Tory plot to lengthen their lifetime in money making power is working like ‘MAGIC'

LibDems and Labour missing-out on placing the onus on Councils by failing to push postal voting.

The BBC has been looking and reporting on preparations for the May local elections. 

Their published survey suggests that the uptake of Voter Authority Certificates, introduced by the Tories in Government alongside the new requirement for voters to provide photo ID at their polling station, has been extremely low across more densely populated areas with high levels of deprivation. 

The take up has been ‘horrendously low’ in the North-East of England, West Midlands, West Yorkshire, Humberside and Lincolnshire. 

Checking on regional BBC news reports it is now believed by Democratic Services Officers in Councils and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that hundreds of thousands of potential voters may currently be without a suitable ID.

The Constitution society published a document on the Tory Governments change in voting law during late 2022 and entitled their work ‘an accident waiting to happen’.

With Labour sitting 20 points ahead of the Conservatives in the polls the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of working people will nullify that lead and organisations working in the field of equality find it abhorrent that neither the LibDems nor Labour have been pushing or advertising to increase the take up of postal voting as the best way to deal with this dreadful anti-democratic legislation.

Editorial Notes

https://consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/John-Ault-Report.pdf

https://www.jrf.org.uk/blog/government-must-not-disenfranchise-low-income-voters-polls

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-for-a-postal-vote

Secret Community Critic Upsetting Newbiggin Residents?

A very secretive community critic has appeared in Newbiggin by the Sea in recent years, plaguing the community and upsetting many with his social media rants against local organisations and community champions.

Using the well practised ‘secret skills’ encouraged by potential Tory political candidates, this unreasonably cruel critic never names himself in his rants but those he’s hurt, the residents of this small town or village as some would like to call it and his neighbours know who he is and his ever reducing circle of influence shrinks after each event when his aim appears to be his own personal growth.

It's rumoured, (as it's rumours he constantly creates and hides behind) that he appeared in the village following the bankruptcy of a business he owned in North Tyneside, the time period of which following the collapse of the Tories in that area does not surprise many onlookers.

In his early Newbiggin by the Sea secretive social media rants he decried both local women's groups and their institute setting himself on a path towards villagers or is that small town residents, nodding to each other as he trundles past them in the street.

He then joined a project linked to Northumberland County Council who offered a lease on a piece of land for gardening purposes. Our critical protagonist almost dragged the County Council into a legal process which would have damaged the applications for lottery funding for charities and projects across the County had Newbiggins local community champions not moved rapidly to halt his progress. 

He had made a hefty funding bid for a secondary process to progress his own ideas on behalf of this project which sat clearly outside the lease gifted by Northumberland County Council. He then went on to criticise those who had to sort out his mess.

He has now moved onto another project where he is in the copycat stage of his former tactical takeovers and still without placing his name on supposed positive media stories. He appears to be placing some new community champions front and centre in what we expect is his latest honeypot trap.

Our also unnamed article hopes that some transparency is offered by this person or is he about to drag even more Newbiggin by the Sea community champions through the mire of his making?

Watch this space.

One Month On? Newcastle CAZ income is growing retail trade outside the Toon.

 

Local reporting has illustrated that retail outlets in Newcastle’s outlying suburbs, surrounding towns and areas which are becoming ‘fine-avoidance parking strips’ have recorded growth for the first time in three years, as fines and the fear of fines is changing people's shopping habits. 

In only one month of operation, more than 1,600 drivers were fined for not paying Newcastle's Clean Air Zone (CAZ) charges. 

Newcastle City Council said “1,476 journeys were paid for in the CAZ compared to 1,658 drivers who flouted the toll and were fined. The amount of income generated by the CAZ was £54,327 including £41,975 in toll payments, £7,402 in paid fines, and £4,950 from discounted seven-day passes for taxi drivers”.

An observer from Cramlington reported on her social media that “I have found parking in our town centre quite difficult lately and there’s a definite greater movement of people through both the indoor and outdoor retail areas, I've been told by friends that's because they have stopped travelling into Newcastle to shop in case they get fined.”

Another social media chat from the same area contained “I have come back to Cramlington to do my weekly shop as the Newcastle and Gateshead CAZ rules frighten me.I’m amazed at how crowded the shops are, it seems the new Boyes shop and Food Warehouse are doing very well”.

With Newcastle’s businesses watching the slowdown caused by CAZ and the suburbs beginning to suffer from parking problems by those who must enter the city to work, Council’s need to ensure that the next step into ‘Greenness’ and political parties ‘Green new deals’ are not smitten by city centricity also planners and people in power need to begin to realise that once you get into your car you can shop anywhere. 

This very rapid change in the retail trade experienced by Birmingham who introduced a similar scheme two years ago and now Newcastle/Gateshead must show politicians that people are not going to give up the independence a car brings them by 2030 and the cost of stripping out that independence for those living outside of cities with loads of public transport will be empty city high streets and a disappearing vote!

Government SEND Policy Council Leaders want to openly talk about funding?

 

AT LAST:
After 14 years of austerity the Tory Government in office has recognised we, as a group of nations, have a huge problem of too many children for the schools we already have built and not enough funding within the schools formula to help families with Special Educational Needs children to get the quality of help they require to take them through the rest of their lives.

The Department for Education is now planning to provide thousands of additional school places, and build 33 new special schools, in order to address a "postcode lottery" of SEND provision. The ‘New Model Schools’ some of which are already under construction will be based on the Special Free Schools plan.

When completed and full, special free schools funding is stripped from Councils high level children's services budgets. Those budgets in England already show an £806m shortfall for educating children with special educational needs and stripping out the real higher costs from Council’s budgets leaves the education of mainstream pupils and students in local authority maintained schools open to cuts well below planned expectations if their Council has no funding reserves to replace the cut.

Unitary and County council leaders  have asked the Local Government Association to demand a conference call with the Minister for children and families, Claire Coutinho before even more special free school developments get underway in an attempt to ensure mainstream funding is topped up to ensure a ‘Brighter Future’ for all of our children.

By-election swings and Conservatives being rejected for Right-Wing Tory activists brings urgent advice from elder statesmen?

 

Massive swings of over 10% in Urban areas and 7.5%+ in rural, local and national by-elections towards Labour and the LibDems.

With top conservative councillors in the North-East of England, East Anglia and the West Country being deselected in favour of hard line right wingers, red wall MP’s being pushed into the background and business leaders along with their companies shifting their allegiance to the Labour party along with some very hefty donations is bringing out former top conservatives to offer this government in office some very strong advice.

Old Guard Conservative politician George Osborne has come out this week to offer his sage-like advice to the ultra right-wing Tory Cabinet in national office, he has suggested that high business taxes are putting companies off investing in Britain, and urged Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to cut them next month to boost the economy. Hunt is set to put corporation tax up by 6% to 25% in his Spring budget. He told the press, "I reduced business tax because I thought that was a way of bringing investment in. That creates the revenues that allow you to fund your public services", Osborne also said, "That’s the approach I took and would be the approach I would take again." The comments come as the Conservative Growth Group prepares to hand an alternative budget to Mr Hunt that will include proposals to reduce the tax burden on businesses to boost the economy.

The Conservative Growth Group is a gathering of like-minded MPs planning to push a growth agenda – and maneuver the Prime Minister into adopting some of its preferred policies. The group is led by two men who served as cabinet ministers under Liz Truss: former levelling up secretary Simon Clarke and former environment secretary Ranil Jayawardena who see themselves as Conservative rather than Tories and are desperate to be recognised as such.

They have problems being seen as Trussites,  but do also appear to have a number of beliefs that will endear themselves to oldstyle conservative voters.

The problem with their alternative budget program is it is too little too late as the nation is being stripped of savings to pay for the Trussites first attempt at running the country following Boris Johnson’s failure to move on and protect the Tories massive political advantage. Johnson should have noticed the post brexit and post pandemic problems for business and stepped down as prime minister in a golden haze to reap greater rewards on the after-dinner circuit.

Were now run by a man who has no links to ordinary people or their plight, who came second to Liz Truss by miles in a vote off of Conservative Party Members and twisted the rules to ensure party members didn’t get a vote again to ensure his premiership, joined at the hip by Jeremy Hunt whose press photos show his strangeness growing with each publicised picture. 

The Conservative Party vote in their rural heartlands and east coast former industrial, fishing and agricultural areas is about to slip further into the background as the Confederation of Passenger Transport has warned that unless fresh support for bus services across the country is announced by today Friday 17:02:23, bus and coach services could face significant cuts within weeks. Current Government financial support for services expires at the end of March, but operators have to give six weeks' notice of plans to cut or change routes. 

Confederation Passenger Transport head Graham Vidler says while pandemic-related support has been welcome, "reliance on piecemeal funding puts up to 15% of services in jeopardy if not replaced" His statements are also supported by the GMB and Unite trade unions who fear the loss of bus drivers will immediately cause recruitment problems as many companies will seek voluntary redundancies first and a huge number of drivers may retire early, leaving the economy very short of the opportunity to re-recruit in the short term without the Government fully supporting a huge driver training scheme.

This loss of enjoyed transport facilities by the public with about to be abandoned routes running through rural areas will encourage an even greater shift by traditional conservative voters away from the Tories as they see a two pronged attack by the Tories in office against the delivery of services and the values they, Conservative voters, have held dear for decades being eroded by ultra right wingers who are only interested in the race to cash in on their current majority in Parliament. Their race for wealth is now openly seen as an attack on the welfare and pockets of UK residents.

 

 

Northumberland Labour Group Leader quite right to criticise dreadful, heartless Tory budget.

Is bumping up debt to over £1.2Bn, and raising rents by 7% following a 17% three year accumulative rise in Council tax good for County residents?

Yesterday was the first day the Council’s new Chief Executive hit base at County Hall. The Leader of Council Glen Sanderson turned up in an audi sports  car, ditching his farmers 4x4 to impress his new team adviser.

His day was taken up pushing out a news report slating the Leader of the Labour Group in Northumberland, Councillor Scott Dickinson for having the audacity to criticise his forthcoming budget and we must emphasise its HIS budget.

During July 2020 the Tories on the County Council suspended their Chief Executive, Mrs Dajit Lally, following a whistleblowing incident and in August 2022 the same Tory Group struck a deal to sever her from her employment.

In 2020 the Labour Group Leader said: “"We have no faith in the political leadership of this council after carrying out this act of silencing and urge them to rethink this course of action in the interests of the Northumberland residents.

"In the middle of a global pandemic, Mrs Lally has been recognised and applauded locally, nationally and by all political parties for her compassionate handling of our local emergencies. The last thing we need is a second wave (of covid) and not having someone so experienced at the helm."

That lack of faith remains from members of the Labour Group in Northumberland as Councillor Sanderson took over the rudderless Council in September 2020 and until yesterday ran it without a full time chief executive in place in his own image as ‘well dressed gentleman farmer’.

Infighting among various factions of the Tories held back both delivery of its corporate plan and pushed up costs to the public, yet in yesterday's criticism he managed to simply attempt to claim the successes of the last Labour Group who ran a minority administration at County Hall as his own at doesn’t expect to be criticised for his egotistical rants.

He tried to claim the Ashington Blyth and Tyne line reopening to passenger transport as his own, Councillor Dickinson has reminded the Tories many times that “if Labours administration hadn’t pulled out all the stops and got the GRIP studies undertaken the project would not have got off the ground” and Councillor Dickinson has also said “the starting a job with £31M of ratepayers cash which needs the Tory Government to cough up £166m to complete the project is poor management of public money”. To back that up, according to Councillor Sanderson in Chronicle Live yesterday they still haven’t got the cash in the bank. Labour believe that is the wrong way to run a project that's so important to Northumberlands residents many of whom live along the route of the line have been written too and told about infrastructure cutbacks to save cash.

Councillor Sanderson then attempted to claim the Borderlands deal as his, a deal his party wanted nothing to do with from 2013-2017 and records show not a single Tory attended any meetings regarding this massive money spinning project until they realised how successful Labour had been in securing the deal when they took over in 2017.

We spoke with Councillor Scott Dickinson, Labour’s Leader and he told us at Northumberland News that “with Councillor Sanderson running without a fully committed professional CEX officer whose income relies on them performing well, Councillor Sanderson has let the Council languish in the doldrums”. “Since 2020 he and his team have run the Council using Officers whose main function was not that of the Chief Executive and expected them to perform their old and new duties at the same time, it just doesn’t work.”

“Things have gone from bad to worse under his leadership and eventually the nonsense and infighting from the Conservatives led to a Government inspector writing a damning report on the mess the administration of the Council has got itself in”.

On the budget, Councillor Dickinson said:  “ we have thousands of people driven into both rural and urban poverty right across Northumberland through the national government's rampant pursuit of money first, people later policies and the nations slippage into economic crisis of their making” 

“This Council budget is set to strip more from an already drained society and will cause greater hardship for our residents”.

He said: "I would urge the Conservatives to think carefully about the 15,000 most vulnerable residents they've already penalised this year in the middle of a real cost of living crisis. 

"We'll have one of the highest council taxes in the UK and residents will genuinely be asking how on earth they are now going to be able to pay more. We know the Government has slashed local government finance, but the leader of the council said he was pleased with the settlement.

"If he is that pleased, why are ordinary, hard-working families being forced to pay more and get less?"

Among the £17 million in savings earmarked in the budget proposals are a £4.93 million saving identified from adult social care and commissioning services. £3 million of that will come from reviewing individual packages of care.

Planning, council finance and corporate services will also see reductions in spend, amounting to almost £10 million in savings. 

Councillor Sanderson insists in the mainstream press that cuts will not be at the expense of frontline services. Looking at the Conservatives performance since 2017, their inability to deliver Best Value on behalf of their residents and the series of money, money, money budgets since 2020, can you believe him?

Poverty is worsening across Northumberlands seaboard towns and Villages

 

A report commissioned by the Coastal Communities Alliance, the LGA Coastal Special Interest Group and the Coastal Partnerships Network shows that in areas such as coastal Northumberland one in five workers earn less than the minimum wage.

Their research shows that families earn on average £3,000 per year less than market towns further inland. Nowhere in Northumberland is this felt harder than in Newbiggin by the Sea which is home to the largest number of children living in poverty in Northumberland. Poorer health, education, transport and broadband links are also highlighted within the report.

We are aware through press and news reports that Town & County Councillors and area champions, Liz Simpson and Jim Lang have been trying to raise matters affecting Newbiggin by the Sea and North Seaton’s young people since 2017 with the Tories who run the County Council being unwilling to help, effectively turning Nelson's eye to the plight of those living in coastal areas.

Both Newbiggin’s Labour County Councillors have expressed bitter disappointment when children's service reports show a lack of improvement for Newbiggin with the Councils administration pouring fortunes into privatised schools such as Hexham High while kids from Coastal areas receive very much less help.

The report ‘Communities on the Edge, a revisit of their excellent 2017 work states:  says: Many areas have lower wages due to jobs being seasonal and part-time in the tourism sector, or with small firms.

A lower proportion of children achieve GCSE qualifications in maths and English, with children more likely to regularly miss school.

Fewer new council houses mean people rely on private rentals where costs are higher, and cars are needed because of poor public transport.

Coastal areas have higher rates of depression, suicide, alcohol-related hospital admissions and emergency admissions for lung conditions.

Limited gigabit broadband and 4G provision causes a "digital divide".

It also describes the issues facing such areas as having been "years, if not decades" in the making but Northumberland’s coastal problems have grown out of all proportion since 2017 with a major growth area being depopulation, through the wealthy purchasing second homes near the coast causing major problems for the survival of retail business outside the main holiday periods. Newbiggin by the Sea is one of those towns badly affected by these problems.