PaulRogan

Background:-

Certain bus services are withdrawn in Rastrick in January 2008. These are hailed as ‘something to smile about'. Clearly this is what people want as their local representatives have been consulted and are in agreement. (The ‘consultation' was a small announcement of the changes buried within a long and detailed general email sent to all Yorkshire Councillors just before Christmas 2007. I admit I didn't spot it and understand my ward colleagues say they didn't receive it.)

The Players:-

Metro:- The Statutory Body responsible for providing a public transport service. Responsible to the Government, not answerable to the public. When will people realize that they should be happy to accept all we do for them and, with insufficient resources too!?

Bus operators:- Moving people around is their vehicle for making profits. No other considerations than these. Not impressed with their sniedy remark, pity all those signing petitions, demonstrating and shouting now weren't on the buses in the first place.. We might not have then withdrawn the service. (Do they think we are stupid? Service withdrawal has got nothing to do with bus usage or public need.)

Calderdale Council:- Quite happy for once to let people ventilate their anger against the withdrawal of a public service. Of course the argument is against someone else. This makes a welcome change as people are usually only moaning about Calderdale.

Politicians:-

Labour:-  Either chose not to use their political superiority within Metro to change the position or had insufficient clout as Calderdale to do anything. Clearly, the majority of Labour Members on Metro come from much larger and well-known Authorities. Many of these members have their own areas as first or only priorities. Human nature I suppose. Rastrick is at least a well known name... half of a Brass Band.... on the other hand.... Calderdale? Sounds more like the name of a cheese, hardly on the radar with people from real places like Leeds, Bradford, Rotherham or Sheffield.

Tories:- Not in Government, not in any sort of power in Metro and only in control locally with Labour support (Puppets on a string?). Just another issue to ‘knock' Labour at the next election?

Others:- Including EDP, local community groups, area forum. Totally powerless.

The Media:- A good story and well reported. The story was however, ‘Look at these angry people' and not ‘Come on establishment, let's restore the service'. Perhaps they knew it was a lost cause.

The People (and the final analysis):- Just walk and be grateful for what public transport you have left.

Will the ‘Budget' help Labour keep their vote in Rastrick? Being a cynic, I do not believe the actions of politicians are really made for the benefit of the people, rather to buy their support at elections.

When we cut ourselves, why use a plaster? To heal the wound or stop the blood messing up our paperwork or staining our clothes?

It is calculated that the present measures will work out giving the average family an extra 300 quid to spend. In itself, 300 quid is just a plaster, it has no long term healing power. But, is this enough to buy the nations support for Gordon to win the next election?

It will be realized by everyone that what we get today will have to paid for by someone at sometime. The gamble is; will it be Brown or Cameron in the restaurant drinking the coffee and eating the mints before the bill has to be settled. And how long will the meal last before the coffee and mints? My guess is just about until June 4^th next year.

It's pretty fair to make a judgment on how Rastrick will receive and be affected by the Government's financial strategy and apply it to ‘middle' England.

From a total of ca 10,000 people there are representative residents from all sectors in not dissimilar proportions. It is a residential area to the south of Brighouse, the second largest town in Calderdale and essentially the largest residential area of the town. Brighouse railway station is on the Rastrick side of the river, which marks the boundary.

Rastrick was part of that tidal wave of support for Blair's New Labour, since then it has been steadily moving towards the Blues. We see majority support for the Tories at local elections but this will not count at a General election if Labour can get more than the regular solid voters to come out for them.

We have large Tory voting ‘middle class' areas in Rastrick. Large mainly Labour supporting ‘social housing' estates, one of which got one of the first Sure Start centres (opened by Gordon himself). There are many older residents in residential homes and sheltered housing areas. Rastrick has the highest percentage of young people (under 19) than any other ward in Calderdale but hardly any facilities for them. Therefore, there are, as you would expect many homes of middle-income families, which support a political cocktail. It is perhaps this ‘cocktail' which will determine the result of the next General Election and therefore be the judge of the Government's present policies. We have a full compliment of Infant, Junior and Secondary Schools, additionally 2 schools catering for special needs. I would think also the average of the nation's 2% over £150k earners live in the ward too. Some industry still left, struggling of course. The usual sprinkling of take-aways, local shops and taxi firms. A bit of farming still goes on and there is not much land left which could be developed for more housing. Rastrick is a relatively safe place to be, if you believe the Police's crime figures. It is a good representative of all of England.

What Rastrick does not have is any appreciable number of residents from ‘ethnic minorities'; perhaps this is why there is good support for Patriotic Parties at local elections.  This element may well skew a national comparison.

What will swing the people of Rastrick? What are their concerns?

Heating and Eating and Holidays.

Mortgage costs or rent.

Transport; motoring costs for those with cars, public transport for those without.

Health & Education.

Local facilities; libraries, pools and parks.

Goodness, there are a lot of things for just £300 to cover!

Lets not forget, it's probably only the middle-income families with children who are the body of swing voters and who will count at a General Election. Most of the rest will stick with their traditional and unchanging votes.

For many of these MIFs with Children, jam today will make a difference; the Government's formula could well do the trick.

Finally, back to the restaurant, who pays the bill? My own view is that, as a small player in the world, England should let others pay as much as possible. Lets adopt a more ‘Swiss' approach than ‘Imperial Britain' one.

Whilst promoting himself as a world financial crisis problem solver, the Prime Minister should be only concerned with fixing England's problem; he is after all only England's First Minister. First, lets leave the EU and save the enormous membership costs. Second, allow interest rates to fall even more. The added benefit is that the value of the pound will fall making our industry and services more competitive overseas, EU included. They will buy competitively irrespective of whether England is in or out of the EU. We may also find that our own food producers get an economic boost, as imported foods will cost more.

Like all things in life, there is much change. We hear recently of new and interesting plans for the Sugden's site, now reportedly and finally supported by Calderdale Council. The past is however still not forgotten, many people continue to wonder why the saga started, why it went on for so long and how much exactly has it cost in taxpayers money.

I recently came by a copy of the following. I have no information as to its authenticity and do not believe that I have been made aware of such information as an Elected Member of the Council, but take it in good faith and have reproduced it exactly.

At the end of the day, the Tory Cabinet are those held responsible by the electorate; the people of Brighouse have a right to demand proper answers

Appendix 2 - Sudgen Mill findings

Extract from Grant Thornton Letter to the Chief Executive (March 2008)

For future projects, the Council will need assurance that it has adequate arrangements in place to ensure:

• Sufficient, dedicated, suitable experienced officer resource is made available to manage projects, any objections and inquiries.
• Sufficient and timely input is received from the Council's statutory officers to properly discharge their legal and financial duties in relation to projects, and objections and inquiries.
• Clear accountability is assigned, at a senior level, for such projects.
• Adequate arrangements for supervision and review, particularly in periods of prolonged absence of line management.
• A project plan and risk register is produced and maintained to facilitate effective management.
• Where external legal input is sought, that it is fit for purpose and that responsibility and accountability was retained by the Council for information and decisions.
• There are robust arrangements for record keeping, internal communication and escalation of significant issues.
• Financial, legal and value for money issues are fully evaluated and kept under review.

Summary of Internal Audit findings (June 2008)

There was a lack of formal strategic management of the scheme.

Governance, senior accountability, project roles, project resourcing, statutory officer involvement, communication, documentation and risk management were lacking and internal audit raised a number of recommendations in relation to each of these areas.

Like all things in life, there is much change. We hear recently of new and interesting plans for the Sugden's site, now reportedly and finally supported by Calderdale Council. The past is however still not forgotten, many people continue to wonder why the saga started, why it went on for so long and how much exactly has it cost in taxpayers money.

I recently came by a copy of the following. I have no information as to its authenticity and do not believe that I have been made aware of such information as an Elected Member of the Council, but take it in good faith and have reproduced it exactly.

At the end of the day, the Tory Cabinet are those held responsible by the electorate; the people of Brighouse have a right to demand proper answers

Appendix 2 - Sudgen Mill findings

Extract from Grant Thornton Letter to the Chief Executive (March 2008)

For future projects, the Council will need assurance that it has adequate arrangements in place to ensure:

• Sufficient, dedicated, suitable experienced officer resource is made available to manage projects, any objections and inquiries.
• Sufficient and timely input is received from the Council's statutory officers to properly discharge their legal and financial duties in relation to projects, and objections and inquiries.
• Clear accountability is assigned, at a senior level, for such projects.
• Adequate arrangements for supervision and review, particularly in periods of prolonged absence of line management.
• A project plan and risk register is produced and maintained to facilitate effective management.
• Where external legal input is sought, that it is fit for purpose and that responsibility and accountability was retained by the Council for information and decisions.
• There are robust arrangements for record keeping, internal communication and escalation of significant issues.
• Financial, legal and value for money issues are fully evaluated and kept under review.

Summary of Internal Audit findings (June 2008)

There was a lack of formal strategic management of the scheme.

Governance, senior accountability, project roles, project resourcing, statutory officer involvement, communication, documentation and risk management were lacking and internal audit raised a number of recommendations in relation to each of these areas.

The following is long but it seemed inappropriate to edit highlights, even for this blog. I have therefore pasted in the article in full. Views on this subject from Rastrick residents would be especially well received.

The Great Deception--A Nation of Immigrants? by Professor David Conway, senior research fellow for the political think-tank Civitas.
The Great Deception Saturday Essay by Sir Andrew Green, Chairman, Migration Watch UK Daily Mail, London, 21 April 2007.

For many years now, the Government and the liberal Left's case for mass immigration has rested partly on their repeated assertion that Britain is a melting pot of different cultures - or as they describe it, "a nation of immigrants". Our history, we have been told, has been punctuated by regular waves of substantial numbers of immigrants to our shores; from the Romans to the Normans, from the Huguenots of the 16^th and 17th centuries to the Jews of the 19th and 20th, in-comers have settled here over the centuries and have influenced the racial and cultural make-up of this country for the better.

The slogan was first promoted in Britain in 2001 by the then immigration minister Barbara Roche, who pronounced that ‘"the UK is a nation of immigrants." This absurd claim will finally bite the dust with the publication today of an important new book - A Nation of Immigrants? by Professor David Conway, senior research fellow for the political think-tank Civitas.

Of course we have immigrants in Britain, nowadays in substantial numbers: yesterday, official figures from the Office of National Statistics revealed how immigration has swollen Britain's population by nearly 1.5 million just in the decade since 1995.

And, of course, many of them have made, and continue to make, a considerable contribution to our life as a nation. The list of distinguished people is a long one and our country would be different and, very possibly, less vigorous without them.

But that is entirely different from suggesting that we are, by nature, a nation of immigrants - with the implication that present levels of immigration are merely a continuation of past trends, a continuation of the process that has made us what we are.

Any such claim falls apart when examined closely, as Professor Conway has demonstrated. He looked at the scale of previous waves of immigration and found that they were far smaller than the massive inflows which we are now facing.

A certain amount depends on how far back you go in time. Britain has been an island for some 8,000 years - before that, it was connected to mainland Europe.

The earliest population were hunter-gatherers running only to a few thousand. A big increase in population, some 6,000 years ago, seems to have been due to the arrival of new techniques of farming and a consequent boost to food production, rather than to a large inflow of people.

By the time of the Roman invasion, the inhabitants numbered some 1.5 million. The Anglo-Saxons and Danes of the Dark Ages were the most significant subsequent arrivals - yet their numbers were never overwhelming and the population remained roughly at 1.5 million until the Norman Conquest.

For practical purposes, the arrival of the Normans in 1066 is the sensible place to start an assessment of the impact of immigration on our society. To go back further is to get lost in the mists of time.

And when you look at the record of the past 1,000 years, the actual number of people who arrived in Britain from elsewhere is extremely small - even when you take into account the much lower populations of earlier times. Furthermore, in almost every case, their arrival was spread over decades rather than years.

William the Conqueror arrived with only around 10,000 troops of largely French extraction. The total number of Norman settlers in Britain was never more than 5 per cent of the population, but they seized the levers of power and grabbed a third of the land in short order.

In the subsequent 1,000 years, there have been only two numerically significant migrations into Britain - the Huguenots in the 16th and 17^th centuries and the Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries. Professor Conway's work reveals that both were surprisingly limited in scale.

The Huguenots were Protestants driven out of Catholic France by religious persecution. The first wave came in the second half of the 16th century and larger wave followed in the late 17th century.

The total number settling in Britain has been estimated at 40,000 - still only 1 per cent of the population at the time. Many brought valuable skills, some were affluent and their impact was generally beneficial - but they were still a tiny number.

It was another 200 years before the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881 triggered pogroms in Russia and Poland. Between 1880 and 1914, it is estimated that some three million Jews left Eastern Europe and Russia.

The majority went to the US, while some 150,000 settled in Britain, arriving at the rate of perhaps 10,000 a year.

They were followed in the period between the two World Wars by perhaps 70,000 others fleeing Nazi Germany. It hardly needs to be said that they have made an outstanding contribution to our society.

But again the numbers are tiny. Taken together, they amounted to roughly half a per cent of our population at the time, spread over half a century.

Professor Conway also looked at the Irish migration of the 19th century. This is a quite different case, since as Ireland was part of Great Britain, in full political union with England, Scotland and Wales at the time, but the numbers are interesting.

Irish-born adults living in Britain doubled from 300,000 to 600,000 in the 20 years around the potato famine of the mid-19th century - again, some 1 per cent of Britain's population at the time, spread over decades. Even by 1880, the Irish community in Britain was only 3 per cent of the population.

The claim that Britain is a nation of immigrants is even more bizarre when you consider that, between 1815 and 1914, Britain quadrupled her population and yet still dispatched more than 20 million people to destinations beyond Europe.

The reality is that we have historically been a country of emigration, not immigration. Indeed, that situation persisted up to the mid-1980s, when immigration first exceeded emigration.

Why all this focus on numbers? First, because they disprove the Government's claim, so one more falsehood on immigration collapses on examination. Second, because numbers do matter. And the larger they are, the more they matter. And third, because, although it may not be politically correct to say so, culture matters too.

The Huguenots and the Jews were both of European, Judeo Christian culture and so more easily integrated into our society. We are now taking large numbers from cultures very distant from our own and from each other.

Unlike the US - which is, indeed, a nation of immigrants - we have no mechanisms for absorbing such a mix of people.

The concept of ‘multiculturalism'; allowing different groups of immigrants to pursue their own cultural agenda without regard to the indigenous population, was an attempt to avoid the issue. Its disastrous failure was demonstrated on 7/7 in the London tube bombings carried out by men brought up in Britain.

Consider the present position. In the two years 2004 and 2005, foreign immigration totalled about 630,000 or just over 1 per cent of our record population of 60 million.

The only two previous significant waves of foreign immigration in the past 1,000 years - the Huguenots and Jews - each amounted to less than 1per cent spread over up to 50 years. So the inflow now is some 25 times any previous level of immigration.

Such numbers are, of course, having a huge impact on our society. The growth of our minority ethnic communities illustrates the point. By no means all of them are immigrants since about half were born and brought up here and are as British as anyone else.

But their parents and grandparents were immigrants, so their numbers are some measure of the impact of the immigration on our society over the past half-century. In 1951 ethnic minorities were 1 per cent of our population. They are now 8 per cent. And in state secondary schools they number 17 per cent.

To these, of course, should be added immigrants who are not part of the black and minority ethnic communities - notably, in recent years, the Poles.

Meanwhile, in Greater London one child in two is born to a foreign mother and, in several of our cities, the indigenous community will find themselves a minority before very long.

Small wonder that there is widespread public concern, that two-thirds of us feel that our culture is under threat, and that 83 per cent want firm action from the Government.

Why is it, then, that the Government is deliberately perpetuating the ridiculous myth that we are "a nation of immigrants"? Its track record should tell us the answer: if you can't solve a problem, spin it.

What has happened - quite simply, indeed undeniably - is that the Government has lost control of our borders. Ministers have no idea who has come, who has gone and who is still here. They were far too slow to tackle the asylum mess which they inherited from the Conservatives.

Then they deliberately and, in my view, crazily made a massive increase in work permits followed by an appalling miscalculation over the likely inflows from Eastern Europe.

So, prevented by political correctness from addressing the root of the problem - which is the scale of immigration - they reached for the spin.

We were repeatedly told that none of this mattered because we are a nation of immigrants anyway - a nation that has successfully absorbed immigration down the centuries. That line has been shot to pieces by Professor Conway.

The Government is now left with its second defence - that all this immigration is beneficial, even necessary, for our economy. Two thirds of the public do not believe this, but the Government continues to repeat it. The public are, of course, right.

Nearly all the benefit of immigration goes to the immigrants themselves - which, naturally, is why they come.

The Government claims that the entire country benefits from the growth in our economy as a result of immigration, but calculations based on its own figures show that the value of this growth to each member of the indigenous community comes to less than 50p a week.

Not a lot, you may think, when you consider the added cost to the economy caused by current levels of immigration - cost in the form of the extra pressure on our public services and our infrastructure.

Indeed, the latest figures issued by the Government itself show that we shall need to build 200 houses a day, every day, for the next 20 years just to house new immigrants - not existing immigrants, but new ones. This takes no account of the illegal immigrants who must number at least half a million.

Fortunately, the public are waking up to the situation. The chattering classes are still not too bothered. They like the cheap nannies, cheaper restaurants and lower inflation that the lower wages of immigrants bring.

But for the working class that means less money and less job security. They are not amused. Indeed, the white working class who are the most directly affected by mass immigration are beginning to desert Labour in droves.

This may be why the Government is at last taking action. Liam Byrne, Barbara Roche's successor as Minister for Immigration, admitted this week that the country is "deeply unsettled" by the present massive levels of immigration.

Only last month, and just in time for the local elections, the Home Office issued two documents setting out how it intends to restore control of our borders, with better records of arrivals and departures, new visa controls, ID cards for resident foreigners and new measures against employers of illegal workers.

This is all sensible stuff and long overdue - but whether the Home Office have staff of sufficient quality and the resources necessary to achieve their aims remains to be seen.

The truth is that we cannot continue as we are. Migrants are now arriving at very nearly one every minute. We cannot possibly integrate people into our society at such a pace, and we should not be expected to do so. Political correctness must be put aside.

There must be a sharp reduction in immigration. The public must be reassured by clear evidence that the situation is no longer spinning out of control.

The best objective would be to reduce foreign immigration to the same level as the number of British people emigrating each year. This has doubled under the present government to about 100,000 a year.

Such a limit would allow room for those who are really essential to our economy, as well as leaving room for family reunion (under tightened rules). Genuine refugees should not, as a matter of principle, be capped. In any case, they nowadays number fewer than 10,000 a year.

Firm and effective action is now the only way forward. Spin has had its day. And Professor Conway has made a valuable contribution to its demise.

• A Nation of Immigrants? by David Conway is available from Civitas.

It is now becoming clear that big isn't beautiful nor any guarantee of success in today's world financial crisis. Big does mean big when it comes to the reality of a massive institution and local employer as it comes crashing to the ground.

Calderdale Council's Tory Leaders are making sympathetic offers of help; Labour's local MP is highlighting the difficulties with Nbr10 and getting good local press coverage. Whilst both are well aware of the massive effect the ‘Halifax' problems will have locally, quite frankly both are well out of their depths.

Is it time to start again? A local Mutual or Friendly Society, owned by its depositors, backed by the 5 West Yorkshire Councils. Focused on lending money to local people to buy their own homes.

I think there would be a great deal of local support and, more importantly confidence, in such a venture. Do the Local MP's and Council leaders have the vision, determination and imagination for such a solution? Probably not, however, there may well soon be a nice and more than appropriate head office building going free in Halifax.

The ruling Tory Cabinet of Calderdale Council is now proposing to out-source Parking Enforcement Officers. A decision by a very few which will effect us all.

It is fair to accept that this issue is a difficult one. Fundamentally I agree with UNISON that Council services should remain in-house and not be out-sourced.

There are already too many out-sourced services which become too much at arms-length and can no longer be properly guided by The People through their local elected members.

Specifically with regard to parking services... which really means parking enforcement.. there is a major difference.

Firstly, the parking enforcement officers were supposed to also be a road safety service, especially outside schools at busy periods; not necessarily to hand out tickets but to ensure the safety of our children on busy roads, especially when there is an increase in inconsiderate drivers around.

Secondly, parking enforcement is perhaps one of the most unpopular functions in life. We all know about the general hostility towards parking wardens. The police must have been more than thankful to be allowed to off load this unpopular job onto local authorities. Local councils are already unpopular enough! They send out what is perhaps the biggest single bill to households each year. They are at the sharp end of most unpopular central government legislation... wheelie bins etc. Local Authorities don't need parking enforcement to add to their general perception of ‘bad guys'.