First two months back on the council
By Steve Hanlon | July 8, 2010
It’s been a busy two months since the elections – with plenty done and a *lot* that I need to get done.
There are some teething problems with just getting information. I’ve opted to get council papers via email rather than the weekly small tree’s worth of paper being delivered each week. I’m not 100% certain yet if I’m actually getting everything. Still, it’ll all work out.
Noel and I have had meetings with local police and with the New Way tenants and residents committee. Also there was a special full council meeting about housing funding changes, which I couldn’t attend because of our previously arranged trip to Glastonbury. However, it’s time that we got out with our street surgeries and getting our first newsletter out. We’ll get these out in the next couple of weeks.
First impressions after being away from the Council for a couple of years:
* The “Chairman” of the council has now morphed into “His most worshipful Mayor” – this is weird and rather pointless.
* There are a *lot* of new faces, both in the Labour group and the Conservative group. It’ll take the best part of a year to get used to all the names again.
* Cash and the (non) availability of funding has the potential of overwhelming each and every decision being made by the council. There was very little spare cash three years ago. Now the scale of the cuts that have to be implemented have the potential to grind the workings of local services to a halt. This, and the role of the local council, are likely to be the themes for the next few years.
Most often the things that need changing require some element of cash. Speed enforcement signs, street cleaning or playground maintenance, even having sufficient planning officers to properly deal with and enforce applications. All this requires money – even if only a smidge to grease the wheels, but with a wave of the LibDem/Tory budget, that has all disappeared.
The council is a very different place and has very different challenges from when I stepped down two years ago.
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Leaflets – the other (handwritten) one
By Steve Hanlon | May 2, 2010
Here’s the leaflet that is going out this week. I’ve got no idea how it will be received, but my thinking is this – there are *so many* leaflets flying around that something a little different might be noticed.
Also, it’s good to sneak a smiley face in, now and again.
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Leaflets – the “manifesto leaflet”
By Steve Hanlon | May 2, 2010
In case anyone is interested (and to avoid repeating things in the future) I’m posting the two main leaflets that we used in the past couple of weeks.
Here is what we quaintly call the “manifesto” leaflet in West Lancs. This is the one for Noel and myself in Scott ward, Ormskirk.
It’s the main leaflet that contains the Labour group policies and pointing out just a few of the failings of our Conservative Borough Council.
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Voting Conservative, 28 Days later…
By Steve Hanlon | April 10, 2010
There’s a brilliant spoof of the 28 days later trailer posted over at Political Scrapbook site. I’m sure that they won’t mind me linking to it here too.
They’re churning out a *lot* of excellent stuff and I’m sure that there’s a plenty more to come between now and May 6th. Well worth a visit.
Topics: Election 2010 | No Comments »
Weird blog action
By Steve Hanlon | March 20, 2010
For some reason this rarely updated blog has been down for the past couple of weeks following a server move. The old google analytics shows that it fell off a cliff about three weeks ago.
For a variety of reasons I’ve not even looked at this blog for about a month, so it completely passed me by.
However, logging onto the server, running a “ls -latu” and generally mooching about seems to have kicked it into life. No idea why, but there it is. I don’t guarantee I’ll be any better at updating, but at least it’s there when the urge takes me.
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From the archives – reaction to Peter Watt’s appointment as General Secretary
By Steve Hanlon | January 10, 2010
While searching my old email archives this morning I came across this gem from an old friend of mine, reacting to the email that we’d all received announcing Peter Watt’s elevation to Labour Party general secretary:
To: “Steve Hanlon”
Subject: Fw: And your new General Secretary is…..
Date: Thu, 10 Nov 2005The next General Secretary, to be appointed in two years time, is currently on the SureStart programme where he is learning to babble…`privilege’, `proud’, `challenge’, `’renewal’, `shared values’ etc etc.
None of you will remember the legendary General Secretary of the Labour Party, Bert Williams. Lost an arm during the war, hard as bloody nails and didn`t talk shite. But somehow I found him very reassuring.
Why do I find it so hard to `modernise’? Answers, please!
I think the author was referring to Len Williams General Secretary between 1962 and 1968, so of course I wouldn’t remember him (I wasn’t born!). That said, from the way he’s described, I really wish we’d had him at the helm in ‘07 rather than Watt.
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Police in West Lancashire are urging residents to remain vigilant to the threat of burglary
By Steve Hanlon | January 10, 2010
From the Lancashire constabulary website:
POLICE in West Lancashire are urging residents to remain vigilant to the threat of burglary.
The warning follows an increase in offences over this month as a direct consequence of homeowners leaving front doors insecure or garden tools in their gardens which are then used to force windows and doors.
There have been nine burglaries so far this year in the Ormskirk policing area where police have seen spades and hoes used to force entry, or where a window or door has been left unlocked.
There is more information on their site including advice for householders to reduce the risk of burglary.
Topics: Ormskirk, Police | No Comments »
Welcome “Tales from the West Lands”
By Steve Hanlon | October 5, 2009
Alan Bullen, who was West Lancs Labour Group leader for nearly twenty years until standing down a few years ago, has started his own blog – “Tales from the West Lands“.
Alan, as a Councillor, was one of the few who could raise a smile in both the Labour and Conservative ranks, and I expect that he will turn that humour to good use in attacking the Tories in the run up to the next General Election.
In his first post, however, Alan has reproduced his speech from the Alderman Ceremony last year which was so unfairly reported in the Advertiser last week.
I look forward to following Alan’s unique take on West Lancs and national politics.
Topics: Blogging, Local Politics | No Comments »
Supporting Post Office Workers
By Steve Hanlon | October 3, 2009
After hearing about Cllr Bob Pendleton’s recent threat of expulsion following “personal attacks” on Rosie Cooper, I thought I would dig out the original article that led to complaints. The article was about supporting Post Office workers in their fight against privatisation.
Apparently the Party’s action was because of comments in an article printed in the Champion on 1st April 2009.
Because of the hysterical (and in many places, untrue) reporting by the Advertiser of Alan, Bob and Jude’s recent disciplinary actions, I thought it would be useful to see how bad it really was.
I reproduce the article here – I won’t comment specifically except to say two things:
- that I’m surprised that the criticism expressed should be considered as a nasty personal attack on the MP as suggested by the Advertiser, and
- that I’m glad that we have Labour Councillors who are willing to stand up against the privatisation of the Post Office.
Just click on the image to read the original article in full.
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Threat of expulsion? It’s so much easier than picking up the phone
By Steve Hanlon | September 29, 2009
I was at the twinge conference fringe event last night, which was great fun, but I confess that all the talk of new media being used for political engagement rang a little false considering what happened to my wife, Jude, about two weeks ago.
Out of the blue she received a letter from the ‘National Compliance Office’ stating that a report had been considered by Labour’s National Executive Committee which included the recommendation that she take down a blog post from May 2008 or face expulsion from the party.
The blog-post in question related to a trip that our MP took to Africa – paid for by Nestle.
When the story about the Nestle trip first broke, local Tories seemed to think that this was an MP’s expenses ’scandal’. Jude, quite rightly in my opinion, pointed out that taking a trip paid for by Nestle was perhaps a misjudgement given that:
* Ormskirk has many Labour voters who would understand precisely Nestle’s history of pushing baby-milk in Africa – breaking international rules
* Ditto in Skelmersdale, but which also has a low proportion of breast feeding mothers
* and that our MP was previously the Chair of the Women’s Hospital in Liverpool and should therefore understand these issues and the likely reaction by Labour supporters in West Lancs.
It’s fair to say that Jude’s language made it very clear that she was unhappy and might have mellowed following a sleep, but there certainly wasn’t anything that an MP ought to take offence at. UPDATE: Jude tells me that she can understand why Rosie might have taken offence, but I would suggest that an MP ought to have a thick skin.
As it is, Jude’s blog deals primarily with knitting, our children and our various attempts at grown-up domesticity. It is read by a handful of family and friends – and, I was darkly informed last year – monitored by some who we might not class as friends.
The blog went up and nothing was heard. I think one comment was made.
Move the clock forward fifteen months and we heard on the grapevine that an NEC investigation into allegations of bullying in the West Lancs Labour Group was taking place.
This wasn’t a surprise.
Debate at Group meetings can often be described as robust – and so it should be. These are Councillors standing up for their wards and they certainly didn’t enter politics for a quiet life.
Members of the group, plus ex-group leader Alan Bullen, were invited to a series of interviews as part of the investigation. Jude and I weren’t, obviously, as we’re not Councillors.
The surprise came in the report’s recommendations.
No acts of bullying worth disciplinary action were found (a sensible conclusion). However, it did find against Jude for blogging “personal attacks” on the MP – with the threat of expulsion; against Cllr Bob Pendleton for “personal attacks” on the MP being reported in the press – with the threat of expulsion and a ban on Alan Bullen being a candidate until 2012, because he might use the platform to criticise other members.
I will blog about Bob and Alan’s treatment in the future, as their judgements are even more bizarre than Jude’s.
Jude, understandably, deleted the post and is a little embarrassed about the whole situation.
One can’t help but wonder why someone didn’t just pick up the phone or drop her an email and ask her perhaps to ‘tone it down’ or explain why Rosie Cooper went on the Nestle funded trip in the first place.
If the investigation in West Lancs was into bullying, then I would respectfully suggest that the NEC look at whoever made the complaint in the first place.
To make matters worse, the letter from head office stated that the judgement had been shared with the current Labour Group leader (why?) and with Labour Group members (why?) thus throwing the whole thing into the public domain.
Jude has been a loyal, active and campaigning servant of the Labour party for over ten years – first in Twickenham CLP and later in West Lancs. It was perhaps a misjudgement to be so overtly critical of our MP – who we have both campaigned for and would again.
But to come down on her with the full force of the NEC instead of just picking up the phone – well, that’s just wrong, and shows a complete lack of understanding of not just new media, but of basic common communication skills.
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