Was this really a random act of vandalism? taken from a fellow bloggers site

I read this morning that the car belonging to Hazel Blears has been attacked whilst she was out campaigning in Salford. All four tyres were slashed and the windshield smashed in the attack.

Hazel has been in touch with local news agencies apparently stating that it hasn’t got anything to do with the expenses scandal and her involvement with it. She states that it is purely anti-social behaviour and it is what the people of Salford have to endure regularly. Is it really, Hazel?

A couple of years ago I was driving down the road where her car was attacked and I heard thumping. I pulled over at the side of the road to discover I had a flat tyre, so as you do, went to fetch the spare. That was also flat. So now I’m in what Hazel describes as an area overrun with anti-social youths and I have no way of escaping. Should I run? Should I hide?

Within minutes local people had come over to see if I needed any help. I explained the situation and before I had a chance to say anything else one of the people was on a mobile phone arranging for my tyre to be fixed. It turned out my tyre was split around the outer wall and, as luck would have it, the local garage had a part-worn tyre. 20 minutes later it was on the wheel and another of the locals was helping me fit it. Total cost to me £20 and a couple of cigarettes shared with the people helping.

Now I could be wrong, but does that sound like an area overrun with anti-social louts who will randomly attack a car? My car was unlocked all the time I was there, and far from being threatening towards me, the local people – young and old – were trying their best to help someone in need. They didn’t need to do it – they could have sat back and watched me struggle.

Hazel needs to understand that at best what has happened to her car is an overspill of anger towards her and at worst it is a threat – and typecasting the people of Salford as random vandals is not going to win her any new friends. It might be time for her to consider leaving the campaign trail and either taking a back seat role at the next election or withdrawing from politics altogether.

Incidentally it is worth noting before anyone else does that she was also parked on double yellow lines.

i Really wish people would stop putting bits out about Thatcher and a state funeral

It’s really is getting me confused i read on Cllr warmishams blog about the e petition over a Thatcher state funeral i thought she had popped her clogs and no one had told me. Just ran to Swinton Precinct to get the evening news. Oh well thats more money wasted. Any way put my signature down.

Selling of sex agree with it or not.

Trying to get my head on certain issues lately. No i am no moral crusader or  religious zealot, but i find it sordid and sad that women have to bring their selves to do it and even sadder that in a world where i have allways felt there is a partner for us all if we look close enough. I have found it more distasteful that the city i represent is full of brothels. Just out of interest how would you feel if tomorrow you went to work, come home and next door had been turned into a brothel? you would be outraged.What would you do contact the police your local councillor i would and thats what residents have done, the police of course have been first rate in any action asked of them, and the council ? well in all honesty they are trying to help but are tied by weak system that allow sordid little people  to make money on the backs of young women.I with others will carry on a fight to close what i believe a blot on the landscape with what ever legal means available.If anyone feels strongly enough in the near future to protest with me outside this building please contact me on this blog, sadly i feel this is the only way left.

Do you think the NHS would be safe if the Tories came to power?

Ian we know your answer.

1. My view not a bloody chance.
2. Any one have a view?

Letwin: ‘NHS will not exist under Tories’ Sunday, 6 June 2004 what’s changed in 5 years.

By Andy McSmith, Political Editor

Oliver Letwin has reportedly told a private meeting that the “NHS will not exist” within five years of a Conservative election victory.

Oliver Letwin has reportedly told a private meeting that the “NHS will not exist” within five years of a Conservative election victory.

The Shadow Chancellor said that the health service would instead be a “funding stream handing out money to pay people where they want to go for their healthcare”, according to a member of the audience.

The remarks, which have been furiously denied by Mr Letwin, were last night seized on by Labour as evidence of the Tories’ true intentions towards the NHS.

It is not disputed that Mr Letwin met a gathering of construction industry representatives in his constituency of Dorset West on 14 May. During the meeting he urged the group of around six local businessmen to work together to win contracts for a new PFI hospital to be built in Dorchester.

Mr Letwin then astonished his audience, however, by saying that within five years of a Conservative election victory “the NHS will not exist anymore”, according to one of those who were present.

Although Mr Letwin’s aides later insisted that his remarks had been misinterpreted, it is the second time in recent weeks that his candour has landed him in trouble.

As reported in this newspaper, the Shadow Chancellor told a group of economists that it would be “irrational” to tell voters by how much he wanted to cut public spending. That prompted a gleeful Labour Party to claim that he had let slip a secret Tory plan to cut £135bn from the government budget.

Paul Boateng, the Treasury Chief Secretary, lost no time in seizing on the latest apparent gaffe.

“This proves what we have said all along,” he said. “Oliver Letwin and the Tories want to abolish the NHS as we know it. The Tory agenda is one of cuts, charges and privatisation.”

However, a Conservative Party spokesman said: “Oliver Letwin categorically said nothing of the sort. What he told the meeting was that within five years a Conservative government would have broken down the monolithic bureaucracy of the health service, putting decision-making in the hands of the hospitals rather than the Whitehall pen-pushers. The result will be a far more efficient and effective NHS.

He added: “As with a report two weeks ago that Mr Letwin had secret plans to make vast cuts in the public services, this report is complete fiction.”

Tories outline NHS cuts plan

Health campaigners have attacked penny-pinching Tory plans to squeeze the amount of cash available for NHS operations and treatments.

Under the plans, the “tariff” that hospitals receive from the Department of Health to carry out their procedures would be reduced.

The sum is currently based on the average cost of such a procedure across Britain.

The Tory plans would see this cut, while GPs and health commissioners would be “encouraged” by government to negotiate prices downwards.

And all such funding would be linked to “performance,” the Conservatives said.

Health Emergency information director Dr John Lister condemned the plans and said that it “really summed up the hypocrisy of the Tories.

“On one hand, they latched on to local NHS campaigns to defend small hospitals, while on the other they are lining up plans which will ultimately lead to the closure of small hospitals.”

He stressed: “It just shows that, if you vote Tory, you’ll be voting for more attacks on the NHS.”

One unnamed senior Tory told The Times newspaper that, “broadly speaking, the economic model for the NHS we want was put in place by Tony Blair and we will use the levers created by him to drive efficiency.”

However, health think tank King’s Fund chief economist John Appleby told the paper that “tightening the screw” could prove dangerous for the health of the NHS, leading to “real action to cut costs and ‘rationalise’ local services.”

He also warned that such cuts could lead to the closure of small hospitals and health units across the country.

A health union UNISON spokeswoman said: “Hospital staff and patients are right not to trust the Tories.

“They say they are going to keep up spending on the NHS, but what they really want to do is sneak cuts through the back door.

“The NHS is not somewhere where operations should go to the lowest bidder. There is a real danger that cutting costs of individual operations will drive down quality of care.

“And closing down local treatment centres will force sick people to travel longer distances to get treatment.”

Such cost-cutting schemes openly form a central part of Tory policy, with party leader David Cameron recently telling the BBC that he wanted his government taking on a role more akin to Tesco or Sainsbury’s.

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Responding to the row over the remarks, the Conservative leader said he had spoken to his frontbencher and welcomed the apology Duncan gave.Bit late don’t you think?

Duncan rebuked for expenses comment

source epolitix

David Cameron has reprimanded Alan Duncan after he complained about efforts to reform the parliamentary expenses regime.

The shadow leader of the Commons had been accused of hypocrisy after he was secretly filmed making the comments about MPs’ reduced living standards since Parliament tightened control of the expenses system.

Duncan protested that MPs were being treated like “shit” and had to live on “rations”.

Cameron added that he “made it clear in no uncertain terms that when it comes to the expenses mess, the words we use – just as the actions we take – have got to completely demonstrate that we share the public’s real fury at what went on in Parliament”.

Duncan sits on the Commons commission, the body that oversees the expenses regime and has responsibility for cleaning up the system, making his comments all the more embarrassing.

He has issued an apology in a bid to defuse the row over his remarks.

“The last thing people want to hear is an MP whingeing about his pay and conditions,” he said.

“It is a huge honour to be an MP and my remarks, although meant in jest, were completely uncalled for.”

But Sir Alistair Graham, former chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said the comments could offend people worried about their jobs during the recession.

“It is particularly worrying that such a senior figure, in a party that is likely to form a government after the next election, would say something like this,” he told the Daily Telegraph.

Business Secretary Lord Mandelson suggested Duncan had hindered efforts to reform the expenses system.

“He, as the shadow leader of the House, has not exactly been helpful – and I say this frankly about him – in bringing about the reforms that the government has tried to introduce,” he told the BBC.

“I must say, Alan Duncan is very fond of speaking a good game publicly, but in private talking and acting quite differently. So I’m not surprised he has been found out.”

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I think my good friend Cllr Lindleys having a dig don’t you

No cars were harmed in the making of tonight’s canvassing session, although I did get a bit wet. 2009/08/11

Shame really he beat me to it..