Looking both ways

Today Mr Wakefield has been reported as supporting the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove.

Anne asked me to come along today, not to endorse her in the traditional way, but in recognition of the fact that Anne as been a very good constituency MP for Swindon.

But he’s also been reported as helping her opponent Mr Buckland with canvassing.

Thanks to Steve Wakefield for giving me a hand with canvassing today.

Even though he somewhat disputes that, it’s refreshing to see Mr Wakefield taking such an independent, non-partisan approach. Whether Ms Snelgrove will find the ambivalence of one of the two star exhibits at her campaign launch so refreshing is another matter.

One thing puzzles komadori in Ms Snelgrove’s plea for re-election.

We moved to Swindon in 2004 and my husband Mike and I live in the centre of town. Mike teaches English at Cirencester Sixth Form College and has taught many Swindon students.

Information komadori has from late that year suggests an address west of Stroud in Gloucestershire, rather than central Swindon.

Wrong for Central? local elections 2010 round 4

This year’s election in Swindon’s Central ward has one unusual feature for recent years: a councillor seeking re-election. Recent turncoat councillors have done a runner from Central when the time has come to seek another term. Today I have thus received the novelty of a leaflet from a councillor not only seeking re-election based on their track record as a councillor for Central ward, but also still in the same party for which they were last elected. Unfortunately for Mr Wright he’s little of note to shout about.

In addition to striking a traditional politician pose, pointing at something he’s done nothing about (a pothole in this instance), Mr Wright lists several things he claims to have either helped, opposed or campaigned for. But not just him, oh no.

Over the past 4 years I have worked closely with Anne Snelgrove and my colleagues on the council in delivering for the residents of Central.

Mr Wright may well have fought for Central — tho’ there’s little evidence of him putting up much of a fight; half of what he lists were failures — but the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, certainly has not and her recent interest in wifi doesn’t make up for four years of non-interest.

If Mr Wright has done all that he claims, the results of his efforts are all but invisible. He’s had some success in stopping things; he’s been far less noticeable when it comes to getting things done.

Anne Snelgrove’s wifi speech

An advanced draft of Ms Snelgrove’s speech on wifi in Swindon is now available. If you didn’t catch the adjournment debate, it’s well worth a read.

Update, 19:40, Tuesday 23 March 2010: You can now watch the recorded debate on the BBC website and read the official record of the debate from Hansard.

Swindon wifi goes parliamentary

Swindon’s wi-fi scheme is to be debated, albeit briefly, in parliament.

End of Day Adjournments Debates

Day	Date	Member	Subject
Monday	22 March	Anne Snelgrove	Swindon Borough Council Wi-Fi project

Despite what some would like us to believe, there’s certainly plenty of concerns that still require a thorough, open debate.

Hat-tip: Geoff Reid.

Spatial squabbling

Both the blue and red nests seem to be keen to blame t’other side for proposals to build 3000 houses to the west of Swindon. The government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, would have us believe that it’s all the fault of the blues.

Under current proposals Tory run Wiltshire County Council plan to build 3,000 new homes neighbouring West Swindon…. The Regional Spatial Strategy that sets out housing numbers for each local authority area was drafted by the Tory controlled Regional Assembly (now known as the South West Leaders Council).

Naturally, her opponent lays the blame on the reds.

Yesterday, Labour bizarrely criticised the Conservatives for the Regional Spatial Strategy, which has led to plans for 3,000 houses next to West Swindon. But only four months ago, Labour’s South Swindon MP strongly supported the RSS, saying, “it lays out important manageable growth figures for Swindon”.

As is so often the case in politics, all are suffering from selective memory loss.

The Regional Spatial Strategy is a consequence of the planning legislation introduced by the current government (red). The housing targets in it were set by the government (red). The strategy itself was produced by the South West Regional Assembly, now known as South West Councils (both blue). This is a document that seems to aim to solve the housing problems of rural Devon and Cornwall by building in the corner of the region that is furthest from those two counties — 34,000 houses were to be built in Swindon. Not satisfied with this distortion, the government (red) added another 2000 houses to Swindon’s allocation plus another 1000 in North Wiltshire in ‘urban extensions’ to Swindon.

Where to put those 37,000 houses? The Regional Spatial Strategy identified a large area to the east of Swindon, the Eastern Development Area. Swindon Borough Council (blue) in the first draft of their Core Strategy identified a number of other ‘areas of search’ where there could be significant development. One was at Tadpole lane. It also suggested where the urban extensions in North Wiltshire added by the government should be: near Ridgeway Farm and Moredon Bridge. Neighbouring North Wiltshire District Council (varying hues) objected to Swindon making plans beyond its border.

Now Wiltshire Council (blue, successor to North Wiltshire District and Wiltshire County Councils) is consulting on its own Core Strategy. It allocates land near Swindon’s western border for 3000 houses. In doing so it follows where the Government’s development strategy, the South West Regional Spatial Strategy and Swindon Core Strategy have lead.

With that provenance, neither main party is innocent in the conversion of Swindon into a suburban sprawl.

Building debt

Sometimes the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is so keen to slag off the blue nest controlled council that she ignores what she’s quoting her own ministers as saying. Take, for instance, today’s announcement that the government’s adding another £122.6M to the national debt to fund the building of more council houses. Ms Snelgrove would have us believe that the council needs to do more.

The Council’s housing waiting list is now over 10,000 which is completely unacceptable and they need to start matching the Government’s support to tackle this problem.

Err… matching the ‘Government’ support (i.e. taxpayer support) is a condition of the scheme, and as the council had to bid to government for the money, is something they’ve already committed to.

John Healey announced 73 councils covering every region of England will share an extra £122.6 million. Councils will match the Government’s grant, bringing total public investment in the programme to over £500m to build more than 4,000 new council homes

Oddly although Ms Snelgrove included that in her press release, she chose to ignore Mr Healey’s compliment to the winning councils.

Councils have shown they’re ready and willing to build new homes, so I’m ready to back them.

The government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is always quick to criticise the council when their bids to government are unsuccessful. In contrast, when the council is successful… she’s still full of criticism. I’m not daft enough to expect politicians to present an unbiased view; I do expect them to keep their political point scoring consistent with the facts.

Annie fails to see crimes

It seems that the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, is so eager to rubbish the priorities of Swindon Borough Council that she hasn’t even bothered to read what their priorities are. According to Ms Snelgrove the council isn’t concerned about crime and anti-social behaviour.

I am appalled that the Council do not think anti-social behaviour and local crime are priorities in Swindon.

She even provides a link to the council’s priorities.

The Council sets its priorities under the Local Area Agreement (www.swindon.gov.uk/yourcouncil-laa) but crime and anti-social behaviour are not even mentioned.

Follow that link. You’ll find, as the sixth of six priorities in the current Local Area Agreement the following.

A place where the resident population can have real influence to develop a sense of community and belonging, and where reducing crimes makes them feel safe.

If Ms Snelgrove thinks that’s not even mentioning crime, she really should go back to school and take some English language lessons.

Update 23:09. I see that Ms Snelgrove has now issued an updated version claiming criteria that were used to dish out this money, though this wasn’t mentioned in the government press release.

Areas that received funding are those that either chose to include ASB as one of their Local Area Agreement priorities or were one of the areas chosen by the Home Office as having high levels of ASB.

So she’s complaining that the council didn’t make a priority out of something her own government doesn’t think is a big issue in Swindon anyway. Logic, reasoning and representing the best interests of her constituents never were Ms Snelgrove’s strong points. Clearly, they still aren’t.

Neither watching nor listening

Now I appreciate that for the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, listening to Mr Brown losing the support of the country’s best-selling tabloid may seem to be important. Just because it’s important to her though, doesn’t mean it’s important to the rest of us.

Today is the big one, Gordon’s speech. The auditorium will be packed and I’m sure many of you will be glued to your TV sets. The Leader’s speech is always the high-point of Conference and I hope that you will listen to the substance of Gordon’s speech to hear how he has the plans and drive to bring our country out of recession and build Britain’s future.

It seems she’s not noticed that, despite the efforts of her government, some of us still have jobs to go to. Even if I hadn’t, I’ve better things to do with my time than listen to someone preaching about building the economy when the dereliction surrounding us has been of their own making — but at our expense.

A short memory

Agreeing with Mr Feal-Martinez hasn’t been something that’s featured much in my warblings. I doubt that’ll change either but, as he’s standing down from representing UKIP in South Swindon, primarily on health grounds, I wish him well, without qualification. Which is more than the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, did, as she chose to preface her good wishes with some propaganda.

This just goes to show that UKIP is in real trouble in Swindon and I’m not surprised that Robert has found it necessary to stand down.

Hmm… seems she’s already forgotten the large increase in the vote for a certain party at the euro-elections in June.

Annie’s expenses in detail

Since my posting yesterday, the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, has published a more detailed breakdown of some of the expenses she had earlier grouped together. To be honest, there’s little of interest in this additional detail. One might wonder in what way a vase (£3.99), pictures (£130) and an ornament (£25) were essential to her performing her duties as an MP, or whether they are consistent with yesterday’s claim

my claims should be for expenses I would not have if I was doing another job working in Swindon only, rather than living and working in two places (London and Swindon) as MPs have to.

We can see how she managed to spend over £2000 on her bedroom (£1000 on a bed, over £1100 on wardrobes, cupboards and drawers) and over £4000 on her living room (including £1000 on a suite, then £356 on chairs two years later, and over £700 on storage units and £395 on a TV unit) but that doesn’t make it appear any better value for money. However, what it does is show how shallow is the spin she’s given the Adver.

I would like the House of Commons to have a hotel because all you really need is a crash pad.

If she really believed that all she needs is a crash pad, then would she have bought something that is clearly much more than a crash pad and then furnished it in some style at our expense? Ms Snelgrove’s actions — and her expense claims — speak louder than her words.

Swindon MPs’ expenses

In all the furore over MPs’ expenses, Mr Wills must be feeling fairly calm. For some time now he has published full details of his expenses. For example, his statement of expenses for 2008/09 is itemised down to individual items, such as filing folders bought for £3.61 on 23rd March from a supplier called Banner. When it comes to the Additional Costs Allowance (the allowance for second homes and living in said second home) which has been the centre of attention lately, although his claims are not cheap (£19753.56 in 2007/08 and £18476.53 in 2008/09), they are restricted to paying for his mortgage, council tax, utility bills, telephone and insurance.

In contrast, the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, has been far less open. Until today she has published no more than the house of commons authorities published. Her claims do not match her voting record.

I pride myself upon being an open and accountable Member of Parliament and I am happy for my constituents to see what allowances I use in order to serve the people of South Swindon.

Anyone that claims that whilst consistently voting against such openness clearly doesn’t understand what openness and transparency mean. Only in the last month as the anger has mounted does she seem to have had a change of heart.

So it was that late last week Ms Snelgrove put her signature to a letter urging her colleagues to publish their expenses sooner rather than later.

I will be preparing my expenses over the coming days and will make them public to my local newspaper on Monday 18 May at 2pm.

This she has now done, but in comparison with Mr Wills, Ms Snelgrove’s effort is half-hearted: it’s a summary-level breakdown of the Additional Costs Allowance rather than a full breakdown, and there is no breakdown at all of her other allowances. It is also accompanied by a rambling attempt to justify her troughing at the public expense.

In addition to following the rules I have based my expenses claims on two principles ever since I became an MP in 2005.

That’s the now thoroughly discredited rules.

The first is that I don’t want to profit from the taxpayer in the short or long-term.

Well, she may not be profiting, but she’s certainly been living very comfortably — some might say luxuriously — in her second home at our expense. Over £4000 spent on her living room in three years, over £2000 on her bedroom and over £500 on bedding in the same period.

The second is that my claims should be for expenses I would not have if I was doing another job working in Swindon only, rather than living and working in two places (London and Swindon) as MPs have to.

I presume then that she would have chosen to starve if she hadn’t been an MP, as she claimed £4300 on food in one year.

The majority of items I have bought are one-offs, apart from replacement items when a cupboard collapsed and all the contents were smashed, and water damage to towels and bedding following a leak.

Was she not insured? Perhaps not as it was only in 2007/08 that she claimed £137.23 for insurance.

I want to see the House of Commons introduce a system which is transparent yet enables all MPs to fulfill (sic) their parliamentary and constituency duties fully

That’s not what her voting record suggests.

I also pledge to clean up the second jobs scandal, where many MPs work not for their constituencies but for commercial or lobby companies despite receiving a full parliamentary salary.

Lets not forget that every Labour MP is sponsored by a union. It’s not just those with second jobs that represent interests other than those of their constituents.

I want to be accountable to constituents in Swindon South and I want to maintain your trust.

On the evidence so far, Ms Snelgrove’s failed on both counts.

Goodbye to Oakfield?

It seems that the University of Bath now wish to seal their departure from Swindon in rubble. The university has submitted a planning application ‘for the demolition of main campus building and all associated outbuildings/ sheds.’ Now, I wouldn’t go as far as the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, and describe it as ‘a wonderful campus building’, but as school buildings of the 1950s and 60s go it’s not that bad.

Note also how effective Ms Snelgrove’s attempt to protect Oakfield Campus has been. In the face of her own government’s legislation — which obliges owners to pay full business rates on empty commercial properties — it’s so far been a total failure.

Distracting

I can’t help but feel that the local red nest is trying to distract my attention from something… the economy perhaps. The day after Mr Darling announced the worst government debt in over sixty years, along with cuts in services — or ‘efficiencies’ as he called it — and increases in tax, I received a letter from the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove. This letter told me what the government is splurging my money on, and expected me to be grateful for that. Increases in child tax credits, building Children’s Centres and building more government buildings may be good for construction workers with young children, but are not much use to anyone else.

Just a couple of days later, another leaflet from the local red nest dropped onto my doormat. This one talked about a budget where you pay more and get less in return, but they were referring to Swindon Borough Council’s budget, whereas I was thinking of Mr Darling’s.

In these tough times Labour is helping people and investing in services.

Ruining the economy and running up government debts of £1,185bn by 2013 is an odd way of helping.

MPs’ expenses

Parliament has today published the expenses and allowances claimed by MPs in 2007/08. The figures for Swindon’s MPs are:

Allowances

Member	Cost of staying away from main home	Office running costs	Staffing costs	Centrally purchased stationery	Stationery associated postage costs	Central IT provision	Staff cover & other costs	Comms Allowance
Ms Snelgrove	£20,913	£21,605	£89,656	£2,917	£3,277	£1,078	£0	£8,923
Mr Wills	£20,766	£10,216	£100,554	£1,732	£5,254	£1,328	£2,429	£9,406

Travel expenses

Member	MP Travel: between home/constituency/Westminster			MP Travel: Other Rail	Spouse Travel		Employee Travel
	Mileage	Rail	Misc		Spouse Total	No. of Journeys	Employee Total	No. of Journeys
Ms Snelgrove	£2,853	£5,096	£264	£25	£90	2	£532	18
Mr Wills	£580	£834	£0	£0	£39	0	£0	0

Add in their salaries of over £60,000 and each of them has cost well over £200,000 a year. Mr Wills already publishes his expenses in full detail but Ms Snelgrove is more reticent. She may be proud of what she delivers for that price; I think the people of Swindon deserve a refund.

Annie fails her Swindon geography class

You could be forgiven for thinking that the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, visits her constituency too rarely to have even a basic grasp of its geography. The Department of Communities and Local Government has announced — as part of the government’s splurging of our money to try and fix the financial crisis it helped create — that it is providing £2.09M for the “Wichelstowe Pedestrian & Cycle Bridge, Swindon”. That’s a bridge between West Swindon and what will, at some point, be West Wichel. Ms Snelgrove’s response to that announcement is a little confused, to say the least.

The Government has recognised how vital a bridge over the railway is to Swindon’s regeneration. I’m pleased the town’s MPs, working with the council, have managed to secure this funding. It also supports the notion of a university in the centre of Swindon.

Is Ms Snelgrove thinking of tackling both obesity and the collapse in the housing market by housing students in otherwise unsellable new houses in Wichelstowe and forcing them to walk via a roundabout route to a university at North Star? Or is she just confused, thinking of the plans within Swindon Borough Council’s Central Area Action Plan for a footbridge over the railway between the town centre and North Star? That would support the siting of a university (or indeed anything) at North Star, close to Swindon’s centre. A bridge between West Swindon and West Wichel clearly — unless you’re a geographically inept MP — does no such thing.

Even if one is charitable and surmises that Ms Snelgrove was responding off the cuff to a vague question from a journalist about a footbridge over the railway, a question that wasn’t specific about where that bridge was, one thing is indisputable. If Ms Snelgrove doesn’t know which bridge it is that she’s talking about, contrary to her claim she can’t have had any part in securing its funding.

An odd way to help

The government has recently announced that it is giving Swindon Borough Council an extra £428,873.52 — yes, the figures are calculated down to individual pennies — of tax payers’ money (or more accurately, given the way the government has squandered our money, of tax payers’ debt). According to the government press release, there are no strings attached to this money.

Local Government Minister John Healey has today confirmed that 360 councils will receive their share of £100million within the next few days, to be used as they see fit to help meet local needs and priorities – particularly helpful in this difficult economic climate.

Naturally, the government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove, has been quick to comment.

I am calling on Swindon Borough Council to use this money to save Old Town and Walcot Libraries and look at how the Groundwell Park & Ride can be kept open…. I will be asking the Council for full details of how they intend to spend this money and to make sure it isn’t swallowed up within the Council.

’Tis an odd choice that. Now, as I’ve made clear, I’m no fan of the proposals to close the Park & Ride service. I don’t find Mr Edwards’ latest argument for not supporting the service convincing either, as it’s far better to seek a long term future for the service with it still running than with it closed. However, though both it and the library closures have received plenty of publicity, they affect relatively few of Ms Snelgrove’s constituents — particularly the Park & Ride service which is in Mr Wills’ patch. Something that affects far more of her constituents but has received far less publicity is the sharp increase in the cost of Residents’ Parking Permits. On that, Ms Snelgrove has nothing to say. And I say that as someone that neither lives in a Residents’ Parking zone nor owns a car.

It really shouldn’t surprise Ms Snelgrove that she’s known as the government’s representative in South Swindon when she chooses to support issues for their political point scoring value rather than for their impact on her constituents.

Reserves

There appears to be a difference of opinion in the local red nest on whether or not Swindon Borough Council should dip into its reserves to keep council tax down. On the one hand, there’s the Snelgrovian view, expressed last November, that it’s good to spend some reserves to keep council tax low.

I don’t know how much Swindon Council has in reserves but I do know that the council needs to be thinking how it can do this [cut council tax]…. We all have to make sure that people are helped so I think that Swindon Council should be looking at its capital reserves and seeing if it can do something even if it is a one-off.

Then there’s the view of Mr Small, adamant that use of reserves is a bad thing.

There seems to be a £1.8m gap between the 3.5 per cent increase and what is needed to balance the budget. Some of that will be paid for with one-off monies. This budget is going to give us a debt of at least £2m because of the use of one-off monies. That will have to be carried over into next year’s budget.

Perhaps Mr Small should give his friend Mr Brown some advice about keeping out of debt.

Annie’s memory loss

I see that Ms Snelgrove is having trouble with her memory.

I pride myself upon being an open and accountable Member of Parliament and I am happy for my constituents to see what allowances I use in order to serve the people of South Swindon.

She seems to have forgotten that in 2007 she voted against making it a legal obligation for those expenses to be published.

Lending without saving

The government’s representative in South Swindon, Ms Snelgrove seems to think that building societies can survive without savers. The Nationwide Building Society has said that, for its tracker mortgages, it will not follow further Bank of England interest rate cuts. It is doing this to protect its savers.

Savings rates are at an historic low and this move means we will not be forced into a position where we could have to cut savings rates more aggressively than we would otherwise like to

Without savers, there can be no mortgages and if interest rates fall further, the more savvy savers will find other things to do with their money. This rather basic economic truth seems to be beyond Ms Snelgrove’s comprehension.

Should there be a further cut in interest rates I will be talking to Nationwide about what it can do to pass on the cut to customers…. It is important that lenders pass on interest rate cuts – we need to do whatever it takes to help businesses, people, and the wider economy in Swindon.

One of the reasons the economy is in its current mess — apart from this government’s profligacy with our money over many years — is that people borrowed far too much and saved far too little. Demanding that financial institutions punish rather than encourage savers will do nothing to improve the long-term health of the economy, nor will it increase the availability of mortgages.

Writing as someone who is not only one of Ms Snelgrove’s constituents, but who also has both savings and a mortgage with the Nationwide, I’d prefer further interest rate cuts not to be passed on, thank you.

Forgetting to pay the bills

It seems Ms Snelgrove has been a little forgetful when it comes to paying her internet bills.