Barry Stamp's Political Diary

Staffordshire County Councillors have just voted themselves a pay rise despite the fact that the Council’s independent pay review body had recommended there should be no change. To make matters worse the Conservatives even suggested that their shadow cabinet members should get even more pay to reflect the amount of work they do.. Its surprising that a party which fought the County Council elections in May of the principle that money should be saved and Council Tax increases kept to a minimum should now want to increase their own pay which of course comes directly from the money paid by local residents. Of course there is now four years until they have to face election again so no doubt they are not worried what people think!

Gnosall and Haughton residents look set to loose their late night bus service to Stafford or Telford following an announcement by Arriva. This will mean the last bus home will be around 10.00pm. Of course this will mean that if residents want to go to the cinema, theatre, or just out for a quite drink in town they will have to leave early to catch their bus. This will mean they will either have to take their car and therefore one person will not be able to drink or they will have to pay for a taxi home. One answer is that the County Council could subsidise the service. As they are keen to say just how popular the 481 service is and how it is the fasting growing service in the Country in terms of passenger numbers they could certainly show their support by paying this subsidy.

It’s just been reported that the RAF is to close another section of Stafford’s RAF base. This is devastating news for the town. However I’m not surprised as I went to a briefing with some top brass from the RAF when the first round of closures were being considered. I know I wasn’t the only person to leave that meeting with the feeling that more were to come. We all talked about the first closure as being like a house of cards about to collapse, and that once one section went others were likely to follow. How right were we! However the announcement does give the impression that the Government has a hidden agenda, as today Parliament rises for the summer recess. The more cynical side of me thinks that by making the announcement just ahead of a long break will mean that the outcry will have died away before Parliament returns in October. I do hope that when this happens the Government will quickly tell everyone what their long term plans are for the site. Without this information the town and all the people who rely on the base for their employment will just be left out on a limb.

So the Government are putting off making a decision about the future M6 Toll Expressway until next year. How on earth can they justify that! It’s clear that the majority of the people and organizations that responded to the consultation were against the plan. One can only imagine that Alistair Darling has already made up his mind that the Motorway has merit. If he hadn’t he could have scrapped the plan now. This is exactly the same stance taken by the Conservatives on Stafford Borough Council who decided they could not make any comment to the consultation as they did not have enough information. That was a strange stance to take as every other Council in Staffordshire voted against the plan. It was obvious that the Conservatives supported the plan but did not want to say so. The hypocrisy of the whole thing was clear at tonight’s Council meeting. Judith Delgarno – the Council Leader – made a statement decrying the stance the Government had taken saying that Stafford residents deserves an answer.

I really feel that this decision has let down the hundreds of Stafford residents who’s lives would be affected by the new road if it was built. Unfortunately it is difficult to know just how much support they are getting from David Kidney who if the newspaper reports are to be believed think this was the right way to handle the issue. I would have thought the best was to fight the plan and instead look to introduce sustainable and more eco friendly alternatives.

At least another pressure is off the Party with the news that we won the Cheadle by-election. Over the past few days there had been a growing worry that the Tories might just pip us at the post. The death of Patsy Calton came at far too earlier an age and she will be greatly missed by everyone who knew her. I really don’t envie Mark Hunter – the new MP – who will have to follow in her footsteps. But at least he only has a few days to go before Parliament breaks for the summer recess, so at least he will have time to get into the job as a constituency MP. Just for the record the results were Mark Hunter 19593, Stephen Day (Tory) 15936, Martin Miller (Labour) 1739, Leslie Leggett (Veritas) 218, John Allman (Alliance for Change - Suffering Little Children) 81. One good thing is that this result once again shows that the Tories cannot win elections and that British politics is now really three party politics – with the Lib Dems a real and growing force.

Church Eaton has really shown just how a rural village can come together and show good old fashion community spirit. This mornings parade, and this afternoons village fete was the culmination of a whole week’s festivities. The Village was packed with dozens of both local and visitors watching the parade which included representatives of a number of Village Organizations, children from the school, local’s driving vintage cars and tractors, and various individuals in costumes both on foot and riding bicycles! As well as the parade there was a scarecrow trail around the Village with some amazing creations on show. Perhaps my favourite was outside Cherry Tree Cottage – the home of John and Jane Evans. This was a bath used as a boat with two sailors in yellow waterproofs and a pig! One sailor was an exact likeness of John himself and as he was standing outside his home while the parade went by he and his other self certainly became the centre of attention for many people. On the other hand no one recognised the pig or come to that had any idea why it was in the bath!

The Afternoon fete was also a success. The school field was packed all afternoon and as the weather was wonderful everyone had a good time. All in all the day showed just how a village can work together.

The news that terrorist bombs had exploded on three trains on London Underground and a bus packed with passengers on a London Street was almost unreal. I had been told the news by a shop assistant in a Harrogate gift shop and at first thought she was in someway trying to make a rather sick joke. However the crowd of onlookers outside the doors of Dixon’s just down the road confirmed what she was saying was true. I stood for twenty minutes or so watching the scene in central London unfold. That was over twelve hours ago and now it’s been confirmed that 37 people have been killed and hundreds injured. At the moment no one knows who is responsible for the attacks, but the view of many commentators is that it is probably al-Qaeda or a similar group. What is clear is that the bombing was timed to coincide with the opening of the Q8 conference in Scotland, and it certainly has knocked that off the news headlines. It’s also poignant that the attack came just twenty four hours after I’d sat and listen to the ex mayor of New York – Rudolph Giuliani – who praised George Bush and Tony Blair for standing up to terrorism and working to make the world a safer place to live!

On a positive note the emergency services in London certainly proved their worth today. The almost constant news feeds on TV showed just how hard they all worked to ensure the danger to the rest of the population was kept to a minimum, while at the same time those people who were injured or killed were dealt with the utmost speed and professionalism.

For the last two days I've been in Harrogate at the Local Government Association Annual Conference. While I always enjoy this event and come away with plenty of ideas and information I can use in my work as a Councillor in Stafford the highlight so far was today listening to Rudolph Giuliani, the former Mayor of New York talk about the way that City had been turned round during his time in office. While I, like everyone else in the audience, expect him to focus on the events of 9/11 and the aftermath of that historic event he only mentioned it in passing. Instead he concentrated on talking about rebuild a sense of pride in the people who live in New York and how that could be translated into changing the City itself. Mayor Giuliani was elected to that office in 1993 after spending sometime working in Washington in various posts in the field of law. He had served under Ronald Regan in the office of the Attorney General. Since becoming Mayor, an office he held until 2002, crime in New York had fallen by 65% with murder down by 70%. This represented in real terms a reduction from over 2000 murders a year to nearer 600!
As well as this improvement in crime Mayor Giuliani also explained about how the City had been clean up, schools improved, and job opportunities created. Everyone listened in raptures and hung on his every word and I’m sure everyone left the conference centre with renewed optimism. I for one took with me the message that in everything we try to do as Councillors we must not loose sight of the small details and that if you get those right the big changes and improvements will follow!

I cannot believe that the County Council are not going to rebuild the rest of the Church Eaton to Gnosall Road. The news came to me in an e-mail from Paul Boss the County’s Divisional Engineer, who said that he had asked for money to do the work, but this had been turned down! This is despite the fact that when the first part of the road was rebuild last year I, and Church Eaton Parish Council, were promised that the rest of the work would follow this year and next. Now half the road has been rebuilt and the rest if full of pot holes; is prone to flooding in some areas; and is covered in patches, some of which are actually patching areas of earlier patching! The way the County council works must really be questioned. How they can justify spending money on half the road last year and then not bothering to complete the job now. Wasting local Council Tax payers money and letting local communities down seems high on their agenda! I’m sure that if this road had been in the area represented by one of the Council’s Cabinet Members the work would have been completed regardless of the cost.