Made In Preston – the blog

Bob Ainsworth appointed Minister of Defence. Time was when this was a very big appointment. Now the defence budget is much smaller than the social budgets.

It’s still big to Preston though if you work at BAE SYSTEMS. The minister can influence where money is spent and with the navy looking out for expensive Carriers and Trident replacements it competes for budget with the F35 Lightning II and Eurofighter and their developments.

Bob Ainsworth is a Trade Union Labour person from Coventry.  He did a sponsored activity with someone from a carbon fibre company in Coventry so there might be some link to aircraft. I did read in one paper that there is a fear he won’t be as strong against the treasury as previous ministers. Although we can only wait and see. Moneys too tight to mention anyway. Typhoon Tranche 3 is being negotiated and pressure from partner governments is significant.

After Thursdays election Lancashire County Council now comprises: Con 51, Lab 16, Lib Dem 10, Independant 3, Green 2, BNP 1, Idle Toad 1.  35 seats changed hands.

The Conservatives said they’d not increase Council Tax next year.  In the last few years council tax seems to have gone up far more than inflation and it is a popular cause of dissatisfaction. On the other hand council departments will say that new regulations and the need for more services during the recession are putting strain on the budgets.

Maybe those voters were mainly protesting about Labour and don’t really want reduced taxes and the Conservative victory wasn’t as emphatic as it looks.  Although I’d think the pendulum is swinging back to tax cutting and service cut-backs. Particularly now that we know we’re all in hock for 20 years and maybe we can’t afford our services.

It’s a difficult one as it must seem to government workers that they are like the banks and are protected. Governments can always print more money so pay up and spend your way out of recession.

Somewhere along the way repayment of spending has to start and maybe 2010 is the time.  No matter how much you dislike the banks for what they’ve done it is an unfortunate truth that banks are more important than many government services. Do you want your wages or that mortgage for your first house or do you want new council offices and library books?  Then again we don’t want young or old people to be vulnerable and  I use the library quite a lot.

I foresee complaining council workers and political manoeuvring to create public protest.  So lets hope the new councillors keep their promise without too much pain.

I guess you can’t have a blog, whatever its subject, without writing something about the current state of the state.

Why pick on Gordon Brown, he hasn’t been accused of exploiting expenses rules?  Yet, as a pensioner myself, I can’t help but think that my beloved company pension is less secure than it was before he had any power. For that alone I feel inclined to pick on him.  It is alleged that one of his first acts was to inadverntantly, maybe,  light the fuse on ruining company pensions with a stealth tax on dividends.  The list of financial mismanagement while GB has been in government is so long that it’s too awful to think about.  The worry decent people have suffered  due to a collapse of responsibility by people with big salaries is beyond belief.  

Things probably would not have been much different who-ever had been in power – although I’m sure the Communist Party wouldn’t have allowed the bankers to party quite so hard.

Then we had the big rewards for failure in business, not just banks. I read last week that one company is making a new similar system for this year and the institutions, as they are called, won’t oppose it even though they know it stinks.

There is also the uncertainty caused by the poor performance of the Labour party in Scotland. As the Conservatives have little chance of many seats in Scotland it is going to be an odd set up if a whole region has no representatives in government. Maybe this is why GB wants to change everything at present.

Which brings me back to Gordon Brown. Yesterday he announced he wanted a written constitution, a bill of rights and for MP’s to sign some rules to stop them putting in exaggerated expense claims. What good that is going to do, I don’t know.  The Human Rights act is in theory a great thing. But what irritation it seems to spawn about what seem to be the opposite to common justice.  The Anti-Terrorism Act must also be a lesson to us all. Icelandic Banks, dogs fouling the pavement are all covered by this act. So give someone a regulation and see how imaginatively they can use it.

So if not a Bill of Rights etc what would I want.  A bit of honesty and common decency might help. If I wanted a witch hunt maybe I’d look at who has been in charge of these failing institutions and whether there are any common threads like which schools and universities they went to. Then close them.

Let’s not get too carried away because it seems a lot of the population was partying along with the bankers and chief execs for many years and even those not partying, like myself, were feeling more comfortable.  So in some ways we’re all to blame but it comes back to the boss Gordon not being stern enough to control the giddy fools.

In a few weeks all this will be forgotten. Gordon Brown knows – when you walk through a storm………..  But I can’t help thinking if he is still in power and doesn’t get wiped out at the next election, he will be thought of as a miracle man.

I keep finding these layers of government relating to the area, mainly while searching for something else. Who is aware that Beverley Hughes, an MP in Manchester,  is Minister for North West England. 

I think of all these organisations that the North West Development Agency is the one that gets the most publicity and in my opinion should be the only one. I wonder what all the others are doing. The Minister for the North West has created a website and newsletter where the words ‘UK’ or ‘England’ have been changed to North West England. On top of that there are meetings in different towns and visits from time to time.  The website is linked here. It tells you where the Job Centres etc are; http://www.supportnw.co.uk

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.