The Guardian has published the latest ICM poll which shows that 30% of people in the UK continue to blame debts racked up by the last Labour government as the reason for the current economic crisis; only 24% blame the coalition’s spending cuts.

The voting intention poll shows Labour (38%) still with a 2 point lead over the Conservatives (36%) with Liberal Democrats increasing to 14%. Others are on 12%.

Translated into a general election, the country will still have no one single party with an outright majority and as the strongest third party, the Liberal Democrats would once again be called upon to consider it’s part in a coalition government.

The Labour Party needs to consider this poll strongly. It’s time to face up to the hand they had in the economic problems of this country, accept their part, apologise for it and stop blaming everyone else.

Dump Ed Balls and Miliband Junior – and next time prepare for proper, meaningful talks with the Liberal Democrats. In 2010 it was obvious that Labour did not want to form a government with the Liberal Democrats – come 2014 if they have the same attitude the Lib Dems could be forced into a coalition with the Conservatives again, rather than having a choice.

The full Guardian poll is here.

In October, Urban Vision announced that street lighting across Salford City was being updated with new LED lamps, rather than the traditional filament-type as a way of saving money and becoming more energy efficient. They even listed a few streets in Langworthy’s neighbouring ward of Claremont where the LED lamps would be installed. Great!

But what about Langworthy?

About a week ago, I asked our Langworthy Neighbourhood Manager which streets (if any) would be getting LED street lights. He did not know, so forwarded my request to Urban Vision. The response? None.

I’ve since reminded Urban Vision about my query – but their silence simply raises another question. Why does Claremont get to do it’s bit and save money for the Council whilst being more energy conscious and Langworthy does not?

Langworthy has a proud community and we want to do our bit to help the city and reduce our energy consumption, which in turn protects our planet.

UPDATE 23/11/11:
Urban Vision have finally come back to me and the following streets are scheduled to receive the LED streetlamp upgrade in November/December:

Almond Close
Amersham Street
Brentwood
Citrus Way
Clementine Close
Coconut Grove
Coomassie Street
Culverwell Drive
Mango Place
Melksham Close
Melon Place
Sandy Grove
Tenbury Close

This list is different to the streets initially listed on Labour’s Langworthy ward Councillor John Warmisham’s blog here, however he has since updated his blog to the list above (presumably because he received a copy of the email I got from Urban Vision).

I note with some annoyance that Cllr Warmisham only wrote about the LED street lighting in Langworthy after I blogged about it. Langworthy ward Coouncillors were told about LED street lighting in October, perhaps Cllr Warmisham didn’t think energy efficiency was important until I mentioned it?

Salford today took one step closer to the possibility of an elected Mayor on the same day Leicester City Council announced it was increasing their elected Mayor’s salary to £100,000 per year. Leicester’s Labour-controlled council also decided it would pay his Deputy Mayor £75,000 per year and his SIX “assistant Mayors” would also get a pay increase taking their salaries to £40,000 each!

Leicester elected their first directly-elected Mayor in May of this year; could that city’s voters have guessed their Mayor would get a £44,000 pay rise barely half-way through his first year in office?

At today’s full session of Salford City Council it was announced that January 2012 would be the date of Salford’s Mayoral Referendum and should that Referendum produce a “YES” vote, the election for Salford’s first directly-elected Mayor would be held in May (on the same day as the city’s local elections).

So, while a decidely bad idea for Salford – who are the front-runners for the top job in Salford should the electorate decide it wants to pay for a different kind of leader?

Despite being vehemently against a directly-elected Mayor, Salford Labour’s current leader (and leader of the Council) Councillor John Merry has already all-but thrown his hat in the ring, declaring on Twitter that he “still wanted to lead [the council]“.

Salford Conservatives seem split, but publicly they are in the “YES” camp and Boothstown & Ellenbrook Councillor Robin Garrido has been mentioned as a front-runner for the local Tories. No official candidate has been declared (nor would they be likely to declare one until after the Referendum).

As for the Liberal Democrats, we are completely against a directly-elected Mayor for Salford and so we absolutely will not select a candidate unless the Referendum produces a yes result.

I fear, however, a plethora of Independent Candidates will be tempted by the potential £100,000 salary and so it’s highly likely that a long list of Independent hopefuls will throw their hat into the ring.

Geoffrey Berg is probably the choice of the “mayoral alliance” – the main organiser of the Mayoral Petition which forced the Referendum. I’d be surprised if he relented and allowed his co-conspirators Michael Moulding (currently Community Action Party, ex-Independent, ex-Liberal Democrat) or Stephen Morris/Paul Whitelegg of the English Democrats. The English Democrat elected Mayor in Doncaster has made such a hash of his term of office, I doubt it would be good for the “mayoral alliance” campaign if they selected an English Democrat.

But what about other Independents? I fear the temptation of a huge salary coupled with likely local media interest will see the Referendum campaign turn into nothing more than a circus. How is that good for democracy or good for Salford?

You may have seen or heard misleading news reports today suggesting that the UK Border Agency is breaking its pledge to end the detention of children.

UKBA has responsed to these misleading news reports and has emphasised the need to hold families at the border, while making clear the bold changes the agency has made to the way families already in the UK are managed and supported.

Brodie Clark, head of border force, said: ‘We have always been clear that we may need to hold some families at the border while enquiries are made to decide whether they can be admitted to the country or until the next available return flight if they are refused entry.

‘In the case of unaccompanied children, we may need to hold them until alternative accommodation is arranged, usually through social services. The number of passengers held is very small compared to the millions that we process and tens of thousands we refuse entry to at the border each year and it is always for the shortest possible period.

‘Not doing so would weaken border security by allowing people into the country who have no right to be here, and, equally, to release unaccompanied children before social workers have arrived to support them would put them at great risk.’

For those families already in the UK, but with no legal right to stay, the agency has introduced a completely new process for managing their return which encourages them to leave voluntarily, sometimes with financial assistance.

In cases, where return needs to be enforced, a new type of accommodation, Cedars, is used to hold families for a short period immediately prior to their departure from the UK.

Cedars has a completely different look and feel to an immigration removal centre and is only being used as a last resort. Families are referred there only after advice has been sought from the independent family returns panel which ensures that the welfare of the children is taken into account.

So far, fewer than ten families have been returned following a short period of stay in Cedars.

There has been some debate recently regarding an elected Mayor proposal for Salford. I blogged about this here back in July.

Recent correspondence in the Salford Advertiser from the petition organisers Geoffrey Berg (a resident in Prestwich, which comes under Bury Council) and Paul Whitelegg (English Democrat party) suggests that an elected Mayor could “reduce Salford’s spending” and lower the city’s council tax. However, Paul Whitelegg agrees in his letter that the cost of the Referendum alone would be add around £1.50 to Salford’s annual council tax bill, so he is proposing I pay an extra £1.50 to fund his Referendum in my city. This flies in the face of his suggestion that an elected Mayor would be able to lower council tax bills, since the first action of any elected Mayor would have to be to raise Salford’s council tax to pay the Referendum bill!

But ignoring the cost, can the English Democrats explain why Salford would want an elected Mayor when their own Doncaster Mayor has failed miserably since he was elected in 2009?

In fact, following the government’s decision to intervene in his running of Doncaster in April of this year because of a damning Audit Commission report that city is likely to have another expensive Referendum to see if they would like to go back to more widespread representation.

In the few short years Doncaster has had an English Democrat elected Mayor, he has ignored a vote of no confidence in his leadership carried by locally elected councillors, has overseen the closure of 14 local libraries and withdrawn council funding for maintaining sports grounds which serve over a dozen former mining communities. After just two and a half years in power, his policies appear to have done nothing to improve the lives of the people of Doncaster. They will do nothing to improve the lives of Salfordians.

Tim Farron’s speech to Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference

Speaking at Liberal Democrat Autumn Conference on Sunday, Liberal Democrat Party President, Tim Farron said:

So, well done – you all got past security clearance!

Incidentally I’m very grateful to the police, they’ve now provided me with all the detailed personal information on party members that I need in order to conduct a Stalinist purge.

Basically anyone who actually passed security clearance without sign of being a subversive will be erased.

Its been a busy six months since Sheffield.

And I’m going to start where I should.

At the bottom.

And Mays elections really were the bottom – at least they flipping well better had be!

Ok, we got 16% of the vote and had some real successes around the country, but let’s not fool ourselves.

In much of the country we got slaughtered.

In Scotland, in many of our great cities, in shire districts Liberal Democrats who have served their communities and worked their backsides off for years, got their backsides kicked.

I want to say this to you now, if you lost your seat, I stand with you; I am angry on your behalf; I take the responsibility and I absolutely will not insult you by claiming that this was collateral damage, or an understandable mid term blip.

Frankly, as your President, I owe you an apology.

Politics is full of clichés.

Perhaps the worst, is that bit where you’re on telly having to pretend everything’s gone swimmingly on a bad election night.

I had that job, and I have to confess that I didn’t stick to the script.

I didn’t pretend it was alright really.

Cos it wasn’t.

I saw the stats piling up, the Lib Dem minus figure getting bigger, you know, I knew these were not statistics, these people are my friends.

People who didn’t deserve to lose.

But who lost.

I’m not going to explain them away, shrug and accept their defeat as an inevitable consequence.

Defeat is never inevitable or acceptable.

But sometimes it happens.

I remember 2001 when we should have won Westmorland and Lonsdale and didn’t.

The campaigns department sent us a pager during the campaign – cutting edge!

They included us in the messages they sent to sitting MPs.

After the election, they carried on sending us messages – assuming that we’d got elected.

I went back to work at Lancaster University on the Monday after I lost, and I kept getting messages telling me about photo calls for new MPs, swearing in and making maiden speeches.

It was a sickener.

I was pleased for those who’d won, but I was gutted, depressed, I took the whole thing personally.

I’d worked my socks off for 3 years, I’d done everything I thought I could to win, but I still lost by 3,000.

And I have to confess that after 2001 there were a few months where I thought, why don’t I just jack it in?

Do a 9-5, dig the garden, get a season ticket at the Rovers, you know, torture myself in a different way.

Then I changed my mind.

There were two things that did it if I recall.

First, England beat Germany 5-1 in Munich; which has no political significance whatsoever, it just massively cheered me up!

A few days later my daughter Gracie was born.

If that doesn’t make you take stock, nothing will.

I thought back to what had first politicised me, and if you’ve heard this one before – well, tough!

I was 14 I saw Cathy come home, it completely broke my heart and my reaction was to do something, to join Shelter and then the Liberals.

Because if homelessness, poverty and inequality are wrong, then not doing something to stop them is equally wrong.

I’d joined this party to make a better a world, and now in the maternity ward in Kendal I had this little ginger thing, someone to make the world better for.

I had no flaming right to walk away.

So I got re-selected and spent 4 years doing everything Hilary Stephenson told me to, and a bit more.

Because you can’t change the world if you come second.

That’s why I am here rather than watching Rovers put 4 past Arsenal, despite only having 3 shots on goal.

Tell me if I’ve got this wrong, but I think that you want me as President to sell the undiluted Liberal Democrat standpoint.

Not to be an apologist for everything the coalition does.

Committed to the Liberal Democrats in coalition, but more importantly, committed to the Liberal Democrats.

There’s wonderful freedom in this role and I’m determined to use it!

Unlike ministerial platform speeches at conference this year, I don’t have to show mine to Oliver Letwin in advance!

I didn’t have to.

But I sent him a copy anyway just to wind him up.

But there are 18 Liberal Democrats who don’t have the luxuries that I do.

They can’t just sound off if they don’t like government policy or trot through the no lobby on occasions – rare occasions – to demonstrate their disagreement.

They are our ministers.

And while I’m parading my conscience around the TV studios saying the right things, they are busy in their departments doing the right things.

On those very, very rare occasions when Michael Gove says or does something stupid or wrong, Sarah Teather doesn’t come out and slag him off. Instead she fixes it.

Free schools for example!

When the Tories showed hesitancy about committing to true and fair banking reforms, Vince Cable laid on the pressure and forced that commitment.

And when George Osborne flew the kite of cutting income tax for the wealthy, Danny Alexander cut the string, and stopped him.

Incidentally, those 20 economists – nearly all of them top rate tax payers by the way – who called for scrapping the 50p tax rate.

They have many supporters in the Conservative party.

But they are utterly wrong.

Are we all in this together?

Well not if we give tax cuts to the rich!

At a time when 90% of the country is struggling to pay the rent or the mortgage,
giving a 10p tax cut to those who need it the least, would not just be economically witless, it would be morally repugnant.

Now of course, all income tax is temporary!

Income tax was introduced as a temporary measure in 1798 during the Napoleonic wars.

So my solemn promise to you is that we will get rid of this temporary measure, as soon as we stopping falling out with the French.

Danny, Vince, Nick and I are absolutely clear – the wealthy will continue to pay the largest share of the cost of our recovery so that we can protect the least well off.

The principle that the rich pay more does not come from a desire to penalise the wealthy, but from a desire to ensure that our recovery must be a fair recovery.

Be absolutely sure of this. Liberal Democrat ministers are the guarantors of fairness in a government that would be an absolute nightmare without them.

And not only this.

Your average Tory minister, bless them, works hard in their department and is rarely seen anywhere near their constituency.

Our ministers are full-on committed constituency MPs as well as being tasked with the small responsibility of running the country.

Their commitment to Liberal Democrat principles and policies is immense and their workrate is phenomenal.

That goes for all our ministers, but goes for Nick in spades.

This summer, Nick hasn’t stopped. His schedule racing around the country meeting members, supporters and one or two former supporters, has been staggering.

Thick skinned, warm hearted, quick witted, occasionally paint-splattered, a Liberal to his fingertips – he leads the Lib Dems, runs the country and runs rings around the Tories.

If you listen to Nadine Dorries, Conservative home and the Daily Mail, then Nick Clegg is leading the government; but when it comes to the NHS, the Bankers and fair taxation, Nick seems to be leading the opposition too!

Ed Miliband, are you still on holiday?

Who is taking the Blairite nonsense out of the NHS bill?

Nick Clegg

Who put the bankers back in their boxes over financial restructuring?

Nick Clegg

Who stood up against reactionary Tory drivel after the riots?

Nick Clegg

We are a radical Liberal Party putting radical liberal politics into action and blocking Tory policies every day.

For how many decades have we dreamed of being able to say that?

I have always been proud to be a Liberal Democrat, I was proud of us when we called it right on Kosovo, when we called it right on Iraq, when we called it right on deregulation of the banks.

But I have never been more proud of my party than I am now.

British public opinion is a bit more mixed.

I mean we’ve endured decades where the public were utterly indifferent to our existence, then for 5 minutes they loved us intensely, followed by a lengthier period where they’ve actively disliked us.

I had a girlfriend like that once.

But no one can say we don’t matter anymore, as Oscar Wilde said there’s only one thing worse than being talked about, and that’s not being talked about!

Look we had three political options after the 2010 elections: we had to choose between the rather unpleasant, the completely impossible or the utterly appalling; but we only had two economic options between the horrible and the catastrophic.

Now my politics were formed in the 1980s amidst mass unemployment in the north of England.

At times more than half of my class at school were on free school meals, most of us – me included – had parents out of work.

That experience scarred me, and it scarred me all the more because those levels of unemployment in the 80s were avoidable – that government deliberately used unemployment as an economic tool to control spending and the unions.

And we are tackling the deficit today, making horrible decisions to avoid the catastrophic alternative of market meltdown and mass unemployment or, as Ed Balls calls it ‘plan B’.

If the Tories created mass unemployment in the 80s out of wickedness, Labour would create mass unemployment today out of witlessness.

This summer, the silly season got serious didn’t it?

No one saw the riots coming.

With the possible exception of the Kaiser Chiefs.

And I reckon that was just a lucky guess!

The riots were an outrage against peaceful communities, a tragedy for civil society, an affront to our identity and an absolute gift for every knee-jerk reactionary in the country.

Some who shall remain nameless, but for illustrative purposes lets call them David Starkey, saw the fires of discontent and thought it wise to pour petrol on them by invoking racial stereotypes.

Now David Starkey is one of Kendal’s favourite sons, and I know that he is absolutely not a fascist, but I also know that he is absolutely an intelligent person and intelligent enough to know that it is culpably reckless to play into the hands of those who are fascists.

And there’s been a hypocrisy in so much of the media – including from the apparently shameless Murdoch press – focusing their ire on what they call a feral underclass with a contempt for society.

Just an observation here:

The super rich don’t need to go down Ealing high street nicking tellies in order to demonstrate their contempt for society. They demonstrate their contempt by not paying taxes.

And lets be honest, we are sharing power with a bunch of people who think that this is OK!

If you care about communities, then you are an opponent of all those who undermine them.

That includes the looters. That includes those who benefit from our society but who do not pay the taxes that they should, and that includes politicians and newspaper editors who provide them with cover.

Before the summer recess, I spent June and July away from Parliament too after my wife had an operation.

She’s fine by the way, she spent 2 months effectively confined to home, not able to walk or drive so I was granted compassionate leave by the whips – who, lets be honest, didn’t owe me any favours!

So I got to look after the kids out of school hours and be a constituency MP the rest of the time.

Rosie meanwhile read lots of crime thrillers, got hooked on online shopping, but absolutely refused to get sucked into daytime TV.

She claims.

Interestingly enough some tickets arrived through the post the other day for a gentle discussion programme called the Jeremy Kyle show.

I assume its a bit like question time.

The title is ‘my husband forces me to deliver leaflets even when I’m on crutches’.

Which is intriguing.

I learnt a lot during that time away from Parliament: first, being a Mum is hard work; second being my wife is really hard work; and third, politics looks a heck of a lot different when you are not in the Westminster bubble.

You see I spent almost 2 months getting my news the same way everyone else does.

No briefings or nuanced explanations from ministers.

The Lib Dems achievements on the NHS bill, on reigning in the bankers on keeping profiteers out of our state schools – they either don’t get reported, or the Lib Demness of those successes is exquisitely camouflaged.

Think about it, we are the first government party in history that doesn’t have a single newspaper telling our side of the story.

But the fact that our excellent message wasn’t landing in the minds of the public
highlighted an obvious danger for all of us who hold elected office.

And this is the moment when I could offend just about all of you, but isn’t it so often the same old story, you’re a brilliant campaigner, you get elected, you get sucked into the council, you go to meetings, you spend lots of time with your very lovely and very bright officers, and you start listening to them intently even though they don’t actually care two hoots if you’re re-elected.

And your diary gets a bit too full to go out knocking on doors, so not only are you now listening to officials but you have stopped listening to normal people and so you forget what they sound like, what angers them, what impresses them, what they elected you to do in the first place so you make daft decisions and you get slaughtered in the local press and then you lose.

That can happen in Whitehall as well as the town hall!

It can be a slippery slope.

So what’s the answer?

I’ll tell you what:

A full blooded return to the principles and the practice of community politics.

And it needs to start now.

In many of the mets, with elections in thirds, the same seats that we lost this year, are up again next year.

There may be a sense of inevitability that if we lost this year, we’re bound to lose next year too.

Well I am absolutely not having that!

This conference must mark a renewal of the theory and practice of community politics – and a belligerent determination to make our own luck.

I don’t underestimate the task ahead, but we have been through far worse and come out smiling on the other side.

The Thorpe scandal, the merger debacle; you know, if our poll rating is currently 13%, I can tell you that that’s about 14 times better than it was in 1989.

You know, I reckon if either of the other parties saw their poll ratings dip into single figures, they would implode and cease to be.

They couldn’t hack it mentally or emotionally, and the vested interests that they serve would abandon them.

Not with us. We’ve got nerves of steel. Survival is what we do.

A bit like cockroaches after a nuclear war, just a bit less smelly, we are made of sterner stuff.

And we are not the vehicle of any vested interest.

We are the vehicle for a radical, green, tolerant, internationalist, progressive form of politics and if we did not exist then there’s hundreds of people here today who’d rush out and invent us!

Going into coalition was absolutely the right thing for the country, but costly for the party.

I’m in no doubt that being in coalition with the Tories has tainted us, our identity is blurred, many who support us are confused. They say: “We thought you were against the Tories, why are you shacked up with them now?”

The picture of the coalition being a marriage is a depressing one isn’t it?

It’s enough to put you off your tea!

If it’s a marriage, well its a good natured one, but I’m afraid its temporary.

We’re staying together for the sake of the kids, or the Special Advisors as we call them.

So look, I don’t want to upset you and its not going to happen for 3 or 4 years but I’m afraid divorce is inevitable.

So, as your president I took the liberty of seeking some legal advice about how we stand in the event of a divorce.

There’s good news and bad news. Good news: we might get half of Ashcroft’s money.

Bad news: we have to have Pickles at the weekends!

Well over the last few months, there’s been a new spikiness and effectiveness about the Liberal Democrats.

We fought against the bankers, we stood up against the witless kneejerk populism of the Tories after the riots, we’ve fought against tax cuts for the rich and we came out fighting on the NHS, and I’ll tell you what, we will continue the fight for our NHS.

And since then, we’ve started winning by-elections, including gaining a seat off Labour for the first time since the general election, our membership has risen, donations have increased and our poll ratings have shot up from absolutely diabolical to just slightly depressing.

Now there’s one thing I haven’t mentioned.

I was sort of thinking of leaving it out but that would be cowardly.

The AV referendum.

That went well didn’t it?

Electoral reform was within our grasp for the first time in our lifetimes, but was it for the last time?

Don’t even think it.

Two things I have got doggedly used to in the 25 years since I joined this party: one is losing, the other is never, ever flaming giving up!

We have a corrupt electoral system, it needs modernising and transforming.

We will democratise the House of Lords and we will bring in proportional representation for the upper house.

PR for parliament.

Unlike the NHS bill, it is in the coalition agreement, I don’t care how many Tories or Lib Dems don’t like it, it is not an optional part of the programme. It’s a red line.

It’s not a sexy doorstep issue, its not going in my focus leaflets, but it is vital if we are to ensure that our democracy emerges from the 19 century.

When we go to the polls in 2015, we must be electing a part of the upper house for the first time ever, by proper PR.

Not a miserable little compromise!

The AV referendum is salutary.

It reminds us what we are up against in general.

A Tory party owned and directed by the impossibly rich, a Labour party which may be led by a progressive but which is owned by the forces of conservatism and a media owned by a handful of powerful individuals with antidemocratic axes that they grind very effectively.

How do we compete against that? Isn’t it impossible?

David Penhaligon said “I only got elected because I was too naive to realise it was impossible”.

We must fight every day to ensure that we never become part of the establishment, but we should fight hard to prove that we are worthy of power.

David Penhaligon, Roy Jenkins, Jo Grimond and all the legions of others who brought us from the depths for such a time as this.

They’d have killed to see the day we were in government, and they’d have killed us for complaining about it.

There’s a true story about President Kennedy visiting a NASA warehouse used for storing fuel cylinders for the Apollo programme.

He met the janitor and asked him ‘what do you do?’ the janitor replied, ‘I’m putting a man on the Moon’. That is the spirit.

As Liberal Democrats, we are all in this together whether you are the Deputy Prime Minister or a Focus deliverer, or indeed both.

No one will sell our story if we don’t, no one will believe our message if we don’t, no one will fight our battles if we don’t.

We’ve spent years trying to qualify for the premier league of politics, now we are here – lets waste no time looking into the stands for reactions, let’s look at each other, look to each other, focus on the goal, tackle our opponents and stuff them.

Get on with it!

Regular readers of my blog and Langworthy Focus readers will remember the traffic calming campaign I spearheaded earlier this year for Seedley Park Road and Seedley Terrace. The original articles are here and here. With the help of local residents on Seedley Park Road I collected and submitted a petition to Salford Council which called for action on speeding cars using our streets as rat runs.

I’m delighted to report that our community committee has agreed to fund the traffic calming measures I campaigned for on both Seedley Park Road and Seedley Terrace, the latter gaining some new full width speed humps.

Seedley Park Road will also see some full road width speed humps as well as a driver feedback sign, which I particularly pushed for as I felt that motorists using the road either seemed unaware or simply “forgot” that we have a 20mph speed limit here.

I am incredibly grateful to Langworthy Lib Dem Councillor Lynn Drake who presented the petition during a full session of Salford Council and for supporting the campaign at our community committee.

You can see the measures that are to be introduced on both Seedley Park Road and Seedley Terrace in more detail below.

Seedley Park Road

Seedley Terrace

Today the Boundary Commission for England has released it’s proposals for changing the electoral boundaries that will be used in the next General Election (currently scheduled for sometime May 2015).

Amongst the North West shake-up, they propose to abolish the Salford & Eccles and Worsley & Eccles South Constituencies, instead creating a new ‘Swinton’ constituency and then splitting the rest of Salford across Leigh and Manchester. Kersal and Broughton will remain, as currently, in the Blackley and Broughton constituency.

The proposals are as follows:

Manchester Central Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Ancoats & Clayton
Bradford
City Centre
Hulme
Irwell Riverside
Langworthy
Ordsall
Weaste & Seedley

Swinton Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Barton
Boothstown and Ellenbrook
Claremont
Eccles
Pendlebury
Swinton North
Swinton South
Winton
Worsley

Leigh Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Cadishead
Irlam
Little Hulton
Walkden North
Walkden South
Astley Mosely Common
Leigh East
Leigh South
Tyldesley

Blackley and Broughton Constituency: (For a map, click here)
Cheetham
Crumpsall
Harpurhey
Higher Blackley
Miles Platting and Newton Heath
Moston
Broughton
Kersal

While I will be providing my own (alternative) suggestions to the Boundary Commission along with a combined Liberal Democrat response, I’m eager to hear what Salfordians living in Langworthy, Ordsall, Irwell Riverside and Weaste & Seedley think in particuar. Please post your comments below.

Today, like many other people across the world, I paused for a minute’s silence at 1.46pm UK time. This was the moment, ten years ago today, when the first hijacked aeroplane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Centre.

I remember the moment vividly when the second passenger jet, United Airlines Flight 75, hit the South Tower as I was watching, live, whilst on holiday in Tunisia with my wife. We were celebrating the first anniversary of our wedding, but this became a time we would remember for a different reason.

Much time has passed since those terrible events of 10 years ago, and after the massive damage done by both Al-Qaeda and the international military response in Afghanistan (and Iraq!), the world is a long way along to putting things right. The rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan and the decapitation of Al-Qaeda’s leadership means that looking forward to a better and safer future is where the emphasis lies now.

But we must never forget the events of September 11th 2001. There are children in schools and colleges now that either have no memory of the attacks, only of the war(s) that followed. It is our duty to remind the young of what happened and try to help them make sense of it.

If our sons and daughters forget what happened on that Tuesday morning in New York, at the Pentagon in Virginia and in mid-air over Shanksville, Pennsylvania onboard United Airlines Flight 93 then they will not learn the lessons that we have had to learn and will make the same mistakes that Al-Qaeda made in 2001 and the British and American administrations made soon after by going to war with Iraq, a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attackers.

I don’t normally use my blog to ‘advertise’ other company’s products – for one, my blog is independent of commercial interest. If I did introduce advertising or worse blogged about products in a way destined to influence my readers (perhaps for some sort of commission), people would quite rightly stop reading it. I wouldn’t blame them!

After picking myself up off the floor on receipt of my renewal from my current insurer (£700 or £800 if I pay monthly) I used all of the car insurance comparison sites: comparethemarket.com, confused.com, moneysupermarket.com etc and ended up with a very competitive £450 via Compare the Market. Having see the TV advert (all very funny) I knew that I would be entitled to a “free toy” once I had completed my purchase – and there is a seperate claims mechanism in place via www.meerkovo.com to claim the toy.

The fun doesn’t end there: once you’ve successfully claimed your free toy, the residents of Meerkovo celebrate a day in your honour (by way of further thank you).

Compare the Market have proved that once a company has taken your money, they don’t have to think of you as just another customer. I wish more companies would feel the same once they have relieved us of our hard earned money.

Well done Compare the Market!

The pictures opposite show the devastation after a robbery of my Home Cinema shop in Manchester. Horrific aren’t they? However, these pictures were not taken on Tuesday following the rioting and looting in the North West of England, they were taken exactly two days before Christmas day, 2003.

As I listened to Salford, Manchester and London traders on Sky News describing how their businesses and livelihoods had been destroyed by criminals during the violence last week, the memories of 2003 came flooding back.

Unlike some shop and business owners who were targeted in these recent attacks, I had no warning whatsoever of what was about to happen. We were just about to complete a busy Christmas period, however we still anticipated two good days of trade before we closed for the Christmas break. Personally, from a business owner perspective, I was looking forward more to our New Year sales. We had stocked up accordingly and were expecting brisk business.

I can’t recall the exact time I received a call from the alarm company, but I believe it was around 9pm. While always a worry, our alarm could be temperamental, and on occasion had been set off by vibrations to the shutters or inebriated individuals falling into the shop front. However, I always made haste to get to the shop as quickly as possible “just in case”.

As I approached my shop, I instinctively knew something was wrong. A traffic jam on Bury Old Road at 9pm on a week night? My heart sank. Fearing the worst, I bypassed the traffic by driving on the wrong side of the road (it was impossible for anything to be coming in the other direction, as I soon discovered).

On abandoning my car half on the road, half on the pavement (facing the wrong way!) I could see the reason for the traffic jam. A pickup truck that had been used to “ram raid” my shop had reversed back into the road, completely blocking it in both directions. A scene of complete devastation awaited my arrival. The alarm was sounding incessantly.

The truck had been driven straight through the shutter, demolishing the small wall below the windows. Inside, the energy of the truck and movement of the metal shutter had obliterated the first few rows of DVD Players that were previously sitting on display. Outside the front door, a 42” plasma TV was abandoned, smashed.

Police were on scene and it transpired that a squad car had been close by when the shop was attacked, but unfortunately the perpetrators had managed to evade capture. I was heartbroken at the complete and utter destruction of the successful business that I had built up from a “back bedroom hobby” to one that employed two people full-time, on a good wage.

Perhaps the hardest job was the telephone call to my father (who had left his previous job to join me and help us expand). In a bitter addition to the horror, when the Police allowed us entry to turn off the alarm system (still blaring), my dad slipped on the debris and broke his arm.

The criminals who robbed us and destroyed our livelihoods that Christmas in 2003 are no better than the mindless yobs who decided to get whatever free “stuff” they could and damn the consequences to others. Many hard working shopkeepers, business owners and shop staff have lost their primary income and in some cases (due to indiscriminate arson), their homes as well.

I know how they feel. They feel the pain and anguish I felt that night 7 and a half years ago and they want the guilty to be caught and punished. Justice yes, swift justice if possible – but it does not have to be rushed. The Police have always had my admiration and I am incredibly grateful for their help in 2003 and earlier in the year (February) when our business was attacked by machete-wielding robbers who almost killed my father in a senseless attempted robbery which landed them exactly zilch in “swag” but scarred us both for life. The Police have an incredibly difficult job to do, with limited resources and an almost unlimited “clientele” to serve, protect and sometimes arrest.

This is why I will not criticise the Police for the decisions they made in last week’s riots, nor in their inability to catch the idiots that attacked me and my business in 2003. I work alongside Police Officers and have heard, first-hand, their varied tales of arrests and incidents they are involved in on a daily basis. These days Police Officers are expected to put their lives on the line (and some have died doing so) with the risk that if they “get it wrong” they might lose their jobs, their pension, sometimes their liberty and maybe their lives. It’s a constant worry to Police Officers that the suspect resisting arrest today could sue them tomorrow for assault or “using excessive force”.

We need to let our Police Officers take the gloves off and police as the moment or event dictates. If a riot is in progress, Commanders should have the ability and power to declare a different set of rules that apply for that particular problem. This would allow officers on the ground the freedom to do more without worry of being hauled before the courts themselves.

I am not advocating giving Police Officers permission to do whatever they like, simply a return to proper traditional policing, rather than acting as a social worker. While I hope that we don’t see events like I experienced in 2003 and many other people experienced last week repeated any time soon, we should act now and free our Police from the “handcuffs” that the last two governments have shackled them with.

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The English Democrats party is forcing Salford to hold a referendum on an elected Mayor for the city after they handed in a 10,000 name petition. Under the Local Government Act introduced by Labour, if 5% of the electorate petition the council and the signatures are correctly matched to names on the city’s electoral roll, a vote on the issue will be triggered automatically.

Last September at their party conference, the English Democrats launched a bid to increase the number of directly elected mayors across England, and Salford has become the first city to receive a referendum as a result of their campaign.

In a press release Robin Tilbrook, the English Democrats’ Party Chairman said “…Salford City Council was the first to achieve the necessary 5% of voters signatures to trigger a referendum under the Local Government Act 2000.”

Robin continued “All the British Establishment Parties nationally have pushed for elected Mayors to sort out the abysmal standards of both local government decision making and of democratic accountability but at the local level their councillors have usually been too busy looking after their own interests.

But why Salford? The organiser of the petition, Stephen Morris, does not live in the city and at a recent full council session, Salford’s 60 councillors voted in favour of retaining “a strong leader” and cabinet executive, so it seems clear that Salford’s democratically elected members do not share the same appetite for an elected mayor as Mr Morris and his party.

While I may count Salford’s leader, Councillor John Merry, as a political adversary – I do accept that he was elected fair and square in a local government election and that his colleagues who (by virtue of their numbers) control Salford City Council, have decided he is the man to lead them.

Councillor Merry said “[This] is not the first time English Democrats have cost us large sums of money. A mayoral election is likely to cost the people of Salford £150,000 and the organiser lives in Bury.”

If a YES vote forces Salford voters to directly elect it’s leader, rather than the members of the largest party on the council, I can only imagine how difficult running the city would be if a political opposite were to win the right to lead members of an opposing party.

Following an emphatic NO result in the AV Referendum just over a year ago, the voters of Salford have demonstrated their views and the preference is clearly to retain the status quo. I question the motives of the English Democrats, given the recent rejection by Salfordians of major changes to our electoral system.

Arnie Craven, Electoral Reform Society Council candidate added “Anything that may increase democratic engagement is to be welcomed. However the current rules surrounding directly elected Mayors unacceptably diminish the powers of local Councillors. That’s why I am calling on the Government to adjust their plans for elected Mayors in our cities, so as to ensure hard working Councillors retain their powers of scrutiny & oversight”

And given the Conservatives are considering not standing candidates in elections for the new elected police commissioners which are due to take place next May I am surprised at Tory support for elected Mayors, although in Salford perhaps it offers them a slim chance to wrestle leadership of the council from Labour control.

Nationally, the Liberal Democrats are currently calling for candidates interested in standing as Police & Crime Commissioners to undergo the parliamentary approval process, as all Lib Dem candidates will be required to be on the Party’s list of approved parliamentary candidates before being allowed to stand under the party banner.

However, no such call has gone out to local parties with regard to potential Lib Dem Mayoral candidates who may be considering standing. If Mayoral and Police Commissioner elections go ahead next year, certainly in Salford, it’s entirely possible there will be no Conservative or Liberal Democrat candidates, potentially leaving the door open for well-funded BNP or English Democrat candidates to grab power by the back door. Locally, Labour have yet to announce if they intend to put forward their own candidates to fight these elections.

I’ve just heard that the Natwest bank are running a new Grants Scheme for local groups.

In each of their local markets they are offering three community projects the chance to win awards of £6,000 each. NatWest won’t be deciding the winners, but it will be up to local people who know the projects and what will benefit your area most.

If you know a local charity, organisation or group which you think would benefit, please ask them to register at: www.natwest.com/communityforce by 4th September.

Salford City Council has opened an electronic book of condolence, to send messages to the people of Norway and the families and friends of the victims of the horrific attacks on 22 July, in Oslo and at the island of Utøya.

Councillor John Merry, Leader of Salford City Council, has added his own message as follows “I would like to express my heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of those affected by the tragedy in Norway. I have been moved by the way in which the nation has come together to support each other in these difficult times.”

All the messages received from the people of the City of Salford will be presented to the Royal Norwegian Embassy in London.

If you would like to leave your own message you can access the book of condolence via the following link
http://www.salford.gov.uk/condolences.htm

Last month, Peter Flanagan of Pendlebury in Salford was confronted by machete-wielding intruders at his home. He has been quoted as saying he “did what he believed necessary” to defend his home and family and fatally stabbed one of the burglars.

The day before the break-in, Prime Minister David Cameron told reporters he intended to “put beyond doubt that homeowners and small shopkeepers who use reasonable force to defend themselves or their properties will not be prosecuted”. Who knew that this clarification of the law would be tested the following day?

Now the CPS have agreed with Mr Flanagan that he acted in self defence after being woken by noises downstairs in his house shortly before midnight.

Nazir Afzal, chief crown prosecutor for the North West, said “On investigating the disturbance he was confronted by intruders, one of whom was armed with a machete.”

“People are entitled to use reasonable force in self-defence to defend themselves, their family and their property,” he said.

But is killing someone reasonable force? We haven’t had a full and clear picture of what exactly transpired, so it would be folly to suggest Mr Flanagan went too far at this stage, but I hope that now the CPS has agreed not to charge the Pendlebury homeowner for simply defending his family and property, that the full facts are released.

I firmly believe that homeowners should be allowed to do whatever necessary to “STOP” intruders, but they should go no further and not be tempted to take the law into their own hands (thereby becoming judge, jury and executioner).

Nine years ago a father who stabbed to death a burglar he found in his family’s home was jailed for five years after being found guilty of manslaughter. Barry-Lee Hastings, 25, stabbed Roger Williams, 35, a total of 12 times after mistaking a jemmy in his hand for a machete but Old Bailey Judge Brian Barker told Hastings that he had gone too far and his actions were not justified.

And more than a decade ago Tony Martin was convicted of murder, replaced with manslaughter on appeal when he shot and killed one burglar and wounded another who had both entered his home. Martin served three years of a five year sentence for the crime.

Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke said legislation was needed to clarify what force could be used, and that, if a householder stabbed a burglar, the householder would not be prosecuted.

“What they’re not entitled to do is shoot them in the back when they’re running away,” Mr Clarke added.

The Ministry of Justice is quoted by the BBC as saying it is “looking at ways of clarifying the law so people are clearer about what this means”.

I call on the MoJ to move quickly and set out what homeowners can legally do to protect themselves when they are faced with burglars entering their homes armed with deadly weapons.

In today’s Times, 115 Liberal Democrat councillors (including 14 Lib Dem Council Leaders and almost 70 opposition and group leaders including Councillor Norman Owen, Leader of the Salford Lib Dem Group) have called for the scrapping of Conservative-proposed plans for Police and Crime Commissioners. You can read more about the story at LocalGov, thereby saving you having to pay News International for the privilege of reading the story.

I personally urged Councillor Owen to sign the letter and I am very glad his opinion is the same as mine, that there is a clear need for a separation of the police and politicians. The recent hacking scandal has proven just that!

It worries me that the might of a political campaign could result in the appointment of a Police and Crime Commissioner who is neither qualified for the job nor capable of taking on the huge responsibility that comes with the role.

Take for example Greater Manchester Police, currently the worst performing force in the country, which employs 8,232 police officers, 332 Volunteer Special Constables, 782 Police Community Support Officers, and 4,068 members of police staff and an annual budget of £524.1m
(according to Wikipedia). The new Police & Crime Commissioner for Greater Manchester would be expected to set the strategy, be responsible for the allocating of resources and setting targets for the local force, but would have no influence over the management. How will installing an unqualified commissioner to take on the monumental task of turning around GMP’s performance achieve that?

I cannot think of a more confusing situation having a politician in charge of the (supposedly) politically-neutral police!

The coalition government should scrap this idea immediately and I agree with the supporters of the letter to The Times which calls for them to be replaced with police boards that will work with local government.

I am grateful to the Salford Star for once again being “ahead of the curve” and exclusively revealing that the University of Salford, located on the border of Langworthy and Irwell Riverside wards in Salford, is planning to remove the famous lion logo (opposite) and replace it with the word “Manchester”.

The current lion logo proudly states “The University of Salford” although some of their letterheads do also state “A Greater Manchester University” – which I do not have a problem with.

If the proposed logo does, as the Salford Star mockup below suggests, simply say University of Salford Manchester, then this is a backward step and they should quickly re-think the idea.

The University of Salford has proudly stated it’s home in it’s logo since it became a fully-fledged University in 1967 (in fact, Salford University can trace it’s origins back to 1896, when it was the Royal Technical Institute, Salford).

So why does The University of Salford think now is a good time to suggest they are in Manchester when their new MediaCity:UK building at Salford Quays is on the brink of opening? Perhaps it may have something to do with the fact that a recent survey of students in a poll for accomodationforstudents.com showed Salford University to be the worst university in the country in which to study. Manchester University was voted the joint second best place to study.

The University of Salford management board should think again, reverse this terrible decision before it is too late, and stick with the traditional logo.

Lastly, I call on Salford Council and all 60 of the city’s ward councillors (including all 6 from both Langworthy and Irwell Riverside wards) to denounce the decision to change the logo to “University of Salford Mancheter” and call on them to support me in arguing for return to the traditional logo we know and love.

Tens of thousands of public sector workers, many of them teachers, are expected to strike on Thursday, in England and Wales. Currently public sector workers largely enjoy more generous pensions than their equivalents in the private sector and the Coalition Government has acknowledged the growing difference in approach between the private and public sectors. The private sector long ago realised the rising cost and substantial risk involved in offering final salary schemes, based on years of service and end of career earnings, made them unsustainable.

The Coalition Government has a responsibility to ensure that pensions in the civil service are both fair and sustainable in the long term.  As it stands, by 2015-16, £10bn per year will be needed simply to meet the gap between pension contributions and payments to the unfunded pensions they support. In difficult economic circumstances, we simply cannot ignore public spending in an area that will more than double within five years.

The cost of public sector pensions has spiralled out of control in recent years, with benefits paid out of the five largest schemes rising by a third in real terms over the past decade. The problem is that most of these are not funded, so the burden falls on the taxpayer. To give some idea of the scale, the value of unfunded pension liabilities was put by the government’s actuary’s department at £770 billion in 2008.

Councillor Norman Owen, Leader of the Liberal Democrat group on Salford Council said,

“I fully believe that public sector workers deserve a decent income when they retire. However, presently, most civil servants have a system that is far more generous than pension schemes elsewhere in the public and private sectors.  We must create for the Civil Service an affordable and flexible pension package with a sustainable balance between pay and pensions that is appropriate to the times. I think it’s also important to bear in mind that restraint is being shown across the board – private sector employees have already seen final salary schemes close and returns from defined contribution schemes fall.”

Councillor Owen added:

“As a former shop steward myself, I know that unions have the right to strike, but it is completely wrong For the PCS, NUT, ATL and UCU unions to continue with this strike action whilst negotiations are still ongoing with the Coalition Government. However, I agree with  the Coalition Government’s steps to ensure the long term sustainability of public sector pensions, while reducing the existing inequality – something Liberal Democrats campaigned for before the election.  As you know, John Hutton published his report into public sector pensions in early October in which he emphasised the need for fairness when it comes to pension reform so that the lowest paid workers are protected.”

Salford City Council has been praised by the Deputy Prime Minister for taking an innovative and forward thinking approach to supporting complex families.

In his speech to the Local Government Association, Nick Clegg gave the example of a particularly complex family of five that Salford City Council has worked with to get their lives back on track, saving tens of thousands of pounds in the process.

Speaking about complex families at the conference, Nick Clegg said: “Their complex problems mean they can end up seeing dozens of professionals across public services – but those professionals aren’t always joined up, making it near impossible for anyone to get an overall picture of what that family needs.

“Community budgets are budgeting for real life, breaking down the barriers between different parts of the machine, and treating people with troubles like human beings, not figures on a spreadsheet.”

Before Salford’s Better Life Chances team worked with this family, they were costing the taxpayer more than £200,000 per year on top of the normal costs for public services, with more than 250 interventions form a wide range of agencies, including the council, police, housing and NHS in a one year period.

Their chaotic lifestyle meant they used more than 109 hours of police officers time across 58 call outs resulting in five arrests and the children being placed on supervision orders. There were also five occasions of them ending up in hospital due to overdoses, self harm, stabbing and assault, as well as two housing injunctions taken out against the family.

By taking a more proactive approach to working with the family, Salford City Council and their partners have helped them to get their lives back on track, while also significantly reducing the impact they have on public resources. The outcome for this particular family was a saving of more than two thirds of the £200,000 cost of reacting to the problems in this family’s lives.

The work involves a wide range of agencies sitting around a table to look at a family’s problems in their entirety, rather than each agency dealing with individual family members. By sharing what they know and finding solutions for the family, the Better Life Chances team reduces the strain on the public purse.

In the case of a family in Salford, the team worked with them to deal with their debt problems and look at ways to get them back into work. This reduced the mother’s anxiety, meaning she was less dependent on the health service, as well as lowering alcohol consumption which reduced the chances of the family becoming involved in antisocial behaviour. This ultimately has a positive impact on the younger members of the family as they have more stability at home and are therefore more likely to re-engage with the education system, increasing the likelihood of their success further down the line.

Councillor John Merry, Leader of Salford City Council, said: ““For some time now we have been developing this new approach to dealing with families that seem to have been failed by the state and yet cost the most to support. My main aim is to help everybody in Salford to achieve their full potential. For some families this takes more time and work so we have to find ways of working right across public services that suit the family whilst also reducing the money we are spending on them. Allowing single agencies to lead rather than all trying to do our thing is definitely the way forward here “

Source: Salford City Council

I was reading today on Richard Baum’s blog (Bury Lib Dem campaigner) how following the change in political leadership on Bury Council (from Tory to Labour, decided by the draw of a short straw) that the new leader of Bury Council has started a “leader’s blog“.

This is very similar to Sir Richard Leese’s leader’s blog over on the Manchester City Council website.

Bury campaigner Richard Baum makes a good point when he states that while it could do with opening up comments, it’s a step in the right direction and should be applauded.

So, I ask, when will Salford’s Council leader start his blog? He’s already on Twitter, commenting on local politics as @JohnDMerry and is well known for frequenting the comment threads on this blog, Joe O’Neil’s “cut and paste” website, Steve Cooke’s blog and Iain Lindley’s site so he’s clearly not a “technophobe” by any means.

I think a leader’s blog would be a great way to engage Salfordians and would be saying this no matter who the leader of Salford Council was (or whichever party they represented). Come on John, engage your public, what do you say?