latest newsletters >>
next newsletters >>
previous newsletters >>

AV Referendum / Local Elections / Super-Injunctions / Local Elections

26th April 2011

Hi all –

So many people have asked what China was like that I'm going to chat about that below, but first some other items.

1. AV referendum

The most popular article that I've written recently was the one where I discussed the pros and cons of the AV referendum in neutral terms: a lot of people tell me they're fed up with one-sided presentations and liked just having the arguments so they could make up their own minds. As newer readers haven't seen it, here's the link again:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BroxtoweInfo/message/574

2. Local election update

With the local elections coming on May 5, the Broxtowe Labour website is going to discuss each of the key battlegrounds in turn – and again we're trying to be objective and we shan't be predicting Labour wins everywhere. Our fiendish plot is that if we make the site genuinely interesting and useful whatever your views, you'll have a look at the bits where we do put our campaign arguments as well, as today's piece on the deteriorating NHS figures. If you bookmark www.broxtowelabour.com you should find a new update every day this week.

The election is being hard-fought all round. Significantly, the LibDems are taking the same line as they did before the General Election, that they reserve the option to go in with either of the other parties and they'll let us know after we've voted.

Both governing parties are still trying to perform the awkward feat of defending the government's policies (e.g. the NHS plan) while claiming that they'll oppose the consequences (e.g. the closure of walk-in centres). I don't think this is going to work, either in terms of winning votes or in reality. If you feel the government's policies are good and deserve support at local level, it clearly makes sense to vote Conservative or LibDem. If you don't, then it doesn't, since their opposition to their impact keeps coming down to ineffective "campaigns" that aren't really pressed – as with the sale of Bramwell, Kimberley policing, the walk-in centres and, seemingly, the Middle Street centre in Beeston. It needs local Labour councillors to provide a counterweight.

3. Middle Street update

The latest here is a worrying, not yet confirmed, report that users of this centre for people with moderate mental difficulties are being charged to use it out of their Disability Living Allowance, and that an attempt is being made to apply this retrospectively, so that they will need to agree to pay for past use if they want to use it in the future. I find it hard to believe that this (if true) is legal and I'm anxious to get more details, but it does look increasingly as though current users are being discouraged from using the facility – which would cause a great deal of quiet suffering for very little gain for anyone.

Even if that turns out not to be as ruthless as it sounds, the whole concept of lumping mentally and physically ill people together in the same facility goes back to the old Victorian concept of parking people with disabilities in whatever site was most convenient for the authorities. It doesn't fit at all with the rhetoric about encouraging people to return to work, since the current Middle Street is exactly the sort of "halfway house" that does help people trying to resume "normal life", and that's effectively being taken away.

4. Are super-injunctions such a problem?

Much of the media are campaigning to stop judges issuing superinjunctions to prevent them publishing details of people's private lives (the "super" bit means that the press can't describe the injunction – otherwise they can get round its spirit by saying "We know something saucy about Andrew Marr but we can't tell you what it is"). I'd like to question whether this is really the "freedom of the press" issue that is being suggested.

To take the most-criticised recent example: a woman X apparently told a sporting personality Y that she would reveal details of his sex life unless he paid her money. The judge described this as a "clear case of blackmail" and imposed a permanent ban on publishing the details, thereby frustrating Y's attempt to sell the story. The media were particularly outraged by it being a permanent ban.

The press argues that there is clear public interest in knowing about the private behaviour of well-known people, and if by "interest" one means "it helps sell papers", that's probably true. But in what way does British society really benefit from having photographers lurking around the homes of anyone in the public eye in the hope of catching them with their pants down? Isn't that just making British public life a sleazier environment which sensible people will want to avoid?
I'd make an exception if the celebrity has made a thing about telling us private details anyway, but otherwise is it really any of our business, let alone a crucial element of freedom of the press?

An austere view is of course that if people behave well, they have nothing to fear from photographers, and if I were being pursued by paparazzi hoping for scandal I suppose they'd die of boredom. But few of us have lives so utterly perfect that we would be comfortable with the press hovering to swoop 24 hours a day. Why should we be?

5. Beijing impressions

I was there for most of a week, and very kindly shown round the Forbidden City and the artists' quarter by Katey and Mike Logan and their son and daughter, former Beeston residents who some of you may know, who are now living and working there.

I won't venture drastic conclusions from such a short stay, but a few notes, based on direct impressions and talking to people:

- Local people are generally friendly and helpful, and although not that many speak English there is bilingual signs everywhere, with even small shops having displays marked in English as well.

- The famous smog comes and goes, but the climate is as dry and hot as you'd expect from the proximity to the Gobi Desert – in fact the flight over is notable chiefly for the huge expanse of rolling sands for hours beneath.

- There is more not-quite-political dissidence tolerated than I'd expected (especially after the recent arrest of a high-profile dissident artist). The artists' quarter (full of modern art and quirky designs) is being threatened by developers who want to build lots more skyscrapers, and apparently this is being vigorously opposed. The China Daily newspaper has vigorous pieces most days about something going wrong. My impression is that the government doesn't tolerate direct challenges to its rule but is relatively relaxed about allowing criticism of specific issues that don't bring the whole system into question. Since they're continuing to grow at 5-10% per year, most people seem willing to accept this Faustian bargain for now.

- The city has a great deal to offer for tourists, though the traditional pagoda architecture is concentrated in the old Forbidden City (so named as it was only opened to the general public after 1949): much of the rest looks very like New York, with skyscrapers galore and lots of well-known Western names (yes, even McDonalds). From the central park north of the Forbidden City, you can look out over the contrast, with the pagodas in the foreground and the modern city surrounding it.

- The metro is good; taxis are cheap but the traffic is scary, with the general culture being that you drive up to the bumper of the car in front and swerve into the next lane if you see a gap. For many drivers it's their first car, so they're all learning at once…
I hope to go again, to explore more, and to see something of the smaller towns and villages in the hinterland next time.

6. Local events

Kimberley resident Ken Marsland has written a book abnout his long and eventful life which will be published in June and on sale for £7.99. If you'd like to find out more about it, his email address is marsland123@virginmedia.com.

Friday 13th May, 7.30pm, Paradiso Cinema presents: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
Starring Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman. Suitable for the whole family.
At Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL.
Tickets on the door - £5, £4 (conc). Come at 7pm for refreshments.
Further details www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

Starting Wednesday 4th May, Life Drawing course at Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. For ten weeks every Wednesday from 6.30pm to 9pm.
Cost £120 (concessions for OAPs and A level students £100). Suitable for beginners and experienced artists. For further details email davidhallows@onetel.com or ring 0115 9730838 or 07941423782.

Thursday 5th May 7.30pm (remember to vote first!) Village Ventures presents: Jo Freya meets Maalstrom An informative funny show with exceptional music drawing from folk, world music, jazz and classical references. See www.freyamusic.co.uk at Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets £8, £6 (conc) or £24 family (2+2) in advance from the school on 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893 or on the door. Further details www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

Best wishes
Nick

Notts windfarm/Council budget/should we intervene in Libya?/coming events

13th March 2011

Hi all,

The grim news from Japan makes it seem almost wrong to write about anything else, but other issues are pressing in so I thought it was time to send an update.

1. Visit a windfarm and judge for yourself?

As many of you will know, there are proposals at each end of Broxtowe for wind turbines – the university would like to have three close to Beeston Rylands, while Severn Trent propose one a Newthorpe sewage works. Both the current and last governments have been keen to promote wind power, both because of global warming and because the long-term rise in fossil fuel cost is inevitable as supplies run down. Despite the fact that the turbines don't work at all wind speeds, the cost-benefit ratio is starting to look attractive, with projects typically paying for themselves in 10 years. However, some remain sceptical and even those who favour it in general agree that it doesn't mean that every site is suitable, so there is always a debate on each project.
Many people haven't actually seen a wind turbine close up, so local councillors thought it would be helpful to organise a visit to some similar turbines near Mansfield, in order that people can make up their own minds about noise and appearance. The university has agreed to organise a free coach trip on March 22 in the afternoon, but if you'd like to go you need to register by Wednesday (16th) – please drop a note to Steve Barber on steve_barber@ntlworld.com if you live in or near Rylands and would like to take part. The Kimberley, Newthrope and Awsworth Labour candidates are pressing Severn Trent to agree to the same in the north and it would be helpful if they can say they've had lots of interest (you're welcome whatever your political preference, of course) – if you are in the north of the borough and would like them to fix this up, please drop a note to Richard.Robinson@broxtowe.gov.uk.

2. Broxtowe council budget

This has been agreed without too much pain this time round, with no increase in council tax and no compulsory redundancies despite a 13% cut in Government grant. The price has been an increase in fees for council services and, more subtly, that ongoing medium-term investment has been pushed into the future, so facilities will gradually erode over time unless the outlook improves. As the Government is expected to cut the support grant again next year and the year after, it's doubtful if the council will be able to hold the position without more painful impacts. In the coming District elections in May, I suggest viewing with suspicion any candidate who promises you great new facilities: a more realistic position will be that they will try to minimise the impact of the central cuts on local people, especially the most vulnerable.
That leads on to the next point.

3. Middle Street centre – less positive news?

In my last email I quoted Anna Soubry's report that the centre had been saved and welcomed the news. Users tell me that the position appears to be less positive: it looks as though people with moderate mental difficulties (exactly the sort of people who find the centre helpful in moving back into everyday life) may no longer be allowed to use it, and instead it will be used for a mixture of people with severe mental disabilities and people severe physical difficulties, moved from other centres, reflecting the County's general cutback in centres for the disabled. This is all still quite unclear, so I wouldn't like to be quoted as this being definitely right either, but I'll report back as soon as we know for sure. I'm sorry if I took the initial report too readily at face value: I've been trying not to politicise the debate on the centre, but will be very critical if it turns out that most current users are no longer able to benefit from it: that is not `saving' it in any meaningful sense.

4. Libya

Eyebrows were raised after my last email where I said that I wasn't inclined to criticise the Government for delays in evacuating people – these things happen. Some have taken this to mean that I agree with everything that seems to be happening, including the proposed no-fly zone and the rumoured supply of arms to the rebels.

Having come to the conclusion that my support for the Iraq operation without UN sanction was wrong, I'm cautious about this. As far as we can tell from media reports, there is a good deal of public support in Libya for removing Gaddafi, especially in the east of the country, and certainly Gaddafi's forces are using heavy weapons against cities without any obvious restraint and if he wins there is likely to be a nasty aftermath. So it may well be that a new regime there would be what local people want and good for the area.

However, that's a big jump from saying that we should start a new Middle East intervention without a UN mandate, either with weapons or with military action. It's much easier to get into wars that get out of them (what if a pilot is shot down – do we send ground troops to rescue him, and what if they get attacked?), and if we dislike someone it's easy to see his rivals with rose-tinted spectacles. If Gaddafi was killed tomorrow, are we confident that his successors would be democratic, or better at ruling fairly? What exactly governs the decision to intervene or not, given that our forces are limited and we're not intervening in Zimbabwe or the Congo or the extremely nasty civil war in Somalia?

I see that opinion polls are overwhelmingly in favour of a no-fly zone, and if it's limited to preventing air attacks on civilians that's hard to object to. But if it's part of a wider regime change operation we need to be careful – the history of arming the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan is a reminder of the problems that can follow if we decide to try to tilt the power balance by direct or indirect means. I've had to rethink my assumptions on this, and hope that the current MPs on all sides will be careful in what they ask for.

5. Coming events

April 16, 730pm: Stapleford & Sandiacre Rotary Club are holding a concert at Methodist Church, Chilwell Rd, Beeston in aid of Rainbows Children's hospice and Emmanuel House for the homeless in Nottingham which is under financial pressure due to the current government cuts. Tickets are £7.50 and are available from Max Smith on 07548226554 or m.w.smith@ntlworld.com.

April 30, from 12pm till 1130pm: local people are organising a fund-0raiser to help a young man with cerebral palsy. Organiser Richard Macrae (on richardmacrae187@hotmail.com) writes: "The money we raise is to use to make his house more disability friendly. If possible we would also like to get Blake a computer/laptop as he does enjoy using them so much." It's at The Jaguar Pub. Hickings Lane. Stapleford. NG9 8PA, and more details are here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=118963358175319&refid=0

I wonder if one of you might in fact have a laptop that you aren't really using…

6. Personal notes

I've been promoted to Director of Policy at the animal welfare campaign (the BUAV) where I work, and had recent discussions with the European Commissioner responsible on the issue as well as the European cosmetics manufacturers' association about the impact on them if the ban on cosmetics tested on animals goes ahead as we'd like.

One issue is that China is still requiring animal experiments for cosmetics sold there, but they've indicated that they may be open to change on this, so I'm going to Beijing for a few days next month to talk to the regulators there. Basically my job is to promote constructive dialogue wherever I can find an opening for it, something for which my background in politics (where it's helpful to be able to rub along with pretty well anyone) is useful. At a personal level, it'll be my first time in China, so I hope to have time to look round too!

Best wishes

Nick

What should we do about Libya?/The AV referendum/MP comparisons

26th February 2011

Hi all,

Two national comments, a little local news and a response to a comment by Anna Soubry.

The encouraging local news is that the County Council, despite a massive cut to the Supporting People budget which goes towards care of the vulnerable, seems inclined not to close the Beeston Middle Street resource centre. This helps people from throughout the area (not only Beeston) with moderate mental health difficulties, and there was a very strong all-party campaign to save it. I hope the report (from Anna Soubry, who is close enough to the County to know) proves to be right, and that the users can look forward to a long period of stability, encouraged by the way the community turned out to support them. It will be a remarkable achievement for the campaigners in the centre, many of whom have had difficulties of their own.

By the way, it was great to see so many of you (over 500) at the march and event opposing Royal Mail privatisation. The link to the potential closure of local post offices (because the new owners will be allowed to break the contract in a few years' time) is bringing in many opponents who don't have that strong a view on ownership of the Royal Mail itself.

1. Comparisons

In Miss Soubry's latest update, she comments of herself that she's spoken a number of times in debates recently so that "Broxtowe at last has a voice in Parliament" – which is presumably by comparison to Broxtowe's two previous MPs, Sir Jim Lester and me. The neutral theyworkforyou website has the details of her record here:
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/anna_soubry/broxtowe#numbers
She speaks averagely often in debates, submits fewer questions than average, but votes more often that average, invariably with the majority of Conservative MPs, with a single exception (she was opposed to allowing the Youth Parliament to have a session in the Chamber, whereas most Conservatives thought this a good idea). It's neither a great nor a bad record – just a normal record for a loyal Conservative MP.

That said, I don't think that frequency of speeches or questions is actually the best guide: it's more important to look at the results. The best compliment I had during my time was from Andrew Roth, who sardonically profiles all MPs in a series of books – he said I was "quietly effective". I voted 37 times in disagreement with the Labour majority, but the main achievements were often through private persuasion of Ministers – e.g. helping to stop the partial privatisation of Royal Mail and the badger cull under the last government (both sadly now going ahead).

I don't want to have a slanging match with Miss Soubry, so I'll just make a few comments, not all critical. I think she brings her legal experience into Parliament very well: her contributions on prisoners' rights, prison reform, legal aid, rape publicity and other issues are interesting and useful, and generally I agree with her views on these issues and she puts them better than I think I would have done, because she speaks from personal experience – it's an example of the value of having MPs who have done something else first.

On the other hand, she seems not yet to have established effective communications with Ministers. She struck gold in the ballot for Private Members' Bills, getting a slot that gave a good chance of getting legislation through (something that happens to an MP on average every 50 years). There are two ways of handling this: talk to Ministers about a desirable Bill that they've no Government time for, and they'll help you get it through, or choose a subject you care passionately about and make it a long campaign (this is how the death penalty eventually became abolished). Miss Soubry opted for a small change in publicity for suspects (to be only allowed after charging, rather than after arrest), which I agree with, but when she found that Ministers were opposed she dropped the idea without a vote. Similarly, she announced with some fanfare that she was supporting a Bill to increase protection against open-cast mines, but again Ministers advised against, and it's quietly died.

Locally, too, she often publicly embraces campaigns (Bramwell, Stapleford Police Station) but doesn't always follow through in an effective way. The main difference in correspondence is that she seems usually to delegate responses to constituents to assistants, who respond at various speeds on her behalf, often with what looks like a standard Government handout pasted into the letter. This is quite common among MPs, and it's a matter of style which I'll leave to others to judge.

2. What should we do about Libya?

I'm not really inclined to criticise the Government about this. The sober truth is that we can't do anything very useful except get our people out. The evacuation of British citizens has had some serious hitches compared with other countries, but in these emergencies that can happen, and flying or sailing into a near-war zone and getting everyone out is less easy than it maybe sounds. As for influencing the outcome in Libya itself, anything we say could easily backfire on people who we are trying to support, and the truth is surely that we don't really know who we'd like to see in power there anyway among the available choices.

The main lesson is more strategic, and it applies to Labour, Conservatives and LibDems alike since there has been little difference in our records, apart from the last government at least publishing the data on what gets sent to whom. We have sold Libya crowd control equipment and weapons at a time when it seemed fairly peaceful, and governments of all colours have always done this. Mr Cameron has currently been touring the Middle East trying to sell some more - to other, apparently stable, countries, such as Saudi Arabia. The problem is that stable countries don't always stay stable, and sooner or later the arms may well be used in ways we don't like. It is no good expressing shock and dismay when this happens: it's an obvious risk. I know that many jobs depend on the industry, but it's also heavily dependent on public subsidy, and at a time of cuts it's surely worth reviewing how far we want to go in this. See the discussion here:

http://www.caat.org.uk/issues/jobs/

I have no problem about selling arms to European partners or other democracies like Canada for which it's implausible that we will ever see scenes as in Libya. But in the long run I suspect it's against our national interest to subsidise the export of arms to authoritarian regimes. Suppose that Gaddhafi is indeed replaced. Will his successors look favourably on Britain, his main supplier of weaponry?

3. The Alternative Vote referendum

A number of you have asked me to give an unbiased summary of the pros and cons. I'll try.

The basics of AV: we'd vote for a single local member, as now, but we'd rank the candidate in order of preference. If our preferred candidate wasn't in the final two, our preference between those two would count instead. To give an example: you are a LibDem, but you also have a preference between Labour and Tories. In Broxtowe, with the current system, you have a dilemma: should you vote for the LibDems, who will almost certainly lose, or should you vote to express your preference between the larger parties? Labour voters in Sussex and Tory voters in Liverpool have the same dilemma. With AV, no problem: you vote for the party you like as number 1, and your preferred major party as number 2.

I'll try to summarise the pros and cons as fairly as I can, and add a personal position at the end.

The advantages of the change

• It (almost) removes the need for tactical voting (there are rare circumstances where it may not, when you want to ensure that the most electable alternative to someone you dislike gets into the last two). Every party, however small, can show its real level of support. Obviously this may sometimes produce findings that many of us might not like – perhaps the BNP will get 5%, or a far-left party, or a fundamentalist party of one or another religion. However, it's clearly democratic that we can actually see how much support each party has. The system shouldn't be organised to disguise the real position.

• Smaller parties have a better chance of winning seats, so they are less likely to get squeezed and receive an unfairly low share of the seats compared with their vote. If you support proportional representation (as I do), then you may well feel that AV is a step in the right direction in this way.

• The system builds in a bias to moderation and reasonableness. Candidates who make an effort to appeal to people who don't usually support them will get many second preferences, while tribal people who shout a lot and sneer at their opponents probably won't. This could be very important to improving the nasty atmosphere in British politics and to my mind is one of the strongest arguments in favour.
The disadvantages of the change

• The system is drastically biased to parties who are seen as centrist, since they will get the vast majority of votes from parties on the left or right. In Britain, that means that the obvious beneficiaries are the LibDems, and it's reasonable to think that if they are ever doing well enough to get into the last two places in most seats, they will win nearly *all* of them, because both Tory and Labour voters will see them as the lesser evil. Whether or not you like the LibDems, it's not clear that the system should be structured to benefit a particular type of party (unless one feels that it's good in itself that the system is loaded to their policies).

• If one party becomes very unpopular, they may be almost wiped out, giving a lopsided majority in Parliament (because not only will they lose first preferences but they won't get many seconds either). Unlike proportional representation, a big swing will tend to be exaggerated under AV – in 1997 Labour would probably have had a majority near 250, in 1983 Mrs Thatcher would have done the same.

• The system enfranchises supporters of small extreme parties, who are currently largely without influence. If a main party candidate currently meets a BNP or Respect supporter, the normal reaction is to say "Sorry to hear that" and walk away. Under AV, it will be hugely tempting to say "Well…what about giving me your second preference?" And having said that, the next step is for the big parties to pander a bit, just enough to make the extremists voters think that they might be worth a second preference. This already happens to some extent (it's why all parties give a nod to tough immigration control, even though they know perfectly well that free movement within the EU makes it ineffective), but with AV the temptation will be much stronger. So, oddly, although the system is loaded to more seats for apparently centrist parties, it also gives an incentive to all parties to flirt with extreme positions.

A final point which will influence some is that nationally AV is likely to benefit the current Government, even though Cameron and Clegg are formally on different sides. It might help me in Broxtowe if we get the expected rematch, because Labour and LibDems locally have generally pretty good relations (reflected in the coalition on the council). But nationally I'd expect that by 2015 people who support one governing party will tend to give the other one their second preference. If you feel the Government is doing a great job, this is an argument to vote yes; if you don't, then it's an argument for no. However, the effects of changing the system will be so drastic that I don't think you should really decide on that alone.

Me? At the election, I promised to support AV, and I feel bound by that promise. As you can tell, I'm in two minds about it, but a promise is a promise, so I'll vote Yes.

4. Local events

I've been asked to mention these:
Sunday 13th March, 7.30pm
Paradiso Cinema presents: Another Year, film by Mike Leigh
At Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL.
Tickets on the door - £5, £4 (conc). Come at 7pm for refreshments.
Further details www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

Friday 11th March
7.30pm
Village Ventures presents: Frankenstein Live! Play by the Angus & Ross Theatre Company, based on the novel by Mary Shelley.
At Chilwell Arts Theatre, Chilwell School, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets on the door or in advance from 0115 925 2698 or 0758 426 3893. £8, £6 conc or £24 family (2 +2).
Further details www.chilwellartstheatre.co.uk

Apologies to the Beeston Seed Swop, whose event was this morning – too late to advertise it. I hope it went well!

Best wishes

Nick

Quick update: Attenborough Station, Beeston Square, book group

17th February 2011

Hi all -

Just a few PSs:

- David Watts informs me that the council's deal with Henry Boot envisages a 4-year completion: the 6-year span is just a fall-back position if necessary.

- I've just seen the station passenger statistics, and there's some of good news. Patronage at Attenborough Station is up by a massive 57%. Other than East Midlands Parkway, which is a brand new station, this is the biggest increase for any station anywhere in Notts.

There's a history to this. When I was an MP, there was a very strong lobby led by the local Labour Councillors for better services to Beeston station. At one time the London service was reduced to 3 a day so we raised a petition which resulted in the best service ever for Beeston. However, a number of residents in Attenborough complained that no-one was fighting for their station which had a lousy service and closure seemed a real possibility. So as well as starting a local campaign I asked the franchise bidders to a meeting in Westminster and lobbied hard for Attenborough as well as Beeston. The result is that we now have a proper service and the public have flocked back. To show green credentials it is even lit by revolutionary LED technology lights which use a fraction of the electricity of conventional lighting. It's nice to see an initiative come to fruition.

- I was asked to pass this on and forgot, sorry:

-----------
Non-Fiction Reading Group -- ISSUES OF OUR TIME
Format: read a book and get together monthly (approx) for informal discussion
First meeting: Lounge Bar, Commercial Inn, Wollaton Rd., Beeston NG9 2NG (nr Sainsbury's)
Friday March 25th 2011 @ 7.30 - 9pm

We will discuss Francis Wheen's `How mumbo-jumbo conquered the world'.
Copies available from Beeston Library (ask librarian for the "Issues of Our Time" Reading Group book (library membership not necessary) or on Amazon (from £1.85)

Future topic/time/venue to be decided by group

Just turn up (even if you haven't read book!) or call 07761361145
------------

My general policy is to pass on news of local initiatives like this when asked, whatever the source (unless it's actively hostile - you wouldn't get a BNP reading group advert from me!).

Best regards

Nick

What should we be doing about the banks? / Beeston Square / Kimberley wind project

15th February 2011

Hi all,

There are some interesting local developments, and I'll add some comments on what we should really be doing with the banks. By the way, I'm speaking at the Royal Mail staff rally (opposing privatisation) in Beeston next Saturday – there will be a march through Beeston from the Padge Road sorting office at 2 and speeches at the New Venture Social Club at 3 – any sympathisers welcome. The issue is partly the direct effects (a private buyer will want a profit margin so there are likely to be layoffs and cuts in services) and partly the knock-on effect on post offices: the deal would allow the buyer to scrap the arrangement with local post offices in a few years' time, which would be the death knell for many local branches.

1. Beeston Square deal struck

The council has now agreed with Henry Boot Ltd, and I can give a bit more detail than you may have seen elsewhere (all with the qualification that this isn't my field of expertise so it may need updating in detail). The starting point is that the square is part-owned by the council, but managed by Henry Boot Ltd on a 90-odd year lease. The general view is that it's looking tired and that Beeston would benefit by a big face-lift and the attraction of a big name – M&S is the most commonly mentioned. The council doesn't have the money to throw at this sort of thing so it came down to whether Henry Boot (or another developer) wanted to.

What's in it for the developer is that they get lots more rent (though a curious fact is that if you want to attract M&S they don't pay you rent – you pay them for having the goodness to come to your site and attract visitors!). What's in it for the council is that a thriving Beeston both benefits the community (which is what the council is for) and increases business rate revenue.

There were two sticking points: first Henry Boot didn't want to go ahead until the tram position was clear, and second they wanted a long development time and the council wanted them to get on with it. The first issue has been resolved (the Government has just rejected a public inquiry over a land exchange issue which opponents of the tram had raised); on the second, the council seems to have given way, as the deal is that the redevelopment will only be complete in six years' time. The argument that is being advanced for this is that it enables them to prepare properly and do a big-bang launch with nearly every unit occupied, rather than the half-empty developments that one sees elsewhere. The downside is that it's a long time to wait. I won't express an opinion as I wasn't close enough to the negotiations to have a qualified view. The development will include some parking and obviously there will be lots of public discussion about exactly how it should look, but the plans I saw when I was still the MP looked pretty attractive – large units, open-air café, and so on.

While the long time-scale is a snag, and the certainty that it will happen (the contract, expected to be signed next month, will be binding) will be important to others making decisions about Beeston. There's a fair chance that it will lay the groundwork for making Beeston the natural shopping centre for this side of Nottingham, and if so we'll have reason to thank all the councillors from different parties who were involved in bringing it to a conclusion. Councillors don't often get much thanks so I wanted to get that in!

2. Kimberley wind turbines

The application has attracted a fair amount of controversy and there have been fears that it would be rushed through. Richard Robinson has asked the planning committee to delay until June to have the issues fully explored and a proper debate. As usual with wind turbine projects, the issues are that on the one hand it's clearly good to have a local power source that isn't dependent on fossil fuels, and on the other hand that people worry about noise and visual impact/shadow. I'm in general in favour of diversifying energy and getting more renewable power – it makes sense for climate change and simply for making us less dependent on the whims and political position of the global oil producers – but it makes sense to have a proper discussion on the exact proposal.

Incidentally, councillors have to be careful what they say about specific projects – there was a recent case of a Nuthall councillor who campaigned vigorously against a planning proposal and was therefore unable to vote on it, so it went through! The rule is that members of the development control committee must come to the meeting where an application is decided with a mind that isn't completely made up.

3. Toton trees

The panel deciding the appeal has been delayed after one of its members had a serious accident. They hope to resume work soon – I'll keep you posted.

4. What should we do about the banks?

I'm a bit wary of the usual positions here – most people seem to feel either that they're greedy monsters who need to be taxed till they drop, or that they're the core of Britain's service industry to be appeased at all costs.

First, we should be talking about the system, not individuals. If we have a system that allows top bankers to pay themselves huge bonuses, then of course they will, it's silly to ascribe it to their individual greed. If your employer offered you a million pounds, what would you do? In my view, the correct answer to excessive salaries for top managers is simply the 50% tax rate. If a private company wants to pay its manager a lot of money and we as a society get half of it, that's a fair deal – with the qualification that I'll come to in a minute.

Second, the banks owe a good deal to society for the rapid action to get them out of a hole two years ago, but the bank rescue doesn't turn out to have been likely to actually cost us anything – the `trillions' that we read about at the time were what-ifs based on the assumption that they'd all go bust. I expect to see first Northern Rock and then the others sold back at a profit to the current government (a bit ironically since they were highly dubious about the rescue when in opposition).

Third, though, the system quite clearly does encourage both greed and speculation. If you're told that you'll get a big bonus if you make a large profit, but will be bailed out if you make a large loss, then of course you'll invest in high-risk high-gain speculation, such as the secondary American housing market that triggered the crisis. Moreover, since the economy is indeed partly dependent on the financial industry, it puts all of us at risk to have this in the heart of the system. So any deal should have focused on rewarding careful investment which succeeds over the long term, and making short-term wild speculation unattractive.

Finally, there's a lot of nonsense talked about increasing bank lending *always* being a good thing. Do we want every project financed, whether it's sound or not? Isn't that the sort of thing that got us into trouble? What's important is that (a) established businesses don't find their credit cut off (or interest rates massively raised) without warning – and that's something that happens a lot – and (b) new ventures shouldn't find banks impossibly bureaucratic and cautious. So what we should look for is a guarantee that existing credit is only adjusted gradually except in extreme cases, and that there is a fast track for new ideas.

Have we got that with Mr Osborne's and Mr Cable's recent Merlin deal? No, we've actually got the opposite. The Merlin deal waived any serious control on bonuses or short-termism in return for a commitment to increase lending, but with a killer bit of fine print: if a bank cuts off £1 million credit to business A and gives £1 million to business B, it counts as an increase, helping to meet the commitment (the removal of existing credit is disregarded in the deal). So banks now have an incentive to withdraw credit from existing businesses so that they can lend to their competitors without actually using any more money. The Merlin deal will actually reward banks who switch funding back and forth every year between two businesses – each time it will count as an "increase in lending" , meeting the government's requirement. I don't want to be excessively partisan, but this seems to me entirely mad – it would actually have been better not to have a commitment at all than to build more instability into the system.

Best wishes

Nick

Local news and a new suggestion: letting people decide how a tax rise is spent

28th January 2011

Hi all,
A few updates, and another part-baked idea that I wanted to run past you. Just to reiterate: opposition has few pleasures, but one of them is the freedom to explore new ideas without the pressure of daily `events': ultimately, an opposition will be judged by how well they do this. Labour is encouraging its people to be creative, but rather than just submit ideas from the top of my head, I want to use the huge email list as a way of consulting and refining them so they become fully-baked.

First several upcoming things:

1. Library campaign

The attempt to get the County to reconsider its drastic cuts to library services is gathering steam, with more than 100 participants at the recent public meeting. The library budget accounts for just 2% of council tax, but is facing a cut of 25% of its budget. There are major reductions everywhere in Notts and a particularly huge cut in Toton, down to one day a week). There will be a "read-in" (a sit-in with books!) at Beeston and Inham Nook library at 11am on February 5, which you're most welcome to join if you sympathise with the cause.

2. Kimberley brewery site

Everyone who meets the new owner has been reporting a positive impression: he seems genuinely keen to develop the site helpfully to the community, and is also open to the idea of telling tenants about the proposed tram extension. We'll need to see what the concrete proposals are, but with that reservation I hope that this grim saga may take a positive turning.

3. Middle Street centre

The Middle Street Advocacy Group are heading into the final straight of their campaign to save the centre from County cuts. I've been round the centre and was involved in the effort from when the threat first appeared. This centre is very important locally (not only in Beeston – I know users from as far away as Kimberley) – it provides a halfway house for people with mental difficulties who want to return gently to a more social life rather than sitting frightened and lonely at home. You can find their (in my opinion) very persuasive website here, with a petition to support: http://www.mistag.co.uk/how-you-can-help.asp . The decision is expected next month.

4. GP consortium

Since the Government is pressing ahead with its NHS reorganisation, local GPs have had to elect a consortium to take on the job. They selected Kelvin Lim (currently chair), Mike O'Neill, Andrew Hopwood and Guy Mansford. The vote was not party political, though one of the unsuccessful candidates was a Conservative candidate in the last County elections. These four join Tony Oram and Alison Rounce - both practice managers, and Martyn Ward the Lay rep and chair of the board. Two GP's will also be co-opted, but this will be decided at the next board meeting in February.

We should wish them luck in their difficult job,

5. Animal welfare petitions

With my animal welfare hat on, I'd like to encourage you to consider supporting two online petitions. One is on factory farming, from Compassion in World Farming, and details are here:

http://www.ciwf.org/euchickens

The other is from the BUAV (where I'm director of Corporate and International Affairs – I just got back last night from discussions in Germany, Austria and Hungary). The position is that the EU has agreed to ban cosmetics whose ingredients are tested on animals from 2013. The cosmetics industry has prepared for this and is not calling for an extension. However, the European Commission is currently consulting on extending it anyway, either to a specific later date or to the never-never land of "when the time is right".

There is no negative implication for jobs, since animal tests for cosmetics are already banned in the EU – the only change in 2013 will be that firms won't be able to import cosmetics from elsewhere that have had them. It's possible that occasionally some new cosmetic from abroad will not be introduced if the ban goes ahead. However, while people argue about tests for medical science and other research, there aren't that many people who feel that we should be putting lots more animals through the mill for the sake of yet another face cream. If you agree, please sign here: http://www.nocruelcosmetics.org/

6. Anti-academies alliance

The local group campaigning against turning schools into essentially self-governing academies has asked me to let people know about them. If you share their doubts about the effective two-tier system that these will usher in, partly under private management, they'd like to hear from you, at broxtowe@antiacademies.org.uk. The arguments are summarised here:

http://www.antiacademies.org.uk/Home/why-we-oppose-academies

7. What about giving people a say where their taxes go?

The idea I'm about to put to you was prompted from my discussion in Hungary, where they already have it working. By way of background, a brief note on the economic debate.

Mr Cameron is justifying his cuts by pointing to the deficit, implying that if you're against the cuts then you've given up on reducing the deficit. Clearly the deficit (necessary though it was during the banking crisis) must be brought down by a combination of spending cuts, tax increases and higher tax receipts resulting from economic growth. The risk of the Government's strategy is that if the first two are pressed too energetically, you end up with a large negative figure in the third column (because you push the economy down and tax receipts with it). This is what went so horribly wrong in the 1930s, when successive government attempts to balance the books my over-rapid cuts and tax rises kept making the problem worse by depressing the economy, creating a vicious circle.

However, while I'd argue both with the size and targets of the cuts, it's clearly true that Britain needs to bring the books into balance by the time we emerge from recession. If we don't want that to be all cuts, then it will need to involve a tax rise of some kind. Rather than have more rises of the VAT type (which simply hit everyone and squash spending), what about reversing one of the 1p income tax reductions made by the last Government? But rather than just do this in order to reduce cuts in general, why don't we let people decide for themselves which services they would like to protect by the increase?

The way it works in Hungary is that taxpayers can opt to have 1% of their taxes paid to a registered charity or cause of their choice, within reason (you can't just donate it to the cause of your spouse giving you a new car). This could be generalised, so that people could either specify a particular organisation (like Help the Aged) or ask for it to be used to increase the budget of a particular sector, e.g. care for the elderly, libraries or mental health facilities. Potentially this could be done with Council Tax too.

I've always been a bit wary of this concept, since popular causes aren't necessarily the ones where money is most needed, and some essential services are very unglamorous and unlikely to attract many people's taxes. However, in the context of a 1p tax increase, I think it could be a lot more palatable: we'd not be talking about cutting something to make way for a popular cause, but about letting the public help decide directly where their extra contribution should go. Obviously, we could just leave it to people to donate to a charity if they felt like it, but taxation has the advantage that it's paid by more or less everyone (so it isn't only the nice guys who cough up) and the scheme would enable people to support not only charities but also additional Government or council spending in areas they thought important – for instance, if you feel local roads need improvement, you could nominate a council tax rise to go towards that.

What do you think? Would you be willing to pay 1p more, if you got to decide how it was spent?

I'm in the process of moving house at the moment (this email is in a brief pause between packing!), so I'm going to be offline quite a bit over the next couple of weeks. I'll read feedback with interest, but would appreciate not being pressed for a reply. As noted above, this is not Labour policy, or even – so far - my personal policy. It's simply an idea, for your consideration.

Best wishes

Nick

Library protest meeting/NHS upheaval/university fee idea feedback

19th January 2011

Hi all,
Many thanks for the massive feedback to the discussion on university fees – more on this below. I wanted, though, to give a quick plug to a meeting coming up on this:

1. Beeston and Chilwell library cuts

As you may know, there are pretty substantial cuts coming down the pipeline for libraries, like many other services: among other things, the book budget for the county has been cut by a whopping 75%.
The meeting is at Chilwell College House Junior School, this Thursday from 730 to 9. There's a good piece on the issue here:

http://beestonia.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/bookish-beestonia-an-appeal/

The combined effect of reduced central budget and County Council cutting zeal is producing so many nasty things that it's difficult to keep track. Some of them are subtle and indirect – e.g. the County will no longer help the districts with disabled facilities awards, but people will tend to blame the district (in our case Broxtowe) when an application is turned down. Others are quite straightforward – the service that advice people on their entitlement to support is simply disappearing, and people are encouraged to go to the CAB instead, which might sound OK until you learn that the support for CABs is also being reduced.

2. The NHS reorganisation

This is something I know a fair amount about as I've always taken a particular interest in health issues – I was one of the few MPs in the last Parliament who regularly met the local NHS trusts to review progress. I also argued against the last, relatively minor, reorganisation, because it seemed to me that the service was suffering from too much reshuffling of functions: they ought, I argued, be left to get on with the job.

At the time, David Cameron also took that view: indeed, one of the Conservative election promises was "No more major NHS reorganisations". Instead, we now have the largest reorganisation for many years.

Why? Basically it's about money. Britain still has a relatively cheap health service compared with most countries, though as a proportion to GDP it came up to the European average under Labour. The increase fuelled the reduction in waiting times, both for A&E (to maximum 4 hours, from previous levels of up to 8) and for operations (max 18 weeks from first GP visit, down from 18-24 months). With some exceptions, it seems to me that the current standard is not bad, and we could reasonably maintain it without further improvement while the deficit is reduced.

However, what we are now seeing is a cut in real-terms spending on health and ancillary areas like social care, so the standard will start to go backwards again. Seeing this coming, the government has abolished both the 4-hour A&E limit and the 18-week operation limit, and they are now attempting to cut costs by bringing in more private providers. To make that work, they are going to ask GP consortia to negotiate deals with different providers, the theory being that the free market will produce cost savings.

Will it? Yes, I agree that it may do so in some cases, but at the price of considerable disruption and problems when providers change. The railway franchise system shows how the concept can work: East Midlands Trains runs our local network rather than the people who ran it a couple of years ago because they put in a cheaper bid than some competitors. Some of the leading figures expected to run the system seem to have been identified already – Anna Soubry has named a local Conservative GP as one of the people she expects to playing an important role in this.

To "sell" the idea, Mr Cameron is portraying the current system as awful – he argues that something must be done, and unless his plans are adopted the NHS will fail. But a combination of cutting back on funding and changing the organisation at the same time is usually difficult, even in private industry – the people who have to do the job will often themselves be at risk. Moreover, when services are cut or withdrawn, it will tend to be those local people who get the blame, when they are actually just doing their best to make sense of a rash and underfunded central policy.

At the risk of seeming over-cautious, it seems to me that this is all pretty risky. If the Government wants to try its approach it would be sensible to have a pilot in one large area and see how it works. If it was a success, it could then be rolled out elsewhere at a time when we hope the economy will be recovering. Instead, everyone is being asked to adopt the new system in the next couple of years. Like Mr Cameron last year, I really doubt if what the NHS most needs at a time of stringency is another gigantic upheaval, however ideologically attractive it may seem.

3. University fees

Many thanks for all the feedback! Interestingly, the idea(of linking some courses to specific jobs) was very popular with readers who are in business (who generally said they wanted more specifically trained people than they currently get) and the wider public, but it met with great scepticism from people actually working in universities. Since they're the people who would need to make it work, it's important to understand the nags that they see in my idea:

a) They feel that businesses may know in general terms what they want, but they wouldn't necessarily be good at designing courses in detail – "it's not their core business", as one reader pointed out.

b) They are worried about business dictating the agenda, suppressing critical analysis and tailoring courses so precisely that only one employer would benefit (e.g. a Microsoft BSc that excluded all mention of open software!).

c) They fear that the availability of funding from businesses would result in governments not giving more to arts and humanities, but just pulling back altogether, leaving us with a very barren system geared only to large employers.

That said, they also pointed to numerous examples where something like this already happens for individual courses, and in those cases it had proved popular and successful.

I'll give it more thought and discuss further, but some initial feedback to try to meet the objections:

- On reflection, it would be better if the concept was organised by sector rather than by individual companies. This would give smaller companies a look in, and companies who wanted to offer guaranteed jobs and help with fees would also probably get more graduates, but without being able to determine the exact content of the course. So the EEF (engineering employers) could, for instance, specify what sort of graduates they wanted and what the course should include, but the university would still be free to design the course as it thought best.

- The objective would need to be quite explicitly to focus Government support on courses with a less obvious link to jobs. For instance, mathematics is clearly useful in a wide range of jobs, but not the key requirement for more than a limited range, as I found myself when I got my PhD. A government that sneakily took the opportunity to cut back on university funding altogether would be betraying the spirit of the idea – and the next generation.

- It might be that all students should have an initial year unrelated to any kind of employment consideration but learning to think and analyse critically, to avoid the kind of "Microsoft drones" that some of you feared.

I'll reflect further on it, and of course it's still just one idea of the many going into the Opposition policy debate. Thank you for helping refine it and pointing out problems.

Best wishes

Nick

Animal experiments discussion/university fee - a constructive suggestion?

7th January 2011

Hi all,

I hope you had a good break and a festive New Year! We had a pretty quiet one, to round off an, er, interestingly hectic year.

Most of the current local issues remain on hold at the moment: Beeston Square negotiations continue and are currently looking hopeful; the likely builders for the tram will probably be awarded next month; the plans for the Hardy and Hanson site aren't yet known; we still await a decision on the Toton trees; the campaign on the open-cast issue is only just getting under way, though there is a public meeting in the works – contact Rob on bannisterrob@gmail.com if you'd like to be kept updated on this. All parties are also gearing up for the May local elections, and I'll write more about those nearer the time, though you can get a foretaste on Broxtowe Labour's shiny new website: www.broxtowelabour.org .

1. Animal experiments discussion

There was a mostly positive response when I reported my new job as Director of Corporate and International Affairs at the BUAV, who work to phase out animal experiments, but at least two of you were very concerned, since they felt that animal experiments are unfortunately essential to human health and I shouldn't be trying to stop them.

The real position is not that black and white: there is a very wide range of experiments from those which are legally required to test new medicines to purely speculative tests of doubtful value. What the BUAV is trying to do, among other things through my appointment, is engage constructively with companies and Ministers (both in Britain and abroad), so as to get greater clarity and to reduce the obstacles to non-animal alternatives. Nobody expects animal experiments to stop overnight, but we hope by steady, intelligent pressure to help reverse the trend. I wrote about the issue in the Evening Post this week: if you're interested, you can find the article here:

http://tinyurl.com/34fzldl

2. Student fees: would this work?

We've said all that can really be said about political parties that promise to abolish student fees and treble them instead, but one of the things that opposition politicians can usefully do is use the time to develop workable alternatives. I've been asked to write a paper for a Labour group on university fee policy, and have been thinking about what we ought to do if we win the next election and the £9,000 fees are in place. I'd like us to resist the temptation to say "Well, that's what the horrible Coalition did, not our fault, too late to change". However, we need to avoid falling into the same trap of proposing something that we won't actually be able to achieve.

When I used to work in management for a multinational (Novartis), I asked the CEO what his primary criteria were for deciding where to locate the main subsidiaries - wage levels, regulation, taxation, or what? He said that the primary factors were general infrastructure (including quite basic things like good transport access and reliable electricity supply) and availability of first-class expertise in their research area. Lower wage levels weren't that significant as a proportion of costs, and while regulation could be burdensome you could adjust to it if it didn't keep changing. But if you couldn't get good people you were simply unable to make progress. So I asked him if industry would be prepared to pay to ensure it got the people it needed – he said, "Yes, if there was a mechanism for it."

What I'm thinking of proposing is this. Employers (both public and private sector – everyone from Boots and Microsoft to the NHS and Social Services) would be invited to design university courses tailored to their sector's needs. They might include significant work experience, and a mixture of general theory and focused training in the specific qualities needed by the sector. The objective would be to produce graduates in their field who were going to be able to be productive for the sector very soon after leaving university. In return for this, the employer would be expected to fund all or part of the student fees for the course, and to offer a one-year fixed contract if the student graduated with (say an upper second or better).

This would have several positive effects:

a) Students taking up this particular course would have not only a cheaper or free education but also a guaranteed `trial job' at the end of it if they did well. In these uncertain times, that seems a pretty good deal. The inspiration here is Labour's Future Jobs Fund (now abolished by the Coalition), which worked similarly at a less skilled level for the long-term unemployed. Sure, after a year the employer might decide it hadn't worked out, or the former student might decide to move on, but it gets that vital bridge from uni into working life.

b) Employers could no longer grumble that universities weren't giving them the graduates they needed: the remedy would be in their own hands. They could reasonably expect that the student would take up the `trial job' – it would be the natural first option, and if it worked out they'd have an optimally-trained employee who might well be a loyal staff member for many years. Would that be worth paying all or part of the student fees? Certainly – headhunters charge a lot more for finding you exactly the right sort of person.

c) The Government would be able to focus taxpayer funding on courses with a less obvious employment link. I don't see the case for using public funds to teach people things that have no employment prospects at all, but unless we're to become a nation of philistines, there has to be scope to start the arts and humanities. An intelligent public discussion on what to fund and how much could be encouraged, with much of the pressure lifted from the fact that the more immediately applicable courses were being funded by employers.

Are there snags? Yes. It means handing over a degree of academic independence. If Nottingham Trent wanted to do a new course in computer game design, say, the temptation to have the computer game studios decide the content (and therefore pay the costs) would be very strong, since it'd avoid the haggle with the government on funding from the remaining pool. But given that students do want to have jobs, is it such a terrible thing to have the people who decide on jobs having a decisive say in some of what they're taught?

Would it prevent the sort of exotic course that the media like to dig up?–No, it just places the responsibility for funding on the student in those cases. If someone wants to study something totally outlandish, and is prepared to pay the student fees for it, that seems to me perfectly OK. So there would be three funding streams: from employers for employment-related courses, from the Government for serious courses not linked to specific employment, and from students for more exotic choices. Wouldn't that be a better, more creative, Labour proposal than just saying that we'll lower fees from £9,000 to (say) £7,500?

Note this is not Labour policy, and at present it isn't even my personal policy. At present, I'm just thinking aloud, and I'd be grateful for feedback before I write the piece. Perhaps there are major snags I've not considered - but with many of you active in the area, I'm hopeful that you'll be able to put me straight if so. Thanks!

Best wishes

Nick

Happy Christmas! and diverse local news

24th December 2010

Dear all,

This is partly to wish you a very happy Christmas for you and yours, and partly to add some updates on local developments. This isn't the moment for a lot of political debate so I'll save comments on wider issues for when you're likely to have more time to read them!

1. Salting of roads

Here's the latest statement from the borough -not very welcome news, so let's hope there's a thaw soon:

"There should be little snow over the next few days, but lots of hard frosts. We shall be out gritting the main roads every night as far ahead as we can see (including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day).

As you may have picked up from the press, the County Council (our salt suppliers) has used up 75% of its stock and is trying hard to secure more. Unless or until it is successful, there is no prospect at all of gritting side roads. We have to conserve the stock we have left to keep the main roads open."

2. Debate non-news

David Watts (LibDem) immediately agreed to my suggestion for a debate on all that's going on. Anna Soubry responded in due course that she is very busy and indeed fully booked until March, and thinks that since there are local elections in May it would then be better for local leaders to debate.

In the spirit of the season I won't comment adversely, but I've proposed that she selects any date after May for a debate. I've not heard further so far but will let you know when I do. It would be possible to have a Lab-Lib debate with an empty chair for the Conservatives, but obviously more sensible if we can get all of us together.

3. Local government settlement

This was very harsh for Broxtowe. The official reduction announced was an 8.1% cut, but the (LibDem) leader of the council dismisses this as Government spin and says the actual reduction is a whopping 14%, with a further 11% cut next year. This reflects the way the local funding cuts have been structured: cities and suburban areas are being cut heavily, while the shire counties are suffering less: Notts has a cut of around 3%. In principle, this might mean that county council services would not be hard hit, and in some counties this is the case, but the Notts council leadership favours cuts in any case, in order to freeze council tax.

The bottom line, therefore, is that there will be substantial service cuts or increases in charge from the Broxtowe district council because they have to, and substantial service cuts or increases in charges from the County because they want to. The upside of the latter is that council tax is likely to stay frozen. The Broxtowe budget and potential cuts this and next year has yet to be discussed, and with full council elections coming up in May, it's likely that this will be hotly debated in the coming months. I'll keep you posted.

Similarly, the full impact of the County's policies will only be known in the New Year, but it's expected to fall heavily on care services and facilities, as well as road maintenance. The expected reductions in policing due to the cuts in central police authority funding should also become clearer next year, but we already know of one cut to the fire service – the removal of one of the three engines stationed in Beeston.

4. Beeston Square

With the resolution of the tram issue, negotiations for revamping the square are back on, and I hope will lead to a productive outcome. My view from outside the process remains that the council should be pursuing vigorous parallel negotiations with an alternative developer to get the best deal, whereas my impression is that this is seen very much as a fallback position, but I hope we'll at last get some clarity soon.

5. Kimberley brewery

This was sold in two lots – the main site to the Alif group in Leicester, who I understand are seeking to develop it as a business park, and the houses separately. Tenants in the latter will be anxious to get reassurance on their tenure and I hope this can be achieved. The former is a bit of a surprise – the general expectation was that the site would be bought by a housing developer, and there was concern that it would lead to fewer jobs in the area. This seems potentially good news, but it's early days yet and we'll need to see what they actually propose to the council. I'll keep you informed as soon as I hear more.

6. Toton trees

The appeal is under consideration and we hope to see a result early in the New Year. We very much hope that it will be dismissed and that replanting will not be further delayed.

7. The tram

Government sources (I retain links with MPs on both sides) say that they expect no serious obstacles to arise from the remaining issues, and I understand that the preferred bidder should be chosen around February. The contracts will then be signed in the third quarter, with work starting at the beginning of 2012. I hear from Neville Sadler Court that the issue of a new building is still undecided but I hope to hear more definite news by Easter. In my opinion it would be a clear breach of faith if there was no new building – this was advanced at the inquiry as a reason for accepting the route against opposition from me and many others – and I'll continue to use my contacts to press for it.

The possibility of a Kimberley extension from Phoenix Park is on the table and potentially can be considered for the next round in four years' time, when Liverpool and Leeds (who were turned down this time) will probably try again.

It only remains to wish you very happy holidays – stay warm, take care, and enjoy a wonderful break!

All good wishes

Nick

The ideology behind the fees issue/the wider pattern/a challenge

12th December 2010

Hi all –

Sorry it's been a while since the last update – I've been ultra-busy with my diverse jobs, and there aren't enough hours in the day to do as much commentary as when I was full time in politics. Also, rather than comment on everything that comes up, I should like to write a more reflective piece from time to time, as I'm going to do today.

I've been chosen as Parliamentary Spokesperson for Broxtowe Labour. This isn't the same as selection for the next election (when I do hope to stand again, but that won't be decided for a year or two as we're awaiting the boundary changes). But it means that in the meantime, I'll speak for the party if parliamentary issues arise that affect Broxtowe, and in that capacity I'm going to issue a challenge - see below. As always, though, when I say something in an email I'm just speaking for myself unless otherwise indicated.

1. Tuition fees: aren'ty we overlooking something?

People have said pretty much all that can be said on the tuition fees vote. If you're curious what I would have done: when I was asked the same question that got the LibDems into trouble, I said that I didn't think we could afford to abolish fees, but I wouldn't favour raising the cap by more than inflation (which would have meant around £4000).

However, one aspect is being overlooked. There's a general assumption that the fees rise is something to do with meeting the rising cost of higher education. This isn't actually the case. What the Government is doing is reducing support for university teaching by 80%, and potentially filling the hole with fees of up to triple the previous level. So it's not that the universities will be getting more money, just that the Government is moving Britain out of the business of subsidising university education.

Now it's possible to argue for this: you could say that the Government should be neutral on whether people study or not, and the cost should be born entirely by students and their families. It is, however, a gigantic shift of policy from the entire postwar era, it will almost certainly lead to the closure of a number of faculties or whole universities, and it's happened with almost no discussion of whether it's a good thing. The argument for subsidy was always that countries with a healthy level of education do better, so it made sense to support universities. Most countries do, but there is an obvious exception: the USA, where I think I'm right in saying that only local state colleges get public funding.

What will the effect be? Well, first it means that universities will have to compete fiercely to get the students at the new fee levels. As Mr Cameron told his Chinese hosts recently, the changes may well make it attractive for universities to lower their fees for foreign students, creating a unified market at the £9,000 level (I'm told that foreign students currently pay over £10,000).

I don't think a university like Nottingham with Nobel prize-winners and an international base will have too much trouble with this, since the Government is not cutting the research funding which is an important part of their income. The universities that will have a greater challenge are some of the former polytechnics which focus on the domestic jobs market. Paradoxically, it's this sort of course – often designed in close cooperation with local employers – that has been held up as an example of what is needed to equip our businesses better. For example, there is a real shortage of programmers skilled at the sort of techniques used for video game design – now a British industry – and some less-known universities have been working with the industry to develop courses that would lead to jobs. These courses will now lose virtually all public funding.

Shouldn't we be debating whether we actually want this change - not just for the sake of the students, but for Britain's economic prospects?

2. The wider pattern

This seems to me typical of a pattern in the Government's programme. They give the general impression that they are doing things that are regrettably necessary, whether it's raising fees or cutting social care, but many of the changes are so drastic that they are more about an ideological change of policy than about saving money.

To take another example, it's fairly clear that support for both day-care and residential care homes is facing a sharp reduction. The sale of Bramwell is the tip of the iceberg: every county-run care home is being sold, and centres like Middle Street which give people with an illness an alternative to sitting at home are all under threat. Is this in order to save money? Not obviously, since the statutory payments by the county for care are not going away: what's happening is simply that the whole sector is being privatised.

Now obviously no policy should be taken for granted. But it seems to me dishonest for the Government to wrap up changes which they believe in for ideological reasons under the general heading of deficit reduction. Meanwhile, the bank levy, announced in the Budget with some fanfare in the name of fairness, was quietly reduced last week by more than a third, saving the banks over £1 billion.

3. A challenge

People didn't actually give a majority to a Conservative government to follow its instincts in this way, and as the LibDems do not seem to be acting as an effective brake, we are likely to see a good deal more of it. I should therefor like to issue a challenge: Anna Soubry and David Watts to meet me early in the New Year in a public debate, of the same kind as we had in the 18 months leading up to the last election. Those well-attended debates helped inform politics across Broxtowe, and I never said no to one throughout the 13 years that I was Broxtowe's MP. Will Miss Soubry be as willing to debate what the Government is doing?

Best wishes

Nick

News galore/the tram/helping families/how NOT to run an all-party campaign

31st October 2010

Hi all,

While I'd like to comment on current national issues, there are so many important local developments going on that I'd better focus on local issues again this time. The national scene is going to affect the local very substantially soon as the huge cuts to both council and police funding filter through – I understand that the Police Federation anticipate that over 40,000 police officers and staff will lose their jobs, and the grant for local authorities is being cut by 7% every year for four years, giving a cumulative effect which will have a very significant local impact. More on this when details emerge.

A brief personal note as many of you have been kindly asking how things are going. In addition to my half-time job as Director of International and Corporate Affairs with the BUAV (an animal welfare group seeking to reduce and ultimately phase out animal experiments), I'm now running the UK arm of a translation agency, Walk In Translations, so if you ever want anything translated between any language and any other language, don't hesitate to contact me. It's a busy life but it's been nice to find that I'm in demand – not all former MPs have been as lucky.

1. The tram – what does the announcement mean?

As you'll have heard, the Government has given the tram extension the go-ahead. There was a general rider on all the approved projects that cost savings should be sought, but I gather that this is not expected to change the outcome at all, so we do finally have a definite decision. As you know, I opposed the route but favoured the project overall, and in the long run I believe it will be very much in our interest to have Nottingham's main transport scheme integrated with Beeston and Chilwell (and, in due course, I hope Kimberley as well). Opinion has always been divided on this, but the decision means that we can at last plan for the future without so much uncertainty – and the first consequence will I hope be a more positive background for the Beeston Square redevelopment.

2. How NOT to launch an all-party campaign

As previously reported, a new open-casting application is in the pipeline for the area between Trowell Service Station and Cossall, this time around Shortwood Farm, next to the Robinettes site where we fought off a previous application. There is general local opposition to this and agreement that, like last time, this needs a unified local campaign to provide effective opposition.

Anna Soubry has organised a meeting on the issue next Sunday to discuss how to work together to oppose the proposal: ostensibly this is indeed an all-party event and as such it's a good idea. I asked if I could attend in the audience, to listen and to contribute anything useful from the previous battle. She declined, saying it was only for elected representatives – she has, for instance, invited all the Conservative parish councillors in Nuthall (it's not especially close to the site but she feels they will be interested). I didn't quibble – it's her meeting, after all – and suggested that she instead invite Milan Radulovic, who was council leader at the time of the previous application and is currently deputy council leader. She declined this as well, saying that he's not sufficiently close since he's a councillor for Eastwood. She is, however, inviting a Conservative councillor for Chilwell, which is considerably further away, on the grounds that he's responsible for highways. In fact, reviewing the list, it appears that the meeting will be overwhelmingly composed of Conservatives.

The problem about my criticising things that Miss Soubry does is that I have an interest as I intend to stand again at the next election. But I've run countless all-party campaigns and one of the fundamental things is that you don't look for reasons to exclude people from other parties who want to help contribute ideas and experience. All parties have campaigns that they essentially run themselves in the hope of raising their profile, and there's nothing wrong with that. But where it's a really major local issue, it needs an all-party, inclusive approach.

Anything else tends to be ineffective: Miss Soubry herself has campaigned to get the government to fund the A453 widening (they declined) and not to fund the tram extension (they're funding it), to persuade the county council not to sell Bramwell care home (they're selling it) and to keep open Kimberley police station (it's being closed). Incidentally, it's striking that a Chilwell councillor has time to get involved with the Cossall coal campaign but hasn't found time to oppose the Bramwell sale in Chilwell – since the majority on the council is just 3, the opposition of the two Chilwell Conservative councillors could have been decisive.

3. Selling off Royal Mail

One of the issues on which I rebelled as a Labour MP was the proposal to part-privatise the Royal Mail, since I felt this was a slippery slope to eventually making it fully private and no longer responsible to the public that it serves. I'm not always against privatisation: where a genuine market results, I think it can work to drive innovation and efficiency (arguably this is what's happened with telecommunications).

However, we've seen with the regional monopolies of the train system that privatisation where there's an effective monopoly is a bad idea – you just get the owners creaming off part of the revenue for shares and a general indifference to public concerns. In addition, the new company will have no obligation to maintain its contract with the post office network, and will no doubt seek to negotiate harsher commercial terms, which will drive more post offices out of business.

An odd row has sprung up this week over this. Anna Soubry said in a Beeston Express article in mid-October that her assistant had been loaded down with hundreds of communications from constituents opposing the sale. A few days ago, she told a debate in the Commons that she had had no representations whatever from local Beeston staff opposing the sale. The union is perplexed and says that the statements can't possibly both be true.

4. Middle Street mental health resource centre

See www.mistag.co.uk for lots of updates and a petition to sign. Summary: the County have completed a review of mental health daycare centres, but have so far refused to publish the findings despite earlier saying they would do so. They are now conducting a wider review of all daycare services and will include these apparently secret findings in that. People were originally accused of scaremongering when we said that the Middle Street centre was under threat: it appears that this is now part of a wider threat to daycare of all kinds across the county.

5. Toton trees

Thanks to everyone for the updates, especially Steve Bakewell, who runs the campaign group on the issue. You can contact him on steve.bakewell@ntlworld.com

The appeal of the landowners essentially says (1) the area is contaminated and lots of work and study would be needed to consider restocking and (2) the council had identified the site for possible housing development, so normal green belt protection doesn't apply anyway and planting trees would get in the way of the possible housing. I paraphrase – Steve has the full text if you'd like to see it, and can also give details of how to make representations if you've not already done so.

The counter-arguments are (1) the site had a flourishing forest full of wildlife until the owners knocked it down, so the contamination can't have been that inhibiting and (2) the fact that the council has said they might consider housing there sometime up to 2026 (which would be subject to challenge, public inquiry, etc.) is no reason to allow it to be devastated now.

Decoding all this, the original restocking order which was supposed to have started to take effect by now has been delayed by the appeal, so they'll miss the current planting season. Meanwhile, my understanding is that the owners are continuing to negotiate with the council on their wish to extract ballast from the site, and the council has by no means ruled this out. I'd think it would cause considerable noise and disruption to start a ballast extraction operation and would further delay any restocking, so I'd suggest urging Toton councillors to press officers to recommend against any such application. You can find their contact details here:

http://www.broxtowe.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=770

Broxtowe Council Cabinet will be reviewing the issue at their next meeting so this is a good time to write.

6. Help and advice for new parents in difficulty

It's generally agreed that one of the problems of modern life is that not every new family manages parenting easily, often for reasons outside their control. Are you a parent or grandparent with three or four hours a week to spare? Would you like to help a family with young children, by visiting at home once a week? Why not train to be a Home-Start Volunteer?

Home-Start Nottingham is a local charity, which supports families with at least one child under the age of 5 who are experiencing problems. Those problems can be anything from postnatal depression to multiple births, from feelings of isolation to suffering bereavement.
Through a network of volunteers, Home-Start Nottingham provides the support that families need, where it matters most – in the home. Last year Home-Start Nottingham supported 183 families with 436 children and they want to help and support even more families.

A course of preparation starts in Beeston on 3rd February 2011 at the new Fire Station. The training is informal, free of charge and will be held every Thursday for eight weeks. The course will be held between 10.00am and 2.30pm and expenses will be paid. For further information please contact Lynn or Stephanie on 0115 962 4262 .

7. Wind turbines in Beeston Rylands?

The university is proposing to erect very tall wind turbines in the Rylands and councillors are currently consulting on it. The upside of this is that it will help them meet their carbon emission reduction target, reduce energy use and showcase their expertise in wind power technology. The downside is that they will be, well, very prominent.

Personally I think we need to support renewable energy and not jib at its appearance in our back yard, but I know not everyone agrees! Beeston Rylands Labour Party, as part of councillors' consultation with residents on the issue, have invited the University, who are promoting the wind turbines, to a public meeting at Leyton Crescent Community Centre on Monday 22 November at 7.30pm: both the university and the council will be represented and anyone from any party or none is welcome. If you'd like to know more about the proposal, Cllr Steve Barber is on steve_barber@ntlworld.com.

8. Scrap land for horse rehabilitation?

I've been asked by a keen horse lover with some spare scrap land initially for her own horse but ideally to set up a small horse rehabilitation centre. I'll pass on any offers!

9. Other coming events

'An Evening with Syd Little' 7.30pm November 2nd. Chilwell school Theatre, Queens Road West, NG9 5AL. Tickets: £7 from Geoff Bagley, 58 Meadow Road, Beeston,Nottingham, NG9 1JT Tel:0115 9258801 or rylands.little@gmail.com. Organised by Rylands Methodist Church.

`Fun afternoon' Sunday 14th November 2010 at 2pm until 5pm at Trowell Parish Hall, Stapleford Road, Trowell (near St Helen's Church) organised by Trowell Labour Party (who are raising campaigns funds). 60s,70s,80s music with an "Eggheads" style quiz, a raffle, small bouncy castle and few other toys for young children, plus face painting and drawing. There will be light refreshments provided (tea, coffee, soft drinks, table nibbles): the charge is £1 per adult or £2 per family. The quiz is another £1 and the same for the raffle.

`Eyewitness stories from Israel-Palestine' with Jan Sutch Pickard, an observer attached to the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel. Themes: "What is daily life under occupation really like? What is the Israeli peace movement doing? What can we do to promote a just peace in Israel-Palestine?" Sunday 21 November, 4:30 – 6:00 pm at Round Hill School, Foster Avenue, Beeston, NG9 1AE. Anna Soubry is chairing the event and it's good to find something we can agree on as a serious issue.

Quick updates:

I've been asked to add this:

There are Arts & Crafts events in Beeston Square throughout the year but the final event before Christmas is special - Thurs/Fri/Sat 11 - 13 November. Its a special panto themed event with all stallholders dressed as characters from pantomime! They are raising money for RSPCA Radcliffe on Trent. Loads of crafts to buy made by local crafters.

Also, to clarify the horse item: the lady was enquiring whether anyone had some scrap land for a horse (or even several horses) - the way I wordered it made it seem she was offering the land rather than looking for it.

Finally, a non-political item by a constituent that may interest people who know Nuthall: I found it fascinating.

http://internetcurtains.blogspot.com/2010/07/back-to-clasp-school.html

Regards

Nick

Best wishes

Nick

previous newsletters >>