Made In Preston – the blog

Today’s Times is crowing that the South East is less hit by the recession and will pull the rest of the country up “once again”.

Well give us £9bn investment in a northern Olympic city, £20bn in a new underground line, £5bn airport terminals, high speed railway lines and stations, endless other investments and big government departments and maybe the north would be less effected.

Then again Preston is due a £700m investment in the Tithebarn Project but others in the region don’t want it.  Looked at from the bigger picture this could look like an own goal.  In Blackpool and Blackburn they think a small amount say £50m each each is better than one getting a big top up.  Maybe if Blackburn got a big project Preston would object, hard to say.

Talk is that Alan Irvine is wanted by Reading, although PNE are denying any offer. Hope it’s true and he stays at Preston. It’s always flattering and you know you have someone worthwhile if a club higher in the table with bigger gates is after your staff. Then again it isn’t clear that Reading has that much potential.  If they are a step up it’s not that big and it might easily go pear shaped.

Other talk is that Paul McKenna is wanted by Notts Forest. PNE have admitted rejecting 2 offers and the story is that Billy Davies has leaked it as part of a masterful type of unsettling strategy. Is it flattering that a lower team with bigger gates is after your players? Probably. Is it unsettling? Probably not.

I’m not getting a lot of genuine comment on this blog, although I don’t mind that.  The blog is fully moderated so posts need approval.

Unfortunately the people who think they can automatically get a comment onto this blog that advertises their product are sending a lot of stuff. I have a automated blocker and deleter but have stopped comments on some posts because of automated nuisance mail that sends an input every 15 minutes.

The world can be a strange place where people have jobs with the objective of spoiling, gas and phone companies tie you in and you need to read the small print of complicated tariffs.

We get both our gas and electricity from British Gas Norweb region. Some people say it’s foolish not to move but I’ve found BG tariffs to be competitive.  The downside is that you need to keep an eye on their latest offerings. 

Even if you do watch the tariffs you might be fooled. I found that the tariff I’m on which is called Click Energy 6 has remained cheaper for me than their two later offerings Websaver 2 and Websaver 3.  According to uSwitch I’m paying £18 less a year, not much I know, but every little helps.  It buys nearly 20 bottles of discounted beer, one every 2 weeks, cheers BG.

Then again I could be paying up to £400 a year more and no cheaper tariffs came up.

I’m not sure but I think I’m locked into Click Energy 6 for a while. Their latest offering has up to £60 penalty for changing before 12 months. So there is another reason not to change.

I find this annoying. Coupled with the difficulty of finding the true cost of the latest tariff, I still havn’t found the full details on their website. So the deceptive tariffs and handcuffing is making me want an excuse to change.

Is there a straightforward easy dealing energy company out there?

Richard Branson spoke at Euston Station and said in return for a longer franchise he would invest to improve the West Coast Line top speed and bring Preston, Crewe and Carlisle stations into the 21st century.

Taken at face value it sounds a good deal for all. The trains and their ambience have improved greatly since Virgin took over. The downside being that the fare to London from Preston is at a previously unimaginable level if you want to travel anytime.  Travelling on a named train is a fairly reasonable £70 return but an anytime ticket is around £250 return. Not sure if the anytime ticket guarantees a seat either.

How much updating would be done at the station. It is a hybrid 19th century structure with a few 21st century glass bits, a wind tunnel with an antiquated announcement system. Will the update be a classic St Pancras or a standard 2009 glass design that will look old in 2019. Surely only the former will do.

Do we sympathise with Virgin.  It appears the franchise arrangements are too rigid and inhibit change. Virgin want to lengthen their trains but had difficulty justifying it for the few years left, although it’s now in the 2012 plan along with an extended platform at Preston. Then there are debates about the track and finger pointing. I’d support Virgin owning the track as long as competition is able to use the track equitably. Despite Richard Bransons great public image he is a hard dealer and it needs careful handling.

I looked at the Virgin website and it says they are creating 469 new car parking places at Preston station.  I noticed the new construction down the side of the station and wasn’t over-pleased as it obstructs what was quite a good view to the Park Hotel.  Also it encourages traffic into the centre. On the other hand if it takes traffic off the motorway and onto the trains it has some good points.

If someone has some new money they need listening to.

In the North West we have 12 parties, each with 8 candidates who are ranked in priority. There are 8 seats which is the second highest representation in the UK.

 The parties are:  Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, BNP (British National Party), No2EU, JT (Jury Team), UKIP (United Kingdom Independance Party), CPCPA (Christian Party – Christian Peoples Alliance), English Democrat, Lib – EU (Libertas), SLP (Socialist Labour Party).  One independant.

We all have one vote for one party or an independant. As there are 8 MEP’s in the North West each party has 8 candidates as theoretically if a party got all the votes it could have 8 MEP’s. However proportional representation will give significant others a seat. Theoretically a party with more than one eighth of the vote will get a seat but in practise probably needing a quarter. Can’t say I’m an expert on this and have only done the sums mentally using the formula. In summary in a given region the allocated seats are awarding using a quota system. The quota is the total number of votes received by a party or independent candidate divided by the number of seats they’ve already gained in that region +1.

I vote in every election. Not voting is a statement but I’d prefer to give a rebel vote if I was so disillusioned with the candidates.  No-one represents fully what I want but there are candidates I wouldn’t vote for so they are out.  All parties have things I don’t like but some have things I believe in. So a few are in with a chance and I’ll judge who satisfies me the most on balance.

Who are Jury Team, CPCPA, Libertas?

Jury Team are a party who are against parties and want politicians to vote for what their voters want.

CPCPA are a Christian, pro-referendum, anti-poverty group.

Libertas is a pan-European, pro-European, pro-democratic EU party.

So I’ve narrowed my voting list to: Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, CPCPA, Libertas.

Think I’ll look into Libertas some more as a pan-European, make the EU more democratic stance sounds interesting. I’m pro-EU, pro-pound sterling but not anti-Euro.

Find out more. http://www.europarl.org.uk/section/european-elections/candidates

On 4th June there is an election for the European Parliament. So far I’ve received a leaflet from the Conservatives although I don’t know who my MEP is or what he or she does and the leaflet doesn’t tell me.

The Conservative leaflet says they are voting against a lot of things like the Constitution and EU Armed Force.  I’m never sure about what to think of the EU. I do think it is blamed for a lot of things it doesn’t do.  Also watching the European leaders jostling for place with Barak Obama was an embarrassment. Does the USA want to talk to these jostlers or to someone who represents them.

Should this uncomfortable relationship continue or should the EU be given some real powers and the members sit out of the UN Security Council etc.  For example California is bigger than many G20 countries, Australia and Mexico aren’t planning to join an EU organisation. So what is the best solution for a country like the UK, to stand alone or be part of the EU or is there a halfway point. I don’t really know, California isn’t apparantly harmed by being in the USA in fact it seems to benefit. So I can see that a stronger EU could benefit. Although against this the UK is a proud country with a gritty history of independance. Many EU states are bordering on bureaucratic semi-socialist states so maybe the US model wouldn’t be as good with such interferance from the centre. 

I guess that really I’d like a strong EU and to be part of it but on the other hand I’d like the member states to be strong as well. If countries like France and Germany can give up some sovereignty I think the UK can. It wouldn’t trouble me to be represented by an EU President if he was elected like the US President. Overall I don’t particularly agree with the Conservative leaflet but I do think some obstructionism isn’t a bad thing till the EU is made more directly democratic.

On May 14th the Prime Minister added his signature to the 4 nation requirement that will start negotiations for tranche 3 of Eurofighter Typhoon.  As is often the case the defenders of budgets in the treasury didn’t want to spend the money and the other services were saying their requirements should be given priority.  Pressure from the partners including the threat of payments for delays meant the PM had to take the plunge. Current plans are that this will enable continuous production beyond 2013 so with the JSF coming on stream ever later this is good news for the workforce. Although the JSF appears to be a large metalwork job, rather less sophisticated than Typhoon work.  There are still more export orders hoped for and work on a fully electronic radar is underway I was reading in Aviation Week.

Watched the Deepdale game in full on TV while on holiday overseas. Do the players know how far their fame is spread.

Overall PNE put on a decent display and looked threatening but without showing any real flair.  Sheffields goal in the 46th minute came from what looked like the best play of the match, they came out with real fire in their bellies and put PNE on the back foot from the kick off.

Also watched Reading v Burnley in full while on holiday. Unfortunately ex-PNE Grahame Alexander looks like he’s playing a great fatherly role and it might not be too much of a surprise if they beat Sheffield.

Two great results.  Birmingham 1 PNE 2, PNE 2 QPR 1. Just ousted Cardiff from the play-offs by scoring 1 more goal than them. So the 6-0 victory must have been fortune smiling down.