Convention on Modern Liberty

Saturday 28th February sees the Convention on Modern Liberty national event. It's a really clever idea, with a national conference in London and then live video feeds to regional events in other cities, including Bristol.

The purpose of the event is to discuss recent attacks on civil rights, including the government's batty compulsory ID card scheme. Among the organisations involved in putting it together are Liberty and Unlock Democracy (I am members of both) and the No2ID campaign (which I support).

National speakers include Nick Clegg MP, Phillip Pullman (a hero), Billy Bragg (another hero) and Shami Chakrabarti (a super hero!). Bristol speakers include Lib Dems Stephen Williams MP and Councillor Mark Wright and some Tories and Greens... but apparently no-one from Labour! I wonder why...

The Bristol event starts at 9.45am at the Trinity Centre, Trinity Road, Lawrence Hill, Bristol, BS2 0NW. It's free and you just turn up. I am hoping to be there for part of the day, but I sadly have other commitments, so I can't do the whole thing.

Cotham Focus published

The latest Cotham Focus is printed and out on the streets! Get your copy early by following the link in the previous sentence.

Lib Dem MPs rated the best

Last summer, the independent PoliticsHome public relations company undertook a massive survey of 34,000 voters in 238 constituencies. (Hat-tip to PoliticalBetting.com for the reminder.)

Among the questions that they asked were ratings of their local MP across the three main parties. The results are shown in the bar chart to the left - click on the image to get a larger version.

The results are startling. Across all the factors the researchers asked about, Lib Dem MPs were rated the best... local, experienced, ordinary people, who are approachable, independent and influential and who keep in touch with regular updates.

Tory MPs came across as rather lacklustre and not 'ordinary people'. Labour MPs were rated by voters to be the worst on nearly every measure. In particular, they were seen as inexperienced, uninfluential and slavish followers of the party line. They were also felt not to bother keeping in touch, presumably taking their voters for granted.

The full report is available online. The fieldwork was done when the Lib Dem poll ratings were much lower than at present, so the predictions on individual seats must be taken with a hefty pinch of salt.

BSB opening hours

Yesterday I attended my first licensing hearing. Due to a quirk of the law, ward councillors don't have the same ability to get directly involved in licensing applications as we do in planning applications. This is a bit crazy considering the impact that pubs, bar and clubs can have on residents and communities.

The hearing I attended was for the BSB bar on Whiteladies Road. I was there speaking on behalf of a local resident (who are able to be involved!) against their application to extend their opening hours to 2am.

At the moment, there are only two bars on Whiteladies Road with licenses beyond midnight and one of these is currently under investigation because of the nuisance it is causing to local residents. The problem is that Whiteladies is a residential area and some people leaving the bars do things which can make residents' lives a misery - shouting, littering, causing damage, starting fights and so on. Extending the ability of bars in the area to open (and sell alcohol) beyond midnight would worsen an already bad problem, which the Police don't have the resources to deal with.

The BSB application was rejected. They will still only be able to serve alcohol until midnight. The problem is that there are other applications in the pipeline from the surrounding bars - if you let one have a later license, they will all want one and the nuisance will multiply.

Recycling in the city - bad news and good

The Quality of Life Scrutiny Commission (of which I am a member), spent some time at its meeting on Monday discussing recycling... largely due to me wanting to make a number of points, with much eyerolling in the room.

The most important, as mentioned in our last Focus, is that improvements to the city's recycling rate under Labour have stopped and that the rate is starting to fall back from the high point reached under the Lib Dems (up until May 2007). This is clear from the quarterly figures with which we councillors are provided - 36.26%, 36.12% and now 35.51%. It also appears that even these figures are being incorrectly bolstered by including school-based recycling, but this is being checked.

When I pointed this out, the Labour members started to huff and puff that this was due to more reuse and home composting, thereby cutting waste as a whole. However, the figures also show that the average waste per household is rising relative to previous years. In short, people are now (a) producing more waste, and (b) recycling less of it. That's the bad news.

I felt a bit mean having a go at Cllr Judith Price - the Labour waste supremo. I don't know whether she avoids the detail or is simply poorly briefed, but she always seems at a loss about things. She tried to explain that she was doing all she could to boost recycling, but the examples she gave were either continued roll-outs of Lib Dem ideas (e.g. plastic recycling bins) or schemes conceived under the Lib Dems that she delayed (e.g. Tetrapak recycling).

The good news is that the Council is now starting to look to the future - I think this has more to do with some excellent officers and badgering by other councillors than Judith's leadership. We heard reports of a number of schemes which are being considered, including :

• A wider range of plastics to be accepted. Crucially, this will include Type 5 (PP) plastics, which includes most food cartons. For scientific reasons, this is harder to recycle than Type 1 and 2 (bottles). The Council's plastic recycler is now able to deal with this, so the opportunity to recycle more plastic is on the way. I have been banging on about this for a few years now and have asked for a pilot in Cotham, where people are keener to sort their waste correctly.
• Small electrical goods to be collected kerbside. This apparently is a result of my campaign about low energy light bulbs. There is a pilot going on at the moment (in Southmead, I think) and this may be rolled out across the city.
• Kerbside plastic collections. This is something that people ask me about often. When we Lib Dems looked at this in 2006, it was concluded that it didn't make financial (£2m loss) or environmental (15 extra lorries on the street) sense to pursue. However, times, taxes and technologies change and this may now be back on the cards - there are still challenges though, especially due to Bristol's narrow streets.
  
• Public recycling bins. Again, something I have been campaigning for over the last year or so. The Council is looking at how to fund these for shopping areas and parks. They make a very small impact on the recycling rates overall, but they help to remind people to recycle at home.

So, there may be better times ahead. Bristol has the best recycling rate of any major city (nearly twice that of Manchester, for example), but it has been allowed to drift aimlessly for the last two years. However, it doesn't compare as well when you look across the water and into Europe. There are rates well upwards of 50% to look to in Germany and Scandinavia - this should be our aspiration, not just to be content around 35%.

Residents' Parking update

I don't know whether it's a coincidence or not (!), but after complaining last week that I hadn't heard anything for over a month, I met yesterday with senior officers concerning the reconsultation on Residents' Parking Zones.

What they were proposing seems broadly sensible. The proposed pilot areas and an area around will be reconsulted to find out whether they want to be included and to gather information about local needs and situations. This time, local businesses, community groups and similar organisations will be consulted too. There will also be more and better information for residents, so that they can make an informed choice, rather than the simplistic thing that was sent around in July.

There are still details to be hammered out, but something explaining the process should be going out to residents within the next few weeks.

Ministers 'using fear of terror'

Sometimes in politics, friends come from the most unexpected places. Former MI5 chief, Dame Stella Rimmington, has strongly criticised Labour ministers for using public concerns about terrorism to restrict and remove civil liberties. I have a sense of 'tell us something we don't know' about this, although the message is all the more powerful coming from someone with a career in the intelligence services - the very people who Gordon and his chums say need the extra powers.

Dame Stella is also known to be against Labour's compulsory ID cards - a pointless waste of money that means we can all be monitored more closely by the government, with no positive impact in terms of preventing terrorism. As I have written in countless leaflets, the Lib Dems would axe ID cards and use the billions saved to employ more police with better crime-fighting technology.

Loans that change lives

I have just come across Kiva - a website that enables you to loan money to small businesses in the developing world to help them to get established or to grow. (Hat-tip to Jeph Jacques and his Questionable Content web comic - a favourite morning read!)

Mainly we are talking about shopkeepers, farmers, builders and so forth. You loan them money for a couple of months and then you get your money back, sometimes with interest (which you are encouraged to reinvest). Apparently 97% of loans are repaid. I have loaned about £70 to a number of women in Tanzania (where I have volunteered before) as an experiment to see how it works before I think about loaning larger sums. The minimum loan is $25 (= £17 at the moment).

Maybe you could try it too... it can't be any less safe than leaving it in the bank!

Deafening silence on residents' parking

After Cllr Terry Cook's rather strange and over-egged apologia over Labour's shambolic residents' parking consultation (which he still maintains was a professional and effective exercise) at yesterday's Full Council meeting, I felt compelled to press release where we've got to in the five weeks since the call-in meeting agreed a new consultation and a more open and inclusive approach :


DEAFENING SILENCE ON RESIDENTS' PARKING

Local councillors are still being kept out of the loop on the Residents' Parking Zones pilots, says Councillor Neil Harrison (Lib Dem, Cotham). Liberal Democrat Councillors from Cotham, Clifton and Clifton East have been trying in vain to break down the wall of silence formed since Labour agreed to do a more inclusive consultation in early January.

Councillor Harrison says, "It been over five weeks since the 'call-in' meeting where the Labour administration agreed to do a second and more inclusive consultation on the proposed Residents' Parking Zones in Kingsdown and Clifton. Yet, as a councillor in one of the affected wards, I have heard nothing at all. Colleagues have tried to get more information, but messages are going unanswered."

"Labour also agreed to produce a clear project plan stipulating timescales, an evaluation procedure and an exit strategy if things don't work out. Nothing has been forthcoming yet and, again, I have heard nothing about how this is going to be put together. Surely local councillors have a part to play?"

"I'm not sure whether nothing has happened for five weeks or whether it is just happening without councillors being involved. Either way, it hardly instills confidence when many residents are already very concerned about what's currently on the table. This process has been a secretive mess from start to finish and there are no signs that anything is changing as a result of the 'call-in' meeting."

Titian the p*ss

In what has to be one of the more bizarre political stories of the week, the Tories have been found guilty of rewriting history... albeit 16th Century Italian history.

After David Cameron bluffed or fluffed a line about the artist Titian's age at death, the eager beavers at Tory HQ hastily changed the entry on Wikipedia to make sure that Dave was right, even though he was wrong!

It just proves that you cannot trust a word the Tories say - even when they get it wrong on a triviality, they just try to change the history books! Imagine what it would be like to let them loose with the country again...

Closed-doors Labour strikes again!

Bristol Labour's paranoid control freaks have showed their true colours once again by stopping other parties from attending the Stakeholder Executive Board for the Cycling City project.

They've fought tooth and nail over the last 18 months to hold vital meetings in private, excluding Lib Dem (and probably Tory, but they're such good buddies that maybe not!) councillors and members of the public. They tried desperately not to involve other parties in the Primary School Review. They cut councillors out of the Residents' Parking Zones consultation. I could go on...

Their message is clear - if you don't vote Labour we don't give a toss about your views. Great way to run a city!?

Speed sign on Cotham Road

Quick note: I noticed earlier this week that the vehicle-activated 30mph sign on Cotham Road (the one that lights up when speeding cars pass) is broken. Engineers have been called and it should be fixed in the next few days.

Lib Dems to halve class sizes

It's really a renewal of an existing policy, but we Lib Dems have today confirmed and extended our policy of halving class sizes in infant schools to just 15 pupils. This would be achieved by axing Labour's pointless Child Trust Fund system - a 2005 pre-election bribe which sees 18 year olds get a little bit of lump-sum cash. Surely it's better to invest the money in giving young people the best possible start in life through their first school experiences?

The policy would also see an uplift in money for schools serving poorer pupils to provide the extra support and services which they need. At the moment, some extra money goes into areas, but it means that pupils outside these areas don't benefit and nor do the schools outside these areas which teach wide sections of society - like Colston's Primary School in Cotham.

A fully elected parliament?

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has just launched his petition for a fully elected parliament, in response to the growing scandal of Labour Lords apparently accepting vast sums of corrupt money to influence new laws on behalf of business interests.

I am very slightly off-message on this issue. I definitely want to see the House of Lords reformed properly - not the half-hearted sop that Labour have managed to achieve in their 12 years in power. I want to see an end to the Lords being somewhere the party faithful end up as a 'thank you' for long service or a big donation. I want to see an end to the bizarre situation where the Church of England is represented by 26 (arch)bishops, but other faiths are not (as a member of the British Humanist Association, it shouldn't be a surprise to learn that I would prefer that none should). I definitely want to see a final nail in the coffin of hereditary peers having any role in making laws - why does being the great-great-great-great-grandson of an illegitimate son of a king qualify you to have any ability or right to decide how our country is run? And I want to see the ability to eject those who act wrongly or illegally, like convicted Tory liar, Lord Archer.

However, I am concerned that a full elected House of Lords might lose some of the good things which we do have at the moment. It is difficult (but not impossible) to see how the current cadre of 'crossbenchers' would survive in an election system without the backing of the major political parties. Similarly, those peers from the minor and regional parties could well struggle to get a foothold, although this is also the case at present.

Perhaps most importantly, many of the Lords who are appointed at present actually do have something unique to offer - expertise from their real-world experience which benefits the country as a whole, either from business, the law, the public sector, charity work and so forth. My concern would be that sometimes the most able in society are not those who are best suited for election - either because they are so able that they are too busy or because their temperament is not well suited to the media spotlight.

So, I agree with the basic thrust of Nick Clegg's petition, but I think there is still room for a proportion of appointed Lords within a mainly elected House. There would need to be checks and balances - perhaps a cross-party appointments committee to avoid timeservers and those with big pockets getting the nod over those with something real to offer.