London Heralds the New Year 2011

You might expect that London would be among the top capital cities in the world to put on a show to welcome in the New Year.  However, in recent years for many people the show that London has put on has actually been rather a disappointment.

However, this year was different.  I wasn’t there in person myself but I’ve heard several first-hand accounts of the spectacular nature of the firework display.  Watching it on the BBC’s video is also absolutely amazing and so I thought that I’d share it and encourage everyone to watch and enjoy.

It’s a ten minute watch but definitely worth every minute!

London did us proud this year and I’ve not yet seen another city in the world that came as close to such a spectacular celebratory display to welcome in the Year of 2011.

The Politics Show – 14.3.10

On the 14th of March 2010 I took part in the North West part of The Politics Show.  This was the first time I’d been on the programme and, appearing alongside me were my main political opponents in Salford and Eccles - Hazel Blears and Norman Owen.

It’s recently appeared on YouTube (and I hasten to add it’s NOT my video nor my description of the video) so I thought I’d share it with you.  It’s an interesting watch in many ways but I’ll leave the conclusions up to you…

My reaction on election night to the results

Below is a link to a reaction I gave at 5.15am following the announcement of results on election night.  Comments from some of the other candidates are on there as well.

My reaction to the results at 5.15am following the count

Salford & Eccles Results

The results in the Salford and Eccles constituency were extremely heartening and I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me.  I’m pleased to say that, in just 5 months since selection to fight the seat, I managed to gain the FOURTH BIGGEST SWING to the Conservatives in the whole of the North West of England.  I increased our vote by a whopping 54%, with which I’m more than happy, and the full results were as follows:

Hazel Blears (Labour) – 16,655

Richard Carvath (Independent) – 384

David Henry (TUSC – Hazel Must Go) – 730

Steven Morris (English Democrats) – 621

Duran O’Dwyer (UKIP) – 1,084

Norman Owen (Liberal Democrats) – 10,930

Matthew Sephton (Conservatives) – 8,497

Tina Wingfield (BNP) – 2,632

Salford and Eccles 2010 General Election results announced

Shadow Business Secretary welcomed to Salford

Ken Clarke impressed by the developments made at MediaCityUK

I have this week welcomed Opposition Frontbencher and former Chancellor of the Exchequer, Ken Clarke to Salford. 

Mr Clarke was keen to see the regeneration projects across the city and was particularly impressed with the progress of the exciting MediaCityUK project at Salford Quays, a regeneration programme initially begun by a Conservative Government.  Ken Clarke accompanied me round the site, just weeks after I myself met with bosses from the Central Salford Urban Regeneration Company, which supports this project, being spearheaded by Peel Media.

Ken was told how MediaCityUK is the UK’s first purpose-built media city and how it is set to become an internationally significant hub for the media and creative industries.

It was Ken’s first visit to the Quays since he was a government Minister in the 1990s and he was fascinated with how things have progressed.  Mr Clarke remembers how it was a Conservative Government that initially kick-started the regeneration at Salford Quays and was pleased to hear how many jobs are being created for Salford and Greater Manchester people as a result of this regeneration. 

The opening of phase one of MediaCityUK next year, on 36 acres, will be a major event for the City of Salford and for Salford people.  To have 30% of the BBC, together with one of Europe’s biggest high definition studio facilities and a waterfront public space double the size of Trafalgar Square right here in Salford is worth shouting about.  I was proud to be able to showcase yet another beacon of hope for the future of Salford.

Yet MORE LABOUR CUTS to NHS services in Salford

Hope Hospital ward closures a disgrace

I have today expressed my horror at the leaked news that Salford Royal is to close a women’s ward as part of Labour cuts to NHS provision for the people of Salford.  The Eric Rawlings Ward currently deals with gynaecology, early pregnancy and breast cancer but staff at Hope say they were informed yesterday that it is to close in July.

This news follows numerous announcements of cuts at Hope, including the closure of the maternity and neo-natal wards and, more recently the announcement that 750 jobs are to go at the hospital over the next three years, both of which have sparked angry protests across the City of Salford.

If this news is true, it is an absolute disgrace and a damning indictment of the lack of priority being given to the NHS by this Labour Government.  It is only three weeks since Salford’s ex-Labour MP, Hazel Blears told local people that ‘the money that is going to be saved will be reinvested back into the NHS’.  I would like to know exactly how and where she thinks this money will be reinvested as it sounds to me like just another blow to the health provision for the people of Salford. 

Labour have trebled spending on the NHS since 1997, but the extra money has not been spent well, and this is just another example of the effects of this for Salford people.  Across the country, the number of managers has risen more than five times as fast as the number of nurses.  As a result of this poor planning and wasteful spending, cuts like these at Salford Royal are happening ever more frequently and it is the people of Salford who are suffering as a result.

Everyone across Salford can get involved to solve Britain’s problems

Key manifesto pledges to help improve Salford’s quality of life and economy

Big government, high taxes and politicians up in Whitehall won’t solve Britain’s problems, I said this week, as I welcomed David Cameron’s impressive blueprint for a Conservative Government. Its key message is that everyone across Salford and Eccles should get together and get involved to solve Westminster’s broken politics, fix Britain’s broken society and get Salford’s economy moving.

The Conservative plans include:
• Supporting new entrepreneurs, helping the unemployed back into work, and stopping Labour’s new jobs tax.
• Letting public sector workers set up co-operatives to improve the services they provide.
• Giving voters the right to sack MPs found guilty of serious wrong-doing.
• Allowing parents and local community groups to open up and run new schools to raise standards.
• Helping first-time buyers own their own home through a permanent reduction in stamp duty for homes up to £250,000, and giving social tenants across Salford an equity stake in their home for being good neighbours, to help them get a foot on the housing ladder.
• Empowering local residents to stop high council tax rises.
• Giving a locally elected representative responsibility for police budgets and strategies for Greater Manchester Police, so that people’s priorities for tackling crime come first.
• Letting local people save valued community services like local pubs, parks or post offices from closure, and help supporter groups buy into football clubs.
• Showing how Whitehall and Salford City Council spend your money, by publishing detailed figures on spending and contracts online for all to see.

I believe we won’t get Salford’s economy moving with Gordon Brown’s jobs tax – we need to help local firms create jobs. We won’t solve our social problems with more big government from Labour – we need to build a Big Society where families are strong and our communities are safe. And we’ll never change politics if we leave it all to Westminster politicians – we need to give people across Salford, Swinton and Eccles real power and control over their lives.

At this election, the people of Salford, Swinton and Eccles face a choice: five more years of Hazel Blears and Gordon Brown’s tired government making things worse, or Conservatives who will get the country moving.

Budget response: More stealth taxes on Salford people from Gordon Brown

My analysis of the Government’s tax and spending plans

I have today delivered my verdict on the Budget, which sets out the Labour Government’s plans for taxes and public spending. I am extremely concerned at the big tax rises concealed in the small print and the lack of a credible plan to deal with the massive level of public debt for the people of Salford.

• Income tax will increase by stealth for 30 million people, since both the basic and higher rate thresholds have been frozen. This will mean £96 a year more for a couple who both work. A single pensioner on an average income will be more than £110 worse off as a result of Labour’s tax grabs.
• National Insurance will be hiked for workers and for firms. This jobs tax will discourage businesses from hiring staff, cut people’s pay packets, and mean anyone earning £20,000 a year or more will be worse off.
• Duties on alcohol will rise by above inflation yet again. A new cider tax, in the form of a massive ten per cent rise in duties on all cider, will punish responsible drinkers.
• Council tax bills in Labour-controlled Salford will hit £1523 for band D from April – a rise of 73% since 1997. Across the country, council tax will rise by £1 billion.

• Inheritance tax will rise by stealth, due to the decision to freeze thresholds at £325,000 for four years. This will mean more and more Salford homes will be caught in the inheritance tax net. The burden of stamp duty is also rising.
• Salford people with a fixed telephone line will have to pay for a new yearly phone tax.
• Salford businesses will be punished by business rates rising by £1 billion for local businesses across the country; a business rates revaluation will mean soaring bills for many struggling Salford firms from this April.
• The Government’s total debt is forecast to hit £1,406,000,000,000, equivalent to every person in Salford owing £23,000 in debt. This will result in higher interest rates to pay for the higher state borrowing, meaning more expensive mortgages.

Our economy is still in trouble. Salford people worry about their jobs, families see their incomes squeezed and many small firms cannot get the support they need from the banks, even though the Government bailed those banks out. Most people across Salford feel worse off than they did five years ago. Gordon Brown is carrying on the same old policies of waste, stealth taxes and debt. We need change.

A Conservative Government will set about balancing the books, whilst protecting those on modest incomes. That is why we will re-link the state pension to earnings, protect things like the winter fuel allowance and free bus passes, protect the lowest paid in our public services, and protect tax credits for low and middle income Salford families.

Only the Conservatives offer the chance for change for the people of Salford and Eccles.  The choice at this election will be 5 more years of Gordon Brown’s tired government making things worse or David Cameron and the Conservatives with the energy, leadership and values to get the country moving.

Supporting a TRUE ZERO Council Tax Increase

Conservatives on Salford City Council Propose 0% Council Tax increase

(unlike Labour’s zero which results in higher bills!)

I recently highlighted my concern at the levels of Council Tax in the City of Salford.  I am therefore pleased to be able to announce that the Conservatives on Salford City Council have announced that their budget this year would result in NO INCREASES OF COUNCIL Tax whatever!  As well as this, it is comprehensively costed and this is how it would work, from the Salford Conservatives website:

“The first lesson which Labour and the other Opposition Parties need to learn is what zero means. When the council tax bill lands on the doormat there should be no increase from last year – Labour’s does not! It is higher.

To achieve a true zero council tax bill, extra savings of £774,000 had to be found. We found this extra saving which implemented would have resulted in a TOTAL Council Tax Freeze. Labour and the new Independent Group voted against this!

In total we found an extra £2.3m of savings. Including:

Chief Executives Directorate

Non-replacement of post of Director of Marketing and Communications £80K
Ice Rink & Proms in the Park – budget to break even £300K. [We would not touch Community Events]
Tourism & Corporate marketing £209k
Life in Salford – reduction of printing & delivering costs. Look for private advertising £25k making a total of £614k Savings.

Children’s Services

Additional Savings through the structural review and additional Income making a total of £175k savings

Community Health and Social Care

Neighbourhood Management to be streamlined.
Target efficiencies in Welfare Rights Budget.
Aim to make the Working Class Movement Library self funding. Total of £291k savings
Reduction of management fees to Salford Community Leisure – potential efficiency savings of £491k.

Customer and Support Services

A lot has been said about the losing of the Biscuits but it cost around £70K. on top of that we spend £40k on drinking fountains extra saving could be found.
Other savings across directorate of around 30k

Sustainable Regeneration

Urban Vision management fee further reduction £125k
Housing £70k

Cross cutting Issues

Think efficiency through acceleration of management structures, office accommodation, home working, ICT common functions, and collaboration with other councils for procurement and shared services – extra saving of £200k

Other measures

General housekeeping across all six directorates £60k
Strict management of consultancy fees across directorates £500K
Deletion of post of Executive Support Members £49k making a total of £609K
savings

What would we do with these savings?

Freeze council tax at its current rate Labour and the new Independent Party voted against this!

A 2% discount off the total Council Tax Bill for all tax payers of 65 or over starting this year. Unfortunately this was also voted down by Labour and the new Independent Party. Andy commented ‘We felt this section of our residents deserved extra assistance these are the people, who have in the past been hit hardest by council tax rises. They have seen their pensions raided by Labour, by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown and again under his Premiership their savings have dwindled. We intended to start reversing this trend by introducing this discount’

Increase by £150,000 the budget for snow clearance.

The big concern with all residents is the state of our roads. Labour intend to give some extra money to Urban Vision but in addition to this, we would give the eight community committees an extra £50,000 each to spend on highway maintenance. ‘Who knows better which roads in their area need repairing, Urban Vision or local residents? This is typical of Labour who do not trust the people’

This is a budget for all the people of Salford it protects essential front line services…it calls for valid and achievable reductions in non essential spending and provides a total freeze on the council tax bill.”

So the message is clear – for truth, transparency and a knowledge of the needs of hardworking Salford families and struggling pensioners, the Conservatives are the ones to trust.

Action needed to tackle abuse and violence in Salford’s schools

30 children expelled and 610 suspended in local schools

I have this week expressed concern as official Government figures have revealed that over 1,000 pupils every school day are being suspended or expelled from schools for physical assaults, verbal abuse and threatening behaviour on both pupils and teachers.

Across Salford, there were 30 expulsions for assaults and abuse and 610 suspensions – equivalent to 3 exclusions for each school day, in the last recorded year.

Since 1997, Labour Government rules have deliberately made it more difficult for schools to expel pupils. This undermines the authority of head teachers and means that bullies and disruptive children end up back at the same school as their victims. Labour Ministers have also hindered teachers on ‘human rights’ grounds from searching and confiscating items which might cause violence or disruption in schools.

Conservatives are pledging to give teachers new powers to tackle violence, to introduce home-school contracts to improve behaviour, and to reform the flawed exclusions process which undermines head teachers.

I myself work as a full-time school teacher and I know that, despite the hard work of our teachers, it is clear we have a serious problem with discipline in many of our schools.  Unless there is good discipline, pupils can’t learn and teachers can’t teach. The children who suffer most are the poorest and the country as a whole loses out when teachers’ authority is undermined.

A Conservative Government will raise standards in schools, giving teachers in Salford the power to restore discipline. We need to mend our broken society by encouraging responsibility and backing those who do the right thing.  The only alternative to a Labour Government is a Conservative one, and, for the sake of our children, I urge you to vote for change this year.