Barry Stamp's Political Diary

Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, has finally announced that Britain will be sending £15million in aid to the Countries affected by the tsunami. The USA has doubled their contribution to over $30million. The death count continues to rise and is now nearly 70,000.

It’s unbelievable, but the death toll from the Asian tidal wave is now estimated to be over 60,000 – which, as the American CBS News has pointed out is twenty times more deaths than 9/11. Despite this figure there has still been no statement from Tony Blair or any other senior cabinet member giving Britain’s reaction to the disaster and what aid the Government intends to send to the area. Although this is a considerable sum it will go no where to meeting the desperate needs of this area. As someone involved in politics, but more importantly as a human being, I feel I should be doing something to help, but as an individual I’m at a loss to know just what to do apart from send a donation to the disaster appeal that that has been set up by a combined group of UK charities.

A major undersea earthquake of the cost of Sumatra has sent a tidal wave across the Indian Ocean. The news reports have shown unbelievable devastation along the coast of Thailand, Indonesia, the Maldives’s, Sri Lanka, India, with the number of deaths estimated to be in the 1000’s. As yet no response has been made by the British Government, but as a number of British tourists are thought to be in the region I’m sure some comment must be made soon.

Haughton Play Group is struggling for children which in turn means it is short of funds. I was therefore pleased to be able to help with tonight’s Father Christmas evening, which was arranged not only to give the Village children an exciting evening but also to raise money for the group. The evening started with Father Christmas touring the Village and finished with a gathering in the Village Hall, where I was asked to draw the Christmas raffle. I arrived at the Hall about 15 minutes after Father Christmas and was amazed at the number of people who were there. Children were everywhere and long queues had formed at both the kitchen serving hatch and the tombola. Drawing the raffle was interesting as the hall was very noisy and after drawing about twenty tickets and shouting out the numbers my throat felt as if it was about to burst. All in all the evening was a great success and the playgroup bank account certainly received a welcome boost!

This evening was the Civic Carol Service at St. Mary’s Church. As usual it was well attended. This year the order of service had reverted to a more traditional one, with a number of the readings being read by members of the Council. As Liberal democrat Group Leader I read one of the lessons – the seventh. It always a privilege to be asked to read and one I really enjoy. It was also good to hear the choir from John Wheeldon Primary School sing both before and during the service.

Tonight’s meeting of the Borough Council was once again a rough and gritty event. The majority of the meeting was taken up with a number of planning application, which did nothing to remove the view that political group allegiance has more influence than an unbiased view of the application. Time and time again the Group leaders – including myself – stand-up and argue that there is no whip when it comes to planning matter, however tonight the Conservatives voted almost to a man – or women – to force there will on one application at Hixon. This particular application was recommended for refusal by the planning officers as it was against planning policy but even so was approved by shear weight of Conservative votes. What was also worrying was that one Councillor, who argued for approval, seemed to know a great deal of detail about the application and the effect it would have on the surrounding area. The more charitable onlookers can only marvel at the amount of research that must have been undertaken to find out this information including an in-depth understanding and practical mastery of surveying techniques!

I’ve now been told that the by-election in the St. Michael’s Ward at Stone will be held on February 3rd. This by-election was caused by the untimely death of Stan Goddall. For many years St Michael’s ward was held by two Labour Councillors but was captured by the Conservatives a couple of years ago. However since that time the Liberal Democrats have been working hard in the area and intend to fight hard to win the seat.

Although I never like to think a by-election has been called in these circumstances I am please that David Rawlings – the Borough Council’s Chief Executive and Returning Officer – did decide on the February date as I was worried he would try to wait until May and combine this election with those for the County Council. With Stan being ill for sometime the residents of St Michael’s ward had being without full representation on the Council and I had argued with David that any undue delay would just exasperate this situation. Luckily he appeared to have agreed and published the notice of election for the February date.

Once again I was asked to switch on the Christmas lights in Ranton. The ceremony - if it could be called that – is held as part of the Village Hall Christmas Fair and Father Christmas tour of the Village. Just like last year the Village Hall was packed with Villagers all intent with having a good time. The management committee had arranged a number of stalls which drained me and my daughter of a few pounds. The light switching on always takes place outside and those in the hall are driven out into the car-park. While the process of switching on the lights sounds rather grand – this is not really the case. The lights in question are on a large Christmas tree which is planted in the grass verge opposite the Village Hall and the switch is located in the church yard behind the hedge on the opposite side of the verge. This is switched on at the appropriate moment by a volunteer. To help co-ordinate the switch on I got the crowd to count down fromm ten and then shout “Happy Christmas”, It worked well and Ranton’s Christmas started on queue!

This evening I meet with Charles Kennedy in his private office in the House of Commons. The meeting was arranged by the Parliamentary Candidates Association and gave us both the opportunity to discuss the way Party policy was being received by voters in Stafford. Charles was in good form and extremely impressive when it came to explaining policy and how it was developed. Unfortunately the meeting was cut short after just over an hour when a division was called in the House and Charles rurshed off to vote.

This morning I spent over two hours meeting with John Downing – the owner of Downing Waste Management. John is a successful local business man, who runs a skip hire, waste disposal and waste recycling company based on a small site at Aston Fields Industrial Estate in Stafford. I was particularly keen to meet John to learn from him how he saw the recycling industry developing over the next few years. He certainly knows the business and I left with a clear feeling that he could find a market to recycle almost any product. It’s a pity the Borough Council could not let John run their recycling business as I’m sure the local tax payers would get both better value for money and better and expanded service