Here, for starters, is a picture of me, standing next to a sign which says there’s a 30mph limit in place past Bickerstaffe C of E Primary School (and along Hall Lane, Church Road, Liverpool Road, Lathom Road). 

Eight years of campaigning, thousands of words spewed out, and we finally have it.

Phew.

This was about how he once went to Iraq, and how his experience of Sunni and Shi’ite divisions reminded him of his current experience of the Labour and Tory ‘tribes’ in the Council chammber.

At least that’s what I think he might have been on about.

When I came to respond, I sought to use my own experiences of  living and workig in the southern highlands of Tanzania, where the use of the ‘joking tribe’ was deliberately fostered under Julius Nyrere as a means to develop peaceful co-existence and is a significant factor in the fact that Tanzania has never seen any internal ethnic conflict as a modern state, and is unlikely to do (cf. neighbouring Kenya):

The essence of social relationships between tribes based on utani, mtani (joking relationships) supported cohesion between different ethnic groups. Joking relationships since pre-colonial time is a peculiar features existed between tribes in Tanzania. This type of social life and interaction created a strong feeling of friendship, neighborhood and later on shared identity between them.

There were several factors which created this type relationship between tribes.  The most common factor was neighborhood, especially, tribes which shared boundaries . The second factor was through conflict, for instance, the Ngoni created joking friendiships with other tribes in southern parts after being in conflict (wars) with them.

I wanted to suggest that the coming, no doubt joke-ridden, charity cricket match between the two parties might allow us to set to one side our hostilities for an afternoon, and ensure that democratic norms of local government continue to be respected even in the highly tense local government times to come.

The Tory mayor didn’t like me using analogies gleaned from my working life, though, and told me to get back to the topic.

Funny that. 

Perhaps he thought I might be stepping out from behind the handy stereotype of the Labour councillor.

The only things of note about it all is that I was so sure of the Tories’ response, and the kind of amendment they would put on the night (which I’ve copied below), that I was able both to script my summing up response in full, and to ‘spike their guns’ in my opening speech by arguing the detail of the Basic State Pension rise before they were able to use it in their defence. 

Although they left their nonsense about index-linking state pension in their amendment, they didn’t bother to try and defend it as I’d already taken it apart before they got there.  

The only bit of the whole thing I ad-libbed in my summing up was the first bit (which I’ve added in from memory of what I said) about the fact that not a single Tory mentioned the people of West Lancashire in their response.

I’ve put a few links in to my information sources.  You can see the blogging influence, and thanks to Sunny for the input.

Motion on the agenda

“Council notes:

That the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% announced in the Government’s June Budget will fall hardest on those least able to afford it.

That the increase in VAT will lead to higher prices for goods and services; will have a disproportionate impact on pensioners and other low income groups; and will have a severe impact on businesses, charities and community groups in West Lancashire.

That the effect of the increase in VAT, when taken with other measures in the Budget, will be unfair to pensioners, who have not had a compensatory increase in other benefits and allowances.

That the way the VAT increase will affect pensioners and other low income groups runs counter to the Government’s Coalition Agreement statement on 20 May 2010 that it would “ensure that fairness is at the heart of those decisions so that all those most in need are protected.”

That the Institute of Fiscal Studies has stated the VAT increase was not “unavoidable,” as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his Budget speech.

Council resolves:

To write directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer raising concerns about the impact of the proposed VAT increase on pensioners, other vulnerable groups and businesses in West Lancashire.

To call on the Members of Parliament representing West Lancashire to stand up for West Lancashire pensioners, businesses and wider community, to voice their opposition to this unfair increase in VAT, and to vote against it in Parliament.”

My speech (max time allowed 5 minutes)

Why is this motion about VAT, a matter not under the direct control of the ruling administration?

We could have used the time available to address the council’s service cuts in light of the dire warnings we get from the previous warnings on the agenda tonight.

But we know that in many ways the group opposite are just the lapdogs of their new government.  

In terms of cuts, it is their government who’ll be slashing and burning, and we don’t realistically expect the Tory group here to be doing anything other than wringing their hands and say it’s all forced upon them. 

Resisting the cuts will be our job.

Councillor opposites:

This motion is aimed at giving you a chance to stand up for the people of West Lancashire over a matter under which you are under no particular duress, and about something your own party leadership gave you no inkling about before they took office.

You can, like your LibDem Warren Bradley down the road, speak out about the rise.  Yes, Warren Bradley, a LibDem, showing some spine! Even if what he says is about the LibDems electoral demise rather than how the VAT rise will hurt the people of Liverpool.

So, at the heart of the June Budget is a VAT rise for which neither the Tories nor the Lib Dems have any mandate – a VAT rise to 20% which will hit pensioners hardest. 

This is in contrast to Labour’s plan for halving the deficit in four years, which met the timetable set out by the G20 a month ago, without an unfair VAT rise, without putting the recovery at risk and without hitting peoples’ jobs. 

The VAT rise will cost each household in the country over £500, but it will hit the most vulnerable hardest.

Pensioners for example…..

Pensioners will have to pay the full cost of the VAT hike – but those over 65 will not receive any increase in their personal allowance to partially compensate.

The Government has tried to claim that they are helping pensioners by linking the Basic State Pension to earnings in 2011 rather than 2012. But because earnings are expected to be lower than prices that year, this is an empty promise that will not make one penny of difference to pensioners.  In addition the move to use CPI as the measure of inflation for uprating the Basic State Pension means that it will be £76 lower in 2013/14 than it would be if RPI were used. The Budget also announced that the additional state pension will in future be increased by CPI rather than RPI, meaning that by 2015 the state second pension will on average be £114 a year lower.

But I know you’re unlikely to believe me.  So let’s see what your very own Treasury Select Committee said in its report about the budget yesterday, when it comes to the VAt rise.  Your own report states:

‘We asked our expert witnesses whether the VAT increase was a ‘progressive’ or a ‘regressive’ measure. Robert Chote told us that the key issue when assessing this question was whether you looked at the impact of a VAT rise on people “according to their living standards in a particular snapshot as measured by income or over a lifetime period”. He explained that VAT looked particularly regressive when compared against income because “the poorest decile spend a relatively high amount relative to their income, you hit high spenders hardest and, therefore, not surprisingly that shows it to be regressive”.

That’s right.  VAT rises hit the poorest hardest, especially pensioners.

But again, why trust me?

Before the election, your new mates the Liberal Democrats warned that the Conservatives would raise VAT.   They were right.

During the election campaign, the Conservatives repeatedly denied that they had plans to raise VAT.

Here’s George Osborne in The Times, 10 April 2010

We have no plans to increase VAT.

VAT rises are unfair and regressive – and both David Cameron and Nick Clegg know it.

Here’s David Cameron:

You could try as you say put it on VAT, sales tax, but again if you look at the effect of sales tax, it’s very regressive, it hits the poorest the hardest. It does, I absolutely promise you. Any sales tax, anything that goes on purchases that you make in shops tends to… if you look at it, where VAT goes now it doesn’t go on food obviously but it goes very very widely and VAT is a more regressive tax than income tax or council tax. (Cameron Direct, Exeter, 8 May 2009)  

Here’s his mate Nick Clegg (though after the Prime Minister Questions ‘personal capacity’ debacle today, it’s unclear whether he is part of the government or not):

Well you clearly can’t write budgets in the future but what you can say is that the only way you can avoid a huge hike in VAT, which let’s remember is a regressive tax, is by making sure that you take some of the decisions that we’ve done. (Nick Clegg, BBC Today Programme, 7 April 2010 )

Here’s another one of your government lot, Simon Hughes, just days before the budget:

 I hope we don’t have a VAT increase because it is the most regressive form of tax, it penalises the poor at the same rate as the rich (BBC Daily Politics, 15 June 2010).

This is what your own leaders said.

But don’t trust them.  Who would?  Here’s some independent expert opinion:

The independent National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR) says VAT tax rises do more harm than other tax rises would  in its report of 21 June 2010.

The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says a VAT rise will have most impact on those with the least money.  The poorest 10% of households would lose twice as much as a percentage of their income as the highest 10% because what they spend represents a higher proportion of what they earn.

You are within your right, I submit, even in your own party’s terms, to stand up against a tax which hits the poorest hardest, by backing this motion, perhaps also with appropriate amendments that this can support about ways in which this council might alleviate at least a little of the hurt that the VAT rise will bring, assuming its introduction.  Such steps might entail, for example, looking properly at off-peak concessionary travel for older people rather than simply pretending to have done so.

Tory amendment put on the night

Council notes:

That the increase in VAT from 17.5% to 20% announced in the Government’s June Budget was a tax rise made necessary by the appalling deficit created by the previous government. 

That the Labour former Chief Secretary to the Treasury confirmed this when he left a note for his successor saying  ‘I’m sorry but there’s no money left’.

That the rise in VAT will not apply to essentials such as food, children’s clothes or domestic fuel and that the increase in the personal tax threshold of £1,000 will especially benefit people on lower household incomes.

That the restoration of the earnings link for state pensions is something which the previous government merely talked about for 13 years but which the current government will implement from next April for the benefit of every pensioner in West Lancashire.

Council resolves:

To write directly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer acknowledging the strong start that he has made in addressing the budget deficit and deploring the actions of the Labour government in running up debts which will have to be paid by future generations.

My summing up and reponse to the Tories (max allowed 3 mins)

What strikes me most is that not a single one of the councillors opposite has bothered to mention the impact of the VAT rise on residents.  They simply don’t seem to care. 

Instead they’re happy to wave their hands in the air and talk nonsense about the ‘debt crisis’.

So let’s address this head on.

It is simply nonsense to talk of Labour’s debt crisis.

Discretionary spend (QE) helped get us through the worst into which we’re now being cast but was still only 15% of the overall additional spend, most of which came from ‘cyclical adjustments’ of decreased tax revenue and increased welfare expenditure because of the related recession.

And it is ridiculous to claim that we have to reduce the deficit at the speed your government is proposing, with the wholly fallacious claim that if we don’t it will increase borrowing costs and hurt business confidence.

Look at Ireland, which has followed the path your government now wishes to follow.  A massive austerity package.  The reward?  On Monday its credit rating was cut again, and borrowing may become more costly.  So much for your economic vandalism reassuring the markets.

And reassuring business? Stimulating growth? Really, through these narrow minded, economically illiterate methods?  

Utter rubbish.

While the Tory media is breathlessly repeating the Tory line that our deficit is unmanageable, we get this extraordinary stuff from the latest Markit/ CIPS UK (PMI) survey about the fall in confidence related to the Conservative budget.

The survey showed that business confidence for future activity suffered its greatest monthly drop in its 14-year history, with the CEO saying:

June’s data painted a worrying picture for the UK services sector as confidence suffered a serious blow following the government’s emergency spending cuts. Purchasing managers voiced grave concerns that budget cuts and VAT rises will tip the scales and amplify the likelihood of the UK slipping back into recession.

The Financial Times have reported that the fall in business confidence was bigger than either after 9/11 or the Lehman brothers bank crash.

And people are noticing. That’s why Francis Maude was booed when he talked stupidly of government bankruptcy on Newsnight the other week – people are starting to find you out.  That’s why David Cameron’s popularity in his traditional honeymoon period has fallen in three months by the level it took Tony Blair’s popularity to fall.

So don’t talk to me about responsible financial management until you’ve read some basic financial literacy primers. 

Then get real, get honest, and get responsible.

You have a final chance to show that you have some mettle, to show that you care about your citizenry, to show some sense of responsibility.

That’s by supporting this motion.

Here it is, dated 29th June:

“West Lancashire Community Leisure Trust, in partnership with the Council, currently provides free swimming for the over 60s with a grant from Central Government covering a significant part of the cost for the programme.

 When the scheme was first launched in April last year, the Community Trust saw over 1,400 over 60’s register for free swimming but less than 800 actually used the free swimming scheme once they had registered. However overall the number of visits by over 60’s swimmers during the first 12 months of the scheme did increase from 17,721 to 18,354.

With the announcement that funding for the scheme will end in July, the Trust is now looking at a number of potential alternative options for older swimmers, including the possibility of a discounted monthly swim pass for the over 60’s. This and other options will now be considered by the Trust in the next few weeks.”

I publish it here because the Tory council has declined to put the news on its own website, even though it regularly publicises Trust news when it suits.  

Aware that a statement had been requested by the local press, I had to ask specifically for a copy of what should already have been in the public domain for over a week.

Clearly the Tories’ ‘our news, and nothing but our news’ rules still apply.

Just as clearly, this decision by the Leisure Trust, with Council connivance, is an utter disgrace. 

The Trust’s statement conveniently leaves out one basic fact. 

The council pays Serco a million pounds a year (inflation indexed) as a subsidy, according to their gold-plated 15 year contract.  The naivety of the Council entering into this contract is staggering.

While all other areas of the council’s budget are being cut, the Tories don’t have the guts or the gumption to accept that they’ve screwed the taxpayer by entering a long-term contract like this, and then ask Serco to take a hit on their profit and fill the funding gap left by their own Tory government.

Pitiful.

Despite being very keen to publish other news from West Lancashire Leisure Trust, who are supposed

So I sent the following email to Customer Services:

Dear Sir/Madam

I received your Chief Executive’s ‘interim budget update’ A5 flyer today through my door.

It’s very informative, but, alas, totally irrelevant to me as I live 1.5 miles over the Lancashire border.

I am at 2 Moss Side Cottage, Sineacre Lane, Bickerstaffe, West Lancashire L39 0HR. Clearly your leafeters are not too sure where the border is and time is being wasted.

Hope this is helpful.

Blimey, working out where Knowsley is really does seem to be a problem.

A Labour councillor has reacted angrily to the decision by the Conservative administration at Lancashire County Council to put on hold all speed limiting and road safety work in the parishes he represents.

Councillor for Bickerstaffe Ward, Paul Cotterill, said:

The Tory administration in Preston has acted outrageously in banning all further work on the implementation of speed limits and safety measures in my ward. People in Bickerstaffe, Simonswood and South Lathom, the parishes I cover, have been campaigning for several years for such measures, and just at the point when that campaign was coming to fruition in several areas, the County Council has decided not to carry through on its promises.

I am particularly disgusted that the much needed 30mph limit, which had been agreed for Liverpool Road, Church Road and past the primary school on Hall Lane, has not been put in place as promised. This follows a long campaign by residents, which we thought was finally won back in 2009 when the Council agreed (on appeal) to reduce Liverpool Road from a 40mph limit to 30mph, and to reduce Church Road and Hall Lane all the way from 60mph to 30mph. In addition, I have NINE other speed and safety schemes across the ward, at different stages of progress, which are simply being ignored by the Council.

I have in writing a commitment by the County Council to put the news signs up by the end of May 2010. I now learn from officers at the County that all work on speed limiting has been stopped because of a total ban on all capital spending, pending the Tories’ ‘ideology budget’ on Tuesday 22nd June. Only then, after the savage and needless cuts are announced, will the County Council decide what capital schemes can and can’t go ahead. Given the snail like pace at which the council operates under the Tories, it may take months before the details are known, and before we know where we stand.

This is a ridiculous situation. My constituents have been promised safer roads for months now, and they have been betrayed. The Tories at County Hall should be ashamed of themselves.

Note to editors:

1) Details of the ten speed and safety schemes are available at http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=1709

 2) Details of the agreement reached for a 30mph limit on Liverpool Road are at http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=1338 (September 2009), and of the agreement to add to this agreement by including Church Road and Hall Lane (past the school) are at http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=1576 (March 2010), with notice that the speed limits had been promised for May 2010 at http://www.bickerstafferecord.org.uk/?p=1610 (April 2010)

A Labour councillor has reacted angrily to the decision by the Conservative administration at Lancashire County Council to put on hold all speed limiting and road safety work in the parishes he represents. 

I think it’s despicable that 16-year-old lads from Skelmersdale can’t play football in their own town.

The council gives a wholly evasive reply, saying that allocations have not yet been made, but certainly not denying the assertion that the new league will be denied the playing space they need.

The reason the embattled council spokesperson needs to be so evasive is simple: the Tory administration has once again failed to take responsibility, and once again failed the young people of West Lancashire.

‘How so?’ I hear you ask.

Well, mostly because they should have been focusing on providing more pitches and changing facilities, in keeping with their new Open Space Strategy, which says, inter alia:

there is a minor oversupply of adult football pitches at peak time (Sunday AM) equal to 0.5 football pitches

there is a significant shortfall of junior football pitches at peak time (Sunday AM) of 28.2 pitches

mini football usage is also a Sunday morning activity. There is currently an undersupply of 4.1 pitches

And a key reason it’s not dealt with this issue – one of key importance to the young people of Skelmersdale and West Lancashire – is that the Open Space Strategy was delivered to the council by its highly paid consultants a staggering 15 months late. 

That is the council should have spent the last 15 months working on how to provide the additional space so badly needed.  If it had done it’s job properly, and ensured that its consultants did theirs, then a couple of hundred young people in Skem might have been playing regular football next season.

But this is what happens when you’ve got a Tory administration that simply doesn’t care.

And just for reference, here’s the text of my motion to Full council, as long ago as December 2007, and before the Open Space Strategy was even begun:

That this Council recognise the extraordinary success of the Skelmersdale Junior Football League, and the very valuable role played by the organisers of the League in facilitating healthy activity for a large number of young people in West Lancashire;

That the Council recognise that the growth of the league in recent years, along with other footballing activities at the site, means that the Liverpool Road playing fields used for the League are under considerable pressure, and that the often muddy conditions are not conducive to the development of young people’s football skills.

That in recognition of the above factors and the potential for continued expansion of the league, everything possible be done by the Council to assist the league in the running and further development of the league on satisfactory playing surfaces, including the arrangement and development of new playing areas.

The Tories voted against.

This is where the administration is supposed to set out what its main decisions will be over the next four month period.  This time around, what’s in it is less important than what’s left out.

This is because the whole idea of a demand responsive transport scheme for Skelmersdale, which first went to cabinet in June 2008, and on which a decision has been deferred now eight times, has simply disappeared.

Council officers have now confirmed to me that the rejection of the Department for Transport bid was confirmed to the council two months ago on 16 April.  This is hardly surprising because the bid, submitted in Summer 2009 went without an accompanying business plan, even though grant funding had been given by the Local Strategic Partnership for that very purpose!

As far as I’m aware, there is still no business plan.  The county council has now withdrawn its offer of two free buses to get the service up and running, and by leaving the whole matter out of the Key Decision forward Plan, it is clear that the Tory administration has simply given up on the whole thing, and is hoping no one will notice it quietly slip away.

If only it were that simple….

The problem is that by simply dropping the whole thing, the administration is giving up on £125,000 in commuted sum funding, agreed a part of the Excel business park a decade ago (and now, through inflation, worth a good deal less than it was.  This is money that could be spent on any number of good schemes, but which is simply being ignored by the Tory council.

The whole matter is simply shameful.

Of course, the reaction from the Tories, as and when the press quizz them on this, is that they’d not forgotten about it at all, and that they have the matter in hand. 

They’ve had years to get the matter in hand. Why believe a word they say?

As far as I can see it’s not online, but the original article about it from November 2009 is here, and gives the background:

Cllr Sumner launched the petition on the Downing Street website in April this year to persuade the Government to investigate reinstating the Burscough Curves, a half-mile stretch of railway linking both the Southport to Manchester and the Ormskirk to Preston lines.

He believes that if the track was re-laid there would be potential to run services from Southport to both Preston and Ormskirk, and restore services not seen since the 1960s.

The piece last week accepts that the petition won’t be successful as it only gatherered 900 signatures, though the councillor thinks this is in itself a success.  Fair enough, if that’s what he thinks.

What the LibDem councillor doesn’t mention is that his new coalition government made it impossible to reach the target by the 03 June deadline (revised to June because of the election).  When it came into power, it stopped accepting signatures.

When I emailed the No 10 site’s administrators in May to ask when the facility might be up again, in case people wanted to meet the 03 June deadline with a late flurry, I was told that no decision had been taken, and the 03 June deadline came and went without the site starting to accept signatures again.

The following statement now appears on the No 10 petition website:

Existing e-petitions, submitted to the previous administration, will not be carried forward to the new administration as part of this process. E-petitions that were live at the time of the election announcement on 6 April, when the e-petitions system was suspended, will therefore not be reopened for signatures.

Now I’m not sure whether the LibDem councillor in question  simply didn’t know what has happened, or whether he’s deliberately obscuring the actions of his chosen government in stopping the petition facility without notice. I certainly didn’t see any commitment to NOt listening to people in the LibDem manifesto.

Either way, the coalition’s been shown up for what it is – more interested in making its mark as a new administration than respecting the rights of local people to express a view in the way they were promised.

This is of course utterly ridiculous, and a betrayal of people in Bickerstaffe by the new government, who are stopping a Council of their own political inclination carrying out works that they have already promised to residents and spent legal notice money on. 

Such a blanket ban on capital spending, with no discretion whatsoever for officers to get on with their job while the government undertakes its budget review, is a typically underhand tactic by the Tory administration at County Hall in Preston, seizing on any excuse to stop all spending that it can.

Road speed limits have been the number one priority for many people in Bickerstaffe for years, and we finally thought our efforts were paying off.

Then along came the Tories and their LibDem chums.