SOCIALIST UNITY

Sometimes in the world of blogging we burn our fingers with the English libel laws, but let us get this in perspective. On Tuesday, the Swindon Advertiser ran a front page story with a banner headline that a local headmaster had been convicted of raping a child, along with a picture of the headteacher. The Adver is the main local paper, with I think a circulation of 27000, and is in every shop, garage and leisure centre in the town. Everyone will have seen it.

But the story wasn’t true! They claimed he had been convicted of 11 charges of rape, but he hadn’t. Oh my God!

It is certainly the only time I have seen a paper run an apology and retraction on the front page, which they did today. I can only think this is going to be a costly mistake for Newsquest.

The truth of the issue is that Anthony Talbot pleaded guilty only to charges of indecent assault over incidents that took place between 1978 and 1981 when he was a young child himself, and involved an older girl. I believe that he was 12 years old when the first incidents took place. He has been sentanced to community service. Serious and disturbing as these issues are, it is a long way from what the Swindon Advertiser claimed.

Not only did the Swindon Advertiser falsely claim that he was a convicted child rapist, but if you only read the headline and saw his photograph as a casual reader, you would have gained the clear impression that the crime was recent, and involved an assault on a child by a teacher.

I think this does set a new standard for journalistic low standards. There must have been some systemic failure in the editorial process, and it perhaps is another example of the de-skilling of local and regional newspapers.

A good leafleting session this lunchtime, with GMB and UNISON, focussing on cuts in Further Education. We met with a positive response from the public, and the UNISON senior steward was interviewed on the local BBC radio, and there wil be an article in the local paper tomorrow.

(P.S. In a very good spirit of inter-union cooperation, some of the UNISON placards are being held by GMB members)

Wembley, 3:00 pm kick off
Swindon Town FC v Millwall FC

Unbelievably nerve-wracking listening to the penalty shoot out on the radio; but after 3-3 on aggregate Swindon won 4-5 on penalties, and put Charlton out of the Play offs after Charlton captain Nicky Bailey put his penalty shot over the bar.

Fantastic. Only 90 minutes of football now separates Swindon Town FC from the Championship.

We won’t know whether we are playing Huddersfield or Millwall until tomorrow night.

With all the excitement of the elections I overlooked quite an important story about speed cameras, which although related to the fair town of Swindon, is of national significance given that the borough council is now the darling of the Jeremy Clarkson lobby and the right wing press for completely switching off speed cameras in the town.

The Daily Mail is claiming that because there is no overall reduction in accident rate since turning them off on the affected roads, then this proves that speed cameras are unnecessary.

The Mail quotes Swindon Council leader Roderick Bluh saying:

‘Fixed speed cameras are more about fund-raising than road safety. These figures completely vindicate our position.’

The council admits that with only four fixed camera sites, the figures could be ‘a blip’, but Mr Bluh insisted the move was for the good of local motorists

In fact there were nine accidents in the six month period before turning them off, and nine accidents afterwards.

But speeds on these roads have definitely increased, and the only motorists to benefit, as Rod Bluh puts it, are those breaking the law and driving too fast. Rod Bluh has himself lost his driving licence in the past for persistent speeding.

The Mail reports:

“A comparison of speeding fines issued over the two six-month periods reveals a drop of 42 per cent - from 3,681 to 2,120.

“Of the 2008-09 total, 1,393 motorists were caught by the fixed cameras that have now been deactivated - the rest by mobile cameras, which remain in use.

“The fall was revealed in figures released under the Freedom of Information Act. It means the Government - which receives income from the fixed cameras - has lost revenue of around £80,000. “
The council said they would spend the money they saved by not running the cameras on improving road safety in other areas of the town.

In fact, on key strategic roads in the town, the average speeds have increased, and there is no enforcement mechanism to stop maniac-driving by a minority of anti-social people.

But what of the council’s overall road safety campaign, that should by their own reckoning have been enhanced by extra spending?

The council spent £45000 on consultancy to devise 20 MPH speed zones in some residential areas. Then it ignored the results of the research that it commissioned itself, and ignored the advice of the police!

According to the Swindon Advertiser

“Wiltshire Constabulary’s head of roads policing, Chief Inspector Ian Copus, took the drastic and unusual step of handing the council a formal police objection with several reservations about the scheme.”

The problem is that there is inadequate signage, the stretches of road with 20 MPH limits are not continuous, and there is no enforcement mechanism. Local residents confirm that the police’s predictions have come true, that while residents obey the 20 MPH limit, other motorists ignore it with impunity. The reason the zones are discontinous – in defiance of the recommendations council’s own research and police objections - is to minimise inconvenience to motorists.

The zones surround Lethbridge Primary School (which my two boys attend) and children are lulled into expecting 20 MPH traffic, but many motorists still regularly speed.

What is remarkable is that while Swindon’s Tories original objection to the speed cameras was the financial cost, the 20 MPH schemes have been a complete cock up financially. Of the allocated budget they spent £45000 on consultancy and only £17000 on implementation; and they failed to apply for available matched funding that could have provided a potential budget for road safety improvements of £240000 !

Clearly Swindon’s Tories simply cannot be trusted with public safety, and are prepared to put our children at risk to placate boy-racers.

Yesterday, South Swindon Labour candidate Anne Snelgrove [pictured below with me at a protest against the Israeli assault on Gaza ] wrote the following letter to supporters 

Dear Friend,

With less than 24 hours to go to Polling day, I wanted to thank you for your help so far in the campaign. It really has been a magnificent effort by everyone with a record number of contacts made and leaflets delivered. I cannot thank you enough for everything you’ve done.

But now we must redouble our efforts because everything is truly open for us to win again in South Swindon. The polls are going our way (which is why you won’t have heard much about them in the press in the last few days) but there are more people than ever before who haven’t made up their minds in the marginals; our private polling shows it’s 25 -30 percent in our Tory-Labour marginals. This is bourne out by our own contacts on the doorstep and on the phone.

The Sun Leader Poll today has Labour winning the largest number of seats. The papers haven’t had control of this election and they’re hopping mad about it, so let’s give them something more to think about by winning South Swindon!

We know that we can make a difference through sheer hard graft and massive support from party members and sympathisers that the Tories can’t match. You are a formidable force and you have shown the Tories they cannot take victory for granted. They might have all the money but we have people power!

As your candidate I have been bouyed up by your support and the tremendous spirit in the campaign team. Seeing our big teams walk down the road wearing red rosettes with posters and leaflets at the ready gives my heart a lift as much as it terrifies the Tory candidate. Walking into our buzzing Campaign Centre with people on the phones, at the computers and sorting out leaflet rounds is fantastic for my morale.

We are fighting not for ourselves but for the people of Swindon and the future of our town. We’re fighting for fairness and for progressive politics; for families to keep their child tax credits and for investment in Swindon businesses and town centre regeneration.

We’re fighting to keep our extra frontline police and community support officers; our extra teachers and teaching assistants; our extra nurses and doctors. We want a world class NHS, a National Care Strategy and one-to-one tuition for children. We want a fair economy with fair tax rises for those who did well in the good years, along with protection for public services and investment in the green economy so that Swindon can expand its industrial base in a way that helps the environment.

The Tories end the campaign beached on support in the polls in the mid 30s in contrast to the start of the campaign when they were at 40 percent - Cameron’s in the same place as Michael Howard was in 2005. Last weekend they tried to claim the election was won but the polls refused to move their way.

So just one more day to go! Tell all your family, all your friends and neighbours to vote Labour for fairness, to secure the recovery and to see off the Tories from Swindon.

All the best and thanks once more

Anne

Well that is me, not the most flattering photo, but I think the photographer was going for the “rose between two thorns” effect. This was the launch of the campaign to re-elect Anne Snelgrove, Labour MP for South Swindon, and Parliamentary Private Secretary to Gordon Brown. Her Proposer and Seconder are myself, and former Tory mayor, Steve Wakefield, who resigned from the Conservative Party in January this year. Here is the story as reported in the Adver.

So that should dispel any lingering doubt whether I am serious that a primary concern for socialists in the coming election should be the defeat of the Tories, and the re-election of a Labour government. Of course, your priority in the election depends upon where you live; in Birmingham and East London, there is a fantastic opportunity to work to elect Respect MPs, who may even hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

But the general election will be fought, and lost or won, in Swindon, Stroud, Watford, Corby and Milton Keynes . It is very close and national polling in the marginals this week puts Labour one point ahead in these key seats on 37% and the Conservatives on 36%.

South Swindon  is 33rd on the Tories target list, and North Swindon is 57th. If Labour can hold on here, then a Tory government with an overall majority can be stopped.

Swindon is a working class town. There is no posh part of the town, there are no rich people here. People work in factories, and offices, for Honda and BMW, for Nationwide, Zurich and Intel, for Motorola and WH Smiths. The laissez faire complacency with which the Tories greeted the start of the recession would have decimated the economy of the town; dependent as it is on the car manufacturing and finance industries.

The proposed extra £6 billion in cuts from the public sector that the Tories are committed to in order to offset their planned scrapping of the National Insurance rise would stall the economy; it would cause jobs to be lost.

The sabre rattling against the trade unions by the Tories, with facility time in the public sector under threat, and further tightening of the right to strike, would put the labour movement in a much more unfavourable context.

Of course if you are in a safe seat, where the election will not be decided, then it makes little difference how you vote, or who you campaign for. If you are lucky enough to live close to a constituency where Respect, or the Greens or Plaid might win, then you should join the campaign for a credible left of Labour alternative. But in the swing Tory/Labour marginals, there is only one choice, and that is to vote Labour, and join the mainstream of the trade union movement in campaigning for a Labour victory.

a letter to the Adver:

I am enjoying Steve Wakefield’s local history series about Jimmy Thomas.

However, while Steve is technically correct that Jimmy Thomas was the first politician elected on the Labour ticket in 1901 onto the newly incorporated Swindon Borough Council. Thomas was not the first socialist elected in Swindon.

Reuben George represented Swindon before then on Wiltshire County Council as an Alderman, and was also elected to the new Swindon council in 1901, as a member of the Liberal party even though he was a firebrand socialist and a follower of the Marxists William Morris, and Henry Hyndman. Indeed Alderman George was the only socialist on Wiltshire Council for many years.

Reuben George formed the first branch of the Labour Party in Swindon in 1907 along with four others, and he had been proposed as a possible Labour candidate for the 1906 general election in a crowded meeting at the Milton Road Baths, addressed by Harry Quelch.

In those days when Swindon was a GWR company town, engaging in socialist politics was a risky business, and Reuben George endured a witch-hunt with threatening letters sent to him, and his employers, and his private and personal life thrown into turmoil. He also left the Church of England at the same time, although he was a committed Christian, as he felt the church was not active enough in combatting poverty.

Alderman George devoted his life to serving the working people of Swindon, and when he was mayor in 1922 officiated at the unveiling of the diving board at Coate Water, where he surprised onlookers by stripping off and diving from the top board. He was 56 years old at the time.

(Black Eyed Peas, “Feeling” being, of course the song played at the County Ground as Danny Wilson’s team take the field)

Beating Leeds United 0-3 away today has put Swindon Town in second place in League One, with just 7 games to go. Millwall failed to get a win yesterday, and Colchester crashed to defeat at Exeter yesterday.

Away from the hype and vast lakes of money at the top of the Premiership this is where the real action is, with unglamorous teams from towns and cities where local people care about their local team.

And remember it is not all about winning, it is also about Bristol Rovers losing.

Scarcely believable, but today’s Swindon Advertiser reports that Hitesh Patel, the council’s director of Business Transformation, claims he simply made a mistake in becoming a Director of the new start up company, Digital City (UK) Ltd, while Swindon Borough Council were negotiating a loan of £450000 of public money to that same company. Mr Patell claims that he filled out the forms for Company House, “just in case” and did not know they had been submitted.

Hitesh Patel was then one of only three people who formally signed off the contract, while he was a director of the company and a director of SBC at the same time! Indeed as labour MP Anne Snelgrove reported in parliament:

“Despite the chief executive’s reassurances, the officer concerned [Mr Patel] was one of the authors of the briefing note to Councillors Bluh and Edwards written two weeks after he had become a director on 12 October 2010. The briefing note recommended providing the loan of £450,000 to Digital City and I am sorry to say that his directorship was not disclosed.”

Rikki Hunt of Digital City (UK) Ltd admitted to Mr Patel’s directorship in a dated 2nd March 2010 which stated

“As well as myself, the two other board members are Hitesh Patel, a Director of Swindon Borough Council and Mustafa Arif, a Director of aQovia”,

One might expect that someone on Mr Patel’s vast salary would be aware of the conflct of interest, and indeed Mr Patel informed Swindon Council’s Cabinet on 10th March that he was not a Director of Digital City (UK) Ltd. Yet his professional on-line LinkedIn profile listed his Directorship.

Board Director, Digital City (UK) Ltd, (Wireless industry) , November 2009

Doh!

Indeed, there is some discussion on the Talk Swindon Forum that the offical minutes of the 10th March meeting do not accuratety reflect what was said at the meeting.

Yet a fiery meeting last night of Swindon’s Cabinet the Tories voted to give another tranche of public money to the failing project.

As Labour group leader, Derique Montaut said:

“As you all probably know, in the last week the Labour group have been calling for an external inquiry into what some are now calling the ‘wi-fiasco’.

“We have been calling for this for a great number of reasons including the fact that there has been widespread public concern about the openness and transparency of council decision making, as a result of this wi-fi deal.

“The fact that this council’s administration simply bypassed local governance by not allowing all 59 councillors to have a say in the wi-fi decision that effects, not some, but all residents of Swindon.

“And, most importantly, the fact that councillors from all sides of the aisle have had creeping doubts about how ethical the council’s governance has been around wi-fi decisions.

“Perhaps the most clear example of this being when the Scrutiny Committee, a committee with a large Conservative majority, declared their dissatisfaction with the governance of wi-fi.”

It looks like the Conservative regime of Rod Bluh at Swindon Borough Council has acted utterly incompetently in order to promote a vanity project.