Now you're talking my language! Wouldn't it be wonderful if Darlington Borough Council acted on the LGA's suggestion and ceased using these 200 words and started writing in plain English.
The ones I really hate are "Quick win", "Stakeholder", Sustainable Communities", "Third Sector", Step Change", Place Shaping", Funding Stream" and Benchmarking". No DBC report is considered complete without the use of at least two of these horrible words.
In fact, I believe, somewhere in the darkest recesses of the Town Hall, there's someone employed in an office lit only by a single unshaded light bulb whose job it is to ensure that no report leaves the building unless it does indeed contain a fair smattering of this nonsense jargon.
Thursday, 11 March 2010
Monday, 8 March 2010
Now it's Labour's turn!
In the past couple of weeks in Darlington we've had local government officers using Council equipment and paper to produce a flyer promoting the Labour Party's General Election candidate to teachers at a training event, and we've had the Conservatives distributing - and continuing to distribute despite warning - an election leaflet for their candidate which doesn't contain a legal "Published by..." imprint.
Now Labour are at it again. The latest edition of the Little Red Rosette, Mark Burton's excellent community newsletter promoting himself as a Labour Councillor in Harrowgate Hill, carries a full page advertisement for Jenny Chapman, the Labour Candidate, plus two other pages devoted to an interview with her and another photo on the front page. Since the candidate took part in an interview for the purposes of this publication, she would have known that this was going to be distributed in Harrowgate Hill ward, as, presumably, did her agent.
Yet nowhere does a legal imprint appear. This is a Labour Party publication, advertising and promoting the election of a Labour Party candidate and, as such, the following rule applies:
"Election material must carry an imprint with details of the full name and full postal address of the printer and promoter of the material. The name and address of any person on whose behalf the material is being published must also be included if this person is not the promoter."
The requirement in the first sentence above is adhered to and the leaflet states that it has been published and promoted on behalf of Mark Burton. Yet, since a significant proportion of it promotes Jenny Chapman, by law her name and a contact address should also have been included.
Don't the Conservative or Labour Parties know electoral law, or are they so arrogant that they think it doesn't apply to them. I don't suppose any action will be taken against either party, but the law is there for a good reason, and even the Labour Party are not above it.
Hat tip: GC
Now Labour are at it again. The latest edition of the Little Red Rosette, Mark Burton's excellent community newsletter promoting himself as a Labour Councillor in Harrowgate Hill, carries a full page advertisement for Jenny Chapman, the Labour Candidate, plus two other pages devoted to an interview with her and another photo on the front page. Since the candidate took part in an interview for the purposes of this publication, she would have known that this was going to be distributed in Harrowgate Hill ward, as, presumably, did her agent.
Yet nowhere does a legal imprint appear. This is a Labour Party publication, advertising and promoting the election of a Labour Party candidate and, as such, the following rule applies:
"Election material must carry an imprint with details of the full name and full postal address of the printer and promoter of the material. The name and address of any person on whose behalf the material is being published must also be included if this person is not the promoter."
The requirement in the first sentence above is adhered to and the leaflet states that it has been published and promoted on behalf of Mark Burton. Yet, since a significant proportion of it promotes Jenny Chapman, by law her name and a contact address should also have been included.
Don't the Conservative or Labour Parties know electoral law, or are they so arrogant that they think it doesn't apply to them. I don't suppose any action will be taken against either party, but the law is there for a good reason, and even the Labour Party are not above it.
Hat tip: GC
Welcome!
Later this week we reveal which leading voluntary organisation activist and former Darlington Councillor has defected to the Lib Dems in support of me.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Stop it now.
My blogging colleage, Labour Councillor Nick Wallis, has called on the Tories to stop distributing their latest leaflet which carries a "Printed by..." but not a "Published by..." imprint. I suspect Nick is saying this tongue in cheek, but actually he's right. If there are thousands of these leaflets stacked up waiting to be delivered, the Conservatives must withdraw them immediately and destroy them. All literature during an election period in support of a candidate must carry details of its publisher (the candidate's agent) and the address at which he can be contacted.
If the Conservatives continue to distribute this leaflet from now onwards, having been alerted to their mistake, further action should be pursued by the Returning Officer.
On a related matter, I understand Durham Fraud Squad are to conduct an interview with a complainant concerning earlier allegations of electoral misconduct in the constituency.
If the Conservatives continue to distribute this leaflet from now onwards, having been alerted to their mistake, further action should be pursued by the Returning Officer.
On a related matter, I understand Durham Fraud Squad are to conduct an interview with a complainant concerning earlier allegations of electoral misconduct in the constituency.
Sloppy work Edward
The latest election leaflet from Edward Legard, the Conservative candidate for the Darlington constituency, arrived with the pizza menu leaflets on my doormat this evening. Sadly, for a party which got its nickers in such a twist when a flyer in support of Jenny Chapman, the Labour candidate, was distributed without an election imprint to teachers recently, this lastest effort from Capt Legard also does not include the necessary "Published by..." imprint.
Edward's agent, Charles Johnson, whose name should, according to election law, appear on this leaflet, has his photo on the leaflet - but no imprint. I trust prosecution will follow and in this case justice will be seen to be done. String 'im up, I say.
Interestingly, it appears from a Tweet from Peter Barron, editor of the Northern Echo, who lives in Hurworth, that this leaflet has been delivered in that fair village. I commend Charles' keenness to spread the Conservative message far and wide. Sadly, though, Hurworth lies in the Sedgefield Constituency. You just can't trust these pizza menu leafletters, Charles. Should have used your own members, like we do.
The leaflet doesn't shy away from tarring Jenny Chapman (or "Mr Milburn's former Personal Assistant" as Capt Legard calls her) with the Milburn brush. I know Jenny would love to point out in her leaflets that Capt Legard is an out-of-touch outsider - maybe this will provoke her to become just a little bit personal.
But the crowning point in the leaflet, for me, is the steady inching forward of Capt Legard's claim to be local. You'll remember I pointed out that, in his first leaflet, Edward said he was a "local Councillor", which is only true if you live in Malton. And in his second leaflet he was a "local Conservative", again, only true if you live in Rydale. Now, in his third leaflet, Edward says, " Ordinary people in Darlington, myself included..." Two points here: Edward, as the son of a baronet, hardly qualifies as an "ordinary person" and secondly, the one place he's not from is Darlington. The use of the word "included" is a subtle, though entirely illegitimate, attempt to cast him as a Darlingtonian.
Like I said, he'll be kipping on Charles' floor soon.
Edward's agent, Charles Johnson, whose name should, according to election law, appear on this leaflet, has his photo on the leaflet - but no imprint. I trust prosecution will follow and in this case justice will be seen to be done. String 'im up, I say.
Interestingly, it appears from a Tweet from Peter Barron, editor of the Northern Echo, who lives in Hurworth, that this leaflet has been delivered in that fair village. I commend Charles' keenness to spread the Conservative message far and wide. Sadly, though, Hurworth lies in the Sedgefield Constituency. You just can't trust these pizza menu leafletters, Charles. Should have used your own members, like we do.
The leaflet doesn't shy away from tarring Jenny Chapman (or "Mr Milburn's former Personal Assistant" as Capt Legard calls her) with the Milburn brush. I know Jenny would love to point out in her leaflets that Capt Legard is an out-of-touch outsider - maybe this will provoke her to become just a little bit personal.
But the crowning point in the leaflet, for me, is the steady inching forward of Capt Legard's claim to be local. You'll remember I pointed out that, in his first leaflet, Edward said he was a "local Councillor", which is only true if you live in Malton. And in his second leaflet he was a "local Conservative", again, only true if you live in Rydale. Now, in his third leaflet, Edward says, " Ordinary people in Darlington, myself included..." Two points here: Edward, as the son of a baronet, hardly qualifies as an "ordinary person" and secondly, the one place he's not from is Darlington. The use of the word "included" is a subtle, though entirely illegitimate, attempt to cast him as a Darlingtonian.
Like I said, he'll be kipping on Charles' floor soon.
Thursday, 4 March 2010
Visit to Stroke Unit
On Tuesday I paid a visit to the Acute Stroke Unit at Darlington Memorial Hospital. With its long-term future still in doubt, due to the need to meet Government targets of 24/7 acute stroke care across the country, which may lead Health Trusts to seek a concentration of services in regional centres, it was really good to be able to talk to the consultant and ward sister responsible for providing stroke care on the ward.
I'm assured active steps are being taken to recruit specialists to the unit, though there is, apparently, a shortage of stroke specialists across the country. The point was made that a stroke specialist would want to be able to concentrate his work in his specialism, which might mean seeking employment in a larger centre, rather than a small 8 bed unit like ours.
However, DMH does have a dedicated and well-trained nursing team, who moved en-bloc from Bishop Auckland when their acute centre closed, and also a strong research base, thanks to its senior consultant. So, perhaps we make up for in quality what we lack in size.
I had a press and public relations officer, a senior administrator, the consultant and sister all tied up looking after me, so I'd like to say thank you to them all for taking time out and being so helpful. It was a most interesting visit.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Pure co-incidence
I undertand there is absolutely no connection between the rare appearance in the town centre today of cleaners wielding high pressure hoses and the visit to the town tomorrow of John Denham, Secretary of State for Communities, Local Government and Chewing Gum Removal.
Monday, 1 March 2010
Interesting snippets
Following last week's Council Meeting to consider next year's budget for Darlington a couple of mildy interesting things happened.
First, down the Quaker, I discovered that the original proposed budget was not shown to or discussed within the Labour Group before it was published. It was the work solely of officers and the Cabinet. As an only slightly-the-worse-for-wear Labour councillor told me, "If we'd have known about the plans for the Early Years Inclusion Service it would never have got in the budget in the first place".
I suppose I should have realised this, but nevertheless it does show how closed and centralised Labour in Darlington is. Sadly, if those in power spend too long without effective criticism from within, they become detached from reality and lack understanding of what rest of us want. We saw that four years ago when the Labour Cabinet and senior officers wanted to foist a giant Tesco store on the town. Nothing much has changed it seems.
The second development followed a sentence in my speech where, as an aside, I suggested that Cabinet's plans for increased income when the recession ends would be put in jeopardy if the Conservatives won the General Election and George Osbourne's plans for immediate public sector cuts plunged us back in to recession.
At the Best of Darlington Awards the next evening, I sensed a slight frostiness from the senior Conservatives present. And then one of them said, "You stabbed us in the back last night, Mike".
Gosh, how exciting! I have to say, though, it will do the Lib Dems no harm at all to have a line in the sand drawn between ourselves and the Conservatives. We share a common opposition to the Labour Party, and may sometimes come together in Council to criticise Labour, but we are an independent political party with our own platform and approach to politics. We may be the smallest party in the Chamber, but we are not in anyone's pocket. Just as our support will have to be fought for at Westminster in the event of a hung Parliament, so locally we will continue to fight for what we believe in - which will often not necessarily be what the Conservatives believe in.
First, down the Quaker, I discovered that the original proposed budget was not shown to or discussed within the Labour Group before it was published. It was the work solely of officers and the Cabinet. As an only slightly-the-worse-for-wear Labour councillor told me, "If we'd have known about the plans for the Early Years Inclusion Service it would never have got in the budget in the first place".
I suppose I should have realised this, but nevertheless it does show how closed and centralised Labour in Darlington is. Sadly, if those in power spend too long without effective criticism from within, they become detached from reality and lack understanding of what rest of us want. We saw that four years ago when the Labour Cabinet and senior officers wanted to foist a giant Tesco store on the town. Nothing much has changed it seems.
The second development followed a sentence in my speech where, as an aside, I suggested that Cabinet's plans for increased income when the recession ends would be put in jeopardy if the Conservatives won the General Election and George Osbourne's plans for immediate public sector cuts plunged us back in to recession.
At the Best of Darlington Awards the next evening, I sensed a slight frostiness from the senior Conservatives present. And then one of them said, "You stabbed us in the back last night, Mike".
Gosh, how exciting! I have to say, though, it will do the Lib Dems no harm at all to have a line in the sand drawn between ourselves and the Conservatives. We share a common opposition to the Labour Party, and may sometimes come together in Council to criticise Labour, but we are an independent political party with our own platform and approach to politics. We may be the smallest party in the Chamber, but we are not in anyone's pocket. Just as our support will have to be fought for at Westminster in the event of a hung Parliament, so locally we will continue to fight for what we believe in - which will often not necessarily be what the Conservatives believe in.
Damp squib?
Well, the Echo has published details of the Conservatives' complaint about the Council's conduct in apparently distributing literature in favour of the Labour Party's candidate at the forthcoming General Election.
While the Council is right to be investigating this seriously, it would appear to be an example of thoughtlessness by Council officers rather than a blatent attempt to promote Jenny Chapman's candidature. They should have known better and I trust the Borough Solicitor will be issuing guidance to officers on the correct approach to adopt to political matters in the future.
Sadly, the Echo did not use the best bit of the quote I gave them, "With so many Labour voters moving over to support the Lib Dems in this election, Jenny Chapman needs all the help she can get." And it also gave the Echo an excuse to print yet another colour photo of Jenny, their favourite pin-up girl.
While the Council is right to be investigating this seriously, it would appear to be an example of thoughtlessness by Council officers rather than a blatent attempt to promote Jenny Chapman's candidature. They should have known better and I trust the Borough Solicitor will be issuing guidance to officers on the correct approach to adopt to political matters in the future.
Sadly, the Echo did not use the best bit of the quote I gave them, "With so many Labour voters moving over to support the Lib Dems in this election, Jenny Chapman needs all the help she can get." And it also gave the Echo an excuse to print yet another colour photo of Jenny, their favourite pin-up girl.
A belated review of last week's Budget Council
Last Thursday's Special Council meeting in Darlington to agree the budget for the coming year started off slowly but then became much more deliciously bad-tempered as the evening progressed. Indeed, I wondered if everyone had gone to sleep when no hands went up in the air following the Mayor's call for debate.
It seemed that the Tories, as the official opposition, were waiting for someone else to start the ball rolling: an act of unnecessary self-effacement confirmed later by their strange decision to abstain during the named vote.
So it fell to me to start things off. My speech dealt with four issues: the quite unnecessary decision to put the future of the Early Years Inclusion Service into the budget process. Since we have been assured that the proposed cut to this service was not an Aunt Sally (put up for debate simply so the Cabinet could later prove its "listening" qualities by later withdrawing its threat to the service) I pointed out that the situation was in fact much worse: the Labour Cabinet really did intend to cut the service, leaving our most vulnerable children and their parents without the support they have been used to.
I went on to show support for those front-line staff threatened with redundancy or with having their take-home pay cut because of various changes to terms and conditions of their employment, such as a proposed ban on premium time payments for working on Bank Holidays, including Christmas Day. I suggested that it was the front-line staff rather than managers and directors who were bearing the brunt of the Council's cost-savings.
Thirdly, I pointed out that the budget was contradictory: for example, the Chief Executive's Department is budgeted to increase its income from planning application fees by £40,000 in 2010/11 as the economy recovers, yet other Departments are planning on making savings in staff costs by laying people off because of the recession and its effect on building and development. They can't have it both ways: only one of these conditions can apply.
And finally, I pointed out that many things within the budget were dependent on developments outside the Council's control.
I concluded, "Mr Mayor, what we have here is a budget where the lowest earners providing front line services are to bear the brunt of cost savings, where the Cabinet thought it appropriate to put staff, parents and children quite unnecessarily through a lot of stress and anxiety for relatively small savings which clearly, since they were reversed, didn't need to be in the budget in the first place.
"We have a budget which has so many internal contradictions that one wonders whether anyone actually read it all from start to finish. "
And a budget which is reliant for so much of its proposed savings on factors outside the control of the Council that really one has to say that this budget has been produced on a wing and a prayer."
When I sat down, members of the public in the gallery above applauded, which was nice, if unexpected.
Lib Dem Leader Martin Swainston also adding his bit to the debate, calling for an independent, outside review of the Council's management structure to determine the potential for cost-savings in the middle and upper levels of management.
As Labour Councillors queued up to taunt the Conservatives so the Tories bit back and the meeting became increasingly bad-tempered.
Labour's budget was passed on a named vote, which allowed Labour to continue to taunt the Conservatives for not having the courage to take a firm stand on the matter, because they all abstained.
I understand the bad temper overflowed into the Members' Room afterwards, though by that time I was well on my way to the Quaker for a pint.
It seemed that the Tories, as the official opposition, were waiting for someone else to start the ball rolling: an act of unnecessary self-effacement confirmed later by their strange decision to abstain during the named vote.
So it fell to me to start things off. My speech dealt with four issues: the quite unnecessary decision to put the future of the Early Years Inclusion Service into the budget process. Since we have been assured that the proposed cut to this service was not an Aunt Sally (put up for debate simply so the Cabinet could later prove its "listening" qualities by later withdrawing its threat to the service) I pointed out that the situation was in fact much worse: the Labour Cabinet really did intend to cut the service, leaving our most vulnerable children and their parents without the support they have been used to.
I went on to show support for those front-line staff threatened with redundancy or with having their take-home pay cut because of various changes to terms and conditions of their employment, such as a proposed ban on premium time payments for working on Bank Holidays, including Christmas Day. I suggested that it was the front-line staff rather than managers and directors who were bearing the brunt of the Council's cost-savings.
Thirdly, I pointed out that the budget was contradictory: for example, the Chief Executive's Department is budgeted to increase its income from planning application fees by £40,000 in 2010/11 as the economy recovers, yet other Departments are planning on making savings in staff costs by laying people off because of the recession and its effect on building and development. They can't have it both ways: only one of these conditions can apply.
And finally, I pointed out that many things within the budget were dependent on developments outside the Council's control.
I concluded, "Mr Mayor, what we have here is a budget where the lowest earners providing front line services are to bear the brunt of cost savings, where the Cabinet thought it appropriate to put staff, parents and children quite unnecessarily through a lot of stress and anxiety for relatively small savings which clearly, since they were reversed, didn't need to be in the budget in the first place.
"We have a budget which has so many internal contradictions that one wonders whether anyone actually read it all from start to finish. "
And a budget which is reliant for so much of its proposed savings on factors outside the control of the Council that really one has to say that this budget has been produced on a wing and a prayer."
When I sat down, members of the public in the gallery above applauded, which was nice, if unexpected.
Lib Dem Leader Martin Swainston also adding his bit to the debate, calling for an independent, outside review of the Council's management structure to determine the potential for cost-savings in the middle and upper levels of management.
As Labour Councillors queued up to taunt the Conservatives so the Tories bit back and the meeting became increasingly bad-tempered.
Labour's budget was passed on a named vote, which allowed Labour to continue to taunt the Conservatives for not having the courage to take a firm stand on the matter, because they all abstained.
I understand the bad temper overflowed into the Members' Room afterwards, though by that time I was well on my way to the Quaker for a pint.
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