Cllr. Steve Cooke

I heard this morning that the average weekly student rent in the UK has reached £100. When I rented my first room in a student house, back in 1995, £100 was my monthly rent.

No wonder that, with top-up and tuition fees to cope with on top of this, half of all UK students expect to leave university with debts of over £15,000. More than a quarter expect debts of over £20,000.

Meanwhile, as universities offer incredibly meagre pay rises to their staff, and are busy announcing redundancies in numbers, there are now more than 80 Vice Chancellors earning more than the prime minister. One gets £474,000. So, while staff in local universities are getting, as an example, a .5% pay rise (which, given the rate of price inflation amounts to a cut in earnings), once VC awarded himself a 20% pay rise. All this as the government begins cutting funding to universities.

I just hope the expected re-occurrence of last year’s appalling delay in the payment of Student Loans does not happen as the National Audit Office is predicting.

Labour has made a complete hash of Higher Education: they’ve meddled incessantly with education and they’ve encouraged spiralling and unsustainable debt.

The Lib Dems would “scrap tuition fees for full and part-time students taking their first degrees and have a fully costed plan to do this over a six year period.”

For a real alternative  – read summaries of Lib Dem policies on Education here.

Not so long ago, the imminent arrival of our latest family member prompted me to buy a bigger car (my little Yaris suddenly had one too few seats). Not being terribly happy about purchasing a great big 7-seater car I looked at ways of minimising its environmental impact and made sure to buy a diesel vehicle so that I could run it on biodiesel. I checked for suppliers and was pleased to see that biodiesel could be purchased easily across the country in a 30% B30 mix at Morrison’s supermarket. This week I went to fill up only to find the pump out of operation for the fourth day running. Staff informed me that Morrison’s had decided to stop selling it. I was pretty unhappy about this, so I wrote to Morrison’s to confirm the situation and get an explanation.Yesterday a press clipping from the Times arrived in my inbox via their press office

Here’s the story online:

‘Flexi-fuel drivers left high and dry after Government subsidy U-turn

Drivers who took the Government’s advice and chose a low-emission car could be left with a white elephant after a U-turn by ministers.

Britain’s biggest supplier of biofuels will announce today that it is closing its pumps because the Government is ending financial support from April.

It is the second time in five years that the Government has changed its mind and cancelled subsidies after encouraging motorists to invest in a particular type of green car.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7021180.ece

Anyone else pig sick of this government waving its environmental credentials around and hoping that nobody will notice that they bought them from an online fake diploma mill?

Salford council has enthusiastically embraced the Government’s Academy schools programme, which sees private groups running schools in return for ‘sponsorship’ which pays for a small part of the building of the school. And, as I mentioned a couple of posts ago,  rich religious men involved in the running of these academies have been busy donating tons of cash to the local Labour MP, Hazel Blears.

I’m sure I’m not the only person concerned about these academies – and not least because they don’t seem to be fulfilling the government promise of dramatically improving results (http://www.salfordadvertiser.co.uk/news/s/1189880_citys_alevels_among_worst_region).

But what also really concerns me is the way the council has replaced state schools with religious academies and consequently excluded non-religious teachers from jobs. Salford has the Oasis Academy on the Quays, which replaced Hope High in Claremont ward, and Salford City Academy, which was formally Canon Williamson High School. Canon Williamson was a CofE school, so it already placed restrictions of its employment practices by faith – so no change with the arrival of the Salford City Academy. Hope on the other hand was a standard comprehensive, whereas the Oasis Academy discriminates on grounds of faith in its employment practices:

“There will be a clear expectation that the person appointed as Principal of an Oasis Academy will be able to demonstrate their commitment to the Oasis values and behaviours which are the outworking of the Christian Ethos which underpins the wider work of Oasis and which is set out in the Education Charter (enclosed)”

(from the job spec letter, Jan 2010, to prospective candidates for the post of Principle starting Sept. 2010).

Now I have no issues with people holding a faith, but I am extremely concerned that tax-payers’ money is being spent on replacing a school which made ability to teach the sole criteria for holding a teaching post, with one that can employ, promote, or dismiss a teacher on grounds of adherence to their particular flavour of Christianity. Should a state school really be able to fire their maths teacher because she gets divorced, or converts from Protestantism to Catholicism? Should a council make people redundant by closing the school they worked in and then pay for a new school for which they are barred from working because they are not Christian?

I for one think this is an extremely worrying state of affairs.

Salford Council have given a loan of £350,000 to Salford City Reds to pay for the day-to-day running of the club (see: here). The council are also borrowing £20m to pay for a stadium for the Reds. Cllr. John Merry, Labour leader of Salford Council said: “The club puts a lot back into our communities and works tirelessly with young people and schools and we will support it like any other organisation that benefits the city in such a way” (from Crains).

It’s true, the club does put a lot back into local communities: it’s also run by its chair John Wilkinson who has been a prominent donor to, and supporter of, the Labour Party in the city. Wilkinson is also involved in property development across Salford. Remembering this fact prompted me to look at the business interests of some of our local MP Hazel Blears’s other donors.

They are:

• Isalamic multimillionaire Mahmoud Khayami, who is a major donor to the United Learning Trust (ULT), which just happens to run Salford City Academy.
• Jim Ramsbottom, millionaire Salford bookmaker and Manchester property developer.
• Anthony Bailey, A PR guru with connections to Saudi Royalty, Syria, and the Vatican. Bailey also happens to be a governor on the United Learning Trust mentioned above.
• Peninsula Business Services, which is jointly owned by Peter Done and his brother Fred – the founder and chairman of betting shops chain Betfred.
• Wilkinson Star, owned by Salford property developer and chair of Salford City Reds John Wilkinson.
• Lorian Properties Ltd, a company owned by North West property developer Brian Scowcroft
• B M Creative Management Ltd, owned by multi-millionaire media mogul and Labour peer Lord Waheed Alli

So, Hazel’s campaigns are funded by gambling, property development, and media interests, plus those involved in the City Academies project in Salford.

I’m sure that these facts are unconnected with Salford Labour council’s backing for big development projects such as the Worsley Race Course; their bid for a super casino and new stadium; and their enthusiastic backing of city academies.

Isn’t it time we cleaned up politics and political parties stepped away from vested interests? Do you trust Salford’s Labour cabinet to make huge decisions about developments and education in the city without remembering those who finance their campaigns?

I’d just like to promote a new campaign by Nick Clegg and LGBT Lib Dems calling for Marriage Without Borders – removing the gender restrictions on marriages and civil partnerships, and improving international recognition of same-sex relationships.

Please sign the petition; if you’re on Facebook you can become a fan, but do make sure you sign as well – and then invite your friends to become fans, and share the page on your own profile!

It’s tempting to crow about the disarray in the Labour Party as the latest challenge to Brown’s leadership emerges. However, whilst I think this will damage Labour in the polls, I suspect that Brown will weather this one and it will gently fade away. The truth is that Hewitt and Hoon aren’t big enough hitters, and Brown is supremely pig-headed, arrogant and stubborn: he simply cannot imagine that anyone could do a better job than himself. Mind you – it’s hard to find big hitters on the front benches of the Labour Party these days. Unless we see several cabinet ministers, or Brown’s most likely heir – Alan Johnson – come out in support of a leadership ballot before the end of the day I think Brown will be safe (at least until after he loses the next election).

Still – Labour activists must find this pretty demoralising. Huge division, massive party debts, and their own disgust at the corrupt antics of their expense-account abusing MPs will no doubt mean trudging out to get out the vote will be a task that’s hard to find motivation for.