50 years a Southport Councillor Ronnie Fearn's presentation photos



IBB,(Group Leader) Ronnie and Joyce Fearn

I posted recently about Ronnie reaching 50 years service as a Liberal/LD councillor

Last night we held a celebration at Auberge Brasserie in Southport

The picture shows Ronnie and Joyce  having received a cut glass rose bowl in recognition of his service.

Ronnie joined the Southport County Bourough Council at a time when there were 23 Liberals out of 45 members. He went on to serve as Leader of the Group, MP and is now in the House of Lords. By any measure he is the most successful Southport politician of his generation. He is well known as a champion of the town and and as youth worker. His regular appearances in the annual All Souls Pantomime will live long in the memory and those who saw his Tina Turner impersonation wish now that they had taken a video camera.

Congratulation to Ronnie and all his team

SEFTON COUNCILLORS’ EXPENSES FOR 2012/13

Earlier this week I wrote about Bootle Labour’s problems with ‘transparency and accountability’.  This has prompted my Birkdale colleague Councillor Simon Shaw to send through full details of his expenses claims from Sefton Council for publication in the interests of transparency.

Simon is one of just a handful of Sefton councillors who make any expenses claims at all.  Since 2007 councillors have to bear the cost of travel to committee meetings etc themselves.  However cost of travel outside the Borough can be claimed for and Simon is involved with two activities which qualify:

1. He has been a member of the Local Government Association’s Human Resources Board and the Local Government Pensions Committee since 2005, which meet in London.

2. He has been a member of the Merseyside Police and Crime Panel since 2012.

An analysis of expenses for 1. is to be found here: Expenses 2012/13

In summary, for last year, Simon has claimed:

• £658.15 in total, for 8 trips to London
• an average of £82.27 per trip, which includes rail fares, tube fares and also hotel & subsistence on one trip (this compares with the Standard Open Return from Southport to London Euston which costs £299.00)
• £54.60 for mileage for 4 round journeys to Police & Crime Panel meetings in Huyton (168 miles @ 32.5p per mile)

Just checked 10 Select Com Chairs Lab.

Last night at the Council meeting the appointment of committees and their chairs was on the agenda. It is pretty dry stuff-and yet beneath it there are important principles which if not observed undermine democracy .

These committees are the checks and balances on the Executive. This is how, in a mature democracy, the policy and actions of those in charge are challenged, scrutinised and reviewed. This is the mechanism that put a break on corruption and holds people to account. Failures in corporate governance often leads to bad decision making, wasting public funds and make corruption much more likely. Those who hold power need to checked up on, or as Lord Acton said 'all power corrupts'

Last night Labour's strategy of closely down avenues for challenging their actions continued. The took all the chairs of the Scrutiny and Review committees including the Audit and Governance Committee. They have reduced the meetings of Area Committees and render pretty well useless the arrangement for the central area of the borough. Questions in Full Council are not answered and the meetings of the cabinet are over in a few minutes-I think the record is 4 mins 10seconds.

When confronted with his actions Labour were struck dumb. Only the Leader spoke and he went off on a rant about the Government and how wicked it was. He failed totally to answer the question about why he was destroying the checks and balances on the executive. To hear Cllr Dowd speak you would believe that the government doesn't have a system of select committees or that if they did they were all creatures of the whips-like his Scrutiny Chairs. Well, just for the record here is a list of the Opposition led  Select Committee chairs:





Scottish Affairs: Mr Ian Davidson LAB and Co-Op

Transport: Mrs Louise Ellman LAB
Business, Innovation and Skills Mr Adrian Bailey LAB Co-Op
Communities and Local Government Mr Clive Betts LAB
Environmental Audit Joan Walley LAB
Home Affairs Keith Vaz LAB
Political and Constitutional Reform Mr Graham Allen LAB
Public Accounts Margaret Hodge LAB
Science and Technology Andrew Miller LAB
Work and Pensions Miss Anne Begg LAB


Oh, and if you want to see how they deal with folk who have the audacity to ask questions look at the answers given under item 6 of the Council Meeting on 28/02/13

Southport and the negative impact of Labour rule. BBC Politics Show

Why have Labour chosen to balance their budget by adopting charges that hit Southport far more than the rest of the borough?

Rising £500,000 extra from parking charges when 85% of all parking fees are raised in Southport

The green wheelie bin tax hits Southport

And they want to close our Libraries-leaving one in Southport and keeping three open in Bootle. (one Bootle Library only had 35 000 items issued in one year compared to 115 000 in the Birkdale Library-but it is Birkdale they have proposed to close)

This has given some folk the impression that they are willing to raise the money in Southport and spend it in Bootle

Bootle Labour seem congenitally incapable of giving up their old ways

Polly Toynbee  “the worst of the old Labour party, the knuckle-dragging neanderthal tendency, emerged to roaring opposition to the guests. David Blunkett, John Reid, Jack Straw, Diane Abbott, now unleashed from government, reminded the world how backward, how unprogressive, tribal and sectarian much of the People’s Party still is”.

I caught Peter Kilfoyle (formerly Labour MP for Liverpool Walton) talking on Radio 4 about his time fighting Militant in Liverpool (oddly he didn't mention that he spent some of the key period in Australia) When asked what was so bad about Militant the first two things he mentioned-before even the thuggish intimidation- was that they lacked 'transparency and accountability'.

Many of us consider that under Bootle Labour we have a crisis of accountability and transparency  today in the Sefton Borough.

• The have used the chairing of Overview and Scrutiny Committees as a bit of patronage. All the chairs are Labour, even the chair of Audit and Governance. Under Labour Chairs the committees have been neutered with many meetings cancelled. The executive has been given a soft ride
• An alternative path for challenging the executive is via the Area Committees. Labour cannot put their own people in to chair them all as in 1/3 of the borough they have no councillors at all. So they have cut the number of meeting and in central Sefton have produced an area committee which combines vastly different communities across a large geographical area with no public transport adequately linking the communities -Formby,Hightown, Crosby, Blundellsand, Maghull, Lydiate etc
• Of course we could (and do) turn up to observe the democratic process in action. Legislation compels them to meet in public. But guess what? The decisions are made elsewhere and the public meeting which used to discuss and debate decisions now  last a few minutes. Hatton Style.
• The Labour Leader usual response is to blame the Government.  This threadbare excuse completely unraveled at the last Council meeting when we were appointing the Health and Wellbeing Board. In line with their usual practice all three places were taken by Labour. This situation was worse than it as first seems as the Southport and Formby Area have separate commissioning arrangements for Health than the rest of the borough and not one local councillor was appointed. The needs of the Southport area with its concentration of elderly people are distinctly different to those in Bootle, but so determined were they to keep all the places to themselves they denied the area any say in the Health and Social Care policy. And they couldn't blame the Government it was in their power to behave properly, but they just could help themselves.
• I guess the other way to hold the Executive (made up entirely of Bootle Labour Councillors) is to ask questions in public at full council. Observe the response. So respectful of democracy and transparency and aware of the need for accountability. 

As Lord Acton observed: All power corrupts

COUNCIL – 18 APRIL 2013

QUESTIONS RAISED BY MEMBERS OF THE COUNCIL

 Question submitted by Councillor Dawson to the Cabinet Member – Communities and Environment (Councillor Hardy)

            “Could the Cabinet Member provide her Department’s current best estimate of the likely number of Green Bins which will become redundant when charging comes in (based upon the estimated price for charging included in the 2013-2014 budget assumptions), together with the original (or current replacement) purchase price of those Green Bins in:

            (a)       The Sefton MBC area as a whole

            (b)       Southport

            (c)        Formby

            (d)       Sefton East parishes

            (e)       Crosby

            (f)         Bootle and Litherland”

Response:

“Providing the best estimates at this stage would be inappropriate.”

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Well that is, what the kids would describe as, 'pathetic'. We have a right to know and a duty to challenge. What is going happen to the 64,252 green wheelie bins that they expect to be 'given up'? What is the cost of disposal? How much extra will be pay in land fill tax as a result of people putting garden waste in the 'non recycling' grey bin. What is the cost of the fly tipping that will result?How robust are these estimates based on the experience in the Wirral. I ferreted the information out for myself, but frankly the executive should have made the data available without me having to do the job for them. 

The policy is based on 70% of people giving up their bins so why is it inappropriate to tell us? 
Grossly embarrassing, yes, but not a reason for the Labour Part to keep us in the dark 

Sum of green bins by bin type & ward
Wards	G1100	G240	Total
Ainsdale	1	4,987	4,988
Birkdale	0	5,527	5,527
Blundellsands	0	3,739	3,739
Cambridge	5	3,364	3,369
Church	0	1,573	1,573
Derby	0	1,876	1,876
Dukes	1	2,695	2,696
Ford	0	4,971	4,971
Harington	0	4,928	4,928
Kew	0	4,973	4,973
Linacre	0	1,107	1,107
Litherland	0	2,403	2,403
Manor	0	5,124	5,124
Meols	0	5,021	5,021
Molyneux	0	4,922	4,922
Netherton & Orrell	0	4,794	4,794
Norwood	0	5,495	5,495
Park	0	4,625	4,625
Ravenmeols	0	4,995	4,995
St Oswald	0	4,921	4,921
Sudell	0	5,560	5,560
Victoria	0	4,181	4,181
Total	7	91,781	91,788

The leaving of Southport Town Hall -and the waste that resulted

The ruling Bootle Labour cabal at Sefton council are keen to pile on to Southport residents extra taxes. We will soon have the Green Wheelie Bin Tax- a flat tax of £46, then we have the massive hike in car parking charges aimed at bring in £500,000 which will hit Southport's economy hard-85% of all parking charges are paid in Southport.




John Pugh and IBB outside the Town Hall

So here are a few ways the could save some money. Southport Town Hall has been practically empty for months. I have raised this several times. I am repeated told there are no plans to close the building down. So why is it so empty for so long? And why do the Council continue to rent high cost offices elsewhere in the town? It is a waste of our money. I've heard some daft excuses in my time but when I was told that the offices were the wrong shape, I despair. Have they changed shape since the council moved all the lawyers and the committee clerks to Bootle. No.


Who left and when:



Mayor’s Office – April 2007

Legal Services – May 2011


Town Centre Management– June/July 2012


Electoral Registration – August 2012

Committee Section – August 2012

Another couple of ways to save money:


Cut the number of Councillors

Cut the generous allowances for the 7 member cabinet (all of whom come from Bootle)

A most welcome Romanian migrant overheard in a country church

I was away this weekend joining in the celebrations of friends birthday. We were staying in Chipping Camden. Around lunchtime wandering around the town we came upon the village parish church of  St James and, as is my habit, I went inside to look around. It is one of the finest wool churches in the country.

The church was the venue of the Chipping Camden Music Festival and was laid out ready for a concert with a Steinway Grand Piano alone on the stage in front of the chancel. I sat down for a moment and a young lady came in and approached the stage. She removed the cloth from the piano and began to play.

The young women was Alexandra Dariescu, a Romanian who came to Britain to study at The Royal Northern College of Music and has since played with pretty well every major orchestra in pretty well every major concert hall.

Now there are some folk who wouldn't let her in the country if the were British born artist who could do the job. There are some who would demonise all her country folk and try to frighten us about what would happen if Romanians were allowed into this country. I do not doubt that there are some that would complain about her programme of Beethoven, Scarlatti, Schumann and Chopin-not a Brit amongst them. And yet there could not be a more perfect example of how we are part of a shared culture that has been enriched by contact with Europe. Without Ravel there would have been no Vaughan Williams -that most English of composers. Russell Johnson often used to speak powerfully about our shared European heritage- Bach, Burns and Goethe.

After the birthday celebrations in the Ebrington Arms we returned to our Guest House Seymour House (highly recommended) . In the morning at breakfast we met the other guests including another artist playing at the Festival Steven Osborne all the way from Edinburgh. His concert consisted of one work 'Vingt regards sur l’enfant-Jésus' by Messiaen. Now there is a composer to whom some folk wouldn't give house room.

Stop wasting money on renting offices -use the empty Town Hall

John Pugh and IBB outside the Town Hall

The ruling Bootle Labour cabal at Sefton council are keen to pile on to  Southport residents extra taxes. We will soon have the Green Wheelie Bin Tax- a flat tax of £46, then we have the massive hike in car parking charges aimed at bring in £500,000 which will hit Southport's economy hard-85% of all parking charges are paid in Southport.

So here are a few ways the could save some money. Southport Town Hall has been practically empty for months. I have raised this several times. I am repeated told there are no plans to close the building down. So why is it so empty for so long? And why do the Council continue to rent high cost offices elsewhere in the town? It is a waste of our money. I've heard some daft excuses in my time but when I was told that the offices were the wrong shape, I despair. Have they changed shape since the council moved all the lawyers and the committee clerks to Bootle. No.

Another couple of  ways to save money:

Cut the number of Councillors

Cut the generous allowances for the 7 member cabinet (all of whom come from Bootle)

50 years of Ronnie and counting

guess the date?

I'm writing this in the certain belief that Ronnie Fearn 'doesn't do computers'. 2013 marks his 50 years as a Southport Councillor and tonight at the Mayor Making there will be presentation to mark that achievement.So if you bump into him before the meeting this evening don't spoil the surprise.

 I did start writing up a fuller history of his contribution but it began to sound like an obituary and that seemed totally inappropriate as Ronnie is still very much alive. But just consider 50 years, 24 years longer that Alex Ferguson, and he topped the poll in Norwood Ward last May.

There are at least two Councillors still living in the town who pre date Ronnie. Joy Lucas who was a Councillor in Park Ward between 1957 and 1960 and Bob Burnett Hughes who was on the Council between 1958 and 1973. When Ronnie arrived on the scene we had by my calculations reached our high water mark* with 23 Councillors out of 45 with 100% representation in Central, Craven,  Scarisbrick, West, Birkdale South, Ainsdale, two councillors in Hesketh and a Councillor in  Birkdale West (J. Smith-Hughes), Marine  (M Goldberg)and Park (John Campion)  with around 4 Aldermen. 

I noticed Southport Labour Party were drawing attention to their Parliamentary Candidate during this time -one John Prescot. This was at the time of the pact so there were five Wards which we left to Labour. For those not familiar with Southport politics there was a strict Lib/Lab pact in the town. We fought 10 wards and Labour 5. We even helped in each others by elections! Richard Wainwright was always fond of drawing attention to this arrangement to balance the coverage given to the pacts in Bolton and Huddersfield. When the time finally comes when Ronnie decides to step down one of the important bits of history that will be told is Ronnie's part in the breaking of the pact

Anyway, congratulations to Ronnie-and remember not a word to him if you see him today

* 23 out of 45 Councillors is the highest number of Councillors we have achieved but by another measure I guess you could say that winning 6 out of the present 7 wards in the town in 2012 was a better performance or again you might think 1981 when we won 5 of the 6 county wards was better

Putting small businesses back on the agenda- important for Southport

National Insurance Contributions Bill

This bill is designed to reduce the cost to small businesses of employing people. If it passes, from April 2014 every business and charity will be entitled to a £2,000 employment allowance. It also aims to stop the use of offshore companies that are sometimes used by companies to avoid paying their National Insurance contributions. The bill will remove the presumption of self-employment for limited liability partnership members. It will apply to the whole of the UK

That is how the BBC reported the item in the Queens Speech aimed at helping small businesses. In a town like Southport where the economy is made up by lots of small employers this is most welcome. Too often government turns its back on the self employed and small businesses, so it is good to see this measure.

local elections

we didn't get to vote in Southport this year but we are interested in the results. I think these three graphs give us the key messages for a town like ours

Adam Boulton‏@adamboultonSKY

Updated @Sky News projection Labour majority of 12. Lab 331 Con 245 L/D 48 Oth 26.

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11:27 AM - 3 May 13

Anti -Semitic comment in Birkdale shop window

Today with the rise of UKIP and their anti immigration campaigns it is sadly not unusual to hear hostile comments about immigrants. It is worth reflecting that if UKIP immigration policy had been in place not only would it have excluded many of our Olympic athletes it would also have excluded many of our best entrepreneurs and professionals like doctors etc

I am old enough to remember the storm over the Kenyan Asians fleeing from Idi Amin's.Africanisation  policy. The Labour Party was in government and passed the 1968 Immigration Act to their eternal shame. Labour's  Bill was rushed through in three days. 'The 1968 Act restricted the future right of entry previously enjoyed by Citizens of the United Kingdom and Colonies, to those born there or who had a least one parent or grand-parent born there. It was introduced amid concerns that up to 200,000 Kenyan Asians fleeing that country's "Africanization" policy, would take up their right to reside in the UK.'

Of course the grandparental rule meant if you were black you couldn't come to Britain, but if you were a commonwealth citizen from a Australia, New Zealand , Canada etc you could. The YL's had posters which said ' Labour washes whiter'.  The architect of the Bill was that wretched man Callaghan. (He also opposed the race relations act applying to the police -apparently it was insulting to suggest that they may be racist Tell that to the Lawrence family) 

Callaghan first took his proposals for emergency legislation to a special cabinet committee on 13 February 1968. His cabinet colleague Richard Crossman recorded in his diaries: "Jim arrived with the air of a man whose mind was made up. He wasn't going to tolerate any of this bloody liberalism." 

I should say that years later I employed a women whose family had escaped from Amin in the most horrendous circumstances on a forged passport. I would not rate her chances of passing the UKIP policy test

Back in 1968 it was the Liberal Party almost alone that opposed the Act. Eric Lubbuck, David Steel and Jeremy Thorpe stuck to their principled position. In the House of Lords it was Liberal again who took on the combined ranks of Labour and the Conservatives with notable contributions from Donald Wade and this from Violet Bonham Carter objecting to Callaghan new category of belongers:
:
Who and what are the belongers? I asked the question, and I was told that you qualify as a belonger you must have an English grandfather: I believe that grandmothers were thrown in last night in another place. Though sex discrimination has been eliminated, racial discrimination remains. A belonger usually has a white face, Of course there are exceptions to this, as to every rule. Someone objected to me that, for instance, the Duke of Edinburgh would not have a dog’s chance of becoming a belonger and jumping the queue because he has not the right sort of grandfather. Well, what a loss to this country that would be! It just shows what nonsense the whole thing is; and what pernicious nonsense. It is racialist through and through. 

‘A flagrant breach of faith’ 

If my memory services me well Michael Ramsey, Archbishop of Cantabury supported us in the Lords. He had already alienated the die hard conservatives by support Homosexual Law Reform. 

Isn't it interesting how history repeats itself

The Anti semitic comment in the Birkdale shop window is sadly not surprising. The anti Semitic campaign that the Liberal candidate was subjected to in 1910 is well recorded and it is well within living memory that Southport golf clubs did not have Jewish members-Hillside was the first to break the ban and the Royal Birkdale was the last. The good news was that there were always people who stood up against such prejudice and spoke out like the women from Barrett Rd. there are occasions when to be popular is to be wrong. So I don't care what the focus groups say about immigration our policy should be dictate by principle or we land up no different to Callaghan and all the other folk in the Labour Party who Polly Toynbe described as 'knuckle dragging neanderthals'