Bye bye Lucy Powell - hello Cllr Lianne Williams!

Cllr Lianne Williams

Manchester Labour, and especially Labour PPC Lucy Powell, were dealt a crushing blow at the polls last night as the good people of Didsbury West elected Lib-Dem Lianne Williams in the Didsbury West by-election.

The vacancy came about after the sad death of friend and colleague Cllr Neil Trafford (33), who tragically died in a car accident on the M6 late last year.

Cllr Williams saw off a strong campaign from both Labour and the Tories to increase the majority we had last may.

Lib-Dem 08: 1283
Lib-Dem 09: 1439 (+8.4%)

Labour 08: 620
Labour 09: 638 (+1.9%)

Conservative 08: 451
Conservative 09: 337 (-3.6%)

Green 08: 281
Green 09: 173 (-3.6%)

Turnout 08: 27.6%
Turnout 09: 26.1% (-1.7%)

Lianne will make an excellent Councillor, and will no doubt ensure both John Leech MP remains in post, and help us take control of Manchester City Council.

Labour block restrictions on Combat Knife sales

Here was the speech I delivered on Wednesday:

Lord Mayor, fellow councillors, good morning.

This month marks the first year since my colleague and I were held up in a bar in Northenden at gun and knife point.

As the leader of this council would agree, it is never a pleasant experience to be robbed, and unfortunately weapons are often used to ensure resistance is minimal.

That is why it I pushed so hard to successfully get replica hand guns removed in Northenden, and this is why my colleagues and I are pushing so hard to remove combat knives from display in our city.

Members may be interested to know that less than a mile from this chamber, you could walk past a shop openly displaying combat knives in it's front window.

When I showed Cllr Ramsbottom the shop in question, a couple of young people who were passing stopped to look at these knives also. The age and the interest shown by these youths did not escape our attention.

Nor has the fact that Greater Manchester has the third highest number of knife attacks anywhere in the country.

Only last week an innocent youth was stabbed in the face in Wythenshawe. He was lucky to survive, and thankfully only needed stitches, but others and not so lucky.

It is indeed depressing to read how many, mostly young people are fatally stabbed every year in Manchester.

This is why it was no surprise, when Cllr Ramsbottom and I met with the police, that they offered us their support.

Would such a restriction work in practise though?

Two weeks ago a bill was introduced to Parliament outlining how the Government wants to remove tobacco from open display in all shops and supermarkets.

The Government noticed that when Canada did this, it coincided with a drop in smoking rates for teenagers.

The same principle should apply here. If the government believes that removing a product from display will reduce usage of that product, surely by removing combat knives from display will have the desired effect of reducing knife crime.

Our city expects us, their political representatives to uphold our highest duty – to protect our citizens from harm.

We are responsible for doing all we can to make sure we fulfil this duty. We have an opportunity right here in this chamber, today, now - to do something positive, to fulfil that duty and make that choice. I urge this council to pass this motion unamended.


Labour's response was to move an amendment that deleted our motion entirely and replaced it with one that congratulated themselves on various knife control measures, and stated that they would continue to campaign for a "National Code of Practice to control the sale and display of ... knives".

A Code of Practice would not be enforceable, and would only be taken up by businesses on a voluntary basis. It would also have to be passed in Parliament, beyond Manchester City Council's control.

It is not clear how the Council would persuade the Home Office to put such a bill into the next Queen's speech, but even if it could then such a Code of Practice would be at least 2 years away, and only then as mentioned, taken up voluntarily.

The Lib-Dem motion would have meant a Manchester wide ban on the display of combat knives in months.

The Labour effort meant persuading parliament to introduce a voluntary code of practice which would only come into effect sometime after 2011.

Lots of speeches were exchanged, and as usual Labour got quite bitter and personal, claiming we were soft on crime, that I was running on a "populist" agenda and that we were somehow making Manchester more dangerous. When I get the transcript, I'll post it up here, it should be hilarious!

After all the speeches, Labour used their majority to pass their own amendment.

Attempt to restrict Combat Knife sales

I'll be proposing a motion to Full Council on Wednesday calling for the Council to pass a by-law restricting the sale of Combat Knives.

I've been working with my colleague and fellow Parliamentary candidate, Cllr Marc Ramsbottom on this since August last year.

The wording of the motion is as follows:

KNIFE CRIME
This Council notes:
Although it is illegal to carry a knife in a public place the current law does not prevent or restrict the open display of combat knives for sale in shop windows.
This Council believes:
That restricting the sale of combat knives will reduce the levels of knife crime and make Manchester safer.
This Council Instructs:
The City Solicitor to prepare local bye law that prevents the open display of combat knives in shop windows.

Not sure if Labour will support it or not, but it won't pass unless they do as they have the majority on the council. I'll make sure I'll keep you updated on this blog.

Dashing the aspirations of our youth

I left a meeting fuming tonight, after hearing a Labour councillor rubbish the aspirations of our youth. The meeting was organised for councillors to hear the views of Wythenshawe Youth, and a selection of our finest told us that they wanted a leisure park built in Wythenshawe.

"Why is it that Stockport, Didsbury and Altrincham have bowling alleys, cinemas and the like, but Wythenshawe doesn't?" Said one.

"We have to spend our money on bus fares to get to these places. If we had it here, maybe we could attract other people to Wythenshawe and they would realise it wasn't that bad." Said another.

I explained that when I raised this very proposal at the Economy Committee last year, which was looking at Wythenshawe Regeneration, a couple of councillors (Labour - but I didn't mention that) branded the idea as "ridiculous". I asked if the proposal had widespread support and they responded that it did.

What bothered me the most, was when I had a discreet chat with a (Labour) councillor afterwards, suggesting that he passed on the sentiments of these young people to his Labour colleagues on the Economy Committee, he told me that he didn't feel it was a "realistic" idea, that the young people should be aiming at smaller gains.

So it's realistic for Trafford, Stockport and South Manchester to have these leisure parks, but not Wythenshawe? Our young people are too ambitious?

This is the problem with Labour - they think Wythenshawe people should lower our ambitions from the rest of the world, that we should set our sights low and be grateful for what we get.

This is probably why when people come up with positive, constructive ideas, instead of listening, they attack back, and dash the hopes and aspirations of those they serve.

Manchester Airport in Gatwick bid

The MEN are reporting that Manchester Airport Group (MAG) have launched their bid to buy Gatwick.

This comes one month after the confidential report, "Manchester Airports Group Corporate Strategy", was presented to December's executive committee, and 5 days after Manchester's "Call to Action" Climate Change plan was presented to the same committee.

Liberal Democrats and Green groups were unimpressed with the exclusion of aviation emmissions from the CO2 reduction targets.

Leader of the Manchester Liberal Democrats, Cllr Ashley said: "No climate change policy worth its salt would let Manchester Airport off the hook. Labour's do-nothing line on the airport reminds me of George Bush's line on Kyoto - that no one had to act until everyone signed up. It's an abdication of leadership."

The next day Heathrow was given the green light to build a sixth terminal and 3rd runway.

Have we reached Peak Oil yet? If so, then aviation would become rapidly more expensive in the next few years meaning demand will inevitably drop. If this is true, then it doesn't make sense to expand airports, as there won't be enough demand for them to fill capacity.

Gaza - who started what. when?

I went to a meeting about the Gaza conflict in the city centre today. The discussion was about what we could do to protest about the conflict.

Hind Hassan, a National Union of Students Executive, member told us that the Israelis started it on the 4th November 2008, when they broke the ceasefire and attacked Hamas "when the eyes of the world were on the US election". 6 Palestinians were killed.

Hamas responded by firing 30 rockets into Israel. No one was injured or killed. Then it all went quiet.

Fast-forward to just after Christmas. Hamas offer to extend the ceasefire if Israel ends it's 2 year blockade. Israel refuse. Hamas start firing rockets and all hell breaks loose. Israel are set to announce a "truce" today.

I think it was cruel of the Israelis to blockade Gaza. When we disagreed with the political leadership of Zimbabwe, we sanction the leadership, not the entire country. When Israel disagreed with the election of Hamas, they punished all of Gaza. I think this is a disproportionate response.

When Israel broke the ceasefire on Nov 4th 2008, Hamas fired 30 rockets, then left it at that - so did Israel.

Should Hamas have waited further before resuming hostilities? Israel wouldn't play ball, and they ignore UN resolutions, so would further attempts at talks or peaceful resolutions have helped? It would seem hostilities backfired, so perhaps it would have been the least worse of options.

Then again, Hamas might argue, would you rather die a slow and painful death in the prison of your home, or die quickly fighting against your oppressor? Hamas chose the latter.

It was pointed out that Manchester City Council invests it's pension fund into Israeli firms. People wanted to boycott Israeli goods and lobby the Council to end it's Israeli investments.

UPDATE 22:30: Israel confirms ceasefire.