Cllr Iain Lindley will be deciding whether or not to resign as Tory planning spokesman after most of his group either abstained or voted with Labour when he urged them to oppose the waste plan.
There are more compelling reasons for him to resign other than lacking the confidence of his group.
The waste plan recognises our duty in Greater Manchester to deal locally with the waste we produce and, as far as is technically possible, to stop burying it underground.
The plan encourages a shift to new technologies which allow us to use waste as a resource through recycling and turning it into renewable energy.
These new ways of dealing with waste require developments that are virtually indistinguishable from the typical manufacturing industry found on industrial estates.
Furthermore they bring with them new ‘green collar’ jobs which is a growing sector.
The plan also beefed up the controls on waste management facilities.
Cllr Lindley’s opposition to the green shift in waste management policy is a betrayal of future generations and would weaken the power of the Council to stop inappropriate development. For that alone he should resign.
More seriously, he vowed to carry out a campaign to scare people about the possibility of the high tech. modern facilities going on to industrial estates.
This cynical attempt to manipulate people and create unnecessary fear for electoral reasons is the reason he should resign.
He did not fool his own party who rejected his views. The public should not be fooled by his immature and irresponsible campaigning.
Councillor Derek Antrobus
Lead Member for Planning
Monday, 20 September 2010
Thursday, 16 September 2010
Monday, 13 September 2010
Disabled people protest against cuts that will KILL
The Conservative party's summer conference will be host to some of the most important protests of recent times.
Birmingham on Sunday October 3 will see disabled people from across the UK unite to rally against the drastic welfare cuts proposed by the Coalition, which are set to hit disabled people hardest.
The cost of the cuts will push disabled people, of whom three-quarters already live in poverty, towards levels of destitution that should be a distant memory in a first world society.
Campaigners say this group are being unfairly picked on by direct and indirect cuts because they are seen as an easy target.
Like many on the lowest incomes disabled people bear the brunt of the austerity drive. The cost of the cuts will mean some essential care and support is lost, meaning some cuts are quite likely to be life threatening.
Disability benefits designed to pay the extra costs of disability and originally awarded for a lifetime term are being reassessed. Many who were certified by medically qualified and independent doctors are losing their meagre incomes to politically appointed and performance incentivised ATOS assessors.
Data from the National Equalities Panel shows that over three quarters of all disabled people live in poverty with a tenth of disabled women attempting to live on less than 31 pounds a week. Yet ATOS makes millions in profits. This is part of the new economy of Britain.
Cuts in housing benefits, cuts in services, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, job losses in the public sector and VAT increases will impact severely on the poorest in society - however it is disabled people who might just pay the ultimate cost - their lives.
Linda Burnip said: Disabled people will be descending on Birmingham on October 3rd to tell all politicians that enough is enough. We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments, we are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. We are fed up with being unfairly picked on because we are seen as vulnerable and we want to make sure politicians know we will not accept these attacks on our lives any longer. As disabled people we can and will fight back, and we plan to start in Birmingham on October 3rd.
Thanks to Salfordonline for this story
Birmingham on Sunday October 3 will see disabled people from across the UK unite to rally against the drastic welfare cuts proposed by the Coalition, which are set to hit disabled people hardest.
The cost of the cuts will push disabled people, of whom three-quarters already live in poverty, towards levels of destitution that should be a distant memory in a first world society.
Campaigners say this group are being unfairly picked on by direct and indirect cuts because they are seen as an easy target.
Like many on the lowest incomes disabled people bear the brunt of the austerity drive. The cost of the cuts will mean some essential care and support is lost, meaning some cuts are quite likely to be life threatening.
Disability benefits designed to pay the extra costs of disability and originally awarded for a lifetime term are being reassessed. Many who were certified by medically qualified and independent doctors are losing their meagre incomes to politically appointed and performance incentivised ATOS assessors.
Data from the National Equalities Panel shows that over three quarters of all disabled people live in poverty with a tenth of disabled women attempting to live on less than 31 pounds a week. Yet ATOS makes millions in profits. This is part of the new economy of Britain.
Cuts in housing benefits, cuts in services, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, job losses in the public sector and VAT increases will impact severely on the poorest in society - however it is disabled people who might just pay the ultimate cost - their lives.
Linda Burnip said: Disabled people will be descending on Birmingham on October 3rd to tell all politicians that enough is enough. We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments, we are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. We are fed up with being unfairly picked on because we are seen as vulnerable and we want to make sure politicians know we will not accept these attacks on our lives any longer. As disabled people we can and will fight back, and we plan to start in Birmingham on October 3rd.
Thanks to Salfordonline for this story
Monday, 6 September 2010
SAVE HOPE MATERNITY UNIT.
Well done to all who turned up at The Born In Salford Rally on Saturday. A Fantastic turnout and very well organised. Special mentions for Lisa Kean & Heather Rawlinson for pulling it all together.
We will now continue to work to put pressure on Andrew Lansley and the relevant bodies to ensure we keep our maternity unit in Salford so that future generations of Salfordians are born in Salford.
Keep signing the petitions and and lobby your GP's.
Thursday, 2 September 2010
Sarkozy's Roma Purge.
Having done work for the Council of Europe around the Roma population and their continuing persecution across Europe, I couldn't agree more with the sentiments of this editorial from today's Independent.
By the letter of the European law, Nicolas Sarkozy has the right to expel immigrant Roma from France and break up their settlements. Although the two countries where the majority of Roma have long been settled, Romania and Bulgaria, are now members of the EU, until 2014 their citizens are only allowed to stay in other EU states for a maximum of three months, unless they have jobs there.
So M. Sarkozy – whose ministers met European Union officials this week to defend their actions – can claim that he is merely upholding the law. And, technically, there are other justifications he can summon for his initiative, which has seen more than 600 Roma put on flights to Eastern Europe since July, and more than 8,000 expelled so far in the course of the year. It is an "offensive sécuritaire", because the Roma pose a security threat; it is an "action humanitaire", a "voluntary repatriation" of individuals whom the French government is generously presenting with gifts of a few hundred euros to start afresh. And it is a blow against human trafficking.
Nobody should be fooled by this rhetoric. In hard times, when politicians feel the lash of people's anger, there is nothing more satisfactory than a good scapegoat. And the Roma have always been the ideal scapegoat, being not only visually distinctive but also poor and atomised. To an increasingly intolerant element within France, and many others in Western Europe, gypsies are an insult to the settled way of life, and certain ideas about property, education and work.
They are, in other words, the perfect victims, and M. Sarkozy would not be the crafty politician he is if he did not see in them an excellent opportunity to steal a march on Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front. There is evidence that his campaign is already paying dividends in the opinion polls.
The risk now, after objections were raised when the expulsions started at the end of July, is that the matter is forgotten about. But that must not be allowed to happen. Hitler did not target gypsies because they were a security threat but because in the Nazi scheme they were labelled as genetically inferior. The rationale was different, but the impulse was the same, and so were the victims. Wrapped into our belief in progress is the idea that we learn from history, and that collectively we have the wisdom to avoid repeating the more terrible mistakes of the recent past. M. Sarkozy's Roma purge is a reminder that we ignore that lesson at our peril.
By the letter of the European law, Nicolas Sarkozy has the right to expel immigrant Roma from France and break up their settlements. Although the two countries where the majority of Roma have long been settled, Romania and Bulgaria, are now members of the EU, until 2014 their citizens are only allowed to stay in other EU states for a maximum of three months, unless they have jobs there.
So M. Sarkozy – whose ministers met European Union officials this week to defend their actions – can claim that he is merely upholding the law. And, technically, there are other justifications he can summon for his initiative, which has seen more than 600 Roma put on flights to Eastern Europe since July, and more than 8,000 expelled so far in the course of the year. It is an "offensive sécuritaire", because the Roma pose a security threat; it is an "action humanitaire", a "voluntary repatriation" of individuals whom the French government is generously presenting with gifts of a few hundred euros to start afresh. And it is a blow against human trafficking.
Nobody should be fooled by this rhetoric. In hard times, when politicians feel the lash of people's anger, there is nothing more satisfactory than a good scapegoat. And the Roma have always been the ideal scapegoat, being not only visually distinctive but also poor and atomised. To an increasingly intolerant element within France, and many others in Western Europe, gypsies are an insult to the settled way of life, and certain ideas about property, education and work.
They are, in other words, the perfect victims, and M. Sarkozy would not be the crafty politician he is if he did not see in them an excellent opportunity to steal a march on Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front. There is evidence that his campaign is already paying dividends in the opinion polls.
The risk now, after objections were raised when the expulsions started at the end of July, is that the matter is forgotten about. But that must not be allowed to happen. Hitler did not target gypsies because they were a security threat but because in the Nazi scheme they were labelled as genetically inferior. The rationale was different, but the impulse was the same, and so were the victims. Wrapped into our belief in progress is the idea that we learn from history, and that collectively we have the wisdom to avoid repeating the more terrible mistakes of the recent past. M. Sarkozy's Roma purge is a reminder that we ignore that lesson at our peril.
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