We will remember them

Today is the 91st anniversary of the Armistice which ended the First World War.

At 11 am today people all over Britain will remember those who have fallen or been injured in war, from the Great War to Afghanistan. There will be a two minute silence in St Nicholas's gardens, Whitehaven.

Albion Square

Attended the exhibition today about the council's plans to redevelop Albion Square for offices, potentially providing 600 jobs in Whitehaven.

Nuclear sites consultation starts

As the consultation begins on which sites should go forward for Nuclear New Build, all three previously proposed locations in Copeland are still in the frame.

Locations at Sellafield, Braystones and Kirksanton have all been included by the Department of Energy & Climate Change in a final list of 10 sites for public consultation. This will take place over the 15 week period which starts today and concludes on February 22.

I believe that new nuclear build is very much in the interests of Britain and that Copeland has a great deal to offer as a site for new nuclear facilities. We need to consider the advantages and problems of all the sites which have been nominated very carefully.

Given the constraints on grid capacity and local infrastructure, I have my doubts about whether new nuclear build on more than one site in West Cumbria is likely. The arguments in favour of Sellafield as the site do appear stronger than either of the other sites. My colleague David Moore has called on RWE to drop its plans for Kirksanton and Braystones.

“For most people, Sellafield is the preferred site, it makes sense having everything in the same place and I think all our weight should go behind the plans for Sellafield." he said. "This would remove all the anxiety and worry surrounding the proposed Braystones and Kirksanton locations.”

New Nuclear Build sites to be announced today

An annoucement is expected today on which sites will be considered for New Nuclear Build. I hope and expect that land adjacent to Sellafield will be one of them. We will also hear what is proposed for Braystones and Kirksanton.

Hell Freezes over yet again

The Sunday Times reports today that two left-wingers, Claire Short and Tony Benn, have both expressed agreement with aspects of Conservative policy.

Short accepted an invitation to speak to Conservative frontbenchers about how to improve the effectiveness of Foreign aid. She told the Sunday Times

“The Conservatives have committed to keeping up the budget and keeping up the commitment on poverty and keeping a separate department, so I am pleased about that.”

Benn admitted that

“There are issues I find myself in agreement with some of the Tories on, particularly on civil liberties. All this security state stuff is very, very worrying. Libertarians like David Davis, a right-wing Conservative, resigned over the government’s 42-day detention law and I went to speak for him.”

He said he also agreed with the Conservatives over the Lisbon treaty.


BTW, I had an email from the National Union of Students in response to my previous "Hell Freezes Over" post, pointing out that this was not the first time this year that they had issued a press release agreeing with David Cameron about something. They included a link to a statement supporting a Conservative suggestion that students could be given favourable terms for accelerated repayment of their student loans and the improved cash flow which resulted used to fund 10,000 extra University places.

Remembering Heroes

Attended the Remembrance Sunday commemoration in Whitehaven this morning.

The attendance was excellent and I was pleased that it included so many young people.

It is important that we remember those who have given their lives for our country, both in the terrible wars of the first half of the 20th century and more recently. Like many people I was struck by the powerful story of Staff Sergeany Olaf Schmid, one of the British soldiers who were killed in the last few days.

Sergeant Schmid was a soldier who saved lives: he had volunteered for bomb disposal work and during his tour of duty had personally defused 64 Talebin booby traps. The 65th killed him. He undoubtedly saved the lives of many of our troops and, almost certainly, those of many innocent Afghan civilians including women and children.

He was a true hero and his sacrifice, along with all those others who have given everything for their country and their fellow human beings, must always be remembered.

DC: a policy on Europe you can believe in

You can see a video of David Cameron amd William Hague talking about the Conservative response to the ratification of the Lisbon treaty at Youtube here, or at the bottom of this post.

Here is a statement which DC made yesterday on the subject:

"Yesterday {e.g. 3rd November - CJW} the Lisbon Treaty was signed by the President of the Czech Republic. It is now set to become EU law.

I know from the huge number of letters and emails that I have been receiving how much people will resent the fact we cannot now have the referendum we were promised by Labour. But I have always been clear that, if this situation came about, I would immediately set out how a Conservative Government would respond.

First, if we win the next election, we will prohibit, by law, the transfer of further power to the EU without a referendum. Never again should it be possible for a British government to transfer power to the EU without the British people's consent.

Second, we will introduce a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament.

And third, we want to negotiate three specific guarantees with our European partners over powers that we believe should reside with Britain, not the EU.

* We will negotiate the return of Britain's opt-out from social and employment legislation in those areas which have proved most damaging to our economy and public services.

* We also want a complete opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

* And we would negotiate for a return of powers in criminal justice to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system.

If I am elected Prime Minister, the British Government I lead will be an active member of the European Union. Like every other Member State, we will fight our corner to advance our national interests. But our guiding principles will be that Britain's interests are best served by a European Union that is an association of its member states - and we must never allow Britain to slide into a federal Europe.

After Lisbon

So the European constitution - sorry, the Lisbon treaty - has finally been ratified.

The worst thing about this constitution is not that it is a vague, badly written treaty - though even some of those were on the body which drafted it, such as Gisela Stuart MP, think it is - but the dishonest and anti-democratic way it has been forced through against the wishes of the electorates of several countries.

Voters in Britain were promised a referendum and saw that promise cynically broken.

Voters in one or two countries, such as France, were given a referendum, voted the constitution down, and saw it imposed on them anyway through the back door.

Voters in Ireland rejected it and were then made to vote again until they gave the result the authorities wanted.

It's no way to run a modern, democratic association of nations.

While the treaty had not yet been ratified, it was right for David Cameron to promise that, if we had come to power before this point, we would suspend ratification while holding a referendum.

But now that the treaty has actually been ratified, holding a vote on whether to ratify it would be the ultimate exercise in slamming the stable door after the horse has bolted. At best it would be a total waste of money at a time when Labour has nearly bankrupted our national finances. At worst it would be another cynical con trick against the electorate, raising hopes which cannot be met.

The Sun has an excellent analysis of who is to blame for this situation here.

As they point out

"So who do we blame for this? Not Mr Cameron, who stuck by his original pledge.

We blame deceitful Labour for welching on their written vow to give us a say.

Instead, they connived to defraud us of a vote and used their majority to ram it through Parliament."

(I would add that there were one or two honorable Labour MPs, such as Gisela Stuart and Frank Field, who voted to keep their election promise and were nearly disciplined as a result.)

So now we have to move forward: I believe the emphasis must be working for a more democratic Europe. The establishments of most member states are in favour of ever closer integration, but the electorates of most countries are not. It is time for those who want to change Europe, whether for reform or integration, to have to persuade their voters of the case for change, instead of tricking them, breaking promises, or just ignoring the people.

A law to ensure that any future treaty transferring powers to Brussels requires a referendum in Britain can only be the start.

There will be those who are so annoyed by the sorry tale of surrender that they are tempted to vote for UKIP or the BNP. I believe that would be a mistake. Neither of these parties is likely to return a single MP to Westminster: but one possible result if voters who would otherwise have supported the Conservatives vote UKIP or BNP is to allow this despised Labour government to cling by its' fingernails to power. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling deserve to have to sort out the mess they are creating, but the rest of us do not deserve another five years of these clowns.

As the Sun puts it

"Thanks to Gordon Brown, Britain is up to its eyes in debt, the Pound is sinking, dole queues are swollen and we face industrial strife on a scale unseen since the Winter of Discontent. We need strong, unflinching government to see us through these difficult times - and Labour is not fit for the job.

If the Tories win, they must work night and day to get us out of this mess.

They cannot waste precious energy fighting on two fronts.

So we are not prepared to tie David Cameron's hands just as he is about to take the wheel.

The issue of Europe will not go away.

When we have this debate, we must do so when we are not distracted by the worst economic crisis in living memory.

Meanwhile if we can't have a referendum now, we can at least have a say on election day.

This government deserves defeat for many reasons.

But for Sun readers, one of the biggest of all will be Labour's abject act of treachery over Europe."

Lest we forget

This coming Sunday is Remembrance Sunday. The message that the sacrifice of our armed services is not jsut something which finished sixty-four years ago but continues today was brutally underlined this morning.

I went to an excellent display last night about the work of the Army at Whitehaven Civic Hall, organised by the local Army 42 Brigade which covers the North West of England and given by the Army presentation team. (Incidentally, while it was an invitation-only event, the Army is looking to build up their contact details lists of people interested in attending such functions, so if you are a resident of Copeland who would have liked to go, email me your details using the link at right and I will pass them on.)

Part of the message, about the sacrifices which British service personnel still have to make on our behalf was reinforced this morning with the news that five British soldiers were killed in a single incident in Helmand Province, Afghanistan.

Whether we agree or disagree with the policies of our government, the soldiers who have to carry them out deserve nothing but admiration, support and respect for the way they do a difficult and dangerous job.

Fisking Jamie Reed M.P.

I mentioned a few posts ago that the October issue of Labour's "Egremont Today" propaganda sheet, which masquerades as a community newspaper, contained some very dishonest statements about Conservative policies.

I have now seen the November issue and it's worse.

In particular, there is a deeply mendacious article by the MP for Copeland which utterly misrepresents what Conservatives stand for. Parts of it also attempt to stir up class hatred in ways which, if the MP had written in similar terms on race, would not have been far away from risking prosecution under his party's own laws.

So here is a little light fisking of Jamie Reed's offensive and unpleasant propaganda

"We are not all in this together: Copeland comes first."

Helpful of you to make clear in your very title, Jamie, that you have abandoned any pretence that Labour is a party for the whole nation.

"It won't have escaped your attention, but it has become fashionable for certain politicians to talk about cuts, cuts and more cuts."

It hasn't escaped the attention of any intelligent voter that all parties are reluctantly considering whether they may have to make cuts, or that some parties are being much more honest about it than others. And your party is the one which secretly instructed the treasury to plan 10% cuts while some of it's least truthful members, sadly including yourself, are still talking as if you had the ability - never mind the wish, the ability - to sustain the present level of public spending.

"We all know that as a nation we have to balance the books"

We certainly do. Do you consider it is "balancing the books" when one pound in four that the government is spending goes straight onto the national debt, that this debt has doubled in five years and is heading for a trillion pounds on your own government's projections, when the government already has to spend more on paying the interest on that debt than the entire national schools budget, and when this situation will get much worse unless the defecit is reduced?


" - and our economy is in far better shape than the biased news media would have you believe"

There are eight jobseekers in Copeland chasing every job vacancy: I doubt if many of those people would agree with you.

- but a lot of this talk is ignorant, dangerous and wrong.

"Ignorant, dangerous, and wrong" just about sums up your knowledge of Economics - or lack of it.


"Our local economy in Copeland and West Cumbria is based upon public spending - councils, schools, hospitals, police, the nuclear industry: all of this is supported by public spending. In turn, these bodies provide our private sector with the contracts they need to survive. So when David Cameron and George Osborn pledge savage cuts, my immediate thought is always: "How many West Cumbrian jobs do they want to destroy?"

Jamie, if you can produce a date, place, and precise quote in which either David Cameron or George Osborne have ever used the words "savage cuts" to describe a policy they want to implement, or suggested that they would enjoy making savage cuts, I will donate a fiver to a charity or cause of your choice. If you cannot produce such a quote, you should apologise for that statement.


"Let me be absolutely clear on where I stand: I will not allow our local public services, our local economy and the jobs, people and families which this supports to become a victim of the avarice of the bankers who created the global recession we are now in (and hopefully beginning to come out of)."

Sadly not - your rose tinted view of Labour's achievements is running ahead of reality again.

"The Tories would have you believe that the bankers are innocent"

Remind me which government and which Chancellor of the Exchequer created the current regulatory regime which allowed the bankers to make the mistakes which certainly contributed to our current difficulties? It was this Labour government and the chancellor responsible was Gordon Brown.

And actually, the Conservatives don't dispute that some bankers - though not everyone who works in a bank - made serious mistakes. But I certainly hope we would not descend quite as far into the gutter tactics of inciting envy and class hatred which runs through your article.

"and that the world's economic problems have been created by Labour's choice to raise the salaries of nurses, doctors, teachers, police and by employing more people in these jobs than ever before. Utter nonsense."

Your caricature of the tory position is the utter nonsense. I had no problem whatsoever with employing more nurses, doctors, teachers, or police, but for every one of these front line specialists which your government has employed you've taken on two or three administrators, bureacrats, or support staff.

"I will not support any cuts relating to the public services used by the people of Copeland."

My turn to be equally clear. If, disastrously for Britain, your government were re-elected,

YOU DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY TO KEEP THAT PROMISE.

Your government is spending massively beyond the country's means, and the massive debts you are building up will take decades to pay off. In the meantime, billions will have to be spent to pay the interest on the money you are currently borrowing. And the longer it is left to cut the defecit, the worse the correction will have to be when somebody finally makes it.

I don't like the idea of painful cuts any more than you do, but the idea that your government would have the money to pay for all the promises you are currently making is pure fantasy.

If you believe you could possibly deliver the promises you are currently making, you are not intelligent enough to be a good MP. If you know that you are offering false hope to the residents of Copeland, you are not honest enough to be a good MP.

"It is only now that we are starting to receive the public investment we need and deserve and the Energy Coast plan is delivering unprecedented levels of public money into our community. In balancing the books, the government is right to examine every government department to see where money can be saved. But government must also look at which areas of the country require the most investment – this is clearly not the south of England and public spending must be maintained in areas like West Cumbria. We are not as George Osborn claims "in this together". I never saw the multi million pound city bonuses which fuelled this crisis being shared out in Egremont and Cleator Moor... "

Here we go again, more class hatred. The bonus payments made to City people probably postponed the recession more than once, and I suspect you'll find that a certain number of city people bought second homes in Cumbria and actually did boost the economy of the county. What touched off the crisis was lending to people who didn't have the ability to pay the loans back.

"The Conservatives have said that they want to slash public spending. In Parliament they voted against the public investments for the new West Cumberland Hospital, the new Westlakes Academy, the other educational investments in our local schools, our universities, the new health centre in Cleator Moor and the rebuilding of cottage hospitals in Millom and Keswick. They also voted against fetching these investments forward."

Completely mendacious. Conservative MPs campaigned for more investment in cottage hospitals like Millom Community Hospital and the Mary H. in Keswick when the Labour government was considering closing scores of them. Conservative policy has supported, not opposed, investment in front line hospital services. No Conservative in parliament has ever moved a specific amendment to take these items out of a budget and if anyone did it would not have Conservative support.

"On top of this, they have said they want to cut public spending across the board by 10%, in addition to taking £4 billion out of the schools budgets."

Rubbish.

First, the Conservatives have stated in the most specific terms that two areas - health in particular - will be protected in real terms, so to suggest that we wanted to cut everything by 10% across the board is not true.

The 10% figure was taken from an interview in which the Conservative health spokesman was talking not about our own party's plans, but about Labour ones. He pointed out that when you allow for inflation and the interest on the extra debt money Labour is borrowing, Labour's own spending plans would represent a 7% cut over the next parliament in the money available for spending departments in real terms.

He added that if you protect Health, which the Conservatives have promised to do and Labour may also do, the average cut over all other departments is 10%.

And 10% cuts is the figure which Labour was planning for in a leaked treasury document.

"This isn’t morally right and it’s not right for the people of Copeland and West Cumbria."

Interesting to read that you think Labour's policies are neither morally right or right for the people of Copeland.

"Its absolutely clear that the Tories' public spending cuts would entirely undermine the basis of our local economy. The limited impact of the recession in our part of the world is entirely down to public spending – all of which the Tories oppose.
The months ahead will be tough and we must balance the books, but not at the expense of the people of West Cumbria."

That's twice you've admitted that Britain needs to balance the books, but you have not mentioned one single concrete proposal for how Labour would do this.

"For me, the fortunes of Copeland will always come first. We need to maintain investment in health, education, policing and the nuclear industry – these investments are transforming our area and I will always work to protect them. Its now absolutely clear that only Labour will deliver this; the Tories won't."

The Conservatives are equally committed to investment in health, on which we have promised to match Labour spending, and in nuclear power. Labour cannot deliver on their promises, because if they tried to do everything they have promised without economies elsewhere they will finish what they have already come far too close to doing - bankrupting Britain.

Hell has officially frozen over again

This is the third or fourth time this year when something has actually happened which I would once have expected only after Hell had frozen over ...

I spent several years of my youth as a Conservative involved in Student politics during the premiership of Mrs Thatcher, including a year as one of the comparatively few Conservatives elected as a student union sabbatical officer.

It would be fair to say that the National Union of Students (NUS) was not the most fertile territory for Conservatives that I have ever campaigned on, and I never expected that I would ever read an NUS press release commending anything the Conservatives had ever said or done.

Well, it happened this week.

Here is the press release concerned.

NUS WELCOMES CONSERVATIVES' BACKING FOR STUDENT VOICE IN FEES REVIEW


• Willetts warns universities are yet to properly account for £3,000 top-up fees
• Case not made to students and their families for even higher fees
• Shadow Universities Secretary says he would probably oppose higher fees if a vote took place today

Thursday 29 October 2009

The National Union of Students (NUS) today welcomed comments from Shadow Secretary of State for Universities, David Willetts MP, who this morning told an audience of student delegates at NUS’ Higher Education Zone Conference in Manchester that the student voice must be heard in the imminent review of fees.

David Willetts also said that if there was a vote on the fees cap today he would probably not support any increase, as universities had not properly accounted for £3,000 top-up fees or shown the benefits of higher fees to students and their families.

Wes Streeting, NUS President, said:

“I warmly welcome David Willetts' call for the student voice to be heard in the imminent fees review, and his consistent argument that the student experience must be at the heart of the ensuing debate on higher education funding.

“Students are now expected by those in power to contribute significantly to its costs. Therefore, we have a direct and unique interest in a review that will determine the future of fees.

“As the democratic and national voice of students, NUS must have a place on the review group. The possibility that this process will be conducted without direct student representation would severely undermine its legitimacy.”

The Shadow Universities Secretary questioned the process in drawing up a recent CBI report which advocated an increase in fees, higher interest rates on loans and a freezing of student numbers, but which had not consulted students.

David Willetts said:

“It is very important that the student voice is heard; in relation to the CBI report, vice-chancellors and businesses seem to have got together around a table, at which students were not present, and seem to have agreed that the way to solve the HE crisis is for students to pay more. This is an entirely predictable outcome and underlines why the student voice needs to be heard.”

The Shadow Universities Secretary also warned that the case had not been made for higher fees.

David Willetts added:

“How would I vote today? I think I would say today, if the vote arose, that the case has not been made. This is not an argument that I believe the universities have won. They haven’t yet properly accounted for the first £3,000 they had, so I would say not unless and until you have shown what is in it for students and their parents.”

The Shadow Universities Secretary also praised students’ unions and NUS.

David Willetts said:

“On listening to students, I think that what students have done and the transformation of NUS over the past few years…and the kind of material that NUS put out, is the most powerful single way of making sure that politicians listen.

“I think that what NUS has achieved in the past few years, as a constructive contributor to the national debate on HE and what you achieve in your individual unions is something of which you can be enormously proud. Your concerns are the concerns that we all in politics need to hear.”

ENDS

Ghost train at Ravenglass

After a morning spent organising and taking part in leaflet delivery, I took the children on a Halloween "Ghost Train" special event this evening on the Ravenglass and Eskdale railway.

The event was very professionally organised. The "La'al Ratty" do a number of these trains at the end of October and I can strongly recommend them to any West Cumbrian parent of small children looking for a ghostly evening out at this time of year.

DC: Labour exposed on three fronts

This week the failures of this Labour Government were exposed across three major fronts: society, the military, and the economy.

First, society. New figures have shown that many poor families are actually better off on benefits than in work. What kind of signal does this send about what society expects of people? "Don't strive for independence, don't try to provide for your family, don't try and do the responsible thing". It's a crazy situation to be in, so on Tuesday I announced a new policy initiative to look into the best way of tackling it.

Second, the military. As you might remember from my email two weeks ago we've been pushing hard against deep cuts in training for army reservists. Thankfully, we've now succeeded in getting these cuts stopped. On Wednesday I asked the Prime Minister to tell us what on earth he was thinking of when he proposed to cut this training when the country is at war. As ever, I didn't get an answer.

Third, the economy. Whilst Britain now finds itself in the longest and deepest recession since records began, we learned on Thursday that the US has now joined all the other major economies in climbing out of recession and into recovery.

Gordon Brown's claims that we were somehow the "best placed" country to weather the recession have been completely blown out of the water by the fact we were one of the first into recession, and are now the last out. Our economy desperately needs an injection of credit and confidence - and we're only going to get that with fresh economic leadership.

New Nuclear Build for Copeland ?

A deal to purchase land at the Sellafield site has been hailed as an indication that there will be a new nuclear power plant in Copeland.

There is no official announcement yet as to which potential sites have been chosen for new nuclear build.

A new power plant would be very good news for the local economy. We need to continue to work to ensure that it actually happens, but I am advised that the prospects for new nuclear build at Sellafield, regardless of the result of the coming election, should be taken very seriously indeed.

A tale of two parties

I don't always agree with the way BBC reporter MIchael Crick presents things, though I confess to having had an amusing chat with him at one of the stalls at Conservative Party conference this year about political memorablia, which he collects.

But I do think he made an excellent point on his blog recently about the Electoral Commission's treatment of two political parties which we will call Party A and Party B.

As "Case A", he described how, in 2005, Party A received donations amounting to £363,607 from a bookmaker, who we will call Mr AB. This individual runs a legitimate business and had for years been on the electoral register where he lives in Kent. But, due to an oversight, his name had not been included on the register for the year when he gave the money. In 2007, when the Electoral Commission tracked this down, a district judge ruled that Party A should pay £18,000 as a penalty for failing to check whether Mr AB's name was on the register. This was not good enough for the Commission, which appealed, demanding that all Mr AB's donations must be confiscated. When the Appeal Court last week supported the Commission, this left Party A with a combined bill for the return of the money plus legal costs amounting to £750,000 which it hasn't got, thus facing it with bankruptcy.

Mr Crick then presented "Case B", concerning a man who we shall call Mr MB, whose donation of £2.4 million was the largest ever enjoyed by the Party B. Mr MB made his gift through a highly dodgy company. In 2008, before being found guilty on £10 million fraud charges, he changed his name, grew a beard, he skipped bail and moved to Spain. The Electoral Commission, having investigated this murky story, found that the Party B had accepted the donation in "good faith" (even though it came from a company built on fraud), and seems unwilling to take further action.

The Political Parties, Elections & Referendums Act 2000, which the Electoral Commission was enforcing, was based on a report by the eminent lawyer Lord Neill of Bladen, whose concern, over donations, was that they should come from legitimate sources, not be anonymous, and should not be from people living abroad. In the cases of Messrs AB and MB, one was an honest Englishman, running a legitimate business whose only mistake was a minor error of paperwork; the other is a very shady character who, having been convicted for running a business built on fraud, now lives anonymously abroad.

On which party, asked Mr Crick, do we think the Electoral Commission came down like a ton of bricks?

Answer: they came down like a ton of bricks on party A over a minor error of paperwork concerning honestly obtained money and do not appear to have taken any effective action against party B over a donation which there is good reason to suspect was not honestly obtained.

Party A is the UK Independence Party:
Party B is the Liberal Democrats.

I believe that we need to apply higher standards in public life for all parties. But it does not seem in line with natural justice to have treated UKIP so severely while letting the Lib/Dems off so lightly.

Egremont Today

During an adjournment at the last full meeting of Copeland council, I and a couple of other Conservatives were talking to Brian Dixon, who at this point was still a member of the Labour party.

It is not in the least unusual - thank God - for councillors of different parties to talk to one another. It does not usually mean that one of them is about to defect. And it does not usually attract sarky comments from other councillors.

On this occasion, however, it did. As he walked past, Egremont councillor Peter Watson, who is also the editor of Labour's "Egremont Today" community newspaper, asked Brian Dixon "Is this a Group Meeting?"

Brian was not impressed.

I have just seen a copy of the October issue of "Egremont today" which is currently going out. It contains, in the name of the MP for Copeland, yet another pack of misleading falsehoods about Conservative policy which I will be answering at another point. At the bottom right of the front page are the words

"Trojan Horse walks out of Labour group"

and

"What really happened when the Chair of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee quit the Labour group? See page 10."

So I turned to page ten, to find an anodyne if somewhat complacent article about what splendid progress Copeland Council is making, which says very little about Brian Dixon's decision to resign the whip, but has a final paragraph which began with the words

"This article has been amended since we printed the front page in order to focus on the latest news and the key issue."

In a funny sort of way, this may be a good sign. There are two possible explanations why the article has changed, but would appear likely to mean one or both of two things: either

1) Someone in Copeland Labour party had a rare outbreak of common sense, realised that there have been rather too many personal attacks in local politics and ordered Peter Watson to remove such an attack on Brian Dixon, or

2) Someone in Copeland Labour party had a rare outbreak of common sense, realised that since the Leader of the council is apparently about to propose that "Choosing to Change" will be pursued in a way which does include cross party working, sticking to the line that "cross party working" is unworkable might look silly. And therefore ordered Peter Watson to remove a defense of the Labour group decision to order all Labour councillors to vote against the committee recommendation in support of cross party working.

Let's hope that a few pennies are starting to drop. Goodness knows that Copeland Council needs it.

Service heroes speak out

Here is a piece produced by the "Nothing British" campaign in which a number of British war heroes explain why they don't want the BNP to get away with hijacking the good name of our country's armed services.

British war heroes condemn the BNP

Because Britain is a democracy, all lawful parties have the right to put forward their views. Even the British National Party. By the same token, those who disagree with the British National Party, or any other, have the right to explain why or campaign against them.

Today a number of heroes of Britain's armed forces, and some prominent generals, exercised that right and called on the BNP to "Cease and Desist" from seeking to hijack the good name of the Royal Navy, the Army, and the Royal Air Force in support of their own political ends.

The veterans who launched the campaign included:-

Andy McNab DCM MM. Ex-SAS commando and Iraq War veteran.
Colonel Tim Collins OBE. Ex-SAS commando and Iraq War veteran.
Simon Weston OBE. Falklands War veteran.
Nicholas Soames MP. Veteran cavalryman and grandson of Sir Winston Churchill.


They were supported by a number of senior officers who signed a signed a letter of which condemns the BNP's attempts to exploit the armed forces: these included

General The Lord Guthrie GCB, LVO, OBE, DL.
General Sir Mike Jackson GCB, CBE, DSO, DL.
General Sir Richard Dannatt GBC, CBE, MC.
Major-General Patrick Cordingley DSO.

If you want proof that the BNP is completely out of sympathy with our armed forces, the BNP Chairman, who I am ashamed to have as one of my Euro-MPs, provided it today with an extraordinary attack on the generals concerned, comparing them to nazi war criminals. This was published on the BNP Website.

Griffin wrote: “Those Tory generals who today attacked the British National Party should remember that at the Nuremberg Trials, the politicians and generals accused of waging illegal aggressive wars were all charged — and hanged — together.

He added: “Sir Richard and Sir Mike fall squarely into this bracket, and they must not think that they will escape culpability for pursuing the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

I can think of no clearer proof than such a statement that it is total hypocrisy for Mr Griffin or the BNP to hi-jack images of Britain's armed forces in their campaign.

And that's even before we start on the fact that the Spitfire shown in BNP propaganda was the sort flown by Poles as well as Brits (the pilots who defended this country during the Battle of Britain also included Kiwis, Aussies, Canadians, Americans, and South Africans to name but five of the countries whose young men came to oppose Hitler's nazis.

And as for the BNP's absurd suggestion that Sir Winston Churchill might have voted for Nick Griffin, Winnie would have been more likely to have him locked up as a potential traitor as he did Sir Oswald Mosley! (In the special circumstance of wartime of course - only Jacqui Smith has her political opponents arrested in peacetime.)

There is an excellent editorial in today's Sun on the subject which you can read here.

I was going to give a link to the "There is nothing British about the BNP" website which has more details about the campaign against the BNP by armed forces heroes but the website appears to be down. However, you can see a 75 second commercial produced by the site on Youtube here.

DC: Don't cut training for our armed forces

This week MPs returned to a Parliament still engulfed in the expenses crisis. My message to Conservative MPs was clear: money has got to be paid back, and everyone has to abide by the eventual decision on how much they should pay. To me, that's the least we can do to try and sort out the problems of the past, before going on into the future.

As an Opposition, we've still got an important job to do of holding this Government to account. That's why I made it clear to the Prime Minister this week that it's unforgivable that the training budget of our Reserve Forces is being cut. It's crazy that a government which was willing to waste £12 billion on a pointless VAT cut won't spend £20 million on making sure that the Territorial Army is kept ready and prepared.

The Prime Minister later sent me a letter insisting that reservists will still get their standard pre-deployment training. But that's like telling professional football players to rely on pre-match warm-up sessions before going onto the football pitch. The only difference is that we're talking about volunteer soldiers here - and their football pitch is Afghanistan.

I know how fed up people are with all the things that have been going wrong in our Parliament. But these cuts in the TA show only too clearly that until people finally have a chance to pass their judgments at a General Election, we've got to focus on the job we've all been elected to do.

Unemployment figures

Here in Copeland there are eight people seeking work for every job vacancy. Nationally nearly 2.5 million are looking for jobs.

Today's unemployment figures released today showed a quarterly rise of 88,000 in the numbers seeking work between the three months to May and the three months to August. The number claiming unemployment benefit rose by 20,800 in September.

It says something about how serious the need for more jobs has become that the Prime Minister's office welcomed these figures because they had been expected to be even worse.