As I write, the first EasyJet flight from Southend airport should have reached it’s destination, Belfast. It’s an important day for the town.

Support for the expansion of Southend Airport is controversial. I know that being consistently supportive of the airport expansion I might risk alienating some of my green-minded colleagues and voters.

To be honest I’ve always been someone who thinks that the growth of air travel needs to be curbed. As someone who considers man-made climate change a scientific fact and probably the greatest challenge our generation faces we need to get to grips with this.

However, jobs and employment (or lack of them) was what drove me to get involved in politics in the first place. Growing up in mid nineties and knowing people being made redundant, knowing that might not be easy for the people I was leaving school with to find jobs was an important part of why I first went out to support the Labour Party. A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work is at the core of what our party stands for.

Having seen various Conservative schemes for regenerating Southend come and go (who remembers Anna Waite’s super-casino bid now? What about the marina?) the airport seems to be the only real thing that’s creating a buzz in the local economy and that has real potential to bring jobs and money into the town. Contrary to what people on the right might want you to believe there are plenty of people genuinely looking for work who are struggling to find it. Countless more survive on fewer hours than they might like. The statistical evidence referenced here is backed up by some eloquent personal testimony.

Perhaps it’s only my desire to square this circle that leads me to say that there’s nothing logically inconsistent about wanting an overall reduction in air travel, whilst wanting a greater share of what air travel there is to be through our local airport. There is evidence to say that there are less emissions per flight at small regional airport than at a huge terminal due to less congestion, time spent stacking etc.

In any case, I think it’s highly ironic that the Conservatives are boasting about the airport as a Tory success when the Tory MP for (at least part of) the airport is still opposed to airport expansion. I think it said a lot about David Amess that he wanted to show up for a photo opportunity to celebrate the opening of something that he is opposed to, but there you go. I suppose it’s no more hypocritical than an avowedly Eurosceptic MP petitioning the EU to overrule a decision of a council controlled by his own party…

I may disagree with this government about just about everything, but I never thought they’d stoop so low in terms of putting people at deliberate risk in the way they did last week.

They have quite deliberately talked up the risk of an industrial dispute leading to fuel shortages. The advice given by Francis Maude to ‘fill up a jerry can’ is not only reckless, irresponsible, it’s actually illegal. We know from previous fuel protests that the huge risk of shortages is from panic buying. Filling stations can get by for many days without a delivery if everyone buys petrol responsibly.

The correct response from the government is to assure people that supplies will be kept going, and that people should carry on as usual. If a strike, with serious disruption in fuel supplies, was actually imminent (which it obviously isn’t, there’s not even a date, unions must legally give 7 day’s notice and the PM tells us the army is on standby in any case) telling people to stockpile fuel would be utterly the wrong course of action and have disastrous consequences. This from the Motor Industries Federation explains the current situation and says that the government in intent on ‘creating a crisis’.

There seem to be memos flying around the Conservative Party saying that this was their ‘Thatcher moment’. Well if so, I think Martin Rowson has the best take on it.

Now we’re officially in the election campaign, electronic communication such as this should carry an imprint. So just for the record, this blog is hosted by WordPress and any election related statements are promoted by Julian Ware-Lane on behalf of Labour candidates in Southend, all of 268 Sutton Road, Southend-on-Sea, SS2 5ET.

I know that a number of Conservatives read this blog, I don’t know whether I get many Lib Dem vistors. Just in case, I thought I’d re-post this open letter from Andy Burnham to Lib Dem members about the health bill currently before parliament:

—

“I never expected to see the day when I could say, hand on heart, that I was more interested in events at a Lib Dem Spring Conference than the weekend’s football. But life’s full of surprises and that moment has arrived.

“It is no over-statement to say that this weekend’s gathering in Gateshead could determine the future of our country’s best-loved institution.

“As you prepare for the weekend, I wanted to make a direct appeal to the grassroots members of your party: please stand out against the current direction of reform and stand up for the NHS model we all have been able to depend on and trust for 63 years. Between our two parties, we just about have the power to stop a Bill that will cause it great damage. I also wanted to issue an invitation to those of you who feel the same as us to help us build an alternative vision for an integrated NHS in this century of the ageing society.

“I feel sure your President Tim Farron spoke for many Liberal Democrats in saying the Bill should have been dropped. Only three weeks ago, Lady Williams argued that the third part of the Bill, the competition chapters, should be deleted.

“If our two parties had worked together on this aim, there’s a fair chance we could have achieved it and mitigated the damage. That’s frustrating. But it’s not too late. Parliament is sleepwalking into the looming disaster for the NHS of this defective Bill entering the Statute Book but it is within your power to stop it.

“It is clear that many prominent Liberal Democrats, in private if not in public, consider this Bill to be a dud. I feel certain that the long-term best interests of your Party are better served by acknowledging that and doing something about it, rather than acting out of a misplaced sense of loyalty to the Coalition. In doing so, you would of course be implementing the letter of the Coalition Agreement.

“We are disappointed by this week’s events in the Lords. We feel many of your Peers and MPs have let you down.  But next week we are giving the Commons a final chance to drop the Bill. Government backbenchers have denied 170,000 people, who signed the Drop the Bill e-petition, the debate they deserve. Labour will correct that by forcing a debate and vote next Tuesday afternoon in the House of Commons. When you see your MPs this weekend, please ask them to put the NHS first and join us in that vote.

“I have no doubt that some will read my motive in writing this blog as a tactic for narrow party gain. There’s not much I can do about that, save to say it’s simply not the case. The truth is Labour’s narrow political interests are probably best served by the Coalition simply ploughing on with this disastrous Bill. But, even so, I desperately want them to stop.

“I know the NHS can only be preserved for the rest of this century by building a broad consensus that goes beyond any one Party. Nothing matters more to me than protecting the NHS and that is my motivation in making this appeal to you.

“We should work together to build a new coalition for the NHS – of patients, professionals and people from all parties who share the same view – to protect it from market forces and the money motive running riot.

“Please give that some thought and discuss it in Gateshead this weekend. It’s important as more cross-Party consensus is going to be needed if we are to enable the NHS to make some of the difficult service changes it needs to make to have a care model ready for the challenges of this century.

“It probably goes without saying that you didn’t agree with everything Labour did in Government. The NHS isn’t perfect but, by the time we left Government, it was judged one of the world’s best healthcare systems with the lowest ever waiting lists and highest ever patient satisfaction. This NHS model which your Party helped conceive isn’t broken. In fact, it’s the envy of the world and the answer, not the barrier, to meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

“I know that many Lib Dem activists know in their heart of hearts that this Bill is bad for the NHS. This weekend in Gateshead, please tell that truth to power.”

Some people are going to try to make something of the fact that there was no vote on last night’s budget.

For the record, I cried ‘No’ when the Mayor asked council whether we agreed the relevant budget minutes. Whether a vote needs to be taken is, I believe at the discretion of the Mayor, most of the business at full council is purely procedural and nodded through. Given that not a single other opposition party said ‘no’  and several Lib Dems and one Independent having made in favour of the budget the Mayor did not need to call a vote. I suppose I could have symbolically recorded my opposition, but at the end of the day the opposition of just three Labour councillors out of the fifty councillors in the chamber this was never going to be anything more than a token protest.

It is a tired old Tory trick. Keep every leaver of power in the Civic Centre to yourself in the most ruthless way, and then when difficult decisions have to made, blame the opposition for not engaging. It’s actually highly unusual for a a group with a bare majority to not only keep all the cabinet posts, but also keep all the scrutiny and regulatory committee chairs and vice-chairs to themselves as well.

The council was previously criticised by the Audit Commission for not involving opposition councillors, so the administration created ‘member champion’ posts for various subject areas, many of which went to opposition councillors. I was briefly, I think, the only opposition councillor to chair a subgroup of the LSP (The Positive Activities Forum set up to promote activities for young people as part of the Children’s Partnership).

Strangely enough, once the Audit Commission inspection regime was ended the Conservatives felt that they didn’t really want the involvement of opposition councillors after all. This is the mentality that we have to deal with.

I see my opponent has admitted that his claims re increased police numbers will not come to pass. OK, fair enough things change and what’s true at one moment can be false the next. Contrary to what people think very few politicians set out to tell lies. For one thing people involved in politics are no less moral than everyone else, but for another it’s stupid to put something on record something that can be easily found out and used against you.

However, I still think it was a rather ill-judged attempt to deflect attention from the cuts his party is making to front-line policing. I used my judgement and challenged him on the claim, on the basis that when the Chief Constable had already said that police numbers would be reduced by one in ten, that’s unlikely to mean a rise in any context. It smacks of complacency to suggest otherwise.

I’m reminded of when my colleague in Rochford, Rob Brown, warned that Rochford Police Station faced closure. A Rochford Conservative Councillor came up to a Labour Street Stall in Rochford and was rather rudely dismissive of Rob’s campaign to save the police station. They then went to print accusing the Labour Party of scaremongering. Just a few months later the station is indeed closed, just as Rob had predicted.

It smacks of a party in denial about the effect of their own policies.

I know my Conservative opponent reads this blog. A few months back we had an argument about police numbers.

He asserted that Police numbers would rise this year. I’ve given him the benefit of the doubt and assumed he really didn’t read James Duddridge’s press release properly and he was really talking about the number of neighbourhood police – I think everyone, including the Chief Constable, is very clear that there will be fewer officers in Essex than there were.

Now I’ve just read the latest update on ‘Operation Blueprint’ from the Chief Constable detailing which officers will be assigned where in terms of neighbourhood police. I count 22 neighbourhood police officers in Southend including the Chief Inspector. It looks like only one in Neighbhourhood PC for each for the town centre wards plus two Sergeants and an Inspector. Looking at the current arrangements on Essex Police website I count 29 officers including the Chief Inspector. Perhaps I’m missing something but going from 29 to 22 officers doesn’t seem like much of an increase to me. From a Victoria Ward perspective it seems we are going from two dedicated neighbourhood PCs down to one.

We all know that that the police are facing massive budget cuts and that the number of police officers overall is shrinking, which is why I found headlines like ‘police numbers to rise’ coming from the Conservatives quite astonishing and rather distasteful. Apart from anything else, I think it’s disrespectful to the remaining police officers who are struggling to cope if we don’t acknowledge just how much additional pressure they are being put under by the Conservative-led government.

Will Mr Thomas publish the exact figures for police numbers on his blog, or will we have to conclude that his claim was false?

Tony Cox says that we’ve had a bad month. Most of the stuff that Tony Cox mentions is of course personality-based and not really going to be causing the people of Southend to worry as they go about their daily lives. (If Tony wants to talk about personal behaviour, he might like to explain why this councillor is still a member of the Conservative Party – at least Ed Miliband has taken swift action and suspended Mr Joyce)

Anyway, let’s have a look at the record of Southend Conservatives this month on some real issues that might actually affect local people in an appreciable way:

Boris – The local Conservatives are still backing Boris Johnson, despite the fact that his airport plan, a 24 hour international hub airport operating just off our coast, will mean effectively the end of Southend as we know it. (If you think that this is an exaggeration, check out this artist’s impression)

The Health Bill – Southend’s Conservative MPs voted against the wishes of healthcare professionals and the Information Commissioner to keep secret the ‘risk register’ associated with the government’s disastrous Health Bill. They continue to push a bill that could make Southend Hospital 49% private. The coalition is fracturing, doctors and nurses are queuing up to oppose it and public trust has been lost.

Unemployment – new figures this month show that Southend is still an unemployment blackspot, worse than Basildon, Castle Point and Thurrock. The Conservatives have presided over a decade of decline for our town. You don’t need to take my word for it,  a letter in the Echo yesterday from a Conservative Councillor asserts that Southend is in the top ten most difficult places to find work.

120 job losses – The Conservatives are poised to vote through a budget that will cost 120 jobs, real dedicated people delivering front line services are seeing their jobs axed, further adding to unemployment in the town.

Police cuts – Essex Police have had to defy Eric Pickles and raise their precept to avoid even more damaging cuts to police in the future – the police cuts we have are bad enough. (and anyone who thinks the local Conservatives come out well over this is clearly deluded)

I think with a record to defend like that, we can see why the Tories are so desperate to talk about who’s saying what on twitter. Then you can add in the fact that they’ve just de-selected a Conservative Councillor who now wants to give them ‘a bloody nose’.  To follow, Anna Waite inspires the Echo headline ‘DRUGGIES AND SINGLE MUMS KILLING HIGH STREET’ – another textbook example of how to lose friends and alienate people from Anna.

Does Tony really think it’s us who’s had a bad month?

I have often warned colleagues that blogging regularly was likely to lead to hostages to fortune and that they should be careful what they write.

It seems I should heed my own advice, apparently my previous post referencing Nye Bevan made it into the Echo. I thought that the context of the post would have made clear that I wasn’t actually comparing Conservatives to vermin, but that some policies, such as potentially requiring terminally ill cancer patients to do unpaid work, can drive people to use very strong language and indeed make you wonder if people have lost their common humanity. If anyone was offended by what I said then I apologise unhesitatingly

I’m actually annoyed with myself because I pride myself on being able to work constructively with people from all parts of the political spectrum, and many Conservative councillors would be prepared to say privately at least that I avoid a lot of the game-playing and point-scoring that others partake in (certain members of the Independent Group are the worst culprits ironically). There are a number of people in Victoria Ward who are current or former members of the Conservative Party whom I help and support on various local issues. Now a carelessly worded blog post has given completely the wrong impression.

However I do think it daft that the press give such prominence to personal opinions on blogs. I still can’t credit the fact that my colleague Julian’s comments about how he personally doesn’t agree with the principle of faith schools was blown up into a row with the Bishop of Chelmsford. I would hate to allege double standards, but did anyone in the press decide to ask questions when Councillor Robin posted blog entries referencing the English Defence League?

I’m going to keep up blogging for the time being, but I’m seriously wondering whether internet silence is the safest course.

 

My first responsibility on Southend Council was to be the council’s ‘Youth Champion’. It was a very interesting and enjoyable role. I attended Youth Council regularly and gave updates on what the council was doing, helped with the Youth Mayor elections, passed a motion through council to get us to fund a member of the United Kingdom Youth Parliament, worked with the Youth Mayor on a campaign to raise the age discount on local buses, chaired the Positive Activities Forum (probably the only opposition councillor to chair any subgroup of the LSP) and many other things besides.

Unfortunately the role of ‘Youth Champion’ along with other member champions was axed by the Conservatives a year or so back. This wasn’t a cost-cutting exercise, my role didn’t cost the council an extra penny. They disliked the fact that opposition councillors may have been gaining a small amount of influence and perhaps one or two other ‘champions’ were causing some very minor trouble for the administration.

‘Youth Champion’ might sound like a bit of a silly title, but in actual fact the issues I was dealing with were very important. “There’s not enough for young people to do” always scores very highly as an issue raised with councillors on the doorstep and in official surveys. Sadly our target for the number of young people participating in positive activities is not being routinely reported as a target anymore – perhaps this is convenient for the Conservatives given how they have cut youth work in the borough.

Still, I always enjoy working with our youth workers who are striving valiantly to do the best they can with limited resources. A previous push for more targeted youth work in parts of Victoria Ward led to football training sessions being run for young people in the ‘poets’ area. Yesterday I met with people in order to try to fill some more gaps in youth activities and give the young people in Victoria a greater range of positive activities.