March 2009

The Archives

• Being Labour, The world beyond West Lancashire

  The fiscal stimulus debate: make clear who’ll pay it back, Gordon

  03.31.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Like Hopi, I’d like to see a fiscal stimulus package agreed at the G20 summit this week. 
  Like Hopi, I’m pessimistic about the chances of getting one now that Sarkozy in particular has decided to go all hard man on us, even though immediate action is what the French people clearly want to see.
  Sadly, as I’ve set [...]

• The world beyond West Lancashire

  Putting two and two together

  03.30.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  I think we can all now work out who might have been sitting in front of Hopi on his train up to the Midlands the other day.

• Being Labour, The world beyond West Lancashire

  Defending Blackburn Labour: The convenient Myth of the Mobility of Capital

  03.29.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  Long post alert – 2,500 words. Pdf file here for reading convenience.)
  Asif Sange, posting at Blackburn Labour the other day, has come in for some entirely predictable criticism from the trolls that inhabit Iain Dale’s Tory site.
  Why Asif should have wanted to flag us his post over there is something I can only guess at; [...]

• Being Labour, The world beyond West Lancashire

  Bestowing patronage on some lowly bloggers

  03.28.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Now that I have a massive readership and am generally considered No1 blogger in the whole of Bickerstaffe, including South Lathom and Simonswood, it’s high time I bestowed a bit of patronage on some really lowly but deserving bloggers. 
  So step forward for virtual anointment and such like:
   1 Blackburn Labour
  Yes I know everyone’s going on about these guys [...]

• Being Labour, The world beyond West Lancashire

  Thurrock and the rule book

  03.27.09 | Permalink | 5 Comments

  Let me try and get this right in my head.
  Terry Hipsey has defected from the Conservatives to Labour in Thurrock, and he’s immediately a very fine Labour councillor with all the correct Labour values and attributes, goes off to meet Harriet Harman the next day, and immediately deserves a post on Labourlist to say hello to everyone.
  How does [...]

• The world beyond West Lancashire

  Hopi, Steve, and conceptions of power

  03.27.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Hopi Sen has an interesting post up about why we need politics and why it will work in the end, which also reminds me that I wanted to link to a post on the Compass site by Steve Goodrich, about a seminar he went to run by Colin Hay, my favourite current British politics academic, [...]

• Bickerstaffe Thoughts

  Mouchel make a mockery

  03.26.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Below are my detailed comments made in respect of the recently completed speed limit review on A and B roads in Bickerstaffe Ward, undertaken by major consulting firm Mouchel Ltd.
  The recommendations made in the review are part of a wider review of A and B roads across West Lancashire (and Lancashire as a whole), which can be found [...]

• Being Labour, The world beyond West Lancashire

  ‘Loony rightwing Councils in tax bombshell shocker’

  03.24.09 | Permalink | 2 Comments

  It is faintly amusing to read that the Conservative Chair of the Local Government Association, Margaret Eaton, calling for council tax rises not to be capped by the government.
  In fact her letter to the local government minister, as reported by the LGA magazine, seems quite sensible, in that it calls simply for appropriate flexibility for councils’ local circumstances, and [...]

• Being Labour, Cotterill on the Council

  The results of bloody mindedness (2)

  03.24.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  Because I’m bloody-minded, this is what tonight’s Cabinet papers say about the LSP’s Integrated Transport Plan:

  ‘It is proposed that the District Council endorse the Action Plan and that the thematic group continues to drive forward its implementation. It is also proposed that the Thematic Working Group ensures that the future work includes improvements that will [...]

• Being Labour

  Capitalism with a Con sense

  03.24.09 | Permalink | Comment?

  David Cameron, March 2009
  ‘When they look at capitalism today too many people see markets without morality, and that’s what’s got to change. As I’ve said before, we need capitalism with a conscience. That is a task for the modern Conservative Party. We are the party of law and order, so we are the party to [...]

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