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So Someone Reads This...

For this first time, the Cambridge City Conservative blog earned a place in the top 100 Tory blogs.   We have a local blog and were not expecting it to be included on a national list for which there is intense competition.  Learning of the award was like getting an email telling you have won a prize in a competition you never entered. But, for once, it was true. The Award was the result of a vote in the Total Politics Annual Blog Poll conducted during the second half of July and announced over the weekend. The Total Politics Guide to blogging will be published in October: “With the blogosphere comprising literally thousands of bloggers, the Total Politics Guide separates the wheat from the chaff and gives you the inside scoop on which bloggers are leading the charge, and which ones you should watch out for.”   The internet plays an important role in campaigning, but there is no substitute for good old-fashioned door knocking.    Full List of the Top 100 Tory blogs:   http://iaindale.blogspot.com/2009/08/top-100-conservative-blogs.html#links   Richard

Cambridge in Film

Of course, the Cam does not really look the Thames, as they tried in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, but filmmakers can sprinkle their magic to make us believe it.  The Cambridge News covers the latest film to use Cambridge as backdrop, this time for a romantic comedy. If you have ever wondered who else has filmed here, and where, it is worth looking at the Internet Movie Database – imdb.com.

Pint Plan is Potty

Public Safety is the supposed reason for the Home Office looking to replace pint glasses with something more plastic.    It is all to do with cutting down on the number of ‘glassing’ incidents.  Glassing is vicious, but once again we get expensive government proposals that treat the vast majority of people as being guilty of crime they have never committed and never would commit.   Where there are troublesome pubs, it is the role of the police, landlords and owners to assess whether the glasses need changing. But the idea, for example, that Cambridge CAMRA [Campaign for Real Ale] pub locals are out for a fight, is nonsense.  If the Home Office busybodies care to stop by, the most they’ll get is a bent ear.   RN.   See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8217775.stm

It is More than Tesco

I was at the City Council’s East Area Committee this morning. The substance of the event – should the council enforce its own planning guidelines – may seem a strange topic to normal people.   After all, why bother with rules if you do not plan on enforcing them?  However, the City Council has overruled its own guidelines to the point that the council is treated with ridicule by many of those putting in applications.  Did you know that two in every five appeals against the city are successful? Some councillors, including  Chris Howell (Conservative), had to speak from the floor because of the way the rules for representation and participation are drawn up.  Chris’s contribution was superb.  It showed how having a councillor with a clear understanding of the issues, and the ability to express them on behalf of local residents, can make a difference to a meeting.     However, today was more than about Tesco in Mill Road. The debate on the need for another supermarket is quite separate from the planning, highways, change of use and access questions that come up.  Today’s meeting threw more light on the whole way that the planning system operates in the city: it’s a muddle.    Although not officially part of the Committee, the Liberal Democrat leader of the city council was there. He twice had to talk to the officials during the proceedings. As the architect of the system, I hope he saw how it was not working.    Cambridge can do so much better.  We need more councillors like Chris to make the change.    RN

New Thinking Needed on Benefits State

Today, the think-tank Policy Exchange calculates that nearly 6 million Britons are on some form of benefit:

• 1.58 million on Jobseeker's Allowance
• 2.6 million on incapacity benefit and the new Employment and Support Allowance
• 736,000 on lone parents' benefits
• 400,000 on carers' benefits
• 363,000 on disability benefits
• 182,000 on other income-related benefits 
• 95,000 on bereavement benefits

The real story is not so much the scale of the benefits state, but that the government makes it so difficult to get off them.  People are rational, and it is not worth getting a job or a promotion if your allowances drop or if you are on a penal rate of taxation as a result.  This logic applies especially when a range of benfits are means-tested.  Why acquire more means when the test will just take them away?   Labour's Britain is broken.  It will take a long time to untangle this mess. 

A Serious Debate, Please

Letters to the editor

Justice Delayed for Equitable Life Policyholders

Equitable Life’s policyholders have fought a long battle for justice. The Ombudsman’s report set out a number of areas where there had been maladministration and where the Government should make payments to policyholders.

A Better Africa

MEP Syed Kamall writes, " there is a generation of young politicians across Africa who realise that the key to development is in their hands and who look to us not for hand-outs but for help in abandoning decades of aid dependency and the failed policies of previous political leaders." 

He took part in work sponsored by my old department, in conjuction with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.   Read the full article at http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2009/08/syed-kamall-mep-lessons-from-africa-about-how-a-conservative-government-should-spend-its-internation.html.

RN

That 70's Retro Feel

A postal strike at my office, a rail strike on my train service, a spending crisis in Whitehall, rising unemployment in my country...  It may be 2009, but here's the link to the BBC series I Love the 1970s:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ilove/years/70sindex.shtml for those who want to see how it was the first time round.

RN

Counting Down

No more than 297 days until voting closes at the next General Election.
 

Grove Lodge - Demoliton Delayed

The decision date is now set for September.  If you want to add your voice too, the contact details are E-mail: president@newhall.cam.ac.uk ; Phone: 01223 762227 (President’s Office).

Funding available for community and voluntary groups

Community and voluntary groups are being encouraged to apply for financial assistance from Cambridgeshire County Council.  Local voluntary organisations have an ethos that is healthier and more progressive [in the positive, non-political sense!] than the organs of the state by itself.

Use this link for more details:

http://www2.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/db/pressrel.nsf/6fcbd4565a583c6480256b52004254fd/3280b7f135e77aeb80257608003d734e?OpenDocument

Robbing Peter to Pay for Paul’s PR is Wrong

Taxpayers coughed up nearly £4.9 million last year hiring political consultancies according to figures provided by the Taxpayers’ Alliance. This is a small part of the total of more than £38 million of taxpayers’ money spent on lobbying, communications and funding for think-tanks and public sector trade associations. Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Nick Hurd said earlier: 'The hiring of lobbyists by government bodies to grab more cash is a financial scandal. No wonder the bureaucratic state has ballooned under Labour, given lobbyists are routinely in the pay of the Government ... Conservatives will put new rules in place to stop this outrageous waste of money.'

The Poor Receive Less Help Under Labour

Figures published by the Office of National Statistics show that the poorest 5 million households are paying more in tax and receiving less in benefits than before Labour came to power.   With the perverse incentives caused by multiple means-tested benefits, making it more expensive to be in some jobs than to be unemployed, Britain's social security system is broken. 

See http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/A_House_Divided_.html#a694 for more details.

Cherry Hinton Village Centre - 20th Anniversary

Today's Cherry Hinton event  was a great success.  One of the exhibitors that I enjoyed talking to was from The Cherry Hinton Local History Society.  The Society usually meets on the last Monday of the month at St Andrew's Church Centre.  The next meetings will be on Cambridge Mayors, Thomas Hobson and the AGM will be on Monday 30th November featuring "Lucy Lockets Pockets".  As a history buff, it was great to to chat with others who share this interest.  Richard

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