Peter Kent-Baguley

Labour group betrays the people yet again

Predictably, though perhaps not had 5 of the City Independents attended, Full Council on Thursday reaffirmed the insane commitment to the deeply divisive imposition of 5 academies on Stoke-on-Trent. My censure amendment lost by a couple of votes because of course Labour supported by the cobbled coalition Tories and Lib Dems blindly voted to support academies. They have never attempted to justify the policy. Nor have the officers of the private profit-making SERCO company sent in by government to run our Children & Young People's Services Directorate. They know they haven't got an argument so silence is all they can hide behind. Running for six hours, it was my longest Full Council meeting though the "father of the chamber" recalled one that lasted eight hours.

The opposition to the imposition of academies will not only continue but it will intensify. Sponsors should be under no illusions. They will not be welcome in Stoke-on-Trent if the 23rd October referendum kicks out the hated elected dictator system in the form of the elected mayor.

I'm on late summer leave now for a week until Monday 13th October.

Community group gears up opposition to imposition of academies

A full scale debate on the debacle surrounding the re-structuring of secondary education in the City is due at Thursday's Full Council meeting. SERCO, the private profit-making company brought in by the Labour Elected Mayor (yes Labour!) to run the City's Children & Young People's department is universally seen to be aloof and arrogant in much the same way as the elected mayor is seen by the majority of the electorate. Now, we have the so-called Cabinet member/portflio holder for children and young people, Cllr Roger Ibbs, declaring on BBC Radio Stoke that it was the WHOLE Council which agreed the restructure. The response from a number of people who have known Cllr Ibb for a number of years have not been surprised since thye maintain his memory has always been somewhat selective. That's as it may be but he is certainly plaining wrong to say that Full Council ever agreed the school restructure: Full Council have been denied any opportunity to discuss it never mind agree it!

The stealth and secrecy, particularly around the imposition of 5 academies across the City, is further compounded by the local paper's refusal to carry a report of the one-day conference on academies held in the City on 13th September 2008. Silence is the biggest bias.

Well, never mind because grassroots organising is gaining momentum, with or without the local media reporting. Take a look at the excellent new site on academies prepared by community campaigners, HAVOC:

http://www.havocinstoke.org.uk/academiescomment.html

Any would-be sponsors of proposed academies in Stoke-on-Trent would do well to be a little cautious. They may well find that they will not be welcome once this hated undemocratic elected mayor system is thrown out in the 23rd October referendum.

Credit where credit's due...crunch!

Congratulations to the daily local paper for responding to my Bias Watch column launched on Wednesday. They had twice published brief descriptions of the elected mayor and cabinet and the council leader and cabinet systems which are the choices at the 23rd October referendum. Misleadingly, it stated the elected mayor would: employ a cabinet of advisers, whereas the council leader would: work with a cabinet of council members. The offending employ a cabinet of advisers has been replaced with: appoint a cabinet of council members. It was an important point because whichever system, mayor or leader, is chosen through the referendum, full executive authority is vested in the office of mayor or leader and therefore s/he appoints a cabinet of councillors.

Today's Sentinel focuses on the referendum by complaining about the 41 word referendum question. They know it's set by the government; they know the City Council can have no hand in changing it but still they go on to produce their own, reduced 17 word version. Great, but it won't make any difference to the question on the voting slip.

Agreed, the government's version is typical Whitehall civil servant speak. But thanks to Yes, Minister we are all much more familiar with such language! And anyway, surely defeated former councillor Paul Breeze, the self-appointed leader for the NO campaign, realises that by the time voters stagger to the polling booths beneath the welter and weight of a month's rantings from Breeze and his ilk, they'll have a pretty clear idea of the difference between a yes and a no vote.

By the way, interestingly, there is no trace of the Sentinel, Breeze or any of his ilk complaining about the even longer referendum question in 2002 when they were desperate to usher in the new dawn of local government. But then, that 43 word question mentioned the elected mayor and a yes vote was a vote for the mayor system. What an unmitigated disaster that's been for 6 years! With the experience of the grossly undemocratic mayor system, this time, the vast majority of people are feeling positive, intend to vote YES and look forward to being rid of the dictatorship of the elected mayor.

BIAS WATCH: Bias bashing bonanza

From now until the 23rd October referendum on the future form of governance for the City council there will undoubtedly be increasingly shrill cries of "bias" and even perhaps the occasional yell of "lies"! Much of the material will be garnered from the local daily newspaper and maybe the local BBC radio station. The local paper certainly hit the tracks in fine style yesterday. Within an eye-catching dotted box, usually indicative of a free coupon offer, the paper attempted to summarise the essence of each of the two options allowed by the government and thus point up the difference. No matter that they put the elected mayor and cabinet option first, and with two more lines than council leader and cabinet option next because we don't want this bias watch to become pettiness incarnate. No, the real subtle bias lies in describing the origins of the cabinets for the two systems.

For the elected mayor option: "He or she will ...employ a cabinet of advisers to help in the decision-making process."  What about the council leader option? "They (sic) will work with a cabinet of council members to decide on council policy and make decisions affecting the running of the city."

Curiously a single leader is referred to plurally as "they". Since supporters of the mayor and cabinet system seem to have a pathological hatred of the 60 democratically elected councillors they cannot even bring themselves to admit that the elected mayor "will work with a cabinet of council members"! It would serve the local paper right if it were flooded with requests about the employment conditions for the mayor's cabinet and how the application forms for the advisers jobs will be made available!

The Guardian's In praise of...Tribune

Possibly for the first time ever, I didn't read the current issue of Tribune until last night, having first seen with enormous delight the Guardian's answer to those splendid Third Leaders of The Times (when it was The Times), In praise of... focusing on Tribune. Its penutlimate sentence: "It was Labour's beating heart." sounded decidedly final, rending the praise rather more an obituary.

I had been so wrapped up with the anti-academies conference in the city on Saturday and all kinds of follow up work on Sunday that my weekly dose of Tribune was on hold. That penultimate sentence thrust shock waves through me and I immediately retrieved my current Tribune and rather frantically flicked pages searching fro the dreadful announcment. And there it was, a note at the end of the Comment column, headed: URGENT talks are taking place about the future of Tribune. 

Apparently the trade union consortium which owns Tribune - Unite, Unison, Community, ASLEF and the CWU - has still not agreed a  financial development plan tabled in April. The delay has led to "financial strains" so the Tribune Board has agreed to seek a broader range of investment from within the labour movement. The matter will now be discussed at the annual meteing of the Trade Union and Labour Party Liaison Organisation in Manchester on Friday 19th September.

Come on for goodness sake tade unions: this is not the time to abandon an important voice for labour that is neither strident nor hectoring, but thoughtful and encouraging, encompassing a broad range of labour centre-left views. If you are a member of one of the Tribune-owning trade unions, make sure your general secretary knows you expect support to be given to Tribune.