Chris Whiteside's Blog

The big freeze continues

2012-02-03T08:00:00.000Z

Another day to take care if you are out and about: temperatures in Whitehaven were below freezing for most of the day yesterday and is currently (8.00 am) about four degrees below freezing according to the air temperature thermometer in my car.

A two-inch thick block of ice which my daughter removed from the top of a water container yesterday morning was still lying beside it un-melted this morning, while a stick of ice, sticking up out of the water at and angle of about 45 degrees and looking for all the world like an ice sundial, had formed on the surface of the same container as the bizarre result of a very cold wind.

We can only assume that the cold wind created a wave in the water and then froze the top of it, and then more water was driven to the top of the ice-stick by the wind and then froze, so that the stick of ice gradually got higher until the surface of the water was completely frozen. By this time the stick of ice was about three inches high. I have never seen anything like it.

The Big Freeze

2012-02-02T08:45:00.001Z

Take great care if you are out and about in any part of Cumbria or many other parts of Britain today - the roads and pavements are icy. Certainly they are lethal in Whitehaven this morning which alomst certainly means that many parts of the county will be worse.

Take particular care if you might be minded to do anything involving moving heavy objects outside, especially on a slope. The advice should probably be, don't!

It being brown bin collection day, I have just brought our brown bin round from the back garden and up our steep drive. Despite taking great care I could very easily have injured myself, was probably foolish even to attempt it and will not be trying anything like that in these sorts of conditions again.

DC clarifies positon re new EU treaty

2012-01-31T08:36:00.002Z

Following an EU summit, David Cameron clarified his position on whether and in what circumstances has European Commission and the European Court of Justice can be involved in carrying out policies which do not apply to all 27 member states.

As a consequence of David Cameron's veto last year, there is a new treaty which was eventually signed by 25 of the 27 member states. Britain and the Czech republic refused to sign.

This leaves the question of whether the EU institutions can be used to service the new treaty in matters to which Britain and the Czech republic are not a signatory. The Prime Minister said last month that this would not be possible without the agreement of all 27 countries.

However after a further EU summit in Brussels, DC did not press his case against the use of the institutions in any circumstances, and said Britain would only make any challenge if our interests were "threatened".

The Prime Minister said: "We don't want to hold up the eurozone doing what is necessary to solve the crisis as long as it doesn't damage our national interests, so it's good that the new treaty states clearly that it cannot encroach upon the competences of the Union and that they must not take measures that undermine the EU single market."

He added: "The key point here for me is what is in our national interest, which is for them to get on and sort out the mess that is the euro. That's in our national interest. We will be watching like a hawk and if there is any sign that they are going to encroach on the single market we will take the appropriate action, if I may put it that way.

"The principle that the EU institutions can only be used with the permission of 27 (member states) has not changed. In as much as this (new treaty) is about fiscal union, fine: if it encroaches on the single market, not fine."

The leader of the Labour party, as usual, attacked the Prime Minister but failed to make clear whether he was accusing David Cameron of being too hardline or not hardline enough. First Ed Miliband said that the Prime Minister "seems to have sold us down the river on a lot of things so I’m going to be asking him in the House of Commons today what exactly has he agreed to, what protections has he got for Britain."

But in the next sentence he said

“I take a simple view – he would have been better off staying at the table and negotiating for Britain, rather than actually pretending that he had made great progress and then failing to do so.”

Does that mean that, contrary to what Labour leader said at the time, he thinks Britain should have signed the treaty? If this attempt to have it both ways is a simple view I shudder to think what he would sound like if imitating a corkscrew.

Britain cannot afford to act like a dog in the manger when the eurozone countries are trying to sort out their problems. If the Euro area suffers an economic collapse, the British economy will take considerable collateral damage. That's whey we should only put our foot down to prevent the eurozone or the 25 signatories to the new treaty from using EU institutions if what they are trying to do will damage the single market or otherwise harm British interests.

Have your say - either way - on capital punishment

2012-01-30T22:27:00.004Z

The blogger Paul Staines, also known as Guido Fawkes, has put an e-petition on the Downing Street website calling for the return of capital punishment for murderers of children and of police officers killed in the line of duty.

Martin Shapland and other opponents of the death penalty have launched a counter petition opposing the return of capital punishment.

At the time of putting up this post the e-petition calling for the return of the death penality in those specified circumstances has 26,294 signatures, and the e-petition opposing the death penalty has 33,352 signatures.

There are a dozen other live petitions on the same subject, some supporting the death penalty, some against, four which call for a referedum on capital punishment and one which opposes such a referendum. However, the Paul Staines and Martin Shapland petitions both have many times more signatures than all the rest, apart from each other, put together.

You can read and support Guido's petition to bring back capital punishment here.

You can read and support the counter-petition opposing capital punishment here.

Swimathon 2012

2012-01-29T20:48:00.003Z

I will be taking part in Swimathon 2012 to raise money for Cancer care.

This will be the nineteenth consecutive year I have taken part. I plan to swim 5,000 metres at Copeland pool on Sunday 29th April.

The National Swimathon is 26 years old this year and will be taking place over the weekend of 27th to 29th April 2012.

Since the Swimathon was launched in 1986, well over £35 million has been raised for a host of good causes, and over half a million swimmers have taken part.

In West Cumbria you can take part at Copeland pool in Hensingham on Sunday 29th, with sessions starting at 9 am and 12 noon.

Other locations in Cumbria where you can take part include:

* Appleby Swimming Pool

* The Park Leisure Centre, Barrow-in-furness

* In Carlisle you can choose from Morton Pool & Fitness Centre,
Richard Rose Morton Academy, or The Pools Swimming Centre And Health Centre

* Cockermouth Leisure Centre

* Lakes Leisure, Kendal

* Keswick Leisure Pool

* Penrith Leisure Centre

* Workington Pool

Anyone who would like to sponsor me and support Marie Curie cancer care can do so at the swimathon website here.

Anyone who interested in signing up to take part in the swim themselves can do so at the Swimathon 2012 website at www.swimathon.org.

Genocide today

2012-01-29T12:57:00.005Z

Further to friday's post commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day: the tragic fact is that although nothing on quite the immense scale of the Nazi genocides and mass killings has happened since 1945, mass murder and attempted extermination remains a major cause of death and suffering in many parts of the world.

Not all the perpetrators of mass murder are governments. For example, the Taleban/Al Queda are listed by "Genocide Watch." the International Alliance to End Genocide, among those responsible for massacres, and government officials, particularly honest ones, are at particular risk of being murdered in several countries.

Tim posted a comment on my "Holocaust Memorial Day" blog item pointing out that South African Boers have been listed as at category six risk of genocide (e.g. active preparation) yet the mainstream press do not seem to be taking much notice.

The really frightening thing is that, although Tim is quite right, South African whites are only eighteenth in the worldwide list of groups suffering massacres or at serious risk of genocide. The most recent list of countries on the Genocide Watch website (August 2011) gives twelve groups as currently being victims of massacres, and another eight, of whom white South Africans are sixth, at the "Preparation Stage," level six, which is the most serious stage of potential risk of massacres.

The top twenty countries and victim groups suffering most or at serious risk according to Genocide Watch as at August 2011, are

1) Democratic Republic of Congo: where women, civilians, and Congo Tutsis are at risk from ex-Rwandan genocidists and mineral warlords

2) In Sudan, Darfurese, Abyei,and Nuba people are at risk from the Sudanese army and Arab militias

3) In Eastern Congo, parts of Sudan and Uganda, civilians, women, and children are at risk from the organistion which calls itself the "Lord’s Resistance Army"

4) In Libya during the civil war, those suspected of being anti-Gaddafi rebels were subject to persecution from pro-Gaddaffi forces; there have also been rebel/anti-Gaddafi reprisals.

5) Syria: those suspected of being pro-democracy protesters or supporters have been massacred by the Assad regimes forces, Alawite loyalists and the army

6) Yemen: opponents of the Saleh regime have been massacred by pro-govt troops

7) In Somalia there have been massacres between opposing clans

8) In parts of Afghanistan, government supporters and anyone who does not support the "right" kind of Islam is in danger of attack from the Taliban and Al Queda

9) Pakistan - ditto

10) In North Korea anyone suspected of opposing the government is liable to persecution

11) There have been signs of progress in Burma over the past few months but the military regime which has run the country for decades has a history of severe repression against the Shan, Karen, Rohinga and against democrats.

12) Ethiopia: where government opponents have been persecuted by the Tigrean Army

All the above are listed at stage seven by Genocide watch indicating their view that genocide is actually taking place. The following are listed as stage 6 (preparation for genocide/serious risk)

13) Nigeria, where there is a serious risk of conflict between ethnic and religious groups:

14) People's Republic of China where the Falun Gong and Uighers are being repressed by the PLA and Chinese authorities

15) Colombia, where government officials have been murdered by drug gangs and FARC guerrillas

16) Equatorial Guinea, where the Bubi minority is oppressed by the Government and police

17) Zimbabwe, where the Matabele tribe and the Movement for Democratic Change have been oppressed by the ZANU-PF and the Shona tribe

18) South Africa: Genocide watch identifies whites and women (because of a high rape rate) as victims or potential victims of attacks by ANC Youth, black Marxist racists

19) Chad, where the Zaghawas have been attacked by Sudanese raiders

20) Central African Republic, where African farmers have been attacked by Arab militias

You can read more details at the Genocide Watch webpage here.

Holocaust Memorial Day

2012-01-27T07:00:00.001Z

Today, the 67th anniversary of the liberation of Auchwitz by allied forces, is Holocaust Memorial Day.

Today we remember all the many victims of Nazi persecution - six million jews, millions of Russians, Poles and Gypsies, and all the other thousands of people who were murdered either for what they were or for standing up against the idea of killing people for what they were.

The estimated number of victims of the nazis and their allies includes about:

5.9 million Jews

2-3 million Russian Prisoners of War

1.8 to 2 million Ethnic Poles

A large number of Gypsies - estimates range from 220 thousand to 1.5 million

About a quarter of a million people with disabilities

Between 80,000 and 200,000 Freemasons

20,000 to 25,000 Slovenes

5,000 to 15,000 Gays

2,500 to 5,000 Jehovah's Witnesses.

Trade unionists and activists of any party other than the Nazis.

It's no good saying "this must never happen again" because, around the world, things like the Holocaust of on a smaller scale have continued to happen - you only need to look at former Yugoslavia.

But we must make it as difficult as possible for genocide and persecution to happen, and we start by remembering all that happened, and especially by remembering the victims.

Quote of the Day

2012-01-26T23:18:00.002Z

"If there's one thing more pathetic than the Leader of the Opposition going on about chocolate oranges, it's the Leader of the Opposition going on about the previous Leader of the Opposition going on about chocolate oranges six years ago."

Hat Tip to "Ismael X" at Political Betting (and regards to Moby Dick).

Newt Shoots back

2012-01-20T22:18:00.003Z

I have been following the U.S. Republican primaries with interest. If I were a G.O.P. member I suspect I would be supporting Mitt Romney, but I had some sympathy for the response Newt Gingrich made below to a question about his private life. (Hat tip to CNN for the clip and Mike Smithson at Political Betting for drawing it to my attention.)

It can be unhealthy for stories about the private lives of individuals, where these do not involve criminal behaviour or abuse of public office, to be given far more attention than how good those individuals are at their jobs. We have seen this culture in this country, as much of the evidence to the Leveson inquiry demonstrated and the same is true in the states.

It is possible, and appears to happen in some countries, for the press to be too subservient in failing to probe where an issue affects not just private lives but the allocation of jobs or resources provided by the taxpayer. If there are genuine reasons to suspect this, then the issue becomes one of legitimate interest to the taxpayer.

But in many cases I suspect that political debate in both Britain and America would be healthier if more public figures were prepared to respond to an allegation, true or false, with the words "None of your business." See what you think of Newt's comments here.

David Morgan R.I.P.

2012-01-20T21:55:00.002Z

David Morgan, a senior partner at one of St Albans' prominent Architects' practices, Cannon Morgan Rheinberg, died last night in Lister Hospital.

I first met David as a planning councillor on one of the many occasions when he was trying to get a very well designed scheme approved and running into wildly disproportionate opposition.

I was to come to know David socially and he later became a very good friend, but I had already formed the opinion before we became friends that of all the architects in St Albans who ran into unreasonable political, NIMBY or planning purist opposition to perfectly good planning proposals - and that is a VERY long list - David was one of who faced some of the silliest and most disproportionate opposition. He usually managed to keep his temper and courtesy in dealing with that situation far better than most people would have or did, including some of the others who faced the same sitations

I'd better add that I did not agree with everything David proposed, and before any of the tens of thousands of people who ever objected to a planning application in St Albans while I was a planning councillor there might read this and think I am getting at them, I'd be the first to agree that there were also plenty of the two and a half thousand applications a year which were submitted to that council which richly deserved to run into opposition.

Like myself David Morgan was an old boy of St Albans School - in his case about thirty years before me - and he later designed a number of award winning schemes for the school.

He was a truly nice guy and all his loving family and many friends will miss him.

Rest in Peace.

Teaching children to use computers

2012-01-12T21:00:00.002Z

Education Secretary Michael Gove has decided to replace the current ICT curriculum with a radically revised programme which puts much more emphasis on developing applications and using computers in original ways rather than simply using interfaces developed by others.

He suggested that the existing curriculum is a "mess" which is "demotivating and dull" and threatens to harm Britain's long term economic prospects.

Gove will begin a consultation next week on the new computing curriculum and on how we can train young people "to work at the forefront of technological change".

I don't generally regard scrapping an entire setup and starting again from scratch as the best solution, but there seems to have been an argument for doing so this time. ICT teachers and experts quoted by the press, while recognising that finding the skilled teachers to deliver the new curriculum might be "challenging" seemed to be more positive than not about the proposals.

Examples of quotes given to the BBC by ICT teachers attending an educational technology show in London included the following:

Sue Le Bas, from Boxgrove Primary in London, said: "I think this would be exciting for primary pupils but I would need a crash course to be able to do it.

"I think we could develop the skills. We need to prepare our children for the future and the current curriculum is not doing that. It's 15 years old."

Anthony Latham, from Heronsgate Primary, also in London, said: "Anything which makes learning more accessible is a positive thing.

"I am not always Gove's biggest fan but I agree with this. Too many ICT lessons are dull."

Graham Fee, a maths teacher at Hemsworth Arts and Community College in Wakefield, already teaches programming at an after-school computer club.

"Students are interested as I do a lot of computer programming myself. I produce a lot of maths games.

"ICT lessons seem to do a lot of PowerPoint and Word, but students are more motivated by more interactive things like programming.

"There's a lot of logical thinking involved. It's good for the students' thinking skills.

"If they have a vision of what they want to create, a little game or something, they can see how the maths applies to the game."

Mr Fee thinks that some of the software packages already available from companies like Microsoft will help train less specialised ICT teachers to teach programming.

"The new software out there is less focused on programming language and more on the logical thinking behind it," he said.

"Teachers will see this as an opportunity to move beyond the office skills - of course, many teachers have been doing this for some time” said Miles Berry of NAACE.

Managing Radioactive Waste Safely consultation

2012-01-12T07:30:00.000Z

The latest phase of discussion about what we do about the long-term storage of Nuclear Waste, and whether a repository is a better solution than the present arrangements, is now under way.

A series of Community drop-in events are being held around Cumbria, details of which are as follows:

18 Jan, The Network Centre, Millom 1pm to 7pm

19 Jan, Civic Hall, Whitehaven 1pm to 7pm

20 Jan, Village Hall, Gosforth 1pm to 7pm

23 Jan, Town Hall, Kendal 1pm to 7pm

24 Jan, Carnegie Arts Centre, Workington 1pm to 7pm

25 Jan, St Herbert's Centre, Keswick 1pm to 7pm

01 Feb, Methodist Church, Penrith 1pm to 7pm

02 Feb, The Courts, Carlisle 1pm to 7pm

07 Feb, Dock Museum, Barrow 1pm to 7pm

08 Feb, Market Hall, Wigton 1pm to 7pm

09 Feb, Market Hall, Egremont 1pm to 7pm

10 Feb, Kirkgate Centre, Cockermouth 1pm to 7pm

In each case there will be discussion sessions at 2pm, 4pm and 6pm

You can also respond and find out more online at www.westcumbriamrws.org.uk.

County Council Budget consultation

2012-01-11T07:43:00.001Z

Cumbria County Council is currently holding a consultation with the public about their forthcoming budget.

Items on the agenda includes issues like

* Should the council introduce a charge of £25 for resident's parking permits?

* Should the present level of subsidy for adult social care be reduced? (The proposal will not affect the poorest users, about 25% of the total, who will still get a 100% subsidy)

* Should the council accept the offer of a one-off grant payment from the government, approximately equal to an inflation increase in the council tax, to freeze the county council element of the council tax for one further year?

Cumbria CC have organised a series of six public meetings with residents, one in each district area: I attended the first of these meetings, which was the copeland one, last night in Egremont.

The Carlisle meeting is on 18th January in Richard Rose Academy

The Eden meeting is on 19th January at Penrith Methodist Church

The Barrow meeting is on 23rd January at The Forum

The Allerdale meeting is on 24th January at The Wave, Maryport

Finally, the South Lakeland meeting is on 26th January at Kendal Rugby Club

If this is more convenient, you can go to a meeting in another district or borough council area: for example, there is nothing to stop Keswick residents going to the Penrith meeting rather than the Maryport if that works better for them.

Attending a meeting is not the only way to have your say about these issues

* You can reply by freepost by writing to:

Budget Consultation
Freepost MWW6059A
The Courts
Carlisle CA3 8NA.

* You can email yoursay@cumbria.gov.uk

* You can respond online at cumbria.gov.uk.

Freeing nurses to care for patients

2012-01-09T12:18:00.000Z

A new drive to free up nurses to provide the care patients and relatives expect has been announced this week by Prime Minister David Cameron and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

The Prime Minister announced the following priorities:

Patients not paperwork: getting rid of a swathe of bureaucracy that stops nurses from doing what they do best.

Regular nursing rounds: to systematically and routinely check that patients are comfortable, are properly fed and hydrated, and are treated with dignity and respect, with the Royal College of Nurses (RCN) helping to make it happen.

Leadership on the wards: people want to see a figure of authority on the ward. To help do so, a Nursing Quality Forum of front line nurses and nursing leaders will be set up, charged with taking a national leadership role in promoting excellent care and ensuring good practice is adopted across the NHS.

New patient-led inspections of hospital wards: local people will go in as part of teams assessing cleanliness, dignity and nutrition and their findings will be published.

New 'friends and family test': this will ask whether patients, carers and staff would recommend their hospital to their families and friends in their hour of need. The results will be published and hospital leaders who fail this test will be held to account.

The Prime Minister said:

"We know the vast majority of patients are very happy with the care provided by the NHS. And I've seen the NHS at its very best. But we have heard recently that in some hospitals patients are not provided with the level care or respect they deserve and I am absolutely appalled by this.

"If we want dignity and respect, we need to focus on nurses and the care they deliver. The whole approach to caring in this country needs to be reset. And it needs to start with this simple fact. Caring for patients is what nurses do. Everything else comes second."

Hawking - "a wonderful time to be alive"

2012-01-08T22:24:00.002Z

Prefessor Stephen Hawking, one of the most amazing human beings who has ever lived, and the most distinguished former pupil of my old school, St Albans School, marked his 70th birthday this weekend with a speech sent to a symposium at Cambridge University in which he said that it has been "A wonderful time to be alive."

Hawking spoke of his early life growing up in St Albans and gave the highlights of his scientific career. But his main message was to "be curious" and never give up, however difficult things might seem.

"Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet," he said.

"Try to make sense of what you see and about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up."

If there is anyone who should be an inspiration to all of us that however great the challenges you face you can and should always try to acheive something, it is Stephen Hawking.

Measures to boost Business and Jobs announced

2012-01-08T22:16:00.001Z

Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a series of measures to tackle the compensation culture and free small and medium enterprises (SMEs) from the stranglehold of health and safety red tape.

Speaking to an audience of small businesses and entrepreneurs at Intuit UK in Maidenhead, David Cameron announced that:

* to tackle the compensation culture and address the fear from businesses of being sued for trivial or excessive claims - we will extend the current scheme that caps the amount that lawyers can earn from small value personal injury claims, and reduce overall costs in cases funded by 'no win no fee' deals. This will help bring down the cost of many cases and deter the speculative health and safety claims made against good businesses that would appear not to have done anything wrong.

* the health and safety law on strict liability for civil claims will be changed so that businesses are no longer automatically at fault if something goes wrong.
we will investigate the demands made by insurance companies on businesses to ensure that levels of compliance do not force businesses to go far beyond what is actually required by the the law to secure their insurance cover.

* We will write to the Chief Executives of all major insurance companies, asking them to set out what they will do to deal with this problem - and they will be invited to a meeting at Downing Street next month to set out their plans.
The Prime Minister has also announced that next month we will ask organisations to bid to manage the £1bn of Government funding available through the Business Finance Partnership. This fund will help businesses access the finance they need to grow.

David Cameron added that:

"I am determined that we do everything possible to take the brakes off business: cutting taxes; slashing red tape; putting billions into big infrastructure projects; making it much easier for British firms to get out there and trade with the world.

"And there is something else we are doing: waging war against the excessive health and safety culture that has become an albatross around the neck of British businesses.

"Talk of 'health and safety' can too often sound farcical or marginal. But for British businesses - especially the smaller ones that are so vital to the future of our economy - this is a massively important issue. Every day they battle against a tide of risk assessment forms and face the fear of being sued for massive sums. The financial cost of this culture runs into the billions each year.

"So this coalition has a clear New Year's resolution: to kill off the health and safety culture for good. I want 2012 to go down in history not just as Olympics year or Diamond Jubilee year, but the year we get a lot of this pointless time-wasting out of the British economy and British life once and for all."

Time to batten down again ...

2012-01-05T08:28:00.001Z

Watch the wind if you are out driving in Cumbria today (or in any other part of Northern England, Scotland, Wales or in the West Country.

The Met Office warn that

"There will be wind gusts of between 60 and 70mph across northern Britain, Wales and south-west England, with gusts of 80mph in exposed areas of Scotland and northern England. Showers will become less frequent as the day goes on and winds will gradually ease, becoming fresh and moderate overnight in most places."

Lord Glasman wises up ...

2012-01-04T21:03:00.005Z

Lord Maurice Glasman, one of the comparatively few Labour MPs or peers who occasionally shows signs of a functioning mind of his own, and who is often described by the media as "Ed Miliband's intellectual guru," has urged the Labour leader to break with some of the nonsense of the Brown years.

Referring to some of the mantras associated with the last Labour prime minister he wrote in the New Statesman that

"Endogenous growth, flexible labour-market reform, free movement of labour, the dominance of the City of London – it was all crap, and we need to say so."

Lord Glasman said that Miliband's leadership seemed to have "no strategy, no narrative and little energy"

and that Miliband concentrated too much last year on preventing splits in his own party and defending Labour's "toxic economic record" rather than offering a transformative new leadership or a strategy to prevent national decline.

His New Statesman article complains that:

"Old faces from the Brown era still dominate the shadow cabinet and they seem stuck in defending Labour's record in all the wrong ways – we didn't spend too much money, we'll cut less fast and less far, but we can't tell you how."

"Labour is apparently pursuing a sectional agenda based on the idea that disaffected Liberal Democrats and public-sector employees will give Labour a majority next time around. But we have not won, and show no signs of winning, the economic argument.

"We have not articulated a constructive alternative capable of recognising our weaknesses in government and taking the argument to the coalition. We show no relish for reconfiguring the relationship between the state, the market and society. The world is on the turn, yet we do not seem equal to the challenge."

He adds that it looks as if "Labour is stranded in a Keynesian orthodoxy with no language to talk straight to people".

Glasman claims that New Labour's inheritance includes an "excessive reliance on managerialism in both the public and the private sectors, a disregard for the workforce and an unhappy and abusive relationship with the unions."

In a severe criticism of Gordon Brown's economic record he refers to some of the ways that the last Labour government contributed to Britain's present economic problems, writing that:

"The problem with Brownite political economy is that, even though it was true that a 3% deficit was not excessive in the context of economic growth, it was debt that was growing at the time, rather than the real economy. A vast, sustained expansion in private debt fuelled the financial sector throughout Brown's tenure as chancellor and then prime minister".

It would be a good thing for Britain if Labour listened to him, even though it might not be make things easier for my own party, because it is better for democracy if we have a responsible opposition who have learned from their mistakes. And we don't seem to have that at the moment.

You can read Lord Glasman's New Statesman article here.

DC's New Year Message

2012-01-02T19:59:00.006Z

This will be the year Britain sees the world and the world sees Britain. It must be the year we go for it – the year the coalition government I lead does everything it takes to get our country up to strength.

The coming months will bring the global drama of the Olympics and the glory of the Diamond Jubilee. Cameras and TV channels around the planet will be recording these magnificent events. It gives us an extraordinary incentive to look outward, look onwards and to look our best: to feel pride in who we are and what – even in these trying times – we can achieve.

Of course, I know that there will be many people watching this who are worried about what else the year might bring. There are fears about jobs and paying the bills. The search for work has become difficult, particularly for young people. And rising prices have hit household budgets. I get that. We are taking action on both fronts. I know how difficult it will be to get through this.- but I also know that we will.

We’ve got clear and strong plans to bring down our deficit, which gives us some protection from the worst of the debt storms now battering the Eurozone. We have gained security for now – and because of that, we must be bold, confident and decisive about building the future.

I know much needs to change. We’ve got to do more to bring our economy back to health. So we’ve set out big plans for the transformation of our infrastructure, starting now – with better roads and railways, superfast broadband and new homes.

And while much of Europe’s economy is struggling, other parts of the world are growing. There are huge opportunities for our businesses all over the planet. I’m determined to get out there and seize them.

I am determined to do the bold things it will take to sort out public services, too. Too often our schools aren’t up to scratch, are hospitals aren’t always clean enough and our police don’t catch criminals. Brilliant and committed people work in public services – but somehow the system stops them doing their job. So we’ll change it.

And I will be bold about working to cure the problems of our society. While a few at the top get rewards that seem to have nothing to do with the risks they take or the effort they put in, many others are stuck on benefits, without hope or responsibility. So we will tackle excess in the City just as we’re reforming welfare to make work pay and support families.

I profoundly believe that we can turn these things around. That’s what I mean by the Big Society. The British people have got what it takes – and the government has got the ideas and policies we need.

As we welcome the world to the best Olympics ever – and as in the 60th year of her reign we honour our Queen as the finest and most famous example of British dedication, British duty, British steadiness, British tradition – let’s use these things as a mirror of ourselves too, a mirror of the nation.

Resilient. Realistic. Intelligent. Curious. Enterprising. Inventive. Unswerving. It’s the spirit that has made our universities among the best in the world, our scientists Nobel prize winners, our athletes gold medal winners, our culture, our music and our television famous everywhere, and our armed forces respected for their dedication and professionalism – as they showed last year in Libya, and as they continue to show in Afghanistan.

In every area of life we will find success by being honest with ourselves about the problems, and practical about what lies ahead. I know that if we lift our eyes to the other side we have it in our power to come through this stronger, better balanced, focused on what this fantastic country does best.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2012-01-01T00:01:00.000Z

A very happy New Year 2012 to everyone reading this.

Let's hope the new year sees the West Cumberland Hospital programme move forward, starting with Business Case Approval in January, further progress in the programme of new nuclear build, and the UK and European economies starting to turn round.

A reminder to people in Whitehaven and the northern part of Copeland: the emergency chemist open today, from 6pm to 7pm, is

Egremont Boots Pharmacy
67-67 Main Street
Egremont.

WCH Business case looks set for approval

2011-12-31T19:03:00.002Z

It looks like the business case for the £90 rebuild and refurbishment for West Cumberland Hospital is finally set for approval.

The West Cumberland News and Star reports that

"Major progress could be made within weeks on the £90 million plan to rebuild Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital.

The full business case for the landmark redevelopment of the infirmary is currently being considered by regional health chiefs."

The paper says that local NHS bosses are hopeful that the case will be approved at a Strategic Health Authority board meeting in January.

More details on the News and Star website or on my hospitals blog (see link at right.)

Vaclav Havel R.I.P.

2011-12-30T22:27:00.002Z

The Czech playwright, thinker, philospher, dissident and ultimately statesman Vaclav Havel, who died earlier this month, was a truly great man.

I did not agree with everything he said or did, but as someone who showed great bravery when he suffered under communism for speaking up for the victims of oppression and injustice, became a symbol of the aspirations of the Czech people, and when he eventually became President worked for reconciliation and forgiveness, he deserves a special place among those who are remembered as great human beings.

Former Polish dissident and later President Lech Walensa said that he thought Havel should have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rest in Peace.

Emergency Chemists in Copeland over the holiday

2011-12-24T14:30:00.000Z

The Emergency Chemists in the Whitehaven and Mid Copeland area over the Christmas and New Year holiday period 2011/12 are as follows:

CHRISTMAS DAY (25th December 2011)

5pm to 6pm
Seascale Pharmacy
Gosforth Road, Seascale.

BOXING DAY (26th December 2011)

1pm to 3pm
Boots the Chemist
26 King Street
Whitehaven

NEW YEAR'S DAY (1st January 2012)

6pm to 7pm
Egremont Boots Pharmacy
67-67 Main Street
Egremont.

A Merry Christmas to everyone reading this

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000Z

May I wish a very Merry Christmas, and a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year 2012, to everyone reading this blog.

Metal Theft - government acts

2011-12-13T22:05:00.003Z

The government has today responded to the requests for action against metal theft, the need for which was highlighted on this blog yesterday.

Home office minister James Brokenshire has confirmed that the government will be bringing forward measures to make it easier to catch metal theives. These will include "introducing a new licence regime for scrap metal dealers and prohibiting cash payments" and establishing a "metal theft taskforce" together with the Association of Chief Police Officers.

He said that the Home office "is discussing with other Departments what legislative changes are necessary to assist enforcement agencies and deter offenders".

Responding to a question from Gravesham MP Adam Holloway about the financial implications of metal theft, Brokenshire said the cost could be "anywhere between £220 million and £777 million per annum". Holloway asked whether there was "any argument for seizing the entire inventories of metal dealers found to be purchasing what are effectively stolen goods". Brokenshire confirmed that this was one of the reasons for a new taskforce, "to inform intelligence and ensure that those responsible for such crimes are brought to justice".

Craig Whittaker MP (Calder Valley) spoke of the implications for private and social landlords, who had reported "the rising number of instances of houses in between tenancies being totally ripped apart". Whittaker said that "water pipes, gas pipes and ... electric wiring—causing thousands of pounds worth of damage" had been stolen from tenanted property. Discussion was ongoing with other departments on the "most appropriate way" of tackling the problem, replied Brokenshire, who stated that "the only conclusion is that new legislation is needed to tackle metal theft".

Nadine Dorries MP (Mid Bedfordshire) was critical of the current "Steptoe and Son" Act concerning the scrap metal industry, saying it was "time to change the law" on the industry as a whole. Brokenshire replied that "existing regulation of the scrap metal industry through the Scrap Metal Dealers Act 1964 needs to be revised", and once again reitereated the importance of intelligence to allow police to crack down on this crime.

Questions were also asked about the effect metal theft was having on the railway industry, and on local communities. Brokenshire spoke of the "risk, threat, inconvenience and serious harm that can be caused by stealing cabling and signalling equipment from the railways", saying that the British Transport Police has a lead role in the Government's planned taskforce with the Association of Chief Police Officers.

Labour MP Tom Clarke referred to the descration of a monumnet commemorating a coal mining disaster in his constituency. Everyone in the House is united in their condemnation for these "sickening crimes", Brokenshire said, which have occurred where monuments and places that exist to celebrate our war dead or important historical incidents have been desecrated".

Voluntary organisations, as well as churches and schools were the victims of this "invidious crime", said Mark Garnier MP (Wyre Forest), such as the Severn Valley Railway in Shropshire and Worcestershire. Garnier also announced that an all-party group on combating metal theft was set up last week. It is under the joint chairmanship of Chris Kelly MP (Dudley South) and Labour MP Graham Jones.

Hat top to Connservative Home (see link at right) for some of the information in this post.

Crooked Cretins cut off Cumbrians

2011-12-12T21:23:00.003Z

Thousands of West Cumbrian families, and other people as far away as Lancashire, lost phone services, including the ability to make emergency 999 calls, for part of the weekend after a bunch of idiotic criminals attacked a section of telephone cable near Workington.

The motive appears to have been a futile attempt to steal copper wire - in which they were unsuccessful because copper was replaced by optical fibres in BT's trunk network years ago.

About 13,000 homes and businesses lost all telephone service for a time, the main areas being hit in West Cumbria being Harrington, Cleator Moor, and parts of Whitehaven, though some customers in Lancaster were also affected. BT engineers working round the clock over the weekend made temporary repairs which restored service to all customers by Saturday afternoon, though it took until 2am on Sunday to complete permanent repairs. The damage also caused a reduction in network capacity that caused congestion for customers across a much wider area.

During the period services were affected, Cumbria police advised people to use mobile phones to make 999 calls and stationed an officer at a local pub in Cleator Moor as a point of contact.

Luke Beeson, BT Security general manager for metal theft, said:

“Cumbria has suffered very few cable thefts but this single incident illustrates that when would-be thieves mistakenly target fibre cables in their search for copper, the impact can be felt over a very wide area.

“Thanks to our engineers who worked through the night, the damage has been repaired and we’ll now be doing all we can to help the police in their search for the perpetrators.”

As I have mentioned in a number of recent blog posts, metal thieves - or, as in this case, exceptionally stupid would-be metal thieves - are not just doing a great deal of damage to the British economy. They are also putting lives at risk.

Not everyone has a mobile phone, and some of the exchange areas affected by this week's attack include black spots of very poor mobile coverage. This attack could have delayed calls for help in an emergency.

Unless action is taken to crack down on metal theft and put the people who are guilty of this activity behind bars, sooner or later they will be cause deaths.

MPs on both sides of the House of Commons have recently raised the problems of metal thefts, including David Morris, Conservative MP for Morecambe & Lunesdale, and Graham Jones MP (Labour). In response, Home office minister James Brokenshire said recently that

“The Home Office supports the wide-ranging plan being delivered by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Metal Theft working group to tackle metal theft, including the theft from public buildings and memorials. In addition, discussions are under way across Government on whether legislative changes are needed to tackle metal theft."

I think that legislation is necessary, and I hope that the government can find time for it soon.

The Veto and democracy

2011-12-10T23:11:00.004Z

"E.U. Leaves U.K."

These were the first three words of the Indy's headline this morning - the full headline continued with "out in the cold" but I initially saw the first three words which seem curiously apposite. You can take them more than one way. Remember "Fog in the Channel: continent isolated!"

A surprising number of commentators don't appear to get the main reason why David Cameron had no choice but to veto the proposed treaty this week. Some of the Liberal Democrats obviously do get it, which is one of the reasons that, despite all the efforts by some in the media to stir up a coalition split on the subject, I don't believe David Cameron's veto is going to bring down the government.

* The fact that David Cameron thought the proposed treaty might damage the City of London was a very important argument against signing, but there was an even stronger one.

* This was not about bashing Europe. Signing would have given DC a huge amount of grief with Tory backbenchers and some of the press, but that neither would nor should have stopped him signing if he had thought doing so was in Britain's interests.

And preventing a Eurozone meltdown is in Britain's interests provided they don't sabotage key sectors of our economy - there will be collateral damage to British jobs and incomes if the Eurozone slumps.

* Nobody with any sense wants Britain isolated, but actually, if a British P.M. had tried to sign up to what was on offer, the end result would have been even worse - and because of something positive which the coalition did when it first took office.

That was to address the lack of democratic legitimacy in past EU treaty changes by passing the "Triple Lock" legislation under which transfers of power to the EU require a referendum in Britain before they could be ratified.

If David Cameron had signed a 27 member treaty as proposed, the "Triple Lock" law would have forced a referendum on that treaty.

Can anyone in their right mind imagine that a majority of British voters would have voted yes?

Better to be open and forthright, say No now, and let the other nations agree a different solution, than leave everyone thinking the treaty was agreed and having it voted down by the electorate a few months down the line.

Of course, the other EU nations can go ahead and organise a separate treaty with up to 26 of the EU member nations, and we can't stop that. Nor should we try.

But that separate treaty will not damage the UK in the way that the treaty which DC blocked would have.

Veto

2011-12-09T07:57:00.003Z

While a real storim with 100 mile-an-hour winds was lashing Britain, a political storm was raging in Brussels which will have far-reaching consequences.

I am not delighted that David Cameron had to veto the proposed EU treaty but he had no choice whatsoever and he would have been wrong to sign up to what was on offer.

The Eurozone needs to take effective measures to support their currency and deal with the solvency crisis, and it would have been wrong to try to stop them taking such measures, provided it were done in a way which does not harm Britain.

Unfortunately it appears that signing up to the proposals could have harmed the City of London. I know the bankers are not popular right now (understatement of the decade) and I think there is a case for tougher regulation imposed within Britain in ways which make the city stronger rather than weaker. But on their past form I have zero confidence in the ability of the EU institutions to get that balance right, and in the present economic difficulties we need to impose extra difficulties on one of our major sources of income as a country like we need a whole set of bullet holes in the head.

If Britain had signed the proposed treaty it would have also required a referendum, which I don't believe would have been likely to produce a yes.

So we now have a "17 plus" treaty with the Euro-zone countries plus most of the rest of the EU, but not including Britain and apparently at least one other EU member outside it. (Not heard which one on the radio yet, but I suspect it may be Denmark.)

These are uncharted waters. I hope that the Eurozone countries are successful in solving their problems, not least because it is in our interests that they succeed, and I hope we can rebuild a constructive relationship with them. But, to continue with the uncharted waters metaphor, we need to move forward carefully and watch out for hidden rocks.

Lansley: I am committed to West Cumberland Hospital

2011-12-07T22:23:00.003Z

Health secretary Andrew Lansley confirmed while visiting Cumbria last week that he remains strongly committed to supporting West Cumberland Hospital.

The Secretary of State was in Cumbria to open a new wing at the Eden Valley hospice near Carlisle.

He made his comments to Penrith and the Borders MP Rory Stewart, who had arranged for him to meet a senior local consultant and GP to hear their concerns about services in Cumbria during his visit.

Rory Stewart asked Mr Lansley to consider writing off the debts of the North Cumbria hospitals trust. The minister said that he might be willing to consider this provided the trusts can come up with a strong plan for the future.

I am pleased by the confirmation that the government remains committed to our hospital, but it remains imperative that we keep up the pressure on the trusts and the government to ensure it is understood that we need a comprehensive range of health services in both West Cumbria and Carlisle.

EU debt crisis worsens as S&P flags credit risk

2011-12-06T08:48:00.003Z

Last week the Governor of the Bank of England pointed out that the financial crisis in the Eurozone, which he described as a "Solvency crisis, not a liquidity crisis" posed a serious threat to the economies of all trading nations including Britain.

Today we learn that EVERY Eurozone country which was not already at the world's worst rating (Greece) or already under review (Cyprus) has been placed on "Credit Watch"

This means by definition that France, Germany and the other four Eurozone nations which currently have the best possible rating - AAA - are at some risk of losing that status.

I think it is a bit misleading of Sky News to state that Ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P) move to place the whole Eurozone on 'credit watch' means that the six countries with AAA ratings "now have a 50% chance of losing that status."

No, it means they are under review.

If the markets really thought that France and Germany had a 50% chance of losing their AAA rating, we would have seen a more extreme reaction : in fact market reaction has been fairly muted, with the FTSE 100 (Euronext: VFTSE.NX - news) falling 0.6% on opening while the German DAX dropped 1.4% and the CAC 40 in Paris Paris lost 0.7%.

On the bond markets too, while the German 10 year debt yield rose slightly countries such as Italy which had been recently under siege saw little damage - falling to near 6.4%.

That may partly be because the traders had already factored into their prices some allowance for the risk of Eurozone countries having their credit ratings downgraded.

Nevertheless this is seriously bad news for the Eurozone countries and bad news for other nations like Britain who are their trading partners.

We may say "Thank God we didn't join the Euro" - and we would be right to say that - but it doesn't alter the fact that what hurts the countries who did join it also hurts us. This emphasises the extreme importance of getting Britain's public finances onto a more stable footing as soon as possible.

Sadly, whoever had won the last general election and whoever wins the next one, the people who are in government in this country will have no easy options, today or for a long time.

Bransty Legion site planning application

2011-12-05T08:39:00.003Z

Until the National British Legion closed all the nine clubs which were part of a particular group of "New British Legion" scheme clubs about eighteen months ago, the Bransty Legion club was an important part of community life for residents of Bransty Hill.

It provided a meeting place which has a venue for all manner of community events, from Neighbourhood Forum meetings to Neighbourhood watch to changing for Bransty Rovers football club. Some of these have moved to Bransty school, which is the only remaining meeting place on the hill: others have been forced to stop or move outside the Bransty Hill area.

This coming Wednesday, Copeland Council's planning panel will consider a proposal to give planning permission for houses on most of the site.

Copeland Council's adopted local plan, with planning policies which are supposed to guide the planning panel, includes a clause to the effect that the council will resist the loss of a community facility unless it is replaced. Since the British Legion started marketing the Bransty Legion club site for sale for housing BEFORE they closed the club, and well before the building was demolished this year, this policy should apply: no developer can accurately argue that the community facility was already lost before the process of trying to turn the site into housing was first started.

I cannot see a good planning reason to object to housing on most of the site, but I hope the planning panel will make permission subject to a planning obligation to provide a replacement community facility.

Boundary commission submission

2011-12-04T23:20:00.002Z

Tomorrow is the last day for the submission of responses on the Boundary Commission for England's proposals for new constituency boundaries for the North West.

This was my submission

"I support the Boundary Commission proposals for a new Carlisle constituency, but for the rest of the county I support instead the Conservative Party proposals.
The Carlisle City Council area is an obvious community of interests. I support the Commission proposal to make the Carlisle constituency as close as possible to the local authority area. This is far more sensible than a rival proposal to put part of North Allerdale into a Carlisle constituency while associating significant areas of Carlisle City with Penrith.

The North East part of Allerdale has economic, social and historical links with Penrith which are comparable with those they have with Carlisle: these areas were part of an earlier Penrith and the Borders seat when represented by the late Viscount Whitelaw.

Having been a parliamentary candidate in the current Copeland seat in 2010, I and my team called on most of the houses in the Keswick and Derwent Valley area during the campaign.

As the constituency had just changed to include this area, the subject of boundaries came up frequently on the doorstep. The almost unanimous view of the residents who raised the issue with me was that they did not feel they had much in common either with the Workington area (with which they had been associated on the previous boundaries) or Whitehaven/Copeland (with which they are associated on the present ones). They would prefer to be in a constituency centred on Penrith, as under the Conservative counterproposal for Cumbria.

The proposed “Copeland and Windermere” seat would be almost unmanageable because the physical obstacles separating the component parts of such a seat are immense. As most speakers at the public hearing in Carlisle pointed out, these obstacles include the highest mountain in England and the deepest and longest lakes. Whitehaven and Bowness have different newspapers, different TV channels, different local authorities, wildly different economic interests, and no direct routes between them which are not high mountain passes.

A West Cumbria seat based around Whitehaven and Workington would make far more sense in terms of commonality of interest.

If such a seat were adopted, electoral numbers would make it necessary for the North East parts of Allerdale Borough, and the Southern part of Copeland, to be in other constituencies. I have already explained why I believe that North East Allerdale would fit better with Penrith than any of the alternatives. South Copeland would fit better with Barrow than any realistic alternative, and that the best place for the dividing line is at Sellafield.

If Copeland council wards from Beckermet and north were included in the West Cumbrian constituency while Gosforth ward and south were part of the Barrow constituency, this would mean that the Sellafield site, which is by far the dominant employer on the west coast of Cumbria, would have two MPs, one representing the Sellafield travel to work area and routes to the North, and the other that to the South. This would be workable and fair."

Time to batten down again

2011-12-03T21:39:00.002Z

Take care if you are outdoors in some parts of Copeland this evening: there is a really nasty wind which is verging on the dangerous.

Beating the Metal Thieves, continued

2011-12-03T11:34:00.000Z

Further to my blog post a couple of weeks ago about the ten-minute rule bill on metal theft, David Morris MP has also raised the issue of metal theft in the House of Commons.

David, who is Conservative MP for Morecambe & Lunesdale, was disappointed to hear of recent metal thefts in his constituency two of which were very high profile, namely lead being stolen from the roof of the Winter Gardens and the theft of metal from the ‘Picture Frame’ artwork in the West End Gardens.

In his question to the Home Office Secretary David Morris MP asked “What steps is she taking to tackle metal theft from public buildings and memorials?”

Responding on behalf of the Home Office, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State James Brokenshire MP said.

“The Home Office supports the wide-ranging plan being delivered by the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Metal Theft working group to tackle metal theft, including the theft from public buildings and memorials. In addition, discussions are under way across Government on whether legislative changes are needed to tackle metal theft.

David Morris MP added, “I want to be clear, it is not just here in Morecambe & Lunesdale such thefts have occurred it is a UK wide issue. I am encouraged by the efforts of the Police to tackle this and I would encourage legislative change to combat this dangerous form of theft.“

I agree - we need to stamp out this sometimes dangerous and often particularly shameful form of theft before someone loses their life because of it.

Autumn Statement

2011-11-29T20:53:00.004Z

Today, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered his 2011 Autumn Statement to Parliament.

Responding to the Office of Budget Responsibility's updated Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Chancellor has set out details of further action the Government will take to protect the UK from global instability and the euro area crisis and build a stronger, more balanced economy for the future.

The Chancellor announced permanent reductions in spending to ensure that the UK meets its fiscal targets, using some of those savings in the short term to fund infrastructure investment to generate long-term growth.

Alongside this, he announced measures to help households and businesses cope with higher inflation and to ensure that deficit reduction is implemented fairly.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, said:

"We are committed to making Britain the best place to start, finance and grow a business.

"The measures I am announcing today will help us to achieve this by creating an environment in which businesses are easy to set up, have access to credit when they need it and are able to grow without being held back by red tape.

"This action supports our deficit reduction plan and the Government's monetary activism as we build a balanced economy."

To give more support to the economy and help businesses, families and individuals through this difficult time, the government:

* will set out a new strategy for coordinating public and private investment in UK infrastructure. The Government will use the savings from current spending generated over the Spending Review 2010 period to fund £6.3 billion of additional infrastructure spending, of which £1.3 billion was announced earlier in the autumn. Alongside this, around £1 billion of new private sector investment in regulated industries will be supported by government guarantee. The Government is also announcing commitments to £5 billion of capital projects in the next Spending Review period, as part of the National Infrastructure Plan;

* has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with two groups of UK pension funds to support additional investment in UK infrastructure. The Government is also working with the Association of British Insurers to set up an Insurers’ Infrastructure Investment Forum, and will target up to £20 billion of investment from these initiatives. In total the Autumn Statement supports around £30 billion of new capital investment;

* will increase the Regional Growth Fund for England by £1 billion, plus Barnett consequentials for the devolved administrations, and extend it into 2014–15, to provide ongoing support to grow the private sector in areas currently dependent on the public sector.

Credit easing

The Government will:

* allow a more active monetary policy by the Bank of England to stimulate demand while controlling inflation. To complement this, the Government will launch a package of up to £21 billion of credit easing measures to support smaller and midsized businesses that do not have ready access to capital markets. This will comprise

* a new National Loan Guarantee Scheme. Up to £20 billion of guarantees for bank funding will be made available over two years. This will allow banks to offer lower cost lending to smaller businesses, subject to state aid approval

* an initial £1 billion through a Business Finance Partnership, which will invest in smaller and mid-sized businesses in the UK through non‑bank channels.

Enterprise

The Government will:

* look for ways to provide a quicker and cheaper alternative to a tribunal hearing in simple cases — a ‘Rapid Resolution’ scheme;

* complete a call for evidence on the impact of reducing the collective redundancy process for redundancies of 100 or more staff from the current 90 days to 60, 45 or 30 days;

* begin a call for evidence on two proposals for radical reform of UK employment law. First, the Government will seek views on the introduction of compensated no-fault dismissal for micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees. Second, the government will look at how it could move to a simpler, quicker and clearer dismissal process, potentially including working with ACAS to make changes to their code or by introducing supplementary guidance for small businesses;

* ask independent Pay Review Bodies to consider how public sector pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets, to report by July 2012;

* launch a new Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS) from April 2012, offering 50 per cent income tax relief on investments, and will offer a capital gains tax exemption on gains realised in 2012–13 and then invested through SEIS in the same year;

* introduce an ‘above the line’ tax credit in 2013 to encourage research and
development activity by larger companies.

Education

The Government will:

* invest an extra £600 million to fund 100 additional Free Schools by the end of this Parliament. This will include new specialist maths Free Schools for 16-18 year olds, supported by strong university maths departments and academics; and

* invest an additional £600 million to support those local authorities with the
greatest demographic pressures. This funding is enough to deliver an additional 40,000 school places.

Housing

The Government will:

* introduce a new build indemnity scheme to increase the supply of affordable mortgage finance for new build homes; and

* reinvigorate the Right to Buy to support social tenants who aspire to own their own home.

Balancing the books

To address the gaping hole in the public finances which the previous Labour government left behind, government measures will have to include

* setting plans for public spending in 2015–16 and 2016–17 in line with the spending reductions over the Spending Review 2010 period;

* raising the State Pension age to 67 between April 2026 and April 2028 in response to changes in demography.

* setting public sector pay awards at an average of one per cent for each of the two years after the current pay freeze comes to an end. Departmental budgets will be adjusted in line with this policy, with the exception of the health and schools budgets, where the money saved will to back into the NHS and schools respectively;

* uprating the child element of the Child Tax Credit and disability elements of tax credits in line with the Consumer Prices Index in 2012–13.

* adjust the allocation of Official Development Assistance in line with the OBR’s revised growth forecast, so that the UK spends 0.56 per cent of Gross National Income on Official Development Assistance in 2012, and 0.7 per cent in 2013 and thereafter.

West Cumbria libraries future confirmed

2011-11-28T22:08:00.002Z

Cumbria County council has been considering the future of local libraries and has held a public consultation.

Following the consultation it has been announced that three West Cumbria libraries which had been considered for closure will remain open.

Among the suggestions was the possible replacement of 20 smaller community libraries – including Moorclose, Seaton and Distington – with borrowing points in community centres, shops or other locations.

However, the council has announced that instead of closure it is looking at the possibility of setting up friends groups for Seaton and Moorclose libraries to enable the community to enhance the activities beyond those which the county council can fund and provide.

Distington was be discussed by the county’s Copeland local committee last week. There, council officers have suggested negotiating with the community centre for it to take over the running of the library.

Bruce Bennison, county manager for library service review, said: “We are taking a proactive approach to address the decline in library use in positive ways, through local committees to take on board local feelings, opinions and needs.

“We have no plans to close any libraries.”

Thoughts on Advent Sunday

2011-11-27T23:00:00.000Z

Today is Advent Sunday, which means a number of things

* The actual official start of the Christmas season, so all the people who have put up Christmas trees, shops selling Christmas stuff, etc, etc are no longer jumping the gun

* The start of the church's year

* The start of the Advent season in which the Christian church looks forward to the coming of the saviour.

The bible readings set for Advent during this season look to the coming of Jesus - not just his coming as a baby but as a man, and his second coming. As such they include some pretty apocalyptic stuff about the end of the world.

As I was listening to one of those readings in St James' church Whitehaven this morning, I was reminded of those people and sects who have used these passages of the bible to predict the imminent end of the world. (Canon John Kelly made the same point in his sermon a few minutes later.)

And yet, however, frightening these passages can be, the people who use them to predict the end of the world are all guilty of selective and misleading quotation out of context, of hearing what they want to hear and use while ignoring the rest. Because all of them are qualified with expressions like "No one knows the day or hour."

Interestingly, both the theories currently favoured by modern science and the teaching of Jesus have something in common in what they say about the end of the world.

Both say that it will happen: both say that we don't know when. (Jesus said that he himself did not know when the end of the world will come, he predicted that in the future people would claim to have that knowledge, and said that they would be false prophets.)

So whether you believe in the Christian religion, or whether you pay attention to what science has to tell us, the best way to live your life is to be ready if the world ends tomorrow, and to be ready if it doesn't, so that either way you have used your time well and looked after your fellow creatures.

Prime Minister's Questions

2011-11-26T14:22:00.004Z

Hat tip to the Guardian for organising a set of "Prime Minister's Questions" in which various people put a question to David Cameron.

You can either read his answers here,
or hear them here.

A sample of some of the questions and replies:

From Piers Morgan, TV presenter:

If you could relive one moment in your life, excluding births of children and marriage, what would it be?

DC ANSWER: "God, that's a really good question. Piers, why don't you ever ask really good questions like that normally? I think it would be this holiday in Italy when I met Samantha properly. It was that sort of carefree wonderful time when you get together with the person you end up spending the rest of your life with. That feeling of happiness and a wonderful holiday with your family around you and the sun is shining and the sea is beautiful and you're with someone who makes you laugh, makes you happy with that sense of excitement in the future."

From Richard Dawkins, biologist, author and proseletysing atheist:

Why do you support faith schools for children who are too young to have chosen their faith, thereby implicitly labelling them with the faith of their parents, whereas you wouldn't dream of so labelling a "Keynesian child" or a "Conservative child"?

DC ANSWER: "Comparing John Maynard Keynes to Jesus Christ shows, in my view, why Richard Dawkins just doesn't really get it. I think faith schools are very often good schools. Why? Because the organisation that's backing the school – the church or the mosque or the synagogue – is part of the community. And it brings a sense of community and a sense of responsibility and the backing of an institution to a school. The church was providing good schools long before the state ever got involved, and we should respect the fact that it's not just the state that can provide education but other bodies, too. So I support faith schools on the basis of the proof that over the years they've been good schools."

From Mike Leigh, film-maker:

What is your moral justification for the state not providing free further education for everybody, and for the principle of student loans? And I do want to hear your moral reasoning: not any economic, political or historic excuses.

DC ANSWER: "I think there is a strong moral case for this, which is the evidence that going to university brings a benefit to that individual person over the course of the rest of their life. Therefore, I think it is morally right that they make a contribution to the cost of that course, which is what our fees policy does. And I think it would be morally wrong to ask the taxpayer to bear all of the burden of that cost, not least because there are many taxpayers who don't go to university who don't have that benefit."

From Ian McEwan, novelist:

There's still a very strong general feeling around that wage earners are picking up the tab for the excesses of the banking sector. Why not take seriously the "Robin Hood" campaign? (And don't be blackmailed by bankers' empty threats to move abroad – the proposed levy is tiny on any given transaction.)

DC ANSWER: "I'm all in favour of the idea of a financial transaction tax, but only if you can do it globally. And while of course it is a tiny tax on transactions, if the effect is that you just move the transactions to another country, you then lose the tax revenue. The EU keep talking about it, but in the end they know the problem is that even if you did it throughout the EU, the transactions would all go outside the EU."

From Miranda Hart, comedian:

What's the least favourite part of your job (apart from the difficulty of ordering takeaways to Number 10)?

DC ANSWER: "The thing I dread the most is news of casualties from Afghanistan, because that's the greatest responsibility. The thing that is odd and weird is having to have people open car doors for you because they weigh two tonnes and if you tried to do it yourself you'd cut your leg off."

Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP

Why do you refuse to give the British people a referendum on the EU, despite your earlier cast-iron guarantee?

DC ANSWER: "I made a policy of having a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and if the Lisbon treaty had been still extant at the time of government, we would have had a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. I don't believe Britain should leave the European Union, but I do believe there are powers we can retrieve from Europe to have a better balance."
From David Blanchflower, economist:

There are one million youngsters under the age of 25 currently without a job. How are you going to prevent them becoming a lost generation?

DC ANSWER: "As David knows, there is no simple answer. You've got to improve the quality of education so you don't have children falling out of school at 16 without skills, you've got to have proper apprenticeships that take people from school into work, you've got to make sure that there are training programmes to help those who can't find jobs. Youth unemployment went up in the years of economic growth as well as recession, so this is a deep underlying problem with the British economy that we have to solve."

Beating the metal thieves

2011-11-21T20:24:00.006Z

It is comparatively rare for a Labour MP to put forward something which I strongly approve of, but it has happened with this week when Graham Jones MP proposed the Metal Theft (Prevention) Bill in the Commons under the Ten Minute Rule.

Bills proposed under this mechanism very rarely become law, but are a useful opportunity to highlight a problem, and the one Graham Jones has drawn attention to needs urgent attention. I hope the government will take the opportunity to implement something along the lines he is suggesting.

As Mr Jones himself pointed out, metal recycling is a valuable industry, it is a sustainable means of reusing an increasingly important commodity. But we need to put this industry onto a regulatory basis which does not provide an incentive for thieves to steal metal which is still in use.

It's not a new problem, but it is one which has become vastly worse over the past few years.

About twelve years ago, around the start of my second period as a councillor in St Albans, metal thieves broke into a redundant NHS building in that city which was about to be transferred via the council to become an Emmaus centre providing a home and work for some of the most vulnerable members of society. They stole some copper piping and wires worth at most a couple of thousand pounds at black market rates, but caused water leaks which did well over a HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds of damage, (in 1999 money) to the building.

Who paid for it? In the short term, I suspect it was the NHS's insurers, but in the long term of course, the incidence of this sort of cost falls on you and me, the long suffering taxpayers - oh, and the vulnerable people who the building was to house had to wait that much longer before the Emmaus centre eventually opened.

This made my blood boil at the time, but metal theft has become a much worse national problem with the growth of the legitimate recycling industry and with the increased price of metals.

An example of just how persistant and disruptive these thieves can be occurred recently in Essex when a section of BT cables was attacked twice within days, with the second attack occurring hours after engineers had finished repairing the damaged caused by the first theft.

About 4,800 phone and broadband connections were damaged in the first attack and 3,500 in the second. Apart from cutting off many local residents and local businesses, a call centre for American Express that helps customers make travel arrangements was completely isolated, and incoming calls and staff had to be transferred to a London office.

People who steal the cables which provide phone service, electricity, or railway signals are not just causing cost and inconvenience to innocent people, they are also putting lives at risk. Unless the trade in stolen metal is stamped out and the people responsible put where they belong, which is in prison, they will sooner or later create the situation where someone can't make a vital 999 call, where damage to a railway signal is not discovered until too late, or where loss of power causes an industrial or medical accident, and innocent people will die as a result.

The other despicable aspect of the trade in stolen metal is that some lowlifes have been stealing war memorial plaques to melt them down for the metal they contain.

Mr Jones said while proposing his bill that theft of metal, particularly from war memorials and signalling cable from the railways, had reached "crisis point", having risen on the electricity networks by 700% in the past two years alone. He added that the national cost of metal theft has been estimated at £770 million, while there were 2,712 cable thefts on the railways in the last financial year, which had led to 240,000 minutes of delays for passengers.

This has got to stop. Companies like BT - and I'd better declare an interest, I work for and am a shareholder in BT - have been spending millions of pounds on initiatives to assist the police in tracing metals stolen from our network. These have resulted in some arrests and convictions. But we need more effective regulation of the metal market so as to make it harder for metal thieves to sell what they have stolen.

Proposals in Mr Jones' bill include a ban on metal trading in cash, stiffer penalties for those caught trading in stolen metal, and for the thieves themselves when caught and convicted to be sentenced not on the basis on the value of metal they had stolen, but on the cost of the damage and disruption they had caused. (As we have seen this can be fifty to a hundred times higher.) Stolen metal would also be classed as stolen assets.

As I said at the start of the article, ten minute rule bills rarely become law, but what sometimes does happen is that governments pick up the ideas and act on some of them. I really hope that happens this time.

How not to create jobs in Copeland, part two

2011-11-20T22:30:00.000Z

The free-for all chaos with parking which has been experienced in Copeland over the past few months in the absence of any enforcement has not been good for local residents or local businesses, so I welcome the prospect that Copeland BC might be about to do something about this.

What I don't welcome is the prospect of car parking charges being raised.

We desperately need to get more people into the town centre, and parking legally rather than illegally. This is not a good time to put up charges from either of those perspectives. I still think the Conservatives were right earlier this year to propose a period of free car parking in the Copeland council car parks and I bitterly regret that the option to do this was not taken.

How not to create jobs in Copeland, part one ...

2011-11-19T10:47:00.003Z

I fully understand the position of those Copeland Councillors who voted to grant planning permission for the new Harbourside complex.

For one thing, councillors should never lightly ignore the professional advice of planning officers, and in this case the officers had strongly recommended that permission be granted.

Councillors have a legal duty to grant applications for planning permission unless there are sound and clear cut planning reasons for refusal: "we don't like it" won't cut the mustard and I'm afraid even "the voters don't like it" won't be accepted either unless the council can show that public opposition is based on sound and clear cut planning reasons.

E.g. if members of the public have objected to a planning application on the grounds that that some aspect of the proposal would create a risk of death or injury, and the council can produce hard evidence at an appeal inquiry that this danger really exists, a decision to refuse planning permission should and probably will be upheld if there is any appeal.

However, if a council refuses planning permission because of public concerns about safety, but cannot produce any material evidence to demonstrate that such a danger really exists, it is likely that planning permission will not only be granted on appeal, but that the council - which means local taxpayers - will have to pay costs to the developer.

All of which means that councillors have to be very clear that they know exactly what they are doing if they refuse planning permission for something which their professional officers have recommended should be granted.

This is all the more true if, as was the case with the Harbourside development in Whitehaven which was given permission this week, there is no fundamental objection to the principle of the development.

So nothing I am about to write should be taken as personal criticism of the councillors who voted to grant planning permission.

Nevertheless if I were still a member of Copeland Council and had been on the Planning Panel last week, I would have joined Councillor Stephen Haraldsen who was the one member of the panel who voted against this particular scheme.

Not because I would want to stop any development of this general type on the site, but because IMHO it was possible to put forward a sound and clear cut planning reason for refusal based on the impact which this specific proposal will have on the Georgian townscape by reason of it's scale, mass, and unsympathetic design, thereby failing to preserve and enhance the historic character of the area, and because it is likely to set a precedent for further developments out of keeping with the Georgian townscape and causing additional cumulative damage to that historic character.

There have been some recent excellent developments in Whitehaven which have respected and enhanced the unique character of what is at the moment the best preserved Georgian town centre in Britain, but there have also been too many unsympathetic developments which have not. The failure of Copeland Council to give a high enough priority to the protection and enhancement of that Georgian character is the primary reason for this. The failure to make the developers have another go at designing a less intrusive scheme for the Harbourside complex is part of this pattern, as are the inappropriate design and materials for the scheme the council itself is promoting a few hundred yards away.

The new complex will generate a couple of hundred jobs, which is good news, but a better designed scheme which was a more appropriate fit to the Georgian character of Whitehaven Town Centre would also have created jobs.

This week's vote was in this sense a missed opportunity. The chairman of the company which will be developing the site, around the derelict Mark House and Park nightclub buildings, said that

“This will provide major benefits for the town centre and create a more vibrant harbour."

I agree with this, but not with his further statement that

“I honestly believe that we could not put a better scheme forward.”

I'm not questioning his sincerity but when I was planning chairman and then Planning Portfolio Holder in St Albans, I heard too many developers say things like this, but who then found that when push came to shove after the council stood firm they could indeed make a scheme more sympathetic.

Lest anyone imagines that I'm holding St Albans up as a shining example and always criticising Copeland, it might actually be very good for BOTH authorities if certain of their councillors and officers had to do an exchange and take over the jobs of their opposite numbers in the other authority for a year. In my opinion they tend to err in exactly the opposite directions.

Planning might be better in both areas if the St Albans officers were a bit less rigid in applying Conservation policies and Copeland officers a bit stricter, if certain councillors in St Albans paid a bit more attention to their officers and certain councillors in Copeland were a bit less slavish in doing so, and if the planning committees in St Albans were a little less inclined to refuse planning applications at the drop of a hat while the planning panel in Copeland were a bit more willing to do so.

Power cut in Whitehaven

2011-11-19T10:33:00.002Z

Woken this morning by our burglar alarm going off because of a power cut covering part of Whitehaven.

We were without power for about two hours.

It is extraordinary how you don't realise how used you are to having something available (in this case electricity,) and how dependent you are on it, until it is taken away for a while.

Northern Rock sale

2011-11-17T22:43:00.002Z

I thought that Richard Branson should have been allowed to buy Northern Rock four years ago instead of nationalising it.

If that policy had been pursued by the last government, the bank would probably now be in a position similar to where it is today but without hundreds of millions of pounds of losses to the taxpayer.

Mind you, that loss was not incurred today. Northern Rock had lost about £400 million in operating losses in the four years since being nationalised - and if it is successful under Virgin ownership, the taxpayer will ultimately get back as a result of today's deal approximately what the previous government originally put in, less those losses.

Nevertheless, I am delighted to see the bank out of the public sector and being run as a commercial enterprise, which is where it belongs.

Governments of whatever colour have enough trouble doing their own jobs. They should absolutely not be running banks.

I'm also pleased that the new owners have guaranteed no compulsory redundances for at least three years. The last thing we need in the present climate is more job losses, and I note that there were cheers among Northern Rock staff when the deal was announced.

Youth Unemployment

2011-11-16T23:20:00.000Z

The latest unemployment figures, and particularly those for young people, represent a tragic waste which demands the most urgent attention. The government understands this.

To get young people - and everyone else - into work we need to get the economy growing again, which means putting fewer burdens in the way of businesses, especially small ones, and that government at European, National, and local level has to think very hard about how to reduce the burden of bureaucracy.

Abandoning the attempt to cut the government's deficit absolutely is NOT the way to help get youngsters or anyone else into work, because the immediate result if the government appeared to be going soft on deficit reduction would be that interest rates would go up. And even if that did not push Britain into the sort of crisis which Greece, and Italy have been having, it would certainly "crowd out" investment, especially by small firms, and make it harder for them to create jobs.

We also need to watch for the operation of the law of unintended consequences. One powerful story in a report on the radio today concerned the fact that the previous government was been paying colleges by results - including exam pass rates.

You wouldn't think this could be damaging, but the problem is that this has apparently created a perverse incentive to put students in for the exams with the highest pass rates - which may not be the qualifications which will most help them get a job. The suggestion was being made that in particular this was pushing students away from subjects like maths "because they are harder." (The person who made this statement also praised Michael Gove for following her recommendation to take swift action to address this.)

I know as a school governor that one of the most important targets which the previous government set schools and the current government has continued, relates to the proportion of students getting at least five good passes including English and Maths. That should avoid the problem of schools not putting people in for those subjects, though it by no means eliminates the possibility of some perverse incentives in the system.

Boundary proposals consultation still ongoing

2011-11-15T21:56:00.001Z

If you have views on whether Copeland should have an MP who also represents the Windemere area on the other side of the highest mountain in England and the deepest and longest lakes in England, there is still time to participate in the consultation process on the proposals put forward by the Boundary Commission for England.

Written submissions can be made until Monday 5th December. These can be made:

1. By visiting the following website:

http://consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk/have-your-say/.

and filling in the online form

2. By e-mail: send representations for the North West region to

northwest@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk.

3. In writing: send representations to Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ

On Remembrance Sunday

2011-11-13T20:58:00.001Z

From "For the Fallen," first published during the first world war

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them."

Sajjad Karim on the Democratic Deficit

2011-11-12T23:46:00.004Z

Conservative Euro-MP Saj Karim made the following response to an article by Larry Elliot in the Guardian about the cabal running Europe. Mr Elliot’s article can be read online here.

Sir

Larry Elliot’s article on Europe’s democratic deficit (Guardian 8/11/11) may have been stating the obvious but we do need to debate it.

The European Union has always had a problematic relationship with democracy. Ireland said no to the Nice Treaty in a referendum and was ordered to hold a second ballot to ensure victory.

Yes, a cabal runs Europe, it would be worrying if their policies were working but they are not.

The trouble for the average citizen is that governments come and go but the policies remain. The question ‘why bother’ is then asked leaving a vacuum for a cabal to survive. Turnout across Europe at the last EU elections was 43%, hardly a ringing endorsement.

Democracy is not a given thing; it is a concept to create, recreate and enforce. The power of the cabal will be broken when we learn to trust the citizen and involve them in the decision making process. We must debate directly electing commissioners and making the Council transparent. And first to go must be the closed list system for electing MEPs.

The EU is an ongoing experiment with 60 years old achievements and failures, the only way it can be a successful experiment is to never stop striving for improvement.

SAJJAD KARIM

MEP for North West England

Lest we forget

2011-11-11T08:03:00.002Z

Today is Armistice Day, the 93rd anniversary of the end of World War One: Sunday is Remembrance Sunday.

At 11 AM on both days we will remember those who were killed in both world wars and all the other conflicts in which people have given their lives for others.

We will remember them.

Greek Tragedy

2011-11-04T06:56:00.000Z

Apparently now Greece will not after all hold a referendum on the bailout plan.

It is interesting that President Sarkozy has suggested that Greece might have to leave the Eurozone if they don't accept the bailout plan. I suspect this will be seen as bullying in some quarters, and it is also a tacit admission that leaving the Euro is possible.

However, he did have a point - operating a common currency without some attempt to harmonize economic policies is simply not possible.

Art wronger, vita brevis

2011-11-03T23:23:00.005Z

A cleaning lady at the Ostwind Museum in the German city of Dortmund has destroyed a work of art which had been insured for $US 1.1 million by mistaking it for a stain on the floor and cleaning it up, according to a Dortmund city spokesman.

If I were a shareholder of the insurance company who are going to have to pay this sum, or if I were the private collector who lent the artwork "When it starts dripping from the ceiling" to the museum, I would probably be having a serious sense of humour failure about this. And whichever member of the museum management and that of the contract cleaning company which employed the cleaning lady concerned was responsible for ensuring that the cleaners were properly briefed should probably be preparing to spend more time with their families.

A work of art is worth what someone is willing to pay for it. But honestly, can any artwork which it is possible to mistake for a stain on the floor really be good enough that in a rational world it would be worth a million dollars?

This is not the first time that a work of art has fallen victim to zealous cleaners. In 1986, a "grease stain" by Joseph Beuys valued at around $US 550,000 was mopped away at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dusseldorf in western Germany.

And last year Melbourne City Council workers inadvertently painted over a piece of street art by famous stencil artist Banksy while removing graffiti in Hosier Lane.

I can't help thinking that our attitude to art has gone from one extreme to the other. In the 19th century a whole range of great art was dismissed by contemporary critics who were scathing about what we would now consider masterpieces, such as the work of Monet, because it was different.

The trouble is that for about the past century, critics have been so scared of looking daft to posterity in the same way that those who dismissed masterpieces as rubbish did, that nobody dares to criticise the work which really is rubbish.

Literally!

In fact so much like rubbish that cleaning staff clear it up by mistake!

(For the benefit of anyone who doesn't get the title of this blog post, "Vita Brevis" is latin for "Life is short" and is the second half of the translation into latin of a comment by the ancient greek doctor Hippocrates, "Ars Longa, vita brevis" which is usually rendered in English as "Art is long, life is short."

Ignoring the inconvenient fact that whoever translated Hippocrates' original greek comment into Latin was refering to art in the sense of skill or technique rather than fine art, my alternative version is meant to mean something along the lines of "Art which is rubbish may not last long.")

Greece, Democracy and the Markets

2011-11-03T07:11:00.000Z

You can make a case that the decision of the Greek Prime Minister to call for a referendum on the Euro-deal was an act of lunacy or a stroke of genius.

Certainly the manner in which it was done has sent the markets into a tailspin and terrified most of Europe's heads of government.

If the Greek government does call a referendum on the package, gets it out fo the way quickly, and wins it, the results would be almost entirely positive. The fact that there was proven to be public support for the package, including the tough medicine to which is part of it, would make the necessary reforms much easier to carry out. And the precedent of involving the public in such decisions would be very positive.

However, the way the proposed referendum appears to have been sprung on everyone could perhaps have been better handled. And if it fails the results for Greece and some of the other Eurozone countries, and those who export to them - like Britain - could be very bad news.

I can see this one is going to run and run ...

Health and Safety

2011-11-02T22:45:00.002Z

There are none so blind as those who will not see and that perfectly describes a poster I saw today with the headline "Job Killer" which quotes a statement which David Cameron had made about health and safety rules destroying jobs and businesses, and misinterpreted it as a suggestion that the government is going to scrap all health and safety employment rules.

This is not what the policy is about.

It is not, and never has been, the policy either of the Conservative party or the coalition government that there is no need for legislation to protect the lives and limbs of people doing dangerous jobs.

We have never suggested that there is no need for legislation to protect employees, customers and anyone else who might be exposed to genuine danger if industrial equipment is not maintained in a safe condition with appropriate measures to prevent it from causing such a risk.

Nobody in their right mind would suggest that a facility such as, say, the plutonium containment facility at Sellafield (or the ponds, or any of the other buildings on the site which could otherwise pose a real hazard) should not be the subject of strict rules designed to prevent accidents.

And ditto any job where people are climbing poles or other high structures, or working with dangerous chemicals.

Where the health and safety culture needs to be reined back is not in rules which protect people from genuine hazards.

The problem is where rules which would be entirely right for genuinely dangerous jobs are applied with a lack of proportion or common sense to jobs which are not dangerous on any objective assessment, such as ordinary clerical jobs. Or where vast amounts of effort are spent on trying to prevent accidents for which the risk ranges from trivial to nonexistent.

Let's take speed cameras. The government has not banned local authorities from putting up Gatso or average speed cameras, but has required them to publish the accident statistics for the relevant stretches of road before and after the cameras went in, so the public can see whether they've actually saved lives or not, keep the ones which have indeed saved lines and make a fuss about the ones which are not preventing accidents or doing anything other than getting more money out of motorists.

We do not need the wholesale abolition of Health and Safety rules. We do need them to be applied and administered with intelligence and with a severity which is proportionate for the actual risks.

Government grant creates 1000 jobs in West Cumbria

2011-11-01T22:06:00.003Z

The Coalition Government's Regional Development fund is to give a grant of £5.5 million to the Energy Coast West Cumbria, which is expected to create 1,000 new jobs in West Cumbria. This is in response to a bid which was supported by local authorities and local business, and the money will help businesses in the area to diversify.

This is one of three successful bids to the Regional Development Fund in Cumbria. Another is for tyre company Pirelli to develop more environmentally-friendly tyres at their plant in Carlisle, and the third is £2.5 million for Gilbert Giles & Gordon to rebuild and refurbish their turbine factory in Kendal.

This is excellent news for Cumbria and shows that the government is taking the problems of the county seriously.

Another take on the Euro-vote

2011-10-30T08:00:00.000Z

Hat tip to Plato at "Political Betting" for drawing my attention to a very interesting piece by Mail journalist Tim Shipman called Why Cameron really defied the Euro rebels.

Shipman argues that Cameron's reasons for opposing the motion for a referendum on membership of the European Union was not because he completely disagreed with what the rebels wanted, but because he does agree with much of what they want but considers that calling for a referendum now is not the best way to get it.

Here are some extracts from the article

"Mr Cameron’s behaviour over the last week is more explicable if you take the view that he sought to crush the calls for a referendum not because he doesn’t want to repatriate powers but precisely because he does and wants to remain in charge of the process.

"If he is to take on Brussels, he wants to do so on his own terms and at a time of his chosing.

His aides stress that the threat of a referendum is a single shot distress flare, rather than a submachine gun with a magazine full of bullets. Mr Cameron will get one chance only to fire it and when he does so it has to count.

"The apparently minor EU treaty change which seems on the cards for this December is viewed at the top of government as a very bad time indeed for Britain to start throwing its toys from the pram over issues like employment legislation. Mr Cameron believes that would be destabilising for the economy and would win few to no friends in the EU.

"But my conversations over the last few days have convinced me the Cameroons believe there will be a much bigger treaty revision at some point over the next couple of years – anything less and the relationship between the 17 Eurozone nations and the 10 outside the single currency will become increasingly fractious.

"When that comes, that is when Mr Cameron will strike. Officials believe the prospect of Britain holding a referendum will put such fear into the European Commission that concessions will flow."

You can read the full article here.

Nixon, China, and the monarchy

2011-10-29T22:56:00.002Z

Sometimes when a change happens it is people at the opposite end of the political spectrum from those you might have expected to enact it who actually do.

It's like the "Vulcan Proverb" which supposedly said that "Only Nixon could go to China."

And witness the fact that it was a Conservative Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary who finally took action, agreed at the Commonwealth meeting yesterday to start the process of scrapping archaic and ridiculous rules about the succession to the monarchy.

Both the ban on anyone married to a catholic inheriting the throne, and the rule which ruled a monarch's female children out of the succession while a brother of any age was available, should have been repealed decades ago. This sort of rule lays the country open to charges of enshrining discrimination against women in our constitution at the highest level and has no place in the 21st century.

(I don't think I need to declare an interest in the former case: I am married to a catholic but have no realistic prospect of inheriting the throne!)

I don't expect to live to see a woman become Queen as a direct result of this change to the law of succession, but I will be pleased to live in a country which has one fewer ludicrously outdated form of institutionalised discrimination.

Quote of the Day

2011-10-29T22:53:00.003Z

On "Any Questions" today (rebroadcast from yesterday evening) David Davis, following a Lib/Dem speaker who had just made a contribution recognising the role of prison sentences in the fight against crime, said words along the lines of

'I'm a Liberal Democrat and I robustly support prison:' - the coalition is working.

Cameron dismisses suggestions of "bitterness" over Europe vote

2011-10-27T07:55:00.002Z

David Cameron has ruled out any suggestion that there might be any bad blood or rancour over the rebellion on Europe earlier this week.

He told Sky News that "These [the rebels] are valued Conservative colleagues. I understand why people feel strongly and we'll go forward together and tackle the difficult decisions that the country faces.

"But you have to do the right thing and give a lead in politics, and that's what yesterday was about."

He added that there was "no bad blood, no rancour, no bitterness" over the fact that some people had taken a different view.

EU vote in the commons

2011-10-24T23:59:00.002Z

Parliament has voted not to hold a referendum on Britain's EU membership at the present time, despite a sizeable rebellion by both Conservative and Labour MPs.

The front benches of the Conservative, Lib Dem and Labour parties voted against the motion.

In total 483 MPs voted against while 111 defied party whips and voted for, a majority of 372.

Labour leader Ed Miliband said the revolt was a "humiliation" for Prime Minister David Cameron.

"If he can't win the argument with his own backbenchers, how can the country have confidence that he can win the arguments that matter for Britain?" he said.

He didn't explain how this chimes with the fact that, on Labour's own figures, about 25 Labour backbenchers failed to vote with him.

A Downing Street spokesman said many people who voted for the motion felt very strongly, and their views were respected.

"However, the government has to do what is in the national interest. The easy thing to do would have been for us to have avoided expressing a view. It was important to take a strong lead - because Britain's best interests are served by being in the EU."

Nick Robinson at the BBC wrote that the challenge to DC "is not over his government's survival but to spell out what he meant by promising 'fundamental change' in Britain's relationship with Europe and when and how he'll deliver it."

William Hague said during the debate on the motion for an in-out referendum that

"This is not just something for the House of Commons to put up some graffiti on a Thursday afternoon. This proposition is the wrong question at the wrong time.

"It was not in the manifesto, it cuts right across the rules for holding referendums, it would create additional economic uncertainty. Clearly an in-out referendum is not the right idea."

On the rights and wrongs of a Euro referendum

2011-10-21T23:51:00.002Z

A very insightful piece in the Economist today about the arguments concerning whether we should have an in/out referendum on Britain's membership of the E.U.

I am old enough to remember that about thirty-five years ago Britain did have a referendum on E.U. membership and it produced a two-to-one majority for staying in. This was then used by the advocates of closer union as "proof" that Britain wanted a much greater degree of integration than I suspect many of those who voted "Yes" thought they were voting for.

Two thirds of referenda in Britain produce a vote for the status quo. I know that there are a lot of people who think that it's time for another vote on the issue, and they are entitled to that opinion, but I think it is worth those who support any given referendum asking themselves exactly what they are trying to achieve.

I know exactly why I support referenda being reqired for certain things. I wanted one on the Lisbon treaty because it was a bad treaty and I am convinced that British voters, like those in France and Holland when they were originally given the chance, would have voted it down.

More generally the reason I think that anyone who wants to change Britain's constitutional arrangements, including our relationship with Europe, should have to win a referendum is to make it difficult, but not impossible, to make such a change. The burden should be on those who want to change things to make an overwhelming case for that change.

Bagehot in the Economist makes some interesting comments about concerns on the Tory right. Some the concerns of those MPs, and their wish for a referendum on Europe, reflect views which I know are shared by many - not all - members of the party and many - not all - Conservative voters.

Bagehot's comments conclude as follows:

"Many on the right are convinced they are more in tune with the public than Mr Cameron’s cautious, languidly metropolitan inner circle. They are only half-correct. In some areas—crime, immigration, fuel prices, a broad hostility to Europe—the right’s arguments have populist appeal. But, often to its credit, the British right is not as populist as it thinks. It is a complex animal, but defining causes include free trade, deregulation, cutting taxes and welfare, and shielding City banks from EU rules. This is not reliably rabble-rousing stuff.

"The real danger from the right lies elsewhere. Because a showdown over Europe would split his party, Mr Cameron is left nagging EU leaders to do what it takes to save the euro, so long as they do not expect Britain to pay, sit at the table or help shape deeper integration. Still, the Tory right is disgruntled. Judging by the referendum motion before MPs, many want to tie the government’s hands still more tightly, with a utopian mandate to demand a free-trade relationship. They ought to realise that in a fast-moving crisis, their country needs more room for manoeuvre, not less."

You can read the full article here.

Buzz !

2011-10-21T23:37:00.002Z

Just after I had come for lunch this week, a horrible noise started to come from the TV, the same sort of noise which sound equipment often makes when something else, such as a mobile phone, is interfering with it.

My wife asked if my mobile was causing the problem, and I had just pulled my phone out of my pocket and was trying to work it if this could be the cause when, on the TV, Andrew Neil asked the New Labour panellist who was speaking whether he had a mobile phone on him, and if so, could he please turn it off.

He had, and it was interfering with his mike.

A great many of the stories people tell about mobile phones - such as that they can cause explosions at petrol stations - are complete fiction. (The electrical impulses inside a mobile phone are orders of magnitude lower than those inside a car engine, and the hottest possible temperature or any component of a mobile phone is vastly cooler than many parts of a car. There is not a single confirmed case of investigation proving that a fire or explosion at a petrol station was due to a telephone.)

The main one that isn't fiction is that they can play old harry with microphones and speakers. Usually when I don't want my mobile to ring I put it on silent rather than turn it off. But this incident was a reminder that sometimes completely turning the phone off - in a hospital or on a plane, for instance - is more appropriate.

Parliamentary boundaries

2011-10-17T23:43:00.003Z

Spoke today at the public hearings about the Boundary Commission for England proposals for the new Parliamentary constituencies in the North West

The public consultation is open for another few weeks. Best way to study the proposals and have your say is through the BCE's consultation website, at

www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk
.

The website contains all the Initial proposals, reports and maps, the electorate sizes of every ward, and an online facility where you can have your say on their initial proposals.

Christmas is coming

2011-10-16T21:57:00.002Z

It's still around a fortnight to halloween and the shops are already full of Christmas themed products.

It's a free country and they have the right to offer whatever they think they can sell, but it does seem a little premature.

Electoral registration day today: don't lose your vote

2011-10-15T13:03:00.002Z

Today is the qualifying date for the electoral register: each household should register with the local electoral authority the names and details of voters, plus sixteen and seventeen-year olds, normally resident in that household as of tonight.

It is perfectly legal to have more than one place where you are normally resident and register to vote at more than one address - students, for instance, often register at both their home and college address - provided that you don't actually vote more than once for the same body.

This year we had the opportunity to register by returning the paper form, on the internet, by freephone telephone service, or by text. I used the internet service and found it very easy and straightforward.

Apart from the little matter that if you don't register you are breaking the law, it also means that you lose your vote and your voice. Don't forget to register!

Commons debate on nuclear power at Sellafield

2011-10-13T12:29:00.003Z

There was an adjournment debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday, secured at the request of the MP for Copeland, at the conclusion of which the Minister made the following statement.

Charles Hendry (Minister of State (Renewable Energy), Energy and Climate Change; Wealden, Conservative)

"Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for granting this debate. I congratulate Mr Reed on securing it and thank him for doing so. The matter is timely and important, not just to his constituency but to our national interest

more generally. I am delighted to see on the Front Bench and to congratulate Caroline Flint and Tom Greatrex on their appointments to the important positions in the shadow team.

I am grateful for the chance to clarify the Government’s position on the future of the nuclear industry in Sellafield, although I cannot give the hon. Member for Copeland all of the answers that he seeks today. I begin by acknowledging the vital contribution that the nuclear industry makes to the economic prosperity of west Cumbria, and also the important contribution that the people of Copeland have made and continue to make to Britain’s nuclear heritage. West Cumbria is at the heart of the UK’s nuclear industry and has been since the early days in the 1950s. There is an enormous wealth of nuclear expertise and knowledge, and we want to maintain and use that for the future. The future is promising for west Cumbria as a nuclear community. There are plans for new nuclear to play a part, local authorities are expressing an interest in hosting a geological disposal facility, and decommissioning commitments are ongoing.

I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Government are fully focused on working with west Cumbria to deliver these commitments, as we are in ensuring that new nuclear has a role to play in the UK's future energy mix. The hon. Gentleman was kind and generous in his comments and we agree on much, but I hope that he will understand that I was a little disappointed by some of his recent media comments about the pace of movement and progress in these areas. I hope that in the light of the terrible events in Fukushima some months ago he will have welcomed the ongoing commitment that the British Government have shown to nuclear in comparison with many other Governments elsewhere.

The UK has everything to gain from becoming the No. 1 destination to invest in new nuclear. Nuclear is the cheapest low-carbon source of electricity around, so it keeps the bills down and the lights on. The Government have remained committed in their efforts to ensure that the conditions are right for investment in new nuclear in the UK. We are very pleased to build on the legacy that we received in this area from Lord Hutton when he was Secretary of State.

We have made significant progress in the 18 months we have been in power to ensure that the conditions for investment are right. Last October, the Secretary of State made his decision that two nuclear reactor designs should be justified, which was approved by the House by a large majority of 520 votes to 27—one of the largest majorities that we have seen on any issue. In July we designated the national policy statements for energy infrastructure, including a list of suitable sites for nuclear power stations. Those had been delayed as a result of amendments to emissions in the earlier drafts, but I know that the hon. Gentleman was pleased that Sellafield was one of the sites included in that list. We have also created the Office for Nuclear Regulation, and we plan to bring forward legislation to create a new independent statutory body as soon as we can. The regulators are continuing to work with the industry to take forward the generic design assessment process for new reactors. They have published agreed resolution plans for the issues that need to be resolved, and they will also need to factor Dr Weightman's report into their final assessment.

In the coming months the Government will look to finalise the framework governing the financing of decommissioning and waste management for new nuclear power stations. That will ensure that operators make secure financial provision from the outset in line with the Government's policy that there should be no subsidy for new nuclear. We have done all that in the wake of the tragic circumstances at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan. We needed to understand the facts before making any decisions. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State asked the chief nuclear inspector, Dr Mike Weightman, to look at what Fukushima means for nuclear energy in Britain and what lessons can be learned.

The UK is most certainly open for business in the nuclear sector. Investors know that EDF Energy will begin preliminary works at Hinkley Point soon and is preparing its planning application as we speak to put to the Infrastructure Planning Commission this autumn. I am also encouraged by the prospects for new nuclear in west Cumbria. The NuGeneration consortium has set out plans to build up to 3.6 GW of new nuclear capacity at Sellafield. We hope that construction will begin in 2015, with commercial operation of a new nuclear power station expected by 2023. Both Iberdrola and GDF SUEZ remain confident about new nuclear in west Cumbria and have increased their stakes in the project. They see no reason why the decision by Scottish and Southern Energy to end its involvement with NuGen should impact on their plans or timetable.

Sellafield is central to the west Cumbrian economy. The Sellafield site has been around for over half a century and has brought many new opportunities to the area. There are opportunities because we are pushing forward scientific frontiers in relation to clean-up and the management of radioactive waste. I congratulate west Cumbria sincerely on taking the lead in decommissioning one of the world’s largest and most complex facilities. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will welcome the fact that the Government have allocated extra resources to that vital work. As I have mentioned, new nuclear power is once again on the agenda and west Cumbria is at the forefront of this, with land earmarked for development next to the Sellafield site. That will potentially provide 5,000 construction jobs at peak and 1,000 long-term operating jobs. We join him in wanting to see the economic success for the community he represents.

Radioactive waste is of course always an issue of great importance when talking about the future of the nuclear industry. West Cumbria has also expressed an interest in the process of geological disposal of radioactive waste. We are working in partnership to explore what that would involve. Should west Cumbria decide to participate in the next stages of the process—I emphasise that, in relation to this matter, we strongly believe in the voluntarist principle—it would show a real commitment to finding a long-term solution for nuclear waste disposal. The community is to be applauded for having the vision to find out more about the reality of that process and for fully considering all the implications, including the potential economic benefits. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for welcoming the fact that we have sought to speed up the process by a decade.

The geological disposal facility would be a multi-billion pound engineering development on an enormous scale which will employ an average of over 500 people for

perhaps a century to come. Apart from the income generated, we expect that there will also be spin-off benefits through associated engineering and supply chain developments and potentially further additional benefits. Therefore, notwithstanding the long-term decommissioning of Sellafield that will see billions of pounds spent on cleaning up the site over the next 100 years, there are potentially major opportunities available to west Cumbria through the nuclear sector.

I now turn to the options for plutonium and the implications for future production of mixed oxide fuel at Sellafield. The future of MOX production at Sellafield can be described primarily by two recent events. The first was the publication in February of the Government’s consultation on the long-term management of the UK’s plutonium—we have the largest stockpile of plutonium in the world. The second was the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority’s announcement in August that it was to close the existing Sellafield MOX plant. Although both events are to an extent linked, it must be remembered that the Sellafield MOX plant was built to deal with overseas-owned plutonium recovered through reprocessing and was never intended to deal with the UK’s plutonium. A decision to close the SMP was taken by the NDA following a changed commercial risk profile arising from potential delays after the earthquake in Japan and subsequent events.

To ensure that the UK taxpayer did not carry a future financial burden from the SMP, the NDA concluded that the only reasonable course of action was to close the facility at the earliest practical opportunity. It was apparent that the SMP was never going to provide a solution for the large volumes of UK plutonium, which would need to be managed in new facilities. I am very grateful for the realistic approach that the hon. Gentleman has taken on that.

In our consultation on plutonium management we set out three high-level options for dealing with plutonium: continued storage; immobilisation followed by disposal as a waste; and reuse of the plutonium in the form of MOX fuel. The consultation set out at a high level the advantages and disadvantages of each option, but the Government’s preliminary view was that the best prospect of implementing a successful solution lay with the option of reusing MOX as a fuel and, therefore, with seeing its value rather than simply its cost, as the hon. Gentleman rightly called for us to do.

That option was the more technically mature, given that MOX fuel had been successfully fabricated and used in reactors in Europe, and given that by comparison no equally mature immobilisation technology was readily employable. Nevertheless, we recognised that there were still risks with the reuse-as-MOX option, particularly given the poor performance of the Sellafield MOX plant. The poor performance put limitations on throughput, which meant that, even if we wanted to use it, the Sellafield MOX plant would never be able to deal with all the UK’s plutonium.

For that reason, we acknowledged that to implement a reuse solution the Government would need to procure a new MOX plant, but as the hon. Gentleman is well aware, the UK also stores significant quantities of overseas-owned plutonium, so pursuing a reuse-as-MOX option for UK plutonium could offer an opportunity for the overseas owners of plutonium currently stored in the UK to have their plutonium managed in the same way."

(At this point the MP for Copeland intervened to ask about what would happen to Scottish waste stored at Sellafield in the event of Scottish independence.)

"That departs just a little from the subject of the debate, and, although the hon. Gentleman is determined as I am to see off that threat, we are dealing with an issue that is not going to arise. However, in the event of separation there would clearly be implications for a settlement and they would need to be addressed and resolved. It is premature, however, to sit down and deal with those issues at this stage.

Were we to proceed down the path of a reuse, any new MOX plant would need to learn from the lessons of the past and take into account the experience from overseas. Additionally we anticipate that, for security reasons and to minimise the transportation of plutonium, any new MOX facilities would be located as close to the plutonium as possible and most likely in west Cumbria, which I believe many of the hon. Gentleman’s constituents would actively welcome. Plutonium management is a high-profile issue that requires appropriate consideration, and it is not a decision that can be taken quickly. The Government are in the process of clearing our response through Cabinet, and we anticipate being in a position to publish our response shortly.

I, like the Prime Minister, have made it clear that nuclear should remain part of the future energy mix, alongside other technologies such as renewable and carbon capture and storage, provided that there is no public subsidy for nuclear, and the Weightman report, published today, provides no grounds to question our approach that nuclear should be part of the energy mix in future, as it is today. The next step on plutonium management is for the Government to publish their response to the consultation paper, and, as I have just said, we are in the process of clearing our response through Cabinet and anticipate being in a position to make an announcement shortly.

We all recognise that nuclear power plays a significant role in the UK’s electricity supply, but that nuclear also results in radioactive waste. West Cumbria has expressed interest in the geological disposal of radioactive waste, and we are working in partnership to explore what that would involve. I pay tribute to the community as a whole, to the hon. Gentleman as their Member of Parliament and to the local authorities for having the vision to find out more about the process and to work very closely with us to see how we can take it forward."

Extending the Right to buy

2011-10-10T23:13:00.001Z

David Cameron has announced that the government will increase the discounts offered to council house tenants to buy their homes as part of a plan to boost construction of new homes.

Cameron announced on the first day of the Conservative Party conference yesterday that the government would also release land it owns to be used to build homes.

These actions together would provide thousands of jobs in the building industry with more houses being built, he said.

The plan aims to make the Right to Buy scheme, introduced by the Thatcher government in the 1980s, attractive again, the government said.

The cash raised by an increase in council house sales will be used to build 100,000 homes that will then be rented out.

Cameron said that this would create 200,000 jobs in the construction industry, adding that the release of government land for house building would create a similar number of homes and jobs.

More details of the precise level of discount increase will be provided by the government's housing strategy, which will be published later this autumn. But the Department for Communities and Local Government has published some details on the scheme, which it said will rejuvenate the housing stock.

Currently, discounts for council house purchases vary, starting from between 35% for houses if the tenant has been renting for five years, to 50% discount for the same tenancy in flats. However, the Labour government put in place a cap on the total discount, which the DCLG report said ‘resulted in fewer people being able to take up this opportunity’.

The question and answer report states that under the new plan a new affordable home will be built for every one bought under Right to Buy. These homes will be additional to the government's existing plans, which propose that 150,000 new homes will be built by 2015.

DC's final round up from Manchester

2011-10-09T12:10:00.004Z

A final message from David Cameron about the Conservative Conference in Manchester this week.

"This year's Conservative Party Conference was a crucial one. We weren't talking to ourselves; we were talking to the nation, clearly setting out how we are delivering the leadership this country needs to secure a better future.

"Over the four days we spent in Manchester we showed that our resolve to tackle Labour's crippling debt is unwavering - because the only way to build a better country is to start with strong economic foundations.

"But our Conference was about more than dealing with the deficit. Because, even during these tough times, we can do so much. Together we can protect the vulnerable and safeguard our NHS. We can improve school standards. We can tackle the 'something for nothing' welfare system. We can build our Big Society. We can confront so many things - bonkers health and safety rules, the adoption crisis, famine overseas, reoffending rates. Why? Because Britain is a 'can-do' country.

"Our approach is not quick-fix, nor is it easy - but it is right for our country. That is what our Conference was about, and that is what our leadership is about. So I hope you enjoy this video for a recap of Manchester 2011"

Where is the Tomato Juice ?

2011-10-09T11:59:00.003Z

Doing a famiy shop at one of the supermarkets in Whitehaven this morning I observed, not for the first time, that while in general there is a much broader choice of fruit juices than used to be the case, the healthiest of the lot, which was readily available in my childhood and early adulthood, is now quite hard to find.

Unless the latest dietary advice has done another flip-flop since I last looked, the substance which gives most tomato products their red colour is also one of the most powerful anti-carcinogenics known to man, and including tomato juice as part of one's regular intake of fruit and veg is a very good way to reduce the risk of getting several types of cancer.

So why is there obviously not as much demand for it as you might expect?

Perhaps tomato juice is for some people an acquired taste, although I never found it hard to acquire: certainly it isn't as good as some other drinks for dealing with a thirst because the taste is too strong to enable you to drink large mouthfuls, and you have to sip it.

Nevertheless it is disappointing that a drink which ought to be playing a part in the fight against cancer seems to have largely slipped off the menu. Perhaps an item which ought to be higher up the agenda in future health promotion campaigns.

The EU is not the best place to set speed limits

2011-10-08T23:59:00.004Z

North West MEP Jacqueline Foster and other Conservative MEPs have slammed a proposal from German MEP Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, who has put forward on behalf of the Parliament's Transport Committee a resolution including the introduction of a 30km speed limit in every residential area in Britain. That's about 18.64 mph.

I am all in favour of LOCAL authorities being able to impose 20 mph speed limits where LOCAL people know that they are needed - for example, there are a number of places in Copeland where 20 mph speed limits are or have recently been in place where they were entirely appropriate. And the removal of the 20mph speed limit in St Bees was extremely unpopular.

But it is just plain daft to set that kind of speed limit in Brussels for every residential area in Europe. There are places where it's needed and places where it is not: and local people and councillors have a much better idea which is which than an MEP from the other end of the continent.

As Jacqueline Foster said,

"Of course speed limits as low as 20mph or so can be right in some very specific areas, especially near schools or children's nurseries, but every location is different and these decisions need to be made case by case.

"Not by a Europe-wide edict."

A British road sign declaring 'Speed limit - 18.64 mph' would be 'plain silly' she added.

DC's speech to conference

2011-10-05T23:45:00.000Z

"This week, in Manchester, this party has shown the discipline, the unity, and the purpose that is the mark of a party of government. I'm proud of my team, I'm proud of our members, I'm proud to lead this party - but most of all, I'm proud of you.

"People have very clear instructions for this government: "Lead us out of this economic mess."

"Do it in a way that's fair and right."

"And as you do it, make sure you build something worthwhile for us and our children."

Clear instructions. Clear objectives. And from me: a clear understanding that in these difficult times, it is leadership we need. To get our economy moving. To get our society working, and in a year - the Olympics year - when the world will be watching us, to show everyone what Great Britain really means.

But first I want to say something to you in this hall. Thank you. Despite the predictions we won elections all over the country this May, so let's hear it for those great campaigns you fought and the great results you achieved.

And thank you for something else. In the AV referendum, you did Britain a service and kicked that useless voting system off the political agenda for decades to come.

And next year let's make sure we back Boris, beat Ken and keep London Conservative. You're not just winners - you're doers.

This summer, as before, Conservatives went to Rwanda to build classrooms, teach children and help grow businesses. Social action: that is the spirit of the modern Conservative Party.

This is a party - ours is a country - that never walks on by. Earlier this year some people said to me: "Libya's not our concern", "don't start what you can't finish", and even - "Arabs don't do democracy." But if we had stood aside this spring, people in Benghazi would have been massacred. And don't let anyone say this wasn't in our national interest. Remember what Qadhafi did. He's the man who gave Semtex to the IRA, who was behind the shooting of a police officer in a London square, who was responsible for the bombing of a plane in the skies over Lockerbie. Let's be proud of the part we played in giving the Libyan people the chance to take back their country.

In Afghanistan today, there are men and women fighting for Britain as bravely as any in our history. They come from across our country: England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland. They now have the equipment they need. And we're on target to bring them home by the end of 2014.

Theirs has been a campaign of incredible courage and sacrifice, and I know everyone in this hall will want to send a message to everyone who serves and who have served. Those in uniform in our armed forces and in our police. And those not in uniform, keeping us safe from terrorism on our streets.

We're proud of you. We salute you. Thank you.

But leadership in the world is about moral strength as much as military might. A few months ago I was in Nigeria, on a trade mission. While I was there, I visited a vaccination clinic. It was very hot, pretty basic and the lights kept going off.

But to the rows of women, cuddling their babies, this place was a godsend. One of the nurses told me that if it wasn't for British aid, many of those beautiful babies would be dead. In four years' time, this country will have helped vaccinate more of the world's poorest children than there are people in the whole of England.

Of course, we'll make sure your money goes to the people who need it most, and we'll do it in a way that's transparent and accountable. But I really believe, despite all our difficulties, that this is the right thing to do. That it's a mark of our country, and our people, that we never turn our backs on the world's poorest, and everyone in Britain can be incredibly proud of it.

Leadership in fighting poverty. Leadership in fighting tyranny. But when it came to that decision to help the Libyan people, there was something dispiriting about the debate here at home. It wasn't that some people thought we shouldn't do what we did - of course it's everyone's right to disagree.

It was that too many thought Britain actually couldn't do something like that any more. And you hear that kind of pessimism about our economic future, our social problems, our political system. That our best days are behind us. That we're on a path of certain decline.

Well I'm here to tell you that it isn't true. Of course, if we sit around and hope for the best, the rest will leave us behind. If we fool ourselves that we can grow our economy, mend our society, give our children the future we want them to have. If we fool ourselves that we can do these things without effort, without correcting past mistakes, without confronting vested interests and failed ideas, then no, we're not going to get anywhere.

But if we put in the effort, correct those mistakes, confront those vested interests and take on the failed ideas of the past, then I know we can turn this ship around.

Nobody wants false optimism. And I will never pretend there are short cuts to success. But success will come: with the right ideas, the right approach, the right leadership. Leadership from government: to set out the direction we must take, and the choices we must make. But leadership also from you. Because the things that will really deliver success are not politicians or government. It's the people of Britain, and the spirit of Britain.

Some say that to succeed in this world, we need to become more like India, or China, or Brazil. I say: we need to become more like us. The real us. Hard-working, pioneering, independent, creative, adaptable, optimistic, can-do. That's the spirit that has made this United Kingdom what it is: a small country that does great things; one of the most incredible success stories in the history of the world.

And it's a spirit that's alive and well today. I see it in Tania Sidney-Roberts, the head teacher I met in Norwich who started a free school from scratch, now four times over-subscribed. Her ambition? To set up another school and do it all over again. That's leadership.

I see it in the group of GPs in Bexley who have taken more control of their budgets, and got their patients - some of the poorest in the country - free care on Harley Street. Their ambition? To cut waiting times, cut costs and improve care - all in one go. That's leadership.

And we all saw it this summer. Dan Thompson watched the riots unfold on television. But he didn't sit there and say 'the council will clean it up.' He got on the internet. He sent out a call. And with others, he started a social movement.

People picked up their brooms and reclaimed their streets. So the argument I want to make today is simple: leadership works. I know how tough things are. I don't for one minute underestimate how worried people feel, whether about making ends meet, or the state of the world economy. But the truth is, right now we need to be energised, not paralysed by gloom and fear.

Half the world is booming - let's go and sell to them. So many of our communities are thriving - let's make the rest like them. There's so much that's great about our country. We don't have to accept that success in this century automatically belongs to someone else. We just have to remember the origin of our achievements: the people of Britain, taking a lead. That's why so much of my leadership is about unleashing your leadership. Giving everyone who wants to seize it the opportunity, the support and above all the freedom to get things done. Giving everyone who wants to believe it the confidence that working hard and taking responsibility will be rewarded not punished.

So let's reject the pessimism. Let's bring on the can-do optimism. Let's summon the energy and the appetite to fight for a better future for our country, Great Britain.

Of course that starts with our economy. As we meet here in Manchester, the threat to the world economy - and to Britain - is as serious today as it was in 2008 when world recession loomed. The Eurozone is in crisis, the French and German economies have slowed to a standstill; even mighty America is being questioned about her debts.

It is an anxious time. Prices and bills keep going up - petrol, the weekly shop, electricity. On the news it's job losses, cutbacks, closures. You think about tuition fees, and house prices, the cost of a deposit, and wonder how our children will cope. Of course, government can help - and this one is. We have cut petrol duty, kept the winter fuel allowance and kept cold weather payments. We froze council tax this year, and as George announced in that great speech on Monday, we're going to freeze it again next year too.

But we need to tell the truth about the overall economic situation. People understand that when the economy goes into recession, times get tough. But normally, after a while, things pick up. Strong growth returns. People get back into work. This time, it's not like that. And people want to know why the good times are so long coming.

The answer is straightforward, but uncomfortable. This was no normal recession; we're in a debt crisis. It was caused by too much borrowing, by individuals, businesses, banks, and most of all, governments. When you're in a debt crisis, some of the normal things that government can do, to deal with a normal recession, like borrowing to cut taxes or increase spending - these things won't work because they lead to more debt, which would make the crisis worse.

Why? Because it risks higher interest rates, less confidence and the threat of even higher taxes in future. The only way out of a debt crisis is to deal with your debts. That's why households are paying down their credit card and store card bills. It means banks getting their books in order. And it means governments - all over the world - cutting spending and living within their means.

This coalition government, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg and I - we've led the way here in Britain. Our plan is right. And our plan will work. I know you can't see it or feel it yet. But think of it like this. The new economy we're building: it's like building a house. The most important part is the part you can't see - the foundations that make it stable. Slowly, but surely, we're laying the foundations for a better future. But this is the crucial point: it will only work if we stick with it.

And there's something else we've got to stick to. Because we're not in the Euro, we can lay these foundations ourselves: on our own terms; in our own way. So let me say this: as long as I'm Prime Minister, we will never join the Euro. And I won't let us be sucked into endless bail-outs of countries that are in the Euro either. Yes, we're leading members of the IMF and have our responsibilities there.

But when it comes to any Euro bail-out mechanism, my approach is simple: Labour got us into it and I've made sure we're getting out of it.

Of course, our deficit reduction programme is just one big bail-out of the last Labour government. This past year we've been subjected to a sort of national apology tour by Labour. Sorry for sucking up to Qadhafi. For not regulating the banks properly. For crushing civil liberties. For failing to go green. For not building enough homes. For the infighting that made them the most dysfunctional government ever.

But you know what? Nothing - not a peep - on the thing they really need to say sorry for. Wasting billions and billions of your money. No apology for that. You know what the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls claimed last week? That Labour didn't spend more money than they had "available". Hello? Ed - you spent £428 billion more than you had "available". There is only one conclusion you can rationally draw. We must never let these Labour politicians anywhere near our economy again.

As before, it falls to us to clear up after the Labour Party. I have insisted that we do it in a way that is fair. You can't cut a deficit the size of ours without everyone making a sacrifice. But those with the most money are bearing the biggest burden. We've imposed a permanent levy on the banks, getting them to pay more every year than Labour did in one year.

We've raised taxes on people who make their money overseas but live here. At the same time we've given real help to the poorest and most vulnerable. We're taking over a million of the lowest-paid people out of tax altogether. And after the scandal of the 75p pension rise under Labour, we're linking pensions to earnings so elderly people will be £10,000 better off in their retirement.

Yes, this is a one-nation deficit reduction plan - from a one-nation party. And here's something else that we - yes we - have done. The NHS is the most precious institution in our country - to my family, to your family. At the last election, it was Labour policy to cut the NHS. It was Liberal Democrat policy to cut the NHS.

It was our policy - Conservative policy - to protect the NHS and spend more on it this year, next year and the year after that because we are the party of the NHS, and as long as I'm here we always will be.

But real fairness isn't just about what the state spends. It's about the link between what you put in and what you get out. As we debate what people get from the state, let's remember how we generate taxes. So to the unions planning to strike over public sector pensions I say this. You have every right to protest. But our population is ageing. Our public sector pensions system is unaffordable. The only way to give public sector workers a decent, sustainable pensions system, and do right by the taxpayer, is to ask public servants to work a little longer and contribute a little more. That is fair. What is not fair, what is not right, is going on strikes that will hurt the very people who help pay for your pensions.

Dealing with our debts is line one, clause one of our plan for growth. But it is just the start. We need jobs - and we won't get jobs by growing government, we need to grow our businesses. So here's our growth plan: doing everything we can to help businesses start, grow, thrive, succeed. Where that means backing off, cutting regulation - back off, cut regulation. Where that means intervention, investment - intervene, invest. Whatever it takes to help our businesses take on the world - we'll do it.

The global economy has transformed in recent years. It used to take companies decades to become global giants: now it can take a couple of years. When you step off the plane in Delhi or Shanghai or Lagos, you can feel the energy, the hunger, the drive to succeed. We need that here.

Frankly, there's too much 'can't do' sogginess around. We need to be a sharp, focused, can-do country. But as we go for growth, the last thing I want is to pump the old economy back up, with a banking sector out of control, manufacturing squeezed, and prosperity confined to a few parts of the country and a select few industries. Our plan is to build something new and to build something better. We can do it.

Look what's happening in East London. Europe's financial capital is now matched by Europe's technology capital in Tech City. Facebook, Intel, Google, Cisco - even Silicon Valley Bank - seeing our potential and investing here. Look what's happening across our country. The wings of the world's biggest jumbo jet - built in Wales.

The world's most famous digger - the JCB - made in Staffordshire.

Do you watch Formula One? Well whether it's the German Michael Schumacher, the Australian Mark Webber or the Brazilian Reubens Barrichello, they all have one thing in common - they drive cars built right here in Britain.

This is the new economy we're building: leading in advanced manufacturing, technology, life sciences, green engineering. Inventing, creating, exporting.

Of course, it's easy to talk about these things: harder to deliver it. For a start, you won't deliver it just by dividing industries into saints and sinners. That's not just an insult to the financial and insurance companies, accountancy firms and professional services that make us billions of pounds and create millions of jobs - it's much too simplistic.

As I've always argued, we need businesses to be more socially responsible. But to get proper growth, to rebalance our economy, we've got to put some important new pieces into place. Taking action now to get credit flowing to the small businesses that are the engine of the economy. And ring-fencing the banks so they fulfil their role of lending safely to the real economy. Setting up Technology and Innovation Centres where scientists and academics can work with entrepreneurs to turn brilliant inventions into successful products. Reforming taxation to encourage enterprise and investment in high growth firms. And sometimes that means taking controversial decisions; challenging vested interests.

When firms need to adapt quickly to win orders and contracts, we can't go on with rigid, outdated employment regulations. The critics may say: what about workers' rights? But the most important worker's right of all is having a job in the first place.

When in modern business you're either quick or you're dead, it's hopeless that our transport infrastructure lags so far behind Europe's. That's why we need to build high speed rail and why we'll get the best super-fast broadband network in Europe too. When a balanced economy needs workers with skills, we need to end the old snobbery about vocational education and training. We've provided funding for 250,000 extra apprenticeships - but not enough big companies are delivering.

So here's a direct appeal: If you want skilled employees, we'll provide the funding, we'll cut the red tape. But you've got to show more leadership and give us the apprenticeships we need.

Unlocking growth and rebalancing our economy also requires change in Brussels. The EU is the biggest single market in the world - but it's not working properly. Almost every day, I see pointless new regulation coming our way. A couple of weeks ago I was up in the flat, going through some work before the start of the day and I saw this EU directive. Do you know what it was about? Whether people with diabetes should be allowed to drive. What's that got to do with the single market? Do you suppose anyone in China is thinking: I know how we'll grow our economy - let's get those diabetics off our roads. Europe has to wake up - and the EU growth plan we've published, backed by eight countries, which I want us to push at every meeting, every council, every summit, is the alarm call that Brussels needs.

There's one more thing. Our businesses need the space to grow - literally. That's one of the reasons we're reforming our planning system. It's hard to blame local people for opposing developments when they get none of the benefits. We're changing that. If a new manufacturing plant is built in your area - your community keeps the business rates. If new homes get built - you keep the council tax. This is a localist plan from a localist party.

Now I know people are worried about what this means for conservation. Let me tell you: I love our countryside and there's nothing I would do to put it at risk. But let's get the balance right. The proportion of land in England that is currently built up is 9 per cent. Yes, 9 per cent. There are businesses out there desperate to expand, to hire thousands of people - but they're stuck in the mud of our planning system. Of course we're open to constructive ideas about how to get this right.

But to those who just oppose everything we're doing, my message is this: Take your arguments down to the job centre. We've got to get Britain back to work.

The new economy we're building must work for everyone. You know the real tragedy of New Labour's economy? Not just that it was unsustainable, unbalanced, overwhelmed with debt. But that it left so many behind.

Labour talked opportunity but ripped the ladders of opportunity away. We had an education system that left hundreds of thousands unprepared for work. A welfare system that trapped millions in dependency. An immigration system that brought in migrant workers to do the jobs that those on welfare were being paid not to do.

We had a housing system that failed to meet demand, so prices shot up and fuelled an unsustainable boom. And we had a government that creamed the taxes off the boom to splurge back into benefits - redoubling the failure all over again. Labour: who tell us they care so much about fairness, about justice, who say they want to hit the rich and help the poor - it was Labour gave us the casino economy and the welfare society.

So who's going to lift the poorest up? Who's going to get our young people back to work? Who's going to create a more equal society? No, not you, the self-righteous Labour Party. It will be us, the Conservatives who finally build an economy that works for everyone and gives hope to everyone in our country.

That starts with a good education - for everyone. It sounds so simple: proper teaching, good discipline, rigorous exams. But it's hard. It's hard because our education system has been infected by an ideology that instead of insisting on every child's success has too often made excuses for failure. They said: "poor kids can't learn." "Black boys can't do well." "In this community we really mustn't expect too much - don't you understand?"

Oh yes, I do understand. Believe me I do understand and I am disgusted by the idea that we should aim for any less for a child from a poor background than a rich one. I have contempt for the notion that we should accept narrower horizons for a black child than a white one. Yes it's the age-old irony of the liberal left: they practice oppression and call it equality.

So we are fighting back. And something massive is happening. There is now irrefutable proof that the right schools, with the right freedoms and the right leadership, can transform the education of the most deprived children. You heard yesterday from that inspirational student from Burlington Danes Academy in Hammersmith. Inner city school. Deprived area. Nearly half the pupils on free school meals.

But this year, three-quarters got five good GCSEs including English and maths. That's way better than what the majority of the state schools in Sussex, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire got last year - some of the most affluent counties in the country.

Why? Because the head teacher, her staff, the parents - rose up and said: "We are as good as anyone. Our children can achieve anything."

Leadership works. So we're backing more head teachers to turn schools into Academies. And we want more parents, teachers, charities, businesses, entrepreneurs, to come in to our education system and set up Academies and Free Schools.

Change really is underway. For the first time in a long time, the numbers studying those core and vital subjects history, geography, languages are going up. Pupils' exams will be marked on their punctuation and grammar. And teachers are going to be able to search pupils' bags for anything banned in school - mobile phones, alcohol, weapons, anything. It's a long, hard road back to rigour, but we're well and truly on our way.

And here's something else we're going to do. In Britain today, we have schools that are intolerant of failure, where ninety percent of pupils get five good GCSEs. Yes: private schools. You've heard me talk about social responsibility so let me say this. I want to see private schools start Academies, and sponsor Academies in the state system. Wellington College does it, Dulwich does it - others can too. The apartheid between our private and state schools is one of the biggest wasted opportunities in our country today. So let it be this party that helps tear it down.

Rigour back in learning. Standards back in schools. Teachers back in control. Yes - the Conservatives are back in government.

An economy that works for everyone means sorting out welfare and immigration too. Welfare began as a life-line. For too many it's become a way of life. Generation after generation in the cycle of dependency - and we are determined to break it.

Part of our answer is controlling immigration. So we've put a cap on the numbers of non-EU immigrants allowed to come into our country to work. We mustn't lock out talent - I want the best and brightest entrepreneurs, scientists and students from around the world to get the red carpet treatment. But the bogus colleges, the fake marriages, the people arriving for a month and staying for years, the criminals who use the Human Rights Act to try and stay in the country - we are clamping down on all of them.

We've got to get some sense back into our labour market and get British people back into work. For years you've been conned by governments. To keep the unemployment figures down, they've parked as many people as possible on the sick. Two and a half million, to be exact. Not officially unemployed, but claiming welfare, no questions asked. Now we're asking those questions. It turns out that of the 1.3 million people who have put in a claim for the new sickness benefit in recent years. One million are either able to work, or stopped their claim before their medical assessment had been completed.

Under Labour they got something for nothing. With us they'll only get something, if they give something. If they are prepared to work, we're going to help them - and I mean really help them. If you've been out of work and on benefits for five years, a quick session down the job centre and a new CV just isn't going to cut it. You need to get your self-esteem and confidence back; you need training and skills; intensive personal support.

Previous governments were never willing to make a proper commitment to this, but we have - investing now, so we don't pay later. We're going to spend up to £14,000 on some people just to get them trained and back into work. Yes, I know that's a lot of money - but it's worth it. Let it be us, let it be this government that finally builds an economy where no one is left behind.

And for most people that includes a home of their own: not just any old home but a decent one: light and spacious, a place with a proper front door and room for the kids to play in. But the percentage of British people who own their home is going down. Unless they get help from their parents, do you know the average age of a first-time buyer in our country today? Thirty seven. You hear people say: "why can't people just rent like in Europe?" or "there's nothing we can do because we don't have the money."

I disagree. The failure of the housing market is bound up in the debt crisis. Because lenders won't lend, builders won't build and buyers can't buy. We're sorting this out, bringing back the Right to Buy and using the money to build new homes. Macmillan made us the party of the property-owning democracy. Margaret Thatcher gave people the Right to Buy. Now let us, in this generation, inspire a new Tory housing revolution.

While I'm on the subject of those great Conservative figures, let me say this. I'm incredibly fortunate to have such strong support from our previous leaders. Michael Howard. Iain Duncan Smith. William Hague. Sir John Major. And of course, Lady Thatcher. You know what? We don't boo our leaders. We're proud of our past and what those people did for our country.

A few months ago, we were shocked by the scenes on our streets in London and other parts of the country. But perhaps the most shocking thing is that people weren't that surprised. There was no great call for a public enquiry to find out what had gone wrong. Instead the sound you could hear was the angry, insistent, overwhelming cry of a country shouting to its leaders: We know. We know why this happened. We know what's gone wrong. We know that if the system keeps fudging the difference between right and wrong, we'll never improve behaviour. We know that as long as the police go round with one hand tied behind their back, we'll never make our streets truly safe. And more than anything we know that if parents don't meet their responsibilities, kids will get out of control. Yes, people said: we know what's gone wrong: and we want you to put it right.

One thing people want is speedy justice. After the riots those responsible were put straight in the courts and tough sentences were quickly handed out. And I've made it clear to the police, to the prosecution services, to the Ministry of Justice, to the Attorney-General, if we could do that then, let's make sure we do it all the time. But the problems go deeper. That's why my driving mission in politics is to build a Big Society, a stronger society.

It starts with families. I want to make this the most family-friendly government the country has ever seen. More childcare. More health visitors. More relationship support. More help with parenting. And for the 120,000 families that are most troubled - and causing the most trouble - a commitment to turn their lives around by the end of this Parliament.

Today I can announce this: a new focus on the 65,000 children in care. Do you know how many children there are in care under the age of one? 3,660. And how many children under the age of one were adopted in our country last year? Sixty. This may not seem like the biggest issue facing our country, but it is the biggest issue for these children. How can we have let this happen: we've got people flying all over the world to adopt babies, while the care system at home agonises about placing black children with white families.

With the right values and the right effort, let's end this scandal and help these, the most vulnerable children of all. But for me, leadership on families also means speaking out on marriage. Marriage is not just a piece of paper. It pulls couples together through the ebb and flow of life. It gives children stability. And it says powerful things about what we should value. So yes, we will recognise marriage in the tax system.

But we're also doing something else. I once stood before a Conservative conference and said it shouldn't matter whether commitment was between a man and a woman, a woman and a woman, or a man and another man. You applauded me for that. Five years on, we're consulting on legalising gay marriage.

And to anyone who has reservations, I say: Yes, it's about equality, but it's also about something else: commitment. Conservatives believe in the ties that bind us; that society is stronger when we make vows to each other and support each other. So I don't support gay marriage despite being a Conservative. I support gay marriage because I'm a Conservative.

We value community spirit and social action too. We see it everyday in our own lives, it's one of the great things about Britain, and do you know what? Over the last five years of the Labour government, the number of people volunteering went down. Last year, the decline was halted.

And now the proportion of people saying they feel they belong strongly to their neighbourhood is the highest for a decade. If you're cynical, go to Wythenshawe, a few miles from here. It used to be ravaged by crime and drugs and graffiti. But local people opened a community hall and a gym. They got the kids off the streets. They cleaned up graffiti and kicked out the drug dealers. Of course, government can't legislate for this. But we can support the leadership that makes it happen.

That's why we're giving neighbourhoods new powers to take over the running of parks, playgrounds and pubs. It's why we're making it easier for people to give their time and money to good causes. It's why we want elected mayors in our great cities, and it's why right now we're drawing up plans to really open up public services and give more power to people.

But one of the biggest things holding people back is the shadow of health and safety. I was told recently about a school that wanted to buy a set of highlighter pens. But with the pens came a warning. Not so fast - make sure you comply with the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. Including plenty of fresh air and hand and eye protection. Try highlighting in all that.

This isn't how a great nation was built. Britannia didn't rule the waves with arm-bands on. So the vetting and barring scheme - we're scaling it back. CRB checks - we're cutting them back. At long last common sense is coming back to our country.

Building stronger communities is why we've introduced National Citizen Service. You saw it for yourself at the start of this afternoon's session. One of the people who took part this year, Owen Carter, wrote to me and said:

"[This] has changed my perspective of life - you can do anything if you work hard and have a supportive team around you. You can do anything'.

That's the spirit I'm talking about. That's why we're tripling the scale of National Citizen Service. That's how we'll build our Big Society. That is leadership.

Next year, we welcome the world for the Olympics - and of course the Queen's Diamond Jubilee. These two events say a lot about Britain. Tradition. Modernity. All in one.

And today, we can choose to be a country that's back on its feet and striding forward. Paying down our debt and earning a living. Getting people off welfare and into work. Breaking new ground in education, with excellence for everyone not a privileged few.

We can be a country where people look back on their life and say: I've worked hard, I've raised a family, I'm part of a community and all along it was worth my while. We're too far away from that today but we can get there.

It's not complicated, but not easy either - because nothing worthwhile is easily won. But you know, we've been told we were finished before.

They said when we lost an Empire that we couldn't find a role. But we found a role, took on communism and helped bring down the Berlin Wall.

They called our economy the sick man of Europe. But we came back and turned this country into a beacon of enterprise.

No, Britain never had the biggest population, the largest land mass, the richest resources, but we had the spirit. Remember: it's not the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog. Overcoming challenge, confounding the sceptics, reinventing ourselves, this is what we do. It's called leadership.

Let's turn this time of challenge into a time of opportunity. Not sitting around, watching things happen and wondering why. But standing up, making things happen and asking why not.

We have the people, we have the ideas, and now we have a government that's freeing those people, backing those ideas.

So let's see an optimistic future. Let's show the world some fight. Let's pull together, work together. And together lead Britain to better days."

Manchester diary, final day: cat flap!

2011-10-05T10:41:00.003Z

And so the fourth and final day of party conference begins.

I was in the hall for Theresa May's speech yesterday about the human rights act which has apparently generated what one paper called a "cat-flap."

Whether or not she was right about the case of a burglar who supposedly escaped deportation because he had a cat, her essential point was undoubtedly right.

Which was that the section in the European Convention on Human Rights which lays out a right to family life has been applied unreasonably by some court decisions in a way that neither the proposers of the EHCR nor those of the Human Rights Act intended.

I remember when the act was going through. The pessimists and opponents of the act predicted that it would be used in perverse ways and put the human rights of criminals and terrorists above those of their victims and potential victims.

Optimists and supporters of the act pointed out - quite correctly as far as what the Act and the ECHR actually say - that they are supposed to be applied with common sense in a way which respects the human rights of all concerned and the interests of society, not just those of the accused and the criminal. Theresa May's speech specifically quoted the section of the ECHR which qualifies the "right to family life" in precisely this way.

As ever the outcome has been somewhere between the two extremes, and not all the court decisions based on the Human Rights Act, by any means, have been as perverse as those which often hit the papers.

For example, when I was planning portfolio holder for planning in St Albans, we had to deal with a family of "travellers" who repeatedly ignored planning rules and court decisions. The council launched a court action to put the head of the family in prison until they complied with the law. Despite an attempt by his lawyers to argue that this breached his human rights, the court accepted that the remainder of the community have human rights too, that travellers are not above the law, that he had ignored his duties and responsibilities under the law, and jailed him.

However, there have been some perverse instances where proven criminals, including the perpetrator convicted of one particularly infamous murder, have been able to avoid deportation at the conclusion of their sentences by misusing the ECHR provision of a "right to family life."

Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the "cat burglar" this should not happen, and Theresa May is right to wish to clarify the law and the application of the ECHR to stop it happening.

This morning we have had a "Conservative Policy Forum" followed by a session on foreign affairs and defence. The final session of conference this afternoon will be a speech by David Cameron.

Martin Kettle on IDS

2011-10-05T10:33:00.006Z

One of the most thoughtful speeches I have heard in Manchester this week was from Iain Duncan Smith, who has re-invented himself from a right-wing party leader to a much more successful thinker and reforming secretary of state addressing welfare and social deprivation.

Interestingly, he also impressed Guardian commentator Martin Kettle, who pointed out that IDS was the only platform speaker at any of the party conferences to say anything constructive or thoughtful about the riots. Martin had this to say on the Guardian blog:

"It is barely two months since the urban riots of 2011. Yet the party conferences of 2011 have scarcely addressed them. There have been exceptions, of course. Nick Clegg had a section in his leader's speech to the Liberal Democrats, which concluded that young people could be put back on track with a bit of extra summer schooling. Yvette Cooper, speaking at the Labour conference, had a section on the riots because she saw them as an example of Tory police cuts leading to lawlessness. Doubtless David Cameron will have a section on the riots on Wednesday when he addresses the Tories.

"But it's a simple fact that the only speech at any of the conferences which really attempted to say something thoughtful about the riots was the one given by Iain Duncan Smith at Manchester this morning. It wouldn't be true to say that IDS said everything there is to say, but at least he tried to rise to the seriousness of the subject. Nor did he break free of cliché. The riots were "a pertinent reminder" about Britain's social problems. They were a "wake-up call" on gangs. On the page, this looks pretty pedestrian stuff. But IDS nevertheless tried to wrestle with the difficult issues – the underclass, family breakdown, the importance of drugs and alcohol, and the allure of gang culture. Gang members were "like child soldiers of the third world", a powerful image. The inner city "is not just a place, it's a state of mind," – I'll remember that phrase. And "we must end the false belief that we can arrest our way out of this crisis."

"Compared with Labour and the Liberal Democrats, who trivialised the riots, IDS took them seriously. He is interested in them, and therefore has something interesting to say. The other parties, Labour in particular, merely slotted the riots into their pre-existing frame of government negligence. But IDS's response was a world away from the entirely draconian approach of the Conservative government in 1981 after the last serious urban riots too. Duncan Smith's speech may not have been the final word, but it was a reprimand to the superficiality of the other parties in their responses to the riots."

You can read his and other Guardian comments here.

Quote of the day - Tuesday

2011-10-04T17:11:00.001Z

"While I am secretary of State the NHS will not be fragmented, privatised, or undermined.

I am committed to an NHS which provides equal access and quality of care."

Andrew Lansley

Manchester Diary: Day Three

2011-10-04T16:49:00.004Z

I thought George Osborne was brilliant yesterday: back to Copeland for a meeting after his session. Returned to Manchester this morning.

Conference began with a "Back Boris" session, followed by a discussion on Crime and Home Affairs policy with ken Clarke and Theresa May.

The NIA Fringe meeting on Tuesday lunchtime about new nuclear build was extremely well supported with standing room only at the back. It was chaired by Lord Hutton (formerly a Labour cabinet minister and Cumbria MP as John Hutton) in his capacity as chairman of the NIA and excellent contributions from three speakers including energy minister Charles Hendry.

Support for nuclear new build within the Conservative party appears to have moved from strong to everwhelming with no voices of dissent raised at any of the fringe meetings I have attended: the only anti nuclear voice I have heard in Manchester has been one lone nutcase shouting at people outside the entrance to the conference secure area.

The afternoon featured a session on Children and Cities addressed by Greg Clarke and David "Two Brains" Willetts - who took a question from the President of NUS, something requiring some bravery on both sides.

I just imagine how many people in both the National Union of Students and the Conservative hierarchy would have had apolplexy if someone had allowed David Aaronovitch to put a question to Sir Keith Joseph at Conservative party conference while they were respectively President of NUS and the minister whose portfolio included Universities. (Calls on one side of "Sellout!" and on the other of "What's he doing here?") Though to be fair, I suspect David and Sir Keith would not have been among those who would have had any trouble with the idea.

He also pointed out that in it's first year the government has over-fulfilled the promise to create 50,000 new apprenticeships by actualy creating more than 100,000.

This was followed by a panel discussion on schools led by Michael Gove, and one on the NHS with Andrew Lansley. Both brought in a series of professionals and people involved with education and health respectively.

I thought as Michael Gove introduced his panel "Please God none of these people loses their job this year for daring to come and speak to us." Which did happen, totally unjustifiably, to a deputy head who made a brilliant speech to last year's conference. This time the education speakers were two heads, and a young student whose head teacher was one of the other speakers, so they'll probably all be OK.

The health session was particularly interesting. Andrew gave a very impressive list of acheivements, showing how the government's policy of protecting NHS spending in real terms while switching spending from Bureaucracy to front line services is paying dividends.

Since the coalition government took over the NHS employs 5,000 fewer managers and 1,500 more doctors.

Three quarters of a million more people have access to an NHS dentist

NHS waiting times have dropped slightly on average, and hospital acquired infection rates in the NHS in England are 27% down.

Real progress at a very difficult time

Quote of the day - Monday

2011-10-03T23:48:00.000Z

"You cannot borrow your way out of Debt."

George Osborne

Manchester Diary - day two

2011-10-03T09:21:00.006Z

Another early start, though not quite as early as yesterday morning: up in time to make the half-hour trek from my hotel to the conference for a very interesting Nuclear Industry Association fringe meeting at 8 am.

The discussion centred around the nuclear industry in the community: obviously an issue very dear to the heart of people in Cumbria, particularly West Cumbria, where as one speaker rightly pointed out, the local economy would be unrecognisable without the investment brought by the nuclear industry into the area.

Sellafield has now managed to raise the proportion of their supply chain spending going into the local community to 30% which is extremely good for this kind of industry, though they would like to do even better. The point was mentioned that to achieve an even better proportion will need effective co-operation with local authorities and all parties concerned need to think carefully about what they can do to help bring this about.

There was also a reminder of one other point which I had intended to mention from yesterday: Energy minister Charles Hendry pointed out in his speech at conference that Nuclear Power is the lowest-cost form of low-carbon energy. So if we wnat to meet our carbon targest and keep costs down nuclear has to be part of the mix.

It was also pointed out that Germany are going to get themselves in a real fix if they try to persist in doing without nuclear energy while trying to meet their carbon targets: this policy has already driven up the cost of energy in Europe, and forced them to import electricity from France.

Which effectively means that Germany is still using nuclear energy, but with the plants based in France rather than Germany - and with a lower energy efficiency and more impact on the enviroment due to transmission losses.

Tuesday morning's conference sessions are on welfare reform and jobs followed by the Economy. The people organising the conference are aiming, on the basis of a lead which comes from David Cameron downwards, to talk to the country rather than ourselves and address the issues which matter to the public like jobs, the economy, health services, and schools.

Manchester Diary

2011-10-02T18:16:00.004Z

Up before the crack of dawn to reach Manchester for the 9.30am “National Conservative Convention” which precedes the Conservative party conference. This body consists mostly of constituency chairmen, with a few others such as area and regional chairmen added, and is a key part of the party structure.

The convention heard a brilliant speech from David Cameron; if his speeches later to the public sessions of the conference are anything like as good as this speech delivered in private, it will set the tone for a good conference.

The main conference session started in the afternoon. The attendance is good and the mood is buoyant but the weather has been diabolical. So much so that I had to put a good cumbrian cagoule on for protection from the rain. Seeing me donning this garment one policeman said to me:

"I see you’ve been to Manchester before, sir!"

If Miliband took a truth drug

2011-09-30T11:47:00.006Z

A superb article in the Indy this week by Matthew Norman, which you can read in it's entirety here, about the speech which Ed Miliband might have made to Labour party conference had he taken a truth serum.

Highlights from the article:

"Three minutes and 45 seconds into Ed Miliband's speech yesterday, my mind wandered off to a fantasy world in which some mischievous sprite had spiked his larynx-lubricating Evian with a truth serum."

"Conference," intoned Little Ed in the escapist grotto of my mind, "you'll have read that this is the most important speech of my life ...

"It couldn't matter less. Outside this hall and a few newsrooms, think-tanks and blogger's bedrooms, not a soul is listening to a word I say.

"Yet irrelevance is what defines any Leader of the Opposition so early in the life of a government the public has clearly decided to give a fair chance. That same public has also decided that it can no more picture me grinning triumphantly outside No 10 than Robert Mugabe, Tulisa or that late, great champion greyhound Mick The Miller. ...

"I wish it were otherwise, but I still look and sound like I'm auditioning for the forthcoming ITV1 series Adrian Mole's Mid-life Crisis, and that's something the electorate can't seem to get beyond. Less than a quarter see me as a potential PM, and plenty couldn't pick me out in an identity parade if the other seven were Peruvian mountain llamas. For Christ's sake, Harriet Harman referred to me on Sunday as 'David'.

"Now, I could ignore all that reality, and lay a big line on you about the 'quiet crisis' in British families, but the 29 TV viewers would only snort to themselves about the not-so-quiet crisis in mine. I could reduce the complexities of business to Predators vs Producers, as if it were a tag team match in wrestling, and bang on about persecuting the jobless over social housing to introduce a reward ethos into welfare. Well, fair has nothing to do with anything. What's fair about my lot?

"I'm shackled to a shadow Chancellor who patronises me while overtly seeking my job either for himself or his ice-pixie missus, and the only saving grace about Ed Balls is that the punters really hate him where they are merely indifferent to me. The rest of my front bench, as Lord Prescott has graciously pointed out, is a bone-idle shadow government of none of the talents.

"Expediency forces me to pick a fight with the union leaders who put me here ...

" and God help me if the public sector strikes go ahead. Even as things stand, I no longer have even an obviously soft poll lead over the Tories. ...

"I am here to prevent a civil war, and ensure that Labour survives for the next leader, or two, or even three, to take us back to power a decade or more from today. Thank you for listening, and please don't embarrass me or yourselves by getting up."

"The imaginary post truth-drug address transcribed above is the real world. The speech he actually gave was built upon the fantasy, colluded in by delegates and media in a mass collective act of madness, that anything Ed Miliband says could make an iota of difference to anything."

This is often the fate of opposition leaders (of whatever party.) The title of Norman's article is "It really doesn't matter what Ed said" and this reminds me of the trio "It really doesn't matter" from the Gilbert and Sullivan opera "Ruddigore" and particularly this spoof version which Spitting Image put into the mouth of Neil Kinnock many years ago when he was an even more irrelevant leader of the opposition ...

Labour views of the Labour conference

2011-09-30T08:09:00.004Z

On Political Betting this week Labour supporter Henry G Manson had some interesting comments on his party's conference. Some of them were as follows:

"This was a bad Labour Party conference. It was confusing, contradictory, let the government off the hook and needlessly created an array of hostages to fortune. It all the feel of an emergency party conference arranged with a fortnight’s notice – not a platform planned carefully to showcase an alternative government and Prime Minister.

"This week wasn’t just a car crash. It was a 30 car pile-up. I could write 10,000 on words on what went wrong. For now here’s my summary from a Labour perspective. We now have:

• A leader who certainly does not look like a Prime Minister. If a first impression wasn’t already formed by the voters then it has this week. If the speech was composed and delivered with the intention of demonstrating his weaknesses over his strengths then it succeeded. He’s a nice guy but he’s out of his depth and not up to the demands of Prime Minister. The public know it and now we do too.

• A party that is now passing verdict on everything and everyone. Journalists should under license, businesses are either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and TV programmes such as Big Brother are irresponsible. Labour had previously been shedding its olds authoritarian impulses. They’re back in spectacular fashion with a childlike twist. The most depressed person right now must the be the party’s head of fundraising anticipating having to run a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ business test on any future corporate donors – should any come forward. This judgementalism will only make more opponents than allies.

• A pledge to ‘spend every pound wisely’ if elected. Possibly the most naïve hostage to fortune since I can’t remember when. Nobody goes into government with the intention of wasting money however but this is a preposterous guarantee. But within any organisation of any scale there is always some waste or some risks that don’t come off. Should Ed Miliband’s Labour somehow stumble into power then we’ve have given a field-day for the press and Taxpayer’s Alliance to identify waste on any scale and hold up Ed’s remarks against it.

• Policy chaos. Our position on university fees that they should be double what Labour pledged at the election a year ago – yet this stance is not even a policy commitment for the next general election. So we are in an imaginary world in which we outline what we would do if in power today which only makes sense in response to what the Tories have also done having also won too. This is not even plausible science fiction.

• Strategic knots. We repeatedly oppose ‘ideological cuts’ and highlight how they undermine society and slow down the economy. Yet Labour won’t yet pledge to reverse any of them. Every time Labour speaks out on a cut they will be asked, quite reasonably ‘would you reverse it?’ Our stance makes us appear impotent and insincere.

Well, however often I may disagree with Henry Manson on other things, after reading that article I will never accuse him of being blind to the faults of his own side or unwilling to be honest about them.

You can read his article on Political Betting in its' entirety here

But if you think Henry G Manson's view of Labour conference was pessimistic (from a Labour viewpoint) the comments from Dan Hodges at Labour Uncut here, in an article called "You need more than courage to win," made Henry look like a Panglossian Optimist. This is an extract from Dan's take on the Labour conference:

"We have to understand. We need to grasp what has just happened to the Labour party.

"Ed Miliband did not have a bad week. He had a grotesque, cataclysm of a week.

"When the Leader of the Opposition finds himself having to rebut charges he’s “weird” you know something is amiss. But if you spend the whole of your own conference rebutting you know the wheels are detaching. And by Thursday morning there were more wheels bouncing around Albert Dock than a formula one pit lane.

"Rebutting the idea the NEC was going to move to have Tony Blair indicted for war crimes. That the party intended to licence journalists and kick out onto the streets those it caught misbehaving. That Ed Miliband planned to march into the Big Brother house and evict the lot of them.

"And they were just the noises off. The fact Labour’s leader has no idea who his Scottish counterpart is was a mere footnote. The rapid unravelling of the tuition fees pledge a long forgotten irritant.

"Just to put things into context, here are the responses from three shadow cabinet members to Ed’s speech on Tuesday. “I don’t understand what he was doing”, said one. “I feel physically sick”, said another. “I’m in shock”, said a third.

"Those are members of a Labour shadow cabinet. Not minions of the Murdoch Empire, or Cameron cronies. Nor are they cartoon Blairites. They are serious politicians who want to see their party back in government. And they were, literally, in despair."

My word. Let's hope our conference next week is more successful.

A Euro fantasy reverses itself

2011-09-28T19:14:00.002Z

I was amused to hear the President of the European Commission tell the European Parliament today that it had been a fantasy to imagine that you could have a single currency and single market without a single economic policy.

Funnily enough, a few years ago when there was a serious debate in Britain about whether we should scrap the pound, it was those of us who wanted to keep the pound who made exactly that point. Those who were arguing that you could join the euro without having a common european policy would be found on the side who were arguing that Britain should join.

It’s because it would have meant too big a loss of economic independence that we wanted to stay out, and are glad that we did.

Planning reforms will NOT make gypsy camps easier

2011-09-21T20:57:00.002Z

Hat tip to Conservative Home for pointing out one of the flaws in The Daily Telegraph's campaign against the Government's planning reforms, specifically the claim that they would make it harder for local councils to stop traveller sites being established.

Not so says Bob Neill, Minister for Local Government:

"Top-down targets for traveller sites undermined local discretion and turned a blind eye to unauthorised development, harming community cohesion. The Coalition Government is scrapping the previous Government's planning rules on traveller sites and issuing explicit new planning guidance which increases protection of the Green Belt and open countryside. Stronger weight is being given to protection of local amenity and the local environment. And through the Localism Bill, councils are being given tougher enforcement powers to tackle the abuse of the system."

Localism means councils choosing whether or not to allow these sites. To say it means a "new legal route" to have them paints a rather one-sided picture. Councils may choose to allow more of them. But those who don't so choose will not be forced to.

Ideas and Paradox

2011-09-14T21:23:00.002Z

Thinking about some of the misplaced opposition to nuclear power recently provoked a line of thought about how often you find people holding combinations of views which you would not expect to find together.

Sometimes the combinations are counterintuitive but fall short of a direct contradiction. Sometimes people manage to believe things which are directly incompatible.

Here are a few examples

1) SUPPORT FOR ABORTION AND OPPOSITION TO THE DEATH PENALTY (or vice versa)

As the "New Scientist" once put it, "The people who think human life is sacred before birth are often the same people who think it isn't after the age of criminal responsibility."

It is by no means an exact match, but it is surprising how many people who think it is wrong for the state to execute convicted murderers also come out towards the "pro" end of the spectrum on state provision of abortion on demand, and equally surprising how many people who are towards the "anti" end of that spectrum support capital punishment.

One exception a few years ago was when "moderate" Democrats in the United States found that there were votes to be gained by the "Double Death" position (e.g. supporting abortion on demand but making a propaganda point about how many death warrants they'd signed.) And there are people whose position could equally be described as "Double Life." But I stand by the view that the correlation of views on this issue is not what you might expect.

2) PRO NUCLEAR WEAPONS, ANTI NUCLEAR ENERGY

After swallowing the camel of multi-megaton bombs and missiles designed to incinerate cities in a second, who would strain at the gnat of the peaceful use of nuclear energy? More people than you might think. In spite of the fact that you need a nuclear industry to generate the fissile material needed for H-Bombs.

This used to be the official position of the Liberal Democrats, although latterly they seem to be moving towards a welcome acceptance of the reality that Britain needs nuclear power.

3) PRO LOCAL CHOICE, ANTI "POSTCODE LOTTERY"

Ask people if they support greater local choice, diversity and autonomy and the vast majority will say yes. But as soon as any area actually starts exercising that kind of choice in the provision of services, you can bet your bottom dollar that people will start complaining that this is a "Postcode lottery."

I'm sure many people reading this can think of a few more!

Boundary Commission proposals for Cumbria

2011-09-13T23:02:00.004Z

The independent Boundary Commission has now published proposals for new parliamentary constituencies, and these will be open to public consultation for the next 12 weeks, until 5th December 2011.

The proposals for Cumbria, and consultation arrangements, are given below.
(Paragraph numbers are from the North West proposals document, from which this is an extract.)

Initial proposals for the Cumbria sub-region

88. There are currently six constituencies in this sub-region, none of which has an electorate within 5% of the electoral quota. The electorates of all the existing constituencies in this county are substantially lower than the electoral quota. It was not therefore possible to leave any existing constituency boundary unchanged.

89. As mentioned previously, we propose to allocate five constituencies to this subregion, a reduction of one from the current arrangement. When developing proposals, we noted that our options were limited due both to the large geographical but small electoral size of the wards within the county, and to the national, regional and geographic borders that form the boundaries of much of the county.

We did not therefore find it possible to avoid proposing constituencies in which coastal communities were combined with those some distance inland.

90. In order to increase the size of the electorate of the existing Barrow and Furness constituency, we propose that it is extended eastwards beyond Ulverston to include Grange-over-Sands. We consider that combining these communities, all of which are linked by their proximity to Morecambe Bay and are connected by the Cumbrian Coast Line railway, is preferable to proposing an extension inland beyond the Furness Fells.

We propose that the constituency is renamed Barrow-in-Furness, to reflect the name of the major town within the constituency.

91. Such a configuration in Barrow-in-Furness allows us to propose a constituency to the north that includes the entirety of the Borough of Copeland and extends along the coast from Millom to Harrington. In order to propose a constituency whose electorate falls within 5% of the electoral quota, it is also necessary to propose the inclusion of one Borough of Allerdale ward and the extension of the constituency inland over the Cumbrian Mountains and the Furness Fells to incorporate Windermere and the surrounding area.

92. We propose that the towns of Kendal and Penrith are combined with the towns of Appleby-in-Westmorland, Kirkby Lonsdale, Kirkby Stephen, and Sedbergh in a constituency that extends from the outskirts of Carlisle to the Lancashire border. The M6 provides a strong communication link between the communities within the constituency, which we propose is named Kendal and Penrith.

93. The electorate of the City of Carlisle is such that it is not possible to include all wards within one constituency. However, all but one of the City of Carlisle wards are contained in our proposed Carlisle constituency, which stretches north to the border with Scotland.

94. We considered that the most appropriate City of Carlisle ward to be included in a different constituency, for both geographic and electoral size reasons, was Dalston on the southern outskirts of the city. We therefore propose that Dalston is included with all but one of the Borough of Allerdale wards, which are linked by the A66, and four District of Eden wards to the west of Penrith, in our proposed Workington and Keswick constituency.

How to have your say

95. We are consulting on our initial proposals for a 12-week period, from 13 September 2011 to 5 December 2011. We encourage everyone to use this opportunity to contribute to the design of the new constituencies – the more public views we hear, the more informed our decisions will be when analysing all the views we receive.

96. In particular, we ask people to bear in mind the tight constraints placed on the Commission by the rules set by Parliament, as well as the decisions we have taken regarding adoption of a regional approach and use of local government wards discussed in chapter 2 and in the BCE’s A guide to the 2013 Review. Most importantly:

a. We cannot recommend constituencies that have electorates that are more or less than 5% from the electoral quota (apart from the two covering the Isle of Wight).

b. We are basing our initial proposals on local government ward boundaries (as
at May 2010) as the building blocks of constituencies. Our view is that, in the
absence of exceptional and compelling circumstances, it would not be appropriate
to divide wards in cases where it is possible to construct constituencies
that meet the 5% statutory requirement without doing so.

c. We have constructed constituencies within regions, so as not to cross regional
boundaries. Compelling reasons would need to be given to persuade us that we
should depart from this approach.

97. These issues mean that we encourage people who are making a representation on a specific area to bear in mind the knock-on effects of their proposals. The Commission must look at the recommendations for new constituencies across the whole region (and, indeed, across England). We therefore ask everyone wishing to respond to our consultation to bear in mind the impact of their counter-proposals on neighbouring constituencies, and on those further afield across the region.

How can you give us your views?

98. There are two ways you can give us your views on our initial proposals: in writing (including by email or through the online form on our website), or in person at one of a series of public hearings we are conducting during the consultation period. People are welcome to both attend a hearing and send us a written representation.

Written representations

99. We encourage everyone to make use of our consultation website, at www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk, when contributing to our consultation. The website contains all the Initial proposals, reports and maps, the electorate sizes of every ward, and an online facility where you can have your say on our initial proposals.

100. You can also contribute to our consultation by writing directly to us at: Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ. Or email us with your views, at: northwest@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk.

If you wish to comment on more than one region, please send your email to

reviews@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk.

If you wish to write to us directly, we encourage you to follow the structured approach outlined below and on the separate summary sheet, copies of which can be found at your local place of deposit, or downloaded from our website at
www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk.

101. We encourage everyone, before submitting a representation, to read our
approach to data protection and, in particular, the publication of all representations and personal data within them. This is available at
www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk,

or by phoning 020 7276 1102.

Public hearings

102. The Commission will be holding public hearings across all the English regions.

In the North West region we will be hosting five public hearings during the consultation period – the maximum number allowed by the legislation. Our website (www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk) has more details of these hearings, and an opportunity to register to attend and speak.

A table follows which shows the locations and dates of the hearings in the North West region.

The Cumbria session is:

Monday 17th to Tuesday 18th October 2011 (NB NOTE CHANGE OF DATE)
Carlisle Civic Centre,
Rickergate,
Carlisle,
Cumbria
CA3 8QG

The purpose of the hearings is for people to have an opportunity to make representations orally to an Assistant Commissioner, who will chair the hearings and subsequently provide the Commission with a report on their findings. The hearings
differ from the way we used to conduct ‘public inquiries’ in past reviews – these were much more judicial in style, with people being allowed to cross-examine each other.

The new legislation that Parliament has introduced specifically rules out such inquiries, specifying instead that we host public hearings. These are intended purely as a way for people to make representations orally, direct to representatives of the Commission, as well as to provide an opportunity for the Commission
to explain its proposals.

104. It is important to stress that all representations, whether they have been submitted through the online facility on our website, made in person at a hearing or sent to us in writing or by email, will be given equal consideration by the Commission. Therefore it does not matter if you are unable to attend or speak at a public hearing – even after the last public hearing in the North West region has been completed on 25 October 2011, you will still have six weeks left to submit your views to us. By statute, time for the public hearings is strictly limited and you may wish to ensure that your full representations about our proposals are made to us in writing.

105. You can find more information about public hearings, and can register to attend, on our website at

www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk,
or by phoning 020 7276 1102.

What do we want views on?

106. While you are welcome to write to us on any issue regarding our initial proposals, it would aid our understanding and analysis if you, when contributing, followed the structured approach available on our consultation website at www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk.

This structured approach is also outlined below and available in our separate summary leaflet (copies of which are available in places of deposit and on our website). We encourage anyone wishing to contribute to the formation of our final recommendations to follow this approach. The structured approach will also allow us more easily to identify representations on specific areas, or from specific people, during the subsequent four week period of consultation (referred to in
chapter 2).

107. We would particularly like to ask two things of those considering responding to our consultation. First, if you support our proposals, please tell us so, as well as telling us where you object to them. Past experience suggests that too often people who are happy with our proposals do not respond in support, while those who object to them do respond to make their points. That can give a rather distorted view of the balance of public support or objection to proposals, and those who support our initial proposals may then be disappointed if they are subsequently revised in light of the consultation responses.

Second, if you are considering objecting to our proposals, do please use the resources (maps and electorate figures) available on our website and at the places of deposit to put forward counter-proposals that are in accordance with the rules to which we are working.

108. Specifically, while anyone is welcome to submit views in whatever format, we are looking for views structured around the following questions:

a. Do you agree in full, in part or not at all with our initial proposals for the North West region?

b. Which sub-regions do you agree with, and why?

c. Which sub-regions do you disagree with and why?

d. What are your alternatives for areas you disagree with that meet the statutory rules set out in chapter 2?

109. Above all, however, we encourage everyone to have their say on our initial proposals and, in doing so, to become involved in drawing the map of new Parliamentary constituencies. The more views we get on our initial proposals, the more informed our consideration in developing those proposals will be, and the better we will be able to reflect the public’s views in the final recommendations we present in 2013.

Ten Years On

2011-09-11T12:02:00.004Z

There are certain iconic events in each generation that everyone remembers - for my parent's generation it was when JFK was shot, for mine the most significant was the murderous attack on the twin towers ten years ago today.

It is important that we should never forget the events of that day. About three thousand innocent people were murdered for no better reason than that they happened to be working in a building which to the perpetrators was a symbol of things they disapproved of, or were rescue workers who tried to save the lives of people in that building, or were on the civilian airplanes which were hijacked to crash into those buildings.

The victims were male and female, young and old, citizens of many different countries (including about a hundred British people), undoubtedly included people of possible political viewpoint (from those who had voted for George W Bush to those who despised everything he stood for) and certainly did include every possible religious viewpoint (from devout Christians to people of no faith to devout Muslims.)

It is important to recognise two things about this attack. While wise policies might make it easier to get on with the Muslim world and foolish policies may make it harder, we must never forget that

* the perpetrators of this attack are the enemy of every free country and will remain so whatever policies we adopt, and cannot be appeased. Whatever we do they will find some excuse to hate us, and they will hate Britain as much as the US whether we ally with America or not.

* In opposing them we must not become like them. We must not hate all Muslims the way that the barbarians behind 9/11 hate all Christians, all Jews, and all atheists. Because not all Muslims are like these viscious murderers. And we must always strike a balance between security and freedom.

Time to batten down

2011-09-11T11:59:00.002Z

West Cumbria may get 80 mph winds today. Have been out in the garden removing or fastening down anything which was at risk of literally blowing away. If you'r reading this on 11th September 2011 and are in Whitehaven or West Cumbria, I strongly advise you to check that there is nothing in your garden which you wouldn't miss if this happenened. You probably don't need me to tell you that when it blows here, it really blows.

Nonsense on Stilts

2011-08-22T07:00:00.000Z

I would much rather see even the daftest of government policies, whether in Scotland, the UK, or anywhere else, overturned in the ballot box rather than the courts.

Nevertheless, there can hardly be any doubt that the lawyer who proposes to challenge the outrageous policy of the Scottish government on student tuition fees has a point.

If the Scottish government had ruled that students normally resident in Scotland should be entitled to free University Education, but that ALL students not normally resident in Scotland should have to pay a fee, that is a decision which they should be entitled to make. I realise that such a policy may be challenged by other EU countries, but I cannot see that it would be unfair or unreasonable.

However, to allow students from all parts of the EU other than England, Wales, and Northern Ireland to attend Scottish Universities for free, while singling out residents of those three countries for a charge is blatantly discriminatory. To charge a fee to students attending the same University from Northern Ireland but not the Irish republic, or to charge a fee to a student at the same college from Cumbria but not Calabria, is, to borrow an old expression, nonsense on stilts.

I hope this policy will be reconsidered.

Remembering the victims

2011-08-21T21:57:00.002Z

Last year something flipped inside Derek Bird and he gunned down twenty three residents of Copeland, twelve of whom died. (If I hadn't been working down south that day, I would have heard the shots of the Whitehaven shootings from my office.)

Last month Norway suffered in turn from a crazed mass-murderer, and they have been remembering the victims today.

I am sure I will not be the only resident of Whitehaven and indeed of West Cumbria who will be thinking of both our own victims and of the people of Norway today, and remembering all the victims and their families in my prayers.

Well done England

2011-08-18T12:44:00.000Z

I never thought to see an England cricket team win six consecutive test series, including a crushing defeat of an excellent Indian test side, and go to number one in the world rankings.

Very well played.

Paul Wilkinson RIP

2011-08-16T12:42:00.002Z

I served many years ago on the Conservative party's former National Advisory Committee on Education (NACE) with Professor Paul Wilkinson, the country's leading academic expert on terrorism, who has just died.

He was a remarkable man. I did not know him well, but I did know him well enough to have great respect for him.

Rest in Peace.

Responsibility for riots rests with - the rioters

2011-08-09T21:23:00.003Z

The death of Mark Duggan must be fully and impartially investigated. And it will be.

Those who have concerns about this have every right to organise peaceful and law-abiding demonstrations. They do not have the right to riot, burn, or loot.

I have been rather irritated by those on both sides of the political divide who have sought to blame their political opponents for the riots which have been taking place.

The riots are not the responsibility of David Cameron. They are not the responsibility of Gordon Brown. Or Tony Blair, John Major, Maggie Thatcher, Jim Callaghan, Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George, or Robert Walpole.

They are the responsibility of the rioters.

Madsen Pirie in his book "How to win every argument" defined a logical fallacy which he called "Thatcher's Blame" and which he described as follows:

* if you want to blame your political opponents for civil disturbance during a period of wealth, you claim that their policies have led to a celebration of material wealth which has lead to a breakdown of morality and hence to riots:

* alternatively, if you want to blame your political opponents for civil disturbance during a period of poverty, you claim that the rioters are motivated by despair and desperation, and that your opponent's policies have led to the deprivation which has lead to a breakdown of morality and hence to riots.

He was inspired to put this forward after riots during both the recession of the early eighties and the boom of the late eighties were ascribed these diametrically opposite causes and yet both were blamed, often by the same opposition politicians, on the Thatcher government using these rather inconsistent arguments.

Luke Bozier at Labourlist wises up:

2011-08-04T22:51:00.003Z

Hat tip to Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home for pointing out that Luke Bozier has been writing some surprisingly sensible things on the Labourlist blog.

"Labour says the reason it created this fiscal mess was to save the country from a collapse of the banking system. But let's get real – the reason there's a deficit is because tax income didn't cover the high public spending before the credit crunch/banking crash. Had the Labour government had a spending review mid 2000s, and reduced public spending, the deficit today would have been smaller. We must begin to admit that we were fiscally irresponsible for years, in order to gain the trust of the public again, at least on the economy."

He continues:

"It's a shame Ed didn't include a single book on boosting growth or economic responsibility in his summer holiday reading list. It's clear we can't leave this job to the shadow chancellor – he's made hardly any effort (nor has Ed Miliband for that matter) to take responsibility for the economic mess we're in, or to develop the policies required to re-gain fiscal credibility. We need a more vocal group of 'fiscal realists' within the Labour Party... In a way, we need our own kind of Tea Party."

My word. You can read the whole article here.

Japanese earthquake causes economic blow for Copeland

2011-08-04T21:06:00.002Z

A natural disaster on the other side of the world had dire economic consequences for West Cumbria this week, as the NDA announced that because of the halt to Japanese demand for reprocessing while their nuclear power plants are offline, the existing Sellafield Mox Plant (SMP) will be closed.

Tony Fountain, CEO of the Nuclear Decomissioning Authority, said that

“The reason for this [closure] is directly related to the tragic events in Japan following the tsunami and its ongoing impact on the power markets.

“As a consequence we no longer have a customer for this facility, or funding.”

An NDA statement said: “The NDA board has assessed the changed commercial risk profile for SMP arising from potential delays following the earthquake in Japan and subsequent events. It has concluded that, in order to ensure that the UK taxpayer does not carry a future financial burden from SMP, the only reasonable course of action is to close SMP at the earliest practical opportunity. The decision is no reflection on the SMP workforce, which has continued to improve operating performance.”

SMP deals only with plutonium that has been reprocessed at Thorp. It produces Mox fuel from this plutonium. One tonne of plutonium, when recycled as Mox fuel, can create more energy than two million tonnes of coal.

At the time of the earthquake, Japan was SMP's only customer. Despite that, its medium-term future appeared bright after the NDA and 10 Japanese utilities agreed in 2010 on a three-year plan to refurbish SMP. But the Japanese earthquake in March and the problems at Fukushima upset all the calculations.

This does not necessarily mean that there is no chance of the proposed new MOX plant going ahead: Unlike the existing plant, which supplies overseas customers, now exclusively Japan, the new facility would provide fuel for a new generation of British nuclear power stations such as the one planned for Sellafield.

As Cumbria county council leader Eddie Martin put it, “The Government must surely step in to ensure that nuclear skills and jobs are retained in west Cumbria for the longer-term future of the industry and for the regeneration of Cumbria as a whole. The most effective way of doing this is for the Government to immediately confirm it will commission and build a new Sellafield Mox plant as soon as possible – not least because other countries, such as Russia, are building Mox plants and the commercial opportunities may well bypass us if we are not quick off the mark.”

Calder Avenue to be closed for maintenance

2011-07-24T21:42:00.002Z

Calder Avenue in Whitehaven will be closed for maintenance works for approximately two weeks from Wednesday (27th July.)

This is obviously going to cause a fair amount of disruption, because the one-way system funnels all traffic towards the town centre from Calder Valley, Valley Park and half of Mirehouse through this road. But anyone who has the misfortune to be forced to use this road knows that this work needs doing.

For the duration of this work the one-way restrictions on the Northern half of Foxhouses Road will be suspended.

EU Referendum lock passed by Lords

2011-07-16T21:53:00.001Z

The EU referendum bill has now been through both the Commons and the Lords.

The passing of the 'Referendum Lock' fulfils a Conservative Party manifesto commitment to give the British people a say on further power transfers to the EU.

Foreign Secretary, William Hague has welcomed the Parliamentary passage of the EU 'Referendum' Bill saying: "For the first time it gives real control to Parliament and every voter in the country over the most important decisions a government can make in the EU.

"This is good news for our democracy and will significantly strengthen it.

"For the first time it gives real control to Parliament and every voter in the country over the most important decisions a government can make in the EU.

"Trust in the EU has been severely damaged.

"It is only by giving voters proper control over any future proposal to change the Treaties - the EU's rule book - to shift powers from Britain to the EU that we can begin to reconnect people to the EU.

"The British people now have a referendum lock to which only they will hold the key. This Bill should now become an enduring part of our constitutional framework."

NOTW RIP - Cameron's speech

2011-07-08T12:28:00.002Z

Following the shocking allegations about the "News of the World" and the closure lf the paper, here is David Cameron's speech at the press conference he gave to explain about the action the government is taking.

"Good morning and thank you for coming.

Over the past few days, the whole country has been shocked by the revelations about the phone hacking scandal.
Murder victims, terrorist victims, families who have lost loved ones in war, sometimes defending our country…
…that these people could have had their phones hacked into order to generate stories for a newspaper is simply disgusting.

I cannot think what was going through the minds of the people who did this.
That they could hack into anyone’s phone is disgraceful.
But to hack into the phone of Milly Dowler, a young girl missing from her parents, who
was later found to be murdered, is truly despicable.
But this scandal is not just about some journalists on one newspaper.
It’s not even just about the press.
It’s also about the police.
And yes – it’s also about how politics works and politicians too.
And I want to be very frank about how, as a country, we should deal with it.
People want to know that three things are going to happen.
One: action will be taken to get to the bottom of these specific revelations and allegations about phone hacking, about police investigations and all the rest of it.

Two: action will be taken to learn wider lessons for the future of the press in this
country.
And three: that there will be clarity – real clarity – about how all this has come to pass, and the responsibilities we all have for the future.

That’s what the country expects at this time of crisis and concern...
...and I want to make sure that everything that needs to be done, will be done.

FIRST INQUIRY
First, we need action to get to the bottom of the specific revelations and allegations we have seen.
It’s clear that there have been some illegal and utterly unacceptable practices taking place at the News of the World – and possibly elsewhere.

There is now a large-scale and well-resourced police investigation.
Of course, in 2006 we did have a police investigation– but we can now see that it was plainly inadequate.
This in itself requires investigation.
A separate allegation is that police officers took payments.
That specific allegation is now being investigated by senior officers at the Met – and with my full support they have brought in the IPCC to oversee this.

So for those worried about the police investigating the police, this has full and independent oversight.
But let's be clear.
Police investigations only get you so far.
What people really want to know is – what happened? And how was it allowed to happen?
That is why the Deputy Prime Minister and I have agreed that it’s right and proper to establish a full, public inquiry to get to the bottom of what happened.

A judge needs to be in charge so there’s no question that it is totally independent and things are done properly.
These are the questions that need answering:
Why did the first police investigation fail so abysmally?
What exactly was going on at the News of the World?
And what was going on at other newspapers?
Of course, the bulk of the work of this inquiry can only happen after the police investigation has finished.
That is what the law requires.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything now.
So we will consult now with Select Committees and others on the terms of reference, remit and powers…
…and what can be started will be started.
I want everyone to be clear.
Everything that happened is going to be investigated.
The witnesses will be questioned by a judge under oath.
And no stone will be left un-turned.

SECOND INQUIRY
But we need action as well to learn the wider lessons for the future of the press.
And this is something we can get on with straightaway, even while the police investigation is still ongoing.
That is why I want to establish a second inquiry to begin at the earliest available opportunity, ideally now – this summer.

This inquiry should be conducted by a credible panel of figures drawn from a range of different backgrounds…
…who command the full support, respect and above all confidence of the public.
They should be truly independent, without any motive but to seek the truth and clean up the press.
This second inquiry should look at the culture, the practices and the ethics of the British press.
In particular, they should look at how our newspapers are regulated and make recommendations for the future.
Of course it is vital that our press is free.
That is an essential component of our democracy and our way of life.
But press freedom does not mean that the press should be above the law.
Yes, there is much excellent journalism in Britain today.
But I think it's now clear to everyone that the way the press is regulated today is not working.
Let’s be honest: the Press Complaints Commission has failed.
In this case – in the hacking case – it was, frankly, completely absent.
Therefore we have to conclude that it is ineffective and lacking in rigour.
There is a strong case for saying it is institutionally conflicted, because competing newspapers judge each other.
As a result, it lacks public confidence.
So I believe we need a new system entirely.
It will be for the inquiry to recommend what that system should look like.
But my starting presumption is that it should be truly independent...
...independent of the press, so the public will know that newspapers will never again be solely responsible for policing themselves.

But vitally, independent of government, so the public will know that politicians are not trying to control or muzzle a press that must be free to hold politicians to account.

This new system of regulation must strike the balance between an individual’s right to privacy and what is in the public interest.

And above all, it should uphold the proper, decent standards that we expect.
I have already spoken to the Deputy Prime Minister about all this…
…and in the days ahead we will meet with the Leader of the Opposition to discuss exactly what both these inquiries should cover, and exactly how they should be run.

If we’re going to discuss the way the press is regulated in future, it would be much better if we could do this on a cross-party basis.

People are also asking about the prospective BSkyB bid.
As I have repeatedly said, governments must follow the proper legal processes and procedures.
That is exactly what Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, is doing.
His role is to take the advice of independent regulators…
…and, as his Department have made clear this morning – given the events of recent days – this will take some time.

POLITICS AND THE PRESS
But there is, as I said at the outset, a third question that this scandal asks of us, and it is not an easy one for me to answer.

But it is my responsibility to try.
How did we get here?
Because as we’re considering the devastating revelations of the past few days, it is no good just pointing the finger at this individual journalist, or that individual newspaper.

It’s no good, actually, just criticising the police.
The truth is, we have all been in this together – the press, politicians and leaders of all parties – and yes, that includes me.

We have not gripped this issue.
During the last government, a police investigation was undertaken, it was inadequate and not enough was done.
There were reports from the Information Commissioner and they went unheeded.
There were Select Committee reports on phone hacking and there was no follow-up.
Throughout all this, all the warnings, all the concern, the government at the time did nothing.
And frankly, neither did the Opposition.
To be fair, it is difficult for politicians to call for more regulation of the media, because if we do so, we’re accused of wanting to stifle a free press or even free speech.

But the deeper truth is this: there is a less noble reason.
Because party leaders were so keen to win the support of newspapers…
…we turned a blind eye to the need to sort this issue, get on top of the bad practices, to change the way our newspapers are regulated.

It’s a bit like MPs’ expenses.
The people in power knew things weren’t right.
But they didn’t do enough quickly enough – until the full mess of the situation was revealed.
Now, when the scandal hits and the truth is plain for everyone to see...
...there are two choices.
You can down-play it and deny the problem is deep – or you can accept the seriousness of the situation and deal with it.

I want to deal with it.
These inquiries give us a chance for a fresh start and I want us to take it.
Look, it’s healthy that politicians and journalists speak to each other; know each other.
Democracy is government by explanation and we need the media to explain what we’re trying to do.
But this is a wake-up call.
Over the decades, on the watch of both Labour leaders and Conservative leaders, politicians and the press have spent time courting support, not confronting the problems.

Well: it’s on my watch that the music has stopped.
And I’m saying, loud and clear – things have got to change.
The relationship needs to be different in the future.
I’m not going to pretend that there’s some nirvana of two separate worlds, relating to each other on the basis of total transparency and ethical perfection.

That's not real life.
But we can do a hell of a lot better than we’ve done so far.
Because as this scandal shows, while it’s vital that a free press can tell truth to power…
…it is equally important that those in power can tell truth to the press.

THOSE INVOLVED
Now let me just say this about a couple of the individuals concerned.
First, Andy Coulson, who worked for four years as my Communications Director.
He resigned from the News of the World because of the things that happened on his watch.
I decided to give him a second chance – and no one has ever raised serious concerns about how he did his job for me.
But the second chance didn’t work out and he had to resign all over again.
The decision to hire him was mine – and mine alone – and I take full responsibility for it.
On the case of Rebekah Brooks…
…as I have said, it’s not right for a Prime Minister to start picking and choosing who should and shouldn’t run media organisations.

But it has been reported that she offered her resignation over this…
…and in this situation, I would have taken it.

CONCLUSION
Before I take your questions, let me say this.
For people watching this scandal unfold, there is something disturbing about what they see.
Just think of who they put their trust in.
The police to protect them.
The politicians to represent them.
The press to inform them.
All of them have been let them down.
So when the inquiries are over, the questions have been asked, and the truth found out…
…I want a police that has proved itself beyond reproach…
…a political system that people feel is on their side…
…and a press that is yes, free and rigorous; that investigates and entertains;
...that holds those in power to account and occasionally – yes, even regularly – drives them mad.
But, in the end, is a free press that is also clean and trustworthy.
That is what people want.
That is what I want.
And I will not rest until we get it."

Feedback from the strike

2011-07-04T07:18:00.002Z

On the evening of last Thursday, which was the day certain public sector unions were on strike, I was at a function with a number of friends, and it happens that most of the people I was sitting with were either retired teachers or still are teaching.

All were affected by the dispute over pensions. Incidentally, teachers at independent schools are on the same pension as those in state schools.) Quite a few of the teachers I was talking to were members of one of the unions which was striking on Thursday.

I'm told that the head teacher of the school where many of my friends work sent an email round asked any staff member who felt they needed to strike to come and see him. The ATL representative sent an email offered to go with any such person to see the head - and by one account, also offered to provide an exercise book to go down the back of their trousers.

None of those I spoke to had been on strike but they had very mixed views about the merits of the action. Some pointed out that the problem for pension funds applies to everyone on the public and private sectors alike and that the country simply cannot afford to pretend we can get away without adjusting the terms of pension funds given that people are living significantly longer and without some adjustment the funds will go bust.

Others had not been on strike despite agreeing with the cause which the strikers thought they were supporting, because they considered that the strike itself was irresponsible and would harm the cause.

I had a letter this week from a number of teachers at St Bees school, none of whom took part in this week's strike, but who were very unhappy with the proposed changes to their pensions.

I have the greatest sympathy for everyone in the public or private sectors who is facing a change for the worse in their pension terms, which means just about everyone. I hope that the government will show as much flexibility as can be afforded on this issue. The trouble is, apart from people living longer, that the last government caused huge damage to pension funds through Gordon Brown's idiotic and irresponsible £6 billion a year ACT raid on those funds. They also made unsustainable and unaffordable promises to many people. No government has magic money, and whoever had won the last election would have had to make excruciatingly difficult decisions about pensions.

Festival adds £2.5 million to local economy

2011-07-04T07:14:00.003Z

This year's excellent Whitehaven Festival is estimated to have pumped two and a half million pounds into the local economy. Which in the present economic climate is just what the doctor ordered.

This should be something Copeland council are thinking about. Hard. Not many years ago, lack of support from the council was a major reason why the festival nearly died. That must not be allowed to happen again.

Cameron spells out Pensions arguments

2011-06-28T21:59:00.002Z

Hat tip to Conservative Home for this summary of the three arguments David Cameron put to the Local Government Association on public sector pensions.

Argument one: We can't afford to go on like this

"In the 1970s, when a civil servant say retired at sixty, they could expect to claim a pension for around twenty years. Today, when they retire at sixty, they can expect to claim a pension for nearly thirty years – about a fifty percent increase on before. Now, obviously, more people living for longer is a great development for society. But more people claiming their pension for longer has a real life impact on our ability to pay for pensions. Indeed, we are already seeing the impact. In 2009, total payments to public service pensioners and their dependents were almost £32 billion – an increase of a third, even after allowing for inflation, compared to 1999."

Argument two: The balance between pensions in the public sector and those of the taxpayers who pay for them is not right

"Under the current system, the balance between what public sector employees pay in to their pensions and what the taxpayer contributes is getting massively out of kilter. Take, for example, the Civil Service Pensions Scheme. Today, employees contribute around 1.5 and 3.5 percent towards their own pension. The taxpayer, however, contributes nineteen percent. Indeed, in total, the taxpayer currently contributes over two-thirds of the costs of maintaining public sector pensions. That’s the equivalent of £1,000 a household. That figure is only expected to rise. Is that a fair? I don’t believe it is, especially when people in the private sector are seeing the value of their own pensions falling, their own pension
age rise… and when, according to the Office for National Statistics, the average gross pay in the public sector is now higher than in the private sector."

Argument three: Public sector pensions will still be generous

"I can look you in the eye and say public service pensions will remain among the very best… much better, indeed, than for many private sector workers. And it’s because we are determined to do what’s fair by people who work in the public sector that we are suggesting other changes. The public service pensions system today is inherently biased against some of the lowest paid workers. That’s because, under a final salary scheme, it’s the people who reach very high salaries at the end of their careers who benefit the most. Yes, these are talented people. And yes, they are hugely important to the running of our public services. But the way the system works, it’s not the community nurse who retires on a final salary of £28,000 who gets the benefit… but the hospital consultant who leaves on a final salary of £110,000. Indeed, in some instances, for every £100 they put in their pension, higher earners can get twice as much out. Is this fair? No. It’s not. So again, in accordance with the recommendations of Lord Hutton, we are proposing to replace the final salary scheme with a Career Average scheme. This would mean that the lowest-paid do not subsidise those individuals who jump to higher salaries in the last few years of their career."

Sellafield named as site for nuclear power

2011-06-23T13:24:00.002Z

There was good news for West Cumbria today: the Government has pushed ahead with plans for new nuclear power plants in the UK as it confirmed a list of eight sites where the next generation of reactors can be built, which include Sellafield.

In the first major announcement on the future of nuclear in the UK since the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the Government outlined the locations deemed suitable for new power stations by 2025, all of which are adjacent to existing nuclear sites.

The eight sites are: Bradwell, Essex; Hartlepool; Heysham, Lancashire; Hinkley Point, Somerset; Oldbury, South Gloucestershire; Sellafield, Cumbria; Sizewell, Suffolk; and Wylfa, Anglesey.

The overwhelming majority of residents in Copeland will consider this excellent news, as the comprehensive defeat of Green candidates here in last year's general election and this year's council elections demonstrates.

Labour gets it wrong on Human Rights.

2011-06-23T06:58:00.005Z

There is an almost inevitable tendancy for governments, even when they start out the other way with a localist or pro freedom and human rights agenda, to become less committed to it, and increasingly centralist as they go on.

For the first few years a government is in power, it is not unknown for them to remember what it was like in opposition, or to remember some of their election promises about devolving power, or both. But as time goes on, frustrations when ministers have trouble getting a policy implemented, and are afraid of being blamed when things go wrong, be it a terrorist attack, general crime, or the economy, tends to make them very authoritarian.

Hence if a government doesn't make any moves towards decentralism, localism or greater freedoms in it's first eighteen months in office, it never will.

Even the last Labour government, which by the end of its' thirteen years in office had become one of the most authoritarian and centralising governments in the last hundred years, began by devolving signifiant powers to Scotland and a small amount of power to Wales and Northern Ireland, and with a genuine attempt to implement a human rights agenda even if the main mechanism they used - incorporating the ECHR into British law - was to spectacularly backfire on both Britain and the Labour govenment themselves.

The Coalition government has started down that road to more freedom and localism. They have begun this process by scrapping ID cards, with the Localism bill which gives more responsibility and flexibility both to local councils and to residents of particular areas within council areas, and with the "Protection of Freedoms" bill against which Ed Miliband made an irresponsible and populist attack at Prime Ministers' Questions yesterday.

Heaven help this country should someone who is already ready to drop his promises on human rights in favour of authoritarian populism while still leader of the opposition ever be elected Prime Minister. And that is what Miliband did yesterday.

WHen Ed Miliband spoke to Labour conference at Manchester after becoming party leader, he was keen to show that he had learned lessons from Labour's defeat. Including a move away from the authoritarianism of the Brown administration and the later Blair years and a more liberal approach to freedom. But his attempt to score cheap points on rape yesterday threw that approach out of the window.

Let's get this absolutely clear, rape is a serious, horrible crime and I want to see those who are actually guilty of this and other serious crime convicted and given an appropriately serious punishment. So does the government, which is why the Prime Minister announced yesterday that it will not pursue proposals for a 50% discount in the prison tariff for an early guilty plea.

However, precisely because rape is a serious crime which should carry a serious punishment, and for which even an accusation leaves a horrible stigma, we should also be careful to minimise instances when innocent people are arrested for it. Not just to protect innocent men from having their lives wrecked, which a false charge of rape can do, but to more effectively protect innocent women from being raped by focussing police attention on the actual rapists.

Ed Miliband attacked the government's proposals to dramatically reduce the number of people who have not been convicted of any offence but whose DNA is retained on government records on the basis that this might improve the chances of serial rapists escaping conviction.

As I posted here on Monday 13th June under the title, "The DNA Database and catching rapists" there is hard evidence that the Scottish DNA database - operated on the basis which the "Protection of Freedoms Bill" wants to move towards - actually produces a BETTER chance of a DNA match than the current DNA database for the rest of the UK does.

It is worth recapitulating what the proposals in the bill actually say for serious crimes such as rape:

For those arrested for, but not charged with, a serious offence

The provisions of the Protection Of Freedoms Bill as introduced in Parliament provide that the police will only be permitted to retain DNA and fingerprints in very tightly controlled circumstances. The government will establish an independent commissioner to oversee DNA retention and they will make a decision whether retention is necessary, taking into account the age and vulnerability of victims of the alleged offence and their relation to the person arrested.

For those arrested for and charged with a serious offence, but not convicted

The provisions of the Protection Of Freedoms Bill as introduced in Parliament provide that in these cases the government proposes to retain the DNA and fingerprints for three years, with the option of a single two-year extension by a court.

For those convicted of an offence

The provisions of the Protection Of Freedoms Bill as introduced in Parliament provide that all adults convicted of any recordable offence will have their DNA and fingerprints retained indefinitely.

In other words, if there is REAL EVIDENCE that they may be dealing with a serial rapist, the bill does give the police options to keep an accused person's DNA evidence on file for a number of years. That's why the comments made by Ed Miliband and Yvette Cooper in an attempt to make the government look soft on rape are both wrong and irresponsible.

Where there is no such evidence, and particularly where there is reason to believe that an individual was accused on the basis of mistaken identity or a malicious accusation, their DNA records should be destroyed and the bill makes this more likely.

I'm not going to claim it's a perfect bill from the human rights viewpoint or in terms of catching criminals viewpoint, but I do think that a balanced policy such as is provided in this bill is more likely to deliver justice, both in reducing the number of false accusations and in freeing up police time to catch the guilty, than a one-sided policy in either direction would be.

Whitehaven Festival - day three

2011-06-19T17:50:00.001Z

Took the children into town again for the final day of a wonderful festival.

Watched the air display from the north end of Kells, near the Candlestick, then wandered through the town to sample some of the stalls and let the children have a couple of rides.

Great to see Whitehaven full of people enjoying themselves.