Labour suicide tendency dents poll position

Today's poll in the Times putting the Tories at 41%, with Labour on 28% and us on 19%, does not show any significant degree of difference from the previous poll picture. In other words the position of Labour continues to be dire. The behaviour of the Hewitt-Hoon Labour Suicide Action Team has hardly helped their own party to make the recovery they need to stand any chance of salvaging even a vaguely respectable result at the general election.

At 28%, Labour are on the same share as they won in 1983, their worst general election proportion since 1922. Even in 1931, when Labour dropped to only 50 seats, Labour's share of the vote was over 30%. In 1983, tactical voting barely registered as a factor. In the past three general elections, tactical voting has significantly reduced the number of Conservative seats and artifically boosted the number of Labour ones. The same could happen in the 2010 election, only in reverse for Labour. Gordon Brown's party could be heading for their worst ever result since the first world war.

This is of course speculation. There is a possibility of a rise in Labour support in the polls as people move away from a mid-term view of politics. Nevertheless, Labour are leaving it late in the day to get into winning form and at the moment I see no signs of the late surge coming.

Nevertheless, the Conservatives are yet to close the deal with the voters and the final general election result could leave them short of a majority. The final result is likely to hinge on what happens in individual constituencies. With a national swing less applicable than for decades, there remains all to play for in those constituencies where a change of control could take place. For those of us involved in campaigns in Labour held seats, such as our constituency here in Blaydon, Hewitt and Hoon have been a godsend. (I hear Hoon may now be in trouble with his local party in Ashfield and it waits to be seen whether or not that helps boost the Lib Dem candidate, Jason Zadrozny, in a constituency that has developed as a winnable one for us.)

So, at a time when Labour need to be recovering, their own suicide tendency have dented their own ratings. Whilst minor in its own right, it is a classic characteristic of a party that is losing the will to win.

After a day of writing press releases

Today has been a day for writing news releases and sorting candidate photos. So we are taking a few hours off this evening to celebrate David's new job. The interview was this morning. So we walked down to the Marquis of Granby pub, near our village of Sunniside (it is one of the historic pubs of the area). The meal is ordered. And I am drinking a pint of guest ale called "Brains"!
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Time travelling MP demands vote in debate that never happened

You couldn't make this up! Some MPs think their mission in life is to sign as many early day motions as possible. New one, old ones, completely out-of-date ones! They'll sign them. And that's when they start to get into difficulties.

So step forward time-travelling David Anderson, Labour MP for Blaydon. Mr Anderson loves EDMs. The more, the merrier. He signed around 600 in the past year, though that's less than some EDM junkies.

Anyway, here's one of the EDM's he signed:

That this House welcomes the Employers' Liability Insurance Bureau Bill as a long overdue reform; believes that it will provide the necessary mechanism to ensure compensation for employees who suffer injury, illness or disease as a consequence of the acts or omissions of a negligent, but uninsured employer, or an employer who has ceased trading and whose insurers cannot be traced; notes that the provisions of the Bill would particularly benefit sufferers of diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma, which are often diagnosed long after the negligent response to harm; and urges all hon. Members and the Government to give the Bill a second reading on 13 March 2009 and a fast passage through committee.

It all seems proper and in order. Except.......

This EDM was the last one signed by Mr Anderson in the 2008/9 year. According to the Parliament website, Mr Anderson put his name to it on 11th November 2009. "Better late than never" could be Mr Anderson's defence for signing a call to action 8 months after the event has passed. Unless of course, Mr Anderson has invented his very own Tardis and is able to whip his colleagues back 8 months to March so they can vote in the debate mentioned!

But the story doesn't end there. It is reasonable to assume that having put his signature to the EDM late, he was at least present on 13 March 2009 to take part in the debates and vote that day. Alas, a quick check on the votes taken that day show Mr Anderson was not present!

Nice one Dave!

The story however doesn't end there either! It gets even more interesting.

I have no doubt that Mr Anderson was committed to the Bill. He has a record of campaigning on the illnesses mentioned in the EDM and his concerns are genuinely held. But....

The vote on the bill did not take place on 13th March 2009. In fact, it never took place at all. The bill was abandoned before 13th March 2009 by its sponsor Andrew Dismore MP!

So, 8 months after the event that never took place, Mr Anderson asks colleagues to attend and vote on a day he himself was not present on a bill that had been dumped before the non-existent vote could (but did not) take place.

Mr Anderson must therefore be appreciated for his ability to make politics that bit more interesting!

Snow photos

I couldn't let the last few days go by without a few photos.



This one's a bit fuzzy as I took it from the train on the way home from London on Tuesday. It's the Team Valley with Lobley Hill in the background.



A bird in the hand is worth two in the snow! Our bird table in our back garden in Sunniside, feeling the weight of all the snow.



Our back garden yesterday morning. A bit more snow has arrived since then.



Breaking the ice: well, thawing a bit of it on our barrel pond. David melted the surface to allow in oxygen for the fish.



Down at the bottom of the garden and David applies WD40 to the shed just to unlock it.



This one I took from the train on Tuesday whilst travelling at high speed. I think it is somewhere in North Yorkshire.



Our fruitcage, straining under the weight of snow on our allotment.



The allotment yesterday just before sundown with the snow cleared from the greenhouse and fruitcage.



The allotments in the Whinnies, Sunniside, just after sunset, yesterday. Ours is off the picture, to the left.

Fizz and Ice: the Labour leadership crisis

As predicted, the latest Labour leadership crisis didn't even melt any ice, never mind put the skids under Brown. A short fizz and then nothing. So the latest bout of infighting has simply damaged Labour. Quite what Hoon and Hewitt were thinking when they went off half cock is difficult to work out. Perhaps the cold has affected their ability to think sensibly (as far as Labour are concerned.)

What I find more interesting however is the slowness of the chief cabinet members to come forth with gushing praise for Brown. This probably said more about internal Labour dynamics than the fizz of the Hoon-Hewitt self-indulgence. It shows that whilst cabinet members accept Brown is there to stay til the election, there is absolutely no enthusiasm for him at all. They are stuck with him because they have lacked the will to dump him previously and because Brown has been very good at using his office to maintain his own position.

Labour are in an ice age of their own making. The slow-moving glacial Gordon is here to stay a little longer. The chances are that political warming will come with the election. Brown may melt away then but that is not certain. After all, events of the last three years show he has a remarkable ability to survive, even if the cost of that is serious damage to his own party.
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Labour turn their guns on themselves

Does Labour suffer from a suicide tendency? Are they really sufficiently off their trolley to take pot shots at themselves rather than their opponents right at the start of the unofficial election campaign? The answer seems to be yes. Just when Brown and Darling seemed to score a successful hit against Cameron on the married people's tax, Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt come sweeping in from the cold and like a couple of abominable snowmen amongst the Labour pigeons are causing chaos.

Were I a Labour member (and thankfully I am not) I would be in a state of despair. This action seems to be uncoordinated. It is not a major conspiracy in which large numbers of Labour MPs are taking part. So, yet again, Brown, who won't be prised out of office before the election, is faced with individual, irresponsible, self-righteous cranks who think they can bring down the PM. Blears and Purnell last year thought they could bring down Brown. All they did was wreck their own party.

Brown is secure as leader until the election. Any attempt to dislodge him by disgruntled Labour MPs will simply be an internal row that damages Labour. So Labour must have taken leave of their senses, on the eve of the election. It's not the longest suicide note in history but it is certainly the longest political self-strangulation session on record.
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Tories rewrite history

If only the Tories had a Tardis of their own. They would be able to go back in time and change the past rather than talking in the present as if their own history were different to what it is. The issue at point here is the Tory attempt to claim they were conned into supporting the Iraq invasion. Chris Grayling has just had a go at Alan Johnson in the Commons about this, whilst debating the recent attempted bombing of an airliner in the US. The Tory posturing is that they were conned into supporting the war. No word about the others, especially the Lib Dems, who questioned the dodgy dossier. No mention of the Tories as the cheer leaders for war. No mention of the fact the Tories failed in their duty as the opposition to hold the government to account.

Watch out for forthcoming general election claims by the Tories that they were opposed to the war, supported nationalisation of the banks and opposed privatisation of the railways. The Tory Tardis will need to be in overdrive.
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Half baked policies give Tories indigestion

It was good to see the Tories in a mess yesterday over their policy on tax breaks for married couples. This Tory bit of social engineering deserved to give them trouble. In the morning it was merely an aspiration. In the afternoon, it was changed to be a hard core policy but with no explanation whatsoever as to how they would pay for it.

I wonder how many more of their half-baked policies are going to give the Tories political indigestion. Still, it could lead to some interesting Tory cock-ups during the 4 month election campaign. I suspect there will be a number of them.
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Heading North

I am currently sitting on a train heading north to Newcastle, having spent the Xmas/New Year break in London. There is no snow in London but the news says it has fallen heavily in Yorkshire. The result is East Coast services have been delayed. I seem to be the lucky one. My train is only 9 minutes late. We have not, however, got as far as Yorkshire. David returned home over the weekend and has sent me a message to tell me the snow has fallen back home. With a load of Focuses to deliver, that is not good news.
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Let battle commence

Actually, it has already begun with both Tories and Labour engaging in high profile political cross dressing. Yes, Election 2010 is underway and the first skirmishes have taken place. The Conservatives claim to be in love with the NHS - and I can imagine A&E depts of NHS hospitals today being flooded with people who fell off their seats laughing at the Tory claims. Meanwhile, Chancellor Darling highlights gaps in the Tory spending plans, carefully overlooking the rather interesting gaps in his own PreBudget Report.

Meanwhile Cameron complains about the widening gap between rich and poor under Brown. Alas, his claim is true. How his plans for inheritance tax cuts for millionaires and giving wealthy couples a tax break simply because they are married will solve this crisis is not clear.

Anyway, we now have 4 months of this. Enjoy it whilst it lasts!
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Fighting for everything he has got?

No early election, screams BBC News 24. And then you look at what Gordon Brown said. He expects a Labour budget. That was the basis for the no early election claim. Whilst 6th May remains the most likely date, nothing he said rules out 25th March, the date that would allow Labour to go to the polls without having a budget. Still, I would put my money on 6th May, were I a betting person (which I am not!)

One interesting point I heard Brown make on the Andrew Marr programme was his claim that he had always had to fight for what he has. That isn't quite how I remember the Labour leadership election in 2007. That was a Stalinist triumph of an unopposed coronation. It happened because Brown's opponents had previously been bullied and brow-beaten into inaction and because Labour are stuffed full of spineless jellies looking for a place in government. But Brown hardly had to "fight" for the leadership. A little bit of rewriting of history is a favourite activity by Labour!
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My less-than-happy highlights of 2009

I could not think of 10 but I do have 8, and they are not in any order:

Shock of Paris prices: I went to Paris in June, the first time in 7 years. Last time I was there, the Europhobes were rubbing their hands at the thought of the Euro doing badly and the banking system was sucking vast amounts of money into the UK with the result of the pound going sky high in value. How times change. I was horrified at how expensive Paris has become. Even a cheap meal cost an arm and a leg.

Death of Freda: Freda was my cat. She was nearly 21 years old so in cat years she was super-elderly. Nevertheless, her going in October was still a shock.

Death of Margaret: Margaret was my aunt, Dad's half sister. There is a great family history to be told, and I will tell it soon, but the key feature of the story is that Dad and Margaret did not meet until 7 years ago when he was 72 and she was 89. Alas, Margaret died in October.

Missing the heatwave whilst in Norway: the heatwave that was predicted to last for ages in the summer lasted a week. Typical that I should be in Iceland and Norway when it happened! Still, I got to experience daylight at midnight. And that was spooky!

Wrecking hard drive: October was a really shitty month for things going wrong. Having experienced the loss of Margaret and Freda, I proceeded to drop an external hard drive on which were stored thousands of documents, photos and videos. Fortunately, the vast majority of documents were back up copies. But not all of them. Most I have now recovered from other sources but not all.

Wrecking the video camera: as if wrecking the hard drive was not enough, I followed it up the next day by dropping the video camera. With the camera wrecked, and a trip to Morocco coming up, I had to do an urgent search for a new camera on the internet. And in a sense, the accident turned out to have a silver lining. I had planned to buy a new, professional camera at some point and set up a small business to make videos (mainly for Lib Dem candidates and for small businesses). As a result of buying the camera, I am now in business earlier than I expected! The amusing point about all this is that the new camera arrived just in time for me to take to Morocco (one hour later and I would have missed it.) And when I got to Marrakech and made my first visit to my first location on my first day, I wasn't allowed to bring in the camera. The guards thought I was from a tv company and despite protestations to the contrary, they were convinced that the camera I had was only used by professional tv programme makers! So I put the camera away and got out a small camcorder I had borrowed from a friend and which I had brought along as a backup.

Shambles of Sunniside junction traffic lights: we are now into our third year of promises and deadlines from Gateshead Council over proposals to put in traffic lights on the busy Front St/Sunniside Rd junction in Sunniside village. Three years ago we got the council to agree to put them in. And we are still waiting. Every few months we get a new deadline and none have seen the lights introduced. The last deadline was December. We are of course in January and there are still no lights. What a shambles by Labour Gateshead.

Remaining beds in allotment: my plan for 2009 was to bring the remaining uncultivated beds on my allotment into use. We got two of them going but two still remain. So lots of hard graft still to do.

So that's the not-so-good side of 2009 for me personally.
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My top ten highlights of 2009

Happy New Year everyone, including all my avid Labour Party readers in Gateshead! I thought that I would bring you my personal highlights of 2009 whilst sitting at Crystal Palace station waiting for the train to arrive to take me to Westminster

So here are the top 10 positive highlights, in reverse order:

10)Reaching the milestone of 750,000 viewings on YouTube. I got there at the end of June. The even better news is that I am now approaching one million viewings. Give it 6 weeks or so and I reckon I'll be there.

9)The Government's defeat over the Gurkhas: I was there to witness it. Well sort of. I got a call in Cowley St when the vote went against the Government. "Get your butt over to Parliament and get some photos and video done!" Being in the crowd outside Parliament was quite something. And seeing the line up of snivelling hypocrite Labour MPs who had signed the EDM calling for the Gurkhas to stay only to vote the opposite way shortly afterwards was quite something as well.

8)Visiting Morocco: I was there for two weeks in November. Facebook friends have already had to endure my photos, as have visitors to my Flickr site. The videos will be coming soon!

7)Being the victim of attacks carried out by Cllr Mick Henry: this really was fun! And thanks to the Labour Leader on Gateshead Council, who spent a large part of the council meeting in October attacking me, and constantly interrupting me, my profile and standing in my group went up significantly. Keep up the good work Mick!

6)Whale watching in the North Atlantic: early July saw me in the North Atlantic armed with binoculars to spot whales, east of Iceland.

5)Building the greenhouse: we built it on the allotment in January and February and immediately saw it go into crop production. The video I made about building it has been an incredibly minor success on YouTube in the US, for some odd reason.

4)Fiona Hall's re-election: I attended the Gateshead count for the Euro elections and we were all nervous about whether or not Fiona would hold on as Lib Dem Euro MP for the North East. I drove home after the count and waited only a few minutes for the result to come through. The UKIP surge we had feared had not been enough. And happily, Gateshead saw a higher share for the Lib Dems than the average across both the region and the UK.

3)Stokkur geyser: a must visit when in Iceland so I visited it in July. Don't worry if you miss it going up when you first arrive. It goes off every five minutes. Quite an amazing natural feature.

Joint first)Leaving Cowley St/Crops from allotment: these two are actually closely linked. I loved my job at Cowley St but I also had a long list of other things I wanted to do. June was, I felt, the right time to leave. Now I am heading for self-sufficiency, though we have plenty still to do. We are looking for more progress in 2010. And leaving Cowley St also means that I am able to put much more time into battling Labour in Gateshead!

Coming up soon, my negative highlights!
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Heading south

We are currently in the car at the moment heading to London and just passing the Nene Valley Steam Railway. We will be in London and Kent over Xmas. Andrew, my older brother is temporarily moving into our house in Sunniside over the Xmas break as it beats sleeping on Dad's floor whilst he is up visiting the rest of the family over Xmas.

I am also doing a bit of photography and video in London whilst I am down for candidates.

The car is packed full of home grown and wild foraged food. Our aim is to have as near self-sufficient Xmas dinner as we can get. More about that later.

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Christmas has hit my radar

Bahhhhh humbug and all that. Christmas has now hit my radar screen. I'm off to Newcastle now, on the bus, to do some Xmas shopping. Thank goodness for vouchers. They make much better presents than actually buying something for someone that they don't want.

I did however spend a hour on the allotment in the snow this morning. We are aiming to have a self-sufficient dinner on Xmas day. So I picked cabbages and sprouts, dug up ready frozen leaks, and harvested some plump parsnips of which I am, sadly, rather proud.
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On equal terms

Very good news - debates between all three party leaders will take place at the general election on tv. This immediately removes one of the disadvantages under which the Liberal Democrats operate. The three leaders appearing together should help alter that perception. We will be on an equal footing with the other two.

The agreement on the leaders' debates is also a last throw of the dice for Brown. With little else to lose, the debates could be the boost Brown needs, at least to salvage something from the election. The biggest threat is to Cameron. His vacuous statements and shallow policy pronouncements may not stand the scrutiny of the leader debates. Interesting times ahead, me thinks.
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A view inside Lib Dem conference centre 2012

Lib Dem conference is coming to the Sage, Gateshead, in March 2012. The building is one of the best music halls in the country and on Thursday it celebrated its 5th birthday. I filmed the following video at the celebration. For Lib Dems it will give a taste of the venue for conference though I did not film inside any of the performance halls.

Don't walk away, make it the start

Copenhagen's outcome is a huge disappointment. The stakes are high and the cost of failure is enormous. Ambitions before the conference were very high. But we must not stop now. We may not have got the binding treaty we need but we have the foundations for an agreement that cannot come too soon. So whilst Copenhagen is very disappointing in what it has produced, we can build on the agreements we have reached.

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Visiting the Gibside Farmers' Market

Gibside is a National Trust property in my ward in Gateshead. It is the former home and estate of the Bowes-Lyon family, of Queen Mother fame. Once a month a farmers' market is held here. It is on now and I am currently having a coffee in the cafe waiting for the final trader to arrive. Despite the snow the event is going ahead but the final trader is the one who sells the exotic gins (which we want to buy as presents for people as well as compare with our own homemade fruit gins.)

And from here I will be going to Rowlands Gill to deliver a few Xmas cards and Neil Bradbury annual reports. I say a few. I actually have 800. That's what happens when you volunteer to deliver!

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Exclusive news on 2012 Lib Dem conference

I am at the Sage in Gateshead, the fantastic new music hall on the banks of the Tyne. And I can exclusively reveal that Lib Dem spring conference will be held here in March 2012. Fantastic news. Really pleased. I knew conference office were interested in coming here and when I was at Cowley St I was constantly plugging the location as ideal for conference. So come to Gateshead in 2012 and enjoy my home town!
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The Sage 5th birthday

The Sage is the concert hall on the Gateshead Quays. It was opened 5 years ago and is today celebrating its 5th birthday. Thanks to the short-sightedness of the then Labour run Newcastle Council, Gateshead got the Sage, rather than it going north of the Tyne. Nevertheless, we are all proud of it on Tyneside. I am on the bus heading to Gateshead now to go to the Sage birthday party.

I had thought I could get through this year without a cold or any other illness. Alas, as I sit here on the bus, I am experiencing a cold, my body defences having let me down at the 11th hour! And it's cold outside as well, though we are on lower ground than Sunniside and therefore the snow has not been lying.

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Voting to jump off a cliff

The demise of Flyglobespan yesterday should be a timely warning shot to cabin crew at British Airways. The airline industry is in a perilous state and companies such as British Airways can either get their costs under control or collapse. Given the former is the lesser of the two evils, the decision by BA cabin crew to strike over Christmas seems like little other than a vote to jump off the top of a cliff with no safety net to catch them.

I wonder of there is a growing trend of industrial and commercial irresponsibility and suicide on the go at the moment. The postal workers were on strike despite the devastating consequences to their own under-threat Royal Mail. BA cabin crew vote themselves a long Xmas break that could crash land their company. Management are just as wreckless. Bank bonuses on a massive scale have been paid when the banks themselves have been bailed out by the taxpayer and are still on a commercial life support machine.

It waits to be seen what impact this sort of suicidal behaviour has on the economy as a whole.
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The Xmas card stuffing party

Whilst Labour council cabinet members get an officer of Gateshead Council to send their Xmas greetings by email, Lib Dems in Blaydon had a Christmas card stuffing party in my dining room last week. Here's the proof:



The cards have now been delivered in a number of wards in the constituency (Labour will have to ask around as to where but most houses will eventually get a card) but more are still to go out. We have another stuffing party tomorrow evening.

By-election alert in BNP target seat

There is to be a by-election in the Primrose ward of South Tyneside following the death recently of Labour's Cllr Barrie Scorer. The ward is not one that necessarily appears on the radar screen of closely fought battles and therefore normally does not generate a level of interest in the way a marginal seat would do so. Except now is different. The result last time put the BNP on a third of the vote. The result in May 2008 was:

Labour 1005
BNP 681
Conservatives 382

Turnout was 33% which for local council election is (relatively speaking) not that bad. I can't imagine for a moment that the BNP are going to let the opportunity pass. The question is, are Labour going to remain asleep and let the BNP have a go at wresting this ward from them?

NewcastleGateshead in World Cup bid

The host cities for England's World Cup 2018 bid have been announced and I am delighted to see that NewcastleGateshead is included. I have to confess that I am not a follower of football but I am a very strong advocate for tourism in my region. Anything that brings the visitors (and their money) to our area is welcome.
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My 4th video to hit 50,000 YouTube viewings

Shock news from my YouTube Channel! I now have 4 videos with over 50,000 viewings. The video below is of the Burj al Arab Hotel in Dubai. I visited the emirate state in 2002 (I hasten to add I did not stay at the 7 star Burj) and filmed this short video. I only added it to YouTube last year.

For those who don't know the Burj, it is the hotel built on its own island in the shape of a sail (not a sale which I think Dubai may have to do of its overseas assets to pay the debts built up to invest in buildings such as the Burj.)

Anyway, here's the video:



Meanwhile, I am approaching the one-million-viewings-of-my-videos-on-YouTube milestone.

A significant quantity of constituency Christmas cards

In Blaydon constituency recently we had a significant quantity of Xmas cards produced and dropped off ready for putting into envelopes. The whole lot of them were dropped off at my house and 8 of use worked an entire evening last week to stuff as many of them as we could. There were still lots of boxes left to do when we stopped at 1am. I won't say how many we had delivered - such tactical information is for Labour to wonder about rather than be handed on a plate - but deliveries have started in a number of wards in Blaydon. The Northside estate at Birtley is the most recent to be ticked off the list.

I have been away in London filming videos and taking photos since Thursday evening last week but I have received today an email from Noel Rippeth, my group leader and agent in the constituency, updating me as to how far we have got with deliveries and asking me to host another envelope stuffing party! We have of course increased the pace of the Blaydon campaign in recent months. We have Dave Anderson MP firmly in our sights!

I am now heading home to Gateshead and am looking forward to that joyous task of delivering thousands of Xmas cards.
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A high profile day in the press

I blogged yesterday about the Journal being in touch to follow up some questions I had raised at Council last week. Well, two main articles today in the Journal and Evening Chronicle. It looks from the website (I am in London at the moment so I'm reading material on line) that the Chronicle coverage of the slow progress on the Gateshead Get Carter Multi Storey car park demolition was the main front page story. I'll get the press cuttings when I'm back home tomorrow.

I do however have a priceless gaffe. I got to Victoria Station a short while ago and got on the train. Not my train as it turned out. I casually watched through the window as my train pulled out of the station, thinking to myself, I wonder why the train I am on is not moving. So here I am still on the platform, waiting for the next train to Crystal Palace.
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Another video shoot and some press work

I am off to Parliament Square now. I have another session this afternoon of shooting videos and taking photos for parliamentary candidates. Only one customer today but more on Monday and Tuesday.

I had to deal with an email from the Journal in the middle of filming yesterday. They have picked up on some questions I asked at Gateshead Council on Thursday about funding the proposed conference centre and about the non-demolition of the Get Carter car park. Demolition of this was supposed to have been carried out two years ago. The hideous, concrete monstrosity that looks as though it came straight out of the Josef Stalin Guide to Communist Architecture is still standing. The Evening Chronicle may well carry something on this latter story.

I also gave some comments about the budget cuts Gateshead is facing - up to £60 million. If they are published, avid Labour readers of my blog will be able to read them in the coming week in the Journal.

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He would say that, wouldn't he?

Tony Blair claims he would have invaded Iraq even if he knew Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction. He claims he would have deployed alternative arguments but the world was "better off" without him. Well, he would say that anyway, and I can't help but feel he is attempting to smooth the route to the Iraq inquiry which he will face in the new year.

What we already have in response however are MPs rushing to say that they were conned by Blair when the Commons they voted for war in 2003. Had they known the truth about the non-existent WMDs, they claim, they would never had supported the war. I saw Tory MP Richard Ottoway making that claim. Frankly, such people are as bad, if not worse than the likes of Blair. The Tories had the opportunity to question the "evidence" in 2003. They chose not to. Instead, they were the cheerleaders for the war. They put the boot in on those who did question the evidence. It hardly bolsters their credibility now to pose as the upholders of scrutiny and peace.
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Westminster videos

I am currently heading to Westminster on the train. The purpose of this trip is to film some videos for Lib Dem Parliamentary candidates outside Parliament. Also to take their photos. The videos are for the websites. For most of them, this is an innovation so it will be interesting to see how they do.

The climate change meeting yesterday was very interesting and it gave me some ideas I think we should try in Gateshead.
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Heading to a climate change conference

I am currently heading to Euston from my house in Crystal Palace to go to a conference on climate change. The conference is headlined "Hotter and drier summers" and is being put on by the Local Government Information Unit and DEFRA, the government department for environment, food etc.

I was invited as a result of my blog! I think the post that caught the attention of LGIU was the one about the floods we suffered in Gateshead last year when the Derwent burst its banks and swept away the historic Butterfly Bridge, the site of which is half in my ward. The bridge itself was swept down river and now lies like a beached whale on the river bank. I paid a visit to the remains of the bridge a few weeks ago to photograph it.

The aim of the conference is to share experiences and knowledge and look at how climate change can be tackled in our communities. It is being held in BMA House near Euston Station. I caught the train this morning I used to get when going to Cowley St when I worked there. Quite a sense of deja vu!

I am also using the visit to London to do some photo and video work for Lib Dem candidates. Admittedly this is the main reason for the trip to London.
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More delegated Xmas greetings by email

Following my email of last night in which I posted about a Labour council cabinet member in Gateshead not following the advice to councillors not to get the members' secretary to send out Xmas greetings by email on their behalf, another Labour cabinet member has committed this heinous crime! As I said last night, I think council staff have better things to do than send seasonal greeting emails for councillors who are somehow unable to do this most simple of tasks for themselves. I won't say who the new offender is but for Pete's sake send them yourself or else my mole in the cabinet will tell all!
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The Mick Henry Longevity Clause

A change to local government executives throughout England is currently underway. Councils are required to have one of two models: the first is the leader model in which the Leader is elected by councillors and remains in place until such time as his/her constituents vote him/her out. The second is the elected mayor model.

There is an additional way to get rid of the Leader. The loss of a no confidence vote in full council removes the leader. Or does it? Well, in some councils it doesn't because the hurdle for a no confidence majority is set so high that it becomes virtually impossible to remove him/her. Gateshead has opted for a two thirds majority before a leader can be removed. Some other councils have a similar requirement. One or two even higher. Our argument is that it should be a simple majority. After all, if the majority of the council has no confidence in the leader, there should be a moral obligation on that person to resign. With the majority of the council against a leader, that person should go. Governments operate in the same way. What's good for government centrally is good for government locally, at least in this instance.

We debated the amendment to the council constitution today. Labour, led by Mick Henry, argued against our alternative of a simple majority and in favour of a two thirds majority.

I spoke in this debate, dubbing the Labour amendment to the constitution as "the Mick Henry longevity constitutional clause". The argument I put forward was 2 fold. Firstly, a change in the balance of power on the council, eg as a result of an election, may not necessarily lead to a change in the political leadership under Labour's plan. A leader of the council who had just lost an election could stay on as leader as long as his or her party held over a third of the seats.

Mick Henry argued that the new majority group could simply change the constitution so that a confidence vote of only a simple majority would be needed to remove the leader. He made no mention of course of the long time needed to carry out such a change. Interestingly he did not say words to the effect of, "you have my assurance that if Labour lost control in Gateshead, we would abide by the democratically expressed wishes of the people and I would resign." No, the only scenario he was prepared to debate was Labour clinging to power and the Lib Dems having to amend the constitution (which requires only a majority vote) to get rid of the Leader.

Cllr Henry actually refused to contemplate Labour ever losing control of Gateshead, arrogantly describing such a day as being "when pigs fly." Given the low standing of politicians amongst the public, I wonder if the public will treat such arrogance with the contempt it deserves. We will of course be telling the people of Gateshead just what Cllr Henry thinks of their right to decide through elections who they choose to represent them. Perhaps he would like to tell the people why anything other than Labour control of the Council is in his mind at least never to be contemplated.

Now we come to the second point I raised. A leader in a majority group could end up losing the confidence of their own group but could stay on in power if he or she can cobble together a deal with the opposition, as long as together they have a third of the seats on the council, the minimum strength needed to block a no confidence vote. Then came an even more remarkable line of argument from Cllr Henry in response: having such a high hurdle to remove the leader was needed to "protect the Labour group." What happened in the Labour group was "the most important thing".

So, the hurdle is high to protect the Labour group! He said he did not want a situation in which a rebellion and breakaway in the ruling group would lead to a no confidence vote to oust the leader. In such a scenario the rebels team up with the opposition and under the unintended consequences which I do not believe Labour have thought through, the Leader could stay in control even though the group he/she has just left continues to command a majority on the council.

The debate did, as you would expect, go Labour's way. After all they do have a simple majority on the council. But the debate also threw some interesting light on the thinking and worries within the Labour party. They are concerned to cover their own backs in case of an internal rebellion. And they are determined to cling to power come what may in Gateshead.

Whatever the thinking in the Labour party, one thing is clear: they are stuck with Cllr Henry, at least until the day pigs take to the air! Labour councillor backbenchers can rest assured however that we are doing our best to bring forward that day!
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A tall story spread around the world

I have just discovered that one of my YouTube videos has been featured on three foreign websites with the result that its viewing figures have gone up by over 5000 in the past 3 days. The video was shot on the Skybridge of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.



I suspect the cause of the interest in very tall buildings has been sparked by the completion of the Burj Dubai Tower which has somewhere in the region of 160 storeys. My video has been included with a number of others shot from famous skyscrapers.

Anyway, the Japanese, Russians and Americans are enjoying my video handiwork on the following sites:

http://www.gizmodo.jp/2009/12/110_1.html

http://www.3dnews.ru/news/video_dnya_na_krishe_megapolisa/

http://tv.gawker.com/5417123/10-videos-shot-from-the-worlds-tallest-buildings/gallery/

If you have a head for heights, watch some of the other videos on the sites as well.

Delegated Xmas greetings by email in Gateshead

A few days ago, we had an email from the members' secretary in Gateshead suggesting that anyone wishing to send seasonal greetings via email whilst making a donation to the mayor's charity instead of sending Xmas cards should send the email themselves. It was pointed out that the emails sent from the members' secretary actually appear as if they came from her, not the person wishing to send Xmas greetings.

This is a very sensible piece of advice. Were all 66 councillors to disregard this advice and ask her to send everyone Xmas greetings, she would have rather limited time left to do the real job of being members' secretary. And frankly, it is not the most challenging of tasks for councillors to do themselves. How long does it take to write a few lines of seasonal greetings and then click to send it to the all members mailing list?

So, a number of councillors in Gateshead have been raising eyebrows after reading an email from an officer of the council which was sent a couple of days ago:

Sent on behalf of Councillor XXX XXX

Dear All

Councillor XXX XXX has asked that in lieu of Christmas Cards this year he will also be making a donation to the Mayor's charity.

Wishing you and your families all a very Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year.

Many thanks

I've made this anonymous to spare the blushes of the councillor concerned (who is a member of the Cabinet!) but really, this is a bit much! A message sent to councillors containing sensible advice on how to avoid the council machinery getting bogged down in doing something which is not really something officers should have to do. And then shortly afterwards, the same advice is ignored by a cabinet member.

Maybe this councillor is so incredibly important and busy that the job of sending his Xmas greetings has to be delegated to officers to do. Frankly, I think the officer's time is better sent on other things.

Anyway, after this I guess I am no longer on this councillor's (delegated) Christmas (email) list!

Play equipment and X Factor appearances

I had a meeting in Gateshead Civic Centre this afternoon about the play equipment we have been planning for ages for Sunniside Park. We have quite an exciting scheme and the money for it. Next year we will be involving local schools and consulting with residents on the actual equipment to go in.

Equipment that has been promised us but is yet to appear in Sunniside however is the traffic lights at the junction of Front St and Sunniside Road. I think we have now hit the 8th deadline for their installation yet they remain nowhere in sight. This is becoming very frustrating yet the need for these lights is growing all the time. This is a dreadful junction and people actually rat run through other parts of the village to get to other junctions that do have traffic lights.

Anyway, as I left the meeting I got an email asking if I wanted to meet Joe McElderry and Cheryl Cole from X Factor at the Sage, Gateshead, tonight. Alas I had a group meeting to go to, followed by a Focus delivery in Dunston and then to the office to print 20,000 letters. I am in the office now slaving over a hot riso. So I missed by chance to mix with the stars. Oh well....
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The Monday morning blog: the pitfalls of class warfare

The Brown fightback was evident last week when the Prime Minister used PMQs to attack David Cameron's privileged background. Whilst Cameron was clearly stung by the attack, and Labour MPs were energised by the comment that the Tories' inheritance tax policy was invented on "the playingfields of Eton" (paraphrasing the words of the Duke of Wellington if my history serves me correctly) the question needs to be asked, is this an effective attack or just something that turns on Labour MPs?

The "Tory Toff" gibe was a disaster for Labour in the Crewe byelection last years. And Labour showed their own hypocrisy when they made the attack. After all, there are plenty of toffs in their ranks. Just look at the Lady Harriet. Ordinary members of the public are not interested in fighting the class war. Labour realised that in the 90s, especially under Blair, and abandoned this millstone around their necks. They should return to it only after very careful consideration.

They should remember that what motivates their own activists is not necessarily what motivates the people. If Labour's only message is an anti-toff one, they will look desparate and out of ideas. But, it may not be entirely all bad for Labour. It depends on how they handle the issue.

As part of an armoury of weapons against the Tories, an attack on them for defending the privileged and rich during a period of financial turmoil and cuts, when everyone needs to be seen to be paying their fair share towards the cost of recovery, could be a very strong message against Cameron. The Tory inheritance tax plan, initially seen as a positive for the Tories, is now a millstone. It is too easily seen as a handout for the rich and understandably, Labour will use it ruthlessly to portray the Tories as the party of the rich (despite Labour having been the friend of the rich since 1997).

But Labour needs to tread carefully. If the language used to attack Cameron chimes only with their own activists, they will lose more votes. But if they successfully paint the Cameron Conservatives as defenders of the few against the many, they may be able to salvage something from the disaster of the past few years. Time will tell.

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Sunday round up

It is 9.45pm and sadly, I am in the Blaydon Lib Dem office printing more Focuses. I'll leave the regular Labour readers of this blog wondering which wards I am printing. They can read them when they come through their letterboxes. They won't lilke them, but there again, they never do!

This afternoon I did a delivery in Newcastle North, one of our other target constituencies on Tyneside. Thankfully the rain held off (just). I then had a short stint trying to work out how to put YouTube videos onto our new Blaydon Lib Dem website. Still none the wiser though it is possible - I know it is as other constituencies have put my videos on their sites. I'll give myself a couple of days before I call for help again!

Anyway, the riso says 2500 left to print. Back now to the ink.
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Gordon Brown for sale

I couldn't resist this one! I was visiting Birtley with our Blaydon candidate Neil Bradbury recently and discovered this "For Sale" sign. I snapped this on my Blackberry.

There used to be a time when estate agents were seen as amongst the lowest of the low in terms of professional standing. Now, their standing must be something to which politicians must aspire! So were Gordon Brown to lose the election and need a new job, flogging homes may be just up his street!

Jam today at the Lib Dem fayre

Whickham Lib Dems held their annual Xmas fayre yesterday in the community centre in the village (in Blaydon constituency for those who don't know the area). I had a table selling jams and chutneys and my cookery exploits of Friday paid off when the 4 apple pies I made sold out quickly! Here are a few pics from the day itself:


Me and that jam and chutney


Cllr Peter Maughan and partner Eileen on the soft toy raffle stall


Cllr John McClurey with his winnings


Prospective MP for Blaydon, Neil Bradbury, right, is urged by Cllrs Chris Ord and Susan Craig to dig deep to buy raffle tickets


The Wallace family out in force

By-election capital sees another resounding Lib Dem win

Redcar and Cleveland Council here in the North East region has had 6 by-elections in the past 12 months, which must make it the by-election capital of the country. 4 of the contests have been won by the Lib Dems.

Yesterday's by-election in Ormesby ward is one of the 4. It was a Lib Dem ward in the first place but there was a significant swing to us in an area that was already predominantly Lib Dem supporting. The result was:

Ann Wilson (Lib Dem) 1084 (73.5%; +12.4%)
Steven Goldswain (Lab) 210 (14.2%; -5.1%)
Martin Bulmer (UKIP) 103 (7.0%; +7.0%)
Colin Jones (Con) 77 (5.2%; -14.4%)
Majority 874 Turnout 29.55% Lib Dem hold

The by-election was held due to the resignation of long serving Lib Dem Councillor Eric Empson. Congratulations to Ann and to our prospective MP Iain Swales. This could be an interesting constituency come the general election.

Like lovers who have fallen out

Hands off the bankers, they are the driving force of the economy. That was Labour's message just 24 months ago. Labour and the whizz kids of the City were in love and the affair lasted a decade. Then it all went horribly wrong. Now Labour and the bankers are at each others throats, like a couple of ex-lovers or a married couple going through a very messy divorce.

So today we have the RBS directors threatening to resign if they can't give bonuses to their best staff. They say they need bonuses to recruit the best people. (Wasn't it the same "best people" who got us into trouble in the first place?) Labour are saying no to bonuses. Looks like there is about to be a gun fight in the City, and that the Labour/City divorce is going to get even messier.
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The race begins to be the fittest councillor

I received the following email yesterday from Gateshead Council:

I need your help! As you know next year Gateshead will be the European City of Sport. To support this and further promote our commitment to making residents much healthier, we will also be launching Active and Healthy Gateshead in January. (Date to be confirmed.)

As part of the media launch we would like as many of you as possible to commit to becoming healthier over the year with assistance from our health checkers, dieticians, fitness experts, smoking cessation counsellors etc.

We are currently planning a launch/press day at Gateshead Stadium where you can access all of the experts mentioned and will be photographed for the press.

You will then be monitored over the course of the campaign and your improvements publicised.

This is an excellent opportunity to not only improve your own health and fitness, publicise the services Gateshead Council offers but to encourage and inspire residents within your wards to follow suit.

After this initial launch we will be appealing for residents across the Borough to take part.

I would be grateful if you could let me know if you are interested asap so we can finalised the numbers and details.

Alas, I have signed up for this. The whole borough will be able to watch me struggle to improve my health! Gone have the days when I used to swim 4km a week. My exercise now amounts to delivering Focuses and digging the allotment. Admittedly I do plenty of both.

The diet isn't too bad at the moment. I have cut down heavily on meat and milk. Lots of fresh veg and fruit is consumed from the allotment. Alas, I have failed to give up on my liking for cheese and chocolate.

So watch this space and enjoy! I will be reporting the results.

10:10 motion to be debated by Gateshead Council

We had our group meeting last night in Gateshead and decided to put forward a motion inspired by the 10:10 campaign. The motion is as follows:

Council notes that Climate change predictions show that without severe cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, the world will be hit by drought, flooding and famine affecting all of us and poorest countries in particular. Some of these countries are already suffering from the effects of climate change. This is an issue of social justice as well as a call to take environmental action.

Council also notes that under the UK Climate Change Act 2008 the UK is due to cut its emissions by 34% by 2020 and that the 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions in 2010 by 10% is supported by a large number of individuals and organisations, including front bench MPs from all three major parliamentary parties, and a number of Councils.

Council notes the steps it has already taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Gateshead and supports the ambitions of the 10:10 campaign. Council therefore asks the Chief Executive to prepare a report for cabinet to consider the feasibility of Gateshead Council signing up to the campaign

Full Council is on Thursday next week. It should make for a good debate.

Where will Labour's dinosaurs be in the voting reform debate?

The move by Labour to legislate for a referendum on electoral reform will throw some interesting light on the position of the dinosaur "socialist" brethren in Labour's ranks who share the Tory horror at changes to the voting system.

In strong Labour areas, such as the North East (admittedly Labour are not as strong as they used to be), the tendency amongst Labour members is to support the existing first past the post system as it has given them a local dominance they find comfortable and enjoyable. Though the existing voting system has given Labour a temporary benefit by giving them a considerable majority in the Commons, completely out of proportion to their share of the vote, first past the post has historically benefitted the Conservatives. I am not arguing that the Conservatives are on the verge of election victory (they aren't and recent polls suggest the trend is making a Tory majority less likely) but the system left to run unreformed will eventually produce a majority Conservative government which is likely to last some considerable time. Just look at the political history of the 20th century to see that in practice.

Despite the current system historically favouring the Tories, the Labour dinosaurs continue to support it. So the move to Alternative Vote, itself just a modest step, is going to press the Labour reactionaries into something of a problem: do they support the line taken by their party, do they shut up, or do they jump into bed with the Tories and run a joint campaign to keep the old (Tory favouring) system in place.

Perhaps some of you local diehard "socialist" Labour reactionaries who so regularly read my blog may wish to use this opportunity to enlighten us as to your view: are you reformer or reactionary?

A photo of me taking photos

My thanks to Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidates Association Chairman Martin Turner for this photo, taken at the National Liberal Club in October. I don't often get to be in the photos as I am normally on the other side of the lens. So I thought it would be amusing to post up this one of me taking a photo of Nick Clegg.

Tree planting in Whickham

One of the tasks to perform yesterday (Tuesday) was to help plant trees at Washingwell School and on the Watergate Estate in Whickham. The Mayor Cllr John Eagle came along as well. My colleagues Councillors Peter Maughan, Yvonne McNicol and John McClurey (and his dog) joined in as well, despite the freezing weather.

Inevitably I turned up with my SLR and my new video camera. A few of the photos are below. A full set and the video will be sent to Washingwell School once the video is edited. And as I'm such a generous chap, I'll send a disc to Labour Councillor and Mayor John Eagle.

As a result of the mud, my shoes and suit now need cleaning.

Meanwhile, good time had by all this evening at the Sunniside History Society Xmas buffet in Sunniside Club. I did not win the history quiz!



Cllr Peter Maughan and Cllr Yvonne McNicol with shovels at the ready



The Mayor Cllr John Eagle shovels the dirt!



Green fingers and green jackets



Yvonne directs the planting



More green fingers

Our latest tabloid

Our latest tabloid in Blaydon constituency has been hitting the streets over the past week. My village, Sunniside, was delivered today. This edition contains a mix of stories both national and local.

The lead is about the closeness of the result in the constituency last time. There is also coverage of the Lib Dem plans for education, Vince on the economy and a fair deal for our troops. On this latter poinnt, Neil Bradbury, our candidate for Blaydon, has been out campaigning on this for the past few weeks. He's picked up quite a few signatures on his petition and has visited the village and town centres of Crawcrook, Ryton, Blaydon and Whickham to collect them.

The picture below was one I took in Crawcrook in early November of Neil and Councillor Sally Danys collecting signatures for the petition.

Frost and focuses

I looked out of the window this morning and saw frost. Well, I shouldn't be surprised. I was out last night in Dunston delivering Focuses. It was a difficult patch which I haven't done since the council byelection a couple of years ago. I had planned to do it in the morning but the rain set in. Doing it in the evening would have been easier if I had night vision. At least the weather was dry last night (for most of the time) but there was clearly a drop in the temperature. So frost is hardly a surprise to me this morning.
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The Monday morning blog: Susan Kramer's early Christmas

Susan Kramer MP and the Lib Dems in Richmond Park in London must be feeling Christmas has come early. It has been revealed that their golden boy Tory opponent, the super-rich Zac Goldsmith, is a tax-avoiding non dom.

Mr Goldsmith argues that it's something he inherited so therefore it's hardly something he sought to have. He seems to think we will all accept it is a bit like an unwanted hereditary peerage. He is, of course, eager to "relinquish" his status (especially now that it has been exposed!) The poor lad has, of course, gained "very few benefits" from his non dom status. Poor, poor lad, how terrible that must be for him.

Cut now to all those heavily mortgaged, tax paying residents of Richmond Park. No Cayman Island provided housing for them. I wonder just what they think of this aspiring Tory Boy's tax affairs. Probably not very supportive, I suspect.

Anyway, I stepped out the house this morning to go down to Dunston to deliver some leaflets and at that point it started to snow! So I'm still stuck in the house. I'm due in Morpeth at 12.30pm so the delivery may have to wait til this afternoon.

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A walk down the Sandy Lonnen

I took a walk down the Sandy Lonnen a few days ago. It is now just an old track between Whickham and Sunniside but is part of a longer medieval road. The purpose of the walk was to pick some wild berries. What I found in addition to them was not a welcome sight. People had dumped their garden waste and rubble from building extensions. You have to wonder about the scumbags who do this sort of thing. Not only are they dumping responsibility for their own waste on the countryside and the rest of us, their brains must operate on a single cell. Gateshead Council already operates a free garden waste collection scheme. And municipal waste sites exist nearby for other waste.

It means I have to ask the council to come out to collect the rubbish. If we could find the culprits, I would make them pay dearly for the clean up. I don't see why the taxpayer should have to pick up the bill for the actions of a selfish, ignorant, irresponsible handful of anti-social people.

Right, now that I have that out of my system, I can tell you I am off to Hexham to do a bit of filming of Hexham Abbey and the town centre, and to have lunch with some historian colleagues.

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Another doctor in the family

My elder brother Andrew has just graduated from Leicester University with a PhD in personal carbon budgets and global climate change. So that's 2 of us now in the family with the "Dr" in front of our name! (My PhD is in early twentieth century British political history with a fair whack about foreign policy in the run up to both WW1 and WW2 - as you can see the intellectual interests of Andrew and I differ somewhat!)

I wasn't able to make his graduation but Dad went along. Here are a few pick:

Lord Who?

Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Anyone heard of him? He has just been elected as leader of UKIP. I'm watching him now. Inspiring is not the word to describe him. His favourite hate words are "political class" which appears to be a nebulous group of people who staff the political institutions of the UK (I wonder whether that includes the House of Lords!?)

With someone so inconsequential and uninspiring, I can only guess that the Conservatives will feel happy with this leadership election result. They are after all the most vulnerable party to UKIP.
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National Express bites the dust again

So National Express is to lose its franchise for train services in the eastern region. The company's foray into train services has been a disaster and has turned a leading UK company into something of a joke. What is interesting about the loss of this second franchise is that it is not immediate. The company will continue to hold onto it for two years? If they are seen as incapable of running the service in the future, why are they allowed to run services for two years more? Presumably their failings are happening now, regardless of their future performance.
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Deciding on war then looking for the excuse to invade

No wonder Labour politicians were so reluctant to have an inquiry on the Iraq war. Once the time had run out for putting off the evil day, the story about the decision to go to war would come out into the public domain. And so we are starting to see what did go on. Today, Sir Christopher Meyer, Britain's ambassador to the UN, revealed that they were scraping around looking for a "smoking gun" only weeks before the invasion started, yet Bush and Blair had already opted for war a year before.

So Blair was sending the troops to war without the cause for war. He never got the excuse and the rest is history. What I find so amazing however is that the Lib Dems and a minority in Labour could see that the evidence for WMDs was not there before the war happened. Why was the Cabinet not able to see that the excuses for war did not exist. Whilst Blair needs to take his share of blame, serious questions have to be asked about the craven backing for war by the senior levels of the Labour government. Responsible government broke down in 2002-3. Labour politicians who were there at the time need to explain the failure that has made them as guilty of huge misjudgement as Blair was.
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Weapons of non-construction

The second day of the Iraq inquiry and it is already throwing up some very interesting issues. Today we learnt that the weapons of mass destruction that did not exist anyway could not be assembled to be used in the infamous 45 minutes claimed for them. Apparently Tony Blair knew this 10 days before the start of the war to get rid of the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Seems as though the war had taken on a life of its own, even before it started.

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The right decision by the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court have just spoken and they have announced their judgement: the banks can continue to charge for unauthorised overdrafts; their charges are not excessive. There is now a great deal of noise from campaigners who want the charges refunded to those who took money from banks that they weren't authorised to take and wasn't their money to take.

So, I for one want to speak up for the responsible customers who keep to the agreement to spend only their own money or not to take other people's money without permission. These people would have been the big losers if the Supreme Court had gone the other way. They would have been stung for charges as it would almost certainly have meant the end of free banking. Why penalise the responsible?

If your can't stick to the agreement you made, expect penalties, and accept responsibility for your own actions.

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Still in recession

France, Germany, Japan, USA, Eurozone, all out of recession. They are part of the world that Brown claims to be leading. But the just announced revised figures for GDP in the UK show the economy continues to shrink. Of all the world's major economies, Brown's Britain is the worst performing. I wonder what all those self-righteous Labour members in Gateshead who regularly read this blog think of their own record on the economy. Past experience suggests they will claim their own government is nothing to do with them.
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RIP John McWilliam

Back home and I discover that John McWilliam, MP for Blaydon from 1979 to 2005 died recently. He may have been a political opponent but he was always pleasant and courteous to deal with. I remember a few years ago bumping into him in the Commons and he took me for a drink in a bar there and used the occasion to tell me about the history of the building.

My sympathies to his family.

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That poll

One of the first things that caught my attention when I got back to the UK on Sunday was the poll that showed a significant drop in support for the Conservatives. Talk was of a hung parliament, the likely outcome of an election in which those voting proportions are cast. The no-win-for-anyone scenario has been what I have been predicting for some time now, despite the talk in the national media about an easy Tory victory with a comfortable majority.

For the Tories to win a majority, they need to gain 117 seats. That will give them an absolutely minimal majority. It should be remembered that in terms of seats the Conservatives are in a worse position that Labour after their meltdown in 1983. Labour needed another 3 elections before they were able to claw back the seats needed to win a general election. Admittedly the electorate is more open to shopping around with their votes nowadays. People tend to be less committed to voting the same way at each and every election. Indeed, they seem to be less committed to voting at all. So significant numbers of people can shift at a single election to cause a major change on the political landscape. 1997 and 1979 are classic examples of this. But there is no yearning for a Tory government now like there was for Blair in 1997. Whole swathes of the country remain areas where Cameron and his party are barely on the political radar screen. The North East is an example of this. The Tory ratings in opinion polls are well short of where Labour ratings were back in the 1990s and even then Labour fell well short of the expectations held at the time in terms of share of the vote (though admittedly matched or exceeded expectations on seats won in 1997). As we get closer to the general election, my expectation is of a firming up in the Labour vote.

This is not to say that Labour can hope to walk back into Downing St. Whilst their projected majority at the last election under the new boundaries was a still comfortable 55, a small swing would wipe that out instantly. Labour could also face a tactical squeeze that they used successfully against the Tories which could now work against them. That would add to a calamitous election campaign for Brown and Labour. Nevertheless, the Tories are going to need more than a Labour calamity and meltdown to win the general election outright. And at the moment I just can't see that happening. They may get to be the largest party, they may even get close to a majority, but there is a very serious possibility of a 2nd election in 2011. And what a joyous thought that is (not)!
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Testing out East Coast

I have just got on board my first East Coast train - ie the company that has replaced the total failure that was National Express. I am at Kings Cross waiting to head home to Gateshead. The livery is the same, the National Express symbols and words have not been changed (frankly there are more important things to spend money on at the moment) and the staff are the same. Let's hope however that the real change comes with the quality of service.

So, I am back in the UK after a short absence in the Atlas Mountains and royal cities of Morocco. Watch out for the inevitable run of photos and video. I've already started sorting them.
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From the frying pan into the flood

From the frying pan into the fire doesn't quite describe it. Flood is a better description. I have just got back after nearly two weeks in Morocco. I spent two weeks taking photos and video in the sun. Not a cloud in sight. Shorts worn at all time even when I was in the cooler Atlas Mountains. Temperatures were well over 30C. And yesterday I stepped off the plane at Gatwick into pouring rain, 8C temperature and the news that the North West in particular has been ravished by massive floods and the heaviest rain the country has ever experienced.

Anyway I am now back in the UK and blogging is restarting. (My last post was written before I left but timed to be posted whilst I was away.)

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Better late than never

Blaydon Labour MP David Anderson should have a motto of “Better late than never!” He called on MPs to visit pubs in the summer recess. The only problem was he made the call in October, a month after summer officially ended and with the long nights of autumn drawing in!

Mr Anderson also announced he was looking forward to the publication of a report on the blacklisting of trade unions, a day after the report was published!

And in October Mr Anderson congratulated the boxer Amir Khan on his victory over Andriy Kotelnik, a mere 3 months after the match was held.

All of the above comes from the Early Day Motions signed by Mr Anderson since the end of the summer recess.

As the saying goes, “Better late than never!”

Remembrance Day Parade

Here are the photos from the Remembrance Day Parade on Sunday in Whickham. My ward colleague Cllr John McClurey laid the wreath on behalf of residents of Whickham South and Sunniside, Cllr Yvonne McNicol for Dunston Hill and Whickham East and Cllr Peter Craig for Whickham North.









The link to all the photos of the parade are on my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanwallace/sets/72157622763987894/

Visiting the Butterfly Bridge

One of the victims of the floods of September 2008 in Gateshead was the Butterfly Bridge, a historic crossing over the Derwent River. The bridge was built in the nineteenth century but is on a much older, medieval road which crossed right through my ward. Hundreds of years ago it was part of the main north/south route between Northumberland and Durham.

Last year the floods swept the bridge down river. It is lying on the river bank like a beached whale. There are plans however to replace it next year so my two ward colleagues Marilynn Ord and John McClurey, and Blaydon prospective MP Neil Bradbury visited the site on Saturday. I took the photos which required taking on an interesting challenge of clambering over the wrecked bridge to get the best shots!


This is me about to be up to my ankles in mud!


Here I am climbing onto the bridge - never let your colleagues look after your camera. They end up taking photos of me!


This was one of the photos I was after.


This was where the bridge used to be.


This is the bridge as it is now.


And another of how it is now.

And the following is a bit of video I shot last year of the River Derwent flooding at Blackhall Mill.

Clap hands, there goes Cadburys

It seems as though another one of our great British companies is about to be gobbled up, this time by chocoholic Americans. Kraft is putting in a hostile bid for Cadburys. I fear that yet another market is about to be cornered by an international conglomerate with little commitment to where the company originated.

The ongoing growth of companies by merger and takeover rather than by organic growth of the business itself is something that now has to be questioned closely. Some of these merged companies are so big they are stronger than some governments.

Whilst there is understandable economies of scale, is it a price worth paying if competition is reduced? Some recent mergers have been a disaster. Look at Lloyds Group. The banking crisis would have been greatly reduced had the banks been smaller. 20 years ago, the 7 institutions that are now part of the group were all independent of each other: Lloyds, TSB, Halifax, Leeds, Cheltenham and Gloucester, Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows.

Now the process has gone too far and Lloyds, having just merged with HBOS is now required to down size. The issue now is whether or not other sectors of the economy need the same treatment.

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Blue rinse Tory Socialist Ambling to nowhere

Anne-Marie Trevelyan is the Tory candidate who will challenge Lib Dem MP for Berwick upon Tweed, Sir Alan Beith, at the general election. Lib Dems form the administration on Northumberland County Council though they do not have a majority of seats on the authority. The introduction of personal budgets in social services in Northumberland (a government requirement) has forced the County to close a number of under used day care centres in the county, one of which is at Amble. The closures will actually lead to improvements for users as more people will be able to choose and buy in their own service, through their personal budget, to suit their needs. That is the background. Here's the Tory story.

Anne-Marie has decided to do a bit of political cross dressing. In the world of local politics she has clad herself in the clothes of a blue rinse socialist, fighting to keep open a publicly provided facility. Whilst doing her drag act, she has battled against the provision of services by private and voluntary sector providers.

The problem for her is that her Tory councillors on Northumberland have blown her campaign to smithereens. Firstly, the social services changes were flagged up in the budget in March which the Tories voted for. Okay, the Tories then performed a minor uturn by backing a Labour amendment a couple of months ago to keep the centres open for 6 weeks whilst the Council was instructed to look for someone who would take over the centres. Since this had already been investigated, the whole exercise was a meaningless waste of time - however, Tory and Labour jumped into bed together to have a good time at the Lib Dem council's expense by voting through the unnecessary delay. 6 weeks later and the closure plans can back to council and despite (or was it because of?) Anne-Marie's campaign, the Tories voted for the closure. The Tory double uturn ensured the policy of personal budgets, and the closure of underused centres, will go ahead.

Undermined-Anne-Marie, wilting under the weight of her new found socialist baggage, seems however to have completely forgotten that her Tory chums have backed the closure she said should not go ahead. Just a couple of days ago she was ranting in the press about her demands that Amble Day Care Centre should remain open.

So if her own party can't be bothered to listen to her, why should the rest of us?

Writing for Whickham.mobi

For local readers of this blog, http://www.whickham.mobi is worth checking out. It is a commercially run site which provides information about businesses in the Whickham area. It also has a news section. The site is designed to be accessible through your mobile.

The interesting point for me is that I write most of the news that the site carries. The people behind the site approached myself and my colleague Cllr Peter Craig earlier this year to outline their plan for the site. We liked it so much that we offered to supply them with the news with which we fill our Focuses and email newsletters.

So I've just sent off a load more news which is also going into the next eFocus which will be emailed out shortly.

Why no declaration of interest?

Gateshead Council has just finished meeting. On the agenda was a motion calling on Scottish and Newcastle Breweries to retain the production of Brown Ale at the Dunston plant in Gateshead. (The company wants to move production to Tadcaster.) There was general unanimity and interestingly when I spoke, I was not heckled, interrupted or prevented from finishing what I had to say. One Labour Councillor, Mick McNestry, even followed me by saying he agreed with what I said. Interesting change from theantics of Labour at the last meeting.

But there was also an interesting intervention in the debate from Labour Councillor Stephen Ronchetti. He used the opportunity to attack the government on beer tax and do some special pleading for pubs. He complained that too many pubs were closing and amongst other things pointed the finger of blame at the government's decision to ban smoking in public places. In many ways it was a very strong boot up the government's backside.

All very interesting coming from a Labour councillor. But that is not what was the most interesting point. Cllr Ronchetti is a publican. He runs a pub in Blaydon. So I was a bit surprised that he decided to use a council meeting to make the case against government policy that he regarded as damaging to pubs.....without declaring an interest in the matter.
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Boy Wonder and the conference centre

Newcastle and Gateshead, in partnership with One NorthEast created 1NG as the development company for NewcastleGateshead. It has a heavy weight chair - Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor. In a nutshell, its remit is to produce the economic plan the the NewcastleGateshead "City" area. As the 1NG website explains, "The NewcastleGateshead economic masterplan - 1PLAN - will set out a blueprint for economic development and physical regeneration for NewcastleGateshead." This is all about co-operation across the two authorities and a recognition that by working together, both sides of the River Tyne benefit economically. What's good for Gateshead is good for Newcastle, and visa versa.

The reason this needs to be explained in simple terms is Labour in Newcastle are having considerable difficulties in understanding this. It was announced yesterday that 1NG had identified a site on the Gateshead Quays as being the best location for an international conference centre. The childish response from Labour in Newcastle yesterday was to state:

"It will be a huge missed opportunity for Newcastle to have a prestigious international conference centre across the water. Good on Gateshead for getting their act together and shame on Newcastle for dithering around."

The comment was made by Cllr Nick Forbes, the Boy Wonder of Newcastle politics (the wonder is why on earth Labour ever put up with this loose cannon). It tramples all over the principle of co-operation between the two authorities and suggests that were Newcastle ever to endure Mr Forbes as their City Leader, there would be a shift away from mutual co-operation which would mean the River Tyne becoming more than just a watery divide between the two authorities. His comments also exhibit a level of political immaturity that should worry Labour on Tyneside.

There is a further point to consider. A major reason for the choice of Gateshead Quays as the location is the presence there of the Sage, the great new music hall. This is a magnet for other developments. And why is the Sage in the Gateshead Quays? It wasn't something to do with the rejection by Newcastle City Council of initial proposals to site the building in Newcastle, was it? And when did that happen? Wasn't it when Labour ran Newcastle Council before 2004?

So, to follow the purile rantings of Mr Forbes to their logical conclusion, the "dithering" of Labour in Newcastle is to blame for the proposed location of the Sage not being in the city he himself aspires to lead.

Cameron declares he is to take UK out of Europe

A "British Sovereignty" law, proposed by David Cameron today to replace his collapsed referendum policy, would mean that the UK is in effect leaving the EU. It would be the only way British laws in all areas are supreme over European laws. By signing up to various European treaties in the past, the UK has agreed to share sovereignty on some issues. Therefore the European institutions in those policy areas make the laws. And the European Court in Luxembourg is the supreme interpreter of those European laws. They override domestic laws in those policy areas which the treaties have agreed to share.

Any country that decides their own laws are supreme over European law in those areas of shared sovereignty means that country is stepping out of the agreed institutions and structures of Europe. Cameron should be honest. He should be clear that if you are part of the club, you abide by club rules. And if you don't like the rules, you resign from the club. Cameron talks of being "straight" with the voters. All we had this afternoon during his new policy announcement was a load of slather and posturing. He should be honest and offer a referendum on membership of the EU. And he should stop making impossible claims: a British sovereignty law means withdrawal from the EU. He should be honest about that.
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The demise of National Express as the Fat Controller

The days of National Express running trains on the East Coast are very very numbered. Excellent news. On 12th December, the National Excess Fat Controller will be redundant. A new publicly-owned operator, called East Coast Main Line, (very original!) will operate the trains. The arrangement will last for at least 18 months. The franchise may or may not then return to the private sector. I am open minded as to whether that should happen. The issue that should govern the decision is whether or not such a move will lead to better services whilst cutting pollution and boosting the regional economy.

It is interesting to note however that the Government will not require an end to the new and controversial £5 seat reservation charge for return tickets. Labour will allow it to remain in place. All that bleating and gnashing of teeth by Labour in Gateshead in the summer about how bad this charge was now all looks a bit like a dose of hypocrisy from the "socialist" brethren.
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Making Lloyds get rid of branches they wanted to close anyway

It's hardly surprising the share price of Lloyds benefited from the announcement today on cash injection and branch sales and closures. The company is almost certainly of the view that it has vastly more branches than it needs, now that HBOS has been absorbed into it. There must be hundred of Lloyds branches sitting near a Halifax. This duplication would not have continued, even if it had not been an EU requirement for additional state aid to get rid of them.

Earlier this year Lloyds announced that the entire Cheltenham and Gloucester branch network would close. Months later the closure plan was abandoned though I have a suspicion that the cancellation was forced on them so that the mortgage wing of Lloyds could be sold off with a high street presence of its own. So Lloyds gets to dump the troublesome branches after all. Okay, so the mortgage wing will have to be demerged and sold off but Lloyds could still continue to sell C&G mortgages if it turns out to be financially beneficial to do so. C&G after all has only a limited high street presence of its own so it will not want to lose the extensive reach it has by being sold through Lloyds branches. Lloyds benefits by not having to pay for the network they had initially planned to close anyway.

So, the EU and the government have provided Lloyds with the excuses for dumping a huge number of branches, many of which the company will see as a drain on its resources. No wonder the share price has gone up.
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I picked a great day to try to upload videos....

I have been in London for a few days and took with me my laptop to edit a load of travel videos. I don't upload them to YouTube from the laptop as the files I create are so large that it would take forever (and cost a lot of cash). So I stockpiled them to upload now that I am just back from London. I thought I'd put them up before heading off to the Sunniside History Society meeting and pie and pea supper tonight.

Alas at this moment YouTube announces that the site is closed for a short while "for maintenance". Bloody typical. I've got 10 videos waiting to go up. 1 gig total size. I'll have to wait til after the meeting.

Will Milliband head for Europe?

One interesting impact of the Czech signature on the Lisbon Treaty will be the future of David Milliband. The possibility he will be the new European 'Foreign Secretary' throws up the need for a by-election in South Shields, just down the road from us in Gateshead (what a joyous early Xmas present that would be - not). It's enough to make any political activist wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat!

The second and arguably more serious point is about Labour itself. No doubt (and despite the portestations of non-interest in the post) Milliband will have considered future prospects. Let's assume a poor result for Labour at the general election. Brown resigns as Leader. But what state will Labour be in? It could be that they will be out of power for a considerable time. The new Leader could spend many years in opposition. Would someone like Milliband, who enjoys the reins of power, really want the job of rebuilding Labour in opposition with prospects of power not being strong? I'm not sure he does. The European Foreign Secretary position could be a tempting post, striding the world stage and giving him the stature he craves and the influence he clearly enjoys exercising.

Or maybe rebuilding Labour is a challenge he wants to take on. But there again, to become Labour Leader, he needs to win a leadership election and I'm not convinced he could pull it off, especially with his Blairite baggage.

This is of course all speculation. Labour have not yet lost the election but it will be interesting to see which way he goes. And were Milliband to opt for Europe, it would suggest that at the very heart of government, the writing on the wall is being read.
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Events forcing Cameron's hand

The Czech signature on the Lisbon Treaty today now forces David Cameron's hand. No longer can he hide in a fog of meaningless statements. He will have to state his abandonment of a referendum or look completely ridiculous. It also means that the anti-European obsessives and headbangers in the Conservative Party will be going wild with rage at Cameron's climbdown. Should make for an interesting exhibition of traditional Tory mutual knifing!

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Labour's bank u-turn

The proposals coming out of the Treasury today that the big nationalised banks will be partly broken up raises the question of why on earth did Gordon Brown push through the very opposite last year with Lloyds and HBOS. This merger was very much the pet project of Brown. It has been a disaster for Lloyds. And it also created a vast banking organisation which a year later the Government wants to reverse. The merger went ahead because Brown did not want another nationalisation on its hands. The outcome was that instead of nationalising HBOS it has had to part nationalise a far bigger share of the banking sector which itself was weakened by the decision to merge.

It seems that the Government are making policy up as they go along and it changes regularly.
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