Archives for March 2011

Cameron, Clegg and the council

Is it kiss and make up for David Cameron and Nottingham's Labour leaders?

They've had a running war of words over Coalition-ordered spending cuts and who is really being transparent about budgets. Now it seems to be all smiles... for the moment.

The Prime Minister and the Deputy PM Nick Clegg were in Nottingham to kick-start the first wave of Enterprise Zones, those designated areas to encourage the next generation of Dragons' Den entrepreneurs.

David Cameron's visit coincided with the government's blessing and substantial cash for the extension of the city's much heralded modern tram network.

The Prime Minister said the overall running costs of the two new lines to the south and west of the city will be shared: the government is putting in £35m, with the city council having to find another £14m.

Nottingham's fund raiser is its controversial work place parking levy. It's being introduced in April 2012.

Businesses with more than 10 employees will be charged initially £279 a year for each office parking space. Within three years, the levy will rise to £364. Most firms plan to pass on the cost to their employees who drive to work.

But council staff are losing their free parking perk a year ahead of the new levy and will have to pay for their car spaces within days... and that's causing anger. There's even talk of industrial action.

"We're very irate about it," says Chris Needham of the GMB union.

"Above all, it's the unfairness of low paid workers being used as guinea pigs and having to pay 2.1% of their earnings even before this parking levy becomes official."

But the Labour politician in charge of Nottingham's transport policy, Councillor Jane Urquhart, says don't blame the tram scheme... and points to the impact of the Coalition's spending cuts on local government.

"The reason we are bringing it in a year early is because of the difficult financial circumstances the council's facing. We weighed up the options between making more people redundant or whether this charge could be a better way to avoid cutting jobs," she told me.

Nottingham University is one of the city's largest public sector employers... with 6,500 on its payroll. Its parking levy has been estimated at £3/4m.

Those clever academic brains have come up with a parking levy charge that's based on the size of your pay packet and car engine.

Says the university's Pro Vice-chancellor Alan Dodson: "A member of the staff on the lowest salary driving a 'greener' engine car will pay about £50 a year and someone at the top end driving a gas-guzzler will pay nearly £500 a year. That's seems so much fairer."

Boots, the city's largest private employer, has been implacably opposed to the levy since it was first proposed 10 years ago. A site near its huge factory complex is to be one of the government's new Enterprise Zones.

Boots maintains the levy is a tax on business and won't necessarily encourage the individual car user to use public transport instead.

The Conservatives in Nottingham agree, and with city council elections this May, the Tories are campaigning to scrap the levy.

"We are fighting for every single job out there," says Cllr Andrew Price, the leader of the
Conservative group on Nottingham City Council.

"Our city's got limited amounts of land and new businesses might be tempted to set up just outside the city boundary to avoid paying the parking levy. That will be a loss to the city and a cost to hard pressed council tax payers."

The Chancellor talked of his budget driving the economy ahead. Nottingham's ambitious tram project is seen by Labour as key to that economic revival locally.

The Lib Dems too say the levy is the only practical way of cushioning its cost. The tram network now carries an estimated 10 million passenger journeys each year. The city has been applauded internationally for its integrated transport thinking. But it's the motorists through the work place parking levy who'll have to pay for most it.

Says Jane Urquhart: "The government is willing to invest a very large sum of money in Nottingham, and in Nottingham's future, but we think for our contribution, the levy is the way ahead. It's crucial for the tram."

From June, like a modern Domesday Book, the process starts of finding out where and how many office parking space will require registering with the city council.

Like the tram, the levy's arrival is unlikely to be late.

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Booths and ballots - voters could experience quad vision

Oh, to be in Leicester South this Spring. Not content with one election this May, the constituency's lucky voters are to have four elections on the same day!

That means four separate ballot forms to elect city councillors, a city Mayor, the AV referendum on changing the voting system... and now, there'll be a parliamentary by-election too.

It's a fascinating constituency. Leicester's main sporting venues are in Leicester South. It's also home to the city's two universities. One of De Montfort University's senior political lecturers, Allister Jones, can't believe his luck.

"Four elections in Leicester South, three for the rest of the city. It's unprecedented and really fascinating," he told me.

It's the decision of Labour MP Sir Peter Soulsby to stand down to run as Leicester's Mayor that's given the voters of Leicester South the prospect of four elections on the same day.

It's prompted memories of the Leicester South by-election six years ago and a sensational Lib Dem triumph. City councillor Parmjit Singh Gill took the seat off Labour with an eye-watering 21% swing.

But will the voters - especially the students of Leicester South - back the Lib Dems this time round?

Says Allister Jones: "The students make up 20% of the voting population and they could have a profound influence on the whole outcome."

Ask many students here how they'll vote... and there seems little to cheer for the Lib Dems.

One second year politics student told me: "As a person who voted Liberal Democrat, I am not very happy. I will be voting differently this time and it certainly won't be for the Coalition."

One third of the constituency's population is of Asian background. The Iraq war dominated the last by-election in 2004 with the Lib Dems winning over much of the sizeable Muslim vote. Community leader and author Suleman Nagdi says the issue is now the economy.

"I think employment is the single biggest factor that affects all of us. Health and education are in the background, but people's immediate concerns are losing their jobs."

That's a particular concern in Eyres Monsall and Aylestone, two of the big predominantly white council estates in the south of the constituency.

"There you will soon see the huge impact of the Coalition's spending cuts. People are losing public services and it's these people who'll be hurt the most," adds Allister Jones.

On the other side of the constituency, there are the affluent suburbs of Knighton and Stoneygate.

"For the Lib Dems to do well in Leicester South, they'll need to get their core voters out from these particular wards, but the Tories will be breathing down their necks."

There's another novelty for Leicester South's voters. The Leicester Tigers rugby club is one of the best known landmarks in the constituency and for the first time, it's being used as the count for all four elections.

Inside, overlooking the counting staff and politicians, there'll be the sparking silverware of the Leicester Tigers magnificent trophy cabinet... but which party will get the lion's share of this particular election scrum?

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David Cameron brought the Cabinet out of London to Derby on his visit to the East Midlands

The political images couldn't have been more contrasting: there was David Cameron's Cabinet in the almost hermetically-sealed surroundings of Rolls Royce in Derby and the raw anger of protesters shouting down Labour leaders in Nottingham voting through big budget cuts.

The city's Labour Leader Jon Collins was surrounded by furious demonstrators outside Nottingham's Council House, as he attempted to pin the blame for the spending cuts on the Coalition.

The Cabinet meeting in Derby

The protesters, including students and public sector workers, appeared to want Nottingham to become a beacon of resistance to the government's deficit reduction agenda.

Police were called in to clear the council chamber's public gallery. Constant disruption from noisy demonstrators had made the authority's crucial budget meeting impossible to continue.

There was no such disruption in nearby Derby for the Cabinet's away-day. The only animated crowd awaiting David Cameron and his Cabinet were a handful of political reporters, including myself. No noise, no heckling, no placards... but a reworked political message from the Coalition.

The public had accepted the need for big spending cuts, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne assured me. The priority now was creating a culture of enterprise, jobs and economic recovery.

The Rolls Royce Technology Centre makes a stunning background for Cabinet ministers to play the export-drive card. There are ample photo-opportunity moments for Prime Ministers and their Chancellors to be seen with the aero engines that make Rolls Royce a world beater. Twelve thousand people, almost 10% of workers in this part of the East Midlands, rely on that continuing success.

Derby's productive/manufacturing economy is 31% - twice the national average. Ministers want the magic dust of Rolls Royce to be sprinkled on other less-affluent, struggling manufacturing areas of the country.

"Derby is a great example of what Britain's economy should be in the future," the Chancellor told me. "And a strong endorsement of the importance of manufacturing industry," he added:

"It shows that you don't have to have an economy that is all based on the City of London or the South East. We have to get this country making things again."

George Osborne at Rolls Royce in Derby

But the Chancellor couldn't resist an opportunity to settle a few political scores with the Labour leaders of Nottingham. They've irritated the Prime Minister by their high profile opposition to the big cuts in local government budgets and in protest, their refusal to publish the council's spending online, as requested by the Communities Secretary, Eric Pickles.

"Nottingham is quite frankly not telling the whole truth to its local population. It's a Labour council and they are not telling the local people what they are spending their money on," George Osborne told me.

Back outside a rowdy Nottingham Council House, the Labour leader Jon Collins struggled to get his message across.

"In effect, the Coalition has told us to cut £60m from our budget next year. That'll have a serious impact on many of the services we provide to some of the most vulnerable people in this city. Someone has to stand up for Nottingham. That's all we all trying to do," he said.

With the Chancellor's Budget later this month and important council elections in May, Coalition ministers will want the wider political debate to move on from the cuts to focus on economic revival.

Labour cities like Nottingham will have a very different political narrative for the country.

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