Electoral Fraud

On the one hand, I'm pleased to see that the police are digging into the murky goings-on in other parties when it comes to dodgy votes. There's a fair bit of history behind the latest shenanigans in Bordesley Green, where a LibDem candidate for Nechells and his wife have both been arrested and bailed in connection with a police investigation into postal vote fraud. For the record, of course, no charges have been laid at the moment.

The Liberal Democrat response is a bit weak, given their track record in attacking electoral fraud. The candidate will continue and will face suspension from the party if elected. The LibDems also point out that the case is nowhere near as serious as the one affecting the Labour Party in 2004, as it only affects a handful of votes. I don't think that the fat lady has even started tuning up on this particular case. There were accusations flying around after the Aston by-election last year, caused by the earlier electoral fraud case, and Labour raised some interesting questions about the activities of certain Liberal Democrat members and candidates then. Curiously, the Liberal Democrat champion of electoral justice, John Hemming, the MP for Yardley, has remained silent on the issue. Surely he doesn't only attack fraud when it comes from the Labour Party?

On the other hand, this sort of behaviour devalues the whole political system and can lead to voters deciding 'a plague on all your houses' and not bothering to vote. That doesn't solve anything. I have no time for any candidate, activist or agent who seeks to pervert the system. Hang 'em out to dry is my policy.

I can say is that I am absolutely confident that my campaign is straight down the line. The Labour Party in Birmingham has taken a very strong line on the issue - just as in 2004, all candidates, campaigners and agents have been warned that if you are involved in fraudulent behaviour, the party will not defend you in any way. We've signed up to a tough protocol that we won't go to an elector on the postal voting list once the postal forms have gone out (which they have). Sadly, the Tories and the Liberal Democrats didn't agree.

It isn't just in Birmingham that something fishy is going on - George Galloway is rumbling about Lib Dem behaviour in London.

If you live in Birmingham and have any knowledge of any illegal practices, please contact West Midlands Police or the Electoral Fraud hotline on 0121 275 6219. If you have any problems voting on the day - if your vote has been stolen, then please contact the elections office or advise the police. We can't let this continue. There has to be public faith that our elected representatives are in office with genuine public support.

Tired. Very tired. And I'm on holiday.

Birmingham still maintains the practice of hanging political poster boards on lamp-posts around election time. Coventry and Solihull have recently decided to stop it and I think that's a little sad. It isn't the ego thing - although I defy anyone to look me in the eye and tell me that they don't get a little spark from seeing their name plastered along roads.

It is hard work stripping and glueing new posters to boards. It is nothing short of graft to have to trudge around the ward sticking them on lamp-posts and we could probably use the time better to talk to more constituents, but it does add something to the campaign when you see the boards blossoming along the road. I think that it reminds people that elections are around the corner - quite important when you realise that local elections don't get anything like the national focus of parliamentary polls. The number of people who stopped us today and asked what the posters were for just reminds us that there are an awful lot of people for whom politics has no relevance to their lives. Part of our job as politicians is to try and explain that link - that local elections can decide vitally important (if unexciting) issues. Your local council is responsible for things that directly impact on your life - schools, roads, pavements, rubbish collection, pest control, social care, parks and planning, to name but a few. So who runs that council is key to setting policy in those areas.

May 4 is a chance for you to have your say over who governs this part of your life. It isn't an opinion poll on the state of the government or the opposition. It should be about local issues. Are your roads in good order? Are the walls of the park covered in graffiti? How's the library service doing in your area? Whatever the issue that is bothering you, now's the time to raise it with your candidates.

Things have been surprisingly positive out there on the doorsteps. Sure, there are the voters who see this as a chance to kick the government, but there are also a fair few who are deeply upset with the performance of the Liberal Democrat/Tory council that's had a grip on Birmingham for the past two years.

Promises and lies

My Liberal Democrat opponent has finally decloaked and has been revealed as the editor of 'Focus,' one Iain Bowen. Try and act surprised. Traditionally, candidates had to hide their lights until the campaign proper kicked off, so were described as 'campaigners' or something similar. This was because it used to be the case that the moment you were described as a candidate was the moment when your campaign spending limits kicked in and there were a number of embarrassments when candidates ran out of money well in advance of the election. Now, far more sensibly, you are a candidate from the point when the candidates are all announced.

He reckons he'll be a worthy successor to Frank Coyne, the former LD incumbent. I know I shouldn't say this, but I quite liked Frank. He can't help it that he was in the wrong party. Frank was a decent man who did a good job for the ward and I wish him well in his retirement. I won't be making a habit out of praising Liberal Democrats, but in this case, I will. To coin a phrase, Mr Bowen, you're no Frank Coyne.

I've just received his latest leaflet, which includes an attempt to spin the cuts outlined in the District budget. It describes them as 'efficiency savings' and that the councillors have decided to 'take more time to look at this budget to ensure there are no cuts to front line services.'

As I pointed out below - these ARE cuts to front line services. I don't believe that there is 40% slack in the pest control budget, nor that a quarter of our school crossing patrols aren't required. £80,000 is also being slashed from the sports and leisure budget and more cut from community development.

To say these are just savings is just wrong. They are cuts. Pure and simple.

Of course, if he (or any other of the candidates) had bothered to turn up at the District Committee, he would have known that.

A partial victory

For a while now, I've been waging a campaign with the residents of Francis Road against a ludicrous scheme to build flats on a patch of land at the end of the road.

It isn't that they have a problem with bringing this bit of canal-side brownfield land back into use for housing, but the scheme is outlandishly large and would add to the problems that the road already faces.

It is a narrow road with no turning spaces and currently, even the refuse trucks can't get down it to collect the bin bags. Cars are damaged on a regular basis and residents are used to having to go to the top of the road to collect deliveries.

The idea of adding a further 19 properties (most with two bedrooms) to this road is clearly daft - there was insufficient parking for the expected vehicles and the building was entirely out of keeping with the neighbourhood. There were objections from West Midlands Fire Service, who found problems getting an engine down there and other objections from the environmental services department and other elements of the council. Surprisingly, when the application came to committee the other week, it was approved, despite huge local objections.

Fortunately, the application submitted was only an outline, so the plans as such are irrelevant. The applicants will need to revise the plans and return for full approval within a few years. All that has been approved is that the site is suitable for residential development - which it is. A few years ago, someone did apply to build houses on the site and there were no local objections. NIMBYism isn't part of the issue, but this is an entirely unsuitably development plan and we'll continue to oppose it.

Development should be an important issue for the ward - we have too many flats appearing virtually overnight and far too many fast food restaurants are being granted permission without consideration of the impact that they have on the local community. I've lost count of the number of complaints that I've received over litter. Fortunately, we have a pro-active local community police officer who is happy to work alongside environmental services to stop litter louts and issue them fixed penalty notices. I know that they complain that he should be out there catching murderers and rapists, but he's doing a cracking job attacking an issue that causes people real anger.

As far as development goes, it needs to be in keeping with the area and appropriate. If it isn't, I'll oppose it.

The picture shows a building in Acocks Green called 'The Churchill Club'.

The building is of local historical interest as it dates from the back end of the 19th century and has links to the Arts & Crafts movement. It has also now been locally listed as Grade A, to ensure that planners require sympathetic treatment (this isn't the same as the national listing scheme, unfortunately).

The building is ideally located and ripe for conversion for use as a community facility - something seriously lacking in Acocks Green. That hasn't stopped the City Council declaring it surplus to requirements and putting it up for sale, with the closing date set for the end of April.

There are plans afoot to try and raise the money required to refurbish the building and put it to good use, but it is likely that this will take more than a few weeks.

We're calling on the council to withdraw the property from sale and give the community a chance to develop proposals for the benefit of all.

District Committee

I spent an interesting evening at the District Committee last week. Here, members of the public get to take part in discussions around issues that affect districts (groups of wards). Acocks Green is currently in the Sparkbrook district, alongside Springfield and Sparkbrook wards.

Of particular interest was the District Budget.

Although the overall budget increases from £9.08 million to £9. 28 million, a large chunk of that is taken up with a doubling of the administration budget (although the paperwork prepared for the meeting suggested that the increase was closer to 1000%). The poor council officer thrown to the wolves to present the budget tried his best, but wasn't able to give answers to questions from the floor. I queried the increase in the admininstration budget, but also the slashing of the allocations to school crossing patrols and pest control, which were cut by 22% and 40% respectively. Also under attack was sport and leisure, which took a hammering to the tune of £81,000 or 3.8%, and community development, which lost 5.7% or £21,000.

The council officer had been told that environmental services were reducing their budget because of a reduction in demand. That's curious, because environmental services had submitted a bid to the Ward Advisory Board only a few days before for a sum of around £37,000. This was rejected as a bid by the WAB, because it was felt that pest control should be funded centrally and not through the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund - a decision with which I agreed at the time. Usually, whenever council departments come to WAB for funding for what should be core functions, that means that they've had their budgets cut.

Similarly, the cuts to the school crossing patrol service was made to realign budgets across the city, apparently. I couldn't work out the logic behind that - surely the principle should be to assess the need, then fund that need, not spread the budget across the city. I already know of one crossing patrol that has disappeared in Acocks Green - the one that helps my own children across Fox Hollies Road every morning has been relocated to Spring Road.

That's only the start of it - there's a further quarter of a million in 'efficiency savings' to be made as well. While I'm sure that it is possible to find efficiencies in any organisation, these seem to be more about slashing jobs - cuts are on the way! They even had the nerve to class a £69,000 funding boost from the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund as an 'Efficiency Saving.'

The poor councillors looked quite confused by the whole thing - it seemed as though this was the first time that the Liberal Democrat district chair had seen the budget proposals. After much discussion, it was agreed that the proposals as presented were worthless and the budget was held over until the next meeting. Of course, the Liberal Democrats had already passed the budget through full council on the 28 February, so we're really just waiting to see if the explanations get better.

Normal Service Renewed

Sorry for the lack of postings over the past few weeks - things have been a bit hectic.

Perhaps you have an image that an election campaign is high-powered and well-funded.

I wish.

In Acocks Green, we yearn for a shoestring upon which we can run our campaign. There's only one party in Birmingham backed by a millionaire and it isn't Labour. The reality is that we rely on members to cover our costs and do most of the hard work. This year is remarkable because we have so many volunteering to help - not a huge number and any more volunteers are more than welcome.

At least we're running the campaign locally - the Acocks Green Liberal Democrat campaign is run from Moseley (the home of a surprising number of LD candidates).

Still, that's one of the benefits of having a local candidate committed to and involved with the local community and not Hemming's choice, parachuted into what they consider a safe seat.

The CCTV project in Acocks Green has been a resounding success.

The scheme was launched using funding from the Labour government and saw crime fall by 60% in the first year and by a third in the year after. It has been so successful that other parts of the City are looking to us as an example of how well it can work.

Each high resolution camera is linked by a digital telephone line to a local monitoring centre where the images are recorded 24 hours a day on to a bank of computer hard drives and monitored by a trained security officer. The quality is excellent and the police make regular visits to follow up on reports of crimes and anti-social behaviour in the area covered by the cameras. It has allowed them to gain evidence to identify people in some very serious crimes. The amazing thing is that each camera costs less than £4000 a year to operate, significantly less than other schemes elsewhere in the city.

This sort of security is key to bringing new businesses into the centre of Acocks Green - it is part of the basic infrastructure to support a safe and thriving shopping centre that attracts customers from across the district.

I've spoken to many people in the area who want to see the scheme expanded to cover other areas in the ward that have problems with anti-social behaviour and that's something that I'm backing as a key part of my campaign.

Welcome to my blog.

I'm the Labour candidate for the Acocks Green ward of Birmingham City Council in the elections set for 4 May 2006.

This blog is here to provide extra detail on the campaign and a way for you to contact me with local issues. Comments are more than welcome - the only real ground rules are to avoid libel and abuse.

I'll update the blog regularly to let you know about local issues and try to give you a flavour of what campaigning is like.

Let me know what you think.