Category: Politics

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County Closes Homes

The County Council’s Cabinet have decided to close the County’s old peoples homes, despite huge protests from the ‘people’!
Typical arrogant behaviour from the Cabinet as usual. I suppose they had to climb down over the job evaluation so they have to push one thing through!
Their motto at the moment is ‘Changing People’s Lives’. I think they mean ‘Ruining Peoples Lives’!
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County Council Strikes Again

Well Staffs County Council are showing their true colours again as they now want to close all of their old people’s care homes in 2008.
I think they are determined to upset as many people as possible. I’m sure my County Councillor won’t get off his arse to do something to stop this. Interesting that it’s Newcastle Borough Councillors that have something to say and not the County ones. Mind you it wouldn’t suit my County Councillor’s self promotion to say anything. I’m sure this is supposed to be a Labour council……..
I’ll be glad to get rid of these fools at the next Council elections!
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Lazy Councillors

My County Councillor is a waste of space.  I e-mailed him before Christmas about the County's job evaluation process. It took him over SEVEN weeks to respond and then he didn't do it himself. He got the deputy HR director to do it instead.
The only time you hear of him is when he's in the local paper – useless, lazy sod. Last year he got over £25000 for representing me. The only person he's interested in is himself.
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Politicians

A few weeks ago, I e-mailed my County Councillor about the County's proposed pay restructuring. I won't loose out exactly, but my chances of promotion have diminished.
It's now over 4 weeks since I e-mailed and the ignorant sod hasn't replied. I know he's not ill or anything as I know he's been attending Council meetings. Had a similar problems with him a couple of years ago. It took a letter to the local paper to get him to wake up! 'Broken computer' was the excuse!
Now this is a man whose main career is politics. Last year he was given around £25000 (which includes around £2500 expenses) for the privilege of representing his ward. The only time you can see him is when he is promoting himself in the local paper! Useless! Trouble is we've got to put up with this fool until 2009 🙁
Typical of Labour in our area – they think they have the 'right' to be on the Councils!
Anyway I'll keep e-mailing – I wonder if he's heard about delivery receipts?
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Etruria 3

Got a reply from my MP the other day. Enclosed was a letter from Tom Harris, Minister responsible for rail.

The work to upgrade the track in the vicinity of the now closed Etruria station, including removal of the platform, is currently planned by Network Rail to commence in late 2007. This is part of the work to upgrade the West Coast Main Line in time for further improvements to be made to services, with effect from December 2008.

Far from neglecting the provision of train services at Stoke-on-Trent and indeed the wider catchment area, there have been substantial improvements. There are two trains an hour towards Birmingham, a further half hourly service to and from London and four services an hour to and from Manchester. The area now receives an excellent range of inter-city and inter-regional services, providing the scope, for example, to attract further inward investment.

The proposed West Midlands franchise will also contain the provision of a new hourly semi fast service between London and Crewe, via Stoke-on-Trent. This will provide new journey opportunities and further enhance the quality of public transport for the area.

A considerable amount of investigatory work was carried out by the then Strategic Rail Authority and Rail Passengers Committee along with the local authorities, in connection with the closure of Etruria station.

All relevant issues concerning its potential value were considered and given the objective of making best use of the railway, there was no case to retain this lightly used facility.

 What rubbish! So I've written back.

With regards to the letter you received from Mr. Harris, and forwarded to me, it still appears that the DfT have no real interest in, or appreciation of, our area.
The removal of the remains of Etruria station and the realignment of the track will make no real gains to the people of North Staffordshire.
Trains will still have to slow down before they reach Stoke and the extra acceleration gained when travelling North will be negligible.
The proposed new semi fast service between Crewe and London via North Staffordshire is an interesting and exciting one. However, as I understand it, the service would not start until at least 2009 (a long time to wait for a train!). It is proposed that it would stop at Alsager, Kidsgrove and Stoke but not Longport (Longport, is of course, the nearest and most accessible station to a lot of people in the Borough). This is particularly relevant to the service level at Longport which with its present level of dilapidation and lack of promotion, not to mention Travellers camps, is rapidly going the way of Etruria!
As I wrote in my previous letter, it is very difficult to travel Northbound without going to all the extra inconvenience of going to Stoke first.
I hope the Minister can be made aware of these irregularities and that he will be in a position to make public rail services in our area improve.

My MP does seem supportive, so I'll just have to wait and see…………|-)

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Politics

I've been thinking how it would be interesting to become a Councillor on our Borough Council.

The only problem is that I don't want to become involved in Party Politics. There seems to be too much squabbling going on and a lack of cooperation between the Councillors because they are in one party or another – Labour seem particularly bad at this at the moment! 

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Local Politicians

It's now nearly four months since the local council elections and things haven't settled down properly! In the elections for our Borough, quite a few Labour Councillors lost their seats and they lost control of the Council. It is now run by the Lib Dems and the Conservatives.
The trouble started on election night itself, when one prominent Councillor lost his seat. Apparently he did not offer his congratulations to his successor, but just stormed out in a major sulk. At a community forum meeting I recently attended a Borough Councillor who is also a County Councillor was trying to push all responsibility for local issues onto a newly elected Councillor because she is from a different party.

The problem with the Labour Party and its Councillors is that they think they have the divine right to rule in Newcastle. What they seem to forget is that it is the local residents and voters who give them their jobs and they are the ones who take them away when they don't like what their Councillors are doing.

It's time they stopped spitting out their dummies and grew up!

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Not Again

Today, potential attacks on aircraft have been, thankfully, averted. Seems like everything has been done properly and things have been done to ensure people's safety.

So I find it unbelievable that some people are on the news whinging that their flights have been cancelled and potentially their holidays cancelled. Which would these selfish whingers prefer? To be alive and not able to go on holiday, or allowed on a plane and blown up?

Some people just can't see the bigger picture! :@

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Winding Down…….

Well, virtually all the staff here at work are. Everyone is saying 'Only one more week to go'. If I hear that again, I'm going to scream! :-@ Only five more to go from my perspective! Some of these people don't know how lucky they are.

I went to one of our local primary schools yesterday as they wanted a bit of IT advice. What they want, and to some degree need, to do is buy a whole load of equipment. However, they don't have the money. So how are they supposed to provide up to date IT for their pupils if they don't have the cash? They can't even afford to employ a technician on a part time basis to keep everything running.

Just to change the subject totally, I've managed to get a car in our garage this week! That's the first time in 3 years!! Had another clearing out session and we've bought a plastic mini shed thingy for some of the junk. I think the garage was built for an original Mini though. Even with minimal stuff in the garage, it's still snug!

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Politicians

I've signed up to theyworkforyou.com so I can see what our local MP is saying in Parliament.

I've met our MP, Paul Farrelly, on a couple of occasions (he even took our Scouts round Parliament once) and he seems to be quite a pleasant chap. He seems to be interested in promoting our area and getting the best for us.
However, I've had an e-mail from theyworkforyou.com telling me he made this comment to Tony Blair –

I report with great sadness to the Prime Minister that, following the local elections and a bit of bed-hopping by the Liberal Democrats, Newcastle-under-Lyme is being temporarily led by the Conservatives. In the past 20-plus years Newcastle has been well served by Labour leaders—Mike Brereton, Eddie Boden and David Leech—and I wonder whether, in this novel situation, the Prime Minister can help me out. By which yardsticks would he judge this new, Tory/Liberal Democrat alliance in my area, however temporary it may be?

The point of that was what exactly? What a total waste of time saying that to the PM. Political points scoring I suppose.
Thing is, Labour controlling the Borough Council were a total waste of time. All they seemed interested in was saying how great they were and making a complete pigs ear of the Borough. I just hope the Conservative /  Lib Dem people are better!

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Great Day Out, But………………….

Yesterday we had a rather nice day out at the West Midlands Safari Park and the Severn Valley Railway. The safari park was great as we got there early to avoid the crowds. You can really get close to the animals, including lions, tigers, elephants and giraffes. We even had a horned cow put it's head through the window to say hello!
 
After the safari park we went to the railway. We only went to Bewdley, but it was a nice trip. It was interesting to see that the safari park was packed when we went past on the train! We were hauled by the 8F and the Stanier Mogul. All in all a jolly day, and we completely missed getting drowned in the showers 😉
 
Trouble is that yesterday's Bank Holiday, was traditionally Newcastle's carnival day. However, the political geniuses who ran our Borough Council cancelled it as they said it cost too much. This is after they spent nearly £1000 last year on Posh 'n' Becks impersonators! 
It was replaced by a Jazz and Blues festival. OK, not too bad, but all the gigs were in local pubs and not in town or at the Brampton. They still had charity stalls in town, but forgot to tell most of the charities that they could still have a stall. Well done local politicians! 
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Knives & Planes

Why have there been so many stabbings recently? I think there have been three school kids and a chap on a train at Oxenhome stabbed in the last couple of weeks. I suppose a lot of it is down to gang culture and that these fools think they need to carry knives as they are 'hard', 'kewl' or need them as they need 'protection' or that they need 'respect'. Well none of that is true, especially the respect bit. These fools think that carrying a knife or being hard makes them deserve respect from others. WRONG!!! Being a person who does work for the community without banging on about it, being a great leader or being a great engineer or scientist, as examples, are people who deserve respect, not some jumped up little thugs. Trouble is, they are far too stupid to realise this!
 
As I was in the garden this afternoon, the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight came overhead. The Hurricane, Lancaster and Spitfire made an enormous sound as they flew quite low overhead. I can't imaging what a squadron of fighters or a bomber formation would have looked and sounded like. Quite impressive and scary really. It's good to see them still flying as my Grandpa (Ken Wood) worked on Hurricanes and Lancasters during the War (he was a mechanic). The chap who designed the Spitfire , Reginald Mitchell, was also born round here!
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Election Results

Well, that was interesting. Our council has gone to one with no one in overall charge (Labour were in control before) and a couple of quite high profile and long standing Labour Councillors have lost their seats.
I'm not surprised that the Conservatives won in our area. The Lib Dems haven't been very high profile recently, which to be fair was in part down to the health of the Councillor who stood down. Labour were contemptuous of the electorate as they didn't even bother to do any canvassing until two days before the election! So well done to our new local Councillor, just don't go quiet until the next elections!

One thing that is interesting is that in Stoke, next door to us in Newcastle, the Council has also gone to no overall control, but there have been a lot of people voting for the BNP. Bad move Stoke! 

It now seems that the Government is in a major mess and everyone is blaming everyone and his dog for their own problems! 

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Local Elections – Labour Wake up at Last!

Today, two days before the local elections, we finally get some info from the Labour party. First for a year – ooooo there must be an election on. 
 
Apart from the fact that it's basically meaningless, it was printed at a professional printers on glossy paper. It's no wonder they are giving away peerages for money. The other parties do their leaflets on photocopiers.
 
Can't wait to see the results on Friday Cool