My Predictable Article on Diana

Posted by David Sudworth on August 31, 2007 9:44 AM

LIKE the rest of the media world, I'm today penning this completely predictable piece marking 10 years since Diana died.

I'm only doing it incase you've lived under the Irish Sea for the past decade and didn't realise where she'd gone.

Actually, like Elvis Presley, she's probably now more famous dead than alive and her followers continue to mourn her as if it were yesterday.

Now, far be it from me to be a party pooper, I'm really getting Diana fatigue.

Constant newspaper headlines, conspiracy theories, TV interviews of people blubbering about someone they never knew... it's all too much. Yes, she was a star in her lifetime but I think the incessant harking back does nothing but diminsh her legacy.

So I hope after this landmark occasion passed that everyone will just let her Rest In Peace... something her boys want very much.

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Farewell Prezza - I'll Miss You

Posted by David Sudworth on August 28, 2007 10:11 AM

I'M disappointed that John Prescott has decided to step down as an MP... no, really.

He's a real character (and how many MPs are that anymore?) who has cruelly been ripped apart by the southern-biased media who would prefer to make fun out of him rather than salute his achievements.

Make no mistake, without Prezza there's no way Labour would have accepted Tony Blair and his Clause 4 tinkerings.

Without Prezza, the 2001 election would have been the most boring in history and without Prezza the Daily Mail's snobby columnists would have been unemployed for the past 10 years, thus adding themselves to the millions of people their colleagues attack day-in, day-out for being 'benefits scroungers'.

Sure, history will judge Prescott by his misdemeanours (Two Jags, illicit affair with secretary etc...) but he'll be remembered by more serious people who paved the way to making Labour electable for the first time in 18 years.

And after the shambles that went beforehand, that was no mean feat.

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Any Questions?/Guns and Gangs

Posted by David Sudworth on August 26, 2007 7:55 AM

I HAD the pleasure of attending the live broadcast of BBC Radio 4'sAny Questions? at the Everyman Theatre on Hope Street, Liverpool, on Friday night.

The sense of anticipation was heightened given the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Croxteth just a few days before.

The panel of Peter Oborne (columnist for The Daily Mail); Ian McMillan (poet); Paul Vallely (associate editor of The Independent) and Louise Bagshawe (author and wannabe Tory MP) was excellent and on the whole there was some very sound comments made.

On the subject of gangs, I do agree that the are 'fake families' which have replaced certain children's real families who, for a variety of reasons, are not there.

Afterwards, I asked my mum - who grew up in Toxteth in the late 40s and early 50s - whether things are really worse now.

She said that sadly it is. Places like Toxteth were not the lawless areas they have sadly become and in their street, all the children played with each other children and it was very rare for anyone to venture away from that immediate community.

Also, even though there was a pub close by there wasn't any trouble, people who were a little tired and emotional apparently didn't feel the need to vandalise other people's property or fight in the street. In fact, the only crime my mum can remember is that one morning her mum went in the back yard to collect the washing and some of it had gone missing...

A few years ago, my auntie came over from Australia for the first time since the family left England in the 60s and they went to see their old house and street. When one of my mum's sisters tried to ask one of the neighbours a question, it was clear she was drugged up to the eyeballs.

So how did we get to this?

Personally, I think there's an awful lot of people in this country who need to grow up and take responsibility for themselves and their actions - and all that goes back to your parents and how you are brought up.

Certainly, my wife and I were brought up in a way where you respect your parents and others and you had a real sense of not wanting to 'let them down'. Seeing disappointment on your parents' faces was the worst thing, you always wanted them to feel proud - something which has carried on until today.

And this wasn't in those halcyon days of the mid 50s where you doffed your cap to the local bobby and ate bread and dripping and were grateful for it - this was the 1980s, the so-called 'me me me/loadsamoney/greed is good/there's no such thing as society' days.

That proves it doesn't matter what decade you grow up in, but it does matter what values are instilled in you.

Nowadays, we may not have a poverty of wealth, but there's certainly a poverty of aspiration and respect for others - something which creates a society in which these hate-filled gangs thrive.

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Council Housing Boom?

Posted by David Sudworth on August 24, 2007 12:04 PM

AN interesting story caught my eye this morning while perusing the internet (in my tea break, I hasten to add - just incase the boss is reading this).

It concerns the disgraced former Westminster Council leader, Tory Dame Shirley Porter, and the council accomodation she flogged off at cut prices in what became known as the 'homes for votes scandal'.

Apparently, that particular authority is now trying to buy back those homes to ease the housing crisis in their area. The full story can be read here.

It ties in with an interesting letter in the Advertiser the other week about Margaret Thatcher's Right to Buy scheme, and how the writer thought her policy was short-sighted.

I think most councils would love to have a larger range of housing stock because the lack of choice at the moment only results in frayed tempers for prospective tenants and housing office staff.

A few years ago, councils sort of re-defined themselves as 'enablers' rather than 'providers' of services such as housing but is Westminter City Council's plan a sign of things to come?

Personally, I think the Thatcherite doctrine of 'the market will provide' is a little naive and far too simplistic for 21st Century Britain.

I'm lucky, I got on the ladder when prices were low, but millions of others aren't and they're now at the mercy of private landlords whose first consideration is bound to be their own pockets.

Councils and the government are happy enough to interfere in our lives when it suits them, so how about them being there for us when we need one of the most basic human rights - a roof over our heads?

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Memo from Dave C: All Holiday Leave is Cancelled

Posted by David Sudworth on August 21, 2007 7:14 PM

IT seems some spoil sport at Conservative Central Office has gone and cancelled all summer leave (the big cheese himself perhaps?).

There can't be any other reason why the Blues are appearing on our TVs and in our newspapers nearly every day of the week.

With Labour MPs laying low, the Tories really have cranked up their policy output, knowing full well that they've basically got the whole news agenda to themselves until the end of the month.

Unfortunately for the poor lambs, that's a double-eged sword as it means there's no convenient excuse for getting out of all those summer fairs and garden parties.

As a result, I bet next year's MPs' allowances list will read something like this:

Suncream allowance £0
Raffle ticket money allowance - £5,000
Stress management course allowance - £20,000

In all seriousness though, it's a smart move doing it this way because if there is a snap election, then they'll be ready.

But knowing Gordon Brown, he'll employ his Euro stalling tactics and only call an election once the following 'key tests' have been met:

1) His opinion poll rating is 20 points more than David Cameron's
2) He knows that Tony Blair will be out of the country
3) It's just a few weeks after a surprising 'giveaway' budget
4) The John Redwood clip of him humming the Welsh National Anthem has been copied onto DVD and posted through every household in the UK

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On The Road Again

Posted by David Sudworth on August 20, 2007 5:31 PM

THANKS to the Ormskirk Bypass plan, we've had no problems filling our letters pages throughout the usually pin-drop-quiet month of August.

I can't work out whether the timing was very shrewd (because many people are on holidays) or quite daft (because the plans have managed to fill up many column inches in the absence of nothing much else happening.)

Certainly the pro-bypass and anti-bypass camp have got their arguments well set out but I can't, for some nagging reason, get out of my mind the idea that it's already a foregone conclusion.

Afterall, this is something which has been talked about since the end of World War II and certainly not (despite what the 'anti' camp thinks) been drawn up on the back of a Benson & Hedges 20 deck.

What is important is that both the Labour MP, Rosie Cooper, and her Tory opponent Adrian Owens are pro-bypass. so that puts the 'anti' campaigners at a massive disadvantage.

Without anyone in the corridors of power fighting for the 'anti' corner, I'd pretty much say it was as good as already built...

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Fair's fair?

Posted by David Sudworth on August 16, 2007 9:35 PM

MY last post forecast a pretty quiet month ahead politically. How wrong could I be.

For a start we've had the Tories blocking Labour's call to make West Lancs a Fair Trade district, then we've had the Ormskirk Bypass row rumbling on, with petitions both for and against it started on the Downing Street website.

And to top it all is the story in this week's paper that our local councillors were paid nearly half a million in allowances.

It'll be interesting what people make of the latter. Personally, I think if you're going to attract new, young blood into the Council Chamber (something that's desperately lacking at the moment), then it's got to be paid for somehow. Whether there needs to be so many councillors is another matter...

The Fair Trade thing was also quite interesting because politicians of all shades have at one time or another indulged (even if they won't admit it) in what I call 'gesture politics', something which the Fair Trade idea comes under.

But unlike those who slavishly follow the herd on these things, council leader Geoff Roberts actually took the time to check the whole Fair Trade organisation out and reached his own conclusion.

Now personally, I would have liked to see WLDC become a Fair Trade district because, as a family, we do try to buy its items every so often, just as we always support our local, independent shops.

Nethertheless, like many people I'm glad that Cllr Roberts looked at the matter in a considered and forensic way and then decided to reject it. Much better he does that than just dismissing it purely as some political gimmick, which I'm sure it wasn't intended to be.

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