In search of sunny optimism for the Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn

Today's Guardian has a wonderful piece by Alan Johnson headed 'Alan Johnson's Sgt Pepper pilgrimage' in which he remembers the album and revisits Liverpool. It would be very easy to dismiss it as nostalgia, but it taps into the topical and present day in unexpected ways.

What caught my eye was the following paragraph:


As Ian MacDonald said in Revolution in the Head, the greatest of all books about the band: 'Anyone unlucky enough not to have been aged between 14 and 30 during 1966-7 will never know the excitement of those years in popular culture. A sunny optimism pervaded everything and possibilities seemed limitless.'

Now I cannot claim to have been a Beatles fan at the time. I liked their music and, as people, they always held my attention. My first wife bought their albums, so I heard their songs regularly, my favourite from the moment I heard it was Eleanor Rigby and it remains so fifty years on. I was more into Joan Baez and folk, but whatever your musical tastes at the time, the words of Ian MacDonald were, and remain, true, especially the last sentence, which bears repeating:

'A sunny optimism pervaded everything and (the) possibilities seemed limitless'.

1966 was the year I moved from Wembley to South Harrow with my first wife, Tricia. We had married in 1965 and spent our first year together living with my maternal grandfather, my grandmother having died in 1960. I grew up with my grandparents, my mother unmarried until 1953, then starting a new family with my step-father, 'Uncle Jimmy'. Somehow I never saw myself fitting in, so I stayed with Nanna and Pop, as I called them.

Tricia and I both left school at fifteen and, thanks to Tricia's tenacity, saved enough money so we could put down a £300 deposit on a semi-detached house which cost us just over £3,000. In 1966, we were earning about £32 a week between us.

Today that seems eye-popping stuff, but it was still the same in 1975 when Susan and I bought our first house together in Mansfield with a similar deposit and for a few hundred pound more. Then, we were earning about £60 a week between us.

There were then schemes for low earners whereby the income tax relief came off the mortgage payments instead of being a tax allowance.

What we don't hear folk reminiscing about is how much it cost in the mid-1960s and into the 1980s to buy a TV, a washing machine or a car, to name just three 'luxury' items. TVs and washing machines were rented for about 35p a week (7/6d then).

The world was different then in many ways. I didn't know Nottingham until the early-1970s, but this photograph is dated August 1965 and comes from The Prestige Series Nottingham 2 by John Banks with photographs by G H F Atkins and published by Venture Publications in 2002. Sadly the book is out of print, but the occasional second-hand copy can be found. It is a truly wonderful collection of photographs showing Nottingham old trams, trolleybuses and buses. What makes them so good is the street scenes like the one above. August and most folk are wearing thick coats. How different to now.

To go with the music we had Harold Wilson, his 'The white heat of technology' speech a couple of years before, plus the prospect of what it offered; North Sea oil and, to cap it all, we won the World Cup at Wembley in 1966. Harold Wilson went up and down the country enthusing us with visions of a future offering more leisure and automation making live easier for all. 'Let's go with Labour' was the slogan.

Roy Jenkins is reviled by many, but I knew the man personally for a good few years, because I was a Labour city councillor living in Stechford, Birmingham. I did not agree with him over Vietnam, but when it came to social reform he led the charge, pushed along by a sea of great Labour politicans, names few remember today: Sydney Silverman, Fenner Brockway, Dick Crossman plus, of course, Barbara Castle, Derek Healey, Dick Crossman, Jenny Lee to name just a few.  As I saw somewhere recently, Harold Wilson stood on the shoulders of giants. Hanging was abolished, we got votes at 18, Homosexuality legalised, The Open University, so the list goes on. No wonder 'a sunny optimism pervaded everything and (the) possibilities seemed endless'.

I wish I could say 2017 feels full of sunny optimism. I want it to be, and I am beginning to think that Jeremy Corbyn might just have the makings of Harold Wilson MkII. Shame on me for doubting.

I still believe this general election is a mistake, and I am suspicious of media talk about the closing gap between Labour and the Conservatives in the polls. This election, like 2015, is all in the demographics: Facebook and Twitter etc belong to the young and the chattering classes. Oldies like me may do Facebook, but most seem to blog like me.

Us oldies are damned before opening our mouths as Mayite Brexiteers, when many of us are more left-wing and less accepting of austerity than the young who condemn us.

For the remainder of the campaign I'm going to promote sunny optimism. Here's my attempt at a logo. I'm sure someone can do better than me!

Council Tax exemptions data update

As regular readers of BeestonWeek will know I have a thing about council tax exempt properties, especially in relation to occupants in 'full-time education', generally referred to as 'student housing'.

My 'thing' relates to how too much student housing in any one area (eg. Lenton, Beeston) upsets the 'balance' of a street and the community it is part of. You have to look no further than electoral rolls for evidence of this fact. In turn this impacts on local shops, schools, house prices and local government revenue in the form of council tax income and any additional services as a result of the exemptions .

In February 2015 I Broxtowe Borough Council kindly provided me with data which I used to create a table of council tax exempt properties in the Borough by street and areas, plus a map of Beeston showing the density of council tax exempt properties by street (you can still see all this in my pages section to the right, where there are links).

At the end of 2016 I began the process of trying to update the data, but Broxtowe Borough Council refused me the data I requested. After I submitted a Freedom of Information request to Broxtowe Borough Council I was promised the data for mid-March 2017. I didn't chase it because by then I was in hospital having just had open heart surgery. When I did get onto it in April, there were clearly problems because the council officer who compiled the data in 2015 had left and what detailed data I was given was clearly inaccurate, so we arranged that I would have the data by the end of May (ie. about now).

In the event the data problems have continued, but I have found myself in contact with the person who has responsibility for compiling the data. After exchanging e-mails and on reflection we have agreed to compile detailed data about council tax exempt properties in Broxtowe for the end of September 2017. This has the advantage of coinciding with the beginning of the new academic year and the preparation of draft budgets for the next financial year.

As I have said on countless occasions this is not a party political issue as far as I am concerned. The fact that I am a Labour Party member does not prevent me from working with members of other political parties when it comes to council tax exempt properties. I believe a joint approach to this sensitive issue makes sense.

I was recently invited to write a contribution to the Beeston & District Civic Society Newsletter on the issue. I don't know whether it has been used, but I have just noticed an error on my part, brought about by me transposing two digits and, as a consequence, turning £590,000 in £950,000. The former is, according to a senior Broxtowe Borough Council officer in an e-mail to a borough councillor, 'The full council tax charge for Broxtowe residents in full time education in 2016/16 is around £590,000' (includes Borough, County, Police and Fire precepts).

Given that a 1p council tax charge produces c£53,000, then 11p of our charge goes to covering the lost council tax exemption income before any services are provided. The officer in question says 'The cost to (Broxtowe Borough Council) will be around £59,000'.

My numerical 'slip' may have been my mind thinking that in just a few years council tax exempt properties in Broxtowe will be costing council tax payers nearer £1,000,000.

I also know that this is not an issue Broxtowe borough councillors have investigated. Given the sums of money involved this is remiss of them. Even when they do see this information, as I know one councillor has, its significance seems to pass them by.

I am now extremely hopeful that the data I am working on with Broxtowe Borough Council will be shared with councillors and some way of putting the data in the public domain will be found which ensures a constructive dialogue takes place. Given the interest now being shown by Beeston & District Civic Society I hope they can be the mechanism by which this data reaches a wider audience.

A reader remembers Beeston and wonders?

I received an email today which read:

Dear Robert,

Mainly to say how I enjoy your observations and congratulate you on returning following major surgery, "ready for anything".

I'm a former resident of Beeston - over 50 years since I left - but enjoy reading about dear old Beeston, especially politically. You might be amused about my start in politics; way back, probably 1948/9.

I worked at Boots offices in Nottingham, with a day release to Boots College, Beeston Works. We had a mock election, and I ventured to be the Tory candidate - I was resoundingly beaten by the Labour candidate, which brought it home to me what were political leanings in the Beeston area.

Since then I've gone through Tory and recently Lib Dem phases, but seeing now how the polls are moving towards Labour, might even vote for them, even in this Lib Dem run area, with Tim Farron in charge.

One thing that surprises me about your online work is the absence of comments to what you say - why is this do you think?

Regards,

Douglas Worrall

I'd like to thank Douglas for his kind words and to respond to his question in the final paragraph.

The answer is I don't know. Some folk tell me they have tried to post comments without success, some come through in the form of emails like Doug's. A few come direct.

Beeston is like its neighbour Lenton. Both draw you in and hold you fast. 

The important thing is that we all vote. I toyed with the idea of a postal votes at the county council elections, being just nine weeks after my op, but I decided I would go in person, as I will Thursday week. I really will miss not taking numbers on polling day at the polling station near our home with Susan. I look forward to doing it again in 2019 at the Borough Council elections.

Doug, assuming you read this, thanks once again for your email, you seem an OK guy and I am sure you will vote wisely come the day. I hope it's for your local Labour Party candidate wherever you are.

Jeremy Corbyn draws attention to the elephant

I'm not a reader of The Independent but my attention was drawn to a story in the paper today (click here for link).

The Independent story said Corbyn made a good speech about terrorism, but it won't win him any support is the verdict. To quote:

His views on the causes of terrorism here are not new. Nor are they his alone. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, has said: "Our involvement in Iraq radicalised … a few among a generation who saw our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as being an attack upon Islam." Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, the former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said in a report for the Tories: "We need to recognise that a central element of foreign policy – the intervention in Iraq – has failed in its objectives so badly that the threat to this country is actually greater than it was before it began." David Cameron described this analysis as "a statement of fact".

The political establishment, with a few notable exceptions, and most of the media place the blame for the situation we are in with the terrorists. What Corbyn and others, like Baroness Manningham–Buller, point out is what most people know — as a state we have some responsibility and we should not be surprised if some of our enemies have chosen to become terrorists. I think their approach is wrong and attacking innocent people who and wherever they are has to be condemned. Corbyn understands this. To quote from his speech:

'Seeing the army on our own streets today is a stark reminder that the current approach has failed. So, I would like to take a moment to speak to our soldiers on the streets of Britain. You are doing your duty as you have done so many times before.

I want to assure you that, under my leadership, you will only be deployed abroad when there is a clear need and only when there is a plan and you have the resources to do your job to secure an outcome that delivers lasting peace'.

That is my commitment to our armed services. This is my commitment to our country. I want the solidarity, humanity and compassion that we have seen on the streets of Manchester this week to be the values that guide our government. There can be no love of country if there is neglect or disregard for its people'. 

It will be interesting to see how people react to Jeremy Corbyn's Manchester speech over the remaining days of the general election. He reflected the actions of Mancunians and we stand shoulder-to- shoulder with them, knowing it could be anywhere next. Mindless terrorism didn't stop us in the seventies and eighties when Northern Ireland was part of our everyday life. Security on the surface was much tighter then. Now the security services have other means of monitoring terrorists. I don't expect them to tell us what they are doing. That is counter-intuitive.

I pray and hope sensible voters will support and thank Jeremy Corbyn for drawing attention to the truth of the situation we are in and vote for him.

I really thought this election was madness. My head still does, but my heart is saying otherwise.

FOOTNOTE: The Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, has disowned Corbyn's speech. 

Labour Party manifesto on local government and democracy

From the Labour Party manifesto for the 2017 General Election two sections which matter to me:

Local communities

Councils deliver vital local services to our communities, but their budgets have been slashed by Conservative cuts. This has led to a deterioration of local services, from bin collection to road repair, and the loss of important community assets such as libraries, youth centres and women’s refuges.

Labour believes in devolving power to local communities but that requires the necessary funding follows. You cannot empower local government if you impoverish it.

A Labour government will give local government extra funding next year. We will initiate a review into reforming council tax and business rates and consider new options such as a land value tax, to ensure local government has sustainable funding for the long term.

Labour is the party of devolution and we believe in handing back power to communities. We will devolve powers over economic development, complete with the necessary funding.

Extending Democracy

A Labour government will establish a Constitutional Convention to examine and advise on reforming of the way Britain works at a fundamental level.

We will consult on its form and terms of reference and invite recommendations on extending democracy.

This is about where power and sovereignty lies – in politics, the economy, the justice system, and in our communities.

The Convention will look at extending democracy locally, regionally and nationally, considering the option of a more federalised country.

Our fundamental belief is that the Second Chamber should be democratically elected. In the interim period, we will seek to end the hereditary principle and reduce the size of the current House of Lords as part of a wider package of constitutional reform to address the growing democratic deficit across Britain.

We will extend the Freedom of Information Act to private companies that run public services.

We will reduce the voting age to 16. At 16, you are eligible to pay tax, get married or even join the army. You deserve a vote.

I hope a Labour government gives the job of chairing the proposed Constitutional Convention to Graham Allen. He has the credentials and commitment. I am assuming the Convention will be free to recommend extending the proportional voting system used in Scotland and Wales to England and the UK Parliament as well.

Graham Allen has argued the local government needs its 'a Magna Carta' to protect it from central government and I agree with him.

I am in no doubt that the quality of all our daily lives has been improved more by local councils than Westminster. The Labour Party has seen the aim of its structure as being to primarily elect MPs. I believe it should be to elect councillors and from this will come electing MPs.

Last week in two consecutive posts we received four 'Vote Labour' posters. We have yet to see a poster saying 'Vote Greg Marshall'. I rest my case. If Labour wants to win Broxtowe it has to do more to promote its greatest asset — a truly local candidate. 

Beeston should sell itself as a national walking centre

I have been walking around and through Beeston for more years than I realise. I first came here in 1975 with Susan, my wife, when she brought me from Mansfield to visit Nottingham University campus and Chilwell Vicarage, where she lodged for two years whilst attending Nottingham University in the late-1960s.

In 1979 we bought a house beside Lenton Recreation Ground and in the years which followed canal walks took us, among other places, to Beeston Lock and onto Attenborough. The great thing, even then about canal walking, was the fact that it was all on the flat. In other words, no hills and even in my thirties I liked that.

Forty years on and so much has changed, so much more to see and do. The Attenborough Nature Reserve Centre, Beeston Marina, Lakeside (close enough for Beeston to claim as one of its attractions) and in just over a month the Canalside Heritage Centre will open.

Recovering from open heart surgery (now eleven weeks ago) I have found myself using Beeston Lock as a starting point for walks. Yesterday was one such day.

Until six months ago I would have walked to Beeston Lock, but right now if I walked from the top of Wollaton Road, where I live, I would get no further than the Lock, so I have been driving and parking on Canalside, as I did yesterday (there is a map at the end of this post showing route).

Click on the pictures to enlarge. They follow the direction of my walk.

Walking from Beeston Lock towards Beeston Marina with the River Trent beside you.

One of the odder sights is this outdoor launderette at Beeston Marina.

Just past the Marina on the right-hand side of the footpath you see this information board, where you turn right and walk away from the River Trent.

A lovely view of Beeston Pond to your right.

The path has Beeston Pond to the right and The Delta to the left. Ahead of you to the Meadow Lane railway foot crossing.

This glorious reed bed forms part of The Delta and can be seen from the left of the footpath.

The Meadow Lane railway foot crossing which Network Rail wants to close. Lots of local folk and users have registered their objections to the proposal. Network Rail say the crossing is dangerous.

These two photographs show that few foot crossings can have such a clear view of oncoming trains as this one. Above is the view towards Beeston Station and below is the view towards Attenborough Station.

There is something primeval about this rotting tree beside the footpath away from the crossing towards Attenborough village.

The footpath towards Attenborough has a spur to the left towards what is Meadow Lane.

This is the clearest patch of open ground on the entire walk and...

...leads you onto to yet another footpath with water on either side.

On the west side of the path there is a clearing and a bench, where you can sit and look across the main pond towards Ratcliffe Power Station.

Where the main pond meets the River Trent there is this footbridge. When there has been a lot of rain it overflows into the Trent.

The bridge provides a pleasant place to stand and view the Trent.

On the day I was there, water from the main pond was roaring into the Trent.

One of the many directional signs you will find as you walk beside the Trent and around the Attenborough Nature Reserve. Notice this one points you to Meadow Lane, where this walk has come from.

Across the Trent at this point, the chalets on the opposite bank are actually in the City of Nottingham. You are about as far away as you can get from the city centre. At this point you are heading back towards Beeston Lock, which is about then minutes away.

We walked passed the Beeston Lock cottage at the beginning of the walk, but I wanted to use this photo to mark what is, in effect, the end of the walk.

This banner is fixed to wall of the new Canalside Heritage Centre. The building looks far from ready, but likes so many building projects the last bit happens in rush.

As I walked away from the lock and back down Canalside towards my car I saw another banner. This time advertising the Attenborough, Beeston & Chilwell Art Trail which takes place over the weekend 3–4 June 2017.

I hope this little map helps. I think the new Canalside Heritage Centre has great potential as a walking centre, from where you can go off in lots of different directions. The list of potential walks is considerable. For some time I have had a draft walking map centred on Beeston Lock in hand, but I have some walks yet to do.

We really do fail to appreciate what we have around us and this little walk I did today is a good example of this fact.

I also wonder if an occasional ferry (say the 1st weekend in every month) could link the two banks of the Trent so that you could visit Clifton Woods?

This area has great potential and could be linked in with other heritage/nature sites near by (Bramcote church tower, Nottingham Canal Nature Reserve, Wollaton Dovecote, Wollaton Hall & Park, Dunkirk Pond, Highfields Park, Lakeside, Toton Park & Mill site, Barton's vintage bus collection, Hurts, plus, of course, Beeston and Stapleford's numerous blue plaque locations). I rest my case, knowing I have left other locations out.

Urban walking opportunities get little attention and what we have in and around Beeston I would rank as being of national significance because it is so varied (the annual Heritage Open Days weekend in September demonstrate this fact).

The erosion of the Labour vote in Broxtowe does not look good for 8th June

The tables below are quite telling and suggest that for Labour to win they need a low poll.

Click on a table to enlarge.

In the four general elections from 2001 to 2015 the percentage turnout increased from 68.5% to 74.4%, which is good news. The bad news is that the Labour Party's vote fell from 23,636 in 2001 to 19,676 in 2015.

The Green Party and UKIP did not contest the 2001 General Election in Broxtowe (hence the zero). The Conservative vote went up in every election, as did the Liberal for three elections until the party's vote collapsed 2015.

I heard Nick Palmer say more than once that he lost because electors voted for the Green Party. The truth is a little different. He lost because more people voted.

Perhaps what surprises me most is that the no. of electors fell from c73,690 in 2001 to c71,828 in 2015. It will be interesting to see the size of the 2017 electorate, given the number of students now living Beeston. Based on my own experience, which I have blogged about, Broxtowe Borough Council does not make it easy to register as a voter, nor is it ever keen to share electoral information (eg. the no. of voters living in each ward and polling districts).

Students attending Nottingham University, based on my experience of being actively involved in Dunkirk and Lenton ward in Nottingham, are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour. It has been their failure to vote in city council elections which has kept the ward Labour. In other words if students living in Beeston have managed to register as voters, the chances are they won't be voting for Greg Marshall.

Like it or not there has been a erosion of the Labour vote in Broxtowe since 2001 and I am working on tables using data from borough and county council elections to see if the trend in general elections has been mirrored in local elections. The above table is an attempt to match county council ward results with the Broxtowe constituency and not the Borough, so I have excluded Eastwood and the Beauvale/Greasley ward (which includes Brinsley). It shows Labour's low point in the five county council elections between 2001 and 2017 as being in 2009 — the year before the 2010 general election. The evidence suggests that the party which gets most votes in the county council elections wins the general election, so you understand why Labour entered the 2015 election on a high, not that I thought the optimism was well founded and said as much when I blogged in December 2014 about the Toton by-election result. I hope I'm wrong.

Broxtowe Borough Council is being its usual awkward self, not providing data from the county council election results it could compile for me in five minutes at most (ie. the actual number of electors in Broxtowe by county wards and by polling districts in Bramcote & Beeston North ward). I asked for it a week ago. It seems they are 'very busy' registering voters (I wonder how many will share my experience of being refused registration  by Broxtowe Borough Council and having to appeal?).

Perhaps Greg Marshall has to follow Theresa May's example and pretend to be a loser. That as good a candidate as he is, he needs every Broxtowe vote he can get and not just Labour die-hards. He needs to have different messages for different parts of the constituency. In the county council election just gone Steve Carr used this tactic to good effect and I admit to being full of admiration for him and what he achieved.

Theresa May knows that the worst thing that can happen as far as she and the Conservatives are concerned is a low turnout. Historic evidence suggests that the Labour Party should focus on identifying its core vote, working it and praying for a low turnout.

When I was younger and running elections I used to identify the core vote early, then work it. I was the view that I could win any local election with 10% of the vote as Labour by election day. As far those firmly against Labour were concerned there was no election taking place. I simply didn't contact them and as a strategy it worked. I am pretty sure the Conservatives in Broxtowe are doing this. 

In the county council election my wife and I had to pick a window poster for Ellie Winfield up from the Labour Party stall on Beeston High Road. For the 2015 borough council election we had to make our own. By now every Labour Party member in Broxtowe should have been taken a window poster. We're still waiting.

On county council election day only Steve Carr was outside the polling station in Bramcote & Beeston North ward where we went to vote. No one from Labour was there. If you can't distribute posters to your members or have tellers at every polling station then you get some inkling why things are as they are.

Finally, saying this in private doesn't seem to work or get any acknowledgement, and your enemies will delight in your shortcomings, saying nothing — hence this blog as a critical friend.