East Worthing and Shoreham Labour Party

Conference Update - Saturday

This was probably the best year to be delegate for a long time because we had the leadership conference on the Saturday.
I gave an interview to someone from the Dutch press association which will be going out to all the Dutch papers including the Eindhovens Dagblad, which is the local paper for where I used to live.
Gordon Brown gave a very good speech and then there was the long build up to announcing the leader. The result was so close (0.35%) it was hard to believe, but you could see Ed Miliband’s vote go up from the second preferences as the other candidates were knocked out.  Ed Miliband gave a really good acceptance speech to wild cheering.

Manchester Town Hall is probably the best town in the country.  The City Council asked all the delegates to a reception there.  Manchester City Council has one Tory councillor who defected from the Lib Dems, a bit different to Worthing and Shoreham.

I also went to a party for Andy Burnham’s campaign team.  I met a couple of people there who are deeply involved in FC United, a football team which has developed since the Glaziers took over Man Utd.  They are playing at Bury’s ground at the moment but will soon be getting there own ground. Andy’s children did karaoke at the end.  Probably they shouldn’t be thinking about a career on the stage.

Conference 2010

Conference this year runs from 26th-30th September and is back in Manchester. Our CLP resolution opposing the Tory attack on secure tenure for social housing tenants has been accepted and we wish Ann, our delegate, all the best for what will undoubtedly be a very exciting conference. We look forward to her reporting back on her return!

Startrek

Far be it for me to parrot Dave Cameron, but he hit the button, oh, lordy, lord. Did you see the pretenders do their thing with Jeremy Paxman? I haven’t seen anything so extra-terrestrial since John Redwood and gang challenged John Major. We ALL look a bit iffy, if caught in our off moments, but the cumulative effect of the hustings implied malice aforethought by the BBC. Alastair Campbell would have gutted the incompetents and mischief makers who set up the candidates. For the very first time in my life, I feel sorry for Diane Abbot.

Après Election, yet more….

Yes, Comrades, Members, Friends, Sympathisers, Ex-Liberals, Fellow Travellers, democracy is an endless process, and now there’s a ton of Party elections to decide on. AND they’re really important. We will vote as individual members, of course, but the CLP has also its recommendations to make.  PDFs of the documents, requests for nominations etc will be available for reading or download in the Members’ Area. Just log in.

Push me, pull you, one down, lots to go…..

It didn’t take long for the make-up to run, did it? Matthew Parish wrings his withers about ‘good Cam’ and bad Cam’, blames it all on Alistair Campbell, Phony Tony - yawn, yawn. ‘Fact is, David Laws was a creep and a coward, greedy for power and recognition, who got caught on his back story. There’s lots where that came from.

Dream on..

This is really ‘crunch time’, as they say, for the Liberal Democrats. One can’t but feel sympathy - mixed with a sense of just-desserts. They’re having to grow up politically, in the space of a few hours, to a maturity that usually takes years. Their manifesto was cruelly exposed during the campaign for its fantasy politics - they just weren’t prepared for the real world scrutiny precipitated by the Televised Debates. Sadly, though, I feel that a coalition with Labour, though right in principle, would founder on the unpreparedness of the Labour Party and the Unions to make the necessary compromises. 

This is not just about forming a governing coalition. This is about a fundamental reworking of the British political system, of which the voting system is one part. Party funding has to be settled, and that means that the financial link to the Unions will have to be undone, and some sort of public support funding for political parties introduced. The unfinished business of devolution will have to be revisited if we are to retain the Union: that means reducing central government funding to Scotland, and devolving more fiscal and legislative powers to the devolved regions. It is absurd that we have different electoral systems in different parts of our tiny island. The Tories rightly fixate on freeing up Local Government and empowering local communities, but have no sensible plan on how to achieve the results they wish for. There is a consensus, I believe, that all these issues, and many more, have urgently to be addressed, but it is fantasy to think that a Labour Liberal Democrat coalition would move beyond a marriage of convenience given the state of weakness and unpreparedness of the two parties. And then there is the proverbial gorilla in the room - the Financial Crisis. Perhaps the one, genuinely good proposal, is for a National Council of all the Parties, to deal specifically with the crisis. The pain and the blame will have to be shared out.

The Tories are afraid, very afraid…

Matthew Parris’s column in the Times shows just how afraid the Tories are. His party threw the kitchen sink at the campaign(not an Ikea sink either); they got the Press baying like pack hounds; they spent months at relentless, personal vilification of Gordon Brown; they peddled the bromide of a ‘Big Society’ as an elixir of a better life; they conjured mirages of savings; they promised everyone everything plus economic rigour. Snake Oil. If you can’t fool enough people at least some of the time, you’re toast. Most people emphatically did not, do not, and never will want the Conservative Party in sole charge of the country again.

Renewing Democracy in Adur

We have to renew local democracy in Adur so that the many communities can be sure that their views will be listened to and acted upon.

The present Council is almost entirely from one political party, elected by scarcely 15% of the electorate. Unless we can greatly increase the community’s involvement, no council, of whatever political party, will have sufficient legitimacy.

We need to elect councillors from different viewpoints.

The Council is pressing ahead with an ‘ever closer union’ with Worthing Borough Council, without convincing evidence that this is acceptable to the community.

Residents must win much greater control over what is done in their name.

Major infrastructure schemes, especially one involving valuable community facilities, should be subject to a local referendum, with a minimum level of participation to be valid.

It is vital that any scheme for the redevelopment of the Pond Road site, involving the Shoreham Centre, the Library and the Medical Centre - core, essential elements of our town - should be directly agreed by the community.

Conservation of our historic town is a high priority. The surest way to ensure it is to sustain and support our local economy, especially our small and medium size businesses.

A vibrant and forward looking local economy will also help greatly with the other basic responsibilities of local government which are to address the social imbalances, the inadequate and scarce housing, that lead to:
► poverty of ambition
► poor educational achievement
► high unemployement
► support-dependancy
► dysfunctional family life, criminality and disorder

Some services can best be provided through local government such as the integrated child care and family support offered by the Sure Start Centres.

There’s a promising future for Participatory Budgeting, where community groups bid directly for funds to develop the programs and services most adapted to their local needs, with a minimum of interference from local bureaucracy, which will be more efficient, more flexible, and more democratic.

Smaller not bigger: there is a strong case for the distinct communities in Adur to be given much more responsibility for their affairs. Shoreham used to have its own Town Council. We are a proud and ancient town. We do not deserve to be standardised out of existence by the emerging Worthing/Adur ‘super-authority’.

Shoreham’s Footbridge

Shoreham’s Footbridge is an iconic part of the Town’s identity, appearance and history. Let’s judge proposals to replace it on the need, the design, and the cost.

THE NEED: The bridge is old and needs maintenance. Does it satisfy present demands, yes. There are many older, historic bridges, in varying needs of repair. We would not dream of replacing them unless they were dangerous or incapable of doing their job.

THE DESIGN: The present bridge is a memorable example of 1920’s design, a bridge to the Beach and to the Past. It opens allowing navigation of the upper river by larger vessels. Making a new bridge openable would greatly increase its cost. A new bridge would either follow the route of the present bridge, or be built alongside, again at far greater cost.

THE COST: No cost has been yet been established because the design has not yet been chosen. But the outline budget greatly exceeds £5 million. There will be a great deal of pressure to choose the cheapest design - a bridge which follows the present route and does not open. But the cost of construction is only one part of the cost to Shoreham. Closing the footbridge for any length of time will have a devastating impact on the residents, especially for children and the elderly, on both banks of the Adur. Casual crossing becomes impossible, and essential travel very difficult, requiring a contiuous high volume shuttle bus service over the Norfolk road bridge, possibly for months.

THE CONCLUSION: The cost of the serious disruption to the daily lives of all sections of the community risks being extremely high. Will the benefits of a new footbridge justify its social cost to the community? Has the option of restoring and maintaining the existing, historic Footbridge been considered? Has a comparative cost analysis been carried out?

On the Health Offenders Register, Life should mean Life

It’s definitive, or is it? The King’s Fund says the NHS is out of intensive care, saved by Labour’s A&E. But, but, the Conservatives are fingering their slide rules. Daniel Hannah’s licking his lips. They voted against it’s birth, they’d almost killed it by the nineties with starvation and neglect, and they got sent down for 13 years for the crime. Now they’re out, (life should mean life - throw away the key!) everyone deserves another chance, don’t they? Are they rehabilitated or, like so many cunning recidivists, have they just learnt to pull the wool over the observers’ eyes? Should we at least try them out?

Put it like this: I’d rather have the genuine doctor who I know has made mistakes than the con-artist who pretended to be a doctor, got found out, served a stretch, and then comes along with a dodgy certificate from a college I’ve never heard of, saying this time it’s for real, honest. 

More Proud than Ashamed……

By their friends, shall you know them

Local radio talk-show star Mike ‘Jedi’ Mendoza has been welcomed back into the Conservative forcefield by ‘Towerblock’ Tim Loughton and Dr Liam, ‘can’t wait till après-Dave’, Fox.  He is the ‘celebrity’ candidate in the May Local Elections. But Mike emits a malodorous counter-melody to David Cameron’s ‘new conservatism’ siren-song of tolerance and inclusion. His run-in with Ofcom over his gratuitously offensive broadcast remarks that equated gays with paedophiles is, I fear, something he is more proud than ashamed of. Make what you want of the ‘glamour’ pics draped over his MySpace page.

Dr Fox, wannabe Defence Secretary, should examine his conscience over his apparent approval of someone who appears alongside Saddam Hussein apologist ‘Gorgeous’ George Galloway on Iranian backed Press TV. This, after all, the Iran that trained the Iraqi insurgents and now the Taliban terrorists, to assemble and plant the ‘IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices) to murder and mutilate our soldiers. The Iran that is sworn to the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its people, the Iran the world is desperately trying to stop developing the nuclear weapons which it will use to do just that.

The shadow Defence Secretary and the Local MP presumably find the ex-UKIP candidate usefully in tune both with their own visceral anti-europeanism and the need to shore up their vote in a tight election. And fair enough: along with UKIP members and activists, Mike Mendoza is a natural fit with traditional Tory values. But is this shock-jock, with the curious world view and unsavoury collegues, a man who seems to think atheism is a religion, really the appropriate candidate to serve and represent the interests of our community ?
Wikipedia link to Mike Mendoza page

First Match of the Season

At the end of last year I was appointed captain of the New College Women Football Team. While I was hugely honoured at being given the opportunity, I was rather daunted by the prospect.  We had a fantastic captain last year, but we didn' t get the best results. Our worst defeat was 15-1, while the best was a mere 4-0. Even though I was in goal for much of the season, I still had a great time and made lots of friends within the team, not to mention getting fit playing week-in week-out.

Thus last Sunday we had our first game of the season, a league match against the team from St Catherine's College. An extra hour of sleep had given us all a boost, and even though we hadn't quite mustered a full team of 11 players we were all feeling enthused and ready for a fight, and I was just hoping we would do better than the huge losses of last season!
In the end, we played brilliantly (even if I do say so myself). We went off at half time ahead by 1-0 - almost unimaginable last season - and every player had given 100% for the whole half. Although we ended up conceding a last-minute goal to end up at 1-1, it was a brilliant performance by the team, many of whom had never played football before!

Women's Football may not be as popular as Men's premier league football, but let's not forget how amazingly successful England's Women team has been recently, reaching the final of Euro 2009. Not only that, but we are the Current Champions' League holders, after winning the two-legged finals 18-0. I think it is a real shame that the superb performance of the team, led by Hope Powell, was not more widely celebrated and recognised by the media and the public. They all worked incredibly hard and I think they deserve far more attention than they received.

Let us not forget that, in great contrast to those men playing in the Premier League and for England, these women are not paid millions - in fact far from it. Unbelievably, it was only in May 2009 that the FA awarded central contracts to England's star women players, and the amount - £1.28m - is to be shared by 17 players over a period of 4 years. That's an average of less than £19 000 each!  Some Premier League men earn 5 times this amount in a single week! This is in stark contrast to stars of the Men's game, who earn this entire sum in less than 6 months. Many professional players have to take second jobs to survive. The achievements of England's Women's is thus is all the more impressive.

The FA has also come under criticism for not fulfilling its promises to develop the Women's game, as recommended by the Burns report in 2005. Claire Wheatley, the development manager of Arsenal Ladies told BBC 5 live's Breakfast programme: “We need to make sure that there is a massive investment of capital behind the game, so we can have a real solid foundation of a good league...At the moment there are problems with facilities, games are often called off, so people won't generally come back if they've turned up and the game's off, and there's some real basic issues we need to deal with.” Let's hope this wish can become a reality. You can follow more on the Women's game here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/default.stm

It reminded me of the time in Primary School where I was not allowed to play on the football team because I was a girl, which I still think was a shocking decision. What kind of message is that sending to a 9 year old girl? You can't get involved in a sport you are passionate about just because of your gender? If I was good enough to get in the team, why was I not allowed? It might have been different if I was a teenager, but I was only 9 years old. In recent years, the FA has raised the age barrier allowing girls to continue to play in teams with boys, so I hope young talented girls footballers will never be barred from playing in the future.

Like many women's footballers, I first started playing football with my family; ever since I can remember I was getting involved with matches and kick-abouts with my Dad, brother, cousins and uncles. I used to look forward to watching Match of the Day to see my favourite club, Tottenham Hotspur, in action (if only they had won a few more matches!).

I also got involved in an excellent scheme run by my local club, 'Crystal Palace in the Community'. Every school holiday they would run affordable football courses for local primary and secondary school students. Led by dedicated, professional and motivating coaches, it gave many youngsters opportunities they would never have had. They also ran courses in primary schools - and I was very lucky to have one in mine.  The fact that I was never going to be a professional footballer was not the point; it helped me get fit, and taught me a great deal about self-discipline and working in a team. It also gave me - and many others - the self confidence and belief to achieve in other areas of life.

The belief that sport can help young people fulfill their potential in all areas of life is shared by one of my heroes, Dame Kelly Holmes. I have always admired her dedication; having faced so many challenges, she not only overcame them but then went on to become, arguably, Britain's greatest middle distance runner when she became double Olympic Champion in 2004. She is a powerful example of how if you have the talent, self belief and perseverance you can achieve anything you set out to do.

I had the honour of meeting Dame Kelly recently at the Labour Party Conference, and had the opportunity to learn about her inspirational new charity, the Dame Kelly Holmes Legacy Trust. I urge all of you to check it out at www.dkhlegacytrust.org/dkh-p-home.htm. It helps disadvantaged young people to find and believe in their own talents, and an explanation of the charity's vision can be seen here www.dkhlegacytrust.org/dkh-p-BelievingInTalent.htm.

As I have said before, as a PPC, and in my career, I want to work towards a society where the talents and potential of all young people - whether it be sporting, vocational, musical, or academic - can be realised. I truly believe that the DKH legacy trust, and its programmes with positive role models and elite sport performers, will help this become a reality.
As ever, please get in touch with me at emilybenn@ewaslabour.org.uk, I'm eager to hear what you think,

I am now off to wash the kit in preparation for next week's game!
Emily

Afghanistan - The Scales of Suffering

It undid Tony Blair. It did for Neville Chamberlain. When to intervene in the name of humanity, and when not to. Making a judgement on what is possible rather than what is desirable. Making an infernal judgement on the importance of what is desirable, and deciding in extremis that it carries more weight even than what seems possible. 

Whatever choice is made, thousands, hundreds of thousands of innocent people will suffer death and destruction. Pacifism is an option only for the individual, not for our leaders. In terms of human suffering, the best choice can only be the least bad choice. Shall we withdraw from Afghanistan, abandon its people to their fate - at least we won’t be killing them. List of Wars and Disasters by Death Toll. How many dead was Saddam Hussein responsible for.Iran Irak War (جنگ تحمیلی, Jang-e-tahmīlī)? Would it have been better to have left him there, and how many would have been spared of the 300,000 who’ve died in the chaos we unleashed? How much despair will fit on either side of the scales? On whose behalf are the choices made? On humanity’s or a particular electorate? Who is mandated, and how far does the mandate extend, and when is it imperative to ignore the limitations of the mandate? 

What industry? Powered by whose skills? or The Zombies return………

The entertaining Ken Clark - political mugger and cringingly bad DJ, friend of teachers and firemen and proud step-father of the Tories economic legacy is briefly reminded of some of his sins in George Walden’s Times comment about his ‘policy as of transforming the polytechnics into universities’… ‘ a bad idea whose time is over’

John Denham, the current Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills is wearily dealing with yet another debilitating consequence of the Tory years, the long wasted years (or years laid waste) when the Polytechnics’s mission was abandoned, and for which the UK will be paying the price for many more years to come. Where are the fantastically well trained managers and engineers that in France for example proudly call themselves ‘Polytechnicians’. Where is the highly numerate, skilled workforce that powers China’s manufacturing base. These aren’t questions, they’re facts on the charge sheet.
The present deadly recession was indeed made in Downing Street - Margaret Thatcher’s Downing Street, and in Ronald ‘Voodoo Economics’ Reagan’s White House. Trickle down Economics was really Trick or Treat. Right-to-Buy destroyed social housing, left ghettos behind and unleashed and fired up the grotesque inflationary housing bubble, the credit and spending incontinence, that’s brought us to the emergency ward. Howe and Lawson - the Grim Reapers - scythed the heart from British manufacturing and bought our silence with the Fool’s Gold of Financial Services, the famous ‘service industries’ that would guarantee our post-industrial future but were nothing but silken cushions of pestilential gas for city slickers who primped and preened themselves as masters of the universe.

The Prince returns

To the great displeasure of those trying to drag the party back to the margins to spend more time with their lost causes and delusions, the remaining truly , internationally, important British politician of his generation has returned to fight for the New Labour Project. It says a lot about Peter Mandelson that he has exchanged his pivotal global political role for a hazy job in a battered administration in the British backwater. It says a lot for Gordon Brown - I confess, I didn’t think there was that much to say - that he has bet so big and bet so long. Who’d have thought it?

just darling, darling…the original 2 Tone politician…

In gentler times, when multicultural Britain was a sunnier place, the remarkable appearance of the MP, now our chancellor, white haired, neatly bearded and with jet black brows, seemed so in-tune: the original 2 Tone politician.

His curiously interesting monotone has hardly altered and, though the beard is gone, remains in quizzical counterpoint to his ‘look’. Who else could say ‘pissed off’ with such acceptable diffidence yet puncture Nick Clegg’s righteous balloon, and mock George Osborn’s self-satisfaction. At last, a window! Someone who shows he knows, who’s quiet and confident enough to let the finger point where it will. He understands the essential truth: it’s not what goes right that is retained, but what goes wrong. The endless listing of achievements has devalued great success to little more than the fantasy figures of the Soviets. It’s in acknowledging shortcomings that the electorate has confidence that their government knows what it knows, can see what it sees. To pretend otherwise is barking, darling, barking. So 3 Cheers for the original, 2 Tone Politician

Pro Choice AND Pro Life

Most of us who have seen the happiness of a Down Syndrome child can only applaud Sarah Palin’s choice to carry her baby. Just because the pro-life agenda is dominated by those who hold fundamentalist religious views - whose scientific theories would, if applied, bring the world as we know it to a flat grinding stop, and see the Sun re-orbiting the Earth - should not excuse the rest of us from the terrible dilemma, and choices, indissociable from the right to choose to end a pregnancy. A woman’s right to choose must be inalienable. No one should challenge a woman’s right to control her own body. But life is precious, and our instinct is to preserve it and cherish it. The responsibility for denying it remains as heavy as war itself. 

Pearls from the Outer Temple…

Adur District Council, perhaps from an atavistic instinct for self-preservation, consulted counsel in chambers on the percentage chances of success for the embattled Fishersgate Trustees in their legal struggles with CME, ADC’s chosen developer and partner in the disastrous Fishersgate Dome project. Counsel, whose chambers are in London’s evocatively named Outer Temple, had to be as sharply observant as Solomon, given he hadn’t even been told the matter was already before the courts and had only very partial documentation. 

3.3 A general point which should be made at the outset before considering the merits of the claims in detail is that the evidence of Mrs W...(*) is conspicuous in its absence from the evidence served to date in support of the trustees’ defence and counterclaim. From both the evidence of Mr A...(*) and the evidence from the
trustees and Mr PA...(*), it appears that Mrs W...(*) was the central figure in the events leading up to the dispute in particular she was involved in the discussions
leading to the signing of the PMA as well as being closely involved during the construction phase particularly in the process of releasing funding obtained by FCA to CME. The absence of any evidence from Mrs W...(*) or from Mr L...(*) who appears to have been involved in the negotiation of the Loan Agreement leaves a significant lacuna in the trustees’ evidence. In addition, Mr A...(*)’s evidence, particularly at paragraph 64, gives the impression that the Council was directly involved in overseeing both the financial aspects of the works as well as the design issues.
If this evidence is unchallenged difficult questions are raised about the Council’s role in the management of the project.(1)

(*) names have been withheld, temporarilly..

(1) but, of course, the missing evidence referred to, and much more besides, has never been provided, the evidence to be challenged has not been challenged, and the difficult questions raised, remain without answers.

Action on Poverty

For the last 6 months, I’ve been involved in a number of events focused around ‘Poverty in Worthing’ - highlighting problems of poverty in Worthing, and more widely, nationally and internationally.

On the 29 January, I attended the Worthing Churches Homelessness event at St Peter’s Church Shoreham, where concerned members of the local community met to discuss the problems of homelessness, and ways we could all help. I spoke briefly about the problems of young runaways, as this is an issue I am particularly alarmed about. Young people who make the decision to runaway are often in terrible circumstances, and need great help and support in their situation.

Then, on the 1st of February, I attended a Poverty meeting at Worthing Tabernacle Hall, along with others such as the Mayor of Worthing, Dr Heather Mercer, and Peter Bottomley MP. I was grateful to be invited by Wayne Green, who I know does much work in the area on this subject. A video was played featuring clips of interviews with the public, in which they answered the question ‘who is to blame for poverty’. Some of the answers were slightly worrying, and only demonstrated how issues concerning poverty need to be more widely promoted in the public eye - to avoid such misconceptions.

Much was said about debt, and how this so often forcing people into poverty, and then losing their homes. A representative from the CAB (Citizens Advisory Bureau) explained how the organisation is here to help, along with someone from the Worthing Churches Homelessness Project, which obviously does excellent work in the area. It was a humbling experience to hear from two people who had experienced being homeless in Worthing, and reminded the audience of the personal stories behind every statistic. I spoke briefly about Child Poverty, and how there is still so much work to do to eradicate one of the great social ills of our society. Child Poverty is not something I am willing to tolerate in our developed society, and I think it has to be a main priority for any government, and all politicians, of all parties.

At the meeting, I met some boys from St Andrew’s School in Worthing, and was delighted that the school subsequently invited me to address them in a school assembly, which I did in April.

Between the meeting and the school visit, I was fortunate enough to India for a 12 day visit. This was primarily a visit to see my many family members out there (my Grandmother is from Calcutta, and my mother spent lots of her childhood there), but the visit opened my eyes again to the enormous poverty which I remembered from my previous visits.

Like many of us, I read reports about the ‘millions’ of impoverished citizens in India, but somehow the enormous numbers in the statistics blunts the impact on me. Instead it is personal experiences there which shook me most. Something I found particularly distressing was in Delhi when a young girl, basically the same age as me, was coming up to tourists asking us to buy postcards she was selling. She was obviously desperate for help, and it really affected me. I was so upset about this incident I made a trip back the next day to try and see this girl again, but she wasn’t there. I never found out her name, or what she did, yet she really emotionally affected me. I feel incredibly guilty living in this developed country, with free education, healthcare, a stable home and life opportunities; I definitely have a ‘guilty conscience’.

I am rightly proud of the absolutely fantastic record his Labour Government has on International Development, and we are leading the world on taking action on global poverty. But, like so many issues, we can always, as an international community, do more. I do believe we have the global capacity to solve these problems.

So when I went to St Andrew’s to address the whole school assembly and Dr Heather Mercer, who was also present, I spoke about my visit to India, how it will soon be up to our generation to tackle these huge global issues, and how we need to start now. I was involved in a small ‘Q&A’ session with members of the school council, along with 3 other panel members. Here I got to learn more about my generation’s views on poverty, and some of them had excellent ideas about how to try and tackle it. The main problem seemed to be the ‘visibility issue’, and how many people are unaware of poverty within their own local communities. It was good to know that the boys were obviously concerned about the issue, and were prepared to undertake initiatives to try and help. It only with this kind of attitude that we can come together to solve this problem.

All of these events were illuminating and very rewarding. I hope to do more work around the issue of Poverty, in East Worthing & Shoreham and internationally, in the coming months, as this is an issue we cannot afford to ignore. 

Sorry always seems the hardest word….

For those of us not in government - and I mean government in its wide sense - the issue that most reveals the psychological disconnect between us is the inability, on the part of those who govern, to say "sorry".

Ed Balls was asked by the select committee whether he would ‘apologise’ for the SATS fiasco. Like the proverbial ostrich, his head stuck in the bubble of government, he appears unaware of both the ridiculousness and the vulnerability of his posture. Thousands of our citizens, children, parents, teachers, have been let down horribly. When hurt has been caused - and hurt is a mild word to describe the distress caused - the first instinct should be to apologise, to empathise, not to launch an enquiry as to how things have gone wrong!

Arrogance breeds its own reward, and hurt turns to anger very quickly.

Improving our NHS - a goal not a football - reply to Mr Loughton

I apologise to Mr Loughton for the disappearance of any articles referring to him on our website.  I can assure him, it was not deliberate and nothing has been ‘removed’. As opposed to the MPs’ own site(s) made possible by the very generous parliamentary allowances we hear so much about, our website has been developed and maintained for free, during busy AS levels, by our Youth Officer, and is in almost permanent development.  Hence the occasional ‘lost’ article and navigational puzzle. 

For the record, I like many others went on the first KWASH rally/march in Worthing very much as a supporter. But there it became obvious that the campaign was already becoming a magnet for anti-government protest, and would soon become compromised by being run as a party political campaign by the Conservative Party.  Our Chairman, Peter Berry, also an early supporter as Mr Loughton says, quickly came to a similar conclusion though he and all our members are passionate supporters of our local NHS and shared the deep concerns about the wisdom or workability of the proposals.

At the Consultation meeting at the Shoreham Community Centre, we witnessed Tim Loughton’s platform ‘rant’ - his word, not mine - and saw how thoroughly unhelpful the politicisation of the campaign could become.  With Mr Cameron’s visit and promise of ‘a bare knuckle fight’ over ‘every hospital closure’ it was obvious that the only reason for inviting our Secretary of State to come down was to jeer at his refusal.  To be fair, I wouldn’t expect the MPs to ignore an open goal, but nor should we accept our Health Service being used as their football. The MPs were rightly concerned for the good of the community, but just couldn’t resist making political capital. This resulted in a campaign whose only obvious aim was to stop the clock and prevent progress.
The contradictions are laid out in the KWASH letter. On the one hand we have an ‘ageing and growing population’ - i.e. a deteriorating demographic - with ‘notoriously bad transport links’ - which are unlikely to improve - while on the other hand maintaining that there’s no reason to change the status quo!
To be crystal clear, we completely agree with and congratulate the thousands, from all political allegiances and none, who got behind the KWASH campaign. The very great majority were in it for the good reasons, determined like all of us to protect and improve our health service and they succeeded in keeping the issue alive.  But the form the campaign took contributed little to the objective discussion that was needed to achieve a balanced decision.  We took the view that we could contribute more working behind the scenes, without publicity, with the means at our disposal. I feel we have been vindicated by events.

Gordon digs deep! Steve answers the call!

It’s muddy work in the trenches, but when the going gets tough and the call comes, sleepers awake and put on their storm gear. “Bring me the head of de Pfeffel, I mean Boris the Barbel. Who will rid me of that troublesome fish? “. In angling, as in all good tales, wishes can come true., and as Confucius says, ‘in the belly of a boris is a ring of great power’

Birth of the New

We are fast approaching a decision by the Primary Care Trust on the new health care model for our area.  During the Consultation, great emphasis was given to the question of A&E and the need to maintain it on all sites. But arguably the most sensitive area of all, Maternity and Neo-Natal services, has scarcely been discussed.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, in their response to Lord Darzi’s review, recently stated: “The RCOG strongly believes that complex diagnostic procedures, consultant clinics, maternity care and gynaecological procedures are best carried out in a multi-disciplinary hospital with a full range of specialities and back-up services.”

If Worthing were to lose its maternity unit to another Hospital - Brighton has been suggested - not only would that create a unit there too large to be operated safely, it would remove the heart from the complex of associated disciplines at Worthing Hospital that together make it the major hospital fit for its area, including A&E.

The Royal College states that “Specialised maternity and gynaecology care must be located with other specialities so that women with co-morbidities can be cared for safely. Maternal morbidity and mortality is more prevalent in socially deprived areas: consideration should be given to locating specialised hospitals in these area so the inequalities in access to care can be minimised.”

Worthing Hospital has an excellent case for maintaining and improving its maternity services. They are the key to the very future of our hospital.

Adur’s failed consultation - Tory incompetence or Bad Faith?

You don’t know what you miss till it’s gone

Did you notice the recent consultation on fundamental changes to the way our Council is run? Did you give your views? If you did, well done! You succeeded in getting past the Tories’s treacley reluctance to make it a success. A mere couple of percent did, complain the Tory councillors dismissively. Well, that’s YOUR failure, Councillors: the success of a consultation is judged on how far it succeeds in gauging our views. Of the mighty ‘few’ who did participate, over 80% opposed the councillors’ preferred option, the Cabinet system.

The Cabinet system has several advantages - for the ruling party. For example, as Councillor Dollemore of Manor Ward freely admits, he steers his committee his way anyway, so it will be simpler just to make a decision on his own. In the committee system, all parties and views can be represented. Not in the Cabinet system. In the Cabinet system, a small cabal of a single party has almost total control over all the decisions which concern the local community. Of course, any non-Tory councillor can be on the Scrutiny Committee. Great! But who decides on how to react to its recommendations? The Cabinet!

At the council meeting where the results of the Consultation were reviewed, a good third of the Tory councillors didn’t bother to turn up (not unusual) Ahead of a series of preposterous speeches, the Council’s legal officer solemenly advised the sparse attendance that “it was not a referendum but a consultation, so they shouldn’t feel obliged to take any notice of the result” !

They raise your taxes, cut your services … and blame the buses

Why is that the Tories always look to the most vulnerable for budget cuts?

The Tories have hiked Adur Council Tax by 4.5% , and 4.6% in Lancing where they also control the Parish Council - right up to the limit the Government threatens to cap at. Who do they blame? The elderly! The new Concessionary bus fare scheme gives thousands of our senior citizens the freedom to move, a freedom that the exorbitant charges of our de-regulated buses and privatised railways denies to the old and young alike. There’s an extra £212 million of direct government funding on top of the £350 million last year, and still they say it’s not enough!

The Tories have pulled the plug on Adur Community Transport. They have tried to close down Dial-a-Ride, the voluntary run lifeline taxi-bus service for the vulnerable, old and handicapped. Public protest blocked them this time, thank goodness, but they haven’t given up.

Why is that the Tories always look to the most vulnerable for budget cuts.

Our NHS

The NHS must evolve to survive, and adapt to improve.

The Labour Government has secured and transformed the future of our National Health Service with historic levels of funding and resources. The NHS has always been the Labour movement’s proudest achievement; it remains its great priority.

Improve our Hospitals: We don’t have to shout to make a difference

People of all political views have been extremely worried by the proposed health care re-organisation in West Sussex. They have given huge support to KWASH - the campaign founded by our Consultants in Worthing Hospital.  But the noise of the campaign and the way that it has been associated with one political party has made the clinicians’ own voice less likely to be heard or accepted as non-partisan.

Behind-the-Scenes

Quietly, behind the scenes, with our parliamentary candidate Emily Benn, the local Labour Party has been meeting with the Consultants Group and the Primary Care Trust. We have encouraged the Consultants to submit their own excellent proposals to the PCT, and we have made sure that they have been passed through to government. The PCT is enthusiastic, as their proposals would make services more efficient and improve quality. In private, there has been broad agreement on the best way forward.

Special Interests.

But within the Health Service there are special interests that are trying, right now, to influence the review’s outcome: it is by no means certain that Worthing Hospital will retain the status that all the evidence shows it should have. In the absence of reasoned public debate, decisions risk being arrived at behind the scenes in a manner that is anything but transparent.

Do they care enough?

Will the Conservatives care enough about our local community to help create a non-partisan grouping to make sure that local needs are listened to and respected? They seem have already to have moved their attention onto to more ‘profitable’ electoral issues. But this issue is far from settled.

A flawed consultation?

Dear Editor,
Your report on Adurs decision to go to a system of Cabinet and leader for the future management of our affairs enabled the current leader of council to suggest that some of the consultees seemed not to understand either of the systems.

Could this perhaps be that the consultation failed fully to explain the alternatives?
The figures used in an attempt to discredit the public’s responses were those compiled for councillors, responses which it was clearly explained to them in writing and verbally by the Legal Officer they were free to ignore.

It is true that the responses were from a minority, but the fact is that there was among them a majority in favour of the existing committee system. It should be born in mind that minorities are acceptable to the council. The decision was taken on a vote from which a number of councillors abstained and there were some twelve of our twenty nine elected councillors absent from the meeting.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Berry

Stagecoach leaves, Council threatens Adur Community Transport…. What hypocisy!

Dear Editor,
So, Councillor Mockridge, in her letter of the 22 November, suggests that Peter Berry is being a little mischievous. This shows that like others among her colleagues, she has little understanding of the services and working of Adur Community Transport.

Peter Berry is very aware of the disastrous threat that Stagecoach poses when it decides to withdraw a much needed service. When he first heard of it, Peter Berry spoke with his friends on the committee of Southlanders Residents group, suggesting that Adur Community Transport be approached in an attempt to seek to cover some of the needs locally - the news, a few days later, that Adur Community Transport was under threat, was a body blow!

In short, while Peter Berry is most appreciative of councillors’ efforts to petition for the retention of the Stagecoach service, the attempts, at the same time, to destroy Adur Community Transport is hypocrisy, For a nameless, faceless spokesperson to defend the Council’s decision by saying, as reported, that people “have bus passes”, shows a total misunderstanding of the service provided for those unable to use public transport.

Councillor Mockridge does not understand that Adur Community Transport has always had the need to carry healthy bank balances since it needs to accumulate the resources required for replacement buses and does so by prudent management.

Really and truly, the councillor and her colleagues need to get real and count their blessings, one of which is Adur Community Transport.

Tim ‘Hug an Issue’ Loughton

The MP with the acute attention seeking disorder (AASD), Tim Loughton, is predictably giving a hug to the next ‘big’ issue, the proposed closure of seven of our constituency’s Sub-Post Offices.

But where are his alternative solutions to the disastrous financial state of the Post Office network? Under the Plan’s proposals, on top of the more than £2 billions of public money already sunk into keeping the Post Office network afloat since 1999, substantial further funding will be made available to modernise and secure the future of the network. What would he do differently?

MP’s concerned will have been consulted, along with Local and County Councils, in the preparation of the Network Change proposals. Tim Loughton will have had advance notice of the Area Plan Proposal for Sussex. As an MP he will have had full knowledge of the debates in Parliament and the views of the House of Commons Trade and Industry Committee. He will know that the Post Office Network was losing £4 million per week in the 2006-7 financial year, and that the National Federation of Sub-Postmasters has recognised that the current size of the network of over 14,000 offices is unsustainable. The research, the facts and figures are all easily available. He will be aware that the Area Proposals will have been developed with the participation of sub-postmasters and Postwatch. Following the criteria established by the Government he will know that of the 9.4% of customers using those branches that might close, 9% will be within 1 mile of an alternative (measured by road). 90.6% of Post Office customers will see no change at all.

So let’s have fewer of Mr Loughton’s publicity stunts and, for once, some believable, imaginative, alternative proposals. What will he suggest in place of this major initiative to safeguard the future of the largest retail network in the country, central to the life of local communities, but fast falling behind in a rapidly changing world, hugely loss-making and getting worse, reliant on massive public subsidy.

What does ‘David Cameron’s Conservative Party’ intend to do instead? But that doesn’t matter as much as Tim Loughton’s alternative proposals for our constituency. We wait with interest, but without holding our breath.

Nationalism, Too many foreigners, the Blame Game….

At last the disgraceful Steve McClaren episode is revealed for what it was: the English Nat’s revenge on Sven - it’s more important to be English than able, green Envy’s revenge on Becks - you can’t be a world class footballer AND a world class celebrity, so throw him out to the rubbish heap (along with his posey wife). Everything will be put to rights.

Out with the old and in with the...well what exactly.  Belatedly, pride had to be swallowed and surprisingly Beck’s form had improved enough to be reconsidered for the bench. Well, he almost did enough to rescue England once again, but even he couldn’t find the skill to compensate for our thoroughly English manager!  Now they’re at it again. Apparently, it’s the fault of those footballing asylum seekers who are keeping our jolly tars out of the game. It’s all their fault, Johnny Foreigners who have stifled our home-bred talent, usurped their jobs, blighted their future.  Ranting apart, this is a very serious matter and I have a solution, radical I admit. I believe we should follow the example of our top clubs ( and especially Saint Arsène’s Arsenal). Abolish the nationality rules and choose the national teams purely on ability.  (There would have to a spending cap otherwise big nations would outspend small ones) Over time great national teams would develop as great clubs have done. Becks would play alongside Zidane for France, for Ireland, for Wales, the Maldives. Football, a celebration of ability and character over origin, no longer a weapon of nationalistic rivalry. I know the Flemish would still try to break up Belgium, the Basques would still try to bomb Spain into fragments, the Sunni and Shia would still put each other to the sword, but at least the phospore gas of sporting xenophobia would be put out of use. Maybe, even Scots would feel able to play for the United Kingdom… I dream, I wish.

Flawed Operators Theory v.  Flawed Design Theory

It may seem disrespectful to the victims of Chernobyl to draw analogies between the causes of that disaster and those leading to the release of 25 million personal records into the wild, but the parallels are there: critical safety systems have to be inherently coherent and workable, and must be designed to predict, allow for, and prevent, all conceivable operator errors.

The rules governing the security of this sensitive data were in place, but not allowances for, nor measures to counter, operator error. The government should not point to the responsibility of the operator to follow rules, when the safety systems to ensure that the rules are followed, for which it is directly responsible, are badly designed or incomplete. With the repeated evidence of vulnerable, fallible IT and data systems, the potential for a really huge disaster is frighteningly visible.

The Herald’s ‘Save our Bus’ story - what hypocrisy!

Dear Editor,
The ‘Save our Bus’ story, November 8th edition, was hypocrisy personified.

It showed people protesting against the withdrawal of the bus which serves Southwick Square from the Holmbush stores - a Number 9. Whilst this service is a great loss to many among the disabled and elderly, so too would be the loss of Adur Community Transport.

The people you portray in your picture include councillors who are currently taking steps to discontinue Adur support for Adur Community Transport which is provided for those unable to use of find public transport to suit their requirements.

Adur is withholding the annual grant to the Community Transport - an attack on those who cannot use Public Transport. The same Council is stopping discounts for the elderly and those on benefits who have bulk rubbish to move.

This is said to align us with Worthing! Why not align Worthing with us and so improve life for them.

Yours faithfully

Peter Berry

New Tory bid for one party rule…

Dear Editor,
How right of your correspondents to draw attention to the intention of Adur Tories to go ahead with the planned introduction of a Cabinet System of operation.

True they say they will take account of the peoples’ vote against if it exceeds 20,000, this sets the target such that it cannot be reached, we should also remember that it has already been said by their leader that the council tax will increase in 2008. He is in pole position to ensure that he is right. It would appear that he would bet each way in a one horse race!

Letters have expressed the view that cabinet system would lead to lack of interest by back bench members. This is already apparent, there were 12 absentees at the recent council meeting for which, having pointed this out, explanations were given for three, leaving nine unaccounted for.

The way to change this will be open to the public in May 2008, don’t vote Tory!

Yours faithfully,
Peter Berry.

Will he, won’t he …

Excellent news. Now we can get on with real politics. If there’s a conclusion to be drawn from this messy episode, it’s that for those who occupy the ivory tower of power there’s a lot of noise, but it’s the deafening echos of their own voices…

Fair & square…

It has been suggested that our candidate was shoe-horned in by the PARTY.. Well, sorry folks, B52 bombers haven’t been found on the moon, and the Americans did not blow up the Twin Towers themselves.

The inconvenient truth is that she held out a promise for the future that was irresistible to the members. She’s smart, eloquent, passionate about the world in the genuine way we are when we’re 17, then grow to pretend we are twenty years later - and yes, to the manner born. Bring ‘em on.

Our one-party Local Authority, a non-functioning democracy…

It’s certainly not the fault of the Conservative Party that they gained all but one of the seats - two of them un-opposed - that they contested in the Adur Local Elections.

We have grown indifferent to the very low levels of voter participation in local elections, even though our district and county councils make decisions that may effect us profoundly, even though these councils administer our local services, and despite the potential there is within the elected bodies, entrusted to our elected representatives, to transform our communities. At the last elections barely 23% of the electorate voted. The Tories gained a little more than half that vote, ensuring that with a mandate from just 12% of the electorate, they have a near total monopoly of decision and policy making. Is this fair? Yes, of course. If you are the highest bidder in an auction, and there is no reserve, you win the auction. But is it democratic? No. Because in our democracy, power resides, ultimately, with the people. Democracy predicates the participation.of the people. Democracy: The People/Power. When the people do not participate, the equation is unbalanced, the process is incomplete. Absence of consent cannot be construed as implied consent. Through no fault of theirs, the Tory administration lacks legitimacy.

Democracy may not be broken, but it is suspended....

Preening & preposterous, the wannabe demagogue…

How has it come to this, that Mr Loughton, the MP with the acute attention seeking disorder, sitting alongside representatives of the PCT, Trust Chief Executives, doctors, consultants, the ambulance service, to rant and rubbish their work, their expertise, their integrity, wagging his prematurely jowly head in dissent (when mercifully silent) remarkably like one of those nodding ‘Churchill’ dogs in car rear windows.

At first sight to be appalled by, at second to dismiss as a nobody, then to be brought up short with a shiver as he menaces to expose the names of all those GPs who did not agree with him on the KWASH website.

When was this? Yesterday evening at the Shoreham Community Centre. Packed with KWASHers, the usual suspects, determined to shout down fact and reason, of which they are mightily afraid (or completely without), shutting down debate, baying like elderly pack-hounds as the ‘honourable’ Loughton blew another rant. And all the while, the panel sat there impotently. What use in consulting when nobody is prepared to listen and even the expert is treated like an ignorant fool. So this is democracy? No, this is demagoguery. Quick, look closer, is that not Central Office silent at the back.....

No, the NHS is NOT like a Church

The N.H.S. can be described in several ways, but as a ‘Church’, must be among the least appropriate. In a predominately secular society, many churches sadly are just historic sites, largely abandoned by their congregations, with huge maintenance backlogs and an uncertain future. Others suffer the ignominy of deconsecration and conversion to alternative use.

No, the National Health Service is and does exactly what it says. It is an integral, too often taken-for-granted, part of the fabric of our society, but it has many problems.

‘It’s Resources, Stupid, Resources...”

The 2002 Wanless Report (predictably) concluded that we should retain our health model but that it needed far greater resouces - which it has got ,and continues to get, thanks to that courageous tax hike.  In truth, the chances of dismantelling and rebuilding a new model, given its totemic status within the Labour Movement, were remote indeed. Perhaps, realistically, a nation can only have one go at creating a comprehensive health system. We had ours in 1948, and we have to do our best with it.

The problem with our model of universal care, free-at-the-point-of-delivery, is that demand is potentially unlimited, resources are definitly finite, and improvements in treatment and new advances incur ever increasing costs. Crudely, the solutions we use are: organisational effeciencies, and artifical limiting of demand. The first, which also includes the controversial use of the commercial sector to radically improve throughput, is what lies behind the recommendations contained in the Fit for the Future proposals. The second is exemplified by N.I.C.E. which conducts labourious cost/benefit analysis on treatments, and the refusal of Health Trusts to fund certain areas of treatment. Recent examples are: N.I.C.E.’s decision not to fund early stage Alzheimer’s treatment (upheld by the High Court), and the widespread refusal by Trusts to fund breast size reduction surgery on the grounds that it is ‘cosmetic’ even when the clinical need is glaringly evident.

In the French system, on the other hand, the cost of treatment is theoretically the responsibility of the patient, but is reimbursed according to two criteria: 1. the ranking that a treatment is given; 2. the economic status of the patient. Thus, vulnerable groups such as the unwaged, the elderly, will be fully reimbursed. As an example, the cost of treating Alzheimer’s’s has been entirely assumed by the state. (see my earlier weblog).

Our system is effectively binary - either yes or no. And we contrive to narrow the ‘yes’ in devious ways.

For this reason, the NHS will always be in crisis. However, in my opinion, the great effort currently being made to reconfigure health provision will wring the best value out of the resources, human, physical and financial, and the Fit for the Future proposals are a pressing opportunity to raise standards across the area, which we should encourage and support.

Make no mistake, KWASH is not about saving any hospitals, it’s Tory scaremongering and mischief making. We are the party of government. We should defend the PCT, an honourable and professional organisation, and not run a populist copycat campaign, which if successful will seriously impact on health provision in Sussex, and on our own credibility.

“We are not tinkers who merely patch and mend what is broken… we
must be watchmen, guardians of the life and the health of our
generation, so that stronger and more able generations may come
after”
Dr Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), The First Woman Doctor

Public Sector Pay - Prison Officers

Could someone explain why the pay review body’s recommendations are being thrown out; why modestly paid prison staff, in the front line of society’s fight to control crime and disorder, under enormous daily pressure, are having a real terms pay CUT imposed on them? Unjust and un-justifiable. 

‘Communicating with New Media’: our Seminar report

Webmistress Poppea and I took the opportunity of attending this seminar at the Labour Party Media Centre on Saturday 8 September.

Well, we parted with our 50 quid, got up early, took the train up to the smoke, and penetrated deep into the heart of the Labour Party Media Centre. Good turnout and obviously a lot of interest some of which was already well informed.

Greg Jackson CEO of Tangent Labs provided the meat of the seminar. He was excellent: focused, personable, coherent and passionate about the possibilities of web based campaigning for the Labour Party.

Due to time constraints, the seminar was unable to deal with some of the detailed techniques such as pod-casting that were advertised, but to be fair we would require a full course, rather than a few hours, to ‘get under the hood’. 

Most disappointing, however, (call me naive), was that the real purpose of the seminar was to sell us on (and to sell to us) the new WebCreator package, the ‘official’ Labour Party site creator. Priced at £411 per year!  it’s, of course, out of range for many. We, for starters, were disappointed by the slight-of-hand. 

There are other minus points aside from cost. WebCreator favours content over presentation (not by accident, maybe, in light of recent internal politics), but this is just as much an error as presentation over content’ The medium is the message: good design makes the message reality, and so becomes, in effect, one with it. This program’s interface is inflexible, visually incoherent and… dull. (Incidentally, on sites using it, there are misalignment issues). It was alarming to learn that the Party is attempting, maybe even planning, to oblige all candidates to use it. The question and answer session squeezed the admission from Tom Geldard, Head of Election Strategy, that they might be offering a WebCreator Lite (in other words, a stripped down version with a limited set of options) for free. There was a healthy interest in that!

It is no surprise that the best labour sites are all different For today’s digital, internet-wise public (not us maybe but the great majority of the under 30’s) with little loyalty and less patience, individuality does matter. People may love ready meals, but when it comes to information they don’t want it pre-chewed and pre-packaged. They sniff it, sense the manipulation, and pass on.
Out of interest, I suggest visiting the various sites of our MP’s. Start with Tom Watson. He lists all of them with greater clarity than on the main Labour Party site. See which you think are built with offical party software. His site is one of the few high-scoring presences of the Left in an area dominated by a very loud Right. Greg showed us some sobering statistics on this.

I understand the party’s wish, and need, to knit all together, to rationalise communication and information flow, but there are different kinds of network, and this tightly integrated centralised model, seems dated and unlikely to be fruitful. Collaboration, working together doesn’t have to mean fitting in someone’s straight jacket.

Finally, WebCreator (and the engine behind the Labour Party site), is just a Content Management System - CMS. Hopefully, in the future, enough flexibility, choice and space for individual expression can be integrated to meet both Central and Local needs.

Trust our Primary Care Trust

Our Primary Care Trust is conducting a scrupulously fair and transparent consultation on the options for reconfiguring health services in West Sussex. 

A highly political and scurrilous campaign of misinformation, orchestrated and driven by Tory MPs and their supporters on the (Tory) County Council is hijacking the process, smothering any chance of a reasoned debate or effective contribution by people of good will. The underlying, libelous implication that the PCT is just the hidden hand of a government determined to destroy local services through mean spirited heartless budget driven cuts and closures, is intended to smear government through discrediting a highly professional and independent body, the hub of our area’s health provision. Be warned Mr Loughton, Mr Bottomley and friends, your cynical manipulation of the political process will lead to ever greater disillusionment with the democratic system from which, in the end, your own legitimacy solely derives. Four out of five voters in Adur refused to participate in the last local elections. Is it surprising?

Isn’t it high time time that voters of all political opinions, or none, those who just want to improve health provision in line with medical advances and our changing needs, took back ownership of Fit for the Future from Conservative front organisations and Tory MPs?

Excluded from the Future, the waste of Potential

I’ve just finished my last ever ‘first week’ back at school. As I start my 14th year of schooling, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the education system, its strengths and its weaknesses. 

After all the annual fuss about A-levels getting too easy (which I can assure you, they are not), It seems funny to me that such a great amount of time is being spent on the 3% of people who get 3 As at A-level. But what about the million young people who have dropped out of the education system, are jobless and with little prospects for future success?

I think undoubtedly there have been remarkable achievements and great progress has been made in the Education sector during the past 10 years. Standards have gone up, results are improving, there is record investment and decrepit buildings have been transformed into new schools. But there is still work to do, as many young people don’t get the sufficient support they need to fulfil their potential. And this is a waste I am not prepared to accept.

Let me use my area as an example. I live in South Norwood, an area of South London between Croydon and Brixton. One of the most deprived areas of London, it has a high proportion of children living in poverty, with English as a second language the norm in a huge number of homes.

When I left my local primary school, I left with my classmates getting very good SATs results, and looking forward to getting good GCSE results in 5 years time. But something went wrong along the way.

I went off to a girl’s school some distance away, while the others mostly went to the local comprehensive. While this is a fast-improving school under an inspirational Head, last year over 40% of pupils still left without 5 GCSEs. What prospects do these students have?  The sixth-form provision in Croydon is shocking, with under-performing colleges or religious schools the only options.

I see them now hanging around the local parks, greens and alleyways. Most are in gangs, many are carrying knives and guns. Once they left after year 11 most have drifted for a year, with no further training or jobs. Once out of the system, it’s much harder to get back into training or education, and as I’ve said the options are severely limited around here. As a result, youth crime is a serious problem around this area, as is the supply and use of illegal drugs.

The school did not do enough to motivate and support those students. In having to deal with such a wide range of problems with children from deprived areas, focus was taken away from pushing those more academic students. The culture of schools like this has to change to recognise that it is so important to support those children who have the talent to succeed. And as more do well, it gives a fantastic example to other students that they can also achieve.

Of course there are success stories, but these are expectations rather than the norm. And most of them have succeeded despite the school, rather than with it. I was lucky in having parental support throughout my exams and school career. But not every child gets that structure at home, and thus the school has to provide it, or we will continue to see this waste of potential.

I don’t have the answers; it’s a complicated issue with differing opinions. Regardless however, something has to be done to help motivate the thousands of young people who need help the most. It is the same in many other deprived areas, including in EWAS. If you want to halt the trends of youth crime, education is absolutely vital. And allowing these children to drift through without fulfilling their own potential is something we should all feel guilty about., because we could really make a difference We have to provide the education and training systems, the out of school support and leisure facilities that can deal with the day to day challenges of life in deprived or marginalised communities. It should be our highest priority to focus resources on providing the context, support and training that will give the future back to these children. They will re-build their community from within in a way that no external agency can. And that is in all our interests. 

The more things change, the more….

One of the incidental, but great, pleasures of getting by in another language is to discover exactly the same self-doubts and navel gazing over at the neighbours. Following our annual wail at levels of literacy and numeracy, I came across this within an online conversation in France’s LeMonde:

The High Council of Education’s report underlines the fact that each year “four out of ten Primary children move into Secondary with serious deficiencies”, that “nearly 200,000 among them have inadequate mastery of reading, writing and arithmetic”, of whom “more than 100,000 are without even basic skills in these areas” It is “urgent to address this”, it says.’

Now if we have the same problems, perhaps we should share solutions. Umm, perhaps, even, we could get together with those neighbouring countries who, after all, share the same cultural roots, whose languages derive from the same source, who largely come from the same migrations, whose history cannot be unravelled from our own, whose problems are almost bound to be similar, and form some sort of union. After all, by the strength of our common endeavour we can achieve more than we achieve alone. I know, let’s call it the European Union. Nice and short and un-controversial. 

NICE ? I think not.

On August 10, the High Court in London upheld NICE’s argument that the medicines known as acetyl cholinesterase inhibitors, effective in delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s, are only cost-effective for patients with moderate stages of the illness and shouldn’t be prescribed to those with mild Alzheimer’s.

Many of us who have family experience of Alzheimer’s disease will be deeply troubled by this decision and by the Kafkaesque process of cost-benefit analysis applied to people’s lives. Is this really how our National Health Service is meant to operate?

In France today, Nicholas Sarkozy, the new President, has made the treatment of and research into Alzheimer’s a central policy of his five year term with a co-ordinated program of research, early diagnosis, treatment and financial support.(Diagnosis, treatment, financial support: priorities of the Sarkozy plan to fight Alzheimer’s ) The statistics from France are sobering indeed. Are they likely to be different here? It’s not just ‘the grass is greener on the other side’ that makes me think that this terrible affliction is being better managed 40 miles away.

‘In France, it is officially estimated that there are 860,000 existing cases with 225,000 new cases diagnosed each year. After 75, more than 20% of women and 13% of men are affected. The percentage increases rapidly in line with age. Once diagnosed, average life expectancy is 8 1/2 years.’

‘Projections for the future show causes for concern. Taking into account the ageing of the population, the number of cases of Alzheimer’s should rise to 1.3 million in 2020 and to 2.1 million in 2040. We move therefore from the proportion of 15 cases per 1000, at present, to 20 per 1000 in 2020 and 30 per 1000 in 2040. On a worldwide level, the number of victims would quadruple by 2050, with a particularly marked increase in Asia.’

‘And again, these figures only record those cases of dementia that have been medically diagnosed. Studies on younger deceased, in good health when they died, have uncovered an alarming proportion of cerebral lesions characteristic of the disease, but which had not yet translated into neurological symptoms.’

Lies, Damned Lies and…K(EYE)wash

I have to hand it to Tim Loughton, our ever visible MP: show him an open door, and he’ll kick it in. It’s easy to ‘save’ something that’s not under threat. We’ll probably see him throwing his arms around some frail pensioner and claim that he’s saved them from one of ‘Broken Britain’s’ gangs of feral toddlers. All in front of the cameras, of course.

I think we should all study the Primary Care Trust’s proposals, laid out with admirable clarity on their Website : Fit For the Future

The rather mis-leadingly labelled Accident & Emergency Dept. at Worthing General Hospital is NOT under threat of closure. In all three proposals out for consultation, Urgent Care - which covers the great majority of what we use A&E for - will be provided on all sites. Now, in my opinion, anyone who’s experienced A&E at peak periods would wish for the service to be improved. The status quo cannot, and should not be, an option. To allow a Tory front organisation like KWASH to hijack the consultation process for cynical political advantage will do nothing to improve or develop health provision in our area.

A day out in our constituency

Hi Everyone!
I thought I would use this first post to talk a bit about one of my visits to the constituency last week - I had a great time looking around, getting a feel for the constituency. I saw for myself the issues I’ve been researching.

I started off with a visit to Shoreham’s historic airport (under the low railway bridge - lucky I was in a low car!) and its surrounding area.
Next stop: Shoreham beach, with that fantastic view from the footbridge. I then dropped in to the Adur Civic Centre.

Adur Civic Centre

Here I was able to chat to some of the friendly and helpful staff, and I picked up a lot of vital local literature, including the Fit for the Future consultation documentation.

Shoreham Community Centre

From there, I walked to the Shoreham Health Centre (passing a famous ‘KWASH sign’, which I’ll talk about later), and the Community Centre, to see what sort of local community groups were active. Then on to Worthing, where I visited the Labour Hall, and walked around the western wards of the constituency. 

Labour Hall

I was frustrated, however, by my quest to establish the exact boundaries of the constituency. At the Adur Civic Centre, I met with a very helpful man in election services, but he didn’t know the boundary (though he was able to provide me with lots of information on turnout). So, I moved on from there to Worthing - to the other council - where they didn’t know either, suggesting I try Adur! Finally, at Shoreham library, another very helpful man was able to reveal the exact boundaries. I was struck by how much of a problem, on a relatively small but fundamental issue, was caused by having two councils in the same constituency. I’ve been thinking about this, and will post more thoughts on a later blog.

I’m really eager to hear from all local members about issues they are concerned - or positive - about, so I can gain a thorough understanding of the issues local people want addressed. My email is emily_benn@hotmail.com, and you can call me anytime on 07990 946 350 - leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Huge thanks to those that have got this fantastic website up and running - its great to have a space to post and write thoughts for a wider audience!

More later…

Emily Benn

Let’s show what we think at election time…

Dear Editor,
I have for long tried to draw some comment from the Tories on our council on the matter of the introduction of a joint staff for Adur and Worthing:
Councillor Julie Searle has now taking the opportunity to reply to me through these columns and drags some false herrings in doing so.

I do not hide the fact that I have been a Labour supporter for many years, and rejoice in the democratic way in which Labour allows me to differ from policy, this is part of our British way of life we do not luckily live in a dictatorship
Her claim that there will be savings of Fifty Thousand pounds a year as the outcome of the changes, which are now finalised, will if correct brings some saving to each household across the two towns of some Ten Pounds a year. Is that worth the changes to our way of life and the consequential loss of jobs it will entail? This will cost the public benefit payments for those dismissed.
It is suggested that I asked the question ‘ Who gave permission? Not guilty it was J Martin who raised the question.
My comments on the waste services supported the wheelie bins on the grounds that Health and Safety is the issue that causes these to be introduced: There is a very high incidence of injury among Refuse Operatives, such that they rank high against other workers, possibly due to the fact that we now have little heavy industry.
Cllr Searle refers a shared Chief Executive that is not true we now have a joint staff with an overall top man, not as hitherto someone carrying the title Chief Executive Adur and Interim Chief Executive Worthing. Unless proved otherwise, I still maintain that the senior posts will have up-rated salaries in relation to the gross population of the two districts.
Those who are not comfortable with the way, almost clandestine way in which these changes have come about will have the opportunity in 2008 to question their councillors during election time and the opportunity to make changes should they be dissatisfied. It should be a lively time:

Yours faithfully

Peter Berry
Stoney Lane

Who gave permission? Nobody!

Dear Editor,
How great to read a letter like that of J. Martin [August 9th edition] it shows that some is taking notice of the changes taking place in Adur’s administration.

I will try to answer his questions since there is nothing forthcoming from the council, it should be noted that these decisions have been made in the two year period between elections, therefore they have not been published in a manifesto and councilors or candidates have not been on the doorstep to explain. It is also noticeable that there have been no street surgeries so avoiding questions and the answers.
Who gave permission--- nobody !
How much will the council tax be reduced--- This is unlikely since the savings forecast for the first two years have to provide the funds to pay redundancies and for early retirements
The proposal to change to a Cabinet system--- the writer is correct the power will be in the hands of the few, rendering remaining councilors virtually impotent.
If there is a political power change a reversal of the system is currently estimated to cost four hundred and ninety thousands, it should be borne in mind that a change at Worthing could have an impact on this.
These changes are no longer proposals, it is a done deal and the benefits are unlikely to come to the council tax payer, the benefits will be gained by the senior staff who are retained on higher salaries, they will be acting for the larger populace to which the salary scales are set, and the councilors who are promoted to the cabinet. Somewhere along the line someone may gain some Brownie points.
Lastly when asked how much all this work has cost a senior councilor explained that there had been grants of public funds available. Of course it is Joe Public who provides these.
I hope J. Martin finds that my comments help, should they not he can contact his two councilors, there are two for each ward it happens they are Tories and responsible for the changes.
Lastly, wheelie bins have been driven by the Health and Safety problems encountered by our hard working refuse teams.

I fully support the objections to the proposed changes to our hospital services…

Dear Editor,
I fully support the objections to the proposed changes to our hospital services, Particularly because I do not believe that the infrastructure is in place to provide for the transfer of patients by ambulance or by public transport.

The situation currently in place is not patient friendly - I recently had cause to take my wife for specialist treatment in the Day Surgery at St Francis in Chichester where the appointment required us to report at seven thirty a.m.. Luckily we have a car, what of those not in the same position? Even for a disabled person to attend Worthing from Shoreham causes a taxi journey at great cost.
The campaigns currently seeking to influence the PCT to change its ways, are led and rightly so by the local MP’s with added appeals to the PM and the Health Minister, however the attacks on the Government which ensue are aimed at the wrong target. The target must be the PCT they tasked with introducing measures to implement policy.
If the current practices are not patient friendly, as already stated, then the proposed changes only make matters worse rather than better. This applies whether one lives east or west of the county. I only hope that common sense will prevail.
Last weeks letter from Mr. Geoff Farley showed that he had a good measure of expertise that may be of use to the PCT - perhaps they would like to co-opt him.

Peter Berry
Shoreham

There has been too much capital investment in our local hospital for it to be wasted

Dear Editor,
it is so wrong to suggest that the Herald is being alarmist in highlighting the seeming danger that our local hospital is in .

The rumours that our hospital services could in future be provided either in Chichester or Brighton is most alarming and we support the call for the populace at large to support our local MPs in their search for truth and a sensible solution to any trouble our much valued Worthing Hospital may be in.
Our hospitals have been so successful in satisfying the calls made upon them that they are now condemned for their success. The Health Service is free at point of demand and the hospital has little control over the calls made upon it; there have been such advances in the skills of the Medical Profession that have in themselves increased the demand.
How many of us have family or friends who have had their lifestyle improved by the restoration of their sight or the renewal of joints? These advances and others have all added to the load upon the hospital, and what a boon they have been.
There has been too much capital investment in our local hospital for it to be wasted. There will be to much extra load put on others hospitals to provide our needs. Closure will make the services we currently emply far too distant especially for the elderly who make up much of our population

Councillors are not being very open…

Dear Editor,
Once again I must draw readers’ attention to matters which will affect them and that have not been subject of announcements by their Council.

There is currently an intention to organise a joint staff to serve both Adur and Worthing. The intention being to create economies, however, invitations will be extended to Consultants to tender for the right to advise the two councils on the proposed business plan
Consultants are also to be engaged to advise on the selection and appointment of a new Chief Executive for the proposed overall staff. I would expect that the salary for this post will exceed that which paid for the former holder of the Worthing post since it will be related to the total of electors on the two Electoral Registers, Adur’s and Worthing’s, so the economies sought begin to be eaten away.
It should not be lost sight of that currently Adur’s chief exec., serves both authorities, this has been the case for some time, so the appointment has now been a job-share for some time. This then begs the question why can this situation not continue and maintain the current economy.
Residents of the two communities are not well informed since the policy would seem to be keeping them in the dark. All of this information is on the web, readers should take a look; their councillors are not being very open. If they were, we might have seen some press releases.

Yours faithfully,

Peter Berry
Stoney Lane
Shoreham

The Tories now have a virtual stranglehold in Adur…

Dear Editor,
Brian Stephens made a number of points in his Personal View, May 4 th edition, when taking a look at the elections.

One reason that the public would appear to be apathetic is that they are not well informed of the conduct of local affairs, and your own paper together with the Argus can be criticised, for in days past both newspapers sent reporters to meetings to observe and report. This does not now happen and there is therefore a reliance on press releases. These then are tailored to suit the Council and do not cover the unpopular decisions.
For instance the decision that for the year 2006/7 councillors would receive increases of allowances averaging 23 per cent was not publicised and it was left to me to expose this in a letter published in these columns. There are also those services of a general nature, not apparent to the public which are deleted for reasons of economy.
Exposure of these would allow the public to see that there is money for increased allowances but not for other services: they would then be able to make a considered judgement, and perhaps then take an interest in elections.
The Tories now have a virtual stranglehold in Adur it is therefore more important that our local papers take a greater interest, having lost my seat I will not be able to continue as the eyes and ears of the Herald.

Yours faithfully

Peter Berry
Stoney Lane
Shoreham

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