The Liberal Democrat leader has called for an end to resignation honours and peerages.
He said: “David Cameron’s resignation honours list is so full of cronies it would embarrass a medieval court.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/04/david-camerons-full-honours-list-revealed/
“Research for the Committee on Standards in Public Life said individual large donations created ‘questions’ about alleged rewards of honours and peerages”
“[The researcher] added that the use of public funds for partisan political purposes was a further major challenge, reporting: ‘At almost all levels of elective politics, incumbents have become entitled to public money to aid them in their duties to their electors.
‘There is a tendency to use some of this money as a form of backdoor state funding of parties and for the re-election of incumbents.’
Mr Pinto-Duschinsky said it was crucial to re-examine the role of the Electoral Commission and other regulators such as the Charity Commission.
The row over Mr Cameron’s resignation honours – a traditional opportunity for departing prime minister’s to reward allies – has renewed calls for reform to the honours system.
Anger has been focused on moves by Mr Cameron to reward major party donors from his decade as Tory leader – with one, Ian Taylor, declining a knighthood, and another Michael Spencer, being blocked from the House of Lords by officials.”
Claire Wright and MP Hugo Swire with protesters at Ottery St Mary hospital on Saturday Ref sho 21-16SH 4964. Picture: Simon Horn.
Rewarded for … er … doing the job he was already handsomely paid for at the Foreign Office … whilst saying he could not speak for East Devon in Parliament … and being a very good friend and former schoolmate of David Cameron.
And that’s all.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/04/david-camerons-full-honours-list-revealed/
P.S. Owls don’t give or accept honours, even if the Owl went to Hogwarts – just so you know.
An abbreviated article by Max Hastings.
Our Local Enterprise Partnership does not seem to share his concern, pushing hard for the deal to go through. Membership of our LEP is heavily dominated by the nuclear interests of several of its Board members.
The abbreviated article:
“The Prime Minister’s decision to review the £18 billion Hinkley Point nuclear power project has won a cheer from everyone not in line to make money from it. When the holidays are over, there are two good reasons why Theresa May should go further and cancel the scheme. The first is that its electricity will be fantastically expensive.
The second, which we shall consider here, is that it was a critical error of judgement for the Cameron government to invite the People’s Republic of China to fund a huge national infrastructure project.
Allowing the Chinese access to Hinkley Point, and beyond it to other British nuclear plants, would give a hostage to fortune. The record shows that the Chinese can’t be trusted with sensitive industrial data. Fair dealing has no place in their system.
A decade ago, Robert Zoellick, then World Bank president, said the West’s future relations with China required the country to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’ in the international order.
This it has not yet done. Until it happens, we cannot do big business with Beijing.
The last government, and especially the then-Chancellor George Osborne, cherished naive ambitions to create a historic new trading relationship with the dragon. …
… A nation that engages in global industrial espionage, employing an estimated 1.5 million geeks to penetrate other people’s computers — while denying its own people online access — is not a comfortable business associate. … We underestimate at our peril the ruthlessness with which they pursue their objectives. …
… Already, China’s long arm has stretched to Africa and South America, where it is effectively colonising huge areas by buying up the supplies of raw materials such as oil, copper and iron ore which it needs to feed its endless consumption of energy and its vast building programme.
David Cameron and George Osborne hoped to cash in on a slice of the potentially huge trade market available in China, which is why last October the British government staged an unprecedentedly chummy state visit for President Xi Jinping, at which the Queen herself was obliged almost to kowtow. …
… involvement in the design of the Hinkley Point reactor is part of a wider plan, whereby by 2025 the Chinese could hold a £105 billion stake in British infrastructure.
Yet for this to make sense, we need to believe that China can be a benign, honourable, honest industrial partner. None of those adjectives seems appropriate now, or in the near future. …
… The price of industrial co-operation with Beijing is British silence about China’s systemic human rights abuses, of which the highest rate of state executions in the world is only the most conspicuous example. …
… We should be equally worried about the Second Bureau of the Third Department of the People’s Liberation Army — otherwise known as Unit 61398, which is engaged in the theft of intellectual property across the world. President Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice said last autumn that Chinese industrial espionage is ‘not a mild irritation, it’s an economic and national security concern to the United States’.
Chinese hacking of personal and corporate information, she said, ‘undermines our long-term economic co-operation, and it needs to stop’. …
… David Cameron and George Osborne seemed to believe that Britain, by treating the Chinese nicely, might persuade them to behave better, at least to us. This seemed naively mistaken last year, and is mistaken now.
So, likewise, was British willingness to allow the Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei to bid for contracts in this country, when the United States won’t allow the firm anywhere near its domestic systems.
The UK’s intelligence and security committee expressed dismay that the government was so eager to promote Chinese trade and investment that it seemed willing to ignore the obvious risks of admitting the Chinese to our telecoms networks.
For Huawei — like the China Nuclear Power Corporation (CNPC) — is no independent entity. Both are arms of the communist state. The CNPC’s website acknowledges its commitment to ‘the building of national defence’, alongside its economic and industrial objectives.
It’s not necessary to be an old-fashioned Cold Warrior to consider it folly for Britain to treat China as a friend while it promotes values and pursues objectives utterly at odds with those of this country and its allies.
… For now, however, we need to sup with both nations [China and Russia] using a long spoon. There may be a time, when Beijing has showed itself worthy of trust, when we should cut deals for Chinese investment in our infrastructure. But that time has not come yet.
The involvement in Hinkley Point of one of the most repressive and secretive regimes in the world poses unacceptable risks. Britain will have to pay a stiff forfeit for abandoning the project, but it seems right for the Prime Minister to make that decision.
There are many powerful economic arguments for cancellation, but the threat to our national security is the clincher.
“Health trusts and commissioning groups in the South West had combined budget deficits of more than £150m in the last financial year.
The biggest deficits were almost £39.5m for Northern, Eastern and Western Devon Clinical Commissioning Group. Derriford hospital ended the year £36m in the red. But some trusts and commissioning bodies did balance their books.”
Source: BBC Spotlight live news
Hugo Swire is widely rumoured to be on David Cameron’s resignation honours list to receive a knighthood. The two Old Etonians are such good friends David Cameron felt able to give him a playful slap on the bottom at a recent government reception:
Here is what another (former) pal of the PM says:
… “resignation honours list a “very British corruption”, says ex-PM’s pal Steve Hilton.
David Cameron’s bid to dish out gongs to Tory donors is “a serious type of very British corruption” – according to one of his oldest political pals.
Former Downing Street strategy guru Steve Hilton hit out at his chum’s attempts to reward party backers, which has triggered huge public anger.
The former Tory leader wants to hand accolades including knighthoods and peerages to 48 cronies .
But Mr Hilton, who was the PM’s director of strategy from 2010-12, launched a scathing attack on the plan.
He said: “ David Cameron ‘s resignation honours list is a symptom of a wider problem: our corrupt and decaying democracy. …”
Owl thinks they want to know how to make more money out of more rented housing!
“The Tory Reform Group (TRG) has launched a public call for evidence seeking innovative policy proposals to address the two-fold challenge of availability and affordability of homes to rent and buy. The call forms part of a year-long focus on housing policy, launched at the organisation’s AGM in London on Tuesday.
TRG National Chairman, David Fazakerley, said:
“Rents are rising, home ownership is falling, and too many households are spending more than half their income on housing costs. A series of very welcome government initiatives have been launched to help people buy their first home, but there is undoubtedly more radical thinking needed to address the long-term crisis. The TRG is seeking evidence to help the Conservative Government continue stepping up to that challenge.”
The call comes as latest reports show average UK house prices have jumped by 8.1% in the past year to reach a new record high of £211,000, nearly 8 times the average UK salary. House prices in London increased 14.5% in the last year, with an average property price of £472,000.
Mr Fazakerely added:
“We are on an unsustainable path and need to think outside the box to begin turning things around. As a voluntary group, we draw on expertise from within the conservative family and from across the political spectrum to deliver a One Nation agenda in Government and I hope organisations and individuals with policy expertise will respond to this call and help shape our output over the coming year.”
The TRG was formed 41 years ago as the home of One Nation thinking within the Conservative Party, promoting policies which deliver a modern, socially liberal country pursuing a market oriented agenda that works for everyone, regardless of background.
Organisation, or individuals, wishing to submit to the call for evidence should email housing@trg.org.uk, with the first stage of the evidence call closing on September 30th 2016.”
EDF CEO Jean-Bernard Levy knew the UK government wanted to take more time to review the Hinkley Point nuclear contract before the French utility’s board voted to approve the investment, he said in a letter to top executives.
EDF’s board narrowly approved the $24 billion project on July 28. But hours later the government of new British Prime Minister Theresa May, which had been expected to sign contracts the following day, instead said it wanted to give the plans further consideration.
The UK government postponed its final decision on the project until early autumn.
In comments to reporters at French state-controlled EDF’s first-half earnings release on July 29, Levy had said he had not been aware at the time of the board meeting that the British government wanted more time to review the contract.
In a letter emailed to EDF’s executive committee late on Tuesday this week, and reviewed by Reuters, Levy said that when he called the board meeting on July 21, he had done so with the go-ahead of the French state, which “had warned us that in light of her very recent arrival, the new British prime minister had asked for ‘a few days’ before deciding on the project”.
Levy said that late on July 27, the night before the board meeting, he was informed that May wanted “a bit more time, without calling into question the project, and without specifying the date when the contract could be signed”.
He added that EDF canceled a contract signing ceremony planned for July 29.
“When the board voted, on the afternoon of July 28, we (management) therefore knew that the ceremony would not take place the next day,” Levy wrote.
EDF declined to comment on Levy’s letter.
Source: Reuters News Agency
An article in today’s Guardian suggests that we need more accountability and transparency from those in public office and suggests that one way to do this is to ensure that our public servants and politicians are put on the spot more often by being expected to attend regular public meetings to explain themselves.
Not the carefully scripted and whipped official committee meetings, where the agenda is tightly controlled and policed, when many of them keep quiet and vote or act like sheep – but situations where they must think on their feet and tell us what they REALLY think (if they think at all).
Imagine if, say once a month, an individual councillor or officer or MP had to be available in the community to answer questions from local electors without warning of what those questions might be!
A few would definitely acquit themselves well – but a great majority in East Devon would definitely be floundering at the first question and thereafter!
An intriguing idea!
” … But social media have not destroyed the public meeting. They have done the opposite. Twitter, Facebook and the rest are indirectly responsible for the glorious revival of the gathering where real people meet in a physical place. For some of us, sitting behind a computer is not enough. We need to get out. What is beyond doubt is that the old-fashioned forum of the public meeting is back and is the perfect counter to social media.
…
For at least two decades, politicians assumed that a soundbite on the TV news bulletin was what mattered. Oratory as a part of the repertoire disappeared. Politics became technocratic rather than the art form it partly must be. The glory of the public meeting is that there is no escape. A speaker must deliver. The audience is composed of real people. The speaker cannot hide away tweeting alone in a room. People want to be there and need to be there, to be together out of curiosity or as part of what they see as a cause. … ”
… “The South West has more people living in villages, hamlets and isolated areas than in any other English region.” …
and a comment here in the same article by one of the LEP’s most gung-ho nuclear interest representatives – involved with creating the new town of Sherford near Plymouth:
Tim Jones, chairman of Devon and Cornwall Business Council, board member of the Heart of the South West Local Enterprise Partnership and a member of the Sherford project board said: “It is crucial that people have a variety of amenities and businesses on their doorstep.
This offers them not only a broad choice for leisure and retail, but it also provides local employment opportunities.
… “Part of the foundation for Sherford is to create a unique package where you can live and work in the same place, should you so wish.
“In the South West, we often suffer from the ‘brain drain’ of young, talented individuals moving away from the area, only to return at around 35 to 40 years old for the quality of life. “Retaining young adults is essential, as is enabling them to develop quality businesses.” …
http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/what-makes-us-happy/story-29577372-detail/story.html
Amazing what a change of hat can do … and Mr Jones has SO MANY hats for so many different purposes!
“All Saints Parish Council has been given Quality Foundation status – one of only six local authorities in Devon to achieve the accolade.
The award from the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) demonstrates that the authority has the required documentation and information in place for operating lawfully and according to standard practice.
The council also has policies for training its councillors and officers and so has the foundations for improvement and development in place.”
http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/all_saints_parish_council_gains_top_award_1_4640681
Wonder why only six councils in Devon have reached this status?
As recently reported, Taunton Deane amd West Somerset district councils have recently agreed to merge.
This merger came about because West Somerset got into financial trouble. This was almost entirely due to the fact that they decided to build a brand new HQ at Williton (population around 2,600 whereas its biggest town, Minehead has a population of 12,000 and where only a sub-office is available) at a cost, then, of £3.8 million.
With the sharing of staff, and now a full-blown merger, presumably the new HQ will be a complete white elephant.
In the words of Theresa May: ‘Remind you of anybody’?
Not IF there will be a new road, but which of two options is preferred:
“Devon County Council is developing route options for the scheme and will be holding a two month consultation, starting on Wednesday 3 August and running until Friday 30 September.
The Council is proposing to replace the existing narrow, substandard single carriageway in the Monkton area with around 8km (5 miles) of new road between the Honiton Bypass and Devonshire Inn (the junction of the A30 with the A303).
The scheme will comprise a wide carriageway with 3 lanes. It will be a laid out with two lanes in one direction and one lane in the other to enable overtaking in one direction, alternating along the route.”
Add that to the refusal by the government to fund faster broadband in the area and one wonders if the Blackdown Hills is finally taking its share of AONB intrusion in East Devon – at last!
Councillor, Leader Diviani’s view (he is DCC and EDDC Councillor for the area):
“I am delighted that Devon County Council is taking such a positive response to our section of the A30. It is such an important part of the region’s connectivity and the proposals will improve the quality of life for all users, whether on long or short distance journeys.”
Exhibitions will be held at the following venues:
Thursday 4 August, 8am-6pm – Honiton Show
Friday 5 August, 2pm-8pm – Upottery Village Hall
Saturday 6 August, 10am-6pm – Upottery Village Hall
Tuesday 16 August, 12pm-8pm – Monkton Court Hotel
Saturday 20 August, 10am-6pm – Mackarness Hall, Honiton
Saturday 10 September, 10am-6pm – Upottery Village Hall
Sidford Industrial Park makes even less sense.
“The sharpest decline came in commercial activity, which fell for a second month running and at the fastest pace since December 2009 as investment in offices, industrial units and retail space slumped.”
Owl is – as so often being an East Devon Owl – confused.
According to today’s View from newspapers, EDDC has again turned down affordable housing on the Seaton Tesco site being built on by Bovis, in part because of the high cost of raising the land because it was on a flood plain. This led, it says, to it being unviable to build three storey or terraced housing without the use of “prohibitively expensive” piled foundations. This means that density and height of the houses on the site has to be reduced and this means building affordable homes is unaffordable on the site. EDDC Development Management Committee has agreed.
So why did original plans show more and higher housing WITH affordables when it was known that this would not be financially viable to developers who would not want to take on the extra cost of piling? Why was it not mentioned that the original plans relied on piling and might need to be changed? Did Bovis know when the bought the land that it could only build lower density, lower rise housing and that this would rule out any affordable housing?
And what of the three-storey houses that have already been built on the site – are they in any danger of subsiding or do they have piling or other strengthening construction:
http://www.bovishomes.co.uk/new-homes-on-pebble-beach/the-tetbury?hse=p307
(early part of the sales video showing at 20-30 seconds in shows three-storey housing – and an impression at 1 minute 20 seconds that somewhere close to the site (“local amenities”) has a beautiful indoor swimming pool, too).
A check with the planning application shows that (terraced) Premier Inn IS being built with piling, so that’s a relief!
“Home ownership in England has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years as the growing gap between earnings and property prices has created a housing crisis that extends beyond London to cities including Manchester.
The struggle to get on the housing ladder is not just a feature of the London property market, according to a new report by the Resolution Foundation thinktank, with Greater Manchester seeing as big a slump in ownership since its peak in the early 2000s as parts of the capital, and cities in Yorkshire and the West Midlands also seeing sharp drops.
Home ownership across England reached a peak in April 2003, when 71% of households owned their home, either outright or with a mortgage, but by February this year the figure had fallen to 64%, the Resolution Foundation said.
The figure is the lowest since 1986, when homeownership levels were on the way up, with a housing market boom fuelled by the deregulation of the mortgage industry and the introduction of the right-to-buy policy for council homes by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. …
… Lindsay Judge, an expert on housing at the thinktank, said the problem was one of affordability. “House prices began to outpace earnings in the early 2000s,” Judge said. “When the market fell so did earnings – house prices began to come down but so did people’s pay, or it was stagnating at best, so few people were able to make the most of falling prices.”
The analysis showed that across England levels of private renting almost doubled from 11% in 2003 to 19% in 2015, while in Greater Manchester the figure more than trebled, from 6% to 20%.
The Resolution Foundation said this shift in tenure could mean problems in the future, as individuals would need to find a way of funding their housing in retirement, or may need to turn to the benefits system for help. Clarke said: “The shift to renting privately can reduce current living standards and future wealth, with implications for individuals and the state. We cannot allow other cities to edge towards the kind of housing crisis that London has been saddled with.”
Anne Baxendale, head of policy and public affairs at the housing charity Shelter, said house prices were now “completely out of step with average wages”.
She added: “Sky-high rents are leaving many families struggling to make ends meet each month, let alone save up enough for the deposit on a home. Far from being the stepping stone it once was, many young people and families are now facing a lifetime stuck in expensive and unstable private renting. …”n
“Hinkley Point C – UPDATE
Posted: 29 July 2016
Following the news of EDF’s final investment decision on Hinkley, we urge the government to make a quick decision in support of the project. The Hinkley investment and its legacy will have a major benefit for the economy of the surrounding communities and the wider UK for decades to come and is truly transformational.”
http://www.heartofswlep.co.uk/news/hinkley-point-c-update
Transformational for whom exactly!
It is all too easy to get away with fraud if there is no effective scrutiny of academy finances – and it is the education of our young people that suffers.
George Osborne wanted every school to be an academy, free of local government control – and scrutiny.
The founder of a flagship free school and two members of staff have been found guilty of defrauding the government out of £150,000.
Sajid Raza, 43, Shabana Hussain, 40, and Daud Khan, 44, made payments from Department for Education grants into their own bank accounts. The grants were given to set up Kings Science Academy in Bradford in 2011. It opened in 2012.
The three were found guilty at Leeds Crown Court following a six-week trial.
They were granted bail and will be sentenced in September with judge Christopher Batty telling them “I am very much considering custody in each of your cases”.
Peter Mann from the Crown Prosecution Service said the trio had “treated public money as their own”. He said: “Far from being a model school, Raza [founder and principal] treated the Academy like a family business employing his relatives there and, for at least the first 12 months, operating with no proper governance.”
“His co-defendants were also drawn into this criminality. Hussain, Raza’s sister, received unlawful payments, and Khan helped to falsify documentation.”
Isn’t it interesting that our projected merger of many services with South Somerset failed at the first hurdle when South Somerset declined to share our CEO Mark Williams and, after a couple of years decided to ” buy him out” and manage without both him and merged services.
Let’s hope these two councils have better luck and get a CEO that suits them both.
… Last week also saw councillors at Taunton Deane back plans for a tie-up with West Somerset. Two other options had been considered: one team supporting two councils; and the two councils progressing their own transformation agendas.
Taunton Deane said a merged council “would generate significant savings, estimated at a conservative £3.1m a year”. It acknowledged that there would be costs involved to implement the merger but added that the payback was estimated at just over two years.
Taunton Deane and West Somerset have been working in partnership with a single officer team for the past three years.
Cllr John Williams, Leader of Taunton Deane, said: “The proposal for transformation is radical and will bring change on a scale not seen before for our communities, our customers, our staff and ourselves as members.
“The decision is important, and will ensure we can continue to invest in our growth ambitions, deliver services to our public, and importantly, help us take a huge step towards having a financially sustainable future.”
He warned that if West Somerset decided against supporting the merger, it would “inevitably trigger the third option with the councils taking separate routes to pursue their own agendas”.
Cllr Williams said the business case for a merger had been reviewed by Local Partnerships, the company jointly owned by HM Treasury and the Local Government Association, which “had found it realistic, deliverable and credible”.
If West Somerset approves the merger proposals next month, the councils will seek meetings with Government representatives in order to kick-start the process and the creation of a new authority.
The new council is likely to come into existence in 2019 when the next local government elections are due.
