Good morning. How are you today? I have a bit of a sore throat and am trying to get my head around the rugby on TV. I played it for two seasons when I was younger, until I decided that it hurt a bit too much. And to be honest, I'm still trying to get my head around the rules!
Just checked outside and nothing seems to have blown down overnight, but apparently its supposed to get a bit wilder this evening - make sure you're all snuggled in and all the hatches are battened down.
Yesterday, we were out and about in Millbrook again. Quite a few people seemed to be impressed that we're knocking on doors in September, months before an election is in sight. It is easy for other parties to employ a company to post your leaflets for you, but it takes commitment and determination to go out and talk to people face to face, each and every weekend, all year round!
Next week will be a very busy time, with meetings on Monday, all day wednesday and Thursday evenings. Although I won't be able to make it, I have received an email to say that their will be a talk held at the Waterloo Arms (Freemantle, SO15 3BS) on Monday at 7.30pm, by a respected environmental academic. The No Biomass group continue to work hard throughout the summer, and they are doing a wonderful job. I have only managed to get to one or two meetings with the group who meet every week, but I am lucky in having a number of Labour party members who are involved with the group - that and Alan Whitehead keeps sending me more and more literiture to read on it!
So Wednesday will be full council, with big debates likely on the future of police stations and fluoride. My mind is clear on both items: Let officers work out of a state of the art building, a few minutes down Shirley High Street, with officers working in the community - the alternative would be more redundancies - but as we know the Tories don't mind that! In terms of fluoride, many have claimed it is a poison. That is true in the same way that oxygen can also be used to kill you. I would have supported the proposal to put fluoride into the water supply if, IF, the public consultation had not been so overwhelmingly against the proposal. This is not me being populist, but rather there is no point asking people their opinion if you are going to completely ignore it. A matter of principle. Rumour is that one of the political groups will be whipped to vote against flouride on Wednesday. That means your party forces you to vote a certain way even if you disagree. In the Labour Party, this vote is a matter for conscience. A number of our group are firmly against, and a number will probably vote for it. We are allowed to make our own minds up.
Oh yes, and then on Thursday evening, I have a Health Scrutiny meeting to attend. There may also be a meeting on Tuesday evening, but the memory is clouding now. I think I may have to go and make another coffee for this blooming throat. In the rugby, the green ones have now scored ten, and the blue ones don't like this. Strange game indeed.
Lastly, for all thr ights and wrongs of our invaisions into the middle east, today marks a very poigniant moment in our and our allies history. More important than the major changes in domestic and foreign policy, ten years ago today the world changed for many many families. For all who have been touched by the events of 9.11, you have my sincere sympathy.
Like him or loathe him, Tony Blair had a very tough call to make on that day. Communication had been lost with a commercial plane packed with holiday makers, flying over the UK. He was asked for permission by the chief of defence staff to shoot it down if the moment came. It reminds me that nobody comes into politics to make decisions to shoot planes down or make people redundant, but they are choices that politicians must make. Decisions which we must be held accountable for.
Asa,
ReplyDeleteYou are a nice bloke but either your skill with statistics is woeful or you are indeed being nakedly popularist. The consultation to which you refer received 10,200 responses of which 75% were characterised as against. The population of Southampton is around 200000 that means that corresponds to about 4% of the population. A telephone poll using accepted methods to obtain a *representative* sample showed no clear preference on the topic. By all means lets have a debate on this important topic but you do your position or the overall debate by misrepresenting the facts.
It is much the same as you claiming a legitimate mandate to represent the people of millbrook, you are simply the most popular of a deeply unpopular political class having gathered some 35% of about 40% turnout a mandate from about 15% of the electorate. 5/6 electors in millbrook have either no interest in what you are saying or are definitively against you something a humble backbench councillor would do well to remember.
ReplyDeleteShaw
ReplyDeleteAsa received 45% of the vote in May not 35%. We live in a democracy and everyone is entitled to vote if they want to. We speak to people on the doorstep regularly and listen to what they say, this is a good way of engaging electors in the political process. We could instead stay at home on our computers attacking other peoples hard work.
Cllr Dave Furnell
I work equally hard for the causes I believe in thankyou very much. Indeed I have in the past put my heart and soul in the Labour cause back in the day when it actually had anything meaningful to say.
ReplyDeleteShaw,
ReplyDeleteI believe in your right to state what you believe it. It is your right within our democratic society.
However, your slurs on my intelligence is not welcome, nor correct. I would debate the issue of representative democracy with you, but I doubt it would do any good. You have your beliefs and I have mine. The difference is that I have to justify mine each and every day to my electorate, whilst you can theorise from behind a screen. Is this your version of holding politicians to account or just being a bit derogatory?
The party has had its flaws nationally and locally, but now is time for a new generation. Out with the old and in with the new.
I am still waiting on answers to MY questions to you.
Who has slurred your intelligence, certainly not I ! I stated quite correctly either your grasp of statistics is poor (statistics mind you not overall intelligence) or you are deliberately misrepresenting things for populist reasons.
ReplyDeleteRemind me what questions you have asked ? I am happy to answer all and any questions and thought I had addressed all of yours.
It is part of my holding politicans to account. I ask challenging questions to try and and prompt better answers. I care about fluoridation it is too important for cheap political points or ill conceived knee-jerk populist reactions. It should in my opinion be *fact* and *science* lead and certainly not driven by a fringe 4% of the southampton population with a sensationalist axe to grind.
As for your broader point I have nothing but respect for the case work you and other councillors do across all the political parties it is a useful role for councillors and entirely non partisan. That doesnt allow you to duck the issue of *leadership* of the politcal agenda though and providing an agenda that shows real tough choices have been made rather than simply following the prevailing zeitgeist.
I guess I give you as an individual a harder time than most simply because you seem to have your heart in the right place, you seem to lack the tools to deliver on what you want though. I wouldnt bother arguing with someone who didnt seem worth saving.