Those who demand laws that restrict others’ freedoms should expect the kind of government that will think up laws to restrict everyone.
Neville Farmer
July 18, 2009
I attended the Broadwaters, St Georges, St Oswalds and Horsefair Partners meeting a week ago and fell into discussion with some of the local residents about the parking problems in Broadwaters when the Rose Theatre is open.
On a few occasions now, I’ve heard of people clogging up Broadwaters Drive, blocking driveways, churning up the grass in the park and becoming aggressive with residents. According to the residents, they’ve asked the theatre management to discuss the matter with them but have been given the brush-off. Also, they have offered to build a rail along the edge of the park to prevent cars driving onto the grass but were refused permission by the council.
I used to be a member of the Young Nonentities theatre group and greatly appreciate the value of Kidderminster’s remaining theatre but perhaps its time for a little sensible discussion here.
A number of options spring to mind.
- One councillor has offered to put some of his annual fund to pay for helping install the rail and some sensible thinking from the council should make it possible for locals to build it.
- The theatre could employ parking stewards to prevent irresponsible parking from customers, including giving information about where people can park sensibly.
- The landlords of the small shopping parade by the roundabout could offer the land behind for parking purposes – it lies empty at nights.
- The council could provide a barrier on Broadwaters Drive that would only be closed during theatre events with keys or a code for all residents.
What we do not need is war breaking out between residents and theatre-goers.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman,
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
July 18, 2009
HOSPITALS – HIPPOCRATIC OR HYPOCRITIC?
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Were you taught not to cheat as a child? I was. So why does almost everything we do in life involve some kind of cheating? For instance, why to hospitals cheat on waiting time rules? Last January, when I checked myself into A&E after prolapsing a disc and paralysing my legs, why did they move me from A&E to an almost identical department called Rapid Reaction something-or-other? Was it because they wanted to beat the 4 hour government limit on waiting times in Accident and Emergency?
It would make sense if it was, because I spent over 5 hours in that mysterious department while they tried to find me a bed in an orthopaedic ward. Indeed, having chatted with Norman Lamb, the Lib Dem Shadow Health Secretary, it appears that many hospitals are cheating on this particular target. In a survey across the country a massive spike occurs in discharges from A&E only minutes before the 4 hour limit is hit, implying a mad dash to clear the books.
An acquaintance in the NHS in Walsall argues that this is because serious emergencies are prioritised and less critical cases are likely to be bumped back, leading to lots of quick cases occurring at the end of the four hours. This suggests that the target actually works, because had it not been there, there would have been no compunction for the hospital to treat the minor cases, at all. What it doesn’t point to is a responsible attitude from the hospital administrators, rather than a mad dash to please their Whitehall masters.
The problem is that with so much effort going into meeting this target, treatments without such targets are being swept under the carpet. No government can legislate for everything, however much Labour might try, and so those expected to meet specific targets are naturally tempted to sacrifice treatments without targets to avoid sanctions.
This begs a wider question about what motivates the management of some hospitals? My January experience in hospital was not a happy one but I cannot fault the efforts of anyone who treated me clinically or surgically. I can only confirm that I never heard a kind word said by the nurses and doctors about the management of the hospital and I never heard a compassionate word spoken to me from the managers I encountered.
Perhaps the tail is wagging the dog here. Target obsession becomes a race to please the press rather than a genuine effort to raise standards of care. Of course, it would be easier to ditch all these targets if it wasn’t for the fact that cheating is the accepted practice.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
July 18, 2009
Did anyone see this week’s episode of Fifth Gear? Attempting to look intelligent and journalistic, they carried out a vaguely scientific experiment to prove that dropping the national single carriageway speed limit from 60mph to 50 doesn’t work? They showed that hitting the back of a very old tractor at 50 in a very old Ford Mondeo will kill you just as hitting it at 60 would.
What a shockingly ignorant piece of cod journalism! Does it not occur to them that the reason for reducing the limit is to give people a better chance of reacting to avoid having the collision in the first place? Most accidents in a 60 mile an hour limit happen at much lower speeds because the driver has reacted, too late, and slowed down. At 50, that might have made the difference between fatal accident, non-fatal injury or a safe emergency stop. Of course, they didn’t think of that and didn’t test for it.
Now, I’m not sure how I feel about the limit reduction yet. Limits often seem set in a rather arbitrary way and I’m a committed motorist, who believes in making my own judgements. However, In the last month, the teenage sons of two friends have had serious accidents on country roads because they didn’t know how to handle themselves. So, perhaps I need to think again.
I do believe in 20 mph limits on narrow side-streets and Home Zones to give residential side streets back to the residents. I see no reason to drive down Park Street in Kidderminster at 30, when so many children might run out from between the parked cars. It’s their street, too after all. But on open country roads, where one might encounter horses or that tractor, I hope that drivers might act with a little more commonsense than the simpletons presenting Fifth Gear.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
July 16, 2009
Cllr Ahmed’s sacking from Wyre Forest Tories by its leader, John Paul Campion seems nothing more than a sham.
Two days after Richard Taylor and I wrote to David Cameron asking why Campion had defended his criminal colleague in the Shuttle, Campion U-turned and removed Ahmed’s committee seats, his whip and his party membership.
Yet today, at the first Full Council meeting of Worcestershire CC since Ahmed was elected, a motion of no confidence in him was defeated by an overwhelming Tory vote. Councillor Campion even spoke in his defence, completing a full 360 degree spin. This is the same Cllr Campion who wrote… “The Conservative Group on Wyre Forest District Council expects the very highest of standards of behaviour from its members and it is now apparent that Cllr Ahmed has dramatically failed to meet those standards and his membership is now untenable.” Cllr Campion is typical of the “right to rule” Tory who thinks the law is only for those who aren’t in the party.
Meanwhile, Cllr George Lord , leader of Worcestershire Tory Cabinet awarded Ahmed with a Resources Scrutiny Committee seat. This, to a former Tory who they say lied to and humiliated the party membership and cost them a seat on two councils. Such hypocrisy can only come from politicians who believe they are above the law and invulnerable.
Fact: Cllr Sayed Mumshad Ahmed knew that he was breaking the law on both occasions that he was arrested for driving while disqualified and uninsured.
Fact: The West Mercia CPS order that the police should cease investigating a third alleged breach of his ban because it would not affect his punishment contradicts the judge’s statement that he would go to prison if convicted.
Fact: 77% of voters on a Kidderminster Shuttle poll said Ahmed should resign his councillorships.
Fact: In Jan 08, Tory leader, David Cameron said, “This phrase ‘moral fabric of society’ is something of a cliché. But it really does mean something. It’s the idea that your status in the eyes of your relatives, friends and neighbours depended on living up to positive social expectations. And what we see now is a perversion of that.
He was clearly talking about his own party officials, Cllrs Lord (Worcs CC leader), John Campion (Wyre Forest DC leader) and Mumshad Ahmed (Convicted Criminal).
Neville Farmer
Prospective Parliamentary Spokesman
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
July 1, 2009
”There is no such thing as society.” Margaret Thatcher, wicked witch of Grantham.
“Human rights culture has infected every part of our life.” David Cameron, Bullingdon Club veteran.
Back in 1215, even Britain’s robber barons recognised there was something wrong with letting the school bullies run the schoolyard. So the Magna Carta was written, a one page document that laid out the rights of all. It was basically aimed at reining in King John but it also started our road to democracy and human rights.
Someone said to me the other day that whoever you vote for in Britain, you’re screwed. On what basis does living in Britain, compared to most countries on the planet, constitute being screwed? We are born into a safe, supportive society which educates us, guards our health, protects us from invasion, crime, disease, starvation and oppression. Of course, it could always be better but “screwed”?
This lack of balance is becoming all too typical. We are so untroubled in Britain but so determined to complain that we believe every foreigner is either stealing our jobs or our benefits, every teenager with a hooded sweatshirt is a vandal, every man in a paedophile, every other country is out to get us and every politician is a crook. Yet do we vote? Do we participate in improving society? Not many of us, no. I hear it all the time, “Where’s the point?”
As I see the pictures of millions of Afghanis, Iranians, Zimbabweans and Iraqis risking their lives to vote, I feel ashamed that we live in one of the most privileged and beautiful countries in the world and yet we can’t be bothered. The reason I’m standing for Parliament in the next election is because I got fed up with complaining and yet doing nothing. I really do want to make a difference – to improve the things that can be improved and to protect the things that I cherish about being British. It’s not a power trip and it’s not the best way of making friends at the moment. It’s about getting involved in helping something I love.
What are you going to do? Well, you could start by voting and by thinking hard about who you’re voting for. Don’t just do what your dad did. Don’t just do what the papers or Jeremy Paxman tell you. Find out whether your favourite party has actually selected a candidate for you who will do the job or whether you’ve been landed with a party sheep? Read the party websites and the candidates’ blogs, read articles about them, read the oppositions arguments against them. Judge for yourself.
Then, why not volunteer? Stand for your parish, town, district or county council, or against me. You could stand for the education board or the hospital trust board or volunteer for the scouts. Age Concern are begging for volunteers to help the elderly in Wyre Forest (it’s only a couple of hours a week). There are endless charity shops, faith groups, hospital visitor groups, sponsored events. Dare I say you could even join a political party and help get your favourite candidate elected! You could join mine via www.wyreforestlibdems.org, if you’d like.
If one thing should come out of the current economic collapse it should be that we cannot sit back and leave it to those currently at the top. If we, we will end up back where we were before the Magna Carta with just a few, very rich bullies kicking us around. Check out who have been put up as your local candidates in the next general elections. Democracy and community and humanity are precious things. Let’s help protect them for our own sakes.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
June 24, 2009
Convicted criminal, Cllr Mumshad Ahmed, says he wants to draw a line under the happenings of the last few weeks. How dare he? Because he didn’t tell the voters that he was up on a charge he knew would stick, they won’t be able to draw a line under it for years.
He says in the Shuttle at he admitted his guilt from the outset. If so, how come the Tories didn’t know they had a criminal standing for them on June 4th? Surely, the party placed an obligation on him to inform them when he was banned from driving last December or when he was charged with driving while banned on two further occasions? Our local LibDem party has had to instigate such rules after past problems with unelected members but Ahmed was already an elected representative and should surely have made a commitment not to bring the party or council into disrepute?
If Cllr Ahmed had really admitted his guilt from the outset, did the Tories of Wyre Forest not question why he was driving to their HQ, Margaret Thatcher House, as one of the convictions states?
Cllr Ahmed’s case is not as Wyre Forest District Council leader, John Campion understates, a “lapse of judgement.” What he did was wilful criminality. As for Cllr Campion saying he was disappointed but supported Councillor Ahmed! Would he have said that if the drunk driver had run down a child or caused a serious accident while banned and uninsured? I believe in people being allowed to atone for their crimes but Cllr Ahmed actually stood for election while awaiting a trial he knew he would lose.
David Cameron talks of cleaning up the Conservative party. He has sacked senior MPs for non-criminal offences. Wyre Forest’s Tory council cabinet are supporting a convicted criminal, humiliating their membership and demonstrating contempt for the law and for their constituents.
I call on Dr Richard Taylor MP, Nigel Knowles (Labour PPC), Lib Dem Cllr Helen Dyke, Cllr Fran Oborski of the Liberal Party, Health Concern Cllr Howard Martin, Kate Spohrer of the Green Party, Mike Wrench of Ukip and Mark Garnier, Conservative candidate to join me in writing to David Cameron to request Mumshad Ahmed’s expulsion from the Conservative Party and for him and John Campion to vacate their posts forthwith.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
June 17, 2009
If there was ever a reason for voting out Gordon Brown it is the state of the economy. However, if there was ever a reason for not voting the Tories in it is the same one.
For, who is the man who the Tories trust as their party treasurer and chief fundraiser? Why, Mr Michael Spencer, the Chief Executive of the two companies that supplies Wyre Forest’s credit rating service and brokered the Wyre Forest Council £9 million investment deal with the Icelandic banks.
On the 11th June, the Independent newspaper said, “The Communities Select Committee say in a scathing report that the Financial Services Agency (FSA) should investigate whether it is appropriate for one part of Mr Spencer’s ICAP empire to assist council finance officers with council investments while another part receives fees for brokering the deals. This could give rise to “actual or perceived conflicts of interest”, it said.”
In all, 51 councils accepted Butlers’ credit rating services and invested £470 million in Iceland. Of them, 16 percent, including Wyre Forest DC, also took on the services of ICAP to broker the deals.
Though Butlers insist they are “segregated” from ICAP, Wyre Forest’s Treasury Management Review Panel report of February 19th says the Butlers representatives called themselves the “go between” for WFDC and ICAP. The report makes interesting reading. You can find the link on http://www.wyreforest.gov.uk/council/docs/doc39536_20090219_cabinet_report.pdf
The rather restrained document exonerates Wyre Forest’s own financial officers, largely because they weren’t qualified enough to be responsible, with the council relying instead on Butlers. In return, Butlers says it is only a credit rating agency and offered Wyre Forest no investment advice.
If this sounds like buck-passing, the government Select Committee report puts it this way…”Responsibility for local authorities’ investment decisions lies, and must lie, with the local authorities themselves. However, the claim by some treasury management advisers that they give information only, not advice, on investment counterparty creditworthiness is, in our view, misleading.”
What is not misleading is that while Wyre Forest’s residents are £9 million out of pocket, ICAP, Butlers and Michael Spencer are not and Butlers continues to be under contract to Wyre Forest until September 2010.
So, there’s Tory financial management for you. I know that as a Lib Dem I’m biased, but even the Mail on Sunday, The Observer and former Tory chancellor, Nigel Lawson seem to think Vince Cable MP is a better man to revive our economy than George “Flipper” Osborne. Flipper’s chums in the banking industry might disagree but who are they to judge?
Neville Farmer
June 10, 2009
As everyone now knows, Churchill, unwitting and doubtless grave-spinning icon of BNP and Ukip, said democracy was the worst kind of government apart from all the other kinds, or words to that effect. Last week’s Euro elections showed the downside of democracy.
Satisfied that the Daily Telegraph and the rabid pack of hacks slavering at their heels must have told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about politicians, the populace voted with its feet. Only just over a third voted, at all. Many people didn’t because they said all politicians were crooks. Many of those who did voted for fringe parties, as though they must be clean and only the three main parties were at the trough. Many voted for Ukip, a party with one former MEP in prison for fraud, one awaiting trial, two sacked, a self-confessed single purpose and no concept of government. Some voted BNP, though for all the money spent, no more than last time.
What all of this illuminated was a great failing in the political classes. We have spent decades navel-gazing while the public became more and more isolated. Tony Blair was undoubtedly the worst at putting out messages yet ignoring the responses but Margaret Thatcher wouldn’t listen to anyone without a very positive bank balance, John Major had the communications skills of a whelk and Gordon Brown seems irritated the public even exists.
Few politicians of any hue recognised the public’s disenchantment in time. Even in Wyre Forest, local politicians claim that the public knows what they know and will act accordingly. But they don’t and the vote showed it.
Barely a week goes by when a letter doesn’t appear in the Shuttle claiming councillors earn fortunes and all politicians are crooks – a statement based on no evidence whatsoever that the writers would be horrified at if applied to rumours about themselves. However hard a councillor might work and however little they are rewarded for their efforts, the public doesn’t believe it.
So what to do? Well, we could start by handing a few of the responsibilities of government back to the public. Let’s stop thinking we need nannying all the time. Let’s refute any demand that “the government should be doing something about this” for every little thing. And let’s start working together once we are elected. Let’s end the offensive practice of denying district councillors access to county information unless they’re Tories – classic soviet practice if even there was. Let’s make the truth about allowances and the details of expenses public, so people can judge for themselves who’s honest and who’s creaming it.
In central government, we could also start removing the powers of whips, PR consultants and advertising agents, while MPs just do what they’re told. The richer parties hide behind these slick message machines and we have no idea whether our local candidates can even speak.
We could use our local press more – insisting that all politicians and candidates report on their activities every week so the public can see who they might be voting, or against, next time round.
And the public? Well let’s get off our butts and find out just who is representing us – and I don’t mean read the Telegraph and believe it verbatim, because they merely serve the agenda of the Barclay Brothers and their banker friends. We live in an information age and it’s easy to do a little research about candidates to get a broader view.
After all, merely not voting or protesting by voting for a fringe party out of spite is to doom us to four or five years of truly awful government… as we will shortly discover.
Neville Farmer
Parliamentary Spokesman,
Wyre Forest Liberal Democrats
May 22, 2009
Politicians… and the rest of us… seem to have forgotten that rules are no substitute for moral judgement
