In the rush of the modern, twitter based political commentary, I've seen some half-baked and half-arsed analysis of yesterday's atrocity in London. From outright religious hatred, to blaming Tony Blair and UK foreign policy, the various crazies and loons who seem to dominate the internet have been out in force, pouring forth their nonsense as if they're holding the world on to their every utterance.
The most insightful comment I saw was, as the title of this post suggests, that the people who did this were (and forgive the language, but it's necessary on such occasions) 'fucking nutjobs'.
No doubt it will all be discussed in every little detail, pouring huge attention on to the attackers, which is what they want. Undoubtedly there are serious and legitimate questions to answer, like how do we prevent more people from being radicalised in the future, how do we tackle the preaching of hate, and extremism in general. Those things will happen.
In the meantime, lets not give this awful act the credence of a just cause, however twisted and sick decent people may find such causes which drive people to take a life. Lets not promote their message, which gives the murderers the attention they crave and the platform they did this awful thing to achieve.
The best thing we can do now is to mourn for the innocent soldier who was brutally murdered, and his family and friends coming to terms with their loss, and scornfully denounce the awful people who did such a terrible thing as the 'fucking nutjobs' they clearly are.
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
On the sad news of the passing of Lady Thatcher
This is the statement I have issued on behalf of Copeland Conservative Association, of which I am Chairman, following the terribly sad news that Lady Thatcher passed away this morning.
“I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a Britain very much made by Mrs Thatcher. I will forever be thankful for the example she set for people like me, showing that in spite of whom you are or where you are from anybody can, like her, be great and achieve great things. She was and will always be an inspiration to me, and I am immensely saddened to hear of her passing. Copeland and Britain are better for what she achieved. The thoughts of the entire Association are with her family and in particular her children, Sir Mark and Carol Thatcher, at this difficult time.”
“I grew up in the 80s and 90s in a Britain very much made by Mrs Thatcher. I will forever be thankful for the example she set for people like me, showing that in spite of whom you are or where you are from anybody can, like her, be great and achieve great things. She was and will always be an inspiration to me, and I am immensely saddened to hear of her passing. Copeland and Britain are better for what she achieved. The thoughts of the entire Association are with her family and in particular her children, Sir Mark and Carol Thatcher, at this difficult time.”
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
The comfortably-off hippies of South Lakes are coming after our future
Emboldened by their 'success' when the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely (MRWS) process was rejected by Cumbria County Council, the hippies of South Lakes are coming after Sellafield. I warned about this - that the core opposition to the Managing Radioactive Waste Safely process was plain and simple anti-nuclear - in the piece I wrote for the Sellafield Workers Campaign here.
There is now a march on Sellafield planned for this Saturday, and petitions and letters urging the Government to halt reprocessing at, and waste shipments to, Sellafield (see the Whitehaven News here).
So, as so many of us knew, opposition to the MRWS process and waste siting in general was a vehicle to attack the nuclear industry. It always has been.
This amounts to nothing less than a complete and all out attack on the economy, sustainability and future of West Cumbria. The cost of their success will be to consign West Cumbria, its communities, families and people to the scrap-heap.
So, this Saturday the comfortably-off hippies of South Lakes are coming after Sellafield, and our livelihood. We in West Cumbria should tell Marianne Birkby and her ilk where to shove it.
There is now a march on Sellafield planned for this Saturday, and petitions and letters urging the Government to halt reprocessing at, and waste shipments to, Sellafield (see the Whitehaven News here).
So, as so many of us knew, opposition to the MRWS process and waste siting in general was a vehicle to attack the nuclear industry. It always has been.
This amounts to nothing less than a complete and all out attack on the economy, sustainability and future of West Cumbria. The cost of their success will be to consign West Cumbria, its communities, families and people to the scrap-heap.
So, this Saturday the comfortably-off hippies of South Lakes are coming after Sellafield, and our livelihood. We in West Cumbria should tell Marianne Birkby and her ilk where to shove it.
Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Damaging what they aim to save
I've written a short piece on the MRWS vote tomorrow for the Sellafield Worker's Campaign. The jist of it is that the over-hyping and scaremongering by those opposed to going any further with the geological study of West Cumbria might well be damaging the very thing they profess to want to save.
See here for the pieceon the SWC's website
See here for the pieceon the SWC's website
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
Staff and the Copeland Council Consultation
It became apparent on Friday, after a public meeting organised by the local Labour MP (Jamie Reed) that a number of staff within Copeland Council are unsure whether they are able to take part in the ongoing budget consultation.
Over the weekend I contacted the Chief Executive of Copeland Council, Paul Walker, to ask the following:
At the meeting held by Jamie Reed on Friday evening, an issue was raised regarding staff and our budget consultation. It appears that staff believe they are not able to respond for fear of consequences in the workplace. Could you please clarify what staff have been told regarding the consultation? Are they able to respond? If so, can all staff be reminded of their right to do so?
The response on Monday was swift and confirmed that staff are able to take part. This is the response from Mr Walker:
Yes staff are able to respond and more than welcome to fill in the consultation. I have attached a copy of the October Team Brief confirming this.
We have continued with our web page future staff consultation, which has copies of all the staff presentation, minutes of meetings with trade unions etc. and also have dedicated email address for staff to access for feedback and comments, which is held by our Human Resources team
I will check the number of responses received tomorrow – I also want to make sure that we continually promote the opportunity with all staff across the organisation.
The relevant section of the team briefing is here (click to expand to full size):
Over the weekend I contacted the Chief Executive of Copeland Council, Paul Walker, to ask the following:
At the meeting held by Jamie Reed on Friday evening, an issue was raised regarding staff and our budget consultation. It appears that staff believe they are not able to respond for fear of consequences in the workplace. Could you please clarify what staff have been told regarding the consultation? Are they able to respond? If so, can all staff be reminded of their right to do so?
The response on Monday was swift and confirmed that staff are able to take part. This is the response from Mr Walker:
Yes staff are able to respond and more than welcome to fill in the consultation. I have attached a copy of the October Team Brief confirming this.
We have continued with our web page future staff consultation, which has copies of all the staff presentation, minutes of meetings with trade unions etc. and also have dedicated email address for staff to access for feedback and comments, which is held by our Human Resources team
I will check the number of responses received tomorrow – I also want to make sure that we continually promote the opportunity with all staff across the organisation.
The relevant section of the team briefing is here (click to expand to full size):
At the moment responses are a bit on the low side, at around the 100 mark last week. I will continue to ensure staff and the public are encouraged to respond to the budget consultation.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Where did all the money go?
This is the text of my piece in the Whitehaven News two weeks ago:
The local government cuts – by Copeland councillor Stephen Haraldsen (Hillcrest ward, Conservative)
People rightly want to know why the cut in Copeland Council’s government funding is so large. I hope I can shed some light on this here.
Local government cuts have been ‘front loaded’ to get the pain over with quickly, so it seems very harsh, but you can’t look at Copeland’s budget in isolation. The majority of council services we use day-to-day are provided not by the Borough, but by the County Council – schools, roads, social care, libraries, sure start, waste disposal and many more. It doesn’t seem such a large cut when you look at the Borough and the County together and see the full picture.
How the government calculates funding to councils is complicated, and is based on the things that councils do and the unique problems each faces. Inequality is an issue that we are sadly all too familiar with in Copeland, where we have some shocking levels of deprivation. The government seeks to protect those least well off when calculating council funding, but because most funding which addresses deprivation goes to the County Council, their funding take less of a cut than Copeland’s. The principle that those most in need get the most help means borough councils take a bigger hit so we can protect our schools, sure start centres and so on. The councils with the greatest deprivation still have the most per head to spend.
I know people look to shire councils in the south and think they’re getting preferential treatment, but they’re not. It’s not political, fewer than half of the ten most cut councils are Labour controlled. Those shire councils are seeing smaller cuts because they don’t get as much from the government to start with, and over the last fifteen years their funding rose more slowly than their urban and northern counterparts.
These aren’t tory cuts, they’re necessary cuts, and even Labour’s leader Ed Miliband recognises this harsh truth. Booed at a trade union rally this weekend for saying that a Labour government wouldn’t reverse any of the cuts he knows, as does Mr Reed our MP, there is no credible alternative. We can’t risk ending up like Greece.
We’ve been wasteful, shown by Copeland Council managing to save £3 million over the last two years without any detrimental impact on services. If that was possible now, why not years ago? It’s casual waste like that and reckless spending across government which led us as a country to where we are now.
Britain is poorly, drunk for years on a toxic combination of an economic boom that Gordon Brown daftly promised he’d sustain forever, reckless borrowing both by Government and households, and no budget discipline. When that all came crashing down, it was left to this coalition government to administer the treatment, and we’re making good progress. The deficit is already down by a quarter, unemployment falling, youth unemployment down, inflation falling and borrowing figures down more than expected too. Yes the treatment is painful, but that’s because the patient was so very near the edge.
As a victim of redundancy myself in 2010, I know how painful it can be. No one wants to be in the position we find ourselves in, with difficult choices to make, hard truths to face, and a bright future which seems further and further away. Prosperity doesn’t just come from Westminster or the council chambers, it comes from us all. We can do great things when we pull together.
The local government cuts – by Copeland councillor Stephen Haraldsen (Hillcrest ward, Conservative)
COPELAND Council’s budget consultation has raised many questions, but one in particular needs to be answered: “Where did all the money go?”
Local government cuts have been ‘front loaded’ to get the pain over with quickly, so it seems very harsh, but you can’t look at Copeland’s budget in isolation. The majority of council services we use day-to-day are provided not by the Borough, but by the County Council – schools, roads, social care, libraries, sure start, waste disposal and many more. It doesn’t seem such a large cut when you look at the Borough and the County together and see the full picture.
How the government calculates funding to councils is complicated, and is based on the things that councils do and the unique problems each faces. Inequality is an issue that we are sadly all too familiar with in Copeland, where we have some shocking levels of deprivation. The government seeks to protect those least well off when calculating council funding, but because most funding which addresses deprivation goes to the County Council, their funding take less of a cut than Copeland’s. The principle that those most in need get the most help means borough councils take a bigger hit so we can protect our schools, sure start centres and so on. The councils with the greatest deprivation still have the most per head to spend.
I know people look to shire councils in the south and think they’re getting preferential treatment, but they’re not. It’s not political, fewer than half of the ten most cut councils are Labour controlled. Those shire councils are seeing smaller cuts because they don’t get as much from the government to start with, and over the last fifteen years their funding rose more slowly than their urban and northern counterparts.
These aren’t tory cuts, they’re necessary cuts, and even Labour’s leader Ed Miliband recognises this harsh truth. Booed at a trade union rally this weekend for saying that a Labour government wouldn’t reverse any of the cuts he knows, as does Mr Reed our MP, there is no credible alternative. We can’t risk ending up like Greece.
We’ve been wasteful, shown by Copeland Council managing to save £3 million over the last two years without any detrimental impact on services. If that was possible now, why not years ago? It’s casual waste like that and reckless spending across government which led us as a country to where we are now.
Britain is poorly, drunk for years on a toxic combination of an economic boom that Gordon Brown daftly promised he’d sustain forever, reckless borrowing both by Government and households, and no budget discipline. When that all came crashing down, it was left to this coalition government to administer the treatment, and we’re making good progress. The deficit is already down by a quarter, unemployment falling, youth unemployment down, inflation falling and borrowing figures down more than expected too. Yes the treatment is painful, but that’s because the patient was so very near the edge.
As a victim of redundancy myself in 2010, I know how painful it can be. No one wants to be in the position we find ourselves in, with difficult choices to make, hard truths to face, and a bright future which seems further and further away. Prosperity doesn’t just come from Westminster or the council chambers, it comes from us all. We can do great things when we pull together.
Barack Obama steals David Cameron’s speech
The re-election of Barack Obama has and will be analysed in great detail by many people. Regarding the outcome, I’m largely ambivalent given that the republicans control the House of Representatives and the democrats control the Senate, whoever won would have faced political gridlock on Capitol Hill. One positive might be that the social conservative element of the Republican Party might start to lose control and allow others more in tune with the swing voters to rise. I’ll leave that sort of analysis to folks who know better (and those who don’t).
For me, who actually won the American presidency is unimportant in one major respect; ultimately their head of state should be the Queen. More interesting and relevant for us in the UK was the victory speech Barack Obama made, and the great resemblance it bore to the speech David Cameron made at the Conservative Party conference last month.
The theme the President went with in his speech was simple – if you want to work hard and get on, no matter who you are or where you’re from, you can in the United States of America and he’s there to help. Perhaps he was watching the speech from Birmingham that the Prime Minister made when he said that Conservatives don’t care where you’re from, it’s where you’re going and that we’re not the party of the better off, we’re the party of the want to be better off.
Some commentators are welcoming the re-election of President Obama as being good news for the Prime Minister and the Conservatives. I think it’s a stretch to compare the two, but if the ‘hard-work for just reward’ theme gets you re-elected, the Conservatives should be well placed to win in 2015, as long as the message can be got across to the electorate convincingly.
For me, who actually won the American presidency is unimportant in one major respect; ultimately their head of state should be the Queen. More interesting and relevant for us in the UK was the victory speech Barack Obama made, and the great resemblance it bore to the speech David Cameron made at the Conservative Party conference last month.
The theme the President went with in his speech was simple – if you want to work hard and get on, no matter who you are or where you’re from, you can in the United States of America and he’s there to help. Perhaps he was watching the speech from Birmingham that the Prime Minister made when he said that Conservatives don’t care where you’re from, it’s where you’re going and that we’re not the party of the better off, we’re the party of the want to be better off.
Some commentators are welcoming the re-election of President Obama as being good news for the Prime Minister and the Conservatives. I think it’s a stretch to compare the two, but if the ‘hard-work for just reward’ theme gets you re-elected, the Conservatives should be well placed to win in 2015, as long as the message can be got across to the electorate convincingly.
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