Economic support |
Over the past eight months of this crisis the government has have helped millions of people to continue to provide for their families. |
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Christopher Whiteside MBE is County Councillor for the Egremont North and St Bees Division of Cumbria County Council. The division includes St Bees, Bigrigg, Wood End, Moor Row, part of the Mirehouse area of Whitehaven, and surrounding countryside. He will hold this office until the county council is abolished on 1st April 2023. He is also Chairman of the North-West region of the voluntary wing of the Conservative party. Chris lives and works in Copeland with his wife and family.
Economic support |
Over the past eight months of this crisis the government has have helped millions of people to continue to provide for their families. |
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I have received the following briefing about the measures announced by PM Boris Johnson this evening.
"NEW NATIONAL RESTRICTIONS: STAY AT HOME; PROTECT THE NHS; AND SAVE LIVES. |
The second coronavirus peak that we have seen around the world has shown us all that we are going to be dealing with the coronavirus for the long-term. That is why over the past weeks and months we have been working on a long-term, balanced approach that protects the NHS, keeps children in school, lets the economy function as much as possible, and does not require constant changes. We had hoped we could manage the situation with our regional system of alert levels, and allow as many people to live as normal a life as possible. That’s because a national lockdown is not cost-free - not only in terms of jobs, businesses, and livelihoods, but also the impact on mental health and loneliness. This is why we have been so determined to try and avoid another national lockdown. But over the last few days the situation has significantly deteriorated. |
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We need to take action now to protect the NHS and to reduce transmission. We must do this to curtail the exponential growth in hospitalisations and deaths. |
Next steps |
Next week we will therefore take action across the whole of England, because there is no alternative. These restrictions will apply nationally for four weeks up to Wednesday 2 December, and will override the current Local Alert Level restrictions. |
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But there will be some differences compared to March: |
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This aggressive action allows us the prospect of a better December. The alternative would be even more stringent, and longer-lasting, interventions through December and thereafter." Nobody can regret that this has been necessary more than I do. No one with any sense wanted another national lockdown. I hoped the regional strategy would work and it has reduced the "R" rate and slowed the rise in infections and deaths - but not enough. The continued rise in infections and deaths over the last two weeks show clearly that without firm action we were headed towards another wave of massive numbers of premature deaths such as no civilised society could ignore or accept making no effort to try to stop. Matthew Parris suggested in the Times this morning a new slogan for the government - "Bear with us: it's a mess but we're doing our best." I suspect he may have meant it ironically but they could do worse. What happens next depends on each and every one of us. I join the Government in appealing to everyone: from the point these measures come into force on Thursday if you do not have an important reason to leave home such as those listed above - for example. to buy essential supplies, to work where it is not possible to work from home, for medical reasons - stay at home; protect the NHS; and save lives. |
On almost any other day the news that Sir Sean Connery has died at the age of 90 would have resulted in wall-to-wall press coverage.
A proud Scot who made his name playing an English spy, Sean Connery's repertoire was much wider than just James Bond.
Among his other credit were "The Man Who Would Be King," "The Name of the Rose," "The Untouchables," and he completely stole the show as the defecting Russian submarine captain in "The Hunt for Red October," the only film adaptation of any of Tom Clancy's thrillers which came anywhere near living up to the book.
He will be missed.
Rest in Peace.
Cumbria County Council will meet online at 10 am on Thursday 5th November.
The meeting will be live-streamed and the agenda plus link to watch the meeting can be found on the council website at
https://councilportal.cumbria.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=123&MId=10676&Ver=4
Most of the items on the agenda are reports.
There is one issue which might possibly have been contentious had it proposed any change - the annual review of allowances payable to councillors - but in fact the recommendation of the independent panel is that the basic allowance paid to all county councillors, the Special responsibility allowance paid to county cabinet members and other senior councillors with specific responsibilities, and the travel allowances should not be changed.
The only amendment proposed is to change the Dependent Carers allowance to the National Minimum Wage from April 2021 and subsequently uprate the cap on it in line with changes in the National Minimum Wage.
I would expect these recommendations to be approved unanimously - there is no justification for any increase in councillors' allowances at this time. The total cost to the taxpayer of councillors' allowances is in fact likely to drop dramatically this year because none of us are travelling from all over the county to get to council meetings as they are all now being held online. So there should be very few if any travel allowance claims.
(As the starships USS Enterprise under Captain Pike and Discovery under Commander Saru are about to go into battle against overwhelming odds to save all life in the galaxy)
"Any, er, words of wisdom?"
(Ensign Tilly, played by Mary Wiseman)
"Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness;
Be extremely mysterious, even to the point of soundlessness."
(Commander Saru, played by Doug Jones, quotes Sun Tzu, "The Art of War, part VI")
"Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate."
Former Terran Emperor Philippa Georgiou, played by Michelle Yeoh, finishes the line from Sun Tzu, and continues ...
"I am surprised that a Kelpian, of all beings, has studied Sun Tzu."
"I am surprised that a Terran is surprised by anything."
(Commander Saru)
As Cumbria and parts of Lancashire are on a yellow weather warning from today, the Environment Agency is urging residents to be aware of flood warnings ahead of forecasts of very wet weather.
The heaviest rainfall is expected across the hills of Cumbria and Lancashire today and over the weekend. The Environment Agency is urging people to check their flood risk and remain prepared to take action as the situation changes. The weather warning is expected to stay in place until Sunday.
A Government update issued earlier today confirmed that Carlisle will be moved into Local Covid alert level "high" from tomorrow.
As a result of the new restrictions, the following will be in place in Carlisle:
A statement was issued this week by North Cumbria Integrated care about the building works at both District General Hospitals, West Cumberland Hospital (WCH) and the Cumberland Infirmary at Carlisle (CIC) as part of the "Hospitals for the Future" programme. It can be found on the NCIC website here and reads as follows:
"If you have visited either the Cumberland Infirmary (CIC) or West Cumberland Hospital (WCH) sites, you will notice that there is significant work taking place at the moment in addition to the building of the cancer centre in Carlisle and the demolition at WCH
A range of improvements are being undertaken with the £4m funding we have secured nationally to prepare for the winter in addition to the £8m that has been secured to replace the CT and MRI scanner at the CIC.
We are making changes to some of the inpatient areas in CIC in order to increase the number of single rooms we have access to. This will help with isolating patients where this is required, while maintaining our bed capacity. This includes utilising Aspen as an inpatient area with surgical pre-admissions moving into a temporary area on the ground floor in the day surgery and endoscopy areas and displacement of some consultant and SAS doctors rooms which we are looking at options for. Work has already started in Larch C to provide an additional room that enables us to isolate patients for infection prevention and to improve the environment for patients on the ward.
This work is all in addition to the planned work taking place to provide a new diagnostic suite on the ground floor of the Cumberland Infirmary site. A new CT scanner was recently delivered and an MRI scanner will be installed mid-November. The new facility will house the new scanners as well as an increased ultrasound capacity and is expected to be up and running in December. It is the first stage of an £8m investment which includes an upgrade to the current facilities on the first floor of the infirmary and once the work is fully complete it will mean services will no longer rely on the mobile units. It will also significantly increase capacity and provide much improved diagnostic quality which will also support patients accessing the new cancer centre on the site.
All works are expected to be completed by spring 2021. Anna Stabler, chief nurse said:
'This has been a significant piece of work and I know it has involved moving and disrupting many teams to facilitate this often at short notice and I’m very grateful for the support and patience with all the moves. Ultimately, this will ensure we are ready for this winter and will significantly enhance the environment and facilities available to us for delivering patient care across the Trust.'”
The Home Secretary has announced that 5,824 more police officers have been recruited in the last year, putting us ahead of schedule of our target of 6,000 by March 2021 as the Conservatives deliver on our promise at the last election.
The Health Secretary has announced that West Yorkshire will move to the Very High Level from Monday, as we continue to take the necessary steps to stop the spread of the virus in communities across England, protect the NHS and save lives. Similar restrictions across Nottinghamshire, announced earlier this week, will come into force at midnight tonight.
There are lessons for all the political parties, not just Labour, in the devastating report of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into Anti-Semitism in the Labour party, released today, which found that, quote,
"the Labour Party has committed unlawful acts"
in breach of the Equalities act which the party itself put onto the statute book.
The Labour Party is now legally obliged under the terms of its own legislation to draft an action plan to tackle the findings of unlawful actions made by the EHRC, which should be based on their recommendations.
Once the action plan is agreed, The EHRC will continue to monitor it and, if Labour fails to live up to its commitments in the legally binding action plan, may take enforcement action.
The Interim chair of the EHRC described the failure to tackle anti-Semitism as "inexcusable."
The EHRC says that, quote,
"The investigation has identified serious failings in the Labour Party leadership in addressing antisemitism and an inadequate process for handling antisemitism complaints.
The Party is responsible for three breaches of the Equality Act (2010) relating to:
The equality body’s analysis points to a culture within the Party which, at best, did not do enough to prevent antisemitism and, at worst, could be seen to accept it."
The EHRC also found two individuals - one of them former Mayor of London and Labour NEC member Ken Livingston (relating to conduct prior to his resignation from the Labour party) and the other a Labour councillor in Rossendale, to have displayed anti-Semitic conduct while acting as agents for the Labour party to a degree amounting to "unlawful harassment," and added that, quote,
"These cases were only the tip of the iceberg."
You can read the full report here.
I want to stress that nothing that I have written above is "Tory Propaganda."
While I often publish material on this blog supplied to me by Conservative HQ and I make no apology whatsoever for doing so, not one word of this post comes from that source.
Every quote, every fact above comes from the website of the official Equalities regulatory body set up under legislation passed by a Labour government. The Labour party themselves set the standards and set up the mechanisms under which they have been judged and found wanting.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Labour has also today suspended its immediate past leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and removed the whip from him, for responding to the EHRC report by saying
“One anti-Semite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media."
The present Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, called the report a "day of shame" for Labour, said that he was "Truly sorry for all the pain and grief that has been caused" and promised to implement all the recommendation of the report in full.
Asked about Jeremy Corbyn's response to the report, Keir Starmer replied
“I’ll look carefully at what Jeremy Corbyn has said in full.
I finally managed to complete the first half of Swimathon 2020, after a six month delay caused by COVID-19.
Swimathon is the world's largest swimming charity fundraising event. the original expectation was that between 27th and 29th March, I would have been one of more than 21,000 swimmers who head down to their local pool, or one of more than 600 swimming pools around the UK which are taking part, to raise money for two incredibly important charities.
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The Conservative government is giving our police the powers and resources they need to keep us safe by: |
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I have received the following briefing this morning about Nottinghamshire:
"Yesterday the Health Secretary announced that Nottinghamshire will move to the Very High Level from Friday, as we continue to take the necessary steps to stop the spread of the virus in communities across England, protect the NHS and save lives.
Today the Housing Secretary has announced the investment of over £150 million to provide more than 3,000 new homes for rough sleepers across England, as we deliver on our commitment to end rough sleeping by the end of this Parliament and build Britain back better
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:
"When I visited Cumbria last November, I heard about frustrations with local infrastructure, including the bottleneck at Grizebeck. I promised then that we would take action and I’m pleased today to deliver on that.
"It joins other investment in Cumbria – including £7.5 million to help support development plans to upgrade the coastal railway between Carlisle and Sellafield, and £1 billion to dual the A66.
"We’re committed to delivering for Cumbria and unleashing every part of the Northern Powerhouse."
Subject to final approvals, work is due to start by July 2022. The total cost of the A595 scheme is £14.9 million, with the Department for Transport’s funding of £12.7 million contribution forming the majority of the total scheme costs.
Simon Fell, MP for Barrow and Furness, said:
"I’m beyond delighted that this project now has the green light after years of relentless campaigning by local people and businesses. It beggars belief that the main A-road from Barrow to Sellafield is through a farmyard. Finally that situation can be righted, making the road far safer and much more reliable for locals and commuters alike, and Furness a more attractive place to do business.
"I’m hugely grateful to the Department for Transport, Lancashire Evening Post and Cumbria County Council for backing and funding this scheme, and the A595 Action Group for keeping the pressure up over the years."
Rob Johnston, Chief Executive of Cumbria Chamber of Commerce, said:
"Reduced journey times make businesses more efficient and productive, and create new opportunities for work, learning and leisure.
This scheme will bypass the notorious bottleneck at Dove Farm. It will benefit commuters to BAE "Systems and Sellafield, and improve links to Millom. It’s long overdue and businesses will welcome it wholeheartedly."
The government is also committed to investing in other transport links in Cumbria – including £7.5 million to help support development plans to upgrade the coastal railway between Carlisle and Sellafield.
This week's announcement further underlines the government’s commitment to level up transport infrastructure across the entire country, including throughout the Northern Powerhouse.
Alongside recent investment in roads such as the A630, the government has set up the Northern Transport Acceleration Council to work with local leaders to drive forward progress on schemes meeting the needs of their communities.
The government has announced a call for evidence to help us advance our protections of England’s seas and marine wildlife even further – safeguarding them for future generations.
Our thoughts are with the loved ones of those who tragically lost their lives in the Channel yesterday.
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Today the first seven towns set to benefit from almost £180 million from the government's £3.6 billion Towns Fund, have been announced.
The first seven towns include Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria; other towns in the North-West which are included in the first seven are Blackpool in Lancashire and Warrington in Cheshire.
Here in Copeland, Millom and Cleator Moor are among 101 localities in line to benefit from the fund.
This fund will help to level up and spread opportunity, unlocking the full potential of our towns and their communities as we build back better from coronavirus.
"Santa is a key worker"
(Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, presumably speaking in jest.)
Yesterday Britain's police and armed forces secured a ship in the English Channel that was subject to a suspected hijacking, safeguarding the lives of those in danger.
The government is boosting dozens of iconic arts venues and cultural organisations with £75 million from the Cultural Recovery Fund – protecting jobs and securing the future of Britain’s culture.
The Health Secretary is unveiling huge changes tomorrow to the food provided while people have to stay in hospitals – ensuring patients get healthy, tasty food.
The government is giving unprecedented support to help those most in need during the pandemic – backed by £200 billion.
"Holding to account and threatening rape are two very different things."
(Marcus Rashford MBE)
The footballer had posted a statement (below) saying that posting "unacceptable abuse" against people who had different opinions about child poverty and how to address it was not the way to help hungry children.
The above quote was his response to someone who had responded that MPs should be "held to account."
This was the very measured and reasonable statement from Marcus Rashford about this on Twitter:
British summer time ends at 2am on Sunday morning (25th October 2020) and all timekeeping devices which are not sophisticated enough to do it for themselves automatically need to be put back an hour.
I imagine there is a divide between those who would like to put the clock back to January this year and those who would like to put it back to January 2016, but I'm afraid we don't have either option!
This week, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced new measures to support jobs and businesses through the heightened COVID alert levels put in place to control the spread of the virus.