Sandwell Labour now wants free schools

I don’t think Labour quite get it, the coalition Government introduced free schools and new academies to be independent of local Authorities

What does Sandwell Labour do ? It has a little meeting and backs plans for a proposed Girls school academy in Oldbury

One minor little problem, just a tiny little problem,  they have no authority to approve or turn down the request, that sits with the secretary of state and is based on plans submitted for approval.

Once again free schools and academies are outside the control of local authorities        

Sandwell Tory said

Sandwell has sadly been at the bottom of national school league tables for more years than I can remember, Perhaps Sandwell Labour are finally agreeing with us that Free schools and Academies are the best way forward in Sandwell   

Take a look

http://www.halesowennews.co.uk/news/9429558.Sandwell_Conservatives_ridicule_Labour_over_Oldbury_free_school_vote/

Sandwell Education gets better

We are only in power for less than 2 years but already education achievement in Sandwell is improving but that is still not enough, we are also looking in great detail about more Free schools and new Academies aimed at dragging up achievement rates even higher, but most of all we welcome the news of the proposed Girls School and the other Free Schools and Academies in the borough following the announcements made on other pages in this blog.

Sandwell Tory said

Sandwell’s School achievements will get better still and bring with it higher paid jobs as soon as we can implement the new curriculum's, so watch these pages there's even more announcements to come       

Labour’s giving it all away

The latest You Gov poll tells it all, Almost 60% of the sample says David Cameron was right to veto the EU treaty and the majority of people trust him has a leader.

perhaps it somthing to do with the mess Labour left us with and their only policy so far is to

spend too much too quickly, ( borrowed of course )

a wonderful policy were we cure a debt crisis by having a bigger debt   

What more can you say ?    

Euro mania part 2

The Euro crisis in a few words

Germany is bailing out most of the Euro countries with money this is placing massive strains on Germany's economy.

Labour signed up to help them financially a few days after the General Election

(Remember when Brown would not go?)

We told Europe some months ago there would be no more money from the UK 

There was a major capitalisation last week with rumours of Euro banks in problems

Germany and France may lose their AAA rating which will make their borrowing rates go up 

( just like Greece, Italy, Portugal & Ireland )

2 weeks ago Ireland had a budget in which VAT went up to 23% and all benefits were cut, worst still it now seems Ireland sent its budget to Germany for approval before it told its people

  

Now we come to the UK

London is the biggest finance centre in the world, dealing with stocks, money and commodities from all nations

It produces about 10% of the UK's GDP we make money from most other countries in the world 

It keeps about 1 Million people in work and jobs

Europe wanted a chunk of our finance market (With the taxes and controls that go with it)

We said No way, Europe didn't like it

Even now the money markets do not seem to have any confidence in Europe's ability to put its finance in order and borrowing rates for some Euro countries went up again Friday making some debts un-payable

Labours comments are to be expected

Red Ed's been on TV saying we have done it wrong, this is coming from the Labour team who

Spent all the money?

Labour gave away our EU rebate , hard won by Maggie?

Perhaps Labour want us to give away money and jobs like they did ???

But let’s look at possible threats

Ireland has to ask German approval for its budget, how many other countries have to ask for German approval we just don’t know

It now transpires the Germans & French had already got a plan for the Euro without any UK involvement

There are stories of the Germans & French ganging up to force the UK into a corner

And what for?   The Euro is a currency that has gobbled up billions in £ & $ but what has this spending got them, Greece, Spain and now Italy are considered financial basket cases.

But there’s more

A quick look at the international news (Google it yourself) shows unanimously

Europe is being classed as a financial mess.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/11/business/awakening-in-the-glow-of-a-bloomberg-terminal.html?_r=1&ref=world

All last week, the musings of the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and other European leaders put the markets on edge.

This is a short time line of what happened on the 8^th & 9^th December 2011 from the NY Times  take a look your self

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/global/european-debt-crisis-tracker.html?ref=europeansovereigndebtcrisis

8^th Dec. Mariano Rajoy, Spain's incoming prime minister, stated support for the Euro zone.

9^th Dec. Portugal’s economy figures released,  its Economy shrank again .

9^th Dec. Yields on Italian bonds rose to almost 7% the second time in a month.

9^th Dec. Former Prime Minister George Papandreou said the European Union had done “too little too late”.

9^th Dec. Chancellor Angela Merkel said the summit meeting will result in increased credibility for the euro zone.

Yet only a little time later in the day

9^th Dec. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the three largest banks in France.

What a stoke of confidence in France?

Sandwell Tory said

What is Germany’s problem? It simply seems there are a number of countries which should not be in the Euro and they are bank rolling these basket cases and want UK money to throw down the hole of despair.

Anyone could get an agreement with Europe by giving our jobs and money away, but we will continue to stand up for our people’s jobs and are putting Britain first.

This mess is not over yet

Someone, much, much better than I will ever be, once said

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

  

See also

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2011/1209/Germany-s-Merkel-Will-she-save-the-euro-or-seal-its-demise

Or from Australia

http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/eu-pushes-ahead-with-fiscal-union-uk-isolated-20111210-1ooam.html

Sandwell beats other Authorities

I see Sandwell are leading other authorities by miles, this time its spending but its not spending on schools or roads or the elderly, oh no

Its spent £12.5 Million on Agency workers

Yes Agency Workers?

While making their own staff redundant?

What's going on in Sandwell?

I see one Sandwell councillor has said it’s an appalling waste of money and Sandwell should get their house in order.

Sandwell Labour have been blaming Tory Cut’s for the redundancies, How can Sandwell justify that spending while sacking its staff? why not retrain them?

Will someone help me with my maths?

The Government asked Sandwell to save about (£25-30M) per year,                       

Sandwell rushes off and spends £12.5Million on agency staff.   
                                                       
Then starts to make its own staff redundant

Authority agency spend	2009/10	2010-11
Sandwell	£9.6M	£12.5M
Wolverhampton	£4.9M	£5.6M
Dudley	£4.1M	£4.7M
Staffordshire	£4.2M	£2.8M
Walsall	£8.4M	£7.6M
South staffs	£167,454	£216,834
Lichfield	£291,027	£311,190

Sandwell has an estimated pot of £9.7Million to cover redundancy costs (see below)

 A press report on Sandwell based on redundancy costs

Council bosses have set aside £4 million cash pot and have been given permission to borrow a further £5.7m from the Government

 http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/01/25/massive-bill-as-axe-falls-on-sandwell-council-jobs/#ixzz1fUZJPHmu

And also take a look at

E&S    3^rd Dec 2011  page 6 Midland Councils spend £35 Million

Is it a Labour policy not to have a policy?

So far all we’ve had from Labour is there plan to get out of their debt crisis is to have more debt.

(I’m very impressed at that one)

Then we have a robotic Labour leader in a time warp

It’s very easy to moan and say we wouldn’t do it that way, but when you ask “what you would do then”? the silence tells a lot.

Labour seem to have forgotten that everyone is the managing director of their own personal finances and I feel there cannot be one person left in the UK who is not aware that Labour went on a spending binge of epic proportions. (see my comments on the Public below) 

This with the European socialists and the Yanks also having a good spend all funded by the banks lending to what now seems anyone with a smile on their face, has taken us back to the 1930’s.

Postal Voting Changes

We are introducing changes to the postal voting system to tighten up on election fraud just a few years after a leading judge said our postal voting election system had led to levels of fraud that would disgrace a banana republic

Sandwell Tory said

These changes are set to come in early 2012 and will require people wanting a postal vote to provide their date of birth and National Insurance number and proof of ID

Red Ed’s déjà vu moment

Take a look and listen to these answers to a ITV reporters questions.

 From the leader of Her Majesty's Opposition 
on such a serious subject  

Have Labour lost the plot ?

Did he lose the script ?

Tell me one more time?

 you could not make this up?

These were Ed's words a few months ago

Answers on a post card please, Ho Ho Ho

Sandwell Tory said

Please do not replace Ed, since the Two Ronnies finished there’s not much comedy on TV

I wonder if we could have  "The Two Ed’s are better than one show" ?  

see also

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jul/01/ed-miliband-interviewer-shame-strike-soundbites?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487



The Public

What would you do with £72Million and approximately £2Million a year there after?

Build 6 swimming pools for the people of Sandwell perhaps? One for each town?

Replace most of the schools?

Build approximately 1000 homes, enough homes to almost remove the waiting list?

Put central heating into 24,000 homes? Or rewire 36,000 homes perhaps?

Or would you re-roof 18,000 homes making them more energy efficient and cheaper to run?

or would you use the money to help industry in Sandwell, to produce jobs for the people?

Or open the public ????????

Sandwell Tory said  “what would you do?”

See more

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/11/24/the-public-makes-58k-but-costs-hit-2-29m/

Chicken’s teeth

The bond markets are voting with their feet giving interest rates to Italy of over 7%. Spain and Portugal have similar problems and now the people are voting with their feet as well as a number of European countries all seem to have a problem with socialism.

Spain has just shown the back door to the socialists in an election of epic implications and proportions

Italy has its technocrat government and I have to wonder who else will be next to realise It’s easy to spend someone else’s money it’s hard to pay it back.

I further wonder when the people will start to realise that it seems even the bank crisis was just one little gear in a socialist economic engine that was overheating years before the banking crash, which gave the illusion of economic growth at the expense of tomorrow when the debt payments start and  the fuel for this engine was borrowed money

I have to ask are we watching the end of a socialist European experiment called the Euro and will socialists in Europe be as rare as chicken’s teeth?   

Euro mania

What going on with the Euro?

It’s basically simple they have spent money they haven’t got and now find they can’t afford to pay the debt interest instalments.

The UK is in a better position but sadly not much better, as we also have a major debt problem, which was a nice little parting thank you from the last Labour administration.

Our UK debt is currently being paid back to the tune of about £120Million per day, that’s the same as saying if we had no debt we could build a new hospital every day of the year, we are paying more in Labours daily debt interest payments than we do on our defence or schools.

Labours solution was to say we are cutting too fast and too deep a nice little phrase which caught on in the press, they also said we should spend more money.

The trouble is Greece, Italy and others did follow that route and their debts continued to rise to the point we are now at.

If debt got you into the problem how can more debt solve the problem?

We are better placed than most of the Euro countries and the USA simply due to the following  

The first nine months of this year, the UK economy has grown at the same speed as the US economy – despite the latter’s massive fiscal stimulus. ( the USA pumped in $Billions)

Since the general election, the UK private sector has created over half a million extra jobs

Yet the government in Greece is now finding problems to raise enough money to pay the wages of its public sector workers.

Even though Labour gave away our veto on bailouts and Labour signed up the UK up to a Euro bailout mechanism fund

 we have said

 No UK contribution to the Eurozone bailout.

 No IMF funding specifically for the Eurozone bailout.

We will protect Britain and if we had not had a credible plan 18months ago to rescue our economy, we would have been in the same firing line as Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Spain & Italy are now in.

We will also protect Britain’s interests in Europe strangely enough this approach now seems to be grabbing cross party support

Sandwell Tory said we can always follow Labours spend, spend, spend and go the same way as the other countries

More help for Sandwell Small business’s

Once again we listen to the people who know what going on and help produce jobs for the people of Sandwell.

This time its small business loans, sometimes a shop or small company may only need a small sum to bide them over a problem or so they may buy new stock or equipment.

Often it's a small investment that can get those businesses going, create the jobs, kick-start the innovation and exports that we need. But these are the very loans that you simply can't get without personal guarantees, like putting up your house - and even then the banks might say no.

This has got to change - and we're going to use the Regional Growth Fund to help change it.

Lord Heseltine has brokered a ground-breaking deal with two major High Street banks where the government will provide £95 million of new Regional Growth Fund money for small and medium sized businesses (SMEs). These two banks will administer the scheme and provide new lending, unlocking a total of £500 million of new investment for SMEs.
Sandwell Tory said
By using high street banks like this we will give support to those SMEs that can't access big commercial funding and we will help our area

Sandwell Localism

One of the strangest things to come out lately is a thing called Localism

There are a lot of people who have stated that localism is bad for Sandwell, let’s take a look, to see what it’s all about

Localism means just that, local people and the consultation process, we’ve all seen instances where consultation to a planning application or change of bus route was an A4 leaflet, with a very small font,  posted on a lamp post about 8 foot in the air.

That approach to consultation was highlighted in the comedy  “Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy “ a program from the 1970’s, which went along the lines that Earths impending doom relied on the fact that the notice of Earth’s demolition had been posted on a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri 3.5 light years away and they had not received a single complaint. (Watch it on You tube)

How will localism affect you?  

Regional special strategies have gone.

Top down, you will have this development has gone

Town Centre changes will have to go to the public for their acceptance

It’s quite simple if someone wishes to build 50 three storey houses on a ½ acre of ground by your home, it’s proposed you will have the legal right to call for a referendum

Developers and councils will have to work with local communities to get an agreement

Councils will also have an incentive to build more social housing

Sandwell Tory said

I feel the people will love it, as it gives control of development to the people, as for the politicians it will force them to conduct consultation and work to the peoples wants.

Take a look at West Bromwich; I have to ask if we had the Localism bill in 1970 would our main town look much different? After all in the last 40 years we’re now on our 3^rd Police station, our 2^nd Bus station, our 2^nd College, a three screen cinema which closed, a gala swimming baths which closed, with a 10 year promise of a new one, strangely enough the new Police station and College have no staff car parks, but we have got a £70Million arts centre which is internationally famous.

I welcome the Localism Bill the quicker the better   

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/planningandbuilding/draftframework

More Sandwell Cuts?

Latest reports show that Sandwell Labour is cutting £241,000 from its Youth services.

Immediately this could be considered a very sad move under the economic climate, but a further look shows that Labour are looking to spend £0.5 Million on new electric cars and a further fortune on replacement cars for the Mayor

Its only 30 years ago councillors went to council on the bus

Sandwell Tory said

You could not make this up

E&S p10    27:10:2011  

The Boys are coming home

The Boys are coming home

We owe every last one of these lads and lasses every thanks we can give that includes not only the regulars but the territorial’s who also saw active service.

As a mark of respect we should line the streets in thanks

Sandwell Tory said

We kept our promise to bring them home from Teflon’s war

My special thanks go to a Regular and a TA officer you know who you are, I owe you a pint, we all do  

http://www.expressandstar.com/news/2011/10/22/homecoming-parade-for-black-country-soldiers/

Labour wants your home

Labour seem to have a Policy

Let’s get this right, you work hard, you save hard, if you’re lucky you get a deposit for a home and for the next 20 odd years you pay off a mortgage.

You have kids and work some more then one day when your own hair is grey your kids tell you they are leaving home and off into the big wide world, after 30 odd years of slog, your back bedroom is empty.

Then along comes a report on “Hoarding of Housing” which it seems Labour are supporting and according to the press report a Labour MP sponsored the report's launch in a Commons hospitality room

This housing report goes on to say that 25 million bedrooms are empty in England's homes, it also states that 51.5% of over-65s live in homes with two or more bedrooms that they do not need.

.

Take a look and read more

 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2050800/Over-60-bedroom-blockers-taxed-homes.html

Sandwell Tory said 

So Labour has apparently endorsed a report calling for higher council tax on single people, and higher taxes on family homes, I firmly believe people should not be taxed or bullied out of their homes, having worked hard and paid their taxes all their lives.

Our Government is working with families to build more homes and increase choice. This is another kick in the teeth to the baby boomers who are still getting over Labours massive tax on their pensions and from a Party that on average doubled council tax when in office

I wonder if Sandwell Labour will state their opinions????