I’d like to read the local red nest manifesto, which they launched today. However, in a wonderful bit of poor planning, their old website, www.swindonlabour.co.uk, had been taken offline, whilst their new website, www.swindon-labour.co.uk was, until ½ hour ago password protected. Even though the website is now accessible, the manifesto isn’t obvious as such. Even the ‘featured story’ about its launch doesn’t provide a link. It’s sort of there, as a series of stories, but not as a single document, and not clearly labelled as their manifesto. Seeing as the manifesto was completed by 18th February — going by the dates on the website — they’re not very quick out of the starting blocks. I’d also subscribe to the newsfeed from their website, but the most obvious link provided doesn’t work either.
If you want to see the Swindon Labourmanifesto in the form it will be distributed, for the moment the only place to do so is on TalkSwindon.
If I were Mr Tomlinson or Mr Buckland I’d be worried. Not because of how their party’s lead has diminished in recent national opinion polls. Nor because of particular campaigning successes of their opponents, Mr Agarwal and the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, respectively. No, what would worry me would be the antics of the leadership of Swindon Borough Council. Mr Bluh through his arrogance and extravagant splurging of local taxpayers’ money on vanity projects, is giving the opponents of his party’s candidates in the national elections an easy target.
The leaflet dropped through my letterbox today by Mr Wright in the company of Mr Montaut is devious in its attempt to confuse national politics with local politics. Thus it compares recent expenditure by the blue nest controlled council with alleged ‘investment’ by national government — bragging about money spent by Mr Brown’s government without mentioning the record-breaking debt they’ve run-up is like praising a bullion robber for their money laundering skills. But all that is a side issue in comparison with the simple messages of Mr Bluh’s vanity projects — wifi, tabernacle stones, the Radio 1 Big Weekend — and a simple claim.
David Cameron has already said he would run the country like a Tory council – don’t give him the chance.
I can’t find the source of that claim. And if Mr Cameron were to run the country like most Conservative councils, I wouldn’t mind. But Swindon Borough Council isn’t like other Conservative councils — it’s one with a legacy of Mr Bluh’s failed vanity projects.
In a time of economic hardship, where council employees are experiencing real-terms pay cuts and day centres for the elderly are being shut down, Swindon can ill afford to pay for luxuries like a lobbying contract in London, when there are perfectly acceptable, cheaper alternatives to getting central Government funding – like using Swindon’s two MPs.
Now, leaving aside the distinct failure of said two MPs to do anything of use for Swindon in Westminster — Ms Snelgrove isn’t known as the government’s representative in South Swindon for nothing — and that it may well turn out to be money well spent, the council’s finances are in a dire state and every penny spent should be thoroughly justified.
Alas, it seems that Mr Bluh doesn’t believe in justifying how he spends our money.
This attack is the last gasp from two failed Members of Parliament who have not delivered for local people. Their comments are designed purely for the forthcoming election and have nothing to do with the future of the borough.
I’m sure Messrs Montaut and Wills made their comments with the elections in mind. That doesn’t mean they’re not legitimate concerns. And more importantly, concerns that the electorate of Swindon might wish to have answered.
With the council short of money, yet having spent almost £½M on the Radio 1 Big Weekend and almost another £½M on wifi, Mr Bluh needs to try far harder and actually justify the money his council administration takes from us, rather than just responding with arrogance and contempt.
If he doesn’t, the electorate may decide that Mr Bluh too will have nothing to do with the future of the borough.
It’s rare that I find myself in agreement, — even just partial agreement — with my local red nest councillors. But with the first election leaflet of the year to drop through my letterbox, they seem to have picked a topic which I suspect many in Central ward will see more than just a hint of truth amongst the political exaggeration.
First, they comment on residents’ parking permits. This is almost unadulterated political spin.
Residents parking is their second biggest revenue stream after Council tax. Every time they put up parking charges at car parks in town, drivers try to avoid the increased costs by parking in Central’s residential areas.
They’ve obviously forgotten that in the run-up to Christmas, charges for parking in town centre car parks were dropped.
If you think we are being unfair then question why the Tories closed the Northern Park and Ride, adding an estimated 250 week day cars looking for parking spaces in Central.
Perhaps because the economic disaster that the Labour government has presided over has reduced the number working in Central Swindon by far more than that.
The Tory Council have forgotten that this scheme is for you and your parking needs and not as their income generator.
Agreed, but the price of residents’ parking permits has nothing to do with visitor car parking charges.
So far, so much traditional party political drivel. But then they come to a topic where the current blue nest leadership are contentedly kicking own goals as fast as they can.
This Tory administration is more obsessed with itself and creating a legacy, than representing the people of the Borough… this Administration has an attitude of “it’s my way, or no way”…. They were planning to cut £50,000 from the Dial-a-Ride service at the same time they have shown misjudgment (sic) with priorities by the way they have gone about loaning £450,000 of Tax payers money to the Wi-Fi venture.
It seems the only legacy the local blue nest leadership have created is a massive stockpile of ammunition for their political opponents… and a bill for something many in Swindon will neither want nor need.
With nineteen boxes to choose from on the ballot paper — 89 candidates in total — I ought to have been spoilt for choice as I voted earlier today in the election for the European parliament. It wasn’t so. Perhaps I’m an electoral purist, but when I vote I do so on issues within the remit of the body I’m electing people to. So in local council elections, I vote on local issues not national ones: and in European elections I vote on issues that the European parliament can influence, not national ones.
In the run-up to the election I only received election communications from five parties. Despite supplementing that with the fairly comprehensive coverage of the candidates in the Adver, and searching the internet for the website of each candidate, if they had one, I could find little evidence of effort to propound their policies on matters that an MEP could vote on. The three mainstream parties all tried to make this a referendum on the performance of Mr Brown’s government — quite why the red nest chose to do that is puzzling but if they wish to commit electoral suicide, nobody’s going to stop them. Then there were the sixteen single issue, single policy and nutter parties plus one independent. Each either too extreme to contemplate or trying to make this a protest vote against our MPs’ troughing at our expense. I’m not happy with the behaviour of my MP, but that’s no reason for me to give my vote to some fringe party: where’s the evidence that they’d be more trustworthy?
If politicians wish — as they say they do — the British electorate to take European Parliament elections seriously, then they need to do so to, campaigning on issues that the European parliament can influence.
Thus it was that as I contemplated a ballot paper so large as to make it impossible to vote in total secrecy, with reluctance I picked up the stubby thick black pencil and used it to indicate ‘none of the above’.
With the counting in the election now over, there’s hardly any change. The red nest regain a total grip on Central, taking the seat vacated by Ms Darker who has successfully run away to St Philips ward, but the blue nest have gained one of the two seats in Parks. I also see that the council leader Mr Bluh came second in Dorcan, where two seats were on offer, so he’ll be back up for election in two years’ time. ’Tis hardly a ringing endorsement of his performance, as a self-styled leader with vision, to be beaten by a novice.
Well, there ends one of the most lacklustre local election campaigns that I can remember. The blue and red nests have seemingly put all their canvassing efforts put into Parks ward, with the voters in the rest of the town almost been taken for granted.
With it being a couple of years since I last voted at a polling station there were a couple of things that struck me as I cast my vote this morning: the first polling station official didn’t ask me to confirm my name and address when I handed over my poll card; another didn’t bother to stamp the ballot paper with an official mark, just tore it from a pad and handed it over (perhaps they were pre-marked); yet another official sat reading a newspaper and didn’t even bother to look up to see what it was that I was putting into the ballot box. It’s little checks such as these that stop this week’s shaggydog story being nothing more than a tale of naïve stupidity.
In their first — and possibly last — offering of this year’s election campaign, the leaflet stuffed hurriedly through my letterbox this evening is, like their manifesto, long on what the blue nest have done, but short — very short — on what they intend to do in the future. It tells of things done and things being done, but nothing of things yet to be done… from which I can only conclude that they are intending more of the same. (Guess they’re not called Conservative for nothing.) They also seem to be struggling to distinguish their positives from their negatives.
Since the Conservatives took control of the Council in June 2004, we have ended Labour’s unacceptable Council Tax hikes,… We believe in positive campaigning and are the only party that will set out a positive agenda.
Their three-year-old agenda may be positive, but in a deteriorating economic climate some of it, particularly town-centre redevelopment, is looking less than realistic.
With just three days to go to the local elections, it’s a bit late to be running stories about the use of social networking sites to encourage voting.
Facebook used to galvanise voters Social networking website Facebook is being used by a Wiltshire council to encourage people to vote.
Swindon Borough Council said the aim was to help make it easier for citizens to find information about the election and to exchange ideas with others.
Swindon Borough Council actually ‘said’ very little: the BBC has just copied the words from the council’s website. And if they’d bothered to check, they would have seen that they have hardly galvanised anyone: the Facebook group has just eleven members, three of whom are administrators.
There is a story here: it is one of poorly promoted experiments and inefficient use of council staff time.
In his latest election leaflet, Mr Ali seems to be having difficulty remembering what has been the work of his red nest colleagues.
The Tories have introduced a waste and re-cycling scheme that has failed to address the needs of Central’s multiple-occupancy homes. After over a year of campaigning for recognition of this problem your local labour councillors have an agreement that a specialist waste warden will visit the multiple-occupancy homes.
Whilst not disputing the failings of the waste collection scheme, I could have sworn their had been others more active on this issue.
Swindon needs a road system to match the Labour Governments town regeneration project.
Strange… as I recall, one of the main features of the town centre regeneration planning has been the unwillingness of the government to contribute to improving transport infrastructure.
The Tories solution is to narrow key roads and increase traffic volumes on Central’s residential streets.
Err… that’s the canal that is part of the regeneration plan is it? Who did you claim that project for? Being a bit selective in what you claim as your own perhaps? Lets not forget either that the impact of the canal on traffic is much more complex than Mr Ali and his colleagues would have us believe. Yes it would increase traffic at the Broadgreen end of Central ward, but traffic at the Kingshill end would be decreased. He also seems confused over schooling.
They have also failed to… provide sufficient local primary education, forcing parents and children to undertake unnecessary costly journeys.
I am proud of Labour’s huge investment in new schools.
Contradictions like this hardly give an impression of a reliable, trustworthy person.
It’s nice that Mr Ali alone among this year’s election candidates has made any attempt at communication in the run-up to the election. It’s unfortunate that so much of that communication is untrue.
