When you two get on this blog you cause some real interest. It’s not a one off– every time the stats go through the ceiling. You two should be a double act. Carry on writing in if a could sell advertising i would be rich.
Regards to you both.
PS LETS TALK POLITICS ANYTHING THAT FLOATS YOUR BOAT-LETS MAKE THE SITE SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT..
Great performance from Vince does any one agree or disagree? we need the power of this man to lead this party forward.
Lib Dem conference stage setting a nice Tory Blue. Most Salford Lib Dems will be happy with that.
Thank you for putting Most because the day the Lib Dems join with the Tories i will sign back up for Labour.
Regards.
Well i went in with Mole junior to observe, we both went in with open minds. The call in was by our leader and two colleagues. The case for the the Taxi drivers was both eloquent and well presented, the problem their case was on the policy and not on the consultation process.
Each argument put forward by the Taxi drivers was well put, as i have all ready stated, The Council are seeking what in real terms is de regulation.
I was surprised when no rinks where taxi drivers wait have been built. No real plans to site rinks close to media city.And answers from the council that some drivers will garage until called out!
Claims that customers where suffering along with disabled people, and yet evidence from the disabled forum saying other wise.No real surveys done and a refusal by the council to survey with an offer from the Taxi drivers to increase taxis if evidence from the survey proved a need.
The consultation process seemed dubious to say the least, if other consultations are any thing to go by that will come as no surprise.
Emissions, taxis that are all ready passing will suffer new test that in most cases will force cars of the road.
We are living in city with limited business for our taxi drivers, they asked for sustainable growth they were prepared to talk on a policy document that as more holes than a piece of swiss cheese. Of course both the Labour and Conservatives voted against the Taxi drivers.We must look at how we can support business more and more people are fighting to make a living, look what happened with the bus shambles and yet we create more problems on an Infostructure that is falling apart.
September 18, 2009
LIFE expectancy in two inner-city districts of Salford are among the lowest in Britain.
The stark differences in England’s health is highlighted in a report which calls for a new drive to cut the number of people with cardiovascular disease – CVD.
In Pendleton, average life expectancy is 70.7 years and in nearby Ordsall, 71.1. Both are in the bottom five for the country – the lowest being the Middlehaven area of Middlesbrough at 67.8.
Interesting poll of LD members indicating they’d rather prop up Gordon Brown than work for change.
Any more details you are a little vague?
And work for change? with whom?
Leaked Treasury figures suggest that total spending on government departments will have to be cut by an average 2.9% a year in real terms over three years from 2011.
The chancellor has now agreed to set aside more than £5.5bn to pay for the operations. At the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, ministers allocated £3bn to cover what they called “the full costs of the UK’s military obligations” there.
Mr Brown has now made clear that this sum was a huge underestimate. The latest figures also suggest that the annual costs of Britain’s military presence in Iraq are increasing. Mr Brown said yesterday that an extra £580m would be allocated to the special reserve for “Iraq, Afghanistan and the government’s other international obligations”.
This is more than the extra money Mr Brown put in the special reserve last year, and it brings the total provided for the fund to £5.64bn.
Figures obtained by the Iraq Analysis Group, an independent research organisation, show that the vast bulk of the special reserve is spent on British military operations in Iraq, although the government does not specify exactly how the money is allocated.
So far, at least £3.2bn has been spent on British military operations in southern Iraq, with a further £1.7bn already allocated for them, the figures show.
Liam Wren-Lewis, a member of the Iraq Analysis Group, said yesterday: “This latest provision continues a steadily increasing trend in the cost of the Iraq war to UK taxpayers.”
The Ministry of Defence was unable to provide figures last night for the cost of its military operations in Iraq.
However, in a note to his cabinet colleagues last summer, John Reid, the defence secretary, said that the cost amounted to about £1bn a year.
That was one reason, he suggested, why he wanted to cut the number of British troops in Iraq. A reduction to about 3,000 troops – from the present 8,500 – by the middle of next year should halve that sum, he said.
The chancellor also announced that an extra £135m would be allocated for security and counter-terrorism measures. Some of this is likely to be spent on increased staff and technology for MI5.
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lib Dem conference this week Nick yaaaaaaawn Clegg trying to be more Tony Blair than Cameron.
We have the wrong man doing the job. I don’t want a clone, and i do not think the people of this country do.
We fail because we have the wrong leadership. We need to find some one to stimulate the taste buds, we are coming across in the news as second rate because we are lacking that one key part of the Jigsaw.
People need new ideas, bin the rhetoric, we must highlight policy failings of the other parties, but offer sound costed alternatives.
We have the ideas but fail to get them across to the public in a way that informs without boring the pants of people.
We have some of the best people on the ground, we hold our own against overwhelming odds across councils in every part of the country.
We can go out in 2010 and punch above our weight but it’s going to be one hell of a fight.
Public anger is now so great that it is likely that — even if no-one resigns right now — many MPs will choose not to stand again at the next election.
Others who do choose to re-stand may discover that their popularity has faded faster than they could possibly have imagined.
In which case, we will probably see the biggest turnover of MPs in living memory.
But, in that case, if we are not satisfied with the current crop of MPs, what should we actually be looking for? It’s easy to trot out ‘integrity, leadership, vision’, but are these really the qualities that define a good member of parliament? And, if so, in what measure? Half of Britain could probably make some claim to these qualities. Most of the MPs who are now under the most intense scrutiny have probably made claims of this kind, and probably most of them still believe that they are described by them.
And, actually, although MPs talk about leadership, most back-benchers are followers rather than leaders. MPs talk about integrity, but often its just a code-word for stubbornly pursuing their own idea as a matter of ‘principle’, even when it is proven to be wrong. And the word vision can be used to mean anything you want.
So let me offer, as a starter, another list, as to what we should really look for in a constituency MP. To make it memorable, I’ve organised it according to the vowels, A,E, I, O, U, as follows:
Available
Effective
Inspiring
One of us
Upright
Available, because the most important function of the constituency MP is that he or she serves the constituency. Once it was enough to hold constituency surgeries once a week. Today’s constituency MP needs to be available by post, by email, in person, through Facebook (maybe), even by Twitter. The moment that a constituency MP puts his political career ahead of his constituents needs is the moment they should elect someone else. The first question I would be asking a prospective MP, therefore, is, will you be available when I need you? And, to a sitting MP, are you available right now?
Effective, because, ultimately, we elect MPs to do something. Far too many MPs — and this is, really, more serious than the expenses — would struggle to point to their achievements over the last five years. Whether they are paid £67,000 salary, or £300,000 with expenses and staff counted in, or just £6,000, an MP who is ineffective is a waste of money. Effectiveness comes in different forms, of course, but the second question I would ask a candidate is: how have you demonstrated effectiveness in your non-political life so far? To a sitting MP, I would ask straight out: what have you done since you were elected that actually counts for anything?
Inspiring, because, for good or ill, MPs are the leaders of Britain, and if they cannot inspire us, nobody will. It’s all very well for the Archbishop of Canterbury to speak up, but an awful lot of people are not part of his church, and therefore do not feel he represents them. Likewise, we like to hear from celebs, athletes and broadcasters, but none of those people have a connection to us. To be inspiring, someone must be on fire about something. So, my next question to a candidate would be, how will you inspire us? To a sitting MP it is more direct: who have you inspired, and when?
I was going to put ‘ordinary’ rather than ‘one of us’, but, in fact, we really need our MPs to be extraordinary. But to be true representatives in a democracy, they must be men and women of the people. True, an MP’s life is different from the run of the mill. But an MP must understand and be a part of the society that elects her or him. So I would ask a candidate: how are you like me? How are you like the people on my street? And I would ask a sitting MP: how have you stayed ‘one of us’ through your parliamentary career. I think this may be a very hard question to answer for many of the moat-cleaners and tennis-court repairers.
Finally, upright. We expect not merely adherence to the same codes and laws as the rest of us, but that an MP adheres to the very highest ideals. Why should we elect someone who is only averagely honest, averagely compassionate, averagely self-controlled? Like Caesar’s wife, an MP should be above reproach — not, as some MPs would have it, because reproach should be stifled, but because their lifestyles and daily interactions demonstrate complete integrity of word and action.
These, to me, are the qualities we should look for in our MPs. We require further qualities for those in government. But this is a start.
