Peter Kent-Baguley

Broadcast confirms coalition conformity

Judging by the 'phone calls following yesterday's lunch time live election panel broadcast on Radio Stoke, listeners perferred my direct, succinct, honest responses to the questions rather than the often rambling, repetitive, rhetorical answers from the Labour-Tory-Lib Dem coalition leaders. The Lib Dem leader must have repeated the mantra "every child matters" a dozen times to dodge answering the question on the coalition's damaging secondary schools restructure programme fo the City. The Tory leader's mantra for months now has been "our schools have failed our children for too long" and that was broadcast without a hint of acceptance of some political responsibility for the alleged failure. Labour's leader was busy elsewhere so the deputy elected mayor in his place appeared mystified as to why there is such widespread disquiet and opposition to the schools plan!

Tomorrow's City Council elections is the opportunity for the voters to make sure Labour, Tory and Lib Dem are bottom of the poll in every Ward across the City. Why, in fact, they are bothering to field separate party candidates when all year they have been joined as indentical coalition members is puzzling. Perhaps they still believe they can hoodwink the public. I think they're wrong. The City cannot afford their costly and inept coalition any more. 

Local democracy desperately needs support. It needs a stronger base than the usual voter turnout, which ranges from 20% to 30% across the 20 City Wards.  

Make sure your vote is counted: make sure your vote counts.

Stoke-on-Trent to be at the London Post Office Conference

Further to my entry for Wednesday 23rd April I am delighted to report that I have secured Stoke-on-Trent's presence at the Local Government Association's national conference on Post Office closures, to be held at the LGA's HQ in London on 14th May. The LGA has, quite rightly, responded to the widespread concern throughout the country at the massive cull of the nation's Post Offices - 2,500 scheduled for the axe. Where and how will the elderly, the infirm, the carers and many other groups of people access cash, post a parcel and pay their bills where there is no nearby bank?

Philip Snow, Chair of the North Staffs Pensioners' Convention and vigorous campaigner for the retention of Post Offices, and I will be representing the City at the Conference, adding to the voice of disquiet and discontent but also networking and gaining concrete ideas for a range of positive possible ways forward. Anticipating the huge take-up, the LGA restricted attendance to two people per local authority area. Announced only days ago, the response has been immediate and massive: today I booked the last two places available.

The first meeting of the Post Office Support Working Group (established at the exploratory meeting convened by the North Staffs Pensioners' Convention in conjunction with the City Council on Friday 18th April with all three City MPs present) is planned for Friday 16th May. Hopefully Philip and I will return from London with some helpful examples of responses to the crisis emerging around the country.

I have come across a range of candidates' election messages during the past few days. A great deal is rhetorical waffle and apparent commitments of the "If elected, I will..." variety without a shred of evidence of the candidates' competency or remotest inkling that they understand the issues. "I will fight to keep the Post Office" is easy enough to write but for goodness sake what on earth is the reader to make of the boast? 

One thing is clear, any Labour or Tory candidate making such claims are clearly way off message. Both their parties are responsible for the widespread demise of the Post Office network and the situtaion in which we find outselves now - frantically trying to salvage essential services in the best possible way.

Election debate broadcast live

The 6 City Council Group leaders will be responding to questions on Radio Stoke's live broadcast 12noon-1pm tomorrow, TUESDAY 29th April. I invite listeners to have paper and pen to hand to keep score of "did they answer the question or create their own question to answer?" Another check could be: "Is there any difference between the coalition parties, Labour, Tory and Lib Dem answers?"

Eye on capital results

As The Times' political commentator, Peter Riddell, conlcudes in this week's Local Government weekly magazine, First, "Overall, apart from London, the political control of local councils is unlikely to change dramatically on 1st May." That's because the odds are stacked against major shifts in control since only a third of each council's seats in most of the 137 local council elections are up for election. This is a major factor inducing widespread voter apathy: what's the point; nothing will change will it? That is a common response on the door-step. In contrast in London, there is a real chance of a major shift: Livingstone defeated by joker in the pack without any policies, Boris Eton-spoilt-playboy Johnson. So, with that Titantic struggle dominating the media there is little attention or encouragement to get the voters out in the rest of the country.

It is inevitable, it seems, that the media will further centralise the local elections in their analysis of voter turnout in terms of what that pattern means for a General Election. The fact that local election turnout and voting patterns are not particularly reliable predictors for General Election results doesn't stop the media spinning its speculative web, reducing the local elections to mere spokes of central government.

Unless local government councillors become less supine, less sychophantic towards Westminster and carve a vision and venture of local distinctiveness, local democracy may wither sooner than we think.

May Day only 4 days away

This morning, at the fortnightly Packmoor Methodist coffee morning in my Ward a number of regulars said: "Oh, I see you're not standing this time, Peter." City Council elections in three successive years (with the fourth fallow year filled in 2005 with the Elected Mayor election) to elect the city's 60 councillors by thirds causes widespread misunderstanding. Many, many people maybe never properly understand the system; many others forget it. No wonder my commitment to press for all-out elections every four years in my re-election manifesto last May met with such widespread support. Also in the proposal, I included the idea of single member wards, cutting present wards into two, and so having 40, not 60 councillors.

These changes would save some £500,000 annually! Not that I think democracy should be on the cheap but nor does it need to be wasteful. It would be a much more transparent system with no confusion about who is standing for re-election and much more accountable with one member for one ward. With fewer councillors I am convinced the democratic process would be both more efficient and certainly more effective.

Newcastle Players at the Mitchell Theatre

Without too much guilt I sneaked an hour or two from electioneering this evening to pop along to the City-centre, Mitchell Theatre.  

First performed off Broadway, New York in 1987, this is perhaps the first performance in the Potteries of Robert Harling's Steel Magnolias. Unhurried, rounded sentences with each consonant pronounced in a never-ending verbal web captures the minutia of the every-day lives of six small-town white women in the deep South of the USA. The endless inconsequentiality, interspersed with comic comment, particularly about their men-folk, is punctured by the death of the youngest woman, in her twenties, following the birth of her first child. Her mother, played by Chris Lockett, powerfully protrays the helpless anger of her grief and the importance of the support of her four women friends comes over very well.

The arrival of Annelle, admirably and skillfully played by Lucy Bryan, initially with dulled personality and frumpy dress, not sure if she still has her new husband, who turned out to be a criminal, is welcomed with open arms by the close-knit five who spend most of their lives at the hairdressers. Lucy Bryan transforms Annelle into a bright-eyed, born-again Baptist with a new partner and baby on the way. Just as race and class are absent, so is any hint of sarcastic back-biting in Harling's bubble of female bonding.

Janet Mulliner's direction animates Robert Vaughan's set which is warmly lit, conveying that Southern light. No space is wasted and no moment is an awkward silence. This is a thoroughly professional  production with which the Newcastle Players may be justifiably pleased. 

Labour's negative scare-mongering campaign

Nationally, the fact that the majority of voters can see little difference between the Tories and Labour (and it, it would seem, little point in the Lib Dems) is surely contributing to widespread voter dissatisfaction, disaffection and disengagement with the democratic process. New Labour, having abandoned their commitment to ordinary people and embraced profitering (which is not at all the same thing as "wealth creation") are doing the Tories' work for them!

Labour have at last got an inkling of this gulf amongst their traditional supporters but what is their response? A re-direction of policies? No! Instead, they spread scare-mongering smears accusing voters who do not intend to vote Labour in the local elections of "splitting the vote" and thus "letting in the BNP."  How low can Labour's electioneering sink: accusing the voters' exercising their democratic choice of "letting in the BNP." 

Equally bereft of logic, of course (and Labour know the truth of this) is to say, if you vote Labour you will split the vote and let in the BNP!

Elections should be about candidates presenting the voters with as clear a picture as possible of their principles and values with examples of their policy approach for range of issues, such as education, regeneration, care of the elderly and so on.

Nothing will be gained in Stoke-on-Trent if the 11 Labour councillors up for re-election are in fact returned. The Council must start working in an open and honest democratic way. Issues need to be debated openly and fully. People have had enough of the Labour, Tory, Lib Dem coalition which 99% of the time unthinkingly imposes central government's instructions.

And the 1% of the time when the Elected Mayor and his cobbled coalition ventures to make their own decisions, it gets them wildly wrong! Like attempting to close the Dimensions Leisure centre pool. Thank goodness on Thursday 1st May the people have the chance to vote them out! 

ENGLAND's St George's Day

Celebrating the best of British? No, surely this IS the one day of the year when the best of ENGLAND can be celebrated without let or hindrance! During my five years in Malta I really envied the Maltese capacity to celebrate their national cultural identity, and with pride. It is encouraging to see the celebration of our national day emerging more and more from the strata of diversity that have been laid across the English over recent decades. Let's enjoy the overcastness, drizzle and rain...and hope for a little sunshine later in the day! 

POST OFFICE CLOSURES

I sometimes think that New Labour concentrate on how to further disadvantage people on benefits or low earners. We are now faced with a further round of sub-Post Office closures. Individuals and various groups are attempting to convince the Post Office to delay closures, for up to 12 months in the case of the Leader of Staffordshire Countuy Council. The North Staffordshire Pensioners' Convention convened a meeting last Friday at which the three City MPs, several City councillors and a dozen or so members of the Convention expressed their views.

My view was that we must recognise the harsh reality of the situation and be very clear about what it is we are trying to save. Given the enormous loss-making aspect of the Post Office network (and I felt it necessary to point out, due in no small measure to the government for withdrawing services and diverting benefits to people's bank accounts) most of if not all of the 2,500 proposed closures will go ahead regardless of the impending so-called consultation period. 

I said that it appears that local Post Offices, broadly speaking, provide two principal services. One, what we might call the community service, particularly for the elderly, offering a social hub and the other, postal and financial servies. We cannot reasonably expect private business people to be responsible for providing a community service. A social focus should be provided at an appropriate community centre. If we identify the precise postal and financial services needed then it may be that they could be provided at a Council run or voluntary run community centre. Posting packages and parcels and accessing cash are key services. A government supposedly committed to reducing our carbon footprint should NOT be forcing people to use their car in the absence of appropriate public transport to travel to a distant post office. They should certainly not be dispossessing the poorer people who do not have a car of essential servcices. They should not be forcing them to access cash via a commercial cash machine that charges almost £2 per transaction.

Why couldn't the government have facilitated this kind of analysis, consequent planning and delivery of these essential services in new ways? Perhaps because their obsession with the rich has obliterated all thought, interest and concern for ordinary people. Ordinary people have the perfect opportunity on Thursday 1st May to remind New Labour that they will not be ignored any more. Labour have 11 councillors up for re-election in the City. It is an ideal time to make your voice heard: vote them out.

CONNEXIONS...more like DISconnections

A small community centre in my ward has two excellent qualified, experienced and successful youth workers: Angela and Georgina. They have been doing stirling work with a small number of young NEETs. However much the voluntary sector may tactically succomb to the use of acronyms for human beings, the state's bureaucracies remain aloof and anonymous amidst the morass of meaningless organizational names (like Connexions! who would ever guess that had anything to do with young people?). With the start of the new financial year, the national network of Connexions receive their funding, not as hitherto directly from the government, but via the local authority.

So, in the case of Stoke-on-Trent, we have another meaningless organizational name involved, SERCO, the global private profiters who will run anything they can wrest from governments. This is what ten years or more of Labour has delivered: a massively shrinking public service, handed over to the private sector whose prime concern is the creation of profit. Who would ever have imagined that Labour would hand over lock, stock and barrel the state education system, school by school, to the private sector? 

Like all of Labour's betrayals of the ordinary people of our country, it is cleverly marketed with deceitful advertising language. Rename a school an "academy" then hand over its assets (land, buildings and equipment) paid for by our taxation to a private, so-called sponsor! I say so-called because profiters haven't been over enthusiastic about investing actual money in such "academies" (originally, Blair stipulated £2m for a new build and the state would cough up the remaining £24m as well as pay for ALL running costs! I don't think anyone actually handed over that amount!). Nowadays, apart from faith organizations, who can't believe their luck, hardly any body is interested, yet still Brown ploughs on relentlessly hiving off our assets, our schools. 

Academies are privatised: the curriculum is at the whim of the sponsors (the mind boggles), eliminate councillors, parents and teachers from the governing body (why bother with local democracy when you don't have to?!); be selective - the rules allow for 10% of the annual intake to be selected but with careful advertising, crafty school "requirements" such as sizeable donations to school funds, interviewing etc actual selection can be substantial; to boost that distorting factor, expulsions/exclusions are much higher amongst academies...and all this privatised elitism on public taxation, because yes, all of the academy's running costs are paid for by our taxation.

In Stoke-on-Trent, SERCO are masterminding this transfer of state assets to the private sector. They are now also in control of government cash for Connexions, a quango that acts as a conduit for the cash to fund particular kinds of youth work. Actually that's not quite accurate. They only seem interest in NEETs: the vast majority of young people can get lost as far as Connexions and SERCO are concerned. NEETs - Not in Employment, Education or Training, these are the young people for whom all youth work resources are focussed. Connexions, like conglomerate capitalists, hire and fire at will community groups to deliver their work. They have just fired the community group of which I am chair, the group that employs Angela and Georgina. This is how much Labour values the voluntary sector: turn off the cash-flow at will; no notice, no concern for redundancy and not a care in the world for the damage such an arbitrary state system inflicts on a community organization.

Anyone thinking of voting Labour, Conservative or Lib Dem on 1st May would do well to think again. That threesome coalition is willingly inflicting untold damage on the social fabric of our city. During the past twelve months, they have failed the people of this City big time: reduced care for the elderly, withdrawn care for pre-school children; eliminated real school choice for children and parents; reduced funding for arts and culture to the point that threatens the very survival of the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery - a premier regional centre. Not surprisingly, the coalition slashed the Youth Work budget by a third. Voters of the City - the young, the old and the in-between - unite! Vote out the threesome coalition.   

Aspects of Labour's City Council election campaign:Beyond DENIAL to DECEIT

Labour Councillor Dave Conway was one of the 10 councillors absent at the 28th February Full Council meeting when the Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem coalition voted for the Budget which included the closure of the Dimensions Leisure Centre pool in order to save £60,000. 

In The Sentinel the following day he reportedly said: "I am ashamed of the councillors who have voted against the most vulnerable people in our society."  Presumably, Councillor Dave Conway is so ashamed, particularly of his own fellow Labour Group councillors, that he is desperately trying to create the biggest possible distance between himself, as candidate for re-election, and the Labour Group of which he is STILL a member! 

His election posters are yellow not red, and read: Vote Dave Conway - mysteriously no party label! Mrs Conway told me that because they were not well-off they had done their own posters on their computer. It must be an unusual computer that cannot print "Labour"!  

So, on the inside, at the Town Hall, Cllr Conway in fact remains a member of the Labour Group and collects £7,000 a year for being chair of a scrutiny committee. On the outside, in the Ward, he creates the impression of being a free-thinking, free-speaking independent chappie, unfettered by Labour group policy and whip. The Sentinel's 26th February front page headline: Say what you want then do as you are told, summed up official Labour Group policy re the schools' restructure. Cllr Conway certainly has no problems with applying that Labour Group policy more widely! 

In trying to wipe out his association with Labour, his membership of the Labour Group in fact, Cllr Dave Conway has moved beyond denial to deceit. The electorate deserve better.   

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Intoxicated driver cuts my link with the world

With only 5 weeks to the May 1st City elections and I am cut off from the outside world! Was this planned? No, rather at 9pm last Thursday a totally inebriated driver crashed into the telegraph pole opposite my house, snapped the pole near the base bringing my cable link to the world crashing down across the road. BT appeared at midnight that night to remove the pole and roll up the downed telephone cable and drove off into the dark! We are still cut off along with the people who live in the dozen or so houses further along the road.

Nevertheless, the good news is that the campaign to save the pool from closure at the Council owned Dimensions leisure centre is developing a positive momentum with good local press and regional tv coverage. I seconded a motion at Full Council on Thursday 27th March for the Budget proposal to close the pool to be referred to an Overview & Scrutiny Committee. That was approved without dissent. The matter is on the agenda of the Improving Services O/S this morning. Just going to the meeting now...a few minutes before 10am.

LATE EXTRA

Just out of the Committee which has agreed to set up a Task & Finish group to conduct a full, in depth analysis of the Dimensions leisure centre and in the meantime the Centre will operate NORMALLY. The Assistant Chief Executive, Chris Harman, undertook to inform the staff at Dimensions of that decision.

My view: great news that there will be a full in depth enquiry reported back to Full Council. Also, had the 10 Councillors who absented themselves from the 28th February Budget Full Council actually attended and voted according to their consciences then we could have avoided all this public anxiety and needless waste of valuable council time.

Playing truant to avoid Full Council meetings is about as reprehensible as a Member can get. It denies the electorate their democratic representation, and just because the truanting councillors lack the strength of character to defy their party whip.  They forfeit all right to be a democratic representative and should take the honourable action and resign or not seek re-election on 1st May.

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