Cringe!
Daily Archives: 6 Sep 2019
Army sergeant major as temporary EDDC CEO?
Photo: BBC
May be not such a bad idea …
Source: Private Eye
No Devon towns in government list of those chosen to apply for funding
Why? Targeted at marginal seats in the event of an election.
Click to access list-of-100-places.pdf
Photo: Midweek Herald
Words can come back to bite you …
Sheffield change to committee system moves on with resignation of deputy leader from her role so she can fight for it
“The deputy leader of Sheffield City Council has resigned after a petition was submitted calling for a referendum on the way the authority is run.
More than 26,000 people have backed calls for the authority to move from a strong leader model to a committee system of decision making.
By law a petition signed by 5% of voters – 20,092 – will trigger a vote.
Olivia Blake said she was stepping down from her role in order to back the petition.
A council spokesman said if the petition was deemed valid a city-wide vote would take place by May 2020.
Ms Blake said: “My preference was to resolve the debate on the council’s governance structure without the need for a referendum but now that it is almost certain to be held, it is time to take a public position on where we go next.
“I will take the side of the people. I will back the committee system. It is a starting point for a wider debate on how to rejuvenate our democracy, and it is important that Labour voices contribute to this debate.
“I have added my name to the It’s Our City petition, and will make further statements in the coming days about the role I intend to play in the upcoming referendum.”
Sheffield City Council has 84 elected councillors across 28 wards, but under the current model it is the council leader and nine cabinet members who make decisions on “the most significant issues”.
Co-chair of It’s Our City Ruth Hubbard said the existing system “places power in the hands of too few”.
“We want our city to work for all of us but at the moment it’s failing,” she said.
The council now has one month to verify the signatures on the petition.
James Henderson, director of Policy, performance and communications at Sheffield City Council, said: “If a valid petition is submitted by It’s Our City then we are required to hold a referendum on changing the council’s governance system.”
South West, which voted to leave the EU, slowest growing English region since the 2016 referendum”
South-west growth 0.25% since referendum, slowest of all regions since the referendum in 2016. Hello, Local Enterprise Partnership – HELLO! Any response? Any new figures? Any new ideas?
“London’s financial services sector has been in recession since the third quarter of 2017, regional GDP figures from the Office for National Statistics have revealed.
In the 18 months to the end of last year the capital’s banking and asset management industry shrank 11 per cent. The ONS did not explain the slump but it is likely to be related to Brexit as banks and insurers downsized British operations and directed new investment overseas.
The regional GDP figures, which cover England and Wales, revealed that the South West, which voted to leave the EU, has been the slowest growing English region since the 2016 referendum. It grew 0.25 per cent between the second quarter of 2016 and the end of last year.
The figures, which start in the second quarter of 2012 and run to the final quarter of last year, show that London has grown the fastest, expanding 21 per cent, while the North East and South West have been slowest, at 5.5 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.
London’s success has been despite the downturn in the square mile. Financial services contributed £132 billion to GDP last year, 6.9 per cent of total output, with half of that from the capital. Of the industry’s 1.1 million jobs, 400,000 were in London last year, analysis by the House of Commons library showed. …”
East Devon Watch 