What happened at the City Centre Neighbourhood Forum Public Meeting

The City Centre Neighbourhood Forum Public Meeting was on Monday 23rd at the Council House. It was quite well attended considering it was a cold night in late October - a quick show of hands told us that the leafleting we did was the main reason people attended.

Chief Superintendent Debbie Harrod, who is in charge of city centre policing. Main points:

• 96.1% of city centre visitors feel safe.
• Priorities are violent crime, business crime and retail crime.
• The local police are currently moving to the neighbourhood policing model.
• The police have a long-standing policy of never responding to building or car alarms - if you want them to attend, you'll need to describe a crime.
• They have an 'architectural liaison officer' to ensure that new developments are built with security (e.g. CCTV) in mind.

I asked the Chief Superintendent whether she was confident the police know where everyone lives, which is obviously important if we need to evacuate again. She replied that she was not confident and that you should contact the police on their non-emergency number 0845 113 5000 if you wish to make sure. I do wonder whether there should be a more proactive approach from the police on this one...

Lots of interesting questions from people, although probably too many on specific incidents, which of course the Chief Superintendent found it hard to comment on.

Phil Brook, recycling officer for Birmingham City Council. Main points:

• Each Birmingham household produces an average of 3/4 ton of domestic waste each year!
• Birmingham's recycling performance is 'about average' when compared with other large metropolitan areas.
• Last year's 18% target was almost hit.
• Next year's 20% target should be hit.
• This is against a background of waste production increasing by 2-3% per year.
• Some of Birmingham's paper-based waste goes to a local cardboard mill - this is more tolerant of paper types than paper mills.
• At present, only 1/4 of households receive a recycling collection.

Some interesting questions and answers again - possibly too much technical information though. Phil asked all of us to contact his office to arrange recycling collections for our buildings (currently almost no-one has one). Phil can be contacted on 303 1935. I suggested that someone in the Council should sit down with the Yellow Pages and phone all the management companies - there can't be that many!

Bob Blackaby spoke last (and briefly) on a new survey for city centre residents. I remember doing one about five years ago when I moved in from Selly Oak. He will be surveying about 12,000 properties and was looking for suggestions for survey questions. I made the point that the main three issues people talk to me about are (a) noise (b) planning (c) car parking and these should be reflected in the survey.

That's all for now...

A little bit introspective but...

news.com has some really good pictures of the worst (chiefly US) political websites.

When I started blogging, I promised myself that I wouldn't be like many other political bloggers out there, and try to appeal to non-bloggers. So I'll make this my yearly introspective entry then...

Clare Short finally does the inevitable...

According to Guido Fawkes, Clare Short has resigned the Labour whip. More details when I get them...

Update 24/10/2006: I've left the dust to settle before posting again. The BBC News website has a good article detailing what's happened. As you might expect, she's given the New Labour government both barrels, talking about an '...arrogant, error-prone government...' and '...the prime minister engaged in a series of half-truths and deceits to get us to war in Iraq.'

Strong stuff, but she did stand on a Labour platform barely eighteen months ago when she was reelected. When interviewed on Radio 4's PM programme a few days ago, she refused to be drawn on whether she should be standing down as an MP to give the electorate an opportunity to decide if they're happy with this fundamental (and it is fundamental) shift in her status. It seemed obvious to me that she thought that instigating a by-election would be the right thing to do, which is why she stuck to the 'we'll have to agree to disagree' line.

Harborne - a hotbed of political activity

Harborne is a suburb in South Birmingham, in Edgbaston Constituency. I was there this morning at the Farmers' Market to promote the Conservative's Action Day on the NHS, along with Deirdre Alden, Parliamentary Spokeswoman for Edgbaston. We were there last month too, but it looks like Labour's trying to rip us off, because they also turned up today. They sloped off before the market finished, but what can you do..?

See you there next month..!

Siôn of the Red

Birmingham Labour MP Siôn Simon's pointless video 'parodying' David Cameron has been removed from YouTube. I'm a fan of political satire, but Siôn forgot the golden rule: it has to be funny in the first place...

City Centre Neighbourhood Forum

The Birmingham City Centre Neighbourhood Forum is holding a public meeting this month. The Forum exists to represent the interests of City Centre residents and is supported by the Council. This meeting will hear from:

• Chief Superintendent Debbie Harrod, discussing the new licensing laws
• Bob Blackaby, talking about how City Centre living has changed over the last 5-10 years
• Phil Brook, a Council recycling officer, explaining recycling options for City Centre residents

• Location: Council House, Victoria Square
• Date: Monday 23rd October 2006
• Time: 7pm

The meetings are always well attended and informative. I hope to see you there!

At conference... part 2

Just a couple of conference highlights:

Fringe meeting by 'big swinger' Grant Shapps MP about how to win elections. Personally, I think it's the kind of thing that every delegate should attend. Great advice.

Tory Reform Group fringe meeting on foreign policy, attended by (among others) Sir Christopher Meyer. I've blogged about this already, but what a great speaker.

Meeting up with some old and new friends, for example my old university chum Jo Shinn, now political reporter for the BBC Asian Network. She's done brilliantly since those days at York. You go girl!

David Cameron's speech. A true performer, and a real sense that the Conservatives are back in business.

At conference...

...finally. After arriving on Sunday, I was only issued with my Conference pass this morning. Didn't seem to matter that I'd delivered the form personally to our regional office in Coleshill in August - they had no record that I'd ever applied. After numerous taxi rides to get new photos taken, tracking down someone with a cheque book (credit cards are apparently too new fangled to be accepted), I then had to wait for the inevitable 'police checks' to be done. I'm sure the Treaty of Versailles was negotiated in a shorter time.

We need a full investigation into this fiasco, and not by some party mandarin - someone independent and credible.

On the plus side, I went to some great fringe events. It was a particular pleasure to listen to Sir Christopher Meyer, a former high-ranking British diplomat. Incredibly engaging and informative. Well done to the Tory Reform Group for organising it.

Why there is no hope under New Labour

I rarely blog about national political issues as there are others who do it far better than me, but today there's something I want to talk about.

Earlier this week, I was listening to the normally innocuous Radio 4 programme, Word of Mouth. It addresses issues of language, word usage and so on. Eighteen minutes into the programme, they started talking about something that almost made me crash my car. Visit the Word of Mouth website and click 'Listen to the latest edition.' I promise it's worth it.

The presenter Michael Rosen had two guests: former management consultant David Craig, author of Plundering the Public Sector, and Tony Thorne, author of Shoot The Puppy.

They quote Blair in a speech on the public sector, '...whether it's the transformation in primary schools... all of them have actually been through change and reform, and that's why it has to be continued and extended.'

David Craig speaks from his experiences as a management consultant, '...we wanted to sell bigger projects, lots of consultants, and big IT systems. And we came up with this idea of organisational transformation. We published a book called Transforming the Organisation... When our book came out, the Economist reviewer said that any client stupid enough to buy this concept of transformation would find that he was employing an army of consultants for a century... But the thing really took off under New Labour, who adopted the tranformation concept hook, line and sinker... Guys, we didn't mean it seriously, nobody actually needs to buy transformation, it was only a trick, only a way of selling lots and lots of consulting with lots of IT systems behind it.'

Here's another Blair quote: 'But recently we have moved increasingly from a centrally driven approach - necessary to address the worst of the problems we inherited - to try to make change self-sustaining by the use of incentives, user choice and contestability of service.'

Of course, this sentence is meaningless jargon. According to Craig, it really means '...we're going to privatise anything that moves...' Blair can't use the word 'privatisation' because everyone knows what it means. Similarly, 'constestability' equals competition; it's been deliberately smuggled in amongst a load of other buzzwords to get the message across without anyone noticing.

Craig explains that Government policy is formed and implemented by the Downing Street Strategy Unit, run by a McKinsey & Company consultant, and the Downing Street Delivery Unit, run by an Accenture consultant. Craig continues, 'Under New Labour, most of our policies are made and implemented by management consultants, which is why we see politicians speaking like management consultants.'

Gordon Brown doesn't miss out, '...the means by which we can personalise services for the patient, pupil or citizen and enable professionals, like you here today, to pioneer innovative approaches to delivering these services and drive up standards all round.'

Craig again, 'Many people assume that this person Gordon Brown is the dour, down-to-earth Scotsman... not at all like Tony Blair... but actually what we're seeing here is the worst case of being struck by jargon than Tony Blair ever had... it's completely out of control.'

(David Cameron got a bit of a ticking-off for using the phrase 'to leverage', but it's hardly in the same league.)

Massive hat tip to Michael Rosen, David Craig, Tony Thorne and all the BBC Word of Mouth team for helping to expose a serious political issue at least as well as their colleagues at BBC News.

Goodbye Clare

If the reports are true, Ladywood's MP Clare Short will be standing down at the next election. But who wants a lame duck? Maybe she should do what her leader should be doing: going now. You can read my further thoughts on this (and the thoughts of others) by following the link...

Update 14/09/2006: Despite being known in the blogosphere since the start of the week, this information has finally made the national media. One of the more bizzarre reports I heard today is that Clare Short will be campaigning for a deliberate hung Parliament. Surely this can't be true... can it..?

Ladywood Ward Committee

The next Ladywood Ward Committee will take place on Monday 18th September, 7pm at Training Room 4, St Thomas Children's Centre, Bell Barn Road, Lee Bank, Birmingham (http://tinyurl.com/hlfhy).

As always, matters of great importance are discussed, including:

1. New Street Station. I'll like to see some meat on the bones of this one, rather than just hearing all the time about what a great shopping experience it will be.
2. City Centre Parking. Something I've kept a very keen eye on..!
3. Swimming Pool for Ladywood ward. I'll be interested to see the Labour councillors explaining why they closed down Ladywood's only public swimmming pool about 15 years ago, and they're only revisiting the issue now that we're in control...

See you there!

Get connected

West Midlands Police have implemented the Voice Connect Relay system, which is a way of keeping you in touch with ongoing events and issues in Birmingham city centre, for example security alerts. I susbscribed to the service a few weeks ago and it works - today, I received information via phone and email regarding the evacuation of New Street Station. (It turned out to be a false alarm.)

The service is free to all residents of Birmingham city centre. If you'd like to subscribe, you can download the form from http://tinyurl.com/lhnux.

My new leaflet

If you live in the City Centre or Jewellery Quarter, you should be receiving my new leaflet around about now. Localised leaflets for other parts of Ladywood ward will be hitting the streets soon too...

I look forward to seeing you at City Branch's next City Centre drinks event: Thursday 21st September at 7pm, Utopia The Bar, Church St (http://tinyurl.com/lrzj8).

Older people in Ladywood getting a better deal

As the country's population gets older, appropriate care for older people is becoming more and more of an issue. Should the NHS be taking the lead, or should local authorities be doing more to prevent this so-called bed blocking? What about care at home?

Research has shown that older people prefer to live independently as much as possible, for as long as possible. Not rocket science really, is it..?

On Friday, our Conservative-led Council announced that it was spending £44 million on new Special Care Centres for older people. These centres will be located in communities, and offer a range of services, including:

1. Long-term care for dementia patients
2. Short-term care for those in the process of returning from hospital to their own homes
3. Day services such as physiotherapy, stroke clinics and well-being classes

The first of these centres will be The Beeches, a 64-bed centre in Ladywood ward. Good news.

Blogtastic

Blogs are ten-a-penny these days (unless you're David Miliband), but I thought I'd take a moment to mention the blog of a very good friend of mine, Praguetory (http://www.praguetory.blogspot.com/).

PT's got a very interesting slant on a number of issues, and his articles always seem to attract comments from all over the place. Always good to see the perspective of someone living outside the UK too.

P.S. Not been very active these last couple of weeks because I've been on holiday, but if you live in the City Centre or Jewellery Quarter, you should be receiving my new leaflet anytime now...

Ladywood District Committee

Ladywood District covers Aston, Ladywood, Nechells and Soho wards, and its Committee (consisting of all twelve Councillors) is meeting at 6pm on Thursday 20th July at Commitee Room 1, Birmingham Council House. I'd be going but sadly I'm on holiday, but all are welcome!

It's all about the balloons

Spent a very tiring but enjoyable day yesterday at the Harborne Carnival. Some of us from City Branch were running a stall, promoting the Party, City Branch and your local Conservative elected representatives and candidates. We must have given away about a thousand balloons and leaflets. Cllr Deirdre Alden (Parliamentary Spokesman for Edgbaston), Cllr Mike Whitby (Leader of the Council), Cllr Fergus Robinson, Cllr John Alden, and Malcolm Harbour MEP all attended the Carnival and helped out at the stall. Sadly, little was to be seen of any of the other parties...

Got a bit of a tan out of it too!

Ladywood Ward Committee

The next meeting of the Ladywood Ward Committee will take place at 7pm on Monday 3rd July at Ladywood Community and Health Centre, St Vincent Street West (http://tinyurl.com/repaz).

Amongst the topics for discussion is the Ladywood Neighbourhood Renewal Fund - this is serious money so it's in all our interests to make sure it's well spent.

There's a slight chance I won't be able to make it, but hope to see you there!

England v Sweden @ Electric Cinema

Last night's Conservative City Branch event at the Electric Cinema (www.theelectric.co.uk) went well - for City Branch, anyway. Good turnout, great seating, superb service. Shame about the result - still, we've qualified top of our group and let's see how we do in the next round.

Again, we had some new faces come along so the momentum's still growing..!

What a B'Stard!

Last night, City Branch went to see The Blair B'Stard Project New Statesman Tour with Rik Mayall at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham city centre. Very funny! Rik Mayall made the show - can't imagine anyone else playing B'Stard though.

The stage production has B'Stard defecting to New Labour, but otherwise his character is as amoral, devious, dishonest and cruel as ever. Some Bottomesque slapstick added to the humour.

It was good to see some new faces too. See you all at the monthly drinks event on Thursday 15th at Utopia The Bar, Church Street, Birmingham city centre (http://tinyurl.com/ze88h) at 7pm after the match...