One of the main problems, it is thought, was that pupils wishing to take the test were herded to a small number of test centres (by a blind sheperd, it would seem) – though the schools and Medway Council both disputed the other’s account as to where blame should lie.

Both agreed, though, that something needed to be done to avoid a repeat when the test is taken again later this year. So, eager to get a rough idea of what the pulic thought, Medway Council threw the matter out to a public consultation.

The result was overwhelming.

Of the 76 responses (okay, maybe after 2000 pupils sat the test it was not overwhelming in every aspect), 71 (or more than 90%) said that they wanted to see the test return to the pupils’ own schools.

And why not. Eleven-and-a-bit years ago when I sat the 11-plus, I did so in the comfort of my own school environment with no delays and no pages missing from any of the papers.

Council sources have indicated to me, though, that some primary school teachers are not happy with the idea – because of the “increased workload”.

Yes, the same “workload” they had before the test was taken out of schools.

The issue was discussed at the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee last week and, I’m led to believe, was put to the vote.

I am informed that, whilst the proposal was met with cross-party support (Labour’s Councillors Sam Craven and Dorte Gilry both voted for the idea), there was one notable opponent.

Labour’s Spokesman for Children’s Services Cllr Adam Price voted against returning the test to individual schools.

Which begs the question: is Cllr Price interested in the best interests of the children, or a minority of “hard-up” teachers?

Ed Miliband has criticised the government’s decision to change the inflation index used when calculating public sector pension increases to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as a harmful cut.

Last year, he laid down a motion opposing the move, saying that it left “public sector workers and the poorest in society disadvantaged permanently, year on year.”

However, in a further blow to his credibility, his party’s accounts reveal that Labour took the same decision with their own pension scheme – wiping millions off of the value of their employees’ pensions.

YouGov’s latest daily polling has Labour on 36% – a drop of 6 points on last month – whilst the Conservatives are five points ahead on 42% – an increase of two points. The Lib Dems are on 9%, whilst others account for 14%.

The headline polling figures are just the tip of the iceberg, though. In a poll conducted between 18 and 19 January, 33% said that Labour “seems to chop and change all the time” (28% Lib Dem, 16% Con) whilst just 12% thought it was “led by people of real ability” (3% Lib Dem, 25% Con).¹

And, according to The Times, a ComRes poll found that, whilst the two parties were neck-and-neck, Labour would be enjoying a three-point lead over the Tories if Ed’s brother David was leading the party.²

Notes

1. Figures obtained from publicly-available documents available on the YouGov website.

2. M Savage, ‘Hypocrisy charge as Labour cuts its pensions after criticising cuts’ The Times (London, 23 January 2012)

Conservative leader Councillor Rodney Chambers, Labour leader Cllr Paul Godwin, Liberal Democrat Deputy leader Cllr Sheila Kearney (in leader Cllr Geoff Juby’s absence) and Independent leader Cllr Andy Stamp have all signed the following letter after news that the Prime Minister David Cameron may be about to launch a public consultation on a Thames Estuary Airport – and throw his weight behind it:

Dear Secretary of State,

COUNCILLOR ANDY STAMP
LEADER OF THE INDEPENDENT GROUP – MEDWAY COUNCIL

The decision came following a motion submitted to last night’s meeting of the full council by Labour Group Deputy Leader Cllr Vince Maple on what has been dubbed “legal loan sharking”.

According to Cllr Maple, the pay day loan industry has ballooned in value from about £100m in 2004 to about £1.7bn.

Providers, such as Wonga or QuickQuid, offer short-term loans which are designed to provide emergency money until pay day.

However, due to the ease and high cost of available credit, some people can end up using the services long-term and find themselves in ever-increasing debt, with many companies charging four-digit APR levels. Wonga has an APR of 4214%.

In proposing his motion, Cllr Maple expressed his concern that, at a recent Planning Committee meeting, all members wanted to refuse an application that was before them to change the use of a high street shop for a pay day loan company. “The officer’s advice was that it could not be realistically opposed,” he said.

The full motion read:

“This Council:

• “Welcomes the UK-wide cross party campaign to end ‘legal loan sharking’.
• “Believes that the lack of access to affordable credit is socially and economically damaging. Unaffordable credit is “causing a myriad of unwanted effects such as poorer diets, colder homes, rent, council tax and utility arrears, depression (which impacts on job seeking behaviour) and poor health.
• “Further notes that unaffordable credit is extracting wealth from the most deprived communities.
• “Believes it is the responsibility of all levels of government to try to ensure affordable credit for all, and therefore pledges to use best practice to promote financial literacy and affordable lending. This will help to ensure that wealth stays in the local economy.

“This Council therefore:

• “Calls on the government to introduce caps on the total lending rates that can be charged for providing credit.
• “Calls on the government to give local authorities the power to veto licences for high street credit agencies where they could have negative economic or social impacts on communities.
• “Pledges to promote credit unions in Medway, as community based organisations offering access to affordable credit and promoting saving.”

Labour Cllr Tristan Osborne, seconding the motion, said that the impact of pay day loans was being felt across Medway. “They may be legal,” he said, “but they are a leech on society.”

The principles of the motion were met with broad consensus from all members of the council. However, Conservative Cllr Tom Mason did not like the idea of creating council policy “on the hoof” and introduced an amendment which resolved to create a cross-party task group to examine the issue in depth, possibly inviting other interested parties, such as the Medway Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) Chief Executive Dan McDonald, on to the task group.

Conservative Cllr Howard Doe said that the council was already working with the Medway CAB and used the mobile library to try to educate residents on pay day loans and personal debt. However, he supported the task group to formulate a coherent policy and said that the companies are “an ill in society that needs to be eradicated and closely regulated.”

Cllr Teresa Murray said that she was “disappointed” that her party’s motion was being sidelined as “this is a problem which is happening now.” She said “we are all only a couple of months’ pay away from a bad situation.” However, Cllr Diane Chambers (Con) replied saying that the motion was mostly about writing letters and “that is not action now.” She said that she believed that the council needed to examine the issue in more depth.

And Cllr Mike O’Brien, who had spent some time earlier that day with Medway CAB, said that action did need to be taken about “a generation of people the previous Labour government encouraged to borrow.”

Independent Cllr Andy Stamp, who declared an interest at the start of the meeting as the Medway CAB Chief Executive’s partner, said he, too, was disappointed that the substantive motion was being lost and a principle could not be established there and then, but he urged cross-party support for the amendment to set up a task group.

Wrapping up, Cllr Mason promised that his intentions were honourable, and that, owing to the seriousness of the issue, he wanted to give more time to examine it in depth. However, before the amendment was put to the vote, Cllr Maple requested that the third bullet point of his original motion – relating to credit unions – be included in the amendment.

Initially, Cllr Mason refused, saying that that should be one of the things examined by the task group. However, after barracking from his backbenchers and prompting from the Leader of the Council, Cllr Rodney Chambers, he agreed.

The proposal to create a task group was then unanimously supported by the council.

Medway Messenger reporter Alan McGuinness had the chance to briefly ask Mr McDonald if he would sit on the task group if invited. Commenting on Twitter, Mr McGuinness said “he would take up an invitation to sit on the cross party group. It’s a start in tackling the issue, he adds.”

Just spoken to @CABMedway. Says he would take up an invitation to sit on the cross party group. It's a start in tackling the issue, he adds.

Thursday 12th January 2012 23:38 via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Alan_McGuinness

Alan McGuinness

And writing on the Medway CAB Twitter account afterwards, Mr McDonald called it “a great night for Medway and its fight to protect residents at risk from Legal and Illegal Loan Sharks! Medway will lead the way!”

What a great night for Medway and its fight to protect residents at risk from Legal and Illegal Loan Sharks ! Medway will lead the way !

Friday 13th January 2012 02:01 via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@CABMedway

CAB MEDWAY

It is not known how quickly the task group will be set up, or who will ultimately sit on it. However, Medway Council has shown a united front in seeking to protect its residents from the risks of using pay day loan companies.

UPDATE @ 22:04

Courtesy of Cllr Mike O’Brien, the full motion passed by Medway Council last night read:

“This Council:

• “Welcomes the UK-wide cross party campaign to end ‘legal loan sharking’.
• “Believes that the lack of access to affordable credit is socially and economically damaging. Unaffordable credit is causing a myriad of unwanted effects such as poorer diets, colder homes, rent, council tax and utility arrears, depression (which impacts on job seeking behaviour) and poor health.
• “Further notes that unaffordable credit is extracting wealth from most communities.
• “Believes it is the responsibility of central government through legislation to ensure access to affordable credit.
• “Agrees that the issue of debt and affordable credit is an important and complex issue and is causing stress and anxiety to many families in Medway.

“This Council therefore:

• “Resolves for this issue to be referred to a cross-party task group of Overview and Scrutiny as a priority. This will enable the Council to consider all the implications, form a better understanding of the role the Council can play in supporting our residents and develop a clear policy.
• “In particular it recommends that the task group considers how the Council can lobby the government to strengthen the rules governing the issue of lending licences and address the lack of affordable credit and how the Council can promote financial literacy and affordable lending.
• “Pledges to promote credit unions in Medway, as community based organisations offering access to affordable credit and promoting saving.”

“Chatham’s new bus station would not have been necessary, had the council switched a few more of the lights on at the old one in the Pentagon.

“That is according to Labour, anyway. I asked around the office and trawled through our archive to find any evidence to support this assertion and I could not.

“If someone is able to dig out a quote to prove me wrong I will happily stand corrected, but at the moment I’m inclined to chalk this one down as a poor attempt at political point scoring.”

Notes

1. A McGuinness, ‘McGuinness on Monday’ Medway Messenger(Strood, 12 December 2011) 13

It was perhaps, therefore, bad timing for the public sector to walk out on strike against changes to their pensions, when another 300,000 of them will lose their jobs by 2017 and unemployment already stands at a worrying 2.62 million – an almost 20-year high.

Indeed, many factors have contributed to a terrible economic outlook – and warnings abound that, if the eurozone fails (as the FSA has ordered banks trading in Britain to prepare for), the direction our country will take economically does not even bear contemplating.

With such dire prospects ahead, and with families looking to struggle even more, as one of the 2.62 million unemployed (but not one of the 1.6 million claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance, or, indeed, any benefit from the state), I welcome any measure the government can offer to help (VAT cut, please, George!) – and am more than a little bit miffed that those who do have an income are willing to risk their own jobs by trying to protect their superior (as against the private sector) pensions.

I mean what, exactly, do they think is going to happen in the most unlikely event that the government turn round and agree to their demands? Where do they think the money is going to come from to maintain their pension pot? An increased tax on families? An increased tax on small businesses? An increased tax on large businesses (e.g. banks)?

No, if the government ever decided to protect the public sector pensions, there would be one source of the funding: alternative efficiency savings. I.e. extra cuts. I.e. extra staff cuts. I.e. sending P45s to some of those who fortunate are enough to have a job but who were on strike today because they still were not happy.

Take one for your comrades!

Of course those people paid by us do not always make life easy for themselves. Take, for example, the Office of the Public Guardian, which employs 481 people. I have dealt with a few of them myself, and have often been left wondering how, in an office no member of the public visits, it can take so long to process documents. The last acknowledgement I received before I became unemployed informed me that it would take 12-13 weeks to process the documents. Could this be because, whilst the documents are sent to Birmingham, they need to be passed back-and-forth between the three offices?

Now, the Office of the Public Guardian earns its £22 million from the Ministry of Justice and administration fees charged to the weak and vulnerable when they are applying for Lasting Powers of Attorney (the fee for which has recently gone up), and 177 of their staff working in their London office are milking the taxpayer and the weak and vulnerable for all they are worth:

“…Nor any member of the public ever set foot in this office….

“Had they done so, they might have been surprised by the baskets of fresh fruit on each desk, including a ‘mix of apples, pears, bananas, Satsuma’s and plums.’ All paid for by the most vulnerable people in society.

“The fresh fruit and hand gel cost a mere £26,000 per annum. Yes, that was £26,000. For 177 people. £150 a year each. A lot more than the proposed increase in pension payments for the average employee earning £20,000 a year…”

Anna Raccoon was keen to know what the 177 were up to today:

“Naturally I was keen to learn from my spy in the office whether these fruitbatcosseted creatures were on strike today, on account of being asked to contribute more to their pension. He looked out of his window.

“‘Can’t see any sign of activity, difficult to tell the difference’ he said.

“I had to phone the Ministry of Justice to find the answer. Yes, they are on strike. All 177 of them.

“Absolutely outraged that they couldn’t find a way to get the elderly widows, children, and severely brain damaged to fund the increase to their pensions. They are being expected to pay for that themselves. Can you imagine?”

They want their cake and they want to eat it, too. And why not? I do not wish to be disingenuous to the majority of public sector workers – after all, if they believe their telephone-salaried union leaders, then there are countless alternatives to the government’s plan of action. There are alternatives, granted, but few lead us anywhere other than to Greece – and then the public sector workers really will have a reason to complain. When they are added to the jobless pile.

This issue is complex, and certainly not something I could cover in one post (particularly one which is already at 900 words when I am nowhere near halfway through my thoughts), but to summarise my thoughts on the strikes, I would say thus:

I support the right to strike. I will argue and fight to the death to support the right to strike. But union leaders’ attempts to manipulate their members into holding the country to ransom on ideological grounds at a time when difficult choices need to be made are disgraceful. If Labour were in power still, they would be cutting the public sector, too (though maybe not quite as courageously) and, whilst the unions would oppose these, their opposition would not be so fierce.

When Labour came to power, Gordon Brown raided the private sector pension pot, costing private sector workers at least an estimated £100 billion. The government’s proposals for public sector pensions would not be nearly as damaging, though they are, admittedly, being asked to contribute more whilst they are working. Gordon Brown gave private sector workers little choice, whilst the government are trying to negotiate with the unions to create an affordable solution. Negotiations are still ongoing, but unions decided to strike now, anyway, with barely one-third of their members supporting such action.

Surely, logically, logistically, the obvious route would be to wait until negotiations had finished before going on strike if you still weren’t happy? Oh, but of course, the union leaders care not about logic or logistics, they also care not about their members, they just want to fight the Tories so that the public hate them and vote their chums in Labour back in to dole out yet more taxpayer-funded perks and non-jobs to their members and prospective members.

The trouble is, there’s no money left for them!

Victoria Quinn, who was up against former Respect councillor Mohammed Ishtiaq, took almost 4,000 votes with a majority of over 1,600 – almost double the 969-vote majority Labour commanded in May’s elections.

Mohammed Ishtiaq lost his seat on the council to Labour’s Tony Kennedy in May, whilst Salma Yaqoob, another former Respect councillor, resigned due to health reasons, prompting the by-election.

The result leaves just one Respect councillor in Sparkbrook ward, Shokat Ali, who will see his term of office end next May, and just one Respect councillor on the council.

Turnout against the May election, when the same five parties fielded candidates, fell from 45% to 33% yesterday. This resulted in all parties losing votes, although some suffered more than others.

Perhaps most significantly, the Green Party came fourth – ahead of the Conservative Party, who, along with the Liberal Democrats, currently run Birmingham City Council.

The result takes the total number of Labour councillors to 56. They now need just four gains in May to take control from the current coalition and five to take their number past the magic 60 and take overall control of the council.

• The full by-election results are:

Mohammed Ishtiaq, Respect – 2301
Victoria Elizabeth Quinn, Labour – 3932 Elected
Adil Rashid, Liberal Democrats – 395
Sahar Rezazadeh, Conservative – 133
Peter James Tinsley, Green – 179

Votes Rejected: 25
Total number of votes: 6965
Majority: 1631
Turnout: 33%

In total, five candidates will contest the seat vacated by former Respect councillor Salma Yaqoob, who officially resigned last month due to ill health.

Mohammed Ishtiaq will be fighting the seat for Respect after losing his place on the council to Labour’s Tony Kennedy in May. He will face a fierce fight from Labour‘s Victoria Quinn in what is currently a Labour/Respect marginal.

Voters across the ward will be going to the polls on Thursday, 10 November to choose a councillor to represent them until the term of office expires in 2014.

The ward is also currently represented by Respect Councillor Shokat Ali, who narrowly won a by-election in September 2009. His term on the council is due to expire in May.

The full candidates for the by-election are:

Mohammed Ishtiaq, Respect
Victoria Elizabeth Quinn, Labour
Adil Rashid, Liberal Democrats
Sahar Rezazadeh, Conservative
Peter James Tinsley, Green

• Birmingham and Beyond will be keeping you up-to-date with all the by-election news between now and 10 November, but if you think we’ve missed something, or there’s something you think we should be covering, then please feel free to e-mail alan@birminghamandbeyond.co.uk.

We’re particularly keen to receive scanned copies of election leaflets to feature on Birmingham and Beyond in the run-up to the election.

Ms Yaqoob, who in last year’s general election in Birmingham Hall Green came a close second to Labour’s Roger Godsiff, announced in July that she would be resigning from the council due to ill health.

The ward, which includes the Sparkbrook and Balsall Heath areas of Birmingham, is a Labour/Respect marginal, and Labour have been quick to select their candidate.

Many households across the ward will already have received the leaflet from Victoria Quinn, who is seeking support to join her colleague Tony Kennedy on the council until 2014. Cllr Kennedy gained the seat from Respect in the local elections in May.

Victoria said on the leaflet “I’m working with Cllr Tony Kennedy get the best local people. We’re on your side. Together, we’ll fight to stop the Tories and Lib Dems picking on the people of Sparkbrook!”

The ward is also currently represented by Respect Councillor Shokat Ali, who narrowly won a by-election in September 2009. His term on the council is due to expire in May.

Polls will open between 7am and 10pm on Thursday, 10 November.

• Birmingham and Beyond will be keeping you up-to-date with all the by-election news between now and 10 November, but if you think we’ve missed something, or there’s something you think we’ve should be covering, then please feel free to e-mail alan@birminghamandbeyond.co.uk.

We’re particularly keen to receive scanned copies of election leaflets to feature on Birmingham and Beyond in the run-up to the election.

The Labour Party is in a very difficult position, and it is difficult to see a way forward that they can ‘sell’ to their membership and to a sizable number of the British public.

The party itself is still in dire financial straits, and the Unions obviously want (expect?) their agenda to be implemented as government policy in exchange for bailing the party out yet again. This has been covered all over the media recently, though it has now gone quiet so we must assume that talks are being held even more secretly than usual for such events.

Meanwhile, the deep unpopularity of Gordon Brown has put the party into possibly the trickiest position it has ever experienced — certainly in the past several decades. A change of Leader after just a year would be extremely humiliating, and there would be widespread calls for a General Election to give the replacement PM a clear mandate. This call would come just as much from Labour Party members and Labour supporters as from elsewhere. However that as-yet hypothetical election seems doomed to result in a Conservative Government, even if it fails to win an overall majority of seats in the Commons.

However, it is clear to observers and commentators right across the political spectrum that the longer a General Election is left, the worse it will be for Labour. Not only would the prospect of an overall Conservative majority increase with time, as the country plunges deeper into the mire, but also the period of time that Labour would have to expect to be out of power would rocket upward from its present two-to-three terms to a generation or more.

It isn’t as if a change of leader would improve Labour’s standing, as they have no real talent suited to the position of Prime Minister, even on a caretaker basis. Polls have shown that the public would be even less supportive under any of the feasible alternative leaders than they already are under Gordon Brown’s premiership.

Harriet Harman would probably be the worst choice of all, especially electorally. Few male voters would support someone so vehemently anti-men (as the latest Fathers 4 Justice action shows) so that’s almost half the nation’s possible votes that would be threatened by having Harman running Britain. Some of her policies, including very recent announcements that will still be in people’s minds for some time to come, are so extreme as to assure Labour of yet another significant drop in support should they put her in charge. It would be political suicide.

So, where do Labour go? The least bad option would be for Gordon Brown to announce that failing health means he has to step down as PM, and to call a General Election this autumn. I wonder whether they have the wisdom to bite the bullet and take this path. Even knowing that the alternatives will prove far worse for them in the longer run, can they think beyond the here and now and make such a decision?

It doesn’t seem to be in their natures to do so, and I suspect that the Conservative Party chiefs are well aware of how Labour are most likely to go and are planning their own strategy with that taken into account. They will also have contingency plans ready in case Labour do twig, and go for the resignation and election (or even just the election, with Brown still in office) .

Whatever they decide to do, let’s just hope they don’t completely wreck the country in the process. It has been speculated in some places (I have seen it in three completely independent places) that — in order to damage the future Conservative Government’s credibility — they will pursue a so-called “scorched Earth” policy, deliberately turning our country into the worst possible mess they can make of it. This would be unsurprising, as Labour are well known for putting their own political aims and ambitions above everything and everyone else.

There are certainly going to be some very interesting times ahead…