From the campaign trail

Although I'm officially 'on a break' from social media until after the elections to focus on campaigning a couple of people have actually asked me could I do a post about how I think the local election campaign is going.  Well go on, since you twisted my arm!

So what are my thoughts?  Well I can only speak for my own experience out and about in both my own ward of Whitley (with excellent candidate Kelly Edwards), and where I have been helping out - which is primarily the neighbouring ward of Church ward, a Conservative seat that we are aiming to win, with our hard working candidate Paul Woodward (although I have been talking to people in battleground wards like Redlands, Katesgrove and Caversham as well as in Labour areas like Southcote, Minster and Norcott too).

1.  The mood has changed

In the autumn I felt there was a lot of uncertainty and worry regarding the coalition.  Now there is downright anger.  I've had people say to me on several occasions words to the effect: "I know some people who voted Conservative last year, they won't make that mistake again", I've heard stories of Labour candidates being chased down the street to be thanked for delivering their leaflets and one report of Conservative MP Rob Wilson being shouted at in the street, in a nice bit of a Conservative-held ward.

2.  People, especially young people, want to help Labour,


We are getting new people out helping, who have never been involved in politics before and many of them are young people.  Today for example with Andy Burnham (who was great!), because we had offers, we held an impromtu canvass session.  As well as existing activists two people who are not even members helped out - one who knocked on doors with us and another who took away a pack of leaflets to do, saying he'd help for the whole of election day as well.  Both were under 30.

3.  The opposition is scared but the coalition, locally, is holding together

We have set ourselves some pretty big targets and we have wards in our sights that the opposition don't expect us to take, and maybe we won't take them all.  But we have them worried and they should be.   The local Conservatives seem to be doing no campaigning that might hurt the Liberals: not just in the Libdem-Labour marginals but even in the ward which should be a Tory-Libdem marginal, but may end up with Labour in either second place or even winning.  Meanwhile the Libdems are, inevitably mostly focused on trying to save their seats, but where they have tried to go outside their currently held wards seem to be focused on Labour seats.  Their rhetoric is all anti-Labour and they are not even trying to follow their national counterparts in distancing themselves from each other.  They are also playing dirty with some really personal attacks.  We'll know next week just how much.that tactic works or whether it will backfire on them.

4.  We wouldn't be where we are now without good candidates

Residents want to vote for a councillor who will be good at representing their area.  My experience in this campaign suggests that politics is continuing to get more about personal qualities, despite Clegg-mania leading to such disappointment.  People who are undecided have often been swayed by hard work and someone who listened to their concerns and responded to them properly.

It's also one of the reasons I have been out in all weathers to support our candidates (yes Matt, that sleet that disintegrated our petition outside George Palmer school was probably the worst!).  I and others have been doing it because I really think they will do a great job for Reading, and be a lot better than their opposition:  Paul for example works with disadvantaged teenagers, knows how to relate to people and has done a huge amount of casework even before he has (hopefully) been elected.  This in contrast to Church ward Conservative councillors who consistently come bottom of the 'league table' for number of pieces of case work and a candidate this year doesn't even live in Reading borough and describes himself as a 'regular driver through the ward' in election leaflets.  (Yes he really did!  It hasn't gone down well).  This is partially selfish - I want to be able to work with someone who cares about the area and the issues that matter to me.


We still have probably thousands of pieces of literature to get out and more people to talk to before election day but I believe we can get rid of one Conservative-Libdem coalition at least this May in Reading!


If you want to help us get a Labour council elected in Reading, any time between now and close of poll we've got something for you to do - just drop me a line: racheleden.whitley@gmail.com!  It is going to the wire as there are just a couple of marginal wards that will make the difference.

March councillor's report

Summary:
March - a month of frustration with Conservatives and Libdems and hope for a new council.

For the rest of April and until after the May elections I will be taking a break from blogging to focus on campaigning and on keeping up with council work as well.  I may blog occasionally if there is something that really can't wait but otherwise will write after the elections!

Council 
Started the month with environment scrutiny committee, in which we reviewed a number of areas, probably the most sensitive being the changes proposed to the crematorium.  In view of the lack of feedback from affected residents we recommended that further consultation was held to ensure that changes are brought in sensitively.  As I commented at the time, one person's 'tat' (as a certain Conservative councillor put it) is actually another person's personal memorial, and I for one wouldn't like to be insensitive to residents.


We also had full council which I blogged about at length here.  I've no further comment except to note that it is interesting that the Conservative and Libdem councillors who blog were remarkably silent - unless I missed something the only one who blogged about it was Cllr Benson, who at the start of her post explicitly pointed out that she wouldn't be blogging on the 'politics' of the night.

I am still trying to get a successful result on the Hartland Road markings, with little help from lead councillor it has to be said (despite his warm words to residents).

Out and about in the ward:

We held our regular monthly surgery in the Swallowfield Drive Community Centre.  I've also been out delivering leaflets and chatting to residents as I've done that, as well as meeting people at the school gate.

In North Whitely we had a public meeting with the police and a good number of residents regarding the Northumberland Avenue shops.  I'll be following this up with the police and council staff, but would also encourage all residents to come forward with ideas, and to consider signing up for the community speedwatch.

At the other end of the glamour scale it was great to work with Duncan Bruce to bring an Oscar nominee and BAFTA winner to Geoffrey Field Junior School.

I've been keeping an eye on some projects going on in the ward, including the flood prevention works on Kingsley Close and the new playground that I got agreement for on Kennet Island.

March was also the month we said goodbye to the Whitley Excellence Cluster team.  They've done amazing work and it's such a shame to see them go.  I wish them all the best in their new roles and it's great that Sheila Tibbenham at least has been able to get funding from the national school leadership college to pay for some of her role to continue.


Labour party and campaigning
The battle continues, we are working hard to win back control of the council and I've been out and about with the Labour team both in Whitley and across town.  One of the things that many people in Whitley have told me is that they want us to get rid of the Conservative-led administration, so I'm doing my bit to help that!
We're determined that we will take as many seats as possible from the Conservatives and Libdems in May. 
 Meanwhile on a different note the visit by Yvette Cooper to Reading to listen to new ideas for policy was well received and I really enjoyed being able to listen to views from a range of political perspectives as well as see what Yvette had to say.

Looking ahead to April:

I have already attended the only 'council' meeting I expect to go to in April (a planning meeting in which I spoke as a ward councillor).  The council is more or less 'shut down' for councillors in the run up to elections.  I expect to continue to focus on campaigning and also to enjoy the many bank holidays with family!  Having said that I am still working on various issues around the ward and don't expect that to stop.

Weather is too nice to blog!

Tomorrow I will try to post my March report and then I am going to take a break from blogging until after the local elections (unless something REALLY exciting comes up)

 Here are some interesting posts from elsewhere:
A widely cited and well researched article by Duncan Weldon (ex Bank of England, ex fund manager now a Labour/Union person...) on what the lessons of Portugal are.  THe breif answer seems to be: they went for austerity measures, VAT rises and 'export led' growth, and like Ireland their economy failed to grow so they're now in trouble.  Not encouraging reading.

Secondly an interesting article by Rick Muir of  on the social democratic left in Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.  Long but interesting - worth sticking with if you are interested in either how the left can win in Europe or in Latin America.

And a pretty unusual policy suggestion from the OECD, not known as aggressive critics of the Conservative-Libdems.  The EMA campaign really is reaching some unusual places.

That's it for tonight!

Installing solar panels - part 3: installation

Well today was I-day: installation day.  A few people have asked me to update them with my experiences so here we go.

4 friendly men from our supplier came over and worked solidly (fuelled by 2 cups of tea and some cake each) for 6 hours.  They discussed with me in detail how I would like the work doing and where things should go.  They also discovered that my earth wire needed updating and did it without fuss and without charge (and will send over certification etc.).  Obviously we are paying thousands of pounds to their company but it was a nice gesture I thought.

The work is less obtrusive than I expected it to be.  There is a new box on the side of our house:, a wire going into the loft to an inverter obviously the panels themselves on the roof.

We can also see it is working as the meter has stopped going round (if it was an old fashioned one it would actually go backwards!  I had a look about half an hour ago and we've already generated 1.7 KWH in a couple of hours.  Obviously it's a sunny day so that helps, but the payback period starts now!

I will post in a few days about the admin of getting my electricity supplier set up with our feed in tariff.

Government in chaos...NHS gets a repreive

There are so many things that the government is doing wrong at the moment it's hard to pick one.
The NHS is the one making the headlines at the moment.  Remember the 'airbrushed' David Cameron poster?

It was so widely mocked the original slogan can slip the mind: "We can't go on like this, I'll cut the deficit not the NHS".

Cameron was desperate to reassure us before the election that the NHS was safe in his hands.  Well unfortunately the plan by Andrew Lansley to privatise it wasn't mentioned.  I have family members who owe their lives to the doctors and nurses of the NHS, my baby was born in the Royal Berks (a home birth that was transferred!)  and I was always confident that the only thing the mid-wives had in mind was ensuring we received the best possible care.  My worry under the Tory reforms (supported by some Lib-dems,when they aren't at Libdem conference...) would be that this would change and the focus would be on treatments that made money for private companies.  I'm also worried about the huge waste it would generate.

I would imagine every family in Reading has stories like that.  Which is why the government saying they will now listen is so important.  I'd like to see the Reading Conservative MPs host a public meeting on the NHS to explain their proposals and take questions from the patients, doctors, health visitors, midwives and nurses of their town about what exactly is supposed to be the benefit of these proposals.

Still at least the massive opposition has won a breathing space.

UPDATE:  don't take my word for it.  The cross party Health Select committee say that Lansley's arguments for change would lead to the OPPOSITE action to what he is proposing:

"Thee Committee finds that the evidence provided by the Secretary of State and officials runs counter to the direction of policy. If integration of primary and secondary care commissioning is important, then separating them in order to support the proposed system architecture may cause significant harm to the commissioning system as a whole, and should be reconsidered.""

Englefield Estate

This morning I went to Englefield Estate Gardens.  Lovely place for a morning out - esepecially at this time of year, very Pride and Prejudice!

I hadn't realised it was owned by the family of Richard Benyon MP.  Well I have to say it's another world!  My mother in law commented: "I can't guess which party he's in!". 

But more seriously good for him to work with Affinity Trust on the garden centre, which I can testify is well stocked and worth a browse!

I also like how child friendly it is (£3 entry, children free - and they have a slide, swings, a secret grotto and a carved statue of a bear.  The cafe has high chairs and baby change facilities)