Categories
Librarians Mark Oaten Nick Clegg

Supporting the Winchester ‘read out’ – from London

Mark Oaten, Martin Tod and Nick Clegg back the Hampshire librarians read out from London

Hampshire’s Library Service is currently in serious crisis.

  • The books budget has cut by more than £500,000 over the last 2 years. Our libraries now have 20% fewer books than they did 5 years ago.
  • 27 out of 60 professional librarian positions are in the process of being cut across the county.
  • Hampshire’s library service now spends less than 6% of its funding on books – the lowest level of book purchasing of any county in England.

An urgent scrutiny meeting to review the operation of the library service has been delayed by the Conservative County Council administration for over a year.

In response to the crisis, the librarians organised a ‘read out’ by the Butter Cross to support their opposition to the current round of cuts.

Unfortunately I couldn’t be there due to a previously arranged meeting in London.

However, to try and compensate, I arranged with Mark Oaten and Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem Home Affairs spokesperson, that we would join the ‘read out‘ in spirit by reading books at the same time as people backing Hampshire’s librarians were supporting them in London.

You can see the results above.

If you’d like to find out more or back the librarians, there are three things that you can do:

  1. Sign the petition to the Prime Minister asking for the decision to cut the number of staff by nearly half at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Defend-libraries/.
  2. Write to David Lammy MP, Minister of State for the Arts, Department of Culture Media and Sport, Department for Culture Media & Sport, 2-4 Cockspur Street, London, SW1Y 5DH. Your letter should refer specifically to the failure of Hampshire County Council to provide a public library service as required of them under the Act of 1964. The letter should call upon Mr Lammy to obtain such information as is necessary to perform his duty of supervision of the library service and act accordingly.
  3. Find out more about the situation of our libraries, by visiting http://www.goodlibraryguide.com and searching for ‘Hampshire’.
Categories
David Cameron

Letter to Dave

Much to our surprise, Michaela and I recently received a letter from David Cameron asking us to join the Conservative Party.

In it he claimed, rather improbably, that the Conservatives would have a relationship with the U.S. that was ‘not slavish’ – although given Cameron’s record since becoming leader on every single foreign policy issue – including Iraq, the Lebanon and Trident – I can’t really see what makes him believe this.

My response was as follows:

Dear David,

Thank you for your letter inviting me to join you in the Conservative Party.

I’m afraid I won’t be joining you though.

Since becoming leader of the Conservatives, you’ve shown consistently poor judgement on foreign affairs, especially on Iraq.

And the Conservative record locally shows you can’t be trusted on the environment and the NHS.

I’m pleased you are now opposed to ID cards. I just wish your party had opposed them right from the start.

There’s still only one party that I can trust on the environment, the NHS, foreign affairs and protecting civil liberties. So I’m sticking with Ming and the Liberal Democrats.

Yours sincerely,

Martin Tod (signature)

Categories
Health NHS RHCH

Enough is Enough – fairer funding for Winchester’s NHS

Martin Tod and the Liberal Democrats backed the recent demonstration against cuts at the hospital

Earlier today, after scrapping plans to attend Lib Dem conference in Harrogate, I joined NHS staff, Liberal Democrat councillors and campaigners in a rally at the Royal Hampshire County Hospital in Romsey Road, before walking with them to the Butter Cross, where local people backed the staff’s campaign and signed petitions supporting the NHS.

The problem is the formula – the so-called ‘York formula’ – used to decide how much of the NHS’s money we should get here in Winchester. Labour’s system of funding the NHS doesn’t give Winchester a fair share of the national NHS budget.

Mark has already met the Secretary of State for Health and the Strategic Health Authority to ask for fairer funding.

Every year we have seen the local hospital face cuts and budget pressure. It’s caused real problems for staff and patients. The hospital does a wonderful job but it’s made harder by the endless demand to save money. Each year doctors, nurses and other staff keep going despite the pressure.

Some changes make sense – allowing more short stays in hospital and sharing specialist skills with Southampton – but now “enough is enough”. The latest cuts and ward closures must be the end. We can’t allow any more cuts or services to go.

This is not a scare campaign – our hospital is still safe and will not close – but the government and the local health authority must be told that it just can’t be hit with more cuts in the next financial year. We need local people’s help to get this message across – that’s why we are also asking them to sign our ‘enough is enough’ petition.

You can sign our petition online at http://ourcampaign.org.uk/enoughisenough.

Categories
Environment Parking

Attack on Winchester’s air quality

Martin Tod, John Beveridge, Karen Barratt and Jim Wagner protest against the impact of the new Conservative parking plans on air quality

A depressing decision by the Conservatives at the council meeting on Wednesday… in essence, they’ve voted through parking proposals which could have been designed to increase congestion, increase CO2 emissions and decrease air quality in the city centre. Their plans combine a big hike in parking charges at the Park & Ride – dramatically reducing the saving that this represents vs. town centre parking – with the reintroduction of ‘first half hour free’ for on street town centre parking. This has the effect of:

  • Encouraging more people to drive to the centre – rather than using the Park & Ride
  • Encouraging an increased number of short trips into the centre – rather than fewer longer trips
  • Encouraging people to drive around looking for parking meters – rather than parking quickly

all of which will have a negative effect on congestion, emissions and air quality.

Their argument for this change is that it will help a subset of small businesses such as “locksmiths, dry cleaners and sandwich shops”. Quite aside from the complete lack of any thought about the impact of this change on the environment, it’s a pretty feeble argument economically too. Most businesses – whether small, medium or large – benefit from people spending longer in town and, if anything, the majority of Winchester’s businesses are likely to suffer as a result of these changes, rather than see any benefit.

Categories
CCTV Civil Liberties Crime

CCTV

Martin Tod visits CCTV Control Centre

Fascinating visit to the CCTV control centre today. Although, overall, Winchester has relatively low crime figures, that doesn’t make things any better for any individual who is the victim of crime, and CCTV is having a good effect in making the centre safer.

That said, the system is beginning to creak. There are too many trouble spots that are not covered by CCTV and, for technical reasons, it’s hard to extend it to cover areas outside the city centre. It’s been made clear to me during earlier visits around the city that there are still some areas which would benefit from CCTV that don’t have it.

It can also be difficult to link the system in with other CCTV systems, which could help make things safer for people late at night and make it easier for police to track criminals escaping from Winchester by car.

People have raised concerns about CCTV and civil liberties. As long as it is used, as it is currently, to spot crime, collect evidence of crime and direct the police ‘in hot pursuit’, I don’t think it poses much of a threat. Indeed, I would like to see Winchester’s CCTV system modernised.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t watch for (and oppose) some of the developments that are being put forward in other places. The Conservative Council in Ealing is planning to start using hidden cameras disguised as house bricks and tin cans, supposedly to watch for fly-tippers. The Labour Party is pushing for a national ID card and database which, if combined with face tracking technology (which, in turn, is being asked for by police chiefs), would enable CCTV cameras to track everyone as they went about their lawful business.

These new technologies, if unchecked, could mean that we end up with hidden cameras everywhere (rather than in areas at risk of crime as currently), tracking everyone simultaneously as they go about their business (which also can’t be done currently).

The critical thing is that we don’t lose sight of our objectives when using CCTV. If we’re using it to watch for and tackle crime – it’s fine. As soon as we go beyond that, it’s not.