Budget 2008 - Downsizing Democracy

Earlier this month the Conservatives in charge at South Ribble published their budget.

Just days after congratulating themselves on a below inflation council tax, shock redundancies were announced -thought to be the first the council has had.

Ron Matthews who oversees the area committee system, Derek Frew head of information services and Jack Gregory, head of revenues and office support are all to lose their jobs.

There are also to be cuts to the number and format of the area committees -the public forums were local people can have their say on local issues.

In addition the funding of small grants to community groups and charities in the area is to be slashed by 50%. In the past such grants have gone to help scout, brownie and guide groups, playschemes, arts and sports groups, pensioners groups and village fetes.

Meanwhile the Mayor is being kitted out with new robes and new links added to the Mayoral chain at a cost of £750 for the robes and around £6500 for the links.

The Conservatives also took to the pages of the local media to bemoan the cost of free travel for pensioners and disabled people. They have suggested they may have a shortfall of £71,000 in funding the scheme.

This is all very different from the extravagant and uncosted pledges the Conservatives made at the local elections last year when they were desperate to regain power after many years in opposition.

They promised £35000 to RAWS to fund legal action which had little chance of being successful against the Farington Waste Plant yet now begrudge pensioners their free travel. They also implied a return to weekly waste collections in their election leaflets but have found it to be too expensive.

Councillor Matthew Tomlinson, leader of the Labour group at South Ribble criticised the budget as "unremarkable". He said that many who voted Conservative last May would be disappointed as many of the promises which were made have been broken.

He also described the cuts to funding for community groups and charities as "mean spirited" and reminded the Conservatives that they had inherited a council judged excellent by the Audit Commission -the achievement of the previous Labour and Liberal Democrat coalition.

After less than a year in control this does not seem excellent at all. As Councillor Tomlinson concluded his budget speech "is this it?!"

Conservative MP described as miserable so...

Despite appearances sometimes the House of Commons really is a lot of fun.

On Monday Shona McIsaac Labour MP for Cleethorpes, Immingham and Barton introduced a Bill to Parliament in an attempt to gain a new Bank Holiday in Autumn.

The UK has not had a new Bank Holiday added to the calendar since 1978.

Shona outlined to Parliament the history of public holidays:

"This country used to have far more public holidays, as there were local fairs and festivals. In fact, in the 1820s the Bank of England took 33 public holidays a year. But then came the 1830s and it was nose to the grindstone time. Public holidays were cut to just four a year.

We have made progress since, and we now have eight public holidays a year—in England anyway—with the last one being introduced in 1978, under a Labour Government of course. This Government have done well in introducing a minimum annual holiday entitlement, which I am sure everybody welcomes, but we have not done so well with public holidays.

We seem to have spent all our time debating Europe recently, so I thought I would look at European public holidays. It turns out that most European countries are far better than Britain in this regard: Italy gets 16 days, Iceland gets 15, and Spain and Portugal get 14 each. However, countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal also have all sorts of festivals, ferias and local saints’ days, so they are way ahead of us when it comes to having time away from work. It makes our measly eight days look even meaner."

Shona recognised that although many welcome an extra holiday there were some "misery-guts" who were against such a new Bank Holiday:

"The CBI is one such organisation: it claims that another public holiday would mean less productivity. However, I would hit back by asking whether, if it thinks that one extra day would have such a dramatic impact, it intends to campaign for the abolition of weekends."

Don't tempt them!

There was great hilarity when Conservative MP Christopher Chope got up to object to being called a miserable soul for being against the holiday and proceeded to describe the "victims of bank holidays" -people who are dependent on benefits and want to gain access to public services, those who found themselves caught up in the traffic and of course the national economy (to the tune of £2.5 billion apparently).

His concern in the first instance would be more believable if Conservatives had a record of being concerned about people on benefits or of those trying to access public services. On the contrary! At least not in that way.

Bizarrely, he argued that "bank holidays smack of collectivism and central control."

"They militate against individual freedom and flexibility. Most people, if they were given a choice between taking a holiday on a bank holiday set by the state or at a time of their own choosing, chosen in consultation with their family, would choose the latter."

This would have been a fair point if he was proposing to offer people that choice. But of course he was in favour of no extra holiday at all.

Let Shona know what you think.

Also there is a petition here for a National Remembrance Holiday falling on the second Monday in November each year to reinforce Remembrance Sunday which falls on the second Sunday in November. Such a holiday, the petitioner suggests, "will serve to emphasise our commemoration of The Fallen who gave their lives to save Britain and also the on-going importance of the survival of our Nation. The National Remembrance Holiday will further serve to break that period between late summer and Christmas when there is currently no public holiday." Closing date 18 April 2008.

Shaken but not stirred

This time last week people across the UK were picking up the peices after the country's biggest earthquake in 25 years.

The earthquake's epicentre was at Market Rasen in Lincolnshire and measured approximately 5.2 on the Richter scale -big in UK terms but moderate compared with others that occur around the globe every year.

Nevertheless, many people across Leyland, Lancashire and the rest of the UK were woken as their properties shook in the early hours of the morning on February 27th. While some were worried enough to call the emergency services others either did not stir at all or rolled over and went back to sleep.

There were also some ruffled feathers as a parrot who lives in Fulwood fell off his perch three times as a result of the tremors. Although the parrot's owner was unaware of the 'quake, he was awoken by the fluttering of his African Grey pet parrot Scrimshaw.