Cabinet in Liverpool

Today's Daily Post carries a story about the Cabinet meeting in Liverpool early next month, plus a rather po faced comment from Downing Street saying that when they have something to announce they will. Err.. this publicity stunt has been well telegraphed for several weeks now. The local voluntary sector network has been e mailing its members asking for nominations for individuals to come and meet ministers after the meeting (hardly a big secret then). I fully appreciate the need to keep venues secret but for goodness sake I can't see any reason why Downing Street can't confirm what thousands of e mail recipients already know.

I wonder what the purpose of such an "out of London" meeting can be. If government ministers truly want to visit Cities outside London they can. There is no need to move a whole meeting - plus all the officials. After all the inside of one room looks pretty much like the inside of another. From a purely PR point of view also I would have thought the benefits to Labour of ministerial visits are better if they are spread out (thereby achieving repetition) rather than all on one go. And I would expect opposition politicians to keep a good eye on any spending that appears party political rather than ministerial.

Delivering in Kensington

Went out with PPC Colin Eldridge the other day to do some post Christmas deliveries in Kensington. A lovely bright day. A tad on the cold side but felt very virtuous at having worked off a bit of the Christmas food. Having helped in this part of Liverpool several times now I couldn't help but notice that the regeneration which has been going on for several years seems to have made some impact now. New homes for sale, some of which are occupied already, and some rennovation work on terraces.

Crisis Loans

What on earth was the government doing at the weekend? First we are told the people getting crisis loans are going to have to pay interest. Then we are told this is somehow protecting them from loan sharks. Then we are told it is just out to consultation and might not happen. Then we are told the government aren't going to do it anyway.

It's clear to me that there is/was a plan to get social fund crisis loans paid back with interest. Its also clear that there was such a revolt against this that some poor Junior Minister had to do the rounds talking the story down.

Lets be clear about this. Crisis loans are for the very poorest who have a crisis. Interest is completely out of the question.

And the way to avoid bad colds....

.. is not to persist in delivering Xmas cards in the rain!

Nice to be thanked

I was up early this morning to deliver a huge load of Xmas cards (we deliver the whole ward every year which sounds like a nice idea until its cold and dark and rainy). Trudging round feeling very sorry for myself I was stopped by a lady who had spotted me and come out of the house deliberately to say thank you for some case work I had done for her son a while ago. (Her son doesn't live in the ward). Its really nice when people bother to say thank you. It made me feel a little less grumpy about getting soaked while delivering!

Garston Waste plans meeting

Now that the applicants have withdrawn the application (temporarily) this meeting has been cancelled. This decision was taken at rather short notice. I have asked planning officers to write to those people who had letters from me about the meeting and I understand various e mails have also gone out. I don't 100 percent agree with the meeting being cancelled but I can see that it will be hard to provide proper answers when the application is off the table and the timescales are impossible to know. Given the short notice of cancellation, we have asked a rep from planning to go the venue to speak to anyone who doesn't hear about the cancellation and so who turns up anyway (as there is nothing worse than turning up to find no one there and no explanation).

Garston waste application - update

I have just received a letter from agents acting on behalf of Jack Allen - the company making the application for the waste facility at Garston Dock. The application is being withdrawn.

This doesn't mean it has gone away however as I am told an application will be re submitted following some public consultation next year. There's no way of knowing at the moment whether this is a means of buying time in order to run a persuasion campaign or whether local views are genuinely being sought.

Obviously the public meeting scheduled for the 15th was organised before this news. If this news affects the speakers planned for the public meeting I will post an update.