed away after a brief illness.

This month I just haven't had the energy to think much about posting, and I also spent a week on holiday (piling up the carbon tonnage by flying off to San Francisco - you can tell I'm not a member of the Green Party).

So, I didn't post anything about the new Crawley Borough Council logo when it was unveiled a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, Skuds has already posted as much as one needs to know about it - it's eerily similar to a draft for the Conservative logo from last year and even more like an MBNA image that is used. But then all multi-coloured trees are going to look alike, and it's not so much the thing itself that I have a problem with, but the manner in which it has come about and the needless cost of going about the change.

Of more concern to me recently is that the BNP are putting a candidate up in a by-election in the Horsham District ward of Holbrook West (an area including part of the north of the town and a patch of semi-rural and rural land between Warnham and Rusper).

I missed the whole furore about Alisher Usmanov getting some blogs shut down after they criticised him (and in the process bringing down other, unrelated blogs). Not being a fully paid up member of the blogerati, it passed me by completely, but I have to add my disgust to that of the many bloggers who have protested about this abuse of corporate power. Chicken Yoghurt has the full skinny and Sunny Hundal at Pickled Politics has more here, here and here.

Live Blogging the Crawley Game

2007-09-25T19:31:00.001+01:00

Ebbsfleet Utd 1(0) v Crawley Town 0(0)
(Ebbsfleet used to be call Gravesend & Northfleet)
Kickoff - 7:45pm

Crawley are currently in 7th place (although this is before the decision on whether to deduct 6 points has been finally settled). Ebbsfleet are 14th.

Thanks to the deal between Virgin and Setanta, I can watch this on the telly, so I thought I'd provide a live update. Updates will appear at the top, so anyone visiting won't have to scroll down much to see the latest. The game will appear in reverse order though. Ho hum.

The local press also give the same service - http://www.crawleyobserver.co.uk/sport/LIVE--Ebbsfleet-United-V.3230617.jp I'm not trying to compete, just complement their coverage :-)

Crawley Lineup
4-4-2: Bayes; Wilson, Mills, Stevens, Bull; Bulman, Thompson, Pinault, Cook; Madjo, Pittman.
(Subs: Vieira, Evans, Clapham, Joseph-Dubois, Krause)

For those watching in black-and-white, Crawley are in their away strip of yellow shirts and blue shorts

9:40 Full time.
Ebbsfleet win, and Crawley Town are frustrated. With by far the most opportunities to score, the away side also felt that they should have been a man up after McCarthy handled early on. Sasha Opinel played very well against his old side, and he was the decisive factor in this game.

9:38
The keeper fists away the delivery, only for a deflected cross to go for another Crawley corner. That results in a fray in the box, with the keeper agian punching the ball down, but no Crawley player can connect before a foul is given against them.

9:37
3 minutes of extra play indicated, and Crawley will really have to pick things up to get a point. However, a corner presents the opportunity

9:36
Madjo judged to have pushed, and he isn't happy with the ref. Free kick from Hawkins so poor it hits the corner flag for a throw to Crawley.

9:33
I can hear the announcer give Sasha Opinel the man of the match, which is more than fair, given that he kept Madjo out at a vital time.

9:32
Crawley start to recover, pressing upfield a bit more, but there isn't much time left to save the game.

9:30
Double substitution for Crawley, as Viera and Joseph-Dubois come on for Cook and Pittman.

9:29
Bull booked for a foul on Moore, and Ebbsfleet get a cross about 25 yards out. Nade gets the head again, but it goes across the face of goal. After such a good game, Crawley have lost their edge after conceding.

9:27
Lucky escape for Crawley as Ebbsfleet try to break and Wilson kicks the ball hard into Bayes' knee. If the keeper had missed that, it could have been an own goal to put Town two goals down.

9:24
Goal! Ebbsfleet make a chance from nowhere pay off, as a cross beats both central defenders for Nade to head the ball past a hapless Bayes. 1-0 to the home side.
9:22
Madjo comes back to help the defence, and leads in with his dodgy ankle to take the challenge. Brave, but perhaps foolhardy. Seems to be ok though

9:21
Opinel forced to give away a corner, but Ebbsfleet win the ball back

9:20
Pittman and Madjo team up again in the attack, keeping the ball on the pitch to pressure United in their own area.

9:19
A free kick for Ebbsfleet results in a shot over, but the Devils' defence should have closed that down.

9:18
Madjo comes so close!! A break up the left wing sees Madjo beat three defenders to squeeze a shot in, to see it go inches wide.

9:17
A scare for Crawley as Ebbsfleet nearly get behind the defence. Mills clears from the 6 yard box.

9:14
More pressure from Crawley, as Ebbsfleet are forced to pack the defence on the edge of the area. Wilson goes down with an ankle twist after trying to get a cross in. We can only hope he'll be able to run it off

9:11
Deft touch from Pittman on the left beats the defence, and Pinault was fouled (not according to the ref). Crawley are starting to put some good moves together in the midfield.

9:09
Of course, as I say that, Pittman almost gets past Hawkins before the United defender flicks the ball away.

9:08
Ebbsfleet have tightened up in the back, and Madjo has just been caught offside.

9:06
Madjo puts another shot wide, but the build up play was good, with Bulman putting a short ball in to the striker.

9:02
Crawley get a free kick on the edge of the area, with a yellow card for Bostwick. The shot bounces off the wall, and loops over Pittman before going wide

9:00
So close!! A break for Crawley puts Pittman on, and he passes to Madjo. A dummy strands the defender and Madjo shoots, beating the keeper, but Opinel gets across to head the ball away. That was going into the bottom corner.

8:59
A long shot (which looked like a mis-hit cross) lands on the top of the Crawley goal. Bayes had it covered, but that could have been a flukey goal for United.

8:56
Wilson makes a vital tackle on the edge of the box to keep Ebbsfleet from getting a shot in.

8:55
Ebbsfleet have an opportunity on the right wing, but the move breaks down. The ball is quickly sent back up the pitch for Cook, but the cross back is intercepted.

8:51
Ebbsfleet kick off the second half

8:50
The teams are back out, and Setanta have stopped the adverts. Steve Evans not happy with the ref, I agree that the handball was blatant enough to deserve a red card, but the ref (apparently soon to get a Premiership gig) has, as they say, the final decsion

Half time
Town have looked fairly good so far, although their confident start gave way to a few jitters as Ebbsfleet settled down about half way through. Crawley have had more chances, and better ones, with Madjo looking very flash - perhaps a bit too flash at times. Ebbsfleet have threatened, but I can't recall a shot on target or more than one really clear chance. The Crawley central defence of Mills and Stevens are having a really good game so far.

Time for another beer.

8:35
Another cross from Crawley following a good move from Pinault, but the keeper beats Madjo to the ball. And that's half time.

8:33
Pittman makes a good run down the right wing, but the shot goes out before reaching the post

8:32
A Wilson ball in is fumbled by Cronin, but Pittman can't get the rebound. Another chance for Crawley there.

8:31
Thompson comes through midfield to win the ball for Madjo to weave through. A shot is blocked, Pittman gets the ball back but Madjo takes it from him. Pittman not too happy, especially as the resulting weak shot goes wide.

8:28
Setanta are a bit odd - they interview the managers during play. Imagine Sky approaching Ferguson during an Old Trafford game for a quick word...

8:27
Ball goes into the Ebbsfleet net from a Cook header, but the whistle had already gone - a push gives the free kick to the home side

8:26
The ball has been pinging across the pitch for a while, both keepers are having to punt it back in a few times.

8:22
A close shave, as Ebbsfleet's Boswick puts the ball over after a great ball in.

8:21
Crawley are starting to reassert themselves in midfield, but Ebbsfleet are definitely upping their game off the ball.

8:20
Another good cross in from Ebbsfleet requires Bayes to clear.

8:19
Another short spell of pressure from Ebbsfleet, a dangerous ball into the box is cleared, and then Opinel sends a speculative shot wide.

8:18
Ebbsfleet win the ball with a dodgy challenge, but a long ball goes over the line before their forward can reach it.

8:15
Wilson, and then Madjo, play well to keep the ball on the pitch, earning a throw in near the line.

8:14
Steve Evans says he's satisfied so far, but that we should have scored by now.

8:12
Madjo works superbly through midfield, Bulman's cross just ahead of Pittman. A really good chance for Crawley!

8:09
Madjo shoots! just squeaks over the bar. This game is looking pretty good considering the level that these teams are at (he says, patronisingly..._

8:07
Crawley under a bit of pressure as Bayes forced to clear, and shortly after a shot goes over the bar.

8:06
Opinel (an ex-Crawley player) gives away a free kick. There's a bit of tussle in the Ebbsfleet box but the keeper eventually gets the ball.

8:05
Good ball in to Pittman from the free kick (taken by Cook?), but it goes about a foot over

8:04
Handball by Ebbsfleet! about 25 yards out, trying to stop the ball going over him to Madjo. The lad gets a yellow, which is lenient

8:01
Madjo takes the ball up the left wing, past the defence, but no-one there to receive his cross.

8:00
Second corner played to the penalty area but easily cleared. Crawley win the ball back, but break down, giving away a free kick.

7:58
First corner of the game awarded to Crawley. Played short, but goes out for another.

7:57
Crawley tighten up at the back, catching their opponents in the offside trap.

7:55
A bit of a worry as Madjo and an another player clash, but the super-striker is ok. Free kick but nothing comes from it.

7:54
Both sides are working hard, and much of the play is in midfield. That's why the commentary isn't really sparkling. That, and my total lack of wit.

7:53
Crawley throw in to the box, but a foul is given against them.

7:51
Ebbsfleet shoot from outside the box - miles wide.

7:50
Crawley defend at first, giving away a foul by the corner flag.

7:49
kickoff

Before the Game
Pint of London Pride poured, sofa cushioned plumped and the crisps in a bowl, it's time to settle down to a first for me - watching Crawley Town on the telly.

NonLeague Today's pools predictions have a home win, and Ebbsfleet have won three games in a row. Crawley had some great winds recently though, scoring 13 goals in the process. The betting has Ebbsfleet as favourites, but Madjo to score first.

A prison with a Mote in it

2007-09-04T21:27:00.000+01:00

What's worse, an MEP who is elected to stand for one party and now sits alongside neo-nazis instead, or an MEP who can't represent his constituents because he's in prison for benefit fraud?

The answer is, of course, Ashley Mote, who has managed to combine both.

Today the MEP for the South East was sentenced to nine months in gaol for defrauding us the taxpayers out of £65,506 over more than six years. Seems that he was claiming benefits after his business failed in 1992, and 'forgot' to let the relevant authorities know that he'd got work in 1996, and was receiving money until late in 2002.

When he stood for UKIP in the Euro elections of 2004, he 'forgot' to mention the charges against him to his colleagues, and it became apparent soon after he obtained his seat. UKIP chucked him out, but due to the bizarre rules of the EU, even though he was elected on a party slate, they can't replace him on their own, he has to resign, die or become ineligible somehow.

As an independent MEP, Ashley joined the same bloc as populated by the French Front National and the Italian Alternativa Sociale (represented by Mussolini's granddaughter, who has inherited all of the old boy's charm and many of his views). The BNP are also allied to these parties.

You'd think, however, that several convictions (guilty on 21 charges) would be enough for Mote to lose his seat. Especially for fraud. Then UKIP would be able to put a replacement in his place and we'd have a full complement of MEPs working for the South East. However, because his sentence was less than a year, he gets to keep his seat, again, thanks to those 'wacky' EU rules (and a lenient judge). Which, as one of his constituents, really gets my goat.

What does a closet-fascist fraudster MEP have to do to lose his seat?

[edit: turns out that the rule about only losing your seat if imprisoned for one year is the same as for the UK parliament, so it's not just a wacky EU thing. Also, Skuds blogged on this one too]

Learco Chindamo

2007-08-23T20:43:00.000+01:00

A few things occur to me as I read about the furore concerning the decision not to deport the killer of Philip Lawrence

1) He's still serving a life sentence. That is the punishment determined by the court when he was convicted in 1996. He is eligible for parole next year, but that is no guarantee of release. Even if he is released then or later on, he will be under license for some time.

2) He was 15 when he committed his crime. That doesn't diminish the seriousness of it, but in my view we should treat young offenders as being likely to be less capable of adult decision-making than, ummm, adults. However, it seems that in the UK we reserve a special kind of hatred for women or children who kill.

3) As eloquent and outspoken as Mrs Lawrence is, that is not a reason to let her decide the punishment. If her husband had not been a nice middle-class headmaster, but say, an asian shopkeeper, would we have a Mrs Patel on the from pages of the tabloids? Doubt it, somehow

4) It wasn't the Human Rights Act, it was the fact that by law EU citizens have freedom of movement, combined with the rules that say you can't deport an EU citizen if they've lived there for more than 10 years (which he'd done at about the time of conviction)

5) Hang on, Dave is leading on this one, right? One of the real complaints is that 12 years was too short a minimum sentence. So who was in government when Chindamo was convicted in 1996? Which party had a whole 17 years of power before then to set sentencing guidelines which would have stopped such a thing happening at all? Here's a clue - Dave is a member of it, and was working for them for part of that time...

A War on Errorism

2007-08-23T19:56:00.000+01:00

Some science news. In fact, check out the rest of Tom Hamilton's blog let's be sensible to see how Daily Telegraph pundits who right on education can't tell the difference between 'half' and 'all', and thing that degrees in advanced computing like Artificial Intelligence are useless, how 'Dave' thinks that a bare knuckle fight is a departure from Punch and Judy politics, and the things a wide range of idiots will say.

Crawley hosts a superstar

2007-08-16T18:23:00.000+01:00

Tonight at K2, there is a basketball international between Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. Making his début for GB is Luol Deng, who came to this country as a refugee (or, as the current parlance has it, asylum seeker) from the war in Southern Sudan. In the USA he plays for the Chicago Bulls, one of the top NBA teams, and is in the process of starting a new contract which is worth more than Wayne Rooney's.

It's heartening that he has retained his association with his childhood home, where he started his career, and wants to play for the GB team, it's quite possible that he could easily take US citizenship and try to get into their team, given his talent.

Good luck to the GB team tonight!

[Edit - GB 88 - 59 RoI, with Deng scoring 24 points. Looks like luck wasn't needed, but there's another game tonight (17 August) with a real test against Slovakia next week in Birmingham]

Love Music, Hate Fascism

2007-07-29T16:24:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I went up to the Crawley Mela at the Hawth. The event has been running for many years, and brings people in from all over Crawley and the surrounding area, from all parts of the community. Primarily based on the South Asian festivals, there was lots of lovely spicy food, music and dancing from many cultures. I took a few pictures which (If I can figure out how to get them out of my phone) might get posted later.

Wealden Unite Against Fascism shared a stall with the long-established Crawley Campaign Against Racism and the local Interfaith Network. We gain some new members, but the main aim was to get the name out and to get exposure. One way to do this was to give out stickers to as many Mela-goers as possible. Most people were happy to wear the purple badges.

A few were less so. While most councillors who were there were happy to be associated with the UAF, including the Tory Leader of the council, Bob Lanzer, the Deputy Leader, Duncan Crow pointedly refused to keep one on.

[error corrected]

Tory communalism again

2007-07-22T21:31:00.000+01:00

Skuds has highlighted the odd case of Cllr Carol Eade, who manages to do the same job twice for two different places, by being a Borough Councillor for Furnace Green in Crawley and a District Councillor for Eastbrook in Adur at the same time.

Like Skuds did, I looked at her page on the Adur council website here, and found a few odd things in her profile.

My interests / hobbies :
I am now entering my forth year as a Councillor and have enjoyed being involved in many of the duties. I still read Chistian books but time and circumstances does not allowed long walks anymore.

Umm, surely you mean 'fourth', 'Christian' and 'do not allow', Carol?

When and why I have become a councillor :

One day, after a service at the Southwick Methodist Church, I was approached by a Conservative Member who asked me to become a Councillor. The pre-requisites were a female Christian. I said that I would think about it and two weeks later the same person addressed me with the same question and also asked my husband to become a Councillor. My husband and I went along to a Committee meeting at the Civic Centre to see how things were done. We made several enquiries and spoke with other Councillors before coming to the final decision of accepting the request. We both went for interviews and were accepted to stand for election. We were both elected in 2003 for one year and again in 2004 for a term of four years.

Clearly her term still ends in 2008, and there is no mention of the fact that she's also a councillor in Crawley on her profile (I wonder what the people of Eastbrook think of that?).

What most intrigued me was the idea that she had been approached because of her religion and gender. As 'pre-requisites'. Obviously more important than use of the English language (of course, we all make typos). So why did she have to be a 'Christian'? I didn't realise that the Tories, least of all the modern Cameroony fluffy ones of today, were specifically a Christian party. I wonder if that will come as a surprise to the recent Sikh recruits to the Tory banner in Ealing & Southall, or those who fought for seats alongside Cllr Eade here in Crawley this year. One of those, Jarnail Singh, now represents Southgate, my own neighbourhood, and was backed by the local Gurdwara.

Are the Tories exploiting religion for electoral gain? Will this backfire on them at some point? Events in the Ealing and Southall by-election suggest that it already is.

A question answered.

2007-07-18T21:20:00.000+01:00

Earlier in the year, I asked, Does the South East have a Fascist MEP?

Well, one thing I wasn't aware of at the time was that the grouping set up in January to represent the far right in the European Parliament is essentially made up of two groups. On the one hand there is 'Euronat', which is made up of parties like the French Front National and the Flemish Belgian Vlaams Blok. On the other hand is Ashley Mote and two others from Bulgaria and Romania as independents (although Mote was elected as a UKIP candidate).

Thing is, when I speculated that the 'Identity, Sovereignty, Tradition' group would be the natural home of the BNP, I didn't know that indeed, the BNP are the British affiliates to the 'Euronat' group.

So yes, Mote is effectively allied with the BNP. I hope that any people in the South East who voted UKIP realise what they have done.

More bad news for the Crawley Tories

2007-07-18T18:39:00.000+01:00

Back in January, the Conservatives had to admit defeat on their badly thought through and costed plans to transfer Crawley's Council Housing stock.

Essentially, all of the bodies that had to approve their proposals refused to do so, mainly on the basis that the projected £60M costs were inflated. The Audit Commission, the local tenant's panel, the 'shadow board' (the group set up to create the new entity which would take over the housing) and the Government office of the South East are difficult to argue with. Until then, it had only been the Labour councillors who had opposed putting the flawed plan to the vote of tenants. The Lib Dems appeared to prefer to tinker with the edges, and it was only when they gained a Tory defector and the true extent of the debace was apparent that they came to a definite position.

One of the things that was highlighted back in November was that the council had spent £30K on a DVD which had been rendered incorrect even before it was sent out. The Tory leadership had included a reference to the possibility of charging more for the vital Lifeline service (which provides a direct link between vulnerable elderly and ill tenants and the emergency/health services). However, this was defeated by Labour, Lib Dem and dissident Tory votes, but it was too late to remove this 'threat' from the DVD.

Turns out that this was not the only problem with it, or with other advertising sent out by the Council around the time to promote the idea of transfer. Today the Advertising Standards Authority said that Crawley Borough Council had potentially misled tenants and upheld two complaints:

A newsletter headlined "Council faces £12m shortfall to reach Decent Homes Standard (DHS)" said the Crawley authority would not be able to meet a £60m figure which it claimed was the minimum spend required on housing stock by 2010.
But the ASA upheld a complaint that this figure was misleading, because it included future maintenance costs beyond DHS guidance.
A second point of complaint concerned a promotional DVD which questioned the reliability of other information being disseminated at the time by the Defend Council Housing group.
The ASA concluded the material "unfairly denigrated" the aims of the group, which campaigned against the housing transfer.

So, the DVD also attacked the Defend Council Housing group. But the more important thing is that the ASA have also picked up on the Tory claims of a £12M shortfall in funding due to a need to spend £60M in three years. Even after the Audit Commission and others had pointed out that the £60M figure was too high, or referred to a much longer period of time, the Tory councillors were still sticking to the £12M funding gap. It doesn't exist! And yet again, the Council are finding that an august body has called them on the claims.

Crawley council said: "We're baffled because everything was checked and approved by the relevant parties in line with government guidelines."

I'm 'baffled' because the Labour councillors, Defend Council Housing and others had been asking them to clarify their figures for months before they were ignominiously dropped. The fact that they did not, and still have not, suggests that either they didn't know what the basis for the £60M really was (and how it compared to the actual spend to meet the Decent Homes Standard), or they did but didn't want to admit that it was incorrect.

So did they lie, or can't they add up? And the people of Crawley elected more of these muppets to run the town in May.

A good day in court

2007-07-16T19:19:00.000+01:00

Not only did Lydia Playfoot lose in her bid to sue Millais school for enforcing its uniform policy, but Tesco decided not to contest the suspension of the license at Downland Drive after all, and removed all the booze from the shelves ready for a 28 day dry period.

I'd have a beer to celebrate, only I've run out, and the local shop has just lost it's license.

In case you think I have a beef with Tesco, here's a Sainsburys story

2007-07-13T20:39:00.000+01:00

It seems that the major chains are not doing well when it comes to satisfying the local councils. While I wait to find out whether the local Tesco will have its alcohol license suspension upheld, the main Sainsburys in Crawley has been fined £7,500 for not doing enough to stop boy racers using the car park for noisy meets. Costs of nearly the same amount were also awarded, costing the chain almost £15,000 in total, on top of their own legal bill.

The problem that Sainsburys has is that it is not easy to stop people getting into the car park when the store is closed. McDonalds and Homebase also have outlets there and the petrol station is (I think) open 24 hours. There is a gate on the slip road leading to the main car park, but to close it would probably cause problems (not least of which is that it is not easy for cars to turn back if they use the slip road). Besides, the entry to the petrol station also allows you to drive into the car park from the other direction.

However, it is their car park, and it is being used for behaviour that has caused serious annoyance to people living in nearby houses (a matter of yards away). The real problem is probably that as it isn't a highway, the police can't easily stop the miscreants on traffic offences, and Sainsburys has until recently been loath to spend money on trying to enforce reasonable use of their own property.

(I saw this on the BBC, but the story there has disappeared, so here's a link to the Argus, who appear to at least keep articles on local news in a findable place for longer)

Wealden Unite Against Fascism launched

2007-07-10T23:03:00.000+01:00

Tonight, we finalised the setting up of a branch of the UAF to cover Crawley, Horsham, Redhill and surrounding areas. It will be called 'Wealden' because we didn't want to restrict the group to Crawley or to any other specific area. It seems that the BNP are trying to gain councillors by finding vacant Parish Council places and putting candidates forward - often these will be unopposed. Exploiting this means that they can claim to be gaining support and representation (despite the fact that their vote is going down where they stand in real elections).

In the near future the Wealden UAF will be looking to campaign in the area, particularly where the BNP or other fascist parties have a visible presence. There is talk of hosting a 'Love Music Hate Racism' event, probably in Crawley, to build awareness of the campaign with young (and probably not so young) people in the area. It would also be a great opportunity for local musicians to display their talents and to help bring the community together

Bribing the Electorate

2007-07-10T22:37:00.000+01:00

Further to my previous post, it seems that the Tories are really trying to prove that they have some policies (having spent the past 18 months proving that David Cameron is a 'nice guy' and little else).

The next big idea is tax breaks for married couples. On the basis that marriage will solve all of the social problems in the UK.

Now, I have a lot of respect for marriage. So much so that I am not married because I see it as a serious commitment that should not be entered into lightly. However, if the Tories get in and will pay me £1,000 a year to get married, perhaps I should regard it a less of an onerous promise. Thinking about it, if this is brought in, and it encourages people who are a bit dubious about marriage to get hitched, wouldn't we see more marriages break up later on (when the people realise that money isn't the only thing that should keep them together). Then there is the idea that people in failed and abusive marriages are to be encouraged to stay together because of cash. 'Family Values', anyone?

The other side to this, of course, is that it will cost over £3 billion to implement. Who is going to pay that extra tax - or who is going to lose the services of the same value? Could it be that single people will pay the price? Or even single parents? Are the children of parents who split up (or where one died) deserving of less support, so that married but childless couples can be better off?

Not to mention that it was actually the Tories who set in place the tax reforms which led to the abolition of the married couples' allowance in the first place (in 1990, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Major, started the trend to reduce its value). By the time it was abolished ten years later, it was worth about $400 per year, and benefited about 6 million childless couples.

Tesco fined £10,000

2007-07-10T22:03:00.001+01:00

More on this (and the original post here).

I was mistaken in that I thought that today one of the Crawley Tesco stores would hear it's appeal against the decision to suspend it's alcohol license. In my defence, my information came from the BBC. The appeals for Downland Drive and Dobbins Place are due to be held on the 16th of July.

What actually happened today was the hearing for the Dobbins Place outlet which not only was caught selling alcohol to minors, but also did not have a proper supervisor (equivalent to a licensee for a pub) for a period of over two months.

The multinational corporation has, as a result, been fined £10,000 (source: the Brighton Argus). With takings from alcohol sales of £4,000 a week, I reckon that if the store makes a margin of about 25% of the retail price, the fine has wiped out the profit from that over the period for which the store lacked the proper management cover.

Now, it also happens that this week the Tories are unveiling their new 'policies' on Society. One of the ideas from Iain Duncan-Smith's groupthink session is to combat binge drinking and alcohol abuse by increasing taxes. Apart from the obvious question over the fact that the Tories have spent the last ten years whining about indirect ('stealth') taxes and have opposed every Gordon Brown budget which increased duty on alcohol and yet now they propose the exact opposite, should we not start off by enforcing the laws we do have?

In fact, as the councils in Crawley and Worthing are trying to do, having been notified by Sussex Police and West Sussex Trading Standards.

As much as a fine for breaking the law is a positive thing, £10K is hardly going to cause much of a dent to a company the size of Tescos operations, and if a spot check can find three shops in West Sussex which freely sell booze to minors, it would appear that the problem is more widespread (and that's before we even consider other outlets). Rather than increasing taxes for all drinkers, encouraging a black market and annoying much of the country, couldn't we just get the government to enforce the laws that are in place?

The perils of appointing from 'all the talents'

2007-07-05T18:47:00.000+01:00

In the past few days, the idea of bringing in new blood to the main parties' front benches has been sorely tested.

When Gordon Brown put Sir Digby Jones into the new DBERR (which is the new name for the DTI), a lot of Labour people were a bit sniffy. It is now clear that while the soon-to-be-ennobled knight and ex-CBI leader will accept the government whip in the Lords, he will not join the Labour Party itself. I was under the mistaken impression that this was against our own Party rules (but I'm sure that they will be changed / ignored if it is).
As I noted earlier here the Tories are about to bring in Sayeeda Warsi to cover 'community cohesion', but she's got form. As usual, my comment is massively put to shame by Unity, who has comprehensively gone into her history and since brought up some recent developments
If you followed the first link in the previous point, you'll see that Unity has also dug into the past of Dame Pauline Neville-Jones (link repeated here). Seems like the time she spent as Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee was a total of 5 weeks, but it's the time after that which is of interest - pushing for appeasement of Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia at Dayton followed by a lucrative time working with Lord Hurd at NatWest brokering major deals with, umm, Slobodan Milosevic's Serbia until the downfall of the warmongering nationalist president put an end to the give-aways. Apparently the US diplomats nicknamed her 'Dame Neville-Chaimberlain' in 1996.

In all three cases, the appointee is unelected and will get a peerage in order to do their job. Even if they are only in their party post for a short while, their tenure in the Lords would be for life, barring some major impropriety on their part.

In all three cases, there is the potential for major clashes with the rest of their new colleagues (perhaps Dame Neville-Jones will fit in pretty well though with the Tories). I know that we need to bring in views from outside the political ghetto, but I think that in these cases the approach will backfire.

People will insist that this doesn't happen

2007-07-03T20:29:00.000+01:00

MCB condemns terrorism & calls for people to help the policeSecretary General Muhammad Abdul Bari said:

"Those who seek to deliberately kill or maim innocent people are the enemies of us all. There is no cause whatsoever that could possibly justify such barbarity."

Can't argue with that, can we. However, I bet you that I read in the next few days several people saying things like "so where are all the 'moderate' muslims who are publicly disassociating themselves from terrorists" or even "with the silence from the muslim community, are all of them in sympathy with the bombers?".

Tories just like the SWP?

2007-07-02T20:04:00.000+01:00

Cosying up with moralistic muslims, I mean. New Gold Dream looks into the past of new 'Community Cohesion' Shadow Cabinet member Sayeeda Warsi. She likes Tory policy because of the homophobia and uptightness about sex education. She's also been quoted in the Times making numbers up concerning detention of terrorist suspects and stirring up tensions in Yorkshire:

She had believed that her detention statistics were correct at the time she wrote the Awaaz article, she said, adding: “I don’t believe that I have to justify everything I write, line by line and word by word.

“It may offend people sometimes but I will speak from the heart and speak the truth. And if speaking the truth is upsetting community relations, then I hold my hands up to that."

So, she may spout rubbish, and it may upset community relations, but she believes in the essential truth of it. I wonder how much 'truth' she will speak in her new role?

Still she was on the Cameron A-list for Commons seats, but the latest elevation will mean she gets a peerage instead. So yet another person will get a seat in the House of Lords and to serve on a front bench without ever having been democratically elected (yes, I know that the same is true of government ministers, and I'm no happier about that)

[hat tip: transpero.net]

Frank of Horsham loses his job

2007-07-02T18:47:00.000+01:00

Another story concerning the nearby town of Horsham...

Francis Maude has been sacked as Chairman of the Tory Party. At the same time David 'Two Brains' Willets has been moved away from the Schools brief. That is understandable, as it was a suggestion by him to continue current Party policy concerning Grammar schools caused a major stir (because the 'old guard' thought that the policy from over 30 years ago was still in place, despite the Thatcher government seeing more grammars close than any other).

But what has Frank done, or not done, to deserve his fate? Will he be able to spend more time with the currently moribund* 'Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital'?

*moribund in that it appears to have done nothing for over six months apart from be used as a leafleting campaign by the local Tories. They haven't even updated their 'Proposal Document' to correct the spelling mistakes yet, let alone unveil any more of the plans, which we were told were a mere matter of a bit of effort on the part of Henry Smith and Francis Maude

Tesco update

2007-06-30T19:13:00.000+01:00

Back in February, the local Tesco on Downland Drive (as well as the branch in Dobbins Place) had it's alcohol licence suspended after repeatedly being caught selling booze to under-18s in operations run by Sussex Police and the local Trading Standards. However, Tesco immediately appealed, and so the suspension has not taken effect.

There was another Tesco branch in Worthing which was subject to the same treatment for the same transgression, and the local council there had acted earlier. In the same way, Tesco appealed, and the appeal was heard and lost a few days ago.

The two Crawley stores are the subject of appeals on 9th and 16th of July (it isn't obvious from reports which one will be heard on which date). Unless there is some significant difference in the details, it would seem likely that the cases will go the same way - meaning that the shops would have to sell no alcohol for 28 days and when they get the license back ensure that a named licensee is on the premises on weekend nights.

Blogertarian reveals true colours

2007-06-27T20:18:00.000+01:00

Justin at Chicken Yoghurt says farewell to Blair in unsurprising terms, finishing up with a list of 151 awful things that he's done in the last ten years.

Not wishing to pick through the whole list to decide which I concur with and which are just paranoid warblings, I'll just look at the preamble to see where this comes from:

‘But think of all the good he did,’ say his vestigial supporters. The first ‘good’ to fall from their lips is his three general election victories. The thing is, the Labour Party isn’t like the Brazilian World Cup team - an election victory isn’t a trophy to put in the glass case until the next tournament. To hear most of Blair’s hagiographers speak, winning has been the end in itself.

I agree with this part - to a certain extent. Of course, that Blair won three elections is a measure of some success, and has the advantage that Hague and Howard didn't win any elections.

Once you get past the three golden ‘historic’ election victories, the rest of the trophies accrued over the last ten years look small and brassy. What about economic growth during every quarter of his premiership, cry the faithful. Or the minimum wage? And tax credits?

The thing is, who really cares about such things?

Me for one. Am I alone here? Isn't it part of the Labour movement, if not the vast majority of what we call the 'progressive' wing of politics to at least care about things like the low paid and unemployment? I tell you what, if the minimum wage was revoked today (unthinkable now, but not in 1997) or the economy slowed up, people would start to care an awful lot about it.

Especially when they’re administered in such cack-handed, inhumane ways.

Inhumane? The minimum wage is inhumane? Economic growth has been brought about in a cack-handed manner? I don't get the point - unless Justin has already moved on from the things he doesn't care about...

I think I'll pass on the 151 things that Justin does care about (I suspect that a great many aren't solely down to Blair, and that some are suggestions or quotes rather than actual policies).

Unity on the Ring Thing

2007-06-26T21:44:00.000+01:00

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the parents of Lydia Playfoot, the 'Silver Ring Thing' girl, were somewhat involved with the running of the Silver Ring Thing in the UK.

In a sterling post, Unity from Ministry of Truth explains in full detail that involvement, along with a few more details about the case and the organisation.

But there's more. He also uncovers (with help from Tim Ireland the history of one Denise Pfeiffer, who appears to:

1) be involved with the PR firm which works for the Silver Ring Thing,
2) have been actually working for the Silver Ring Thing in 2004 as 'Assistant National Director',
3) be such a rabid Michael Jackson fan that she was charged with making obscene phone calls to the man who accused MJ of abusing his son (she was deported from the USA for that),
4) be the current or ex-girlfriend of one Clive Potter, BNP parliamentary candidate and a man heavily involved in the Solidarity 'Trade Union' and the Christian Council of Britain (both BNP fronts),
5) have, along with Potter, been involved in National Front activities in 2000 against the Leicester Mardi Gras,
6) be a lingerie model (at least in 2006)
7) work for 'mediamarch', an organisation which calls for lots of censorship
8) claim to be an 'asexual' and adult celibate

Blimey!

Following in the fine tradition of Sir Winston Churchill

2007-06-26T19:10:00.000+01:00

Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.

is attributed to Churchill, commenting about his leaving the Liberals to rejoin the Conservatives.

Of course, the Tory MP Quentin Davies has merely 'ratted' today, but with impeccable timing. Tomorrow Gordon Brown will take over from Blair, and on Thursday the new cabinet will be named. As Davies has once worked on Northern Ireland, I daresay that there will be speculation that he's after the job that Paddy Ashdown turned down last week.

Davies has issued an open letter to David Cameron, outlining the reasons for his defection:

Under your leadership the Conservative party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything.

It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda.

Hmm.

You had come to office as leader of the party committed to break a solemn agreement we had with the European People's party to sit with them in the EPP-ED Group during the currency of this European parliament.

For seven months you vacillated, and during that time we had several conversations.

It was quite clear to me that you had no qualms in principle about tearing up this agreement, and that it was only the balance of prevailing political pressures which led you ultimately to stop short of doing so (though since then you have hardly acted in good faith in continuing with the agreement, for example you never attend the EPP-ED Summits claiming that you are "too busy" - even though half a dozen or more prime ministers are always present.)

This is crucial. When Cameron argued for a referendum on the new EU Treaty / reheated Constitution in Parliament yesterday, it was pointed out by Blair that the EPP-ED had met last week to consider the treaty, along with senior right wing Europeans. If it's so important that a referendum is required, what was Cameron doing last week that stopped him engaging himself in the process?

You are the first leader of the Conservative party who (for different reasons) will not be received either by the president of the United States, or by the chancellor of Germany (up to, and very much including, Iain Duncan Smith every one of your predecessors was most welcome both in the White House and in all the chancelleries of Europe).

It is fair to say that you have so far made a shambles of your foreign policy, and that would be a great handicap to you - and, more seriously, to the country - if you ever came to power.

Ouch!

Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative party to achieve.

Double Ouch!

To put the icing on the cake, as far as those of us who may be less than sympathetic to the fortunes of the Tories, Quentin Davies is the MP for Grantham and Stamford, the birthplace of Maggie Thatcher.

The Silver Ring Thing Ding Dong

2007-06-25T21:57:00.000+01:00

Odd case this one - a girl suing her school (which she's leaving this year having finished her GCSEs) because they banned her from wearing her 'Silver Ring Thing(tm)' Ring. The SRT is a movement, not a religion. Check out the main website and its Vision and Business Plan. It is also a very odd idea. I have no problem with the idea of abstinence, although equally I don't think it's a big sin to have pre-marital sex. I think that making kids proclaim it with a ring is bizarre. But encouraging pledging kids to meet up and date but not go beyond a certain point, while expecting them to abide by their promise is startlingly naive and a recipe for failure. That's not just my opinion, as a study from Texas bears out

The school concerned is Millais, in our neighbouring town of Horsham. Millais is an all-girls school, twinned with Forest Boys school. In three months time, most of the able students (and we can assume, I hope, that Lydia Playfoot is able) go on to do their A and AS levels at Collyer's Sixth Form College.

I happened to go to Collyer's myself, and the Millais girls were suddenly, at 16, among the testosterone-filled boys from Forest, not to mention the worldly lads from Tandridge (Horsham's mixed school) and a few chirpy Crawley wide boys. A real test of anyone's pledge of abstinence that, I think.

But, even so, the idea that a ring (a corporately produced one at that) is a religious symbol on a par with the Sikh kara bracelet is ridiculous. The kara is part of the central core of Sikhism, one of the 'Five Ks'. While it is disputed, the Islamic practice of hijab has a real history. Millais would allow the wearing of a crucifix, a real Christian symbol, so it's not like Christians are being persecuted or anything.

The fact that her parents are themselves heavily involved in the Silver Ring Thing in the UK suggests to me that this is not about her rights, as much as it is about their campaign. Now that is a true religious tradition - the use and control of the young to further the ends of the people running it.

Harman, the members' choice

2007-06-25T19:15:00.000+01:00

The result of the Deputy Leadership elections yesterday was a bit of surprise. Unity over at the Ministry of Truth has an in depth analysis of the round by round results. Personally I would not know how to set a 'left / right' divide among the contenders, only Blears, Cruddas and Harman were really identifiably from any particular 'wing'.

Basically, Harman was ahead in the members' section all of the way through. Johnson was leading the MPs & MEPs section all of the way through too, and Cruddas topped the Union and Affiliates section until he was eliminated.

Seeing as consistent complaints from some members are that the 'leadership' overrule them, and that the unions often are used to override the constituency votes at Conference, it's interesting to note that in this case the Members got their way over the MPs, MEPs, Unions and Affiliates.

Personally I'd rather Cruddas had won, although he did creditably, leading in 1st preferences and coming third overall. As the votes that transferred from him to Harman in the last round included mine, I can't complain too much I suppose. She performed pretty well in the hustings and appeared to move away from the "vote for me, I'm a woman" stance towards picking up on Cruddas' agenda.

And what does Harman do? Straight away she mentions Crawley in her acceptance speech (where Blears appeared to have forgotten about us in her lists of SE marginals).

With Brown announcing that the Deputy Leader would take on the 'Party Chair' role in cabinet (a particular bugbear of mine was that none of the preceding Chairs were ever elected by anyone other than Tony Blair), I'm feeling pretty positive about the outcome.

For Hazel Blears this was a disaster. Despite coming 3rd in the MPs & MEPs section on first preferences, she was some way behind overall and so was the first eliminated. As the current 'Party Chair', she's also already lost her cabinet post into the bargain. Not a good result for the Blairites there.

The Tories are also starting to wobble - the latest polls are going against them - but today they had a good chance to make capital out of Europe. Here's hoping that they don't end up tearing themselves up over the EU again (well, not hoping too much?).

[Update: Tory MP defects to Labour, with Europe as a prime reason. What else should I wish for?

Cameron - Channelling Gordon Brown?

2007-06-19T21:04:00.000+01:00

Dave, the smoothy leader of the Tories, told us the other day that he was not like Gordon Brown.

Funny, then, than Tom Freeman has noticed that much of that very same speech was a simplified version of what Gordon himself had been saying - inclusive government, not relying on top-down solutions etc etc.

The main difference between the two is, I think, that Gordon Brown believes what he says and that he'll get some time to demonstrate it. David Cameron is in the business of promising moon sticks (and I still don't understand how the Tory 'new localism' won't lead to an increase in 'postcode lotteries').

Review - Saffron Lounge

2007-06-18T20:55:00.000+01:00

(possibly the first of an occasional series, or perhaps just a one-off...)

On Sunday I went along to have a meal at a new Indian/ restaurant in the centre of Crawley, the Saffron Lounge. The place only opened up last week, and due to the timing, it was a very quiet night. The staff were friendly without being intrusive (a common problem on a slow night). The decor is determinedly modern, with much of the wall tiled in pale stones - which made it appear a little antiseptic. Green and orange were the main colours, incongruously set off by neon blue uplighting in the ceiling. The similarity of the scheme to that of the toilets was a little off-putting.

The food itself was clearly designed to be a move away from the traditional 'curry house' menu. The owners are also involved with the Taj Mahal at the south end of the High Street, and it appears to have been pitched to compete directly with the Blue India on the opposite side of the road. The prices were a little on the high side, but the choice was certainly wider than the usual fare.

For starters we had a mixture of tikka pieces of meat and fish, and each of them were very distinct and superbly cooked. For main I had a biryani with chicken and Ms Danivon chose a lamb Bhuna. When they arrived, the portions looked a little on the small side, and we had to return a plain rice as it was cold to touch. However, it turned out that the food was rich enough not to require much more, and the hot rice was quickly and efficiently returned. We had breads as well, a lovely and not-at-all greasy garlic naan, and a surprisingly light and tasty aloo paratha.

Overall, we were pretty happy, although with the aforementioned Blue India nearby and the recently relaunched Zari's in Ifield as competition, as well as a recently modernised Taj Mahal, it remains to be seen whether Crawley can sustain another up-market restaurant specialising in Southern Asian cuisine.

Food - Very good (7/10)
Value for Money - Pricey but not unreasonably so (6/10)
Atmosphere - Austere (4/10)
Service - Friendly and effcient (7/10)
Overall 6/10

Saffron Lounge
5 Grand Parade,
High Street
Crawley
res. 01293 529946

Arise Sir Salman

2007-06-18T20:33:00.000+01:00

Not being a great fan of patronage and peerage, I'm not usually enthused by the Honours Lists. They are a way to recognise valuable individuals, particularly the local charity workers who may otherwise be unknown. However, it also means the usual list of old polticians, civil servants, military officers and employees of the Royal family getting a gong simply for having done a job.

This year's Queen's birthday list saw the knighthood of Salman Rushdie. It would be unremarkable for an esteemed author (not just a Booker, but the 'Booker of Bookers') to be honoured, except of course that there is more to his history.

When The Satanic Verses came out, he was accused of blasphemy (how a non-Muslim can be accused of blasphemy seems odd, surely any member of a religion that denies Allah's place as the indivisible god of all creation is also a blasphemer). Famously, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini condemned him to death in a fatwah.

Of course, this sort of thing undermines the idea that Islam is a religion of peace, or that it is robust enough to withstand criticism. Like the Danish cartoons affair of 2005/6, a deliberately provoked overreaction led to violence.

Today the Pakistani parliament did their best to calm tensions - by condemning the knighthood in a debate which included a government minister suggesting that it could justify suicide attacks. The Muslim Council of Britain called it an insult.

The real insult is actually the idea that people of a faith can dictate to everybody else what to read, what to say, or what to think.

While I have no problem with Muslims as people, and regard all religions as equally valid, I think that one's beliefs are ones own affair, and should not be imposed on other people simply because they stem from a religion. That includes institutional control like a theocratic government and most definitely includes the threat of violence (or the justification of violence).

Blair on the media

2007-06-12T20:06:00.001+01:00

I reckon Tony Blair is pretty well spot on in his speech today. The media is as much to blame for the distortion of politics as politicians. The gleeful way that the press will tear into any public figure, whether a Z-list celebrity ex-reality star, a minister of the state or anyone in between should be compared with the grubby methods of the journos themselves.

Blair is right that Labour was too reliant on 'spin' in the early days of his leadership and premiership. However, the history of 'spin' is often forgotten by the critics of New Labour.

Before Blair came along, and even when he first appeared, the media, in particular the major-selling print media were clearly aligned with the Tories. Labour had also been pretty poor at press management and failed to keep up with the issues as they were raised.

The 'spin' was actually the way that the press will twist any message or policy or position. Many editors and journalists have a bias, even if they claim not to, and will emphasise what they think is good or bad. The 'spin doctor' was supposed to try to deal with the press in a way which limited the bias that could be applied by journalists.

By 1997, Labour's spin doctors were aided by a press that was abandoning the Tories Ineptness and inertia are not entirely popular, and it was clear that the Major government was on its way out. On top of that, the PR dept of the Party was highly effective.

In the early years of the Blair premiership, 'spin' was overused to an extent in order to protect the nascent government. Now, I think that the perception of 'spin' has overtaken reality massively. A politician can hardly try and say anything without being accused of 'spin'. Yet the media are barely held to account for their blatant politicking.

The example used by Blair, the Independent, is a case in point. Many times it has a front page which is almost pure hyperbole, covering a single issue from a particular point of view, calling for action or condemning those who disagree. It is pure sensationalism, no different from a screaming red top headline, or a Daily Mail / Express 'tax bombshell' hype.

Increasingly it is difficult to discern news from comment. The reason that the Indy should examine itself is that when it was founded, it was on the basis of strong journalistic ethics and a lack of editorial agenda.

Don't get me wrong, I may well agree with the Independent's views or conclusions. But presenting opinion and conjecture as fact is what undermines the integrity of the press - and as the press often has a major impact on the way that we view the world, distorts our perceptions.

You can understand, perhaps, why Blair has waited until he's in is swansong phase to make his comments. The fact that he knew he couldn't say them earlier would appear to help vindicate him.

Cohen, what are you doing?

2007-06-12T19:53:00.000+01:00

A while ago I noted that Nick Cohen, writer and polemicist, had chided the 'Left' for only concentrating on how bad the Iraq war was and ignoring the plight of the Iraqis themselves.

Indeed.

At the time, I noted that Nick's website only seemed to include plugs for his book, and no mention of the sterling work that he does to actually support Iraqi trade unionists. I checked again today, 3 months later. I notice a new article by Cohen that he plugs in Democratiya. Oh good, I thought. Except that it is not about Iraq at all. It's a review of Paul Anderson's Orwell in Tribune (which was out last year).

So what does Nick do for the Iraqi Trade Unionists, when he's not busy self-promoting and writing about his obsessions with the 'Left'? He even manages to bring his thesis into the review.

Gosh, the interesting things you can do with the interweb, eh?

2007-06-11T00:13:00.000+01:00

As I had a quiet weekend, I've done a bit more blogging than usual. What I've also done is a few behind the scenes things to make my life a little easier. I've added a link for people to send email (which I hope is disguised well enough to limit spambots picking the address up - and it isn't to my main address anyway)

I also added a counter, free from statcounter.com. I didn't think I had many readers, but it turns out that on a Sunday about 50 unique visitors pop by. Mind you, because AOL uses dynamic IP address allocation, I think I'm getting a few doubles.

But, hi everyone, nice to know you're out there (from as far away as Indonesia, it seems)

Warrior Soul - The Losers

2007-06-10T23:08:00.001+01:00

This one's for the beautiful people....

The artist is not there to be worshipped or adored. They're there to be enjoyed. The audience is not there to be politely asked to buy the T-shirts, to be patted on the head and to go home. The audience is a part of the artist. They're friends. Allies. A show is a rock'n'roll ritual. The bands are the witchdoctors, the medicine men, the wise men. The band entice, preach, encourage, unite, excite ...

-- vocalist Kory Clarke in Kerrang! magazine, 1991

(Hat tip: Blank Crisis)

Lewis Hamilton

2007-06-10T19:48:00.002+01:00

I'm not a huge fan of F1, where the racing is more of a procession (and with the number of safety car breaks, today was no exception), and it's more a case of technology and timing pit stops than driving ability.

However, you can't knock Lewis Hamilton, who has won his first race today. He's now also leading the championship, following a run of 5 podium finishes in his previous 5 races. I think this must be the best ever start for a driver in their first season, at least within living memory, and what is more he seems like a really nice, down to earth bloke.

What better example can we have for young Britons than a mixed race kid flying the flag for us, beating the rest of the world and doing it with style. Good for you, Lewis.

Al-Yamamah, BAE and the Government

2007-06-10T18:40:00.000+01:00

It should go without saying that bribery and corruption is wrong. It should also go without saying that it is inconsistent with an ethical foreign policy.

Still, it seems that the current UK Government is determined not to allow the actions/inaction of a previous one to be accounted for and punished. The Thatcher Government, lest we forget, got the Al-Yamamah deal through in 1985. This is why it isn't Tories who are complaining about the scandal, because there must be a fair few senior Conservatives and supporters who were a little worried that a continued investigation might end up with a knock on their doors.

The forces of law and order were investigating allegations of bribes, and the decision was taken at the highest level - Blair - to shut it off for reasons of 'national security'. Presumably the Saudis had said that they would stop co-operating with us on the 'War on Terror' if we outed their Royal Family as grubby men on the make.

My problem with this capitulation is that it won't stop the Saudis from continuing to pursue their dodgy way of doing business (it's not like the Saud family don't cream enough from their own nation, that they have to siphon funds from any foreign deal too). Yeah, if we pull out, it means that other countries will benefit, and if the Al-Yamamah deal collapses, there will be some impact on BAE itself, and its employees. However, these are just excuses. Do we need to be competing to sell weapons? Should we be encouraging the proliferation of military hardware into unstable regions and nations with autocratic regimes? Can't we redirect BAE into less deadly business, such as civilian aircraft?

What I reckon has happened is that some officials in the Foreign Office (and some in the Home Office) gave advice, which politicians took, not because they wanted to, but because the advice itself and the source came across as authoritative.

The problem is that sometimes the official's advice is wrong. It was wrong at a local level in 2001 when they said we shouldn't have an investigation into the causes of flooding in Maidenbower and other parts of the town. Luckily, I managed to convince enough councillors of that before it was too late (and it was luck, rather than any particular political genius, and I got a right ear-bashing for violating the whip).

It's wrong in this case too. If we don't get direct help from Saudi Arabia, that doesn't mean that we won't be getting a fair amount of information through our other allies which originates from Saudi (they can't exactly stop the CIA forwarding it on). Perhaps we should instead be taking a long hard look at whether they really are a solid ally on a 'War on Terror' anyway - they are not above funding dodgy groups in the Middle East, they repress their own people, they attempt to fit up foreigners to hide the fact that terrorists were setting off bombs.

The problem is that Social Democrats, and I see the Blairites as being prime examples of the creed, tend to overvalue the contributions of bureaucrats. The notion is that they are experts, that they have the interests of the State (or whatever they serve) as the prime or only motivation and that if you ignore their advice they will go against you. I think all three are false - they are human and just as fallible and prone to bias as anyone, and for the most part they may actually respect you if you go against their advice for a solid and ethical reason.

Talking of Labour and the interweb...

2007-06-10T16:39:00.001+01:00

The other day I looked into MpURL, which is the Party's site for members. If you are a Labour member, you only need your membership number to access a site that you have set up all ready for you.

You'll be able to set up a blog, which can be internal only or can be made public. You can contact other users directly - and it's easy to find who members are in your own CLP. There is also a discussion board already in place for each CLP, as well a set of boards set up for discussing policies (remember them?).

To be honest, I haven't been impressed by much of the national party's previous efforts on t'internet, or to contact and involve members. This, however is really pretty nifty. It certainly surpasses the 'Labour Supporters Network', which seemed to be simply a large mailing list which was barely used, and an excuse to bypass the membership.

Now that's over with...

2007-06-10T16:22:00.000+01:00

My ballot paper as a Party member for the Deputy Leadership election arrived yesterday, and because the Labour Party has embraced technology like the interweb, I didn't have to rely on Royal Mail to put my 'X's in boxes.

Actually, you don't put 'X's in boxes anyway, you put numbers of preference.

My votes were:

1 Jon Cruddas - naturally, I think he is the best of the candidates, and with a true vision of how to fulfil the role.
2 Peter Hain - Like Cruddas he has some interesting ideas on how to reconnect with the party, but there is something about him that I just can't put my finger on.
3 Harriet Harman - A last minute promotion to 3rd, after some good performances in the hustings that I've seen. I don't follow the logic that the post has to be filled by a woman, bt I think she is capable in her own right. I nearly put her above Hain.
4 Hilary Benn - If this was a vote for who to be in the Cabinet, he'd be my no. 1, but if anything the post of Deputy Leader would be a distraction. Given him the Foreign Office, Mr Brown.
5 Alan Johnson - reminds me too much of Prescott

Hazel Blears didn't get even my 6th preference. Of course, it's highly unlikely that my 5th or 6th preference will be needed anyway, I expect by then that Cruddas, Benn or Johnson will already have the 50% they need, or if not be in the front runners.

Hunting Act fails to collapse in court

2007-06-07T21:13:00.000+01:00

When the ban on hunting with dogs came in (years late and after several attempts to compromise, rebuffed by the 'sport'), we were told confidently by the supporters of getting dogs to rip animals to bits for the enjoyment of people in silly coats that it wasn't too much of a defeat for them.

They would 'defy the ban'. When challenged, the gaping holes in the legislation will become apparent and the ban will fall. The aristocracy and their hangers on will prevail over the 'jealous' proles.

Except that this hasn't really happened. The BBC reports that two men from the Quantock Staghounds have been convicted under the Hunting Act.

(hat tip: Chris Gale)

Theo Hobson - pretentious and cowardly?

2007-06-06T20:56:00.001+01:00

Reminding me why I don't really intend to submit more pieces to the Guardian's Comment is Free, along comes Theo Hobson with his: Atheism is pretentious and cowardly

A few choice quotes (as if the title wasn't enough):

Atheism is pretentious in the sense of claiming to know more than it does. It claims to know what belief in God entails, and what religion, in all its infinite variety, essentially is. And atheism is muddled because it cannot decide on what grounds it ultimately objects to religion. Does it oppose it on the grounds of its alleged falsity? Or does it oppose it on the grounds of its alleged harmfulness?

For someone who thinks that atheism misunderstands what a belief in god entails, Theo seems to miserably miss the point about what atheism entails. The ultimate objection to religion, for most if not all proclaimed atheists, is that we don't believe in a God or gods. After that comes the point when we notice the harmfulness of religion (and atheists and heretics have often felt that first hand in the dim and distant days of history).

Atheism is the belief that the demise of religion, and the rise of "rationality", will make the world a better place. Atheism therefore entails an account of history - a story of liberation from a harmful error called "religion". This narrative is jaw-droppingly naive.

Well, the last sentence is true, applied to Hobson's text itself. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a God(s), or the belief in a lack of God(s). While many atheists may wish that everybody else believed the same as they do, what most of us really only want is for the religious to stick to their own affairs and stop telling us what to do, based on their own beliefs. We don't want to 'impose' atheism on people, or even necessarily 'liberate' them from religion, we just don't agree with Christians and the other theists who believe in a variety of gods, some of whom seem to have determined that people who don't worship them in a particular way are doomed to Hell, and should be repressed here on earth in the meantime.

Some will quibble with the above definition. Atheism is just the rejection of God, of any supernatural power, they will say, it entails no necessary belief in historical progress. This is disingenuous. The militant atheists have a moral mission: to improve the world by working towards the eradication of religion.

Quibble? No, it's plain wrong. Atheism has no moral basis, it has a logical one. 'Humanism' has a moral basis, but that's not what Hobson is attacking. As for the word 'militant'? My goodness! While we are talking about R Dawkins, C Hitchens and AC Grayling, all they do is write and talk. Real militants use violence. That's what 'militant' means - warlike, aggressive.

Let me take a step back, and ask a rather basic question. What is this thing that the atheists hate so much? What is religion? Believe it or not, I don't know the answer. Indeed it seems to me that anyone who does claim to know is underestimating the complexity of the topic considerably. If the atheist deigns to define religion at all, he is likely to do so briskly and conventionally, as belief in and worship of some species of supernatural power. It's a terribly inadequate definition. Dictionaries would do better to leave a blank, to admit ignorance.

Well, if a theologian doesn't know what religion is, then who does? I despair...

In reality, "religion" is far wider than a belief in a supernatural power. This is only one aspect of what we mean by "religion". For example there is surely something religious in the communal ecstasy of a rave, or a pop concert, or a play, or a sporting event, or a political rally. Some would say that these events are quasi-religious, that they echo religious worship, but are distinct from it. But how on earth is one to make the distinction? Is a yoga class "religious"?

What a load of piffle! A political rally as a religious experience? I suppose that makes the Communists and any other political movement you care to mention religious then? If a sporting event leads to violence, is it religiously motivated? The communal ecstasy of a rave may well be due to very real ecstasy, the drug MDMD, rather than some religious feeling.

What about a performance of a requiem? What about Hitchens' own belief in the saving power of literature? In practice, "religion" cannot really be separated from "culture".

Yes, it can. For example, street culture is rarely about religion.

The fact is that the relationship between religion, morality and politics is infinitely various and complex. The critic of religious abuses must be specific, particular. He must focus on particular practices, particular institutions, and explain why they have a detrimental effect on society. But the militant atheist cannot humbly limit himself to the realm of the particular; he necessarily lapses into sloppy generalisation.

'sloppy generalisation'? Of course Hobson doesn't dare do that, not even in the same sentence as criticising the fictional 'militant athiest' of it. Oh, he does.

I consider the atheist's desire to generalise about religion to be a case of intellectual cowardice. The intellectual coward is one who chooses simplicity over complexity and difficulty. The militant atheist chooses to uphold a worldview of Animal Farm crudity: atheist good, believer bad.

Nope. If anything, it's 'atheism correct, theism incorrect'. But there is not really a moral imperative there. For Christians, it certainly is 'Christianity good, everything else bad', for Muslims it's 'Islam good, everything else bad'.

Is it intellectual cowardice to accept that we do not go to an afterlife, that this is all we have, the life we see? I think not. When you think about it, it's a scary thought. The less brave prefer to cosset themselves in myths and dream of an infinite life of happiness, and the religious creeds promise such a life - if you just follow our rules...

There's more - such as ad hominem attacks on Christopher Hitchens (at least one of which didn't get into print as an editor snipped it out). But essentially Theo Hobson accuses the atheist (not always being careful to distinguish between the 'militant' variety and the general common-or-garden unbeliever) of pretentiousness while waffling on about how all culture is essentially religious, because some of the feelings in a big group of people are like the same feelings as we get in a church. He accuses them of intellectual cowardice when he hasn't even got the courage to tell us what religion actually is. He attacks generalisations while concocting a picture of rampaging atheists in jackboots, stomping all over the poor fluffy religions and tarring all who choose not to believe in a God with the same brush.

Unsurprisingly, the comments below the article are heated and reactionary.

More from Freemania

2007-06-05T20:11:00.000+01:00

Having spotted the posting mentioned in the previous link, I read more of Tom Freeman's stuff.

In particular, this post (Building and listening) resonates.

Very often, when people say things like “I just want politicians to listen”, which sounds almost infinitely reasonable, they mean something else entirely...

...What they often really want is not so much listening as obedience. So when politicians promise to listen, even if they’re not being vapidly disingenuous, they’re bound to let people down.

Yep. The problem with trying to give 'the people' what they want is that they generally want the Moon on a stick. Not only that, but one set of people want a red stick with a full Moon, and others want a green stick with a half Moon, while others want a long thin multicoloured stick with flashing lights and a cool tune and a pen on the end topped by a new Moon. Strangely enough even providing Moon sticks will mean you doomed to annoy a fair number of 'the people'.

I mean, when your biggest problem is a bit of a traffic jam in the mornings, that means that your life is actually quite good. For some people in this world, the hyperbole that we see in the UK about minor inconveniences would be highly offensive, given that they live in war zones, or are repressed by dictators, or are ill and unable to obtain even basic treatment.

Fantastic Day

2007-06-05T19:59:00.000+01:00

With talk of a 'National Britishness Day', this list of suggestions from Tom Freeman gave me a good giggle: Happy 'National British Day' Day

Is Cruddas as bad as Conway?

2007-05-29T19:10:00.000+01:00

A tough question here.

The Mail on Sunday stirred the pot this week by pointing out that Cruddas claims for a second house near central London (in Notting Hill).

Last year his claim for Additional Costs Allowance was close to the maximum (looking at the claims over the past few years, here it would appear that they vary along the same lines as interest rates and were lower before).

Derek Conway claims slightly more in total - and has done so in most of the past few years - not only for the London pad, but also for travel expenses. Of course, the main difference would seem to be that while Conway employs his wife and son (and the son is supposed to be working on a degree at the other end of the country), no-one has yet accused Cruddas of that.

This does shake my confidence in Cruddas a little. However, the fact that he sends his kids to a Catholic school does not particularly (I knew he was a Catholic, and that he supported faith-based schools which I may disagree with him on, but he is open and honest about it).

At the end of it, the fact that Cruddas is representing himself as more of a 'Party' candidate than as just another minister tied to New Labour is an advantage.

The advert on the right stays. For now.

Noses in the trough

2007-05-27T18:18:00.000+01:00

Derek Conway, Tory MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup, has been in a spot of bother over employing his son, Frederick, at a rate of £981 a month (equivalent to about £11750 pa). That may not be much of an issue normally, as it's not as if plenty of MPs have their family on the payroll. However, Master Conway is currently a full time student in Newcastle, which one would think precludes having a concurrent full time job in London(and we tax payers are paying for both of these occupations, by the way).

Not only that, but: Mrs Conway is being paid £3271 a month (equiv. £39250 pa); Derek himself claims the maximum allowance for a second home in Central London (£21,632 pa) despite representing a constituency a few miles away from Westminster; he also claimed £4072 for car mileage in 2005/6, enough for over 500 round trips between his constituency and the Commons.

There are a few MPs who have to claim large amounts if they live at the other end of the country, and it's not totally unreasonable to employ a family member if you can prove that they are being paid at a rate related to their effort, but I think this is a case of one totally taking the mickey.

Unite Against Fascism

2007-05-23T21:21:00.000+01:00

I've just got back from a meeting in Town, which was called to try and set up a local Unite Against Fascism organisation.

There were people from as far afield as Billingshurst and Caterham, with Horley and Horsham represented, as well as quite a few from Crawley, it was decided that it was best to set up a single group for the whole area, rather than to try small ones in each place. It may be that in time there are enough people involved to establish more local groups, but for now it seems best to work together.

Additionally, it wasn't all Labour Party members. While there were some, there were also people from Respect/SWP and some who didn't appear to be involved in any particular party. We know that Conservatives have delivered UAF leaflets in Crawley before. The intention is to avoid any political party being overly dominant and for the campaign to be as broad as possible.

The next step is to set things up properly, and to that end it is hoped that a proper AGM can be set up soon to agree who does what and how it is organised (the fun of writing constitutions!), and decide what are the priorities.

I turned up a bit late, but the meeting was late starting because people got delayed by the trains. While idling outside it was noticed that a couple of people were taking photographs of us. One of the people they may have snapped was just an ordinary bloke who wanted to know what was going on, and left when it became clear that people were being asked to join something. I suspect that our pics are destined to appear on 'Redwatch' or something like that. Seeing as the local radio controlled car group were meeting at the same place, they may just have been rival RC'ers, but I think that's unlikely. I wonder if any of them will have been snapped at the same time?

When approached, the men wandered to a distance, although there was no threat to them. Perhaps they might have liked to chat, but maybe not.

[edit - Parental Advisory on the comments, as it seems that they may not have wanted to chat, but are happy to abuse people on the internet]

13:27

2007-05-22T23:22:00.000+01:00

I ran in a cross country relay race this evening, and managed a not totally awful time for 13 minutes and 27 seconds over 1.6 miles.

One of the other competitors was recently at the World Cross Country Championships in Kenya. Unsurprisingly, he was the fastest on the course. I'm glad that I managed to go round in slightly less than double his time of 7:17

But I am a bit creamed.

Meet the new Boss, same as the old Boss

2007-05-17T21:14:00.000+01:00

I still haven't changed my mind about Ming's demands for a new election, despite the fact that there will be no ballot for the leadership of the Labour Party. In fact, I was most likely going to vote for John McDonnell if he had the 45 nominations, but he couldn't do it, and that he failed to convince more than a couple of dozen MPs that there should be a contest with him in it goes against me.

However much I would have liked to put my X down, I have to say that I didn't actually want McDonnell to win. In fact, what I wanted was a convincing victory for Brown, with a more than insignificant Left vote.

We can't have that, but the outcome is pretty much the same.

So now the battle moves to the Deputy Leadership. Apparently, some left wingers are saying that they will no longer back Cruddas because he nominated Brown.

Which of the other 5 candidates didn't then?

Cruddas seems to me to be the best chance for a 'member-led' renewal of the Party. He's not a Campaign Group socialist, and neither am I. He's been fairly loyal to the Government, but I think that he's hit on some key areas where it has not fulfilled the promise of 1997 (even my hopes were a bit higher than the outcome, and I was not gooey-eyed just because we had a landslide).

Hain is saying similar things, but I don't know why I just can't trust the guy. Is it because he's a former Liberal (and they don't like him much any more)? Is it his manner? I don't know.

Benn is not his father, so is not some great white hope of the Left, he just made the nominations, and he'd be better in the cabinet. I reckon that the Deputy should replace the bogus 'Chairman' and be in the Cabinet as a democratically elected link with the Party at large. Benn's abilities lie elsewhere, I feel.

Johnson is a Brownite, and we already have a Brownite as a dead cert for the leadership. Laura Moffatt is a PPS for him, and I expect she nominated him. He seems ok, but I think he comes across as too similar to John Prescott - with the credentials in terms of background, but will be loyal to the leadership to the point of madness.

Blears is the right wing candidate. Why would I vote for a Blairite, when we're just seeing the back of the man himself.

Harman just keeps telling us we have to vote for a woman, well, just because. I'm no misogynist dinosaur, but I don't think that it's right to say that jobs have to be determined on the basis of gender. Her one 'big idea' this week - the 'Department of the Family' - is just another example of gesture politics. Besides, now that Blears is standing, you don't have to vote for Harman to vote for a woman, do you?

Overheard at the count

2007-05-13T14:22:00.001+01:00

Now we can get the tenants back

From a senior local Tory, when they knew that they had a concrete majority on the Borough Council.

Now, I heard this second (or even third) hand. But I trust my source, and I think that the quote is entirely likely from the person I was told it came from.

Still, it matters more what they do than what they say. So, what will the Tories do for the tenants?

County Grammar (ok... Primary)

2007-05-11T19:47:00.000+01:00

This morning I was driving Ms Danivon to a hospital appointment (at Crawley Hospital, which is still there by the way) and we noticed someone filming a group of people walking up West Green Drive.

As I drove out of the Hospital, I stopped to let the same people cross the drive, and saw that it was a cameraman, a woman who looked like a reporter and another woman with about half a dozen kids, clearly on their way to school.

Later I see what it was all about. It seems that my old school, West Green Primary, has a bit of a problem. It has 7 year groups and 6 classrooms. Surely the geniuses that run WSCC Education Department might have noticed a slight flaw in that, when they reconfigured the schools in Crawley a few years ago?

When I was there as a pupil, West Green was a large Primary school, which attracted pupils from Broadfield, and had two buildings, one for the Infants (ages 5-7) and one for the Juniors (8-11). However, in 1985 the visionaries at County Hall decided to change the age at which children moved up to new schools, and at the same time closed the Junior school. What remained was the 6-room First School (5-8). The other side was transferred to Crawley College (now part of 'Central Sussex College'). I went back there for some evening classes about 5 years ago - in the same room that I spent my 3rd year with Mr Whitehead - which was a bit spooky. Back in 1985, I spent a year at Ifield Middle School (9-12) marking time before I could go to a proper Comprehensive.

So, when the County decided to go back into line with the rest of the country, and bring back the Infant/Junior set-up, they were at one point talking about closing West Green completely (not very popular). Instead, they decided to keep it going with a single class per year. This would make a lot of sense, as it means that local children don't have to cross the A23 or the London Road or walk about a mile (or, as is more likely, get driven about). However, it takes until now, a whole five years after the planning process, to realise that there is a room short.

West Sussex County Council - the same people that blamed a bad winter for pot-holes in the roads, just after one of the mildest winters on record!

Why we don't need a General Election after June 27

2007-05-10T19:09:00.000+01:00

Ming Campbell thinks that he's right to call for a General Election. He's not, for a variety of reasons.

Firstly, the post of Prime Minister is not an elected office, it is a delegated one. The Monarch appoints the MP who can carry the confidence of Parliament. If we lived in a presidential system, perhaps we could insist upon an election. However, the USA have had presidents leave office and their successors remain in place because they, like most presidential republics, have fixed terms with a system of succession rather than a requirement for a fresh mandate.

Secondly, there is no real precedent. PMs have on occasion stood down as an election is due (Ramsey MacDonald in 1935; Churchill in 1955), although it is far more common that a PM leaves office by being defeated at an election. In the past 100 years, 8 Prime Ministers have left office without triggering or as the result of a General Election:

1908 - Campbell-Bannerman => Asquith
1916 - Asquith => Lloyd George
1937 - Baldwin => Chamberlain
1940 - Chamberlain => Churchill
1957 - Eden => Macmillan
1963 - Macmillan => Douglas-Home
1976 - Wilson => Callaghan
1990 - Thatcher => Major

As you can see, it happens quite a lot, and only two occurrences were during wartime, which would make it difficult to hold new elections. The Douglas-Home ascension was just under a year before the 1964 election (which was about as late as it could have been held). The other new PMs all waited at least a full year before calling an election. One Parliament, (1935-45) had two changes of PM.

Changing hands is no guarantee of failure, either. Asquith and Macmillan retained their posts after the following elections (1910 and 1959 respectively). Lloyd George was on the winning side, albeit in coalition with the Conservatives, in 1918. Major famously held on in 1992. Chamberlain didn't get to fight an election, so less than half of the replacements lost their next elections.

By contrast, when Baldwin took over from Bonar Law in 1923, he insisted on a new election, primarily because he intended to reverse an election pledge on tariffs. After the election the Conservatives were still the largest party, but had lost many seats. Baldwin was defeated in a confidence motion and Ramsey McDonald replaced him at the head of a minority Labour government. Less than a year later, that government fell and Baldwin walked the 1924 election. So, the only time that an election has been called, it was over a specific pledge rather than a simple change in PM, and it led to a year of political chaos. Not a good precedent for the current situation.

Thirdly, and more topically, this is sort of what we voted for two years ago. In the 2005 campaign, Labour started badly, and Blair was distancing himself from Brown. The Conservatives launched a 'Vote Blair, get Brown' campaign, and they were shocked when the polls registered a sudden recovery for Labour. As a result, Blair and Brown chummed up for the rest of the campaign, and Blair promised to stand down at some point. When Labour won the election, it was on the tacit understanding that at some point Blair would make way, and the most likely successor was the Chancellor. While the phrase 'full term' was used, once the genie is out of the bottle and a PM has accepted that they will be going, it is very hard to avoid the pressure to go. It's amazing to me that it has dragged out this long.

So, the change of PM mid-term is not 'wrong' or unusual, and certainly doesn't demand an instant General Election. Not only is it not constitutionally required, but the precedent has already been set. All three governing parties have done it at least twice. More importantly, we voted for it to happen anyway. Just because we have forgotten about things from only 2 years ago, doesn't mean that we have to have a new election.

Psephology

2007-05-09T21:22:00.000+01:00

It's been nearly a week, and I thought that I would look at the election results in Crawley in more detail, comparing with 2006 and 2004 (all out).

I am particularly interested in the overall trends, and I won't produce the results for all 39 instances.

I'll start Ward by Ward, and then go over the parties at the end.

Bewbush
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 193/216/275
2006 - Labour, maj 192
2007 - Labour, maj 374
A Safe Labour ward. The Labour vote is holding up or increasing. The Tories are slipping back a little. The Lib Dems are slipping back, and our Mr Khan is plugging away in last place

Broadfield N
2004 - 2 Labour, maj 99/261
2006 - Tory, maj 0
No elections in 2007. New ward in 2004. In theory a safe Labour area, was lost last year after a dead heat and drawing of lots

Broadfield S
2004 - 2 Tory, maj 22/52
2006 - Tory, maj 112
No elections in 2007 New ward in 2004. Surprisingly went Tory in 2004, and they strengthened their position last year, although the main losers in that were the Greens.

Furnace Green
2004 - 2 Tory, maj 155/318
2006 - Tory, maj 547
2007 - 2 Tory, maj 524/568
Tory ward, although was Labour until the late 1990s. Becoming much safer for the Tories now, although the Labour vote is holding, and the others are slipping back. The resignation of Mike Weatherley resulted in an extra seat coming up this year.

Gossops Green
2004 - 2 Tory, maj 33/47
2007 - Tory, maj 150
Marginal in 2004, when the Tories gained it. No real change in positions, Labour slightly down, Tories up a little since 2004, Lib Dems on pretty much the same.

Ifield
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 96/100/191
2006 - Tory, maj 21
2007 - Tory, maj 59
Marginal. Labour in 2004 by about 100 votes. Last year Tory gain by 21 votes. This year the Tories led by 59 votes. The only real noticeable trend other than that is that the BNP vote is going down

Langley Green
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 268/303/352
2006 - Labour, maj 406
2007 - Labour, maj 148
Safe Labour seat. Bucked the trend last year with an increased majority, only to become much closer this year. The Conservative candidate this year was a Sikh, and reportedly turnout among this group was high.

Maidenbower
2004 - 3 Tory, maj 682/744/779
2006 - Tory, maj 1132
2007 - Tory, maj 1215
Safe Tory seat. The Tory vote leapt up last year, and the Lib Dems overtook Labour. This year, Labour beat the Lib Dems to second place.

Northgate
2004 - 2 LibDem, maj 292/334
2006 - LibDem, maj 276
2007 - LibDem, maj 250
Liberal Democrat haven. Becoming less secure. Labour second, Tories third. The main trends are for the Lib Dems to bleed a few votes, the Tories challenged for second last year (14 votes behind), but have slipped back again. In 2006 a Socialist Labour candidate may have split the Labour vote. Turnout dipped overall this year.

Pound Hill N
2004 - 3 Tory, maj 778/795/831
2006 - Tory, maj 1280
2007 - Tory, maj 1001
Safe Tory. Labour second, and unusually the Lib Dems gained votes this year (perhaps because this time they had a local candidate, not a Seekings standing). The rest of the drop in Tory majority seems to be down to turnout, which makes sense as this was hardly a seat in question.

Pound Hill S and Worth
2004 - 3 Tory, maj 707/760/828
2006 - Tory, maj 1210
2007 - Tory, maj 1072
Safe Tory. Like PH North, the Tories walked it with a slight fall in turnout. The Lib Dems came second in 2006, but this year lost votes. Labour regained second place and were the only gainers.

Southgate
2004 - 3 Labour, maj 3/50/51
2006 - Tory, maj 198
2007 - Tory, maj 179
Marginal. The Tories won this seat in 2003 by 3 votes, probably helped by the Greens standing. Since 2004, the BNP have overtaken the Greens (but both of their votes are down quite a bit), with the Lib Dems in third. The Labour vote is consistently around 725. The Tories gained about 250 votes in 2006, and slipped back slightly this year.

Three Bridges
2004 - 1 Labour , 1 Tory
2007 - Tory, maj 356
A major Tory gain here. The Labour vote did not fall much, but the smaller parties lost more votes, with the Tories the only gainers. In 2004 the BNP stood and came 6th out of 8 (beating a Green and a Lib Dem). This year the English Democrats stood and narrowly beat the Green.

Tilgate
2004 - 2 Labour, maj 84/87
2007 - Tory, maj 355
Like Three Bridges, a major gain for the Tories. In fact, not only is the majority almost the same, but the Labour vote were exactly the same in both wards this year (549). However, unlike Three Bridges, Labour lost votes and the swing was much greater. In 2004 only the two main parties stood. In 2007 the Greens, Lib Dems and BNP put up candidates. The BNP came third here.

West Green
2004 - 2 Labour, maj 147/274
2006 - Labour, maj 117
Usually safe Labour. Turnout was low last year, and the Tory vote held up. The BNP came third, beating the Lib Dems and an Independent. No election this year.

Tories
A mixed year. In the core seats (those to the East of the London-Brighton line), they slipped back, but that is likely to be down to the inevitability of the results. In the seats they won last year, they pretty much held up. In what were thought to be the new 'marginal' seats, they achieved large swings. Whether they would have had the same if the seats had been contested last year, or whether the campaigning of this year also made a difference I can't tell. The only odd trend was the boost to the vote in Langley Green, where I think communal voting came into play.

Labour
A bad year, but looking at it, not worse than last year. I am sure that there will be recriminations about Ifield, but there always are (even if they win). In the safe Tory and Labour wards, the general trend was up. In many places the vote held up, but needed to go up to win or hold seats. The main point of collapse was Tilgate. There, the vote was possibly split by other parties. Also, the Tory candidate was a prominent local church member, and had a lot of support from there. Our candidate was not local, and the branch lost key members in the past year (to old age).

Lib Dems
Overall, the trend is down. If it continues, Northgate could possibly come into play in future years. The only place where the vote increased was Pound Hill North, where the candidate was the only local standing.

Greens
In 2003 they arrived in force for the first time. The catalyst was the defection of Councillor Malcolm Liles from Labour, in protest at the Iraq war. In 2004 they put up quite a few candidates and achieved reasonably high votes. However, now they can't beat the BNP or the English Democrats, let alone get close to any of the main parties. Most of their candidates are members of Malcolm's family. Lowest poll was 35 in Northgate, highest was 185 in Furnace Green.

BNP
Still not to be discounted, their popularity is waning. Where they once got 400 votes, they get 300 or less. Where they stand for the first time, they do better (I think it's the novelty factor), but they aren't getting the over 15% share that they achieved last year. Ifield is their strongest ward, with 309 votes and 3rd place.

English Democrats
Brand new, arrived out of nowhere (or Harrow, it seems), and merely seem to have split the vote. They are made up of ex-UKIPers, which may mean that they stick around, but around here many of the UKIP members either drifted to the BNP or appear to have gone back to they Tory party. Beat the Greens, which seems to be no great challenge.

Far Left
No candidates from the Socialist Labour Party or Respect or any 'Independant Socialists' this year. Their absence may explain better results for Labour in Northgate and Bewbush.

Independents
Arshad Khan (officially of the 'Justice Party', but in no way connected to the Brum based party of that name, and a one-man-band in reality) wins the battle of the also-rans, beating Richard Symonds by 5 votes. Daniel Capstick-Bedson got 30 votes, the least of any candidate across the town. I think that Richard Symonds can take comfort from the splitting effect in Ifield, but overall the Independent vote is going down since 2004. I suspect that Khan's increased vote in Bewbush may be a result of absence of Robin Burnham, or the presence of the Lib Dem candidate - who I hear is not a particularly popular gentleman.

Thank Clint!

2007-05-07T21:34:00.000+01:00

Fulham 1 - 0 Liverpool

A season rescued at the near death by a super-sub and an opposition who might have been a little preoccupied with an upcoming trip to Athens.

The only way we can go down is for Charlton to win both of their games. The last is away to Liverpool (who may be more careful about playing a low-end team), and they are currently losing at home to Spurs.

[edit 9:55 pm - Charlton lost 2-0. A shame for my mate Toby, but frankly I'd rather them than us]

Crawley Town are in a similar position, although the Conference season is over. The threat there is that the owners don't pay back their debts in time. Last I heard they have until Friday 11 May, but were asking for an extension until the end of May. It would be a real shame for the team to be penalised because of the actions of their owners. However, I still don't know how West Ham got away with no points deduction for the Tevez-Mascherano tranfser shenanigans.
It does mean that I can wind Skuds up next season about how they should be in the Championship....

John Reid won't oppose Brown, but won't serve under him either

2007-05-07T20:58:00.000+01:00

Good.

I had a reasonable view of Dr Reid until I met him in early 2003. Now he's down there with the Charles Clarkes and Alan Milburns of the world.

oh dear

2007-05-04T12:21:00.000+01:00

My contacts tell me that Labour held 2 seats in Crawley (Bewbush and Langley Green). That means losing seats in Ifield, Three Bridges, Southgate and Tilgate, presumably to the Tories. It is unlikely that any other seats changed hands.

That would give the Conservatives control of the council with 22 seats, a majority of 7. Labour would be on 12 and the Liberal Democrats on 3.

I haven't seen the figures, so it's hard to tell whether it represents a major change from last year. Southgate and Ifield were the scene of losses last year (and a nasty and inaccurate piece of hate mail went out in Ifield just before the election). Three Bridges was a seat in which the result was very close in 2004, and it was a hard ask to hold that seat. Tilgate is very disappointing, but the omens did look bad there yesterday.

Commiserations to the losing Labour candidates. Well done to Chris Cheshire and David Shreeves for their re-elections. Across the town this was a tough campaign, and we always knew that it would be an uphill struggle to hold all seats, let alone make any gains. But the members really pushed as hard as they could.

There are, of course, a few factors which overshadow the elections, some of which are beyond the controll of local councillors (Iraq, Blair, the Hospital). However, we can't escape the fact that the Tories have consolidated power and have the momentum, and that there are local factors as well.

Tory Sleaze

2007-05-04T01:21:00.000+01:00

One thing that the post-election drinks provide is a chance to catch up on the gossip.

What I learned today is this:

When the Tories claim that 'Horsham GPs' support their Campaign for Pease Pottage Hospital, they mean that 11 GPs (out of 40) support it. My maths may be a bit hazy (it's been 12 years since I sat that degree), but 27% is not a majority. Given that several of those GPs also work in the same practice as one of the authors of their report, it's an even less impressive endorsement.

Also on the c4pph, one of the authors of their report was Adrian Brown. When I asked Henry Smith who he was, he described his background in general terms. What he omitted to mention was that Mr Brown was sacked from East Surrey Hospital when the finances were going down the tubes a few years back.

Lorraine Matthews was until recently involved in the project to decide whether or not to transfer out Council Housing in Crawley. She was the chair of the Tenants Panel, and there were strong suggestions that she was far more keen on transfer than the average tenant. She will now be working for the Council in a brand new post as 'Community Engagement Manager'. Who created this post? How does it chime with the Tory agenda to cut out 'superfluous' posts at the Town Hall?

Vote Early, Vote Often

2007-05-04T01:14:00.000+01:00

At about half past seven, I cast two votes in Southgate. Nothing illegal went on, Ms Danivon had to go away so see her mum, and she arranged for me to have her proxy vote.

After that was along day of leafletting and standing outside the polling station, I am now knackered and totally confused.

The results here are unpredictable. If the Tories gain one single seat, they will regain control of the council. However, I didn't see the swagger from them that they had last year.

The early results suggest that the picture nationally is mixed, but that in some places the Tories have gained at the expense of the Lib Dems more than from Labour. Crawley will not be counting the votes until tomorrow, which means it's a nail-biting time for all candiates over the next twelve hours.

Local Elections 3 May - Don't forget to vote!

2007-05-02T19:55:00.000+01:00

(and vote Labour)

In Crawley, it is pretty much a straight contest between Labour and the Tories in all seats (except for Northgate, which is solidly Lib Dem).

Some seats have a BNP candidate, and it is vital that they not get a foothold in Crawley.

The Labour candidates for the Crawley wards this year are:

Bewbush:
Chris CHESHIRE
Furnace Green (2 votes): TT *
TP PATEL & Andrew SKUDDER

Gossops Green: T
Chris MULLINS
Ifield: *
John STANLEY
Langley Green:
David SHREEVES
Maidenbower: T
Ron FINCH
Northgate:
Bill WARD
Pound Hill Nth: T
Jasmin SAMSON
Pound Hill Sth & Worth: T
Colin MOFFATT
Southgate: *
Ian IRVINE
Three Bridges:
Daryl ENGLISH
Tilgate: *
Jayne SKUDDER

Where the BNP are standing, I have marked the ward with *. Where the Conservatives currently hold the seat(s), I have marked the ward with a T (for Targetting Tories).

With the Council on a knife edge (Conservatives 1 seat short of a majority), and several close contests, every vote could count. In Southgate, we had results within 3 votes two years running. Crawley has had two elections result in dead heats in the last ten years.

So, if you want to lift the threat of higher charges for tenants (with lower standards of upkeep for council houses), if you want to safeguard local services, if you want to see improvements, then Vote Labour to keep the Tories out.

Best of luck to all of our candidates tomorrow. I will be out and about in Southgate, where we are working to re-elect a hard working councillor Ian Irvine.

Guernica

2007-04-26T21:08:00.000+01:00

70 years ago, 24 bombers from the Nazi 'Condor Legion' dropped their loads on the Basque town of Guernica/Gernika in Spain. From the bombs and the resulting fires, hundreds of civilians were killed.

It was immortalised by a Picasso mural named after the town. He was actually working on it before 26 April, for the Paris Exposition and was shown on the Spanish Pavilion during July of that year.

Ten days ago, I was looking at the painting, which now hangs in the Reina Sofia Museum in Madrid. Until 1981, it had never been in Spain, although prints and photographs were clandestinely produced. A full size copy is in the United Nations building (it was covered over in 2003 when Colin Powell was giving a press conference to promote the invasion of Iraq).

As powerful works of art go, Guernica is incredible, and full of the horrors of war.

Life Expectancy - the elephant in the room

2007-04-13T18:58:00.000+01:00

The Crawley News has obtained comparitive figures for Life Expectancy across the town. There is (and this is not a surprise to me as I've seen similar figures in the past) a significant difference between the highest and the lowest wards:

Maidenbower 83.5
Southgate 77.1

The low figure for Southgate can be partially explained by the disproportionate number of residential care homes. So they don't compare my neck of the woods with Maidy, but they take the next lowest, Bewbush (77.6).

Now, they make the usual statistical error of mixing up the people with the place - by suggesting that if you move, it will improve your prospects. Of course, the figures are an average based on the people currently living there. If you personally have a low life expectancy, moving to Maidenbower or Pound Hill is not likely to increase your time in this mortal coil (although it might slightly reduce their average...). Fair enough, it's a standard misconception and it's easily done. Oh, and these are the expectancy at birth based on data from 1998 to 2002, so it's not even relevant to people born outside Crawley, or before 1998!!

Of course, it's not like we can actually get accurate figures for life expectancy for areas which had virtually nobody living in them less than 60 years ago (most of Crawley), but we can do for the people who live there now.

However, when comparing Bewbush and Maidenbower, and casting around for possible reasons, they are a bit blinkered. A Maidenbower resident jokes that it is 'easier to be stabbed in Bewbush', which is particularly crass (I don't know anyone who has been stabbed in Bewbush, but I did once work with a guy who got stabbed in Horsham - and it was easy for him as he was the wrong colour). A Bewbush resident also mentions crime and violence. Another Maidenbowerite who uses the word 'one' for 'I' puts it down to diet and a healthy lifestyle.

Of course, these are possible contributory factors (although it's not like people in nice areas don't get murdered, such as in Poles Lane.

The one factor that is completely missed is the also one that tends to also influence crime, diet, lifestyle etc.

Wealth, or the lack of it.

Poverty levels in Bewbush are much higher than in Maidenbower. The correlation between income and life expectancy is very close. Similarly, Broadfield has higher levels of deprivation (although it also has some more comfortable parts), and Pound Hill is also relatively wealthy.

However, there are pockets of deprivation in Pound Hill, and even in Maidenbower. The average life expectancy for those people will likely be lower than for their near neighbours.

Who the FAQ is Danivon?

2007-04-06T09:49:00.002+01:00

Who is Danivon?

Well, my real name is Owen Richards. I was born in Crawley in 1974. I've lived there most of the time since, apart from a few years in the 1990s when I studied and worked in Manchester. From February 2009 I've been living in Rugby.

I was a councillor on Crawley Borough Council from May 2000 to June 2004, representing my home ward of Southgate for the Labour Party. I stood down after a single term due to the problem of balancing work and a social life with political office. As much as I enjoyed it, I was getting too tired to keep doing the job to the best of my abilities.

So why do you use a pseudonym?

Why not? When the internet was first popular, people were always using pseudonyms. I don't use it to hide who I am, it's just not a big deal to me to use a different name. I have been using the name on other sites for some time, and it's easier to keep things the same all over the place.

While I am not concealing my true identity, I am also wary of being too open on the internet, where people and software can trawl through data to get a lot of information. I get enough spam as it is, thanks.

Where did you get the name 'Danivon' from?

From the book Sideshow, by Sheri S Tepper. Danivon Luze is one of the main characters. I don't identify with him per se, it's just I quite liked the name. To be honest, I got him mixed up with the character Cheradenine Zakelwe from Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks when I first used it, back when I was playing Command&Conquer: Red Alert online (and getting trounced every time).

Who is Rodney McAree then?

He is a football player, and the subject of an old terraces chant at Craven Cottage from the glorious 1996/7 season. See more here: http://rodneymcaree.blogspot.com/2005/04/rodney-mcarce.html

Who do you work for?

I'm not going to say. I don't intend to discuss work, let alone my employer, so it isn't relevant. All I will say is that I work in the private sector, for an IT company.

Despite what some may think, I don't work for the Labour Party. I am a member of the Party, and I am involved at a local level. I have views that I want to express, which may or may not be in accordance with local (or national) Party policy. I did hold the post of 'Press Officer' for one year, which is confined to drafting Press Releases. I don't view blogging, or commenting on other blogs or internet forums as part of that activity, and the views expressed on this site against my name are mine alone.

Why are you in the Labour Party?

Well, my family were all members. My dad was a councillor in the 1970s, and his dad was one in the 1950s. My parents were active in the 1980s, and I can remember them raising money for the families of striking miners in 1984 and my dad going up to printworks to assist the pickets during the Wapping dispute. I joined at the age of 15, when Thatcher was still the PM. Then I was purely an 'emotional' socialist - I didn't really understand the 'why'.

After getting an interest in History at school, I developed my theoretical and philosophical political views. I think that is long journey to start, and I'm by no means finished.

Are you a New Labour apparatchik?

No. In 1994 I opposed Blair's leadership bid and the changes to Clause 4 of the Party constitution. While feeling a bit young to take on the label 'Old Labour', and not comfortable enough in dogma to stick with people like the Campaign Group, I have always been critical of the Party Leadership where they deserve it. However, I still think that the Labour Party, even one dominated by 'New Labour' is the best of all of the available alternatives for government. I worked my socks off in three constituencies during the 1997 campaign, and like many people was jubilant at the victory, and the scale of it. However, I said at the time:

"I'm happy, but I'm not satisfied"

That still applies today. Labour has done a lot of good in this country over the past 10 years, but they have also been timid in important areas. The Iraq war has overshadowed and undermined the whole period, and I am concerned about the tendency towards illiberal policies like detention without charge and ID cards.

However, I am proud to be a member of the Party, and there is a lot that should be celebrated and built on.

Is that all you're going to say?

Not necessarily. If you want to ask a question, put it in the comments, and I'll answer it if I can.

Warrior Soul - The Wasteland

2007-03-30T20:10:00.001+01:00

Saw Kory Clarke at Camden Underworld last week. He's still got it, and he still hates Republicans.

Check out his new band, too: Dirty Rig