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Saturday 29th December 2007

Honours galore - the merit of merely modest MBEs

I seem to recall that with each New Year's Honours List (as well as the mid-year Birthday Honours) that I am amazed that there are any of us left that is without honour! Twice a year, some 1,000 time-serving diplomats, civil servants and members of the armed forces are gonged for doing what they have been well paid for doing anyway. Of course, when I was a mere lad, only a handful of ordinary mortals working in ordinary jobs received an honour. That's all changed with increased democratisation! The Guardian reports today: "Downing Street let it be known yesterday that the vast majority of the 972 people honoured today - 599 of them at the modest MBE level - are what Brown calls 'the often unsung heroes of our cities, towns and villages.'" Well, it stands to sense, that ordinary unsung heroes merit merely modest MBEs!

Your actual true troopers, meanwhile, are not merely modestly gonged but as the Guardian further noted (tongue in cheek not overly evident!) that: "Whitehall desk warriors will sigh with relief to see that Sir David Manning, Tony Blair's ambassador to Washington, gets an upgrade for his knighthood, from KCMG to GCMG." Well, for goodness sake, I should think we are all suitably relieved!

The fact that a Worcestershire Poppy Appeal organiser for 40 years, a Sunderland bus driver (for services to transport, for goodness sake!) and an East London headmaster are variously gonged for their apparent unsung ordinariness in no way justifies this biennial farce. For every so-called unsung member of the community there are five, ten, twenty more equally unsung.

History sorts it all out, however. Do we remember the earls of Beaconsfield, Avon and Stockton? I doubt it, but more likely we recall prime ministers Disraeli, Eden and Macmillan. Commonsense sorts it out too. Is our appreciation of particular poets, novelists and playwrights influenced by whether or not they were "honoured" or by the hierarchical level of the "honour"? Ian McKellan was a superb King Lear at Stratford earlier this year, irrespective of his 1991 Knighthood and now his Companion of Honour. 

Mind you, I've been writing little missives (sic) against the honours system since I was sixteen. What better proof of my powerlessness?!

Thursday 27th December 2007

Pope, prelate, prayer...and people

So, another Christmas, with important messages from the Pope, Archbishop of Canterbury and other senior Christian prelates, delivered not only to their particular churches but with the hope that the essential message of peace reaches out to everyone. Two days later, the tragedy of Benazir Bhutto's asassination in Rawalpindi hits the world. Born out of violence in 1947, West and East Pakistan, 1,100 miles apart on opposite sides of the northern part of the Indian sub-continent, riven by civil war in 1971, leading to the demise of East Pakistan and the birth of the new independent Bangladesh in 1972 and labouring under various military take-overs, the last being in 1999 and still in power under General Musharraf, Pakistan has notably failed to sustain democracy unlike its neighbour India, the largest democracy in the world. Benazir Bhutto's recent return to her homeland after a number of years of safe refuge in Britain, to lead the Pakistan People's Party in the scheduled January '08 general election, was seen by millions as a sign of hope for the return of democracy to Pakistan.

With one of its provinces already subject to Sharia law, its territory bordering Afghanistan infused with Taliban fighters and supporters and widespread poverty and inequality Pakistan faces enormous problems. As one of the world's countries with nuclear weapons its strategic importance for the security of the world hardly needs emphasising. The personal tragedy for Ms Bhutto and her family is also a tragedy for her country and indeed the world. While we seem as far away from peace as ever the simple truth for people of all faiths and none is that it doesn't have to be that way.      

Thursday 20th December 2007

Community Cohesion courtesy Residents' Association

How wonderful it is to touch base with reality and real human beings after an intensive period of meetings at the Town Hall engulfed in strategies (so-called!) reports (reporting very little usually) and humans posturing! The Chell Heath Residents' Association (one of five RAs in my Ward) created a really warm and festive atmosphere at their small community centre (a former shop) in the centre of the neighbourhood this evening. Linda supplied a range of first rate sanwiches from her popular cafe round the corner, and I fear I may have eaten more than my share of the lovely cheese ones. Committee member Yvonne, wife of recently elected chair Jim Gibson, brought along some really wicked individual trifles - that was a test of self restraint not sneaking a second! It was lovely to relax and chat. And it's amazing how valuable that chatter can be. Residents' views about all sorts of issues are there to keep one  grounded. Anyway, congratulations to Jim and his team for putting on such a convival Christmas tea party for the residents.  

Wednesday 19th December 2007

SERCO/Elected Mayor U-Turn...a tale of the Likely Lads

One of the many unintended consequences of the Labour Government's Local Government Act 2000 which claimed to have made local government so much more transparent, efficient and effective is the sheer scale of inefficency and ineffectiveness, certainly of the unique Elected Mayor and Council Manager system we labour under in Stoke-on-Trent. Transparency of decision making seldom exceeds the most opaque process. Another unintended (or intended?) consequence has been the marginalisation of Councillors, to the extent that the majority are practically redundant as far as decision-making is concerned. All too frequently they are not even briefed prior to public announcements.

And so we were treated this morning to a press statement announcing a "major breakthrough on transforming schools". So major in fact that the Elected Mayor contemptuously eschews sharing the "breakthrough" at last Thursday's Full Council meeting. This "modern" way of running local government is further underlined in the press statement with the revelation that the Elected Mayor has held discussions with the City's three (Labour) MPs about the City-wide furore that SERCO and the Elected Mayor unleashed weeks ago at the launch of the grossly flawed proposal and process for restructuring the City's 17 High Schools and 5 Special Schools. Who in their right mind would seriously suggest, as they did, closing all 17 High Schools? Echoes of Cambodia's year zero? There has never been a hint of a cross-party approach to the £200m Building Schools for the Future programme. Even now, in deep trouble as they are, SERCO and the Elected Mayor arrogantly ignore Councillors and respond only to the MPs. Electoral anxiety seaps into view.

Substantively, then, what is the "major breakthrough"? (NB: my emphasis in bold)

i) the option of closing ALL schools is likely to disappear. Instead, schools may now be considered on a bespoke basis.

ii) Special schools are likely to be 'decoupled' from the BSF exercise and considered separately at a later date.

So, is this a major U-turn, a colossal climb-down, thinly veiled with "likely" in the face of widespread, concerted and sustained opposition from parents, teachers, pupils and governors, while admittedly the majority of Councillors, the United Front, lacked the energy and courage to question the insanity of the proposal OR is it merely a smokescreen to defuse the multiple oppositional campaigns?

As I said in Full Council last week, the really important issues have not yet even been addressed by SERCO and the Elected Mayor, namely the raising of attainment across the City. The size of schools and the form of governance of schools have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of education.

This fiasco of a so-called consultation process has demonstrated just how unfit SERCO and the Elected Mayor are for this task. The sooner the City sees the back of both the better it will be for Stoke-on-Trent.

Tuesday 18th December 2007

Reginald Haggar...Stoke-on-Trent's ceramic designer, art school head, painter, author

In 2005 the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery put on an excellent exhibition to mark the centenary of Reginald Haggar's birth. It illustrated very well the breadth of Haggar's talent. Born in Ipswich, Haggar came to the Potteries in 1929 and for the next decade he was Minton's art director during which time he produced a variety of designs, including Art Deco pieces. He was also Head of the Stoke School of Art 1935-41 and Head of the Burslem School of Art 1941-45. Thereafter he was a freelance painter, author and lecturer and produced an impressive portfolio of watercolour landscapes of the Potteries. Haggar paintings are dotted about the Civic Centre offices, on loan from the Potteries Museum & Art gallery. Unfortunately, during the recent £750,000 refurbishment of the Civic Centre offices a Haggar was carelessly consigned to a skip. Thankfully an eagle-eyed caretaker spotted the framed watercolour and retrieved it before it was lost for ever.

Monday 17th December 2007

Lib Dems reject Cameron's invitation...

What a surprise! The Lib Dems, at national level, have told the Tories they don't want an alliance. At first sight, at least, that suggests there are some Lib Dems in the country with a principle or two. Here in Stoke-on-Trent of course, the Lib Dem group on the Council couldn't wait to be sucked into the United Front, initially forged by Labour elected mayor Mark Meredith, with the Conservative & Independent Alliance group. That little axis of convenience, dressed up as putting aside party political interests for the good of the City (how sickening can some politicians' justifications get?) completely side-steps of course what was against the good of the City in their original, pre-United Front positions!

The United Front trampled and belittled my motion at the 2nd August Full Council that declared no confidence in both SERCO's proposals and  processes regarding the so-called restructure of the City's High Schools. Leading members of the United Front could see nothing wrong whatever with SERCO's plan to close ALL 17 City high schools as well as to reduce and move the 5 special schools to three. It was obviously easier for the United Front to mouth platitudinous support for SERCO's insane proposals rather than think through the issues and offer a sensible way forward. The few Councillors who have rejected the orthodoxy that SERCO have tried to impose are dismissively daubed disloyal to the good of the City.

What the United Front members need to recognise is that there is a range of good visions for the City NOT just the one imposed upon them that they are unthinkingly happy to endorse. Thank goodness, the City's three (Labour) MPs have worked together with all 17 high school headteachers to produce a sensible way forward. Their Labour colleagues on the Council should hang their heads in shame along with the Tories (and their oddly named "Independents") and Lib Dems who have been supinely supporting SERCO's insanity.

Saturday 15th December 2007

Seasonal Solidarity

This afternoon I was in an island of tranquility with a dozen or so people at the Smeltings, the stone cottage home of friends Brian and Carol, with gentle background music, scented candles and piles of greetings cards, complete with booklet giving brief details of 28 prisoners of conscience. It didn't seem like a year ago when I was in the same room with people writing messages of solidarity to prisoners in a score or more countries around the world. In prison for no good reason by our, Western values. Like Mehmet, for example, tortured for false confessions and locked up for 30 months for being a member of a small, non-violent opposition group in Turkey. 

Christina and Mariah, in separate and unrelated incidents, were arrested, humiliated and physically ill-treated by New York City police officers for no particular reason it would seem than the fact they are transgender women.

Shi Tao is serving a ten-year prison sentence for sending an email from his Yahoo account containing information about the Chinese government's instructions to journalists on how to cover the 15th anniversary of the suppression of demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Writing these brief greetings of solidarity to just a tiny fraction of the people in the world locked up for being in opposition, for having a sex change, for sending an email...concentrated my mind. The warmth, comfort and convivality contrasted with the deprivations and depravities experienced by tens of thousands of people locked up around the world for what? For daring to be different; for daring to speak out. My mind was filled with images of our elected representatives, both local and national. Acquiescence is all the tyrant needs.

Amnesty International's annual Greetings Card Campaign runs from 1st November to 31st January. Via the website: www.amnesty.org.uk you may find there is a local group near you with a convenor, like Carol for the Staffordshire Moorlands Branch, waiting to hear from you and welcome whatever support you are able to offer.    

Friday 14th December 2007

North Staffordshire Credit Union

  

Agencies across North Staffordshire are working together to develop a North Staffordshire Credit Union (NSCU). A Credit Union is a co-operative financial institution, owned and controlled by its members through a voluntary board of directors. It charges minimal rates of interest on monies borrowed, which helps to alleviate financial exclusion amongst lower income groups. The intention is that membership of the proposed Credit Union will be open to anyone living or working in North Staffordshire.

Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Newcastle Borough Council and Staffordshire Moorlands Council is supporting this development, both with Officer time and funding. Aspire Housing and Newcastle Community & Voluntary Support (NCVS) together with Beth Johnson and Moorlands Housing are also key partners in this project.

To be successful, North Staffordshire Credit Union needs the support & involvement of local community groups to assist in getting sufficient people signed up as members. Residents' Associations are ideal means for both spreading the word and getting signatures of support. A successful local Credit Union will mean that people will not need to be seduced by the unscrupulous money-lenders who charge very high interest rates and they are forever preying on the residents of our Council estates.

The person leading the initiative is: Kevin Waters, Credit Union Development Officer, 01782 232344. kevin.waters@swift.stoke.gov.uk

 

Thursday 13th December 2007

Full Council

Four separate petitions were submitted to Council, opposing the Executive's recent decision to seek private providers for pre-school child care at the recently built eight brand new Children's Centres across the City. Parents are angry because they have deliberately chosen to entrust their children to the care of the Local Authority staff at these eighteen month old Centres. They chose these Centres in preference to available private providers and they have no wish to be left with no alternative to the private providers. The general feeling amongst the parents is that they will stay at home with their children rather than leave them in the care of the private providers in whom they have little confidence. Each of the lead petitioners made first rate three-minute presentational speeches and each was rewarded with enthusiastic applause from the public gallery and a considerable number of Councillors in the Chamber. SERCO, the private company drafted in by the government to run the Council's Children's & Young People's department have still failed to communicate, never mind consult, with the parents! Even the clanging mantra of choice usually associated with government policy changes is noticeably absent. No pretence of democratic consultation; no pretence of wider choice; no pretence. This is a pioneering approach for the straightforward imposition of privatisation whereas the pretence of consultation for the restructure of the secondary schools has been conducted in such a way as to create maximum consternation and confusion to mask the actual fragmentation, and in effect, creeping privatisation of secondary education. The majority of Councillors have been hoodwinked. The public hasn't. A goodly number of Councillors seeking re-election next May deserve to be well and truly de-hooded. 

Wednesday 12th December 2007

Tackling environmental eye-sores

The Transformation & Resources Overview & Scrutiny Committee, of which I am a member, had a special meeting this afternoon to consider the Plots of Land Task & Finish group's report. More than a hundred sites owned by the Council, privately owned and those of uncertain ownership had been examined and as a result of the group's evaluations, some 16 recommendations were approved by the committee. Clearer, systematic strategic approaches, more co-ordinated working embracing different Council departments and private owners, and a policy commitment to actively address the problem sites were the over-arching themes. The Report along with the recommendations will now go to the Exectuive for its consideration. In due course, the Executive will communicate to the Committee its responses to the recommendations. 

Tuesday 11th December 2007

Stamping out Christmas: Correction

The rumour that the Royal Mail may be encouraged to stop printing religious stamps at Christmas is completely unfounded. I think what concerns me most is that the email came from and was circulated to Christians, and there was an assumption that the note was true. No-one in Royal Mail group gets up in the morning with the negative motivation implied, and certainly not the directors who take these decisions. Many of us are Christians and our faith is critical to the way we do business.

What follows below this note, is our response statement. We took a decision after last year, to have Christian stamps every year at Christmas. It is difficult to ensure that our external communications reach all audiences and so I would be happy to answer any queries on this; and time permitting, come along and speak to the diocese, if you feel people may like to know more about the Christmas/ postage or community impacts (Post Office closures, etc) of the Post Office/ Royal Mail Group.

But in the meantime, as we say below, any help you can give in restoring the balance would be much appreciated. Please could you pass on the statement below (and this note if it helps) to anyone you or they may have copied the original mail to. Thank you in anticipation of your support and best wishes for a very Christian Christmas! Paula.
(The Revd Paula Vennells, Network Director, The Post Office.)

Incidentally, we were rather surprised at the suggestion that the angels were only "vaguely Christian".

Royal Mail statement:
‘We have become aware of an incorrect assertion being made about the motives behind the sales of our Christmas stamps. There is absolutely no intention on our part to suppress sales of the Madonna and Child stamps in order to be able to claim there is low demand for religious stamps in future years. Indeed, we have produced tens of millions of them, and we want to sell them!! We have given publicity to both types of Christmas stamps, and the availability of both has been widely covered in the national and local press. Furthermore we plan to have the Madonna and Child stamps available every Christmas in future, alongside each year's "special" set, which will continue to alternate between religious and secular themes. Any help you can give in restoring the balance would be much appreciated.

Jonathan Evans OBE, Company Secretary, Royal Mail Group

Monday 10th December 2007

Stamping out Christmas

"Today I have purchased my stamps for christmas cards--all depicting angels." writes a local resident. "Too late, I have discovered that there is a 2nd and 1st class stamp showing two different Madonna and child designs as well. Royal Mail has traditionally alternated between sacred and secular designs for their Christmas stamps and this year it is the turn for a religious image. Royal Mail has issued two sets of designs this year. The main set of designs, available in all the main denominations is of angels, which is vaguely Christian but not explicitly so and certainly not specifically  of the Nativity. But they have also issued a 'Madonna and Child' design for first and second class only. Post Office staff have been instructed to only sell this design if people specifically request it, but obviously people can't request it if they don't know it exists! If people don't buy these stamps, Royal Mail will claim there is no demand for Christian Christmas stamps  and not produce them in future. Please ask for these and let's keep Christ in Christmas. "

More than, let's use one of those real Christmas stamps (that's right, with the Christian image) to send a brief letter to the Post Office head office making it clear how disgusted we are with their sales policy.

Saturday 8th December 2007

Staffordshire Society of Artists

As the City Council's Heritage & Design Champion I was delighted to be invited to provide the prologue at the formal opening of the Society's exhibition at the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery, Bethesda Street, Hanley, this afternoon.  With more than 80 members, the Society has certainly offered a wide ranging and vibrant exhibition. Amongst the watercolour and oil paintings are two emroidered landscapes and several scupltures, one of which, really appealed to my sense of humour - Ivan Price's stimulating wood sculpture, Homo erectus: Looking both ways. I couldn't resist musing in my brief speech that perhaps the sculptor is familiar with politicians! I also made reference to the fact that the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is one of the permier galleries in the provinces and a wonderful legacy of forward-looing politicians in the past. Importantly, it is a dynamic, developing centre, with for example, a recently completed special section for the under 5s where tremendous effort has been invested to ensure that the exhibits and information is appealing and accessible. I said that the Gallery had a long and sustained commitment to local artists and that today's exhibition well illustrated that. It is ironic that Staffordshire, which at its major border crossings, proclaims itself to be the creative county fails to offer an exhibition for the Staffordshire Society of Artists at the county town of Stafford! The exhibition has been exceedingly well arranged by Ian Vines who has taken great care to ensure that exhibits have sympathetic neighbours. Pictured to his right is Pam Mallalieu, Head of the Museum & Art Gallery and to his left, David Jacques, author of The Georgian Garden 1730-1830 (1983) and landscape consultant for English Heritage, whom I introduced to perform the official opening. 

Friday 7th December 2007

Registrar's Service

My wife and I were with my father-in-law as he passed away last Sunday afternoon. We three had been with my mother-in-law when she passed away in 1986. That was my first experience of being with someone who passed from life to death. That old phrase "the quick and the dead" could not have been more apt. However, frail, however fragile their hold on life maybe, however imminent is death, that moment when breathing stops is indescribably poignant. And, very humbling. The ensuing bureaucratic paper trail involved in legally recording the death and releasing the body for burial/cremation could have been far less stressful. The local Registrar was exemplary but her role was hampered by deficiencies at the Coroner's Office. Breavement is difficult enough without red tape adding needlessly to the stressfulness of the situation.  

Wednesday 5th December 2007

The Mouth and Foot Painting Artists

 I normally feel rankled (yes, pathetic) when charities send goods unsolicited through the post, complete with invoice and addressed envelope but thankfully the feeling is absent with the annual arrival of the Mouth & Foot Painting Artists' pack of Christmas Cards. In their covering letter they write: "You are of course under no obligation whatsoever" and the message is repeated on the invoice. You would need a heart of stone not to send the £5.95 price of the eight cards. One is the quintessential village church and churchyard under snow by Trevor Wells who is paralysed from the neck down as a result of an accident playing his favourite sport, rugby. Another church snow scene is by Alison Lapper, born limb deficient, and famously sculpted by Mark Quinn for his pregnant statue, displayed in Trafalgar Square. Even though Ruth Christensen had both arms severed above the elbow in an accident at the age of seven, but did not allow this to stop her becoming a professional artist. Her card, Angels, is included in the pack.

The MFPA celebrated its 50th birthday last year. The artists "want not pity but a chance to earn a living." Based at 9 Inverness Place, London, W2 3JG. (0207 229 4491) 

Tuesday 4th December 2007

Council Executive fully committed to City-centre home for Minton Archives

The Elected Mayor, Mark Meredith, and Council Manager/Chief Executive, Steve Robinson, are fully committed to securing a City-centre home for the Minton Archives: "The position of the Chief Executive and I is that we support the acquisition of the Minton Archives and agree that it should be located in the City centre. In my opinion this gives us a tremendous opportunity to expand the museum and create an airy new foyer between the present museum and library which could also act as a joint entrance and Visitors Centre. The extension could then display more of our existing collections and art of which far too much is presently hidden away in storage. A fantastic opportunity. Let's get on with it immediately."

As both Heritage and Design Champion on the Council I applaud this political commitment. It is imperative that that policy commitment is translated, without delay, into a systematic and dynamic officer programme of implementation. 

Monday 3rd December 2007

Spinning is an ancient and noble skill

Until the invention of the spinning wheel in India, perhaps as early as 500AD, yarn was spun by hand with a spindle. By hand or wheel, spinning is indeed an ancient and noble skill, giving birth to fabrics and thus opening up an endless vista of clothing and furnishings, distinguished by a seemingly infinite range of style and colour. What a pity, then, that spinning too often nowadays refers to facts dressed up as fiction in the interests of marketing an image rather than portraying a reality! We are still waiting to know if in fact a new £75,000 a year head of communications has been appointed at the City Council. In the meantime, it seems that the Executive is happy to spend in excess of £250,000  (yes, a quarter of a million!) on free-lance consultants as press officers. Not content with that, we now learn that £100,000 is needed to hire more consultants to help the ones in post to accelerate the spinning. SERCO officers, meanwhile, continue to refuse to explain why they claim that Local Authority provided pre-school day care is subsidised to the tune of £1.2m annually. That kind of spin is pretty thread-bare, as they well know. Silence is their only answer!

Saturday 1st December 2007

The nation begins to catch up with Stoke-on-Trent

 Why oh why are all these rumours emerging from Hay-on-Wye that they have banned all plastic carrier bags?

Admittedly, plastic bags have not been banned in Stoke-on-Trent. Who or which body precisely would have the authority to issue such a banning notice I'm not quite sure. Back to Hay-on-Wye, what are the penalties for contravention: a) issuing said banned plastic bag and b) walking along the road carrying one? Not that I'm in favour of plastic bags.

For several years now in the Fairtrade City if Stoke-on-Trent, the Fairtrade Group has been leading by example and encouraging people to change their baggage. Sponsored by the Co-op supermarket which pioneered retailing Fairtrade goods, the bags are sold at a very competitive price: £3. Hessian, proclaiming support for Fairtrade on both sides of the bag, the shopper is not only encouraged to add more goods with the Fairtrade logo but at the same time is advertising their commitment.