Richard Baum

Apologies for a couple of days with no bloggings. Or, if you prefer, apologies for returning when you may have thought I’d gone for good. I haven’t gone for good, although things might be a bit sporadic over the next few weeks as I get hitched and then disappear off on honeymoon.

My own wedding (coincidentally taking place at precisely the same time as my fiancee’s) is next Saturday, but tomorrow is a dummy run in the form of another wedding to which we’ve been invited. I did consider dressing in next weekend’s clothes to get a practice session in, but feel that may somewhat spoil the day for tomorrow’s real bride and groom.

In amongst preparing for the nuptials and doing my day job there has been casework and the like to occupy me as well. As your local councillor it’s my job to help if you’ve got any issues with council services. This week there’s been a mixed bag, with everything from problems with licensed premises, to vandalism and anti-social behaviour, to the perennial favourite - the missed bin. The missed bin concerned was in fact my own, and it wasn’t missed so much as wrecked by the bin wagon, which took not only its contents but also its lid when the thing was emptied on Monday! A spectacular success for the neighbourhood foxes, who were given free reign until it was replaced, but sadly no good for me. Thankfully it was speedily dealt with.

The same couldn’t be said for the residents of Belvedere Court, a couple of whom contacted me earlier in the week to say that their paper recycling bags hadn’t been collected and now presented a fire hazard. A touch over-dramatic in my view, since in order to be a fire hazard someone would need to set them alight, and if someone was setting things alight in the flats then they’d succeed whether there were bags of paper there or not. But still, a query is a query, so I made sure that the Council got onto it.

I was also amused by a couple of national things this week. Ed Miliband’s ridiculous claim to have been against the Iraq War in 2003 but to have forgotten to mention it at the time was disappointingly opportunistic, although this naked opportunism was sadly and wildly outdone by the Labour Party as a whole which has decided to campaign against AV in the referendum on changing the voting system which will happen (all being well) next May. Labour were actually the only party to campaign FOR it in the election, but now that the coalition (including the evil Lib Dems, now more evil than the Tories apparently) are proposing it, they are against. After 13 years away from opposition they appear to have forgotten that they aren’t meant to oppose everything, just the bits they don’t agree with.

But even electoral reform can’t distract me from weddings, and that’s what will keep me occupied for the time being. When I left work today my colleagues had tied balloons to the car with such uplifting slogans as “under the thumb” and “good lucj - you’ll need it” scrawled on them. With such sentiments in my mind do I leave for the weekend to return on Sunday night only five short days away from getting married. And, if those five days reflect anything that I have learned with dismay recently, they really will fly by.

Rick

The Lib Dem Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Chris Huhne today set out ambitious plans to tackle climate change and give the

UK the secure, low carbon energy it needs.

In his first Annual Energy Statement to the House of Commons, Chris Huhne laid out “a clear strategy for creating the 21st century energy system that this country urgently needs for an affordable, secure, low-carbon future.”

This included a series of measures to improve energy efficiency and boost renewables, protect vulnerable consumers, as well as pledging to push for ambitious action on climate change at home and abroad.

Commenting, Chris Huhne said:

“The coalition brings resolve and stability to energy and climate change policy.  Today’s Annual Energy Statement sets out 32 important actions, the beginnings of our efforts to introduce the transparency, certainty and long-termism needed by investors. 

“Our future energy system is too important to rely on crystal ball gazing.  The 2050 Calculator provides the most comprehensive, long term analysis ever undertaken by Government.  The decision to publish this material is a watershed in government’s honesty with the public about what’s needed in the long term.  It will guide the decisions we make during this Parliament about the energy system we want in 40 years’ time. 

“The challenge is ambitious but achievable.  We’re already on track to cut the

UK’s emissions by 34% by 2020, and will do more if we can win the case for greater ambition across the whole EU.  But our line of sight needs to extend much further, through to the middle of the century.

“The era of cheap, abundant energy is over, we must find smart ways of making the energy we use go further, and value it for the costly resource it is, not taking it for granted.  And even as we reduce overall demand for energy, we may need to meet a near doubling in demand for electricity, as we shift industry, transport and heating onto the grid.

“There are big choices and big trade offs in how we do this.  The six pathways described today are only illustrative, but they highlight the scale and urgency of the task.

“Choosing the high carbon alternative would be high risk.  It would lock in exposure to volatile oil prices, declining global reserves and rapidly increasing global energy demand.  We’d risk having a dead end economy lagging behind those with the foresight to grab a share of growth in green industries.”

Rick

Bury Ranger service are leading the second of their four cycle rides this Sunday, in what promises to be a great way to experience Bury’s countryside Join others on a leisurely circular cycle ride starting from St Mary’s Park.

The ride will be following National Cycle Route 6 along the Outwood trail and the Bury Bolton canal to Bury. Heading through Pilsworth, Unsworth, and Heaton

Park back to St Mary’s Park.

Covering approximately 20 miles the route is both off and on road, some of the off road sections are on rough surfaced tracks and the ride includes some short steep slopes but no big hills! There will be stopping points along the route including a lunch stop, so please bring pack lunch and plenty of liquids. Start time is10:30am this Sunday 1st August, and the approximate finishing time 3:00pm  

Please ensure your bike is in working order. Helmets are recommended.

For more information and to let us know your coming phone Ranger Ian Rogers on 0161 253 5522.

Rick 

This week, the Coalition Government announced that a Pupil Premium, funded from outside the schools budget, will be introduced next September. It will mean that from next year, schools taking disadvantaged children will get the additional money they need to provide them with the extra support they deserve, no matter where they are in the country. This could mean more individual tuition or catch-up classes, but it will be for the school to decide, we won’t be telling headteachers how to spend the money.

 

This is a real Liberal Democrat achievement. It was the centrepiece of our education policy during the election campaign, and it is now being implemented in Government. I remember campaigning on it myself in Bury North and being proud to do so. It’s happening now and will benefit children in Bury and right across the country.

 

While the Conservatives had a similar policy, it was the Liberal Democrats who pushed for it to be funded from outside the schools budget, and for it to feature specifically in the coalition agreement. And it’s no secret that it was one of the sticking points of the negotiations with Labour – they simply refused to agree to it.

It’s odd that Labour couldn’t support a policy designed to support the most vulnerable in our society and give them the chances that other children have.  

Liberal Democrats are committed to the Pupil Premium because we understand that education can be a key driver of social mobility. But it is shameful that we still have an education system which too often perpetuates inequality rather than tackles it. The poorest children are only half as likely to leave school with 5 good GCSEs than their better-off classmates. The Pupil Premium will help in tackling the decades-old failure to break the link between social background and performance at school, opening up opportunities for children regardless of where they are born. 

The Coalition Government is now consulting on the way in which the premium should be implemented. The consultation includes options for how deprivation should be calculated

– in relation to children on Free School Meals

– in relation to tax credits

– by using marketing classifications like MOSAIC or ACORN 

And it includes questions about other groups who might benefit, such as children in care or children of those serving in the armed forces, and raises the issue of how it could be extended to cover children in the early years. We are determined that it has the best possible impact and I urge you to get involved in the consultation and to give the Department for Education your views.

This week the Coalition Government’s Academies Bill will also become law. It won’t be a perfect law. It does things I don’t wholly agree with, and it’s coming into law quicker than I’d have liked. But it’s a welcome change from the overly centralised school system in place until now, and it gives a strategic role for Local Authorities that I welcome. It gives more flexibility for headteachers to run their schools as they and their communities think best.

By working within the Coalition, Liberal Democrat members of the House of Lords have been able to secure important protections for the most vulnerable, such as children with Special Educational Needs, that we could not have done from the Opposition benches. This is what coalition means - the Academies Bill is a flagship Conservative policy and the pupil premium is a flagship Liberal Democrat policy – and they are both part of the programme for Government.

Rick

I returned to my post-Hen do house last night to find only a small number of smashed things. It was with much relief that the number of windows, walls and ceilings was the same as it had been before the invasion of clucking women. Now all that remains is for the pair of us to get married a week on Saturday. I only hope the women of Bury can cope. They are certainly keeping remarkably calm at present, that’s for sure.

My own weekend, well away from the screeching hens, was very enjoyable. I went to the Farnborough air show and hopped on board an airbus A380 for the first time. Say what you like about a species which is slowly destroying its only home planet, but anyone capable of designing a machine the size of a town hall which can take flight gets a round of applause from me.

Surprisingly, the world of politics hasn’t stopped just because my wedding is looming. Today there’s chatterings about elected police commissioners, plans for which are about to be announced by the government. This is something that was in the Lib Dem manifesto, and Tom Brake, one of our MPs who is the Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Committee for Home Affairs and Justice, said:

“These proposals should lead to both more accountable and more effective policing.
 
“But elected police commissioners will need to be subject to tough checks and balances. 
“These proposals should not be seen as a green light for the election of Judge Dredd characters more interested in populism than effective co-operative policing.”

The worries that Mr Brake mentions mirror my own. I was never a huge fan of this particular bit of our manifesto. It’s a shame that in this protracted season of abandoning our pledges in the name of the coalition, we have doggedly stood by this one.

I think elected police chiefs are an unnecessary idea, and won’t actually improve accountability at all. Of course the police should be locally accountable to communities, but this already happens through Police Authorities which are made up of elected Councillors, magistrates and independent members. The Police Authorities set policing priorities and budgets, and make sure that complaints are properly responded to.

I share the view that there isn’t enough accountability yet, but I think the solution isn’t to have another elected person at the top, but to beef up the existing Police Authorities and make sure that the Police Service actually listen to what’s being said on the ground.

Here in Prestwich for instance, our attempts to align the wishes of the community (as articulated via their elected Councillors) to the priorities of the Police is very difficult. They have their’s and we have our’s. An elected police commissioner wouldn’t solve this problem. In fact, it would most likely make it worse, changing priorities for political reasons, failing to take into account the non-policing ramifications of policing decisions, and making Councillors less influential at the same time.

An elected commissioner would mean less direct influence for local people, not more. At present we have a clear line through local councils to the Police. Replacing that, or muddying the waters with a single elected police chief, is not the best solution. How can one person sat in an office at Greater Manchester Police HQ respond to Bury’s problems better than a Bury Councillor? We should work to strengthen the clear links between Councils and the Police instead.

Having said that, the thought of Judge Dredd presiding over GMP is quite amusing. Stick a yellow rosette on him and I’d probably think about voting for him…

Rick

I am being turfed out of house and home this weekend by a flock of hens. My marriage looms, and as has become traditional my bride-to-be needs to tie an “L” plate to herself and parade through the streets of town surrounded by shrieking female accomplices dressed in things pink and frilly.

Thankfully I am not involved, although the whole sorry spectacle does mean me having to leave town and take shelter in one of the many empty premises vacated for the weekend by the hens temporarily living at my house.

There are rumours that I have to endure a “stag” do at some point in the near future. The prospect of drinking myself into oblivion and waking up tied to a lamppost is not appealing. I hope that if I am indeed to be the victim of some kind of pre-wedding exercise in extraordinary rendition, it is less riotous than it might be.

I am spending this weekend in London, attending the Farnborough Air Show tomorrow. For an unapologetic geek like me, the idea of spending a day in the company of both an A380 and a Dreamliner is hugely exciting, not to mention all the military jets we’ll no doubt cut the funding for quite soon.

The wedding is now just two short weeks away. Everything is done. All that remains is to answer the millions of people asking me if everything is done. The answer is that yes, everything is done. Everything, that is, apart from me negotiating a substantial discount on the price now that I’ve found that the venue was recently used by Eamonn Holmes.

All this town-fleeing means that I won’t be around to deliver focuses or answer phone calls or emails from residents this weekend. Handing over the keys to my house to two dozen drunken girls also means that I may have to fling myself at the merciful feet of the Council’s Homelessness team come Monday.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend. I am travelling to London on one of those tilting trains that make me feel seasick. I will emerge into the Euston twilight feeling like I’ve just got off the car ferry.

Rick

Another day, another disappointing article about us tanking in the polls. Apparently now, if there was a General Election tomorrow, the Liberal Democrats would be reduced from having 59 MPs to having a single man with a long beard standing atop a mountain howling forlornly at the moon.

This isn’t good news, especially for those of us closer to the polling booth firing line than others. It’s fine to say that this is the third month of a five year project, and that we won’t have to go to the country until George Osborne starts shaving, but there are Council elections in May and this poor sap is one of many due to be on the ballot. 

Of course, local elections are fought on local issues, and the Lib Dems in Prestwich have a long and successful track record which I am confident will continue and which has so far led to people putting their trust in us. But of course come election day we’ll be in the middle of the Nuclear Cuts Impact Winter and other things might dominate people’s minds. Perhaps polling stations will be cut entirely and I’ll be saved.

Again, for me, our problem comes back to our presentation, which I think remains woeful and needs some radical bucking up. Policy-wise we should be holding steady and gaining. As I demonstrated the other day  we are coming good on more manifesto pledges than you might expect. We’re doing good. There should be a wave of positivitiy. But there isn’t.

It’s the message about what coalitioning is all about which we’re struggling with, and I think thats what’s causing the confusion and the upset. We haven’t done anywhere near enough to explain why we’re supporting the Conservatives and what it means for the country. We’re not doing it because “Nick Clegg is a Tory”, we’re doing it because they came first in the election and because it’s the only way for Lib Dem voters to see Lib Dem policies negating Tory ones.

Why aren’t we putting this message across loud and clear? The “Nick Clegg is a Tory” one is as ubiquitous as a World Cup vuvuzela (and equally annoying). How have the voices shouting about betrayal taken hold of people’s senses when the truth is nothing of the sort?

If the public aren’t grown up enough to understand that coalition means compromise, then I want to give up and go home. But I’m pretty sure that they are more than grown up enough. So for God’s sake let’s be honest about it and better at explaining it. We have to support Tory things we don’t like, but that’s the trade off. If we didn’t make that trade then the Tories would be doing it untempered, and that would be worse. Remember that Labour lot you booted out the other week? That’s the alternative.

If we did it right we could be the natural home not just for people like me who are genuinely enthused by the Lib Dem policy agenda (as was), but also for lots of people not on the rabid end of the Tory party, and any Labour sympathiser who remembers the shower who ran the country until May.

At the moment though it seems as if we’re the natural home for nobody.

We need to sell our message more right now. I understand that the party has changed the way it’s financed since it’s now in government and doesn’t get the money it did as an opposition party. And I know that, regardless of the truth or not of tales of members leaving and joining us and Labour since the election (I have no idea what the truth is there. The conflicting statistics flying around are like an episode of The X-Files) we are still the third largest party by a mile. But can somebody please employ somebody to put out the message that we are a separate entity to the Conservatives, and that whilst the government is one entity, the two parts of it are not?

When I get married in two weeks (at the same venue as Eamonn Holmes, I disappointingly discovered recently) I won’t entirely cease to exist as an individual human being. Yes a new partnership will have been created, but we remain two people. The same thing has happened in the government, but for some reason we aren’t spreading the message to people to help them understand that. We don’t have a separate identity from “the government”, and since the government’s face is almost entirely Conservative, we don’t have a separate identity to them. It’s like me being subsumed by the in-laws, which is something I am keen to avoid in a couple of weeks.

We don’t help ourselves sometimes. The “latest news” section of our own website is depressingly out of date at times, and updated nowhere near frequently enough. Surely we must be doing more positive in the government than we’re making public on a day to day basis? It’s fine releasing a list of our achievements every few months (as happened this week), but where’s the dripping tap of good news and Lib Dem policy being enacted that will keep our identity separate and keep people interested? People might start thinking that there isn’t such a stream of good news, and then will start asking what the point is…Tomorrow the two parties are meeting for a full session at Chequers (they can’t use mine, unfortunately, because it’s the Hen weekend). Apparently on the list of topics for discussion is how to raise the Lib Dem profile. I hope they make some progress, or else we’re in more trouble than even our poll ratings suggest.

Rick

Today marks the millionth hit on this website, so thanks a lot to everyone who has read and commented on it since it started back in 2007. Hopefully there’ll be plenty more to come, and I always welcome comments and emails on anything I write about or anything going on in the area.

Rick

In just 10 long and unforgiving weeks since the start of the Coalition Government, the Liberal Democrats have got a lot of their manifesto either enacted or well on the way to becoming a reality. Obviously in exchange for this, Lib Dems have had to support some things that the Conservatives (who, remember, more people voted for in the country than any other party) wanted which we probably would have done differently. But that’s how coalitions work and it’s certain that the government’s agenda would have been a lot more Tory and a lot less Lib Dem if we’d let them go it alone.

Going into the election the Liberal Democrats made clear that they had four key priorities: fairer taxes; a fair start for children with extra funding for disadvantaged pupils; a comprehensive clean up of our politics, including a fairer voting system; and a green, sustainable economy.

Thanks to Lib Dem involvement, the Government will deliver on each of these.

There are also a large number of other Lib Dem policies and pledges that will now begin to make a real, positive difference to people’s lives because of our role in the Coalition Government.

These include everything from rolling back the surveillance state and giving people back their civil liberties, to prison and NHS reforms, fairer pensions, the ending of child detention and the scrapping of the third runway at Heathrow.

Delivering on our promisesFairer taxes
The Liberal Democrats promised to make the tax system fairer by ensuring no one pays tax on the first £10,000 they earn and closing loopholes that allow the wealthy to pay a smaller proportion of their income in tax than people on low and middle incomes.

The Coalition Government has already taken a step towards achieving this by raising the income tax threshold by £1,000 in last month’s Budget, saving low and middle earners £200 a year, and reforming Capital Gains Tax. The income tax threshold will continue to be increased every year during this Parliament until hopefully the £10,000 limit is reached as promised.

The Liberal Democrats also promised to restore the earnings link to pensions, which the Government will now do.
We also promised wide scale banking reform, including a banking levy to make sure that banks pay for the financial support they received from the taxpayer. The levy, which will raise £2.5bn, was announced in the Budget.

A fair start for children
The Liberal Democrats promised to introduce a Pupil Premium to target extra money at disadvantaged children. The Coalition Agreement makes clear that this will now happen.

We also promised greater freedoms for teachers over the curriculum, which will also be brought in as a key part of the Coalition’s education reforms.

Fair politics
The Liberal Democrats promised a comprehensive clean up of the rotten political system. This is now a key part of the Coalition’s agenda for which Nick Clegg has responsibility.

The plans include:
- A referendum on the Alternative Vote to take place in May 2011
- The right to sack MPs guilty of serious misconduct
- Fixed term parliaments of five years
- Reform of party funding
- Moving towards an elected House of Lords, elected by proportional representation
- A statutory register of lobbyists
- A radical devolution of power and greater financial autonomy to local government and community groups

A green, sustainable economy
The Liberal Democrats promised a raft of policies to help the economy recover and make sure that we build a new green and sustainable economy fit for the 21st century.

A huge number of these policies will now become a reality, including:
- Tough action to tackle the deficit
- The creation of a green investment bank
- Reform of the banking system to make sure that banks lend to viable British businesses
- An independent commission on separating investment and retail banking
- Measures to improve energy efficiency in homes and businesses
- Support for low carbon energy production and an increase the target for energy from renewable sources
- Enabling the creation of a national high speed rail network
- The creation of a smart electricity grid and the roll-out of smart meters
- The establishment of an emissions performance standard that will prevent coal-fired power stations being built unless they are equipped with Carbon Capture and Storage Technology
- Replacing Air Passenger Duty with a per-plane duty
- The provision of a floor price for carbon, as well as working to persuade the EU to move towards full auctioning of ETS permits

Other Lib Dem policies that will now become a reality
The Liberal Democrats have long campaigned for the restoration of freedoms and civil liberties eroded under Labour and the rolling back of the surveillance state. A huge number of Lib Dem policies will now happen, including:
- The abolition of Identity Cards, the National Identity register, the next generation of biometric passports and the ContactPoint Database
- The repeal of unnecessary laws
- Further regulation of CCTV
- The outlawing of finger-printing of children at school without permission
- Extending the Freedom of Information Act
- Ending child detention for immigration purposes
- Removal of innocent people from the DNA database

There are also a host of other Lib Dem policies that will now happen under the Coalition Government. These include:
- Fair compensation for Equitable Life victims
- Flexible working and promotion of equal pay
- Reform of the NHS to strengthen the voices of patients and the role of doctors
- A commission on long-term reform of social care
- Cutting Quangos and government bureaucracy
- Implementing the recommendations of the Calman Commission on Scottish devolution
- A referendum on further powers for the Welsh Assembly

All in all, a heck of a lot more Lib Dem than we’d otherwise have got, and a lot less true blue Tory too.

Rick

Nick Clegg made his debut answering questions at Prime Minister’s Questions today, whilst David Cameron is at Disneyworld (or something). I thought he did pretty well, certainly better than I imagine I’d muster at the dispatch box. It was certainly an odd experience to see him there, and a happy one if tainted by the slightly sick feeling I get knowing that he’s only there leading the good sixth of a majority-Tory government.

Sadly, he didn’t distinguish himself when it came to answering the set-piece big questions from the Leader of the Opposition’s stand-in. Jack Straw was standing in for Harriet Harman, and asked about the loan to Forgemasters. Sadly Nick Clegg started talking about Iraq which, whilst interesting in context, is completely irrelevant. I don’t know the back story or the rationale for the Forgemasters decision, but I can hazard a guess that Jack Straw’s voting record on Iraq didn’t come into it. So why did Nick Clegg start talking about it? Sadly typical of everyone from every party I’ve ever seen answering questions there.

On a slightly more positive note, there is an interesting article in today’s Guardian about CRBs. Its author Mark Johnson, a charity-founder and former prisoner, highlights the injustices of the current CRB system and calls for a re-think on the concept of criminal records and calls for large employers to do more to employ rehabilitated ex-offenders. The comments under the article are also interesting, particularly the ones giving real life stories about the difficulties people have with CRB disclosures and the information given to would-be employers which is sometimes questionable at best.

I have been banging on about this issue for ages and have been in discussions recently with both the CRB and Lynne Featherstone MP, the Lib Dem Home Office Minister. Hopefully the law will soon change to make it fairer for those who suffer unduly under the current system.

Rick

Today’s Guardia