Standing Again

Well, the decision has been taken and I have decided that I will be seeking re-election as Councillor for Bowthorpe Ward.

You might remember the little issue of being removed from office by the High Court after the quashing of the Unitary verdict, but I have now applied to the Norwich South Conservatives to be the candidate for Bowthorpe at the 9th September by-election. The final decision will be made at a special meeting in late July.

The decision to remove the Councillors came as a huge shock but the time it has given me, because I could no longer do council duties, has given me the space to consider my personal future.

I would be lying if I said I had not been tempted to stand down and take a few years out of politics to catch my breath.

I am very grateful to all of the local people in both Bowthorpe and Earlham who have been urging me to re-stand and their voices have helped me to make my mind up.

I first stood for the City Council because I believe in public service and feel I could make a difference for the people of Bowthorpe and Earlham.

Fundamentally, I believe that residents ought to make the decision if I have been a good local Councillor and if they wish to give me another term in office, rather than it being the decision of an unelected judge.

I still have a lot more I wish to do for the people of Bowthorpe and Earlham, so I have decided to give it a shot at winning their trust to serve on the council.

I am grateful to the support of my family, my council colleagues from all parties and local people in helping me make this decision.

So let's get down to it - campaignin' time again!

Balls to the Treasury?

There has been a call today to whoever the next Labour Leader not to appoint Ed Balls as their Shadow Chancellor. I think that the leadership election has shown that Balls runs an effective attack-dog operation but I do agree that his attitude would not suit the Treasury. I believe that, whoever wins, Yvette Cooper will be the next Shadow Chancellor (Darling will, IMHO leave the frontbench). However her husband would be an effective Shadow Minister for the Cabinet Office - it would leave him a free hand to roam around government and be horrible to the coalition; say what you like about Balls, he's a good opposition man.

Should Speaker Bercow have no tongue to speak?

In my weaker moments I still enjoy watching both the debates and question times from parliament. Those who do so regularly will know that the most regular feature of any session in the Commons is the sight of the Speaker of the House, John Bercow, having a go at MPs for questions (and answers) that are "too long". At the beginning this seemed like a great idea for getting through more questions. However, Speaker Bercow seems to mistake a good session with one where the maximum number of MPs speak. "We've heard enough," he snapped at one LibDem MP recently.

Speaker Bercow is on very thin ice. The job of the Speaker is not the "lead" the Commons, let alone dictate to it. He would do well to remember what Speaker Lenthall once said: "I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here."

It seems that Speaker Bercow is running the place as he sees fit rather than representing the views of the House - both sides of the chamber. The sight of him determining how long an MP's question should be is wrong, so long as it's one question and doesn't constitute a speech!

In fact, Speaker Bercow does do rather a lot of Speaking really including pontificating on what the public would or would not like to see. What qualifies him for this role?

He is there to run the place smoothly and ensure the rules are kept to - not to control the debate and questions in his tight-fisted way. Maybe he'll loosen up as time goes on, but if I were an MP being cut off from asking a question it would make me wonder what agenda the Speaker really has and if really is the man to preside over the Commons.

Question for the Pollsters

So ... the latest YouGov poll sparked an instant question for me about voting intention work versus approval ratings.

Of the respondents, 43% would vote Tory if there were an election tomorrow, 34% for the leaderless Labour party and just 15% for Clegg's LibDems; the missing 8% must be for the other parties.

However the government approval rating was +8%; 44% to 36%.

Good news for Cameron; I assume pretty much all of Labour's supporters would disapprove of the coalition so that leaves just 2% opposition from the Tories, LibDems and others. This strikes me as quite a low figure.

Bad news though; 44% either represents most of the Tories but a fraction of the LibDems or more worrying a lower portion of the Tory vote and more LibDems. Why isn't this figure higher? The government has 58% of the combined vote with only 44% approval.

I know both CCHQ and Downing St will have noted this.

Labour's Comeback Kids?

Even though she was utterly wrong, the strong performance of former Communities Secretary Hazel Blears on Newsnight tonight actually left me wondering if she is angling for a Shadow Cabinet comeback - which leads to the question of what the Labour frontbench will look like after the new leader is elected.

One thing is for certain - if Diane Abbot doesn't win (!) she won't serve the new leader. But it does ask the question about what you do with the other failed leadership candidates; the Milibands, Andy Burnham or Ed Balls?

Hazel is one of a number of ministers who quit under Brown who could be brought back into action. What about Caroline Flint - is she ready for the Shadow Cabinet?

There is a question about some of the outgoing cabinet and if they would either want to serve or if a new "change" leader would want them - such as Bob Ainsworth (Defence) or Liam Byrne (will he survive that note?), Alistair Darling (would he want to stay on)? What about Jack Straw?

Then there are the young guns who'll be looking for promotion - Douglas Alexander, for example, will expect a leg up from International Development. Yvette Cooper could also expect a big new job.

There are the safe pairs of hands - Hilary Benn, Nick Brown, John Denham, Peter Hain, Alan Johnson, Jim Murphy, Shaun Woodward will all be on the roundabout.

And what about the golden oldies - might they wish for one more pop, either to help balance the Shadow Cabinet & offer experience ... or do they walk away? So, for example, what will Margaret Beckett, former Foreign Secretary, do? David Blunkett, former Home Secretary, may also be tempted?

Ed Balls is a tricky move for any new leader who isn't Ed Balls; but his recent pitbull attitude to the Tories would suit a more free-ranging role.

The other name that it would interesting to see if any leader could get them to serve is Jon Cruddas; it would be a coup if they could and a healing moment for the party.

And then there are the young bucks trying to make their shadow cabinet breakthrough - Rhondda MP Chris Bryant, Tooting's Sadiq Khan, Tottenham's David Lammy, . Former Minister Chris Leslie, who returned to the Commons as Nottingham East MP is also touting himself about the House. Ditto Stephen Twigg, back as one of Liverpool's MPs.

Plus of course you get to keep Deputy Leader Harriet Harman as a bonus; will she try and get Margaret Hodge to come with her? Can Pat McFadden keep his position? What about Stephen Timms? Or Rosie Winterton?

Of course the big thing will be that this Shadow Cabinet will be subject to an election and may look very different depending on who takes the helm!

Unthank Tesco Opens

I agree about the point regarding local democracy, planning rules and the whole shabang. However the way to deal with this issue is using people power; will the good people of the Golden Triangle now vote with their feet and their purses and boycott Tesco's (after all, thousands of them signed petitions against it) and force to store to close within weeks or months?

Or will they pop in for their shopping after all and make the store a success?

I know one Golden Triangle who has already popped in for her pint of milk - and whom told me that it was OK because she was never against the store after all; I wonder how many people will think like her?

Not One But Many

It isn't one bad teacher in a school that we ought to be worried about, but when there are many bad teachers in a school.

A good friend often reminds me, that bad teaching by a teacher means they can go back and improve next year. But a bad year of teaching for a pupil, and they never get that time back.

Gove should be congratulated ...

... not for announcing the wrong list of schools for the BSF cuts, but the way in which he handled it.

Under the old fashioned notion of "Ministerial Responsibility", the Secretary of State takes all of the credit and blame for everything which goes on in their department. It would have been easy for Gove to take the Labour way-out and blame some anonymous Civil Servant for the balls-up and to suspend a junior official or two. After all, he didn't do this - all he did was read the information he had been provided with out, which turned out to be wrong. He could have dodged the whole issue.

But he didn't do that. He took responsibility, came to the House of Commons and owned up. He said sorry.

This government hasn't been great so far in terms of re-establishing the power of the legislature - the elections for committee places has been a good start, but government by press release has appeared to have clung on even after the departure of New Labour.

However this move by Michael Gove has given me faith that at least one senior minister respects parliament and is prepared to adhere to Ministerial Responsibility.

Why are my cuts different to those of the Government?

The ongoing announcement of government cuts, designed to pay back Labour's massive national debt, have been getting the left hot under the collar. Partly this is because of disasterous PR decision to announce the cuts one-by-one and day-by-day which allows the left to harangue each decision. (Which, of course, does give the people of this country a chance to analyse each cut and hold their MPs accountable - take, for example, the differing reaction of teachers to the GTC cut versus the BSF cut - it wouldn't have been right to roll this all up together). But more so, they are concerned because most cuts will hit associated industries and employment.

The Tories often argue that government spending is like household spending, however, and today I have had to prove this correct. Today we've gone through our spending and made some decisions to cut back in certain areas because - I've, for example, cancelled a magazine subscription and also my beloved wine club has bitten the dust. Should I have continued to pay these in order to keep the printers in business or the winemakers in profit? I doubt it, so why should the government be any different?

Former Councillor

Following the decision of the High Court to quash the orders to create a Unitary Council for Norwich, 13 City Councillors who had their terms of office extended have been removed from office but with no date set for the mass of by-elections.

I am amongst those - so too are Claire Stephenson (Green Leader & Chair of Scrutiny), Brian Watkins (LibDem Leader), Sue Sands (Lab Exec Childrens Services), Bert Bremner (Lab Exec Community Safety), Linda Blakeway (Lab Exec Neighbourhood Dev), Brian Morrey (Lab Deputy Leader of the Council & Exec Sustainable Development).

This is a typical mess at the end of a dogs dinner of a process. The Courts have not given the council or the people of Norwich the certainty we need. As the council faces the biggest cuts we have ever made, we shall be doing so with only half of Labour's Executive in place and with all 3 opposition leaders not in place. And all of this with no idea when new elections can be held. It is a disgrace.

I am, of course, not against standing for election (!) but leaving us high and dry with only 2/3rds of a council, a swathe of senior politicans out and no date for the election when we face this economin crisis in unacceptable.

OMG

I've been confiscating phones for years.

Whoops.

AV if you want to ...

So the news is out (we think) that the referendum on changing the electoral system will be held on 5th May 2011; a little bit surprised that yet again a major issue has been put to the press before parliament.

Anyway, I'm not totally against a referendum but I also think that the voting system will never catch the enthusiasm of people in the way its supporters believe it will.

The Press will now spend a lot of time looking at the views of Tory MPs and the impact it will have on the coalition - for example, if AV loses will Nick and the LibDems pack up their toys and go home? Or, should Labour campaign against AV just to irritate the coalition?

If I were a Tory MP now there would certainly be 2 things that I would look at -

Firstly the date. I am not in favour of combining this with the local elections (and devolved authority elections) because of the potential for confusion and the in-built bias that the will exist in areas that are having elections. The Electoral Commission said it should be held on a totally different day and I agree - this is a major change and people ought to be clear what they are voting for. The worst thing would be for AV to win narrowly and then have voters claiming they were confused which undermines the result.

And secondly is the issue of a threshold; which comes into sharper focus when you consider how low the turnout might be (electoral reform ain't that sexy). Can you really justify this change on 50.01% of a, say, 30% turnout? I'm happy to discuss what the threshold ought to be, but there should be a clear measure of support for people before the change is made.

I hope some MPs take these ideas forward and the House of Commons gets a chance to vote on them - this isn't some LibDem obsession, nor a bargaining chip for the coalition, but the fundamentals of our democracy. This is important and should be taken seriously.

Lansley is right over schooldinner-gate

In politics, one cardinal rule is to never, ever take on celebrities.

But today, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley did just that - suggesting that TV Chef Jamie Oliver's schooldinners campaign had been a failure as people shouldn't be nagged or lectured into eating healthier.

I don't agree about the campaign being a failure; Oliver has put the issue of schooldinners front and centre. There has been a big change in the quality of school dinners even in the time I have been a teacher and largely that is because of extra focus by governors, parents and schools. Without Oliver it is unlikely that focus would ever have come.

However, I think Lansley was absolutely right to say that the days of bossing people into doing something should be behind us. The sight of the lecturing Oliver banging on about what to eat is enough to turn most people's stomach and his preaching style is unlikely to win many fans. Why not go out there and demonstrate the benefits of healthy food Jamie rather than spending your time sounding like Nanny?

Prisons Policy: It's about what you can prove

The debate over the future of our prisons policy, kicked off today by Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, has certainly got a lot of political feathers ruffled.

The one thing which interests me is this; the arguement against using prison is the large number of people who (often quickly) re-offend. The arguement for using prisons is that it acts as a deterent to people.

Only one of those you can prove.

To calculate the re-offending rate is very easy indeed.

But to calculate the number of people put off committing crime because of the fear of prison is almost beyond calculation (because you can, by virtue of the crime not happening, ever know this.)

So the pro-rehabilitation lobby have stolen a march on the pro-prison lobby by having a definitive arguement and an easy statistic to throw around.

To my knowledge, as of yet, nobody has suggested a public debate over which kinds of crime, done by which sorts of people, done how many times should lead to certain punishments or prison sentences. Why not?

Loving Hattie

The Coffee House blog has a great piece today about the sheer pluck and good value you always gets from Labour's Deputy Leader & Acting Leader of the Opposition, Harriet Harman. I agree. You can never say that Harman doesn't give it everything, even when she faced an assured and dominant Cameron. The PM battered Harman all over the ring today and even at her lowest point, Harman managed to bounce back to try another swipe. She failed miserably, but some on the party backbenches must admire her courage. Compared to the rather pisspoor efforts from the Labour Leadership candidates, they must be pleased that she'll stay on as Deputy Leader no matetr what happens.

It includes this wonderful passage:

The unthinkable has happened. I’ve started to admire Batty Hattie’s performances at PMQs. Her career may be over, her party may be trashed, her movement may drift leaderless, and her colleagues’ reputation may have been shot to pieces but Hattie always turns up and gives it everything. Nature has not overburdened her with talent. She can’t count. She can hardly speak. She reacts to events about as quickly as a self-timing oven but she has epic quantities of pluck. Every week she pounds out into the surf, like a battleship equipped for the last war but two, and heads for the centre of the fray where she refuses to sink under the heaviest fire.

A Reason to Recall?

A puzzler for a Sunday evening; would the Chris Huhne affair, or the David Laws expenses issue, be enough to allow their constituencts to re-call them under the new provisions being laid out by David Cameron and Nick Clegg?

Mr Cameron has said in the past that re-call would be option where MPs have been "guilty of wrongdoing." Would this include, as some people have suggested today about Huhne, misleading your constituents over your private life?

Personally I hope not, and I have concerns that the re-call function would be too easily triggered (10% is required in any given constituency - one party alone could probably manage this in most seats). We need to know, and know soon, what safeguards will be put in place. This is crucial and very difficult question, and I don't have an answer, because those safeguards are needed for 2 reasons - for MPs against mob-rule and for the public against wrongdoing MPs. Can we manage both?

When should a Minister resign?

Any good AS Politics will tell you that there are 3 types of responsibility that a Minister has to observe - collective, ministerial and individual. With the formation of a coalition government who'd have thought the first two crisis points would be because of individual issues rather than collective ones (and by two LibDems!).

Chris Huhne, however, will politically survive his marital problems. That is because, unless there is more to come out, there is no law breaking, no hypocrisy and no lies to the public involved. I guess he'll also survive because the government couldn't hack losing a second LibDem Secretary of State in a row within six weeks of taking office. A friend mused that it also because there are few LibDems MPs left whom you actually appoint to the cabinet.

So all-in-all he's pretty safe at the moment, but it will be interesting to see if the mud sticks throughout the rest of his Ministerial and political career.

Why the BBC might not be the people to talk to if you are embarrassed and upset...

There's a very interesting story on today's BBC website about a Mum and child who were thrown off a bus because of the 2 year olds behaviour (click here). This is undoubtably every parents nightmare situation, and as somebody who has tried to keep kids silent in restaurants, shops, cafes, Tory rallies and on public transport I know it isn't always easy and you think everyone is tut-tutting at you. You really do feel like the worst parent in the world. So I sympathise with the lady in question.

However what struck me is the quote that she gave to the Beeb: "I felt very embarrassed and upset"

Well, how did this story get into the news in the first place? I am assuming they rang the BBC to shame the bus company. But if you are really embarrassed and upset why would you put this tale of woe into the public domain where people around the world know the situation you are in. Maybe if she was that embarrassed and upset, they should have known that there are somethings that are best not shared.

Free Swimming Axed

The Coalition Government has spent today detailing the projects and scheme that are being cut, shelved or adapted to try and plug the enormous debt legacy left by Labour.

I think one thing that may be overlooked amongst all the massive announcements today is this one - click here for the BBC story - to abolish free swimming for over 60s and under 16s, which is a scheme that is in operation in Norwich. According to the research this scheme hasn't been value for money and around 80% of those people who took advantage of the scheme would have paid to gone swimming anyway. I remember welcoming the scheme when Norwich got funding, but this is a very real reminder of the touch choices ahead - thanks to Labour management we just can't afford this anymore. No doubt Labour Councillors and candidate will leap up and down about this, and I agree it is very sad, but I hope they realise the government they wanted to keep in office led directly to this.

Today in class I was talking with pupils about government spending; the question was asked what constituted "essential spending" by the government.

What should we do? If we are having to cut to the bone then we should start with essential spending and work out what extra we can afford - families, businesses and councils do it all the time, called "base budgeting". What do readers believe is "essential spending" in the modern context?

LibDem concern over PMQs lock-out

I had two different but connected moments today; the first is actually having the time to watch PMQs live (well, streamed over the net) and the other was meeting a local LibDem worthy on the way home from work who also watched the weekly parliamentary contest.

I hadn't realised when watching (we have now had 3 PMQs since the election) but my LibDem friend pointed out how much this event is now back to a Lab-Con battle and how the voice of the LibDems has been phased out. I doubt it will, but if the clashes make the news they will be without the voice of the LibDems; they have no spokesperson waving their flag - Cameron's 30 seconds on the news will meet Harman's (or whoever) 30 seconds with no LibDem. I never thought Clegg was a great PMQs performer as Leader, although Cable showed what could be done with just 2 questions and a few minutes of primetime news. Now this has all gone.

I pointed out to my LibDem friend that their MPs had as much chance of catching the Speakers eye as anybody else. Aside from getting a lecture on the mathematics which suggested this wasn't true (it did make sense afterwards) I was told that LibDem backbenchers would never line up alongside Cameron and Harman on the news.

I left thinking all thise was very true; I note that new LibDem Deputy Simon Hughes has promised to keep the party distintive. I wonder how they can do this without PMQs?