New suggested policies…

I have just been chewing over a few issues and come up with these as near misses…

The ones that did not make it include :-

Rubbing noses of dog owners who don’t pick up their dogs “Newcastle” of the street!

Making bar owners clean the surrounding area of their premises by 7 am next morning to remove broken glass and human waste products from the surrounding area.

Taxi drivers who can’t get their license renewed due to delays by the Town Hall should be compensated by the Council for loss of eranings. Similarly if you need a license or a permit and the Coucil staff cause unessesary delay why should your project or business suffer!!!

LibDem Councillors should be excluded from pointing at street signs on camera, if a member of their party has been released a document containing future street works in the appropiate wards in the weeks preceeding to the works being carried out!

Just a few more to show I am thinking about 2010 that actually mean something!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If Penalty Charge Notice is issued to any council vehilce parked in contravention of Parking Regulations which is issued during the use of a Council Officer or Member, the Officer or Member have to pay the PCN not the driver.

Any shop that sells chewing gum; which costs the Council many thousands of pounds to remove; are charged £10,000 per till in their shop to sell chewing gum within the Borough.

Any beauty spot such as Arrowe Country Park or West Kirby prom, which attract many hundreds of visitors on a weekend or a Bank Holiday has its public bins emptied every day; before the refuse overflows not leave it a week till the general collection.

Areas of Green Belt Land; such as Arrowe Country Park; are fought tooth and nail to protect and for those individuals lodgeing appeals against Council decisions they should face the full cost of the Council cost at appeal!

McDonalds™ and every national fast food firm should spend twice as much in every Council in the country cleaning up each Borough as it does nationally in funding to take people like Stephen Hesford MP away on jollies to places such as the FIFA World Cup!

Five to go on with…. many more to follow roll on 2010!!!

PS… anyone heard who is standing as PPC in Wirral We… sorry I meant standing in North West England for the European elections obviously!

Thank you so much….

The people of Pensby and Thingwall ( incorporating Irby, Barnston Heswall and Upton) are fantastic…

In five months we have managed to cut into a quarter the predicted majority of the LibDems in the ward and I look forward to putting my hat into the ring against Cllr Redfern in 20010!

Meanwhile we have a lot to campaign against and with three Lib Dems in the ward I know I am going to be busier than ever!

For a party to win three electoral  victories in a single ward over three successive years is immense .. fair play to them but it means the wool, is firmly pulled over the electorate’s eyes!

The LibDems left it to Labour to say I did not live in the ward… because one of them lives in Hoylake, one in Greasby and one out of the Wirral West Constituency; while I am slatted for living in Hoylake - just because I a registered to vote at my parents home whilst I am having my home renovated!

Anyway last Thursday is past.. let us campaign on the future!

No to the Supermarket on Pensby Road! - “Not needed, not wanted and  not here!

Yes to an improved health centre… but not on The Thingwall Corner site… Use the Pensby Park School site at Fishers Lane.

This site is central to the catchment area of the West Wirral Group Practise and local residents favour the development of a medical centre rather than housing!

Yes to improved fixtures and fittings and roads, paths and pavements in the area!

Just demand Sarah Quinn to ask her puppet master (sorry mother) for funds!

This is going to be a great two years for me campaigning…. sadly for Pensby residents I guess you have the short straw again till 2010 as far as representation!

Arrowe Country Park

 

Continuing my campaign for Council, this morning I was happy to attend a meeting with The Friends of Arrowe Country Park at Arrowe Park Hospital to discuss the ongoing management pros for the trees on the site.

Representatives of both the Trust and their contractors were on site and explained at length the reasons for a number of tree fellings in the week before Christmas which came as a shock to members of the group.

After returning to the Park proper, by the path at the side of the Boiler House, I was disgusted by the amount of litter surrounding the hospital grounds.  It seems obvious that smokers are congregating just outside  of the Trusts land and smoking and throwing away  polystyrene coffee cups into the plants.

I have today written to the Chief Executive of the Trust asking for a “No Butt Bin” and a litter bin to be placed at this location and arrange for them to be emptied on a regular occasion.

Whilst collection up some of the larger debris from this site I was a approached by a lady walking her dog in the park who mentioned that there was no “Dog Bin” at that side of the park and that she had to walk to the Greasby side of the park to deposit her dog’s deposits in to the bin at the car park.

Later in the walk around the park I stumbled into another deposit!

I plan to contact Wirral Council tomorrow to see if they will make sure there are  ”Dog Bins” at all pedestrian entrances to the park to encourage owners to clean up after their animals.

Vital answers received at Westminster

I have just discovered that my local MP is steadfastly working on the vital issues of the moment.

With his keen eye for details and with his hand on the pulse of the Wirral West constituency he has launched a selfless campaign with written questions from the backbenches asking difficult and probing question to Ministers of the Crown!

I have copied three of these questions and the Minister answers below, but you can check them out for yourself at Hansard’s here!

On 27th March 2008 we had:-

Vegetarianism: Research

Stephen Hesford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what research he has evaluated on the effect of vegetarianism on well-being. [195620]

Dawn Primarolo: The Food Standards Agency has not conducted any research on the link between vegetarianism and well-being.

On 20th March we got :-

Bus Services: Speed Limits

Stephen Hesford: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many drivers of public buses were fined for breaking the speed limit when driving a bus in each of the last five years; and if she will make a statement. [195626]

Jim Fitzpatrick: There are no statistics of the types of vehicle driven in speeding offences.

18th March we got :-

General Practitioners

Stephen Hesford: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the number of UK residents not registered with a GP; and whether a recent assessment has been made of the reasons. [194419]

Mr. Bradshaw: This data is not collected centrally by the Department.

Any one seeing a trend?

Wirral Council - “Not corrupt just incompetent!”

Last night I took a break from delivering in Pensby and Thingwall and went to see the scrutiny committee meet about last years phone mast cock up.

Also there were Esther McVey, Councillors Chris Blakely, Leah Fraser (amongst others) all of whom had expected to be called as Witness to the committee.

However do you think they were given a fair chance?

Where they allowed to give their five minuet statement and be questioned by members of the panel?

No!  

The LibDem / Labour unholy alliance running the Council ruled that due to efficiencies of the meeting they had removed Esther , Chris, Leah  as well as  Cllr Andrew Hodson, and the Borough Solicitor, Roy Jones! 

Why can’t there be a Standing Order refusing planning permission for all telephone mast as a matter of principal so that the 56 day cock up can never be a problem again and blight the lives of so many residents?

I unfortunately had to leave to attend another meeting so I am grateful for Chris Blakely for keeping us updated with his blog which can be found here.

The crazy world (or should that be only Europe?) of the Lib Dems in the words of their own Blogging supporter…

Former Liberal Democrat councilor Nich Starling blogs under the name of Norfolk Blogger. 

From what I can see he is not a bad bloke apart from the Lib Dem connection… oh and being a fan of Norwich City!

He  had some interesting things to say on the Europe loving Nick Clegg after he was on Newsnight with Paxman. The blog can be read here! 

The bit I liked was : “rather like a starving man refusing a sandwich because “I prefer wholemeal bread”, the Lib Dem stance is just plain daft.”

When “the canary” knows the Libs are in trouble the voters will seek an alternative!

Wirral Council Tax - higher bills for less services

The unholy Labour Liberal alliance encamped at Wallasey Town Hall have proposed a 3.5% increase in the Council Tax for Wirral households.

This is on top of £13.5 million cut in services being imposed on the Borough.Despite this the Labour and Liberal Councillors voted for an increase in their own Allowances bringing the total payable to our elected representatives to well over £800,000!

How can this be correct when there are over 100 staff of WBC facing redundancy?

Check out the web site http://www.the77cuts.com/

Full details of the cuts can be seen at http://www.wirral.gov.uk/minute/public/cabfin080221rep1a_26479.pdf

For those who have never seen a Council report before a quick tip :- “efficiency savings” = cut in staffing or services

A McDiploma and a quarter of Jelly Babies please! And no I don’t want to go large!

My local MP Stephen Hesford has had a story published in one of the local newspapers deriding supermarkets for selling sweets and causing childhood obesity!

This from a man whom took hospitality from McDonalds for the World Cup in Germany! I think he is entitled to the first McDiploma in “Spin”! 

A shift in Political alliances across the pond?

Not inspired by the tribalism of Anglo US politics I have not really bothered with the US democratic process since hearing that Jesse The Body Ventura was the winner of the Minnesota Gubernatorial race back in 1998!Democracy in the many real ways does not exist in America. One voter, one vote is the principal of democratic elections - save for the Electoral College system in the USA. This is a flawed system;  just ask President Gore!Will EU and UN representatives be allowed to monitor the elections of Florida and other suspect States, as they have throughout states in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia?

Will the equivalent of the Returning Officer for each state actually be allowed to call the vote bases on the votes cast or will somebody’s second cousin in a TV studio buck the trend and give it to the Republican?

Given that the Clintons have had a long relationship with New Labour, and that GW Bush did not even know that Blair was a Socialist pretty much all Thatcher-Regan bonds have been severed between Westminster and The Beltway.

Who is there left that can offer the American people, never mind a disinterested Brit an alternative?  

As usual with him, Iain Dale nails an early trend here!

And just in case Iain gets close enough for a picture and an interview with the Candidate allow me to remind people of the photo below taken last Spring.

It is of a world class politician of the highest caliber…. oh and the future President of the United States of America?

 

The full story can be found at Esther Mcvey’s blog here.

Creative editing of EU ministers meeting press conference

Did you see Comrade Brown on the news yesterday evening at the Press Conference in Downing Street?

How cringing was it when the French journo had the temerity to ask his President a question in French which “our beloved leader” (acknowledgements to Lord Gnome) was left with the cameras on him.

I don’t think I have seen anyone looking worse since John Redwood was not signing “Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau” back in . All it need was a flat cap and a shout of “Mr Grimsdale!!!” and I swear it was Norman Wisdom up on stage.

Funnily enough this was not included in the 4 plus minutes of video released on the Downing Street web site last night.

One only hopes it will not appear on one of our European Partners web sites as that would make Brown look foolish and we can’t have that can we?