Apologies for the recent downtime of this website (and also the Langworthy Lib Dem micro-site and Norman Owen’s website). Following today’s announcement by Gordon Brown that the General Election will be held on Thursday 6th May – our webpages today received quadruple the average visitors we’d typically get in a week!

As such, the hosting plan that we had with our web company (Compila) was not up to the task and Compila took the webpages down until we changed to their top tier plan.

We’ve done that and now we’re back on-line

That said, it’s the right time to mention our four steps for a fairer Britain:

Fair taxes that put money back in your pocket

• The first £10,000 you earn tax-free: a tax cut of £700 for most people
• 3.6 million low earners and pensioners freed from income tax completely
• Paid for in full by closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the wealthy and polluters

A fair future creating jobs by making Britain greener

• Break up the banks and get them lending again to protect real businesses
• Honesty about the tough choices needed to cut the deficit
• Green growth and jobs that last by investing in infrastructure

A fair chance for every child

• Ensure children get the individual attention they need by cutting class sizes
• Made possible by investing £2.5 billion in schools targeted to help struggling pupils
• Give schools the freedom to make the right choices for their pupils

A fair deal by cleaning up politics

• Put trust back into politics by giving you the right to sack corrupt MPs
• Restore and protect hard-won British civil liberties with a Freedom Bill
• Overhaul Westminster completely: fair votes, an elected House of Lords, all politicians to pay full British taxes

You’ve been let down by Labour for the last 13 years. You’ve had 65 years of Labour and Conservative Governments taking it in turns to make the same old mistakes over and over again.

The choice in this election is between more of the same with Labour and the Conservatives or real change with the Liberal Democrats.

We will clean up politics. We will deliver fairness.

We will change Britain.

I don’t normally read the Guardian (or often frequent it’s website), but I happened across this article today, which was published yesterday on the Guardian’s website.

It seems that following Vince Cable’s superb performance on the “Ask the Chancellor” Channel 4 debate, Liberal Democrat support is up at the cost of Tory and Labour support. This does not surprise me.

Most Labour and Tory supporters agree that Vince Cable would make a far better chancellor than Osbourne and, clearly, anybody could do a better job than Darling (going off his Channel 4 performance, alone.)

We Liberal Democrats are fans of pie charts and bar charts, so here’s a screen grab from the Guardian piece – I urge you to read it anyway:

After watching this you’d have to be certified. Although this Channel 4 interview with Jim Devine, Labour MP for Livingston is a little over 10 minutes – it’s well worth it.

The car-wreck begins almost immediately and I don’t think Krish could quite believe some of the answers he was hearing…

During March and April, the Seedley and Langworthy Trust in partnership with Take Part Salford are hosting four ‘Salford Question Time’ events featuring the key political leaders in local politics. The Liberal Democrats, Labour and the Conservatives have all agreed to sit on the panel, alongside others with specialist knowledge.

Elected members will be addressing potential voters and confronting Salford issues in public. The format will be very similar to the BBC’s own Question Time TV programme and the events will also provide a training experience for members of Salford Community Media Partnership who would be involved in set design; sound; film and lighting.

Tickets are free, but there is limited availability – so book early.

The themes and dates are as follows:
* Housing & the Environment – Thurs 4th March, 7–8.30pm
* Economy & Employment – Thurs 11th March, 7–8.30pm
* Education, Children & Young People – Thurs 18th March, 7–8.30pm
* National Issues (MPs) – Thurs 8th April, 7–8.30pm

To apply for tickets and submit questions for the event, please telephone Seedley and Langworthy Trust on 0161 737 9918 or email: admin@sali.org.uk

No, it’s not Iain Lindley the Tory candidate over in Worsley & Eccles South – but our own Ian Lindley, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for North Durham.

Cut ‘n’ pasted from libdems.org.uk…

PPC for North Durham
Liberal Democrat candidate for North Durham

Contact Me

Email: Iplindley@googlemail.com
Website: www.ianlindley.co.uk

Over the weekend Salford Labour Councillor Derek Antrobus fell and broke his ankle. I understand he has had an operation, but should be home by now.

I and my fellow Lib Dems wish Councillor Antrobus a speedy recovery. We may be political opposites, but those of us involved in local (or national) politics are all doing it for the right reason – to help our communities and to make things better for the people who live here.

Get well soon, Councillor Antrobus.

I’m astounded by David Cameron’s pitiful attempts to “woo Liberal Democrats” to the Tory cause.  Clearly worried that a hung parliament is on the cards at next year’s general election, he’s stated “…between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats there is a lot less disagreement than there used to be.”

Cameron couldn’t be more wrong. Unlike the Lib Dems, he and his Tory party have no concept of what a fair Britain should look like. The Conservatives seem content to cut taxes for millionaires, while the Lib Dems would remove income tax for the lowest earners in the country (saving all those who earn less than £10,000 a year from paying a penny in tax).

Lib Dem voters (and indeed the wider electorate) will not be fooled by this wolf in sheep’s clothing who on one hand claims he wants “a fair fight” at the next election then with the other tries to cynically deceive the electorate by claiming that there is not much difference between the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

Don’t be fooled by Cameron and his upper crust Tory cronies, they are playing clever games. Cameron claims he wants a fair Britain, but there’s a world apart between Tory “fair” and our fair.

I’m flabbergasted at what Cameron tried to do: make the public believe that there aren’t many differences between the Lib Dems and the Tories and scaremongering our supporters into voting for them under the pretence that a hung parliament would be “bad for Britain”.

While I agree that a hung parliament is not ideal, a Tory or Labour government would definitely be “bad for Britain”. Our country needs Nick Clegg and Vince Cable involved in the next government, if it takes a hung parliament for that to happen – I’m happy.

In anticipation of today’s full council session, I recently wrote to Salford City Council to ask permission to make an audio recording of the day’s events. The city’s solicitor replied and answered that, no, audio recordings were not allowed – citing various reasons, including the possibility that the audio recordings could be “maliciously” edited.

Other councils such as Gloucestershire County Council, Haringey Council and Canterbury City Council have their own in-house audio recording systems (connected to the chamber’s already existing microphone loop) and provide downloadable audio recordings (in MP3 format) on their council’s own websites.

Why can’t Salford do the same? The apparent answer is cost. I was amazed to get an answer so quickly – apparently the city solicitor was aware of the high cost when he replied “operation of recording comes at a not inconsiderable cost both in terms of capital to buy and install the equipment and income with the cost of an operator and the cost of publishing the results to fund.There has been no provision in the budget for such expenditure.”

OK – if that is the case, then why not move the council meetings from the ridiculous start time of 9.30am to a more family friendly 7pm? The latter timeslot is currently when Bury Council holds their own council meetings.

Salford’s Labour leadership have consistently resisted the sensible alternative (to move council meetings to a more convenient time for those of us that have jobs) – which is why I suggest the release of audio recordings of full council (and perhaps other meetings too).

Salford Council do employ officers to take written minutes, but these are often laden with errors and omissions – as was proven today when virtually the first order of business was to make a correction and add in answers that were omitted from the written record of previous council. The minutes cannot be relied upon as a true record of events at council meetings, which is why audio recordings should either be allowable or even better, the council should make it’s own recordings and grant free access to them by whoever wishes to listen. Either that or change the start times of the session to a more agreeable slot.

Today I am launching my own campaign for Greater Access to Salford Council meetings. You can sign my petition here.

Join me in asking Salford City Council to be more open and honest about the democratic workings of our city – I believe we should be proud to do so.

It’s a little tongue in cheek, but there’s some good messages in this short video from Chris Davies MEP. Quite rightly, he asks, why should Blair be a shoe-in for the EU presidency? With the countless millions that live in Europe, surely the shortlist could be opened up a bit more (diversity anyone?)

What a disaster the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester turned out to be for the “government-in-waiting”.

Prior to David Cameron’s yawn-fest speech, where he told the country nothing new and mentioned in passing a few half-baked ideas, that Vince Cable dubbed “Lib Dem lite” – I came across this gem of a video on the BBC News website.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8294010.stm

It’s definitely worth the two and a half minutes. Laugh along as various party conference visitors attempt to answer the question “What are David Cameron’s top 5 priorities?” – the question assumes he will become the country’s next prime minister of course.

Clearly, The Conservatives have no clue what they want or more importantly, what is best for this country. If they cannot agree on what the 5 most important priorities are for the next government – why should we, as voters, let them fumble their way around while they try and fix their “Broken Britain”.

Enjoy!

During today’s fantastic win for Unsworth U14B Juniors at home to Whitworth in the NBJFL Main Cup; I was shocked to see a bill that had recently arrived from Bury Council to the tune of nearly £600.

From 2008 it became a legal requirement for regular water safety checks to be carried out, to check for fatal conditions such as legionnaire’s disease. Bury Council previously carried out these water safety checks free of charge, but have now introduced an annual charge of £585.52

As a club, we have been told that if we do not pay it within 21 days, legal action will be taken to recover the cost and the club will be shut down. Further, the letter accompanying the “invoice” threatens our chairman with a CCJ if the bill remains unpaid.

Tory-controlled Bury Council’s callous attitude is revealed in this week’s Prestwich & Whitefield Guide, where Tory council leader Councillor Bob Bibby said “These self-managed centres cannot have everything their own way. If they want to self-manage their affairs, that includes taking on board financial commitments. It is up to them to put money aside for things like this, even if the notice period is short.”

Just like businesses and other organisations that have ongoing costs, our Unsworth Junior Football Club has a committee which meets monthly and one of our tasks is to budget for the year ahead. We take into account all costs (such as rates, utility bills, equipment, security, league fees and winter training costs to name but a few) when we set our player subscription costs.

Separate from our day-to-day running costs, we also have a development fund (ring-fenced from our main running costs) which is earmarked to refurbish our dilapidated clubhouse. For the last year, Unsworth Junior Football Club has been on a fundraising drive, led by my sister, Denise Middleton. It now seems that Bury Council expect us to spend our development cost on this on-the-spot water tax.

What should we say to all those children that gave up their Sunday afternoon last month and raised nearly £900 from a Sainsbury’s bag packing day? Sorry chaps, you worked so hard to raise money for a new roof for your clubhouse, but now Bury Council wants to steal most of it back.

No other Council in the Greater Manchester area charges for these essential water safety checks (which cannot be done by anyone other than the council) – this includes Salford Council, who I am regularly critical of.

It may be a co-incidence, but this decision by Bury Council to charge Unsworth Junior Football Club and nearly 30 other volunteer-run sites across the borough for water safety checks that were previously free, follows hot on the heels of a landmark employment case which Bury Council lost in August. Bury Council lost over £600,000 after losing an equal pay ruling which proved that women workers were paid less than their male counterparts. Cynically, it seems the Tory-controlled Council intends to recoup the money from volunteer organisations such as Unsworth Junior Football Club

I’ll be calling on Cllr Bob Bibby to reverse this decision at Bury’s full Council session at the end of this month, as I will be able to attend. Unlike Salford Council’s session, Bury’s is held at a family-friendly time of 7pm.

As a side-note, Bury Council’s further destruction of their local community continues with the news that they are about to agree to submitted ‘development’ plans that will see Prestwich & Radcliffe community venues such as The Longfield Suite and Radcliffe Civic Centre demolished.

It is times like these I am glad I live In Salford. We have learned to value our community and see the benefit community involvement gives back to our society as a whole. Perhaps, for once, Bury could look across the border towards Salford as a great example of how community facilities such as civic centres and sports facilities genuinely improves the lives of it’s citizens.

So after 12 years of Labour support, that cornerstone of tabloid journalism The Sun newspaper has determined that Gordon Brown’s Labour has failed Britain. What took them so long? While they may have decided that as a paper they will no longer endorse Labour, their story is hardly resounding support for a Tory government either.

After a complete list of Labour failings, the front page piece states “We hope, and pray, that the next Government will have the guts and the determination to do these things. And we believe David Cameron should lead it. Between now and the election Cameron’s Conservatives must earn voters’ trust by setting out their promising policies in detail.”

So what is The Sun saying to it’s readers? It seems the answer is: Labour have failed you, so we won’t support them – but we’re not convinced the Tories have the guts to provide Britain with the strong leadership it needs (or if they promise things, we don’t entirely trust them to deliver).

Inside The Sun asks the question “Who will you vote for?”

My answer is: I will vote for a solid, backable future for Great Britain. Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron can be trusted to take this country forward, but Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats have the intelligence of Vince Cable to ensure the stability of Britain and make it Great Britain again.

SIDE NOTE: Interestingly, Gordon Brown (in his keynote speech yesterday at the Labour party conference) pledged to hold a referendum on electoral reform should he win the next general election. The Liberal Democrats have been pushing for a referendum for years, but now perhaps Mr Brown has been convinced it is the right thing to do. It is.

Therefore, can we expect a similar referendum promise from The Conservatives?

Thanks to David Ottewell of the Manchester Evening News for pointing this one out.
If you can’t work out the swearword (why would you want to?), David has an unexpurgated version courtesy of Sky News on his blog here.

Apologies for the lack of activity of my blog, but It’s been a busy old week since last weekend’s Proms in the Park, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

On Wednesday I managed to spare a couple of hours in the morning to attend Salford’s first full council meeting following the summer recess. Compared to the last council (which lasted a full day), the agenda was comparatively light and could have been finished by lunch-time if it was not for the ridiculous amount of time wasted by Weaste & Seedley Independent Councillor Geoff Ainsworth on the subject of overview and scrutiny places. Quite frankly the council has wasted far too much time and money on trying to accommodate scrutiny places that fit in with Councillor Ainsworth’s obviously busy schedule. A solution to this never-ending saga was proposed, seconded and carried – with one sole vote against, you’ve guessed it, Councillor Ainsworth. Do I dare believe this is the end of this sorry waste of taxpayer’s money?

Prior to Questions & Comments to Lead Members (which, if truthful, was the main reason I attended) – mention was made of the Public Consultation which has just started regarding a possibility of changing the make-up of our city’s leadership. A directly elected Mayor has been suggested, rather than the current system of leader & cabinet, which we currently have. The consultation ends on November 6th and you can have your say on this by going to Salford Council’s website and clicking on ‘consultations’ on the right hand side. Alternatively, click here, and you’ll be taken to the relevant page.

Shortly after, we arrived at the “main event”, where opposition councillors were given the opportunity to ask questions to Lead Members. First up was the leader of the council, John Merry. To give him his credit, the man is good at spin and deflected most of the criticism poured on him from both Tory and Liberal Democrat councillors. Most wanted to know if he would be re-shuffling his cabinet or, more to the point, was he going to remove John Warmisham from his position as Lead Member for Children’s Services? Lib Dem councillors Mary Ferrer, Joe O’Neill and leader Norman Owen all pointed out wave after wave of failures of Councillor Warmisham during his tenure as Lead Member for Children’s Services – however, Councillor Merry was determined he should stay.

Next up, Councillor Warmisham himself in a shameful display of arrogance towards parents proceeded to explain why he did not attend the St. George’s public meeting “The hate mail I’ve received from St George’s parents has disgusted me…It’s despicable and not becoming of a Catholic school. I was appalled by their behaviour and have never witnessed anything like it in 19 years.”
His own appalling behaviour continued as he proceeded to attack Councillor Owen over recent comments in the Manchester Evening News, which criticised his stewardship of Children’s Services. “…does no favours if members go running off to the press.” he added.
A final insult, before the break, was aimed squarely at Councillor Owen “if that man ever becomes MP for Salford, I would leave this city.” Cheers echoed around the chamber as Lib Dem members offered to pack his bags now to save time.
Councillor Warmsham shouted a further insult towards me (I was sat in the public gallery), after the Mayor had departed the council chamber. It can’t be reported here, since I don’t print such offensive words in my blog.

Sadly, I had to depart for work at that point – but one thing still nags at me two days later. During the course of his answers, Councillor Warmisham stated that the school places problem we face city-wide has been alleviated. It most certainly hasn’t if last night’s Langworthy Forum meeting is anything to go by. The new Glendinning Primary School is over-subscribed by 200 places, with the new headteacher confirming there will be no room for portakabins or temporary classrooms on-site.

I wonder how many of our children will be forced into cross-city journeys, because the school on their doorstep is full. Perhaps if Childrens Services had talked to the Health Authority, we could have got our sums right – but then that assumes we would  have someone in control of Childrens Service’s that was just a little bit competent.

Having just returned from holiday in sunny Spain, I have a lot of catching up to do – so apologies for the lack of activity here, things should be back to normal in the next few days.

As I sat vegetating on my couch this afternoon (recovering from the hell that is a Thomson scheduled flight), I happened across the TV advert for Sky News’ petition for a Leaders debate. For years, I have followed the US Presidential Debates and found them a fascinating insight into strengths and weaknesses of potential leaders. It’s my belief that this is one of the few good ideas worth copying from stateside politics.

At the time of writing over 8,600 people have signed the petition and I have now signed it too. A link to the petition is here and I urge everyone to sign it  (whatever your political persuasion).

I admit to being baffled by recent correspondence from both my MP, Hazel Blears and The HM Treasury. Today I finally received replies to queries I raised back in MARCH, in relation to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme decision to deny The Christie Hospital a refund of their £6.5m of charity money lost when two Icelandic banks failed.

Those of you in the know, will probably be aware that while the Financial Services Authority (FSA) denied The Christie a refund from the scheme, they subsequently received their money back via NHS sources. The irony of the timing of these two letters landing on my doorstep today is not lost on me.

My initial letter to Hazel Blears asked for her to support a judicial review into the FSA’s decision – since it not only affected The Christie, but also many other charities across the country. Sadly, the MP for Salford chose not to voice her public support for a judicial review, but instead forwarded my appeal on to the HM Treasury. A case of “passing the buck”, I feel.

While The Christie has received it’s charity cash back, the response from HM Treasury does not bode well for other charities or indeed any other non-profit making bodies such as police authorities, councils or universities, many of which have been affected in a similar way to Christies. At the last count 48 charities had lost £200m in the Icelandic banking collapse, with compensation likely to be less than 20% (if any).

These other non-profit making bodies do not have some mysterious NHS fund to save their lost cash, yet the government seems perfectly happy to see critical services suffer because “the claimant is ineligible for compensation” and “This could lead to these other bodies having a legitimate expectation that they too would be compensated.” Damn right it would.

Two parts of this concern me.

(A) The government seems perfectly willing to spend millions to support the banks that (partly) caused the banking collapse which ultimately led to the loss of donated money, but refuses to help the victims.

(B) Hazel Blears seems to have no opinion on the matter (her handwritten note attached to my “standard reply” letter offers apologies for the delay in getting a response from her government, but no apology for the decision from her government).

Or maybe she agrees with HM Treasury that if a bank fails and a charity loses it’s money, that is acceptable?

Hazel signs off her handwritten note saying that she is pleased Christie has got it’s funds restored. So am I. But I wonder if another banking collapse in the future could see The Christie and other charities lose their money all over again. It could happen.

I support Liberal Democrat MPs John Leach and Mark Hunter (who brought the matter to the government’s attention in the House of Commons) in their continuing campaign to return ALL charitable money lost in the banking collapse.

It’s just a shame Hazel Blears doesn’t seem to care about (or have an opinion on) the huge efforts charities across the country go to in raising much-needed funds.

Conservative leader David Cameron dropped a couple of clangers this morning on Christian O’Connell’s Absolute Radio morning slot. When asked if he used Twitter, the rather course reply was  ”The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it too many tweets might make a twat.”

What’s interesting is just before he made that rather forgetable faux-pais, he commented that “politicians do have to think about what we say” – therefore, what an odd phrase to use immediately after!

While not the worst language I have ever heard first thing in the morning, it’s something that the person who wants to be Prime Minister should try to avoid.

Later, Mr Cameron lapsed again as he discussed the impact of the expenses scandal on the reputation of MPs. He remarked: “The public are rightly, I think, pissed off – sorry I can’t say that in the morning – angry with politicians.”

Whilst a quick apology followed the phrase, I wonder if this could be a glimpse of what is to come if Cameron were to become Prime Minister. Could you imagine, the Tory leader coming under pressure from world leaders to commit troops or resources into a combat zone, while perhaps receiving conflicting advice from his closest aides?

How pissed off with the French will he become? Will he call Obama a twat?

Cameron needs to learn to control his tongue and engage brain before opening mouth – if that is possible.

Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe has revealed that he will “almost certainly” vote for the Liberal Democrats at the next election.

The actor, who plays the title character in the fantasy franchise, told Attitude that he “rather liked” party leader Nick Clegg.

“If all the people who liked them voted for them you could change politics overnight and we could have a proper three-party system,” he explained.

Discussing current Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, he said: “Paul Merton said, and I agree with him, ‘It’s a tragedy that this man has waited all his life to do this job – and now he finds out he can’t do it’.

“I don’t like the New Labour thing. I never experienced the optimism of New Labour, I was too young but I hear everyone was up and it was fantastic. I’ve only seen the bad years of it.”

He went on to claim that Conservative leader David Cameron was “barely distinguishable” from Tony Blair, adding: “I think the reason why people don’t vote is because the politicians are all so central now, it doesn’t seem to matter who you vote for.”