Sandy 4 St Albans

Sandy Walkington is the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Spokesperson for St Albans

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“Should FCC lose its franchise?” – Public Meeting 16th March

March 9th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

I am still being inundated daily with e-mails and telephone calls about continued erratic performance from First Capital Connect.  And their mean and overly complex compensation offer is leaving people frustrated and angry.

The mechanism exists for rail franchises to be handed back if franchisees fail to deliver the promised service.  FCC seems to have had a charmed life in hanging on to its lucrative monopoly, it is time that passengers had their say.

Norman PictureSo we are calling a public meeting for next Tuesday 16 March to discuss whether FCC should now lose their franchise.  The main speaker will be my friend Norman Baker MP, Liberal Democrat Transport Spokesman in the House of Commons.  The meeting will take place at Marlborough Road Methodist Church in the centre of the city (see directions here) and starts at 7.00 pm with doors opening at 6.30 pm – so do put the date in your diary!

When I successfully proposed my motion on rail franchises at last autumn’s Liberal Democrat conference, Norman summed up the debate.  The Daily Mail has described him as having ‘consistently been a thorn in the Government’s side’. In 2001 he was named “Inquisitor of the Year” in the Zurich/Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards and, in February 2002, he won the Channel 4 Opposition MP of the Year Award.

It’s going to be a lively meeting, I hope to see you there.

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Here’s to well-run community pubs

March 5th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

I joined CAMRA when I was at university in the 1970s and I remember campaigning for real beer in college bars.  I even printed the first real beer guide for Cambridgeshire.  Little did I know then that CAMRA had been founded in St Albans and that St Albans was to be such a mecca for beer drinkers. 2010_0305StAHalfMarathonPoolC0006

So today I was pleased to make a special visit to St Albans-based CAMRA (The Campaign for Real Ale) in Hatfield Road to sign the  Beer Drinkers’ and Pub Goers’ Charter.  The picture shows me with Emily Ryans and Jenni Hollis of CAMRA.

The CAMRA Charter champions well-run community pubs, the rebalancing of alcohol taxation to support beer and pubs, the reform of the beer tie to deliver a fair deal for consumers, and the role of well-run pubs as part of the solution to alcohol misuse.

Well-run pubs can be a bedrock of community life – they are part of the solution to the problem of alcohol misuse and not part of the problem.  They deserve our support.

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What’s the difference between the Conservative party and a banana republic?

March 4th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

The Michael Ashcroft story is truly extraordinary and there must be more to come.

We all know that whoever wins the election will have to put up taxes and cut expenditure in order to bring the UK economy back into balance.  The only questions are timing; how much comes from cuts and where they fall; and then how and on whom tax rises are levied.

A voter in Colney Heath asked me earlier this week what I was promising to her, and I said that in all honesty whoever wins will be asking for blood, sweat, toil and tears until we turn round the catastrophic state of the economy. We’ve just got to make sure that the pain is shared on the fairest possible basis.  People need to know that we are all in it together.  That especially means politicians, the people who helped create this mess.

The revelation by Lord Ashcroft, the largest Conservative donor, that he is a “non-dom” for tax purposes and so will largely not share the pain leaves a pretty sour taste in the mouth.  The subsequent admission by William Hague that he knew about this for some months is truly breath-taking, since he and other Conservative front-benchers continued to spin the line that Lord Ashcroft had met all his tax obligations.

As Lib Dem MP Chris Huhne has said, “Anyone who wants to pass laws in this country should pay this country’s full taxes and not hide behind the special offshore status of non-doms. Non-doms have to tell the taxman that their first allegiance is to another country. No-one should be a British lawmaker whose first allegiance is not to Britain.

It is hard to know how much tax Lord Ashcroft has managed to dodge.  But it clearly must be many millions of pounds over the ten year period given what we know about the extent of his wealth.

This is the man who has poured money into Britain’s most marginal seats in a blatant attempt to buy votes.  Banana republics and the Conservative Party seem to have a lot in common.

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Michael Foot and the role of oratory in modern politics

March 4th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

Michael Foot was Labour leader when I first stood in St Albans.  In electoral terms he was a disaster, one opinion poll just before polling day even put the Liberal-SDP Alliance ahead of Labour, and in the event they limped in only a couple of points ahead.

His great parliamentary speeches preceded televising of Commons proceedings and although I worked in the House in the late 1970s, I never heard him speak in the Chamber.

But many years later I was a guest at the Fabian Society 100th Anniversary Dinner where then opposition leader Tony Blair and Peter Hain were supporting acts to Foot and Barbara Castle.  Blair and Hain made the staccato, verbless, soundbite speeches demanded by modern media.

Foot and Castle were a revelation to me.  Their oratory swooped and soared, great cadences, building sentence upon sentence.  It was like listening to great poets or medieval storytellers.  It was inspiring.

The only person I have heard come close in current times is Barack Obama – and even now the oratory is being crushed out of him by the weight of office.

We are going to need good narrative to take us through the blood, sweat, toil and tears of the next decade.  Perhaps we could relearn a thing or two from Michael Foot and his generation.

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Climate change leadership in “The Last Parliament”

March 1st, 2010 · Sandy's blog

I have just attended a most interesting afternoon discussing climate change at the invitation of the Green Alliance think tank.  They have invited small groups of candidates (about 25 in all) from the three main parties, whom they have identified as having a real chance of winning and who have shown a consistent interest in green issues.  We have been guinea pigs in a programme to ensure that new MPs are up to speed with all the current issues and best placed to exert an influence if elected.

Partners in the exercise are Ashridge Business School and the Tellus Mater Foundation.

The session opened with Professor Sir Brian Hoskins of Reading University and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) bringing us up to speed on the latest science.  Quite simply the fact of global warming and the contribution of man-made carbon emissions is incontrovertible, whatever the climate change deniers try to say.

And then a very stimulating session with Simon Hughes MP (the Lib Dem spokesman on these matters), Stephen Hale (Director of the Green Alliance), and Bryony Worthington (Director of Sandbag, a campaigning organisation focused on emissions trading).

Two nuggets really hit me.

First, that “decarbonisation” of power generation not only deals with the largest single source of carbon emissions but also helps tackle emissions from domestic transport (by substituting electric cars and electric trains) and from domestic heating too – respectively the second and fourth largest sources of carbon emissions in the UK.

Second, that China is beginning to get it and if it starts to invest in green technologies and threaten to get a lead in the new industrial revolution which is needed, this should galvanise both our own government and more importantly the USA.  A “space race” in pioneering and marketing renewable technologies could be just what we need.

We are going to need to see local, bottom-up initiatives such as St Albans Transition.  And top-down legislative action.

The new Parliament to be elected this year is being described as “The Last Parliament” in terms of taking the necessary measures to tackle carbon emissions.  That is if we are to see a peak in global carbon emissions in 2020 and then a decline, the path recommended by the IPCC.  I hope I will be able to play a role in promoting the necessary measures to deliver this.

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Old Albanians and young rugby players

March 1st, 2010 · Sandy's blog

St Albans seeks to be “Hertfordshire’s premier community.”   The Old Albanians Rugby Club can justifiably be described as Hertfordshire’s premier rugby club.

2010_0223StAHalfMarathonPoolC0001I always enjoy visiting the magnificent new pavilion at Woollams for lunches or dinners.  Recently I was a guest of Geraint John at the annual lunch to celebrate the Mini and Junior rugby programme of the club, held before the OA’s dished out a 34-15 thumping of great Hertfordshire rivals Bishops Stortford.

The St Albans forwards are pretty fearsome – you only need to see the team photo to realise that!  My own snatched picture from the pavilion balcony captures one of the moments when the visitors’ backs seized the initiative and are on the verge of scoring their first try, before the OAs asserted their dominance over the rest of the game.

The statistics for the Juniors and Minis are truly impressive.  500 local families are involved, parents and children.  I am told by Brian Clark of the club that there are about 450 “minis” – ie under-12, and 300 juniors – ie under 17.  Between 80 and 90 percent of them turn out each week, supported by 150 volunteers.

It is truly local and of course captures enthusiastic children from all the local schools, even if the roots of the club are in St Albans School itself.  More information can be found on the www.oajrfc.com website here.

At a time when there is so much concern about growing obesity rates and diminution of sports opportunities in schools, it’s great to see this centre of excellence right here in our own community.

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God and the Liberal Democrats

February 28th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

“The liberal deviseth liberal things, and by liberal things shall he stand.”

It must be true – it’s in the bible.  Isaiah chapter 32, verse 8 to be exact.

The New English Bible has a different translation from the original Hebrew  – “The man of noble mind forms noble designs and stands firm in his nobility.”

I am of course very happy to have theological affirmation that it is indeed a noble undertaking to be a Liberal.

I have scoured the bible from end to end and find no reference to Conservatives.  As for Labour, we know that the lilies of the field were praised for not going there, “neither should they spin.”

It certainly makes you think.

[Read more →]

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It’s a two pancake race here

February 16th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

Pancake raceTrying to explain to Julie from France and Markus from Germany the ancient tradition of pancake racing was quite amusing.

Given the soggy and bleak weather conditions, I could only admire the participants as they ran up and down in front of the Old Town Hall.

As well as a “Roman Catholic priest” in full soutane, there were some brightly clad Grove House pancake flippers with the colour pink much in evidence.  Also good to see former mayor Alison Steer.

Perhaps Gordon Brown should have proposed a new voting system based on pancake racing? – crepe flip-flops rather than the policy kind?

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How green are my Tories – not

February 16th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

Why am I not surprised that the list published by the Tories today of ‘Ten reasons to vote Conservative’ did not include any reference to the environment or climate change?

So much for David Cameron’s claim that he has ‘sought to push the environment up to the top of the political agenda.’

It follows the recent revelation that reducing Britain’s carbon footprint was at the bottom of Tory parliamentary candidates’ priorities.

Mr Cameron has done his photoshoot with huskies, now it seems to be back to politics as usual.

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London Colney by-election result

February 15th, 2010 · Sandy's blog

St Albans Labour Party has been trumpeting their narrow 32 vote margin in holding their London Colney parish council seat as the greatest news since the second coming.  Of course their candidate Maria Aguado is to be congratulated on her victory.  But the real news was the trouncing of the BNP and the barnstorming performance by LibDem first-time candidate Vibs Nazeri.

It was the last opportunity for real voting anywhere in the St Albans constituency before the imminent General Election.  Leaving aside the BNP, both Labour and particularly the Conservatives saw their vote share fall compared with the huge surge in support for the Liberal Democrats.

As recently as 2008, district councillor Dave Winstone, the Conservative candidate on Thursday, polled 48 percent of the vote to win London Colney village in the last district election.  On Thursday he came in third place, with his 181 votes representing a dramatically reduced 27 percent vote share.  It’s yet more evidence of the damage done to the St Albans Conservative Party by months of local in-fighting.”

Vibs polled 29 percent of the vote, a massive increase from the six percent polled by the LibDem candidate in London Colney in 2008.  The Labour victory was achieved on a markedly lower vote share than they achieved when they lost the village in 2008.

The momentum going forward into the General Election is clearly with the Liberal Democrats.

PS And the best news has to be the humiliation of the BNP with a fourth place 61 vote finish.  (Incidentally they contested three other by-elections on the same day in other parts of the country and came fourth in all of them.)  I hope the Review newspaper will forgive me for reproducing a quote they got on polling day from voter Jane as she went into the polling station:

“I have voted Lib Dem.

“I always vote, but I think it is particularly important because of the BNP.

“I don’t want a bunch of fascists on my doorstep.”

Amen to that.

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