The 3P's: Politics, Photos & Football

Yet another track cycling gold!

2008-08-18T12:55:00.001Z

Wow! Is there any stopping our boys and girls on the cycling track? Of the 21 medals awarded so far, 9 have come our way. There is every prospect that of the 9 awarded tomorrow that we'll win another 4.

Luckily for everyone else, there are fewer olympic track cycling events than in the world championship. Given the BG team's form in the last world champs, we would have been walking off with even more golds…

It's unlikely that we'll get to see our olympic track cycling champions riding competively in Birmingham, but there is the outside chance that Birmingham will host the 2012 BMX world champs prior to the London Olympics. Go Readey!

No sympathy for Dave

2008-07-25T09:33:00.001Z

Bycle theft is going down. But its not being helped by careless cyclists who fail to take basic precautions like locking their bike to fixed/unmoveable objects.

So I've no sympathy for Davey Cameron who apparently "locked" his bike to a 60cm bollard. Idiot. And he wants to be Prime Minister?

If that’s his concept of security, then heaven help us!

Vote early, vote often, vote for your neighbours

2008-05-22T14:44:00.001Z

The telegraph brings details of research that tells us all that we already know about voting blocs in the Eurovision songcontest. But also that the UK is "clean", which also means that we're unlikely to ever win again. Quite frankly Terry Wogan could have written this.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/2007358/Eurovision-skewed-by-bloc-votes%2C-say-research.html

Go! team

2008-05-22T14:40:00.001Z

I've recently splurged on a few CDs from Amazon, and I'm currently listening to the excellent Go! Team. This purchase was inspired by seeing them for about 5mins of Glasto coverage last year. £5 worth spending just for the brilliant "Junior Kickstart" track.

The "big" debate one year on

2008-02-15T13:12:00.001Z

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the Evening Mail's "big debate" on an elected mayor for Birmingham.
Much has changed in a year. This year I was celebrating valentines day with my other half. But some things haven't changed.

Despite the Evening Mail throwing their mighty organ behind this campaign along with the Birmingham new labour party, there has been little sign of a mayoral revolution with the masses joining the campaign.

The aim has been to find 36k signatures calling for a referendum. But noises I'm hearing have suggested that only about 10k have signed. The higher figure represents 5% of the registered electorate, yet 10k signatures doesn't even break 1.5%.

There has been some complaints that the council is in some way breaking the rules in campaigning against the petition/referendum. The law is fairly clear in that the Council can't spend money campaigning for or against such thing. But the complaints have been about the Council not allowing the campaigners access to the electoral registers to check their mountain of petition forms against.

As has been made clear here before the law gives the campaign no right to these documents at all. They could go to their local library, or register themselves as a political party to gain access, but d'law is d'law.

Likewise they have been complaining that the Council wont check the signatures for them. Again, if they were to submit their bulging petition bags then that check would have to be carried out within a statutory timeframe. No ifs, no buts. But no sight of the petition has been seen. Could it be that someone is embarrased about its size, and that as soon as its submitted for public scrutiny we'll all know how small it is?

Of course there are a couple of weeks left until the petition has been going for a year. But those who signed it 12 months ago will soon find that their signatures have become void, so the petition will soon begin dwindling in size.

The killer for me is that at no time has anyone come up to me at a public meeting, or at our regular surgeries, or while talking with constituents on the doorstep to say: "you know what, Birmingham needs an elected mayor".

Sustrans wins peoples lottery vote

2007-12-12T16:42:00.000Z

I've just heard that the Sustrans: Connect2 bid to the big lottery fund won the public vote with a whopping 42% of the votes.
Thank you to everyone that voted in support of this bid.
Birmingham will receive funding from this project to provide a cycle route connection from the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal and Pype Hayes park right through to Good Hope hospital and Sutton Park via Plants Brook and Newhall Valley country park. North Birmingham has been behind in major route development because of the differences in geography between the north east of the city, and the rest of the city. Mainly due to the prescence of significant canal routes which form part of the National Route 5 that goes through the heart of the city, but also because the M6/A38(M) forms a very real physical divide.
The irony of our forefathers of the 19th century providing infrastructure that is the equivalent of cycling motorways, yet our motorways of the 20th century inhibit us so much.

Maniacal Road Sweepers

2007-12-10T14:56:00.000Z

Busy week or so due to a number of deadlines that have been around (including elks, sorry ELQs that I'll get around to writing about v.soon).
Anyway, Saturday night saw Vic and I making our way to the NIA to see the Manic Street Preachers. I've not seen them before, and I've not been to a gig in the NIA, so was intrigued by what the show would be like, and what the NIA was like as a venue.
My first impression was that the shape of the venue is v.odd, ie wide and narrow, rather than square or long and thin. It did mean that we could comfortably stand near the back and still feel close to the action.
The sound in the NIA was fairly ropey, I had earplugs in, but that seemed to help cut out the awful rumbling and high pitched noise. It was really obvious during the acoustic part of the manics set, when the only sound should have been Bradfield's singing and the guitar. Oh no. There was lots of hiss and noise as well.
As to the performance: Bradfield was suffering from a cold or flu, so it was a surprise that he made it through the ~100 minutes of performance. He also had a few issues with some of the higher notes, but we helped out, some less tunelessly than others. He was deeply apologetic and also greatful for the reception.
Having not seen the band before, I was unaware that they had a great banter with the audience between songs with little in-jokes, and quirky introductions to songs. But better that than a monosyballic lead singer.
The other shock of the evening was discovering that 3 other Birmingham councillors were claiming to have a life as well (hello John, Penny and Zoe!). I thought the Manics might have been a bit too left wing for Labour cllrs.

Byrne backs Black Country bid, not Birmingham's

2007-12-05T09:43:00.000Z

Bit of a haven for headline writers this one.
Birmingham MP, possible mayoral candidate if we ever go down that route..., and minister for the WestMids has come out in favour of the the Black COuntry's bid for the People's lottery, over the Sustrans Connect2 bid that has a direct relevance to Birmingham.
I think that Sustrans have managed to do a great job with their campaign, and with the 3 opposing bids being very geographically distint (with 2 in the Midlands), Sustrans is at a distinct advantage, and is apparently the bookies favourite (although I can't see a betfair market).
Vote early, vote often (online, by txt and by phone).

christianophobia warning

2007-12-04T15:23:00.001Z

I've not heard anyone mention "winterval" yet. But it can't be far away, especially as Mark Pritchard MP is leading a debate in Westminster hall on Christianophobia. Just to remind readers, Birmingham's Winterval happened in 1997/98 and was a catch all 3 month long festival covering several major religious celebrations between Oct and Dec.
Pritchard goes a step further than normal by suggesting that extremists and fundamentalists will take over these religions if the "politically correct brigade" have their way.

Shock at Taxpayers Alliance figures

2007-12-04T14:23:00.000Z

The Taxpayers Alliance have today released shocking new evidence that Birmingham is indeed the largest local authority in the UK.
I really don't understand how the TA get away with releasing this sort of spend information without putting it in the context of the size of the authority (ie as a proportion of the total council expenditure - in the case of Birmingham getting on for £3bn, or as a spend per person so spread across the 1 million residents).
In other news: Pope found to be biggest catholic. Big wood found to have most bear shit in it.

Waking up to Evan

2007-11-26T12:29:00.000Z

Well, we were definitely woken by the Today programme this morning just after 7.30am. Vic seems to think that Evan Harris is always on when she listens to Today at mine. But I'm fairly certain that can't be the case.
I was deeply impressed by his forceful and entirely liberal arguments for free speech and even sharing a platform with individuals who hold certain distainful views. I'd much rather someone like Evan was on the same platform providing solid well spoken arguments as to why their views are absolute nonsense and hokum, than let them stand outside and not have anyone challenge their views at all.
Students' Unions across the country generally have no-platform policies. But this either builds in a level of bureacracy that hinders free speech, or allows ruling groups to define what they find unacceptable (eg in the 70s/80s when Tories were barred from speaking in SUs.)
I've recently been at the receiving end of this bureacracy as a debate had to be cancelled at short notice because the Labour and Tory student groups had failed to supply the necessary paperwork in time, whereas the LD student group had managed to fulfil the requirements.

Radcliffe rules himself out of England job

2007-11-23T10:39:00.000Z

Today, I have formally announced that I will not be seeking the England managers job with the FA.
Now is the wrong time in my football managerial career to be stepping up to international level from simple fantasy league football management.
I will of course lend my full support to whoever is the unlucky guy who does get the job.

fraud: a good and bad day

2007-11-21T17:25:00.000Z

Yesterday I had a strange day.
Firstly, I had a call from my credit card operator to query some transactions in the previous 24 hrs. It turned out that my card had been the victim of fraudulent behaviour, although it maybe that they managed to stop the transactions early enough.
In the afternoon, I was chairing the Council's audit committee. We touched on the issue of cracking down on fraud against the city council. In the last two days the work of the Audit Committee has received some positive press coverage, despite getting some of their facts slightly wrong.
So after a long day of work and meetings, the last thing I expected was for the government to go and lose 25m peoples personal details!
The whole sorry saga does lead to some interesting questions. A particular area of work that local councils' audit teams do is something called the national fraud initiative. For that to work, details from national databases needs to be linked to other national databases, and local data to match whether there are people possibly taking advantage of different parts of the welfare and support system. For that to happen you need to be able to transmit and share personal data between local councils and government departments. I'll certainly be asking the question of our auditors to make sure we aren't sending CDs in the internal mail.

teignmouth's golfing attractions

2007-11-19T11:03:00.000Z

After popping down to Devon to see Vic's mum, we managed to get a round in on the Teignmouth's excellent "adventure golf" course on the Den.
Not quite as busy as normal, well it is November, which also meant we weren't caught behind family groups with young kids not providing any coaching or guidance on at least hitting the ball safely, let alone towards the hole...
It was yet another close game, but this time neck and neck between Mrs M and myself going into the last hole. Unfortunately Vic had had a mare and was never in it.
That should be the last practice round before the big Boxing Day tourny. (Subject to the district council opening it, if not we'll be taking our own bat and balls, and jumping the fence).

Cycling on pavements

2007-11-16T16:56:00.000Z

1 pedestrian on the pavement killed in 8 years by a cyclist makes the news. But no mention of the 80 pedestrians on pavements killed by motorists per year.
Reminds me of the the Day Today sketch where Coogan as a pool security guard goes "In 1990 no one died. In 1991 no one died. In 1992 no one died. In 1993 no one died. In 1994 someone died. In 1995 no one died."

HIP HIP hurray?

2007-11-15T15:42:00.000Z

Well, we've had an interesting couple of months after making an offer on new house back in September. But over the last week we've had to pull the plug on the offer.
From a buyers perspective, the sooner HIPS are in place for all properties the better.
If we'd had sight of a survey, carried out at the expense of the current owner, then we would never had made a serious offer at the level we did. Indeed, I doubt the estate agent would even have tried to market property at the price they did!
As it is, someone else will eventually make an offer, and have to go through the same process of paying for a survey. There is only one beneficiary as far as I can see, and thats surveyers!
Fortunately its possible for our solicitor to sell on the results of property searches, but we can't sell the survey results to any potential buyer...

wii-ze does it

2007-11-14T13:09:00.000Z

According to the BBC website, there is currently a shortage of Wii's on the highstreet. As a consumer who's been trying to buy one, that doesn't come as any sort of surprise. Any shop you walk into, in any town will normally give you some form of "if they come in, then its on Friday, but we don't know how many we'll get, if any". Of course you're asking this question on Saturday or Sunday, when the sign says "out of stock".
But today, my new Wii arrived. I ordered it on Sunday evening, got despatched from amazon.de on Monday morning, arriving by DHL this morning.
Good old fashioned German efficiency.
I strongly suspect that the supply shortage is simple a mechanism for Nintendo, and the retailers to maintain high prices. From amazon.de it was just 254 euros, or about £170. There are some amazon.co.uk resellers offering it for £289...

Birmingham Mayoral debate: 8 months in

2007-11-13T16:55:00.000Z

Today marks the 8th month of the Birmingham Evening Mail's "big debate" and petition on having an elected mayor for Birmingham. Fortunately, I'm here to mark the occasion of the passing of this date. Unfortunately, the Evening Mail seems to have lost count of when they started their campaign, and last week reported that it had only been going for 6 months. If they can't even count to 8 months, how are they going to count to 36,000 signatures accurately?
It would appear that very slow progress is being made towards the 36,000 signatures required. They have apparently verified 6000 signatures. So 1/6 of the way, in 2/3 of the time. Not that good I think!
The irony is that once they pass 13 March 2008, those most eager to see a referendum and first to sign up to the petition, will actually drop off the petition!
Fortunately for them, the Evening Mail editor is meeting up for a quick chat with the relevant minister to find out what "significant" means. The point being that the relevant legislation states that the petition has to be 5% or a significant number of petitioners.
I can only assume that he thinks that finding 36,000 residents of Birmingham to sign his petition is proving a little difficult. Maybe his readers, those who went to the derby match at the weekend, or local shoppers think its the important issue that he does. As a local council, we're going to continue concentrating on the issues that really matter to our residents: clean streets, a green environment and a safe city to live in. Why doesn't the editor stick to writing a newspaper. Maybe he'll have more readers?

Why Dave's Council Tax plan is plain stupid

2007-11-13T09:49:00.000Z

Another day, another flakey tory policy proposal.
Davey C's floated proposal that Council's should have a referendum if they propose Council Tax raises above a certain %age certainly does sound like its devolving power and decision making right down to the people.
But I think there are two faults with this:
1) The %age trigger rate set by Government will effectively be a cap in all but name. No Council would ever try putting a referendum on higher taxes. Just like the Government doesn't have a referendum on capital punishment.
2) There are quite a lot of voters who don't actually pay council tax, or full rate council tax, either through benefits, exclusions (students, care home residents, monks/nuns) or discounts. Or those who pay council tax, but aren't permanently resident (owners of empty properties, 2nd home owners).
Should these people be excluded from the democratic process?
So nice sounding policy Dave. But another one that when you give it a moments thought is actually quite ridiculous.

Why not come up with a simple policy of scrapping the unfair council tax?

The Batemens do London village

2007-11-12T14:26:00.000Z

Saturday was one of those days that ticked all my boxes.
An election count (well seeing someone press a button to show an electronic count), massive fireworks, and live music.
The election count was anti-climatic. Firstly I wasn't prepared for the particular result given the amount of work that had gone into the selection. Secondly, electronic counts are fairly boring for the observer... run the software... result...
We were lucky enough to be intime to pop down to see the Lord Mayor's fireworks on the south bank at 5pm. We managed to get a spot just past the festival hall, and almost on top of the launch barge. Which meant craning of necks as the huge mortars went off almost over head!
Finally we worked our way up to Islington to see a friends band play in the Old Kings Head on Holloway Rd. The band were on top form, and had a great new cover to wow the fans with: Eye of the Tiger.

I'm wearing my wifes knickers

2007-11-12T12:34:00.000Z

Having seen the Armstrong and Miller show last Friday. I've been imagining Sir Ian Blair turning round to a camera and uttering this phrase whenever some committee or press conference presses him on continiuing in post.
One of his more outrageous responses was during the hearing at the GLA. He equated the call for his head with someone calling for the head of the british army or the head of a hospital to resign on the death of a soldier in combat, or a patient on the operating table.
My understanding of both of these situations is that the soldier has volunteered to be in combat (and being paid to serve their country), while the patient is taking a calculated risk of undergoing surgery (ie an improvement to their health and probably the risk of death in not undergoing the surgery).
Jean Charles de Menezes didn't have the risks of being shot 7 times in the head while using London's public transport system explained to him on that day in July 2005.

The last train to

2007-11-12T12:30:00.000Z

On Saturday night we had the unexpected pleasure of being amongst some of the last passengers to use a Silverlink service from London to Watford. From Sunday morning they became LondonMidland.
The downside to this was that the last train was at the much earlier time of 2345 to allow them to de-livery the rolling stock. Which meant we had to leave the pub where we'd gone to see a band before the end of their 2nd set.

Corby featured in the Grauniad

2007-11-06T12:26:00.000Z

There is an interesting piece in yesterday's G2 section of the Guardian that profiles the marginal seat of Corby & East Northants.
The angle the story takes is more about how Ashcroft is possibly distorting the electoral playing field with his personal targeting strategy, backed up by his wealth. This is played off against the use of the parliamentary communications allowance of £10k by the sitting MP.
The story doesn't mention how the LibDem vote actually increased in 2005, rather than being squeezed in this marginal constituency. I'd like to take some personal credit for that, but it should all go to Chris Stanbra, my agent then and stalwart of the local party who has invigorated the LDs locally, and ensured a prescence on the Corby town council.
The sorty becomes even more interesting when you look at the record of donations to the Corby tory party accounting unit on the Electoral Commission website. I can't see any sign of Ashcroft's donations. Maybe when Louise Carpetbagshaw comments on whats been received so far, she is actually covering for the fact that no cheque has been forthcoming?
The article does also make me wonder about tory campaigns. Why the need for a colour photocopier in the HQ? And surely the millionaire author can afford to help out by buying her organiser a more modern laptop, one with a USB socket...

The Byrne Mobile Phone Irony

2007-11-02T14:59:00.000Z

It couldn't have happened to a more unlikely person. But my favourite minister, Liam Byrne, has been found guilty of using his mobile phone whilst driving. The BBC has the more complete story.
The irony is not only that Byrne is a Home Office minister. Nor the fact he's an ex-police minister (for about 2 weeks). But that during the by-election at which he was elected in 2004, his campaign was based almost completely on attacking Nicola Davies because of her employment as a Council Liaison Manager with the Mobile Operators Association.
Hoist by his own petard.
Update
On reflection, Byrne's excuse of "taking a very important call on a deportation matter" is even worse than it sounds. The judge should have passed a higher sentence rather than cutting it, as he's openly admitted that he really couldn't have been paying proper attention to the road.

hustings and hustings part deux

2007-10-27T19:32:00.000Z

Well, I've now made my mind up following the leadership hustings.
Chris gave by far the better hustings speech in my opinion. He was talking to us in the audience. I felt that Nick was speaking the camera much more.
Clear blue water is also starting to appear between the two of them, today Chris was entirely clear on his position on Trident, while Nick fell back on our current policy position.
Chris also gave by far the better answer to my question, while Nick pretended not to understand it (ie what do you mean by "breaking the mould..."). Chris also appealled to my photography and campaigning side by stressing how we should be looking at ensuring our messages can be summed up with good clear, liberal and appropriate photos. Not jetting off to the north pole to prove that you love the environment, or cycling along with you butler following along with your shoes.
The second part of the day was the hustings that the rules say I'm not allowed to mention in any external forum. Aren't our non-leadership selection rules just a little bit bonkers? I can't tell you that a particular candidate gave a really good performance, or that he had a spontaneous round of applause on his entry to the hall. I can't even tell you who I've voted for, or that I gave a low preference to someone else (that would be an endorsement, and then negative campaigning).

Leader hustings in Rugby tomorrow

2007-10-26T15:32:00.000Z

As a floating voter in the leadership election, tomorrow could well be the crunch time for me. The hustings is scheduled for about 2 hours, so with only 2 candidates, and only 10mins of speeches, I hope there are plenty of questions.
Without the press there for the question session, I also hope we're able to have some fairly seat of the pants questions that challenge the candidates about the state of the party, and its organisation, and policy setting.
In particular, I'll want to know Nick means about "breaking out of the comfort zone", while from Chris I wont to hear him set his stall out on where he wants to take the party.
Neither have really defined their directions of travel, only indicated that they want to go on a journey. Until I know where they are taking us, I'm not sure I want to jump onto either of their buses, (or bandwagons).

control

2007-10-22T16:15:00.000Z

Last week I was able to go to the cinema for the first time in ages (see previous post). We went along to see Control, the biopic of Ian Curtis, the Joy Division singer and lyricist.
I knew it was never going to have a happy ending (as he committed suicide on 18 May 1980), but I wasn't fully aware of how he'd got to that situation, or quite how troubled and disturbed he was (all be it from the perspective of his wife Debbie, who he'd just about left in the days/weeks before his tragic end).
The music of Joy Division was performed by the actors, and they did it very well. The music was also tied into the storyline to punctuate and emphasis events in Curtis' life. Quite whether he did actually pen them at those particular episodes is uncertain.
My one bit of Joy Division trivia is that their last ever gig was performed at Chamberlain Hall, University of Birmingham on 2 May 1980. Not a renowned rock venue, but somewhere I ate my breakfast and dinner for 3 years while a residential tutor in the hall.

back blogging

2007-10-22T16:10:00.000Z

The last few weeks have been a little bit hectic:
conference
general election preparation
general election stand-down
making offers on a house - and all that that entails (mortgages, surveys etc)
getting current house into a suitable state to put on market (clearing out old leaflets...)

So not too much time for blogging I'm afraid.
I'm not going to write much about the leadership contest, as I'm yet another floating voter. I want to wait and see what both are offering before signing up to either of them.

Boris in perspective

2007-09-27T14:09:00.000Z

Wow, a huge turnout of just over 19.8k Londoners could care who the Tory mayoral candidate was. To give a little bit of perspective, my ward has just about as many constituents. So across the whole of London, only the same number who live in the square mile or so of Selly Oak expressed their preference of candidate.
Doesn't bode well for the real thing next year does it Boris?

conference round-up

2007-09-17T09:16:00.000Z

or what I've been up to in Brighton so far...
Well the room in the Grand is OK. The shower is a bit dribbly, the bed is comfortable, breakfast is more than ample, the croque monsier over priced for ham and cheese toastie.
Saturday night was a gentle affair with a small crowd from the Brent by-election having their re-union anniversary dinner.
Sunday the work began with tours of the exhibition by the various parliamentarians (and senior cllrs!). So by the end of the day I was more than ready for a nice Greek meal followed by the blog of the year awards (congrats to James Graham, the man who originally signed me up in Manchester), and then the London reception (much free alcohol).
Suffice to say this morning I've been a little bit delicate...

crazy golf in Teignmouth

2007-09-12T21:15:00.000Z

Last Sunday Vic and I were out early to get a quick round in on Teignmouth's crazy golf course before the hordes descended.
Twice in two rounds I've managed to get a hole in one, but this time it didn't stop me from losing to the girl Marsom. I cracked on the last 3 holes to let a promising below par round slip to 3 over.
Talk of a boxing day return match has already started.

How full is your glass?

2007-09-12T19:08:00.000Z

Is your pint glass half full or half empty?
I've never worked out why we're so precious of some of our old imperial measurements. Especially when no one is quite sure how much a pint should actually be. Wikipedia has at least 7 different definitions of it.
So when I ask whether your pint glass is half full, is it 284ml, 280ml, 285ml, 213ml (S Aus.) or 225ml (US dry).
Now the one thing you can't argue about with metric measurements is that half of a 1/2l glass is always 250ml.

brandwood by-election campaigning

2007-09-01T17:33:00.000Z

Today was a successful day for us in our campaign in the Brandwood ward by-election.
We had visiting help from Euro hopeful, Colin Ross, and fellow blogger from Sandwell, David Nikel. This enabled us to polish off the leaflet delivery, before stopping for lunch in the Red Lion. Colin went off to Nuneaton in the afternoon to help in the by-election there, while David did some campaigning in Sandwell.
Thanks to Dave and Colin for coming over to help.

Not 2.5%: an update and clarification

2007-08-31T12:23:00.000Z

Just to clarify how 1.5% + 1% is not actually 2.5%...
Take a salary of 100.
Increase it by 1.5% for 6 months, salary is now 101.5, and the aggregate salary for 6 months is 6 x 100 x 101.5% = 609
Then increase salary by 1%, (new salary of 102.515) and the aggregate salary for the 6 months is 6 x 101.5 x 101% = 615.09.
Therefore over 12 months you have now earned 1224.09 instead of the uninflated 1200. This is a 2.0% increase. Not 2.5%!
Now some of the staged salary increases have occurred after 8 or 9 months. These would be real increases of 1.9% and 1.8% respectively. And that's how Frown is treating our nurses!

When is 2.5% not 2.5%

2007-08-31T09:57:00.000Z

I find it completely maddening when Frown and co go on about the 2.5% settlement for parts of the public sector.
Firstly it is woefully below RPI (ie how prices have really changed, rather than the CPI "official" measure that the BoE uses to measure itself against).
Secondly it isn't 2.5%! OK if you take the two numbers 1.5 and 1, and add them you do get 2.5. But when you do the calculation of how much 100 has increased by after 12 months if you first apply a 1.5% increase, and then a 1% increase after 6 months, the answer you get is not 102.5, but actually 101.83. So its not a 2.5% increase is it?
What is even more annoying is that when this is reported in the media, it is normally only stated as a "claim" by the relevant trade union that it is in fact not 2.5% but something lower. Its not a claim, its a statement of fact. The lie is ever calling it 2.5%
Brown's claim that putting an extra £4.2m[1] into the economy will threaten the inflation rate uncontrollably is probably overstating it slightly.
[1] Assuming 28,000 staff with an average salary of £25k, this is the difference between a 2.5% increase and a 1.9% increase.

Nine Inch Nails

2007-08-29T08:12:00.000Z

No, not my latest excursion into DIY (see me covered in Cherub dust on Facebook), but a much delayed gig at the Academy last night.
The support were Ladytron, never heard of them, and will probably look them up post gig to see what they've done. V.dark electro 6 piece, although no idea what 2 of them were doing...
Then for the main course of Trent Reznor and friends. The show was lacking in spectacular visuals, which was only explained by Reznor towards the end when he said that they weren't able to get them in! (Someone didn't read the venue spec...) He also complained about not being able to hear himself all evening, despite that he managed to hit the notes and cues.
Despite the lack of screen visuals the lighting they did have was able to emphasis the energy and excitement of the music for over 100mins of show, with the fantastic climax of his most well known 3 tracks ending with Head Like a Hole. Of course we also had multiple microphone smashing and a guitar smash at the end.
Rock'n'Roll

How we are

2007-08-28T13:01:00.000Z

This bank holiday has been spent in Watford, London, Wolverhampton and Birmingham...
On Saturday a well planned trip was taken to finish off the "How we are: photographing britain" exhibition at Tate Britain (which closes on 2nd Sept!). We'd had an interupted visit a couple of months ago by a fire alarm 30 mins before closing time, so wanted to return to complete the last 2 rooms of the exhibition.
I found it hugely interesting - it captures a large amount of social history, as well as photographic technology changes overtime.
The first stop though was to the South Bank, and the World Press Photo 2007 exhibition in the Royal Festival Hall (free). Some of the shots were already familiar, eg the series of photos of a US soldier being shot by a sniper and being dragged away and being treated. But most of the photos were by international photographers for international publications. There were only a handful by UK photojournos: Crouch's scissor kick in the Champions League, and the series of b&w portraits of footballers published in the Grauniad to coincide with the world cup last year.

Dr May I presume?

2007-08-23T21:57:00.000Z

Congratulations to Brian May on passing his viva voce today.
There are many PhD students who start studying, move to part time and take on a job. And before they know it, the part completed thesis ends up in the loft, never to see the light of day again.
Brian is in a very lucky position whereby the day job has been done, and he can go back to his research. Fortunately, in the 36 years its been sat waiting, no one else has come along and either invalidated the findings, or done exactly the same thing so that his thesis remains a novel piece of research work.
I hope that he does go on carry out more research, but also plows time into encouraging others to consider science, and reminds all those people with half written theses that they could blow the dust off and finish the last chapters.

International hockey

2007-08-23T12:36:00.000Z

All this week all we can hear from the office when we open the window is the sound of stick hitting stick and the occassional ball hitting backboard.
The University is currently hosting the International Masters Hockey tournament, and there is a vast array of countries and age groups taking part.
It's quite nice to pop out the office at lunchtime to sit and watch some international sport.

minding my own business at 30mph

2007-08-23T11:09:00.001Z

I was trundling along at about 30mph in a 30mph zone yesterday (I may have hit 51kph so may have been at 32mph). And the chap following me was hooting his horn at me to get past.
What I haven't mentioned is that I was on my cycle, and it was a car following me.
Of course this would never happen if I'd been in a car doing 30mph in a 30 zone.
Why do car drivers expect cyclists to hug the curb when there are a number of blind driveways, and some extremely well marked potholes awaiting repair (the sort of holes which are about as wide as a cycle tyre - long and narrow) - just to allow them to break the law...?
Of course you can use your horn to warn road users of your presence [Highway code para 92]. But not aggressively.

taxpayers alliance hits wrong target

2007-08-21T13:33:00.000Z

The Telegraph and BBC are reporting much the same story that the Taxpayers Alliance has timed to coincide with the annual dash for university places. [The Telegraph has a pdf of the full list of evil vocational courses here]
If their argument relates to vocational courses not being government funded, why have they been snobbish to only pick up the Salon Management etc. Surely they've missed the other highly vocational degrees of Law, Medicine, Dentistry, Nursing and Physio. Why did they draw the line where they did?
The TA seem to have also got their stats in a mix, and also missed other easy targets. The Birmingham College of Food shoots up the rankings because counting single courses with specialist streams. Meanwhile Birmingham Uni escapes unscathed despite our Advanced Golf Management Studies, and FD PGA Golf. While Bedfordshire is the only uni to be picked out as having Sports Science!
AGMS includes materials work, focusing on ball and club materials as well as sports psychology and physiology, while the FD is provided as an employer led initiative via the PGA.

Perseids Off

2007-08-13T11:31:00.000Z

Well last nights meteor shower was pretty poor. We popped out for about 30mins after 10pm and saw a grand total of 3 meteor trails. In that time we spotted more satelites!

Reading Lists

2007-08-07T08:45:00.000Z

What does it mean when the book I'm most likely to take on holiday is Dawkins' God Delusion (its next in the pile, probably after Frank Millers Batman - Dark Knight Returns), and that I've only ever read the first Potter book and have absolutely no desire to read no.s 2-7 while on a beach?

8th grade math was easy...

2007-07-25T10:49:00.000Z

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Simpsons related post

2007-07-19T16:07:00.000Z

Who'd have thought there might be a Simpsons film coming out...

Which Springfield Resident Are You?
	You are Comic Book Guy. Who said there's anything wrong with being a nerd? Certainly not you! You may be obsessed with things no one else cares about, but your passionate about what you do, so who cares what anyone else thinks?
Find Your Character @ BrainFall.com

Evening Mail mayoral petition going backwards...

2007-07-16T13:40:00.000Z

Those who are still following the Birmingham Evening Mail's elected mayor campaign (yes, there aren't many of you left...) may well have missed a small revelation in an article on 6 July.
Apparently there have been only 5000 signatures to their petition to date. (The Mail's whinge relates to the fact that they aren't allowed access to the electoral register to check the names, of course they could purchase it or go to their local library to inspect, but the law is quite clear on who can have access to the full version).
But 3 months ago the editor claimed, in an email, that there were 6000 signatures to their petition. So not only has the collection rate decreased, but its going backwards! Maybe by the time its being going for 12 months they'll be back to zero.
You can also tell by the number of articles appearing in the Mail that interest is peetering out. Maybe they'll just have blank articles in a few months time?

Peculiarness

2007-07-09T12:38:00.000Z

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is:
Sir Dave the Prohibited of Deepest Throcking
Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

Another photo from the tour de france prologue in London

2007-07-08T21:47:00.000Z

I managed to take about 300 photos while watching the prologue on Saturday (thats just the ones I didn't delete straight away when I missed the rider and just got tarmac...)
I'll be uploading a few more to flickr over the next couple of days. But this is one of my favourites from the collection.
When the riders came down the nearside barrier it was sometimes impossible to see them until they were right on top of us. But with this shot I managed to lean out and get the shot without hindrance.

Tour de France

2007-07-08T21:04:00.000Z

On Saturday I had the chance to see the Prologue stage of the Tour de France in London.
I'd decided to take up a point on the Mall, and had hoped to be right outside Buckingham palace and at the junction with Constitution Hill. But it was busy there even 3 hours before the first rider. So i went back to the Mall where Green Park comes out on to it, this was about 380m from the finish line.
I'd also decided to take my Canon 5D and a couple of lenses (24-105 f4 and the bigger 70-200 f2.8). In retrospect I'd have taken the 1Dmk2 as well, but had decided to travel lite! The 5D can only do 3 fps, while the 1Dmk2 can do 8fps.
The photo here is of Fabien Cancellara, the eventual prologue winner.

Tories "campaign" in Ealing

2007-07-06T09:53:00.000Z

The Tory campaign was spotted on Wednesday while out on the streets of Ealing and Southall. But it must go down as one of the most environmentally unfriendly ones: driving up and down the streets in cars with speakers on.
What would "cycling" Davey Cameron say to that?
The most bizarre thing is that they're doing it over 2 weeks before polling day. Have they nothing better to be doing?
Meanwhile the LibDem campaign in Ealing Southall goes from strength to strength. Nigel Bakhai was out on the streets with Charles Kennedy MP meeting and talking to real people in rain and sunshine.
Everytime I'm in the HQ I see one of our MPs popping in to collect more leaflets to deliver, or helping out with some of the clerical tasks.

Saturday in Ealing Southall by-election

2007-07-01T11:29:00.001Z

Dave Radcliffe, Ed Davey and Colin Ross in Ealing Southall
Originally uploaded by Radders

Yesterday, Colin Ross and I were out campaigning in Ealing Southall with Ming Campbell's chief of staff Ed Davey MP.
It was a good day's campaigning with a constant flow of leaflets leaving the HQ and heading for letterboxes.

Spare me a fiver Guv?

2007-06-21T09:45:00.000Z

Bank of England supremo Merv King has told banks to stock more £5 notes as they are circulating for too long and beginning to look scruffy and unkept.
This morning I obtained 4 spanking new sequential fivers from a Lloyds cash point, but its the only one I know that ever distributes them. Maybe its because its on the University campus?

Lib Dems making all the noise

2007-06-13T12:08:00.001Z

I still find it highly curious that the "official opposition" haven't made more of the Al Yamamah story.
The Lib Dems have been the only ones in the news cycle to be speaking out on it and through their campaign website www.corruptionisacrime.com.
Whatever happened to Blair's ethical foreign policy? (I think it got lost somewhere in the Middle East...)

great weekend, crazy golf

2007-06-11T21:30:00.000Z

Not blogged for a while as been fairly busy at work, and then evening meetings and weekends away...
Last weekend was spent in Teignmouth on my first visit to meet Vic's mum, and various friends (god mother etc). It was also an opportunity for Vic to get her hair cut, so I got a bit of a ribbing in her favoured salon. (I pretended to stick my head further into the Grauniad).
Teignmouth District Council have created a most brilliant crazy golf course on the front of the town. All the holes are named after local places and things, and each hole has quite distinct and special. There are the normal tunnels that get you close to the hole if you can hit them right, but also water features that actually get you hitting the ball over the water or along water shoots!
I managed a -1 under par 41 (including a hole in one), while Vic shot a 48.

a strange thing happened on the way to work

2007-05-31T21:33:00.000Z

I've had a week of mixed luck on the bike this week. Tuesday saw me pick up a puncture at the midway point, Wednesday was wet, and today I had a car driver shout at me.
Normally a motorist shouting at a cyclist is as a result of the driver thinking they own the road (well they do pay road tax...), but today it was because of something completely different. I sensed I had a car right on my back wheel while going down a nice little downhill stretch, but there was also a hint of a following wind. I'd noticed I'd touched 52kph (about 33mph) on my speedo, but the driver was actually shouting at me to tell me I'd clocked about 37mph. Of course by him slip streaming me, I got a marginal advantage of about 3-4% on top of my own efforts!
I'll be taking the train tomorrow, so nothing can go wrong...

Red Balloon Appeal

2007-05-24T13:16:00.000Z

A neighbour, and friend of mine has pointed me towards a new appeal that's been launched by the Birmingham Children's Hospital, the Red Balloon Appeal.
Click and donate to a very worthy cause.

Back from sunny Fl

2007-05-24T13:06:00.000Z

After Key West, we drove back up to Florida City and then out into the Everglades. All I can say about the 'glades is that there are lots of mosquitoes and 'gators, and when it rains, its wet. Fortunately we didn't come across many dangerous snakes, unlike the unfortunate 'gator in this story.
After the 'glades we moved on to Collier Seminole state park, then Oscar Scherer SP (outside of Venice, less canals, nicer beach) and finally for camping, Ft De Soto, just south of St Petersburg/Tampa.
After camping, I got to spend a couple of days in Disney, while everyone else was spending a week there for the Lib Dem "wedding of the year" between Shaun Roberts and Miranda Piercy.

miami and beyond

2007-05-13T15:14:00.001Z

Been out photographing the art deco buildings in Miami. Had hoped to get some good early morning light, but still smoke in the atmosphere from wild fires upstate.
Only spotted one Fairline boat so far (one of the UK's premier boat builders based in the very landlocked Oundle), and that was in Fort Lauderdale.
Off down US1 to Key West for a couple of days camping, after the slendid surroundings of the Albion hotel, Miami.

fort lauderdale

2007-05-11T22:13:00.001Z

Just popped into a mall in Fort Lauderdale to do a bit of shopping (Chris, Colin and I have run out of clean underwear as we've failed to do laundry on any campsites yet).
Despite the entry in the Rough Guide, Fort Lauderdale doesn't have much to offer... The modern art gallery, shaped like a piece of pie, was in the process of shutting down for the summer.
Weather good, but occasional haze from forest fires in the north of the state. Spoilt the visit to Kennedy Space Center as we could barely see some of the buildings :(
Off to Macy's

Robocop says no to mayors

2007-04-30T09:58:00.000Z

Quaequam blog has drawn my attention to "Robocop" Ray Mallon's latest thoughts on directly elected mayors in a Grauniad interview.
Regular readers of this blog will know that Mayor Mallon did a U-Turn on mayors back in February at the Evening Mail's "big debate". The Evening Mail has still yet to report on Ray Mallon's speech back in February.
Interestingly, the speaker was up against Mallon in the "Big Debate", labour MP Khalid Mahmood from Perry Barr, has now said he would stand if the position became available. But he is still inprinciple against the concept of a directly elected mayor!
I hear that the Mail's campaign and petition response is slowing down, and could well peter out during the summer.
While out canvassing during the last month, it is a topic that has still yet to be raised with me, or with any of our team of canvassers. Residents are telling us they want hard working local councillors, who are putting the work in to clean their area up and get the basics right.

Live blogging test

2007-04-26T11:32:00.001Z

Hello, from gateshead. Not used the email to blog test so here goes!
I'm currently sat in the Gateshead hilton at the CIPFA conference. Today is concentrating on role of audit committees, and fraud. But suffering from death by powerpoint and whitehall TLAs this morning.

2012 Euro champs for Ukraine and Poland

2007-04-18T10:38:00.000Z

Some great news from UEFA that the 2012 European football championship finals will be held jointly in Ukraine and Poland.
Kiev will host the final in the Olympic stadium.
It will be an interesting tournament, as the travelling distances are huge (Lviv to Kiev is a sleeper train that travels twice a day, and is about 12hrs, while Donetsk is even further from Kiev).

beware exploding toilets

2007-04-16T15:34:00.000Z

The BBC brings us news from Japan of toilets bursting into flames!
Pressing the "tornado wash" flush button accidently certainly sounds like something that shouldn't be done while still sat on it.
I can reveal that my bidet is used exclusively to store copies of Private Eye.

escaping to north wales

2007-04-13T09:07:00.000Z

Easter is usually a time for ramping up campaigning, but this year I managed to sneak a few days away to spend with Vic. Although we did drop in on Christine McHugh's campaign in Bedford, and do a bit of delivery.
We were lucky to be able to spend a couple of days in Llandudno after the bank holiday weekend, so a bit quieter than the weekend would have been. It was quite nice driving past the queues of cars on their way home on the Monday afternoon.
We stayed in a fantastic boutique B&B, Escape, in Llandudno. The room was quite unique (a loft like mezz arrangment), and the breakfasts were brilliant and enough to ensure lunch wasn't needed.
Conwy castle and the town was enough to distract us for most of a day, and then a trip up the Great Orme by cable car on Wed in beautiful sunshine topped off our mini-break.

first poster spotted

2007-04-10T17:46:00.000Z

Victoria and I have been on the road for a few days, but only spotted the first sign of any elections anywhere while lost in Llandudno.
The poster is for Euron Hughes, the Lib Dem candidate for the assembly elections in Aberconwy.

ukrainian turmoil

2007-04-05T11:59:00.000Z

I see that there is a fresh political crisis in Ukraine. They must have one of the busiest constitutional courts of anywhere in the world!
Ukraine is a country that I have a huge amount of time for, having spent my 2004 Christmas there as an election monitor in the heart of western Ukraine, Ternopil. The people are incredibly friendly and hospitable.
But the country is raked by political divisions between the east and west, and both sides are almost equally matched in terms of numbers. This obviously makes for a perilous situation, with either side equally quick to call their supporters out onto the streets of Kiev.
The Soviets were clearly forward thinking in terms of designing their city centres with hugely wide streets so they could march their military up and down. But now they end up as political campsites.

Some more mayoral posting

2007-04-05T11:54:00.000Z

Tuesday's full council saw a motion passed that would ensure that if a valid petition come forward from the required 36,000 residents, then the mayoral referendum would take place forewith.
The debate as such was restricted to the original mover, seconder, and the succesful amendments mover and seconder. Thus there was no time for me to make this speech:

I rise to speak in favour of the amendment.
I don’t want to enter into the debate today on the pros and cons of elected mayors. We all had the opportunity to do that on 14 Feb in the Evening Mail’s so called “Big Debate”.
Until 6 weeks ago I didn’t know very much about elected mayors. There are less than 10 of them in the country out of the 410 local authorities in England and Wales.
On the whole referendums have come about in those towns because of failing local government.
Local government where there has been long term failure.
Local government where there has been allegations of corruption, complacency and patronage of members and officers.
Local government where there has been a long-term one party state.
Birmingham doesn’t fit any of those descriptions now.
The Evening Mail has done a fine job of reporting the debate so far. But they have left out crucial pieces of information.
What many in this chamber will not realise, because it hasn’t been reported anywhere, except on my blog, is that Mayor Ray Mallon, during the big debate in this very chamber, said: “Birmingham is not broken, so it doesn’t need fixing.”
The Middlesboro mayor was effectively saying Birmingham doesn’t need a mayor.
In the last 6 weeks or so I’ve done quite a lot of reading on the subject of elected Mayors.
I must admit that the DCLG does provide some quite user friendly advice on how to call a referendum.
This advice includes a sample timeline showing how you progress from referendum to mayoral election.
The arguments being put forward by the opposition about the costs of the referendum or mayoral election are extremely specious.
It would be possible to keep costs down by running a concurrent local election and referendum, that is true.
But if the referendum happened to be successful, then the legislation is quite clear that the mayoral election has to be held on the third Thursday of October.
Now, as far as I know, there are currently no plans for an election of any description on 16 October 2008.
So the full costs of running an election would be incurred.
Lord Mayor, we all know that nothing comes for free. So this will be a cost that council tax payers will have to cover. Or does Sir Albert want to cut something so that we can afford to run his beauty contest.

when volleyball goes bad

2007-03-30T14:10:00.000Z

The BBC brings news that all team sports in Greece have been suspended for 2 weeks! This follows outbreaks of violence following an athens derby volleyball game.

Better biking in Brum?

2007-03-27T09:01:00.000Z

Information about a Friends of the Earth event next Monday:
Speaker event - Can we make the city of the car the city of the bike?

Precedes a potential future planning session for a cycling campaign.

*Graeme Sherriff, Manchester FoE Award-winning "Love Your Bike" campaign
*Birmingham Critical Mass members: Ethan and Rob
*Graham Lennard, Birmingham City Council Cycling and Walking Team

Monday 2 April, 7:30 pm
The Warehouse Cafe, 54-57 Allison Street, Digbeth, B5 5TH

Talk starts at 7:30, but come at 6:00 onwards to:
- Enjoy great vegetarian food from the Warehouse Cafe. Special
offer: Cyclists' Mega Burgers! (Last orders 6:45pm)
- Meet campaigners from Pushbikes, the Birmingham Area Cycling Campaign
- Stock up on cycling gear from Sprocket Cycles - get 10% off
all purchases on the evening and enter a prize draw to win free
Bike Doctor service

For more information, contact Chris Williams on 0121 632 6909

cold hands and much wobbling

2007-03-26T10:05:00.000Z

This was the first line introduction to an item on Today about the new cycling proficiency test (not proficient cycling tests, but Bikeability, something much more 21st century). So hardly a great introduction when we're trying to encourage more people to cycle, rather than highlight that occassionally you may get cold hands. (I'll come back to gloves...)
As someone who took the CP test over 20 years ago, the new version sounds far more relevant: getting riders to experience actual roads. My test was in a school carpark on a saturday morning, so not a car in sight. It did involve basic bike handling - turning, braking, balance and a simple understanding of common road signs - give way etc.
Birmingham offers some fantastic traffic free routes: national route 5 could take me from home to the council house. But I could also choose to ride on some of the busiest roads (bar the Aston Expressway which is a motorway!). I've got more than enough confidence in my riding style to make my journeys as safe as possible, but it doesn't stop the nutter in a white van from overtaking you when you've indicated to go right and pulled into the middle of a quiet residential road. Unfortunately I didn't get the whole of his number plate NY54...
No one should ever suffer from having cold hands while cycling. I strongly suggest wearing an appropriate pair of gloves whatever the weather. When I've come off, gloves have saved me from the worst of the accident as you instinctively stick your hands out to break any fall.
Its a shame the govt couldn't find an additional £10m to train the other half of 10yr olds. But clearly £5bn on the war in Iraq is far more important than the safety of our kids on the roads.

Ming launches local campaign

2007-03-23T11:37:00.000Z

The big Ming is in town today to launch the local campaigns. The theme for the day has been civil liberties, and their erosion under the current Labour government. There has been good coverage in the local papers! With front page coverage in the Post. The BBC also led with it earlier.
Unfortunately, pressures of work, and a charity football match later have meant I've missed out on hearing Ming speak in person.

One of those weeks

2007-03-23T11:30:00.000Z

The last fortnight has been a perfect example of how there are monthly peeks and troughs in meeting patterns. (last week no evening meetings, this week surgery, Audit committee, Constituency committee, Ward committe, and finally meeting our IDeA peer). But the fortnight is also the most important as far as we're concerned at work as we're setting the budgets for the academic departments for next year.
Tonight is my first evening off all week, so I get a chance not to think about student FTEs, budgets or NRF bids for a few hours.

labour exchange or flatpack hell

2007-03-19T15:24:00.000Z

Unusually I had a weekend relatively free of commitments. So when Craig asked for some help building a wardrobe I didn't think twice. Little did I realise quite how big it was... Definitely a two man job. But we weren't helped by one crucial missing piece.
The instructions were very visual, but most of the text led with german and the pieces, when labelled were in german as well. But with diagrams you need to be able to distinguish parts that look similar. So we weren't sure what was missing until we'd started to build it.
Most is constructed and can start to accomodate Sue's shoes and black tops.
In exchange I got a couple of hours of house cleaning out of Craig. All very communal.

RIP HP and University entrance forms

2007-03-16T10:20:00.000Z

Today sees the last bottle of UK produced HP sauce roll off the production line in Aston.
There is also much in the news about students applying for university having to declare the level of parental education, and occupation type.
I have often joked in the past that you could gain sociodemographic information from asking a simple question of how do you take a bacon butty (red or brown sauce, white or brown bread). Like most sociodemographic indicators its not 100%, but can provide clues.
We often find that on UCAS forms that where applications describe their parents occupation type, they generally overstate. I can see similar issues declaring parental education levels (both of my parents were teachers, but went to teacher training college, and not university, so I was a first timer in our family).

The Mail Mayor

2007-03-15T15:37:00.000Z

Well, the Evening Mail has finally jumped, and has kicked off the petition for elected mayor.
The DCLG has lots of helpful information for those who are organising petitions for calling for Elected Mayors. Of particular interest is the possible timetable for a referendum if they happen to collect 36k signatures. The Mail has given the impression that this could all be wrapped up by 3 May. But my reading of the timetable is that even submitting the petition now would result in a September referendum. If the result went the way of the elected option, then the mayoral election would then hit the May 08 elections.
Which ever way you look at it, either the referendum or the mayoral election would fall on a normal election day, and would therefore incur the full costs of running an election/referendum. Will the Mail pick up the tab? Not if Trinity Mirror sell it off they wont. Is Steve Dyson, the editor, thinking of a possible future in politics?

bonkers for the lords

2007-03-09T13:28:00.000Z

Today's Matt cartoon got me thinking. When will the internal positioning start occurring to secure the desired positions on our party's lists for Lords elections?
Will Lord Bonkers be seeking election? The place would be quite different without him.

freecycling

2007-03-08T15:14:00.000Z

Not as the name suggests some form of freestyle biking, but recycling useful stuff that you no longer need.
Today has been my first experience of freecycling. I've had a spare bed base taking up a chunk of room in my house for a month of so, and finally got around to offering it on Birmingham Freecycle. Within an hour of the email hitting the list it was taken. Hopefully to be collected this evening.

insincere voting

2007-03-08T08:01:00.000Z

The aftermath of last nights voting on House of Lords reform is just beginning. The first accusation I heard this morning is that there was a lot of insincere voting in favour of the most radical option. Theresa May hints at it in her quote on the BBC.
Of course this was always bound to happen as they had rejected any form of preferential voting, and instead used multiple FPTP votes. As FPTP is a system that relies on insincere voting the result was almost inevitable.
The next battle will be ensuring the fully elected option makes it into the final version of the bill, and then the turkeys have to vote for christmas.

fighting fraud

2007-03-07T12:00:00.000Z

The BBC is reporting figures published ACPO on the cost of fraud in the UK. They have come up with the eye-watering figure of £20bn a year, equiv to £330 per person.
The per person figure resonates with me, as 12 months ago my credit card details were swiped, and I lost about £300. Fortunately Egg had spotted the unusual payments and stopped the card before anymore was lost. They were also v.quick in refunding me. But they were the eventual victims of the fraud.
Fraud is something that the Council's audit team have to take seriously. But they are also hampered by Whitehall targets. There is one measure whereby they need find and take action on so many frauds. This has the effect of seeking out lots of small frauds, rather than going after the "Mr Bigs", as that only counts as one action, even if it might stop a higher value of fraud.
To me this highlights the futility of target setting:

"When a measure becomes a target, it is no longer a useful measure." - Prof M Strathern restating Goodhart's Law.

If any target should be set, then it ought to be based on the value of frauds detected and action, not the number.

Conference of yesteryear

2007-03-06T23:56:00.001Z

younglibs
Originally uploaded by Radders.

This is a photo from a Liberal conference in 1969, in Blackpool (photographer unknown). The photo belongs to my fellow ward cllr, Alistair Dow, who can be seen to the left of Jo Grimond, against the back wall. On Jo Grimond's right is David Steel, and to David's right is Wallace Lawler (first Liberal MP in Birmingham).
I think glasses were compulsory for young liberals in the 60s.

reflections on Harrogate

2007-03-06T10:31:00.000Z

Several people have written on the events of the LibDem spring conference in Harrogate.
Alex Wilcock has a good textual analysis of the leaders speech. I didn't go into the hall to hear it, but watched it on a relay screen (the only time I was in the hall was for Trident, see Colin Ross). I suspect the production values of the relay screens weren't quite that of the BBC, so we didn't get the Ming training montage, or the music at the end. From watching it, you didn't realise he'd finished it as he just seemed to stop, start waving and shadow cabinet jumping on the platform, no rising crescendo of rhetoric.
I quite like Harrogate as a venue, lots of nice small food places that I've found over the last 3 years:
Est est est - italian on the main food drag. Nice window seats, and staff who don't badger you to leave.
Biscaya bay - a basque restaurant near the conference centre. Book early to avoid disappointment.
Loch Fyne - seafood here. Again book early as the leader and his entourage will be taking up several tables.
Salsa Posada - mexican. No bookings on Fri/Sat night. Short stroll from the conference centre, and no libdems in sight!
Unfortunately we're not going back next year, but rather to capital of culture 2008, Liverpool.

Trident worries

2007-03-01T16:43:00.000Z

News has reached me that the Leaders office is doing a ring round of PPCs prior to the trident debate at conference on Saturday, and being whipped into attending!
Maybe they realise that the hall may be lacking in enough high profile LDs, as I've heard via other sources that various members of the parliamentary party will be strategically absent for the vote.

All the timings that matter from the budget "debate"

2007-02-28T08:53:00.000Z

Yesterday was budget day in full council (as well as being my maiden platform speech).
I use the term debate loosely in the title, as it turned into little more than a farcical display of tribal politics of the worst kind.
The council leader rose to speak at 1730hrs.
The deputy leader rose at 1805hrs.
Then the opposition leader rose at 1822hrs. His first mention of budget was at 1852hrs. His first mention of his amendment was at about 1915hrs. He sat down at 1934hrs.
That left about 26 minutes for all other contributions, and the summation.
At the end of the day, the Labour amendment only had an impact on 0.1% of the total budget. They could have achieved it with an increase to the Council Tax of 1% (ie a 2.9%), but instead took it from contingencies set aside to pay for implementing Single Status (equal pay for work of equal value).
They then failed to support the below inflation rise of only 1.9%.
I gather that next year unlimited time speeches by the leaders will be scrapped in favour of something closer to 30 minutes. What was also interesting to note was that the local press didn't even bother to stay on to provide accurate reportage of the most important decision of the year. Had someone tipped them off that Sir Albert would still be going 2 hrs after the "debate" started?

My first proper council speech

2007-02-27T22:59:00.000Z

Today was my first proper speech at full council. I presented the first annual report of my Audit Committee, and seemed to get a good reception, and some exceptionally complementary remarks from members from across the political divide.
There was also some genuine laughter over the interactive bit. Good to see people from all sides actually seeing the funny side to something.
Full text below. Check against delivery as they say!

Thank you Lord Mayor.
This is speech and a report that is a first in three
ways:
To begin with, it is the first time that I have presented a report to
the City Council – so please be considerate to me.
Secondly, it is the first
time since the new reporting arrangements into City Council were introduced that
a Cabinet Member or Chair of Committee has presented their report at the annual
Budget meeting - so I will be brief as I know that I am the hors d’oeuvre before
the main course and desert of the annual budget and council plan.
Finally,
it is the first report of the Audit Committee which was only constituted in
February last year – so I hope it gives you a good taster to what we are doing
on your behalf.
There is no statutory obligation for a Local Authority to
establish an Audit Committee but they are ever more widely recognised
internationally across the public and private sectors as a core component of
effective governance. As John Gregory, the District Auditor from the Audit
Commission, has said to us, he would like to see the Audit Committee become
synonymous with “a place where matters of good corporate governance are
discussed”.
And, I believe we have made a good start getting up and running
quickly and looking at some substantial and important issues. I am particularly
grateful to the other Members on the Committee; Councillors Nigel Dawkins, Carl
Rice, Laura Ross, Shafique Shah, Margaret Waddington and Michael Wilkes for
their enthusiastic and committed support. Margaret Waddington even came across
to Peterborough with me to see the work of the Audit Committee at Peterborough
and Stamford Hospital Trust. I would also like to thank the officers for the way
we have been supported. We have worked together as a good team.
You will see
from the report that the Audit Committee has a carried out a lot of work in just
its first year. The committee has an important role to play in scrutinising the
annual accounts, and internal controls, receiving regular updates to the
Council’s Risk Register, and seeking assurances that the proverbial stable door
has been well and truly locked, bolted and nailed shut when systems have failed
and fraud committed.
With the Lord Mayors permission, I’d just like to get
the Members limbered up for voting in the later debates.
Could everyone
raise his or her right hand please.
Now keep your hand up if you are male.
Also, you can keep your hand up if you are over thirty.
Keep it up for a
bit longer if you are under forty.
And finally, keep your hand up if you are
educated to degree level.
Those still with their hands up fit the perfect
fraud profile. I like to think that I’m a poacher turned gamekeeper.
The NHS
and other quasi-public bodies such as Universities have an established record of
audit committees. In the private sector they are also well established, but when
they fail to be independent the result is almost always very public, such as the
Enron scandal.
Although, as a committee we look at more than just numbers,
within the five thousand one hundred and sixty one words of the report there are
fifteen uses of the word independent or independence.
Whilst I do not want
to over egg the independent role of the Audit Committee, it is very important
for our credibility that we are seen as being separate from both the work of the
Executive and of Scrutiny.
It is important that the Audit Committee enjoys
the trust of the Executive and Scrutiny. I hope it will be the case that the
Executive will refer to us matters which they feel they need some assurance on.
And that Scrutiny will be able to complement our work by looking in more detail
at some of the issues we have identified.
Whilst wanting to ensure
colleagues that we see it as very important to look at the fine detail and that
figures add up, we also want to be able to see “the bigger picture” and provide
assurance to the Council on the systems and procedures it has in place with
respect to internal controls.
I hope the report provides a taster of the
work we are undertaking. We have already looked at some important governance and
risk issues for the City Council and have been impressed at the manner in which
officers have responded to the issues we have raised.
In looking forward to
our second year of work we see quite a heavy workload but I would still want to
encourage any Member who has an issue of concern within the remit of the Audit
Committee to raise it with me or a Member of my Committee.

Holiday planning

2007-02-25T21:43:00.000Z

In May, after the local elections, I'm taking a well earned break. Its quite some time since I've taken a holiday, so I'm really looking forward to spending a couple of weeks with friends away from here.
Today we spent the afternoon consulting guide books, maps and t'internet in working out what we wanted to see and where we could stay in southern florida. The plan is shaping up along the lines of starting from Orlando and doing a clockwise route down the east coast towards Miami, out to Key West, Everglades, then Tampa/St Petersburg. We're going to be mainly camping, but with a few nights in hotels whenever creature comforts are really needed.

Following the dog on cannock chase

2007-02-25T21:30:00.000Z

Saturday was an early start as I headed out to Cannock Chase to go mountain biking. I've not done xc in this country, only in France & Spain, so I've not experienced the delights of UK mud.
It was an excellent morning's riding, with only one crash (my own fault as my hand slipped from my front brake, and ended up bailing over the front, only a handful of abrasions to show for it and the ubiquitous chain ring mark on the back of my calf).
Fortunately no one saw me come off, except my back back had picked up a number of twigs and sticks...
The course is well constructed, and was still usable depsite the huge amount of water on it, although at least one puddle probably should have had lifebelts by it!

Even more mayor

2007-02-22T23:05:00.000Z

The Evening Mail appears to have lost count again. Their latest "news" article has the audience at more than 100 people. It also still claims that Ray Mallon argued for an elected Mayor, despite his volte face and statement that he didn't think Birmingham needed an elected mayor.
If Bore and the Mail come up with the statutory 35k verified petition signatures there will be a referendum.

face of fraud

2007-02-21T23:35:00.000Z

At an Audit Committee training session today we had a really good discussion about fraud and how it effects the Council.
Interestingly the profile of a fraudster is male, 30-40 years, educated to degree level. The two people in the room who fitted the profile was myself, chair of the audit committee, and one of the forensic auditors from PwC who was telling us about fraud...

older and slightly tender

2007-02-17T20:05:00.000Z

After a hard week at work I was able to celebrate turning 34 yesterday.
Although older and wiser, we went to Snobs last night. Its been ages since we've been, but its still a class indie club. Once we got onto the dance floor we barely stopped. So today I'm just a little stiff and sore, and my hearing is absolutely ringing. A bit of light leafleting this afternoon helped to ease the stiffness.

More mayoral stuff

2007-02-15T15:02:00.000Z

Well as I predicted, the Evening Mail has conveniently ignored Ray Mallon's U-Turn and completely left it out!
The report is also contrary to the words of the Editor last night who stated the poll was "just for fun". So to see the headline being based on the outcome of the "fun" is a touch hypocritical.
They then manage to overstate the audience by a massive 15%. 82 in the audience (excluding journos) and 5 on the panel. You could maybe get away with rounding up to 90...
Then to call 47 to 31 close is also a complete misrepresentation (thats 60% to 40%, a landslide under normal circumstances). Only 8 more people called for the binding referendum (55, a number not quoted in the report).
So how the Mail will cope with counting up to 35,000 (the number required to call for a referendum), who knows? Maybe they'll knock 15% off, and say its been reached when 30,000 has been passed.

Evening Mail's "Big Debate" on elected mayors

2007-02-15T09:58:00.000Z

For the last week the BEM has been leading heavily on the issue of the having an elected mayor for Birmingham.
The "Big Debate" wasn't nearly as big as expected. I suspect single people voted with their feet, and decided to stay in, while couples were already busy. A whole 82 people attended, with about 10 current cllrs, and 5 or so former cllrs also there (including the legendary Sir Richard Knowles).
Anyway the "just for fun" votes went as follows:
1) Does Birmingham need an elected mayor?
For 31 - Against 47

2) Should the people of Brum be given the right to decide the issue in a binding vote?
For 55 - Against 18 - Abs 1

It was interesting to hear Mayor Ray Mallon (middlesboro's "robocop" mayor) speak. It was quite clear that the circumstances surrounding his town were quite different from Birmingham. One party local council state, accusations of corruption/complacency/patronage within the ruling group, and therefore ripe for change.
But by the end of the debate he had been swayed to support the Birmingham no people through hearing that there weren't the same problems in Birmingham. (Despite the one party rule for 20 years, it could never be said there wasn't some form of effective opposition during that time).
What will be interesting is how the Evening Mail reports that very public U-Turn by Ray Mallon, who'd been invited to Birmingham by a personal invitation of the Mail's editor.
I suspect the Mail will now campaign for a referendum to be held, but I bet they wont be willing to help cover the costs of it. At the end of the day an election/referendum costs about £1/2m in a city the size of Birmingham. Thats the equivalent of 1/5% Council Tax rise. Unfortunately democracy is not free, but is the essence of our freedom.

travel allowances

2007-02-14T14:14:00.000Z

I'm glad to see that we now have some increased openness about our MPs travel expenses.
Its interesting to see who has claimed for cycle travel. Cameron doesn't make the top 10, and surprisingly Lynne Jones doesn't either. I suspect that quite a few cycling MPs don't actually claim their mileage.
In the same way, I have not received any travel expenses (see bottom of this page for allowances paid) from the city council. Claiming for 2-3 mile journeys at 20p per mile seems to have a longer admin time/cost than the actual claimed expense. And running costs of bikes are much lower (when was the last time I replaced an inner tube?).

Snow Joe

2007-02-13T21:59:00.001Z

IMG_0416
Originally uploaded by Radders.

Only just had a chance to post this. Campus had large array of various sizes of snow men/sculptures. But this one was the best of the lot. Unfortunately it didn't last long because of the fluctuating temperature and the rapid thaw on Saturday :(

Iraqi teachers

2007-02-13T21:31:00.000Z

Today's Council Business Management Committee had an agenda that should have taken about 15 minutes. But we had 16 Iraqi teachers visiting the Council House, and they sat in on part of the meeting. After 10 minutes of welcoming speeches (and translations), we finally began the meeting. At which point the guests moved on to meet the Lord Mayor.
Hopefully they will have seen that all the major parties are able to sit around the table and agree timings and protocols as equals.

le Tour: get involved

2007-02-12T12:02:00.000Z

TfL are looking for volunteer marshalls for the 2 days that the Tour de France is on our island (7/8 July). Sign up here.
Even if I don't get signed up as a marshall, I'll definitely be in London with my camera for those 2 days.

thatchers legacy

2007-02-08T15:31:00.000Z

Last night I popped over to Wolverhampton to see a performance of Thatcher - the musical.
It was a great performance from a small company. The musical essentially romps through her early years, standing for parliament, milk snatching, and then slows down from '79 and her premiership years. (Falklands, miners, "defeat" of socialism). And then the final acts of betrayal by Howe and her cabinet.
The chap sat behind me continually muttered whenever there was mention of socialism, while there were others in the audience who were quite open about their support for Labour (and the Liberals). There were also many in the audience who probably weren't born when she left office, and definitely many who would never have had a chance to vote against her (my first vote was in 1992).

59

2007-02-06T10:12:00.000Z

Is the average of councillors on principal authorities in England.
So the gathering of 10 Birmingham councillors predominantly under 45 at the weekend for an I&DeA ran programme certainly didn't look like your average set of councillors.

Dr Reid hides in the open

2007-02-02T12:54:00.001Z

Did Dr Reid use Wednesday's arrests to launch his new bid to do away with any maximum length of detention?
As he is continually finding new problems that out bid the previous problems in his department, he is clearly finding it difficult to make positive headlines, so appearing to be fully in the loop on Wednesday's operations, and then leading a cabinet discussion on detention without trial was his chance to make waves.
Dr Reid's arguments for unlimited detention, seem to stem from the reportedly huge number of possible threats that currently exist. Therefore to cope with all of them being arrested at once he'd need unlimited detention.
Surely, the more reasonable thing to do is have many more investigating officers and resources at his disposal, rather than locking people up until they find time to investigate...
My opinion is that 28 days probably just about long enough. If in parliament I'd have definitely voted against anything over that.
In many of the recent cases it is the voluminous quantities of evidence that get collected. Which again suggests the solution is more investigators, not longer detention.

religious hypocracy

2007-01-25T15:30:00.000Z

I was going to write about the current hoopla regarding the catholic church and their adoption agencies, and the hypocracy of seeking exemptions to the anti-discrimination laws. But Alex Wilcock has written a few thousand intelligent words on the subject which pretty much cover it. (And its good to see him back blogging in such depth.

Police work unsocial hours

2007-01-20T11:56:00.000Z

It was fascinating watching C4 news yesterday evening to see the director and Labour luvvy peer David Puttnam being rolled out to attack the police tactics of theatrics. He should leave the police to do policing, and he can get on directing films.
As to the charge that arresting someone pre-dawn was just theatrical, my understanding is that if you want to question someone over perverting the course of justice, the last thing you do is make an appointment with them to provide plenty of notice and time to carry out more deleting or shredding...