Next stop … exit Europe
We are on our way out of the EU! I don’t know exactly when it will happen but I’m pretty sure we are on a path that will take us out. That’s the real outcome of David Cameron’s veto of a new treaty for the 27 members of the EU. The Tory eurosceptics have won and people like me who are europhiles have lost. With decades of anti-EU rhetoric backed by most of the newspapers and the Tory Party hating anything that the EU did, the time has probably come to have an in/out EU Referendum. Of course an “In” campaign would surely lose as like the “YesToAV” campaign it is torn apart by the rabidness of the right. At least we will have a settled outcome and we can carry-on trying to pick up the pieces as an isolated and declining world power that we have been ever since the great exhibition of 1851.
Nothing matters more to many Tory MPs than leaving the EU and the new intake of Tory MPs is the most Euro sceptical there has been. In fact I don’t think you can be a Tory parliamentary candidate without being deeply euro-sceptical. If Tories were willing to fatally wound John Major over Europe and march out of power, then a little matter of an economic crisis isn’t going to stop them now. They’ve seen blood and Cameron has shown his true colours as the most europhobic Tory PM ever, doing what even Maggie Thatcher wouldn’t have contemplated.
The Labour Party, my party, is weak on Europe. We’re caught in our own scepticism and the public’s disdain of the continent across the English Channel. It can be argued that this moment was inevitable as soon as Gordon Brown decided to keep Britain out of the Euro. Even for that act, the Labour Party has never received any credit from the Europhobes! On the biggest issue, Labour said “No” to Europe. We might be split on Europe for different reasons such as seeing it as a right-wing anti-democratic conspiracy but we are split nevertheless.
So, we have an exit out of the EU to look forward to and on top of that Scotland becoming independent. We’ll be left with a “rump” of a nation not aligned with anyone or anything. Oh yes, we’ll still have our alliance with the US, “the special relationship” or the Commonwealth. We hope!!
Britain was the last major nation to enter the European project and will be first to exit.
It’s a pessimistic viewpoint but I cannot see any other outcome, can you?
Political Assistants at Leicestershire County Council
After recently submitting a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to Leicestershire County Council to find out how many political assistants are employed there and how much they’re paid, the following information was obtained:
Mr David Briscombe, Political Assistant to the Tory Group on a salary of £24,576
Mr Ben Odams, Political Assistant to the Lib Dem Group on a salary of £24,576
Political Assistants unlike council officers do not have to follow impartiality guidelines and work solely for the Political Group that employs them.
Now they would argue that Labour employs Political Assistants but I seem to remember the Tories attacking Labour for doing this. Also, it is a fact that no political assistants are employed at Leicester City Council, despite Labour having 52 of the 54 Councillors.
Can you imagine the outcry there would be if the Labour Group at Leicester City Council did this?
It’s nice work if you can get it, while you’re helping the County Council to cut other people’s jobs!!
To support strikes or not?
One of the big themes running through this Labour Party Conference is whether the Labour leadership and in particular Ed Miliband is going to support the strikes. There have been loud applause and cheering whenever someone has mentioned that their Union is preparing for industrial action.
Dave Prentis of UNISON said that they were balloting their members for strike action and if agreed he expected the leadership of the Labour Party to support it. Highly unlikely, as Ed Balls made it clear in his speech today that Strikes would give the Tories the excuse they needed to focus attention away the real issues. It’s not the Labour Party the Unions have to get onboard, it’s the general public.
I see a battle brewing in the Labour Party and I’m not sure it’s going to be pretty!
Cllr Nigel Porter cleared of standards complaint
I have heard that Cllr Nigel Porter, who represents the Aylestone Ward in Leicester (after switching from the Tories to the Lib Dems before the local elections in May) was last week cleared by the Standards Committee of Leicester City Council of a supposed data protection breach. This was such a major issue for then Tory Group Leader, Cllr Ross Grant, that Nigel was driven out of the local Leicester Tory Party.
The Leicester Mercury ran an article entitled “Ousted Tory defects to fight seat for Lib Dems” on 26th March 2011 which allowed Cllr Ross Grant to say the following about his colleague
"It’s unfortunate but the group took the decision to deselect Nigel Porter because we believe he failed to live up to the standards expected of a Conservative councillor.”
So, now that Nigel has been cleared of any wrong doing, will he be getting an apology from Cllr Ross Grant or the Leicester Tories? Ross is quite willing to highlight and discuss in public issues with supposed Leicester Labour Party issues. He’s not so keen on questions being asked of his own party and his own actions.
Unfortunately, I have not seen the fact that Nigel was cleared highlighted by the Leicester Mercury despite the previous article that they ran before the election?
I also note that the Leicester Mercury is quite happy to continue to run quotes from Cllr Ross Grant on issues relating to the Labour administration in Leicester. Yes, he’s an opposition councillor but so is Nigel Porter and with the tories and libdems with one councillor each, who is the official opposition?
As a postscript, I’ve also learnt that the there has been a bit of a mass exodus from the top of the Leicester Tory Party. It remains a local conservative association in turmoil with little purpose and no real strategy and abandoned by its Central Party!
UPDATE
As if by magic an article from the Leicester Mercury appeared today entitled ‘I knew all along I had not broken any rules’ which stated that Cllr Nigel Porter had been cleared after a 7 month long investigation. It’s a complete vindication of Nigel Porter and his actions as the original documents had been passed to the Leicester Mercury.
In the article it’s nice of Cllr Grant to now try and blame the then Chief Exec, Sheila Lock, and the current Monitoring Officer, Perry Holmes. Still there is no apology for the attempt at trying to slur the personal reputation of a hard working councillor, who despite switching to the Lib Dems after being driven out by the Tories still retained his seat! Many of his former tory councillors did not, except one, Ross Grant! How happy they must be??
Given the following paragraph in the article, it does beg the question what Council Officers where doing?
The documents listed all monthly payments over £500 made by the council – something the coalition Government had ordered all councils to do. Despite the papers being marked "for publication", senior officers at the authority flagged up the issue with his Tory group leader, Councillor Ross Grant.
It’s great that the Leicester Tories retain Ross Grant as their key figurehead. Keep it up guys and I’m always happy to help the Leicester Mercury with stories about the Leicester Tories!
We failed people by losing
Today at the excellent East Midlands Regional Labour Party Conference in Leicester, I clapped enthusiastically at every mention of how Labour must protect people from the tory cuts, how we are the last line of defence for the most vulnerable in society and how we must be the voice which highlights the unfairness and ideology of the tory economic programme.
This is all true!
However, our Labour controlled councils will still be forced to make huge cuts to public services and the tories will still push through their attempts to shrink the size and scope of the state.
Unions will strike, we will march and speak out and oppose in parliament but at the end of the day we will probably have to sit and helplessly watch the tories wreck society, decimate manufacturing and slash investment.
Why will we have to do this? Simple, because we are no longer in power! It’s kind of obvious to say that but sometimes difficult to accept and comprehend.
It’s not the fact that Ed Miliband didn’t explicitly back the strikes that let down people, it’s the fact we lost power nationally back in May last year. That is the point at which we failed people. It’s why I shed a tear on the morning after the general election because I knew how difficult it would be for us to now protect the people we had invested in for 13 years. We failed them, let them down and abandoned them. Not by conscious choice but because of a lack of vision and a view of how we would make people’s lives better.
Our primary purpose now should be to win back power at the first attempt and no Labour person should rest for a single day or hour without thinking what we can do to win politically. This is our only hope to escape from this tory/libdem hell of a government.
We can strike from now until kingdom come but if Labour doesn’t win the next election then all our protests and opposition will have been to no avail and we will have only deluded ourselves that we are protecting people.
We will win by providing an alternative, a credible alternative at that, which captures people’s imagination as to how their individual lives will be better, more fulfilling and more prosperous. We need a vision built on our on core Labour principles but fit to take us all forward in the 21st century and meet the challenges of a globalised economy, of environmental change and a changing political world.
Why No Labour Leader can endorse a strike
When was the last time a Labour Leader publicly endorsed a strike? Can you remember? No, neither can I! So, Ed Miliband’s sensible blogpost on Thursday’s strikes should not come as a surprise.
Let me set out why no Labour Leader can publicly back a strike. Firstly, strikes are allowed in law so it is not an illegal activity and free Trade Unions are a sign of a healthy democracy. The reality is that declaring public support for a strike by Ed Miliband would be the end of him having any chances of becoming PM. If I know one thing about him then I know he’s not about to jeopardise that.
This is not a failure of the Labour Party, this is a failure of the Unions who have left a certain perception and view about them to many people in this country and which is ably exploited by the tory party. Remember their attacks on Unite pre-general election last year and the branding of “Red Ed”! The Unions have helped to perpetuate the view that they won the leadership for him and that he’ll do what they want him to do. That somehow the Labour Party had been saved from the dark-side of New Labour or whatever will replace that.
How wrong or sadly deluded these people have been when political reality dawns and leaders like Ed Miliband (like every other Labour Leader preceding him who became PM) realise that they’ll win power from the centre hence his “squeezed-middle” rhetoric.
The other more basic thing is that strikes are by Unions and not the Unions as the Labour Party. Unions are made up of members who may or may not be members of the Labour Party. The Labour Party Leader has a responsibility to a much broader electorate that just striking Union members. For him to abdicate that responsibility would be wrong and punished electorally and by our political opponents and voraciously exploited by the media.
To say that the statement made by Ed Miliband is not in the Labour tradition is frankly absurd and shows how the Labour Party goes into some parallel universe when in opposition.
Of course Ed Miliband will stick up for public sector workers and their pensions as best as he can in opposition. He will will not serve these hard working people by giving the tories an open goal.
This is the oldest trick in the tory playbook, to pit Labour against Labour, the public against the Unions and demonise all those who oppose their changes.
DON’T LET THEM DO IT PLEASE!!
Leicester Tories try to expel Peter Bedford
How would you expect the Leicester Tory Party to rebuild itself after it’s worst electoral defeat in the city in living memory? Perhaps they might try and look at the lessons of what went wrong, build bridges across the membership, look at future fundraising activities and campaigning actvities or community organising? No, at a meeting of the Leicester Tory Party executive this week they tried to pass a motion to expel former tory Aylestone Council candidate, Peter Bedford who dared to challenge the current leadership in its failed electoral campaign. I have learnt from someone present at the meeting that a motion to expel Peter was narrowly defeated by 10-9 on the heinous charge of “anti-Leicester Tory Party tweets”!! In favour of expelling Peter from the local Tory Party was Cllr Ross Grant (the only tory Cllr in the City now!), Caroline Scuplak, Jake Wilkinson, Simon Whelband, Ben Surtees and four other people.
It’s good to see that the local tory party has found some courage to stand up to this clique within their party which has tried to dictate and control what goes on for far too long in their group.
I hope the “good” people of the local tory party sweep aside these failed and politically defeated has-beens and rebuild their party. The people of Leicester who voted for the conservatives deserve nothing less than this.
As the Leicester Labour Party, we would far rather defeat the tories based on informed political discourse and policies which deliver for the people of Leicester.
Leicester, the new Silicon Valley?
I have long thought that Leicester needs a new economy, new high quality jobs and a reason to retain the talent the city has. The old industries of textiles and light engineering manufacturing, in which my parents worked, have declined and continue to face stiff competition from overseas markets with ever decreasing profit margins.
The question is what this economy should be and what would it look like? Leicester needs a new “big idea” upon which a long term economic strategy can be built and the city can become know for this across the UK and further afield.
My “big idea” is that Leicester should seek to be a new Silicon Valley or otherwise known as a technology cluster. Of course this is ambitious and we’re pretty much starting from scratch given that we don’t even have a Science Park in the city.
We all know about Silicon Valley in the USA, which has become a textbook example of a successful technology cluster. It is home to some of the world’s most important technology companies such as Apple, Google and Intel. It brings together entrepreneurial people with strong personal networks, technical universities, industrial research centres.
The best know technology cluster we have in the UK is around Cambridge, which has been very successful in producing a culture of entrepreneurship and collaboration between industry and academia, which has produced a lively group of information technology and biotechnology companies.
Around 40,000 people in Cambridge now work in the cluster of 1500 high-tech and service companies, some of which are billion-dollar businesses such as software company Autonomy.
You cannot transform a city like Leicester into a thriving technology cluster overnight but if you don’t make a start or try you will definitely never make it happen.
Professor Arnoud de Meyer, president of the Singapore Management University and former president of the Judge Business School in Cambridge has six key factors for successful technology clusters
- Strong technical infrastructure with good phone links, good internet connections, and good transport links.
- Strong educational infrastructure, to provide both skilled workers ad the core academic organisations around which the cluster can nucleate.
- Local financial engineering skills to find appropriate funding to match a company’s stage for development and technology.
- Social acceptance, with a local culture that puts a high value on creativity, imagination and entrepreneurship.
- A good legal infrastructure in which you can enforce contracts and protect intellectual property, with stable tax laws to aid planning.
- A strong network that enables access to key end markets.
Ultimately, though the key to successful clusters is the attitudes of peoples who work in them and no amount of targeted advice, cheap finance and low rents will turn someone who likes to be an employee into a risk taking entrepreneur.
Let’s be ambitious and forward thinking and make Leicester into the new “Silicon Valley” of the UK.
I have based this blogpost on an article from the E & T magazine of the Institution of Engineering & Technology (of which I’m a member) entitled “Blueprint for innovation clusters”.
Why Leicester Labour must make a difference?
Sometimes it’s easy to forget when you have had a landslide electoral victory that the hard work actually starts straight after the celebrations. Having won 52 out of the 54 council seats in Leicester, had a Labour Mayor elected in an historic first for Leicester and a new Labour MP winning in the Leicester South by-election, we MUST as a Party show that where Labour has political control, we make a huge positive difference.
There can be no excuses, no blaming anyone else and no what ifs and buts. We have to work to make Leicester a place where our kids can feel proud to grow up and have the best opportunities and jobs anywhere in the country. We have to be ambitious for this city.
Things will be tough, as David Cameron has savagely hacked at local government budgets to pay for the collapse of the banking system and the ensuing recession that caused. But even that, should not let us make excuses. In business, it is well known that during tough economic times, often great businesses and ideas are born. We need to be creative, imaginative, willing to challenge the status quo.
We need nothing less than a new economy for Leicester and vastly improved educational outcomes to stand any chance to be a successful city, ready to take our place on the European or even international stage.
Please come to my party?
Well, as I had been predicting pre-election, Ross Grant (former leader of 7 other tory Leicester City councillors) effectively imploded the Leicester Tory Party yesterday. The tories lost all their seats and Ross Grant was the only one to cling on to his in Knighton. This effectively solves the Group Leadership issue, as he’ll only have himself to lead! In what was sweet irony former tory colleague of Ross’s, Nigel Porter, retained his seat as a libdem and will now sit with Ross Grant on the opposition side.
I had said this was the worst tory campaign I had seen, which was completely negative and smacked of desperation. Having virtually been wiped off the political map in Leicester, Ross has been busy accepting congratulations on retaining his seat on twitter. I would’ve thought taking some responsibility for these losses would’ve been the honourable thing to do and maybe an apology to his friends & colleagues?!
I await the recriminations from his Party and his colleagues who lost their seats, going against the national trend where Conservatives have gained seats. One key tory activist told me that the by-election wasn’t even a token effort. This kind of lack of support is going to severely damage tory activists’ morale. They need to look at the fundamental reason for this annihilation, a divided Party!
I wonder how many people will be coming to this little get together around at Ross’s?
Dear Member of the Executive Council,
You are no doubt immensely busy with preparations for Thursday, but I would ask you to keep a couple of things in mind for immediately after the election.
There is a party to thank all candidates and helpers at Ross Grant’s house (address removed) at noon on 8th May.
I shall, of course, be writing to all our candidates and helpers immediately after the election to thank them for all they have done. I would be grateful if you could apprise me of individuals who have helped in the campaign whether they are party members or not. I shall need their name, address and email address.
Many thanks to you all for your magnificent efforts in this campaign and the best of luck to all our candidates on Thursday.
Yours faithfully,
Nicholas Bryars (Chairman, City of Leicester Conservative Association)
Labour
Recent Comments