Shambles.

I have been watching the shambles over the abolition of the 10p tax rate over the past couple of weeks and am unconvinced by the compromise that has been hacked together in order to save further government embarrassment days before the local elections.

The winter fuel payment is not the appropriate method of reimbursing pensioners, some pensioners are very wealthy and are not hit by the 10p tax issue. How are poorer elderly people going to cope until the Government sort this all out?

Increasing the minimum wage to help younger people will mean that industry and commerce will foot the bill, harming Britain's competitiveness in the global market and affect inflation. This is simply the wrong tool for the job.

I am still unconvinced that families will be compensated through tax credits. I have had families locally telling me they are still worse off .

The simplest thing would be to reinstate the 10p rate, though that would be a U Turn, even if it would have avoided what has become a rather messy road accident.

Better Off under Gordon Brown.

Well some of us are at least. This morning I got my first payslip since the new tax rates started. I am paying less tax now than I was about 7 years ago, so thank you Gordon!

Of course those on lower incomes and young people already being hammered by student loans and no prospect of being able to buy their own homes are worse off.

The new tax regime that came into effect this weekend removes the lower 10% tax band and reduces the basic rate. This means that people on incomes lower than £18,500 a year are worse off.

New Labour can no longer cling onto the claim that they are the party standing up for ordinary hard working people. It is not the Labour party that my Grandfather worked for.

I will be using my tax cut to help campaign for a fairer government.

Snow in Warwick.

I got up this morning to about 3 inches of snow over the whole town, It looks stunning. I had a pleasant time wandering round the town with my camera before it all melted.
A lot of other people had the same idea and I bumped into many people I know out and about.
I've posted a few of my favourites here, though the small pictures do not really do it justice.

New Refuse Collections - But for some Rubbish Piling up in the Street.

The controversial new refuse collection started this week in Warwick District. Most residents will get new Grey and Green wheelie bins to put their household refuse and garden waste. Collections will be alternate weekly, with one week collecting garden waste and recycling (from the red box) and the other week collecting household waste.

Residents in terraced streets have been able to request a supply of bags if they are unable to store a wheelie bin.

Roads in Chase Meadow left off the list and refuse is piling up in the streets.

A council blunder has left roads in the Chase Meadow development in West Warwick off the list for the new refuse collection. Now that the new service has started rubbish is piling up in the street and residents do not know when it will be collected.

I visited the road on Monday to see for myself and talked to some of the residents.

Residents have received no information about the new service and have put their rubbish out on Tuesday morning as usual. It has not been collected and people are very worried and confused. One resident I spoke to with young children is worried about health risks with the bags outside in the sunshine.

I cannot understand how the council has overlooked these streets. Cllr Kinson who is responsible for the whole scheme is one of the Conservative councillors for this area. Refuse has been collected under the old scheme since homes were occupied in November, people are paying their Council Tax and are even on the electoral roll so its not as if no one knows they exist.
When I contacted the council I was told that bins will be issued shortly though they did not tell me when. Collection in this area will be on a Friday, starting with recycling. This means that refuse will be outside in bags for almost two weeks in the heat. It is simply not good enough!

Lib Dem Conference in Liverpool

I’ve only just had chance to write about the Lib-Dem conference at Liverpool last weekend.

I have to say I was slightly apprehensive after the events of the week before. I had feared another conference with mutterings over leadership. My fears proved unfounded and I was relieved to note that Nick Clegg mentioned the events in his opening talk at the rally on Friday and even made a joke about it during his closing speech.

I was able to gather some inside information about the rebellion and it seems the whole thing was quite good natured. Some MP’s felt they had to honour the wishes of their constituents in some parts of the country.

Those events aside, the highlights from the conference for me include:

Health Debate

The Health Debate, where we passed amendments to our policy that will ensure we have a greater say in the running of our health service as opposed to the centrally run megalith that it has become. It seems the NHS is now one of the largest, most centrally run organisations, second only to the Chinese Peoples Revolutionary Army, hardly a role model for a progressive democratic British public service.

Vince Cable & The Economy

I enjoyed Vince Cables speech and was able to attend a Parliamentary briefing with him afterwards where he outlined the key challenges to our economy which strongly feature early signs of tightening, increase in home repossessions and bankruptcy. This highlights what Vince has been warning the government of for some years now, the unsustainable rise in personal debt. Gordon Browns economic Miracle has been paid for on our collective credit cards and now we have hit our limit. I do hope that with the shift in exchange rates Britain can muster its manufacturing industry (which still exists in some places) and pull us out of its current difficulties. I would like to see the government do more to encourage this.
(I hope to write more about bankruptcy soon as figures I have seen show an exponential rise since 2001 in the Warwick & Leamington area, a pattern following a national trend, I am waiting for 2007 figures to come out and I will show the full picture.)

Housing

I attended a debate on Housing; again passing changes to our policy that will effectively give local authorities more power to build the affordable housing it desperately needs. Warwick & Leamington have had more than its fair share of new houses, yet with many of the executive style flats lying empty and the four bed double garage properties occupied by commuters, while many people who grew up in the area and actually work here cannot afford to buy a house (including my friend who is a doctor) I do feel the developers have been building the wrong sort of houses.

Paul Holmes who was recently our shadow housing spokesperson spoke with real conviction and having discussed housing with him recently was pleased to hear his contribution to the debate.

On this theme I had chance to discuss this with the lovely Julia Goldsworthy (communities and local government spokeswoman). Julia later gave the first speech I have heard her give at conference, I was quite impressed and am sure we will see a lot more of her in the future.

I had a few drinks in the bar with some of the usual suspects from our regional party and was saved from the Glee Club (end of conference party, which an oath of secrecy forbids me from disclosing details, other than to say that you would not believe it unless you saw it) by having dinner with Phil and Penny Bennion at a local curry house.

Nicks Speech

Nick’s first conference speech lived up to expectations.

During his speech I started to see the narrative coming together that we have been developing since a one day conference I attended a couple of years ago in London. There seem to be two strands to this.

1/ Politics is Broken, public confidence in our politicians is at an all time low, following cash for honours, MP’s expenses rows, people feel politicians are only in it for what they can get and voter turn out is at an all time low. Our electoral system focuses only on swing voters in marginal constituencies and there is little to choose from two establishment parties.
(If Gordon Brown had not bottled out of an election in November analysts say just 8,000 swing voters would have won the election. That is less that half the voters in Warwick!)

2/ We intend to change that and fix our political system by bringing democracy closer to us (the people) so we can regain a voice in what is becoming a faceless centralised state.

All our policies based on Liberal principles hang around this theme like a well-tailored suit.

Nick also ruled out doing a deal with the other main parties. A well needed position in my view, which put to rest any speculation of voting one thing and getting another.

I sense Nick has real conviction and the ambition for our party and our country to strike a chord with all of us across Britain.

So all in all a great conference and a solid start to the next couple of years campaigning.

If you want to ask me about these or any of our other policies, or tell me about your experiences or thoughts please email me.

Affordable Housing money plundered by Tory Council

Affordable Housing is a real issue in Warwick & Leamington. Even people with well paid jobs struggle to find somewhere to live. So you can imagine my disbelief when I find that the Tory Council have taken money set aside to assist affordable housing for two other projects.

Now when The ‘Right to Buy’ of Council homes by sitting tenants was introduced by Thatcher in 1980, the money raised from the sale of over 4000 homes in Warwick District was put in a reserve to help development costs for housing associations to enable them to provide affordable homes for local people.

At a Council budget meeting on Thursday, £320,000 for the purchase of Oakley Wood and a further £100,000 to fund the Rural Initiatives Scheme was taken from this money. I am sure the two projects are quite laudable, yet why were they not funded from the £2M sitting in the General Reserve.

It really goes to show just how serious the Tories were during their election campaign when they pledged to improve housing in the area and only 9 months later they plunder the fund set aside for that purpose.

Climate Change - Question Time - Warwick University

Last night I took part in a Question Time style debate on Climate Change as part of Warwick University’s ‘Go Green Week. The panel included representatives from each of the main parties, and a couple of experts on climate change.

The event was very well attended and there were some challenging questions from the audience.

Neuclear Power
The first question on Nuclear Power provoked some debate, with Jayne Innes from Labour taking the view that the decision to invest in new Nuclear power stations was the right one. I felt the general mood of the panel and the floor favoured our position that the money could be spent more effectively on a broader range of renewable options without increasing our already huge (£70Bn) cleanup costs from the power stations we already have.

Too Much Stick & Not Enough Carrot.

The second question asked how we could encourage people to change environmental behaviour. The panel outlined a broad range of measures from education, government and industry and I made the point that I would like to see a lot more carrot and a little less stick. I feel this is especially true of transport. Whilst tolls, congestion charges and other measures to discourage driving can be effective, the one thing that really makes me switch to alternatives is the availability of effective public transport.

High Speed Rail.

A later question dealt with High Speed Rail; again the Labour line was just how far we had come in 10 years. I could not resist this opening to point out that we had come exactly 70 miles, from the Kent Coast to St Pancras. With no further High Speed Lines planned it was anybodies guess how long we would wait for HS2 and that we had the smallest High Speed network of all the major countries in Europe.

Other questions included the part the international community has to play and how other countries had tackled climate change.

Green Economy.
A question on how a climate change could affect the economy provoked some interesting answers. Ian Davison from The Green Party seemed to think the economy should and would contract. I disagree; a reduction in Carbon should not automatically mean a reduction in the economy if we get it right. It will mean a different economy and by investing in new technology Britain could be a world leader.

How far has Labour Come.
One question from the floor was a direct challenge to Labour to explain what the Government had done to combat climate change during its 10 years in power. I had to correct the Labour representative after she appeared to indicate that Labour’s record was good and we had met all our targets. In fact CO2 emissions are up 4% since 1999 and the Government have admitted that they will fail to meet their target of 20% reduction by 2010.

I did not get chance to mention my favourite quote from Two Jag’s Prescott who in 1997 stated that: “I will have failed if there are not fewer journeys by car. It is a tall order, but I urge you to hold me to that.” Oh well perhaps next time.

Warwick District Cheated by Labour.

This week the government voted on its Local Government Settlement. Now many of us may think that all our council tax goes to Warwick District Council and they use it to pay for our services.

Well its not as simple as that. A huge slice of it goes off to Whitehall and they give some of it back in terms of grants. Of course a lot of our money leaks out in terms of costs and layers of bureaucracy. This way the Government manages to keep control of what our councils are spending our money on.

So, this week the Government voted on the Local Government Settlement. Warwick District has been given just a 1% increase, amongst the lowest in the country. You can see a copy of a spreadsheet on a government website here that shows just who has got what.

Now I know that the government is giving some councils small settlements to force them to become more efficient. Yet Warwick District during the Lib-Dem jointly run administration received praise from the Audit Commission that said the Council was well run and provided value for money.

James Plaskitt MP for Warwick & Leamington even voted for this settlement! I will be asking him why.

Now if we are going to be cynical we could wonder if this is because Warwick District is now controlled by the Tories after Labours defeat in the local election last May. But then I have to wonder why Kenilworth Tory MP, Jeremy Wright abstained from the vote. Only 3 Conservatives joined the Lib-Dem's in voting against this penny pinching settlement.

So ultimately it will be us, the council tax payer that will be left to foot the bill. The rise barely takes into account inflation and the additional costs of services the government requires councils to provide. The end result is that councils are being forced to increase council tax above inflation and cut services. It is a case of pay more and get less under Labour.

More on Guy Street Parking

The latest round of proposals to fix the parking issues in Warwick was put before the Warwick Area Committee on the 22nd Jan. I was able to speak at the meeting in support of residents in the Guy Street area. The latest plan will create a one way system with cars entering along Broad Street and Guys Street, meeting in the middle of Guys Cliffe Terrace and then trying to get out along Cherry Street. At the same time the cycle path will head into the stream of traffic. I just hope this is not a recipe for an accident blackspot. This plan fails to meet the full 60 spaces needed by residents in the area.

Proposals favoured by residents to narrow the pavement in Guys Cliffe Terrace (where there are no houses on the north side) were rejected by the council. Residents now face the upheaval of the new one way system and a continued protest when it fails to provide all the spaces needed.

A new Council Chamber - but how much will it cost us?

I was appalled to find out that a Freedom of Information request put in by one of our Lib-Dem councillors in Stratford was refused with a ‘Public Interest Refusal Notice’. As a member of the public paying for the work it is very much in my interest.

Conservative led Warwickshire County Council have refused to reveal the likely cost of refurbishing the County Council council chamber at County Hall, Warwick. A freedom of information request on the costs by the Liberal Democrats was rejected with a ‘Public Interest Refusal Notice’.

The issue is not that the council is refurbishing the council chamber, I know some of the work is to make it more accessible. I am more concerned that the Conservative led council are refusing to reveal how much it is costing us. If they can withhold the cost of the very chamber that is supposed to represent open democracy in this county it makes you wonder what else they are hiding.



The comment in the Warwick Times from a council representative that they do not know how much it will cost just seems lame to me.

Brown refuses to answer repossesion question.

I have a moment to comment on yesterdays Prime Ministers Question Time. Gordon Brown showed a remarkable skill in not answering both of Nick Clegg’s questions on House repossessions.

Nick opened by asking what comfort the Prime Minister could offer the 45,000 British families who now face the prospect of losing their homes this year?

Gordon Brown replied that he is determined to have low interest rates and that to have low interest rates we have to have low inflation; and to have low inflation we have to have a decent economic policy.

This does not answer the question. Low interest rates have got nothing to do with home repossessions increasing by 50 per cent, with one repossession every 12 minutes.

Nick then pushed the Prime Minister on the issue, pointing out that he allowed, on his watch, grossly irresponsible lending practices by banks to destabilise the housing market.
Brown responds with another non-answer reminding Nick Clegg that there are 1.5 million more homeowners under Labour.

The real issue is that the banks have been allowed to lend increasing amounts against income, over longer terms and often more than a family can afford.

This increase in the supply of money, coupled with the shortage of housing has driven up house prices such that it now excludes a significant proportion of people from the housing market. In South Warwickshire (a prosperous area) 73% of all couples are excluded. For example some friends of mine, late 20’s professional couple (one a Doctor) cannot afford to buy a house in Warwick.

My house on the other hand has doubled in value since I bought it. Am I significantly better off? I don’t feel it, I still have the same payments to make, same disposable income. If I move the increase in house prices are all relative. When I die my estate (scrap of damp lawn) falls over the Inheritance Tax threshold. The only way I make anything on the increase in house prices is if I sold up and lived in a tent on Newbold Comyn.

The only people making any money on this are the banks, with no restraints from the government have been encouraging us to borrow more and more money for the past decade and now the money has run out.

Consumer spending on our collective credit card has fuelled Gordon Browns Economic Miracle. Sooner or later we were going to hit our credit limit. We now face, what we all face when our spending gets out of control and lets face it we have all been there. A collective tightening of the belts and this is going to hit the retail and services sector first.

The slide in the pound will make imports more expensive, yet exports, which have suffered in recent years, become viable again. Perhaps our Manufacturing will pick up to take up the slack in the labour market, lets hope so.

One thing is for sure; the years of economic stability are over. Some British families are going to find themselves in economic difficulty.

The 45,000 British families who now face the prospect of losing their homes this year should be insulted that Gordon Brown refused to ask the question that Nick Clegg asked on their behalf.

Interesting points to note:-

• The new Housing Act is going through the committee stage in the House of Commons. I look forward to reading it and will comment when it has been published.


• An interesting post by Paul Holmes MP on council housing that is worth a read. Paul was until recently our shadow-housing minister. I had the opportunity to discuss some of this issues with Paul at a conference a couple of months ago, worth a read as Paul puts the situation quite clearly.

Alan Beddow is also the Liberal Democrat Housing Spokesperson for the West Midlands

One quarter of the income tax I paid this year went to bail out Northern Rock... I want to know when we are going to get our money back

It's been my first full week back at work this week and the first that I have felt fully back to normal after a bout of flue over Christmas. So many people I have spoken to say they have felt wiped out for a couple of weeks by it.

My day job this week has been focused on managing some changes to emails that gets sent out to tell my clients customers that their bills are ready to view on line. All quite simple you would have thought! Not so, my client keeps changing his mind at the last moment and as this is part of a huge commercial system it has to be carefully tested and planned in with dozens of other changes happening at the same time.

Another project involves transfer of personal information and you will be glad to know that it will all be encrpted and secure before transfer. Just as well after I have been quoted in the media this week as saying the government needs to adopt the same best practices followed by the IT industry. None of this is difficult, it just needs a degree of respect for the data concerned, something I feel has been lacking by our government departments.

I was disappointed this week that Gordon Brown has announced a whole set of Nuclear Power Stations to be built. I notice that these will be built at current sites and these are all based in areas of low population. That must say something.

Now the arguments for Nuclear Power include, low carbon footprint, less reliance on foreign power and that in 60 years the industry must have moved on and be more safe and efficient.

All valid arguments, though my two concerns are that it is massively expensive, surely we could spend the same money on the Severn Barrage we have been talking about for the past 30 years, or invest in kick starting a new British Industry in state of the art renewable energy.

The other issue is that the cost of cleaning up radioactive waste currently held in Britain stands at £56billion, that's almost the same as we have put into Northern Rock.

Incidentally Gordon Brown may have no choice but consider Vince Cables calls to nationalise Northern Rock. The British Tax payer has poured £57 Billion into the bank and I for one want to know when I am going to get my money back. To put this into context, I worked out the other day that this is about £2000 each, 1/4 of the income tax paid by the average tax payer last year!

Christmas in Warwick

I’ve had a mixed Christmas so far. It started well, meeting up for long overdue drinks with Neil and Kelly who moved back to Warwick a few months back. I spent Christmas day with Sarah and her delightful children. Boxing Day I took Sarah and my two teenage sons to visit my sister Ruth and her family in Worcestershire. I then went down with the flu, which has left me with a nasty cough, so I spent most of the 27th on the sofa with a duvet watching endless Christmas TV repeats.

Yesterday I had a huge office cull, sorted out a years worth of papers and loaded the shredder with a bin liner full of papers. No data security scandal for me this year.

Sarah has come to stay for a couple of days. In exchange for cooking breakfast she offered to vacuum the house and has got totally carried away and is now rearranging my entire house, throwing away years of accumulated debris. She has washed shelves that have not been cleaned since, well since I got involved in Politics. Not that I am sexist you understand, in a spirit of equality I even bought her a tool kit for Christmas so she could take full advantage of the new Ikea that has just opened in Coventry. It’s only been open a couple of weeks and she has already been there three times.

I find this time of year a cleansing experience, clear the decks from the previous year, plan for the new, ready to start on a whole new set of challenges, adventures and goals for 2008.
I wish all my friends, family and people in my hometowns of Warwick & Leamington a fantastic new year.

Nick Clegg

Today Nick Clegg was elected as the new Leader of the Liberal Democrats. This was a close run contest and a tough choice at times. I supported Nick for the leadership as I felt he has what it takes to really engage with people who may currently be disillusioned with politics.

I have heard Nick speak on many occasions and I believe he has what it takes to excite people in politics, he certainly excites me. People are switched off by politics becoming more remote, more controlled by Westminster and they feel powerless. Labour and the Conservatives have little new to offer and there is no longer any choice between them. Less and less people are voting and quite frankly I don’t blame them.

With Nick Clegg the Liberal Democrats will give people an alternative, we will make liberalism connect with people in Warwick & Leamington who share our values, but do not yet vote for us. Under Nick’s leadership we will campaign to give people more say in the decisions that affect us all.

Another Warwick Post Office Faces Closure

Another careless data leak has caused embarrassment for Post Office officials as it reveals secret plans to close yet more Post Offices in Warwickshire including West Street in Warwick.

The post office website intended to show Post Offices planned for closure in the East Midlands where consultation is underway, yet the map also shows other areas of the midlands including Warwick. I managed to get hold of a copy of the map and have published part of it on our Local Lib-Dem Website.

This Post Office is at the heart of a thriving community and is yet another nail in the coffin for local retailers in this unique part of the town. Lib-Dem proposals would enable Post Offices to invest in new business that would meet the needs of the people they serve. The government have already closed 11 post offices in the area over the past eight years rather than take long term strategic decisions which will secure the future of these vital services.

Our Post Office network could be the heart of local communities, providing a whole range of services as they do in other countries. Instead the Government has shown no imagination and has allowed the whole network to become unprofitable and derelict.

If you would like to protest against the closure of our post offices, I have a petition running on our Local Lib-Dem website and I plan to do more on this next year and as the consultation process kicks in for our area. At least the bungled map has given us some time to prepare to fight this closure.

Warwickshire Schoolchildren’s data goes Missing

It looks as though our national government is not the only one who has been loosing data. Warwickshire County Council has lost personal information about 175 schoolchildren, some from Leamington.

It is simply unacceptable that the personal details of Warwickshire children have gone missing. This must be a real concern to the parents & children affected.

In my work as an IT Project Manager, I deal with many clients that handle sensitive data. Through good practice and common sense such incidents should never happen. My Mother, who worked for the civil service in the 1960's told me that they would hand deliver sensitive information tied up with pink string and sealing wax. Industry practice recommends registered mail as a minimum.

Recent cases of data going missing, including details of our children not only demonstrates sloppy working practice, it shows contempt for the value of our personal information.

1.6 million UK children 'homeless'

I watched a program last night about homeless Children. There were 250,000 homeless children in March this year. Some of the families featured were victims of nothing more than a failure of the authorities to talk to each other and sort out the paperwork.

Regardless of the circumstances this is an issue that has devastating effects on the families. Schoolwork is affected. Children are scared of what will happened to them. The threat of going into care hanging over their heads.

Little things we do not realise about this problem. How do families eat in Bed and Breakfast accommodation. Some families are living on a diet of pot noodles, while another lived by heating tins of beans on the radiator.

The program highlighted to me just how flimsy the processes in place to address this problem are.

Some of these families were working, although on a minimum wage. There is something seriously wrong if working families are denied the opportunity for decent homes for their families.

Pink String and Sealing Wax

I got an email from my Mom this morning, a concept I am still getting to grips with. In it she recalls how data was sent from Government departments when she was in the civil service.

"Seriously, what idiots sent these discs off. When I worked in government departments important post was put in stiff manilla envelopes, then the proverbial 'pink string and sealing wax' was applied. Yes, literally, pink strong tape and the knot sealed with hot sealing wax. It was then taken by taxi by a member of staff across London and signed for at the other end. Accomplished very quickly - No Mess."

It got me thinking, this is not so much an issue of technology, its more contempt for the value of the information being transferred.

More Labour Party Funding Shocks.

There is another storm at the moment about donations to the Labour party.

The Labour general secretary Peter Watt, has resigned after it was revealed that a businessman made donations of over £600,000 to the party via three other people.

The Labour official said that he had known about the arrangement and that he had no idea that there was anything wrong with this.

I cannot believe that the Labour official did not know this was against the rules. Electoral Law is basic stuff for anyone active in Politics. The Labour party must have the same type of training available that we have in the Liberal Democrats.

The law governing donations is there to make sure that everybody can see who has been donating money to political parties. This helps to make sure that this is not in return for favours later on.

This is as fundamental as learning that you should not go through a red light when you are taking driving lessons.

Perhaps what Peter Watt really meant is that he did not think he would get caught.

A calamitous week for the British Public

Its been a calamitous week for the British Public.

We have each put £900 pounds of our taxes into Northern Rock something in the region of £20-30 Billion and it looks as though we may not get our money back. Yesterday it was revealed that the Government had lost a CD containing the personal details of 25 Million People.
Perhaps only Nick Clegg can save us from this calamity.