Dave Page

Just a quick reminder that tomorrow (Tuesday 20th April) is the last day for you to register to vote in the upcoming elections. If you haven’t already received a poll card, you may not be registered to vote - and that means you don’t get a say in the future of Fallowfield and Whalley Range.

If you think you are registered to vote, but haven’t received a poll card, contact Manchester City Council’s Electoral Services Unit on  234 1819. You’ll need to download and print off a registration form today and put it in first-class post today, or you can pop into the ESU at the Town Hall (it’s just off the Lloyd Street entrance on the corner of Albert Square) and do it in person, but you’ll need to bring some proof of identity and address.

The upcoming elections could well be the biggest change in UK politics for a century. Polls are currently showing the Liberal Democrats ahead of Labour nationally, and some even put us in first place ahead of the Tories. It seems that the televised Prime Ministerial Debate last Thursday has given people a chance to understand our policies of fairness, and people like what they see. Why not watch the next debates over the next few weeks, read the Manchester News papers we’re putting through your door, or check out our manifestos for Manchester and the country?

The Manchester Liberal Democrats have released a manifesto of what a Lib Dem-run Manchester City Council would do.  Manchester Liberal Democrats are making 5 key promises for the 2010 local elections:

1. Cut Council Tax by £51 for a Band D property
2. Cut waste, including ending the Council Leader’s chauffeur-driven car and claiming back £421,000 owed by other councils
3. Lobby for the return of £82 million Greater Manchester Police Funding, which would pay for over 500 more police on our streets.
4. Spend over £1million extra on gritting and improving our roads.
5. Reverse plans to close Ewing school; and cut truancy levels.

We want to change Manchester for the better, making it safer, greener, cleaner and more local. We will play our full part in the future of Manchester’s City Region. We’ll stand up for the people of Manchester, and give power back to the people.

The Manifesto shows how committed the Lib Dems are to green and environmental issues. Unlike Labour we would include Manchester Airport and aviation in the City’s climate change plan. We would concentrate on improving recycling and reducing waste. Manchester’s Lib Dems are committed to protecting our green open spaces from developers.

Obviously, in a recession, cutting council tax is important to put money back in the pockets of families. Likewise, the main concern that people tell me about in Fallowfield is crime and anti-social behaviour. Increased police funding, and the strong commitment to effective community sentences from the manifesto, will help address these problems and make Fallowfield a safer, happier place to live.

I’m also impressed with the way that the priorities here in Manchester dovetail neatly with the Liberal Democrat’s national priorities. Our tax plans will put more money back into people’s pockets, where it will support struggling local businesses. Our education plans will see the end of tuition fees for students, and more funding and support for our younger children, making sure that our kids have the best chance at life we can give them. Our health plans will give Fallowfield people more say in Manchester’s health services. Our economic plans will see more investment in green local businesses.

The only way to achieve all of this together is to make your vote count, and vote Liberal Democrat for change that works for you in the upcoming local and general elections!

I’ve been looking forward to this debate for a while now, ever since I heard it was happening. The state of the economy is the most pressing issue facing the people I talk to in Fallowfield, and so in a way this debate is more important than the three televised Leaders’ Debates between Nick Clegg, Gordon Brown and David Cameron.

Vince Cable is the Lib Dem’s Shadow Chancellor. He’s got a PhD in economics, and is former Chief Economist to Shell, which makes him the most qualified person in the debate. He was on the ball spotting the credit crunch before it happened, but Gordon Brown dismissed his warnings - and his solutions, which include getting the banks we bailed out to support more small businesses to keep them solvent and protect people’s jobs.

The main Lib Dem economic policy is that, if Vince is Chancellor, you won’t have to pay income tax on the first £10,000 you earn. This means that an average earner will save £700 every year. This will be paid for by closing tax loopholes exploited by the ultra-rich, and an annual tax on mansions worth over £2 million pounds. This means putting more money in the pockets of the people who are struggling with the aftermath (and, I suspect, impending return) of recession, by asking the well off to pay a bit more.

These debates are a new feature to a UK election, and I think a positive one. I don’t think it can ever be a bad idea to give people more opportunities to see politicians debate, because it’s far more interesting than just listening to manifestos or soundbites. I’m particularly looking forward to Friends of Platt Fields‘ planned pond-side debate on 1st May between the Parliamentary candidates for Manchester Gorton, including my Liberal Democrat colleague Qassim Afzal.

 Here’s the blurb for the programme. I might not watch this live due to a friend’s birthday party, but I’ll definitely be keen to see what comes out of it!

At 8pm on Monday 29th March, Channel 4 will stage a live debate between the would-be Chancellors, Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, Labour’s Alistair Darling and Conservative George Osborne. Krishnan Guru-Murthy will be asking the questions.

From 7pm on the night, Channel 4 will be hosting a discussion of the debate. You can send questions and comment to chancellordebate@channel4.com and follow the debate and comment at http://www.channel4.com/microsites/A/askthechancellors/

You can also get involved on Twitter by “tagging” your Twitter messages “#askthechancellors”.

Vince Cable is the Liberal Democrats’ Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor and one of the most popular current politicians. A 22/23 March poll by YouGov showed more people thought he would make the best Chancellor than either Alistair Darling or George Osborne.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all those who celebrate it. There are many Irish people and people with Irish connections in Fallowfield and across Manchester, and they continue to contribute to the city.

If you’re interested in all things Irish, be sure to check out the Manchester Irish Festival!

As I’ve previously discussed, a campaign called POWER2010 has been deciding a manifesto for the next election, by consulting widely with people. After over 100,000 people voted in their poll, they’ve decided on their five priorities:

• Introduce a proportional voting system
• Scrap ID cards and roll back the Database State
• Replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber
• Allow only English MPs to vote on English laws
• Draw up a written constitution

Now, most of these things are Liberal Democrat policy already, so I was happy to sign the POWER Pledge. This is what I said when I did it:

As a Liberal Democrat council candidate, I support most of the POWER Pledge, particularly the introduction of Proportional Representation and an elected second chamber. As a longstanding NO2ID activist, I have spent many years campaigning against the dangers of the Database State.

I am not entirely convinced by the pledge on the West Lothian question; to have two sets of people called MPs with different voting rights seems confusing. I would rather see a wider consideration of the constitutional requirements of a nationally-devolved United Kingdom, perhaps as part of a written constitution.

My only concern for the written constitution is that it should be descriptive rather than proscriptive, so people’s rights don’t get missed out due to tricks of wording.

Obviously most of these matters are for MPs rather than councillors to decide, though councillors can have an effect as well, such as the Lib Dems who run Liverpool Council voting that the Labour Government can’t use council resources to promote the ID card scheme. The Lib Dems here in Manchester have repeatedly tried to secure this guarantee for people in Manchester, but Labour have voted them down every time. It’s clear who cares about people’s freedom, and also saving people from enormous wastes of money!

I encourage everybody to sign the POWER2010 Pledge; they’re not the only important issues for the next election, but they’re a big part of making sure that this economic mess we’re in doesn’t happen again, by giving people more of a say and making sure voting is fairer.

Platt Fields Park has kicked off a year of centenary celebrations with the unveiling of a new clock on the boathouse today. Friends of Platt Fields organised the event in conjunction with the Council’s parks and leisure department, and arranged funding for the clock from Sainsburys. The Friends have also received a £4,850 grant from Lib Dem councillors in Rusholme, towards the centenary celebrations.

The clock on the boathouse has been missing for around 50 years - nobody can quite remember when it went! However, even in these days when everybody’s got a mobile phone to tell them the time, it’s still very nice to see it back.

Friends of Platt Fields have organised a great series of events throughout the year to celebrate the Park’s centenary, and I’m looking forward to getting involved in many of them. I hope to see you there!

POWER2010 is a new campaign aimed at grassroots democratic reform - putting more power in the hands of people, and giving us more say over what goes on in Westminster. They have a list of proposed reforms, of which five will be chosen on 22nd February to form the POWER2010 Manifesto, on which the group will campaign during the election. Most of their proposals seem sensible, and many are already Liberal Democrat policy for democratic reform. I’ve voted in favour of the following reforms:

• Scrap ID cards and roll back the database state - the compulsory £10,000,000,000 National Identity Database is an enormous invasion of privacy and waste of money. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you still have to fear Government incompetence like the 25 million innocent people whose personal details were lost in the post by HMRC. This is already Lib Dem policy, and the Lib Dems support the non-partisan single-issue No2ID campaign. I’m involved with Manchester No2ID.
• Introduce a proportional voting system - because most people’s votes don’t count, and half the seats in Parliament haven’t changed hands since 1970. Proportional voting means fewer safe seats, which means less corruption as MPs are forced to actually work on behalf of their constituents to get re-elected. This is already Lib Dem policy.
• Stronger local government - many decisions about the places we live are best taken by local councils in consultation with local people. Even on the rare occasions that local councils have the power to affect a local decision, Westminster is still holding the purse strings. Giving councils more budget to enact local change will get local people more involved in the communities around them and bridge the gap between people and politicians. This is already Lib Dem policy.
• Votes at 16 - a sixteen year old is old enough to leave home and live independently, old enough to join the armed forces and face lethal combat, and old enough to pay tax. But they’re not old enough to have a say about the homes they live in, the wars they fight or the taxes they pay? Many sixteen year olds are interested in politics and the world around them, but unable to have a say at the ballot box. This makes people resent politics and that resentment can last for the rest of their life. This is already Lib Dem policy.
• Compulsory politics lessons in school - I never studied politics at school, because at that age I just didn’t see the point. I feel that I lost out as a result - it took many years for me to learn how I could do my part to improve the world around me. I think that such lessons shouldn’t just cover the traditional Westminster process though, they should include community activism and local government as well.

There were several other reforms I supported, including right to recall, strengthen select committees, transparent lobbying, Parliamentary timetable reform, reducing statutory instruments and stopping revolving-door politics - much of which, again, is already Lib Dem policy. However, because the voting system used by POWER2010 gives equal weight to all your votes, I want to concentrate my voting power on the reforms which I think will provide the most benefit.

As well as voting for reforms, I’ve put my name down to keep in touch with and get involved with the campaign. I’m not sure how much I’ll be allowed to do as the Lib Dem local election candidate for Fallowfield, but I think that POWER2010 looks like a great idea and one which I want to support.

I think this also makes it clear that the Liberal Democrats have sensible policies to make politics cleaner and fairer. When Qassim Afzal is elected MP for Manchester Gorton I look forward to him do his part in cleaning up Westminster, rather than failing to improve the corrupt status quo like his predecessor.

Which POWER2010 reforms do you support, and why? What do you think of my choices?

U Decide is a project funded by Manchester City Council which aims to
direct cash into local communities like Fallowfield. It’s been running for a few years, and the initial phase this year has finished, wherein people proposed community projects they’d like to get funded.

There’s a Fallowfield U Decide meeting on Thursday 4th February at 6:30pm in Platt Lane Methodist Centre to decide which of the proposed projects will be funded from the £10,000 pot. Obviously it’s in the interests of Fallowfield residents to come along and vote for what they want to see happen! Previous funding bids have been included a Family Day in 2008.

I’ll be there to see what projects are applying for funding, and I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.

It’s lovely to see some sunshine after the rain in Manchester today. The snow and ice seems so long ago, even though it’s only a couple of weeks since people found themselves housebound.

It’s important to think about what lessons we can learn from the weather conditions so we can avoid them in future. One thing that local residents mentioned to me was the Fallowfield Loop, the cycle path on the old railway line which runs between Fallowfield and Old Moat, from Chorlton all the way round to Openshaw. This path was completely frozen over in many places during the ice. Now, cars might have trouble on ice but at least you can’t fall off a car while driving (unless you’re Brian Harvey). An icy cycle path is completely unusable to cyclists, as well as the pedestrians who use it for recreation, dog walking and so on.

We’re being told that we need to cycle more. Cycling is a great way to commute, when the roads aren’t perilous - even in the rain, you tend to get less wet (or at least feel less wet) than waiting for a bus. It’s cheaper than a car, and quicker to get into town in rush hour. It’s better exercise than a bus, and gives you the freedom to go exactly where you want to go, which is very handy if you’re off the main bus routes or travelling on a Sunday. I’m looking at ways to make cheap refurbished bikes available to people in Fallowfield, like the “Ride Manchester” scheme formerly based in Levenshulme.

However, if Manchester City Council want us to cycle, they need to support the infrastructure that allows us to cycle, and that includes off-road cycle paths. We know that not every road can be gritted in extreme weather conditions, but since a frozen cycle path is even more perilous to its users than a frozen road, and there are not too many of them, then they should be afforded the same priority as other commuter routes. Of course, keeping the gritting up on roads is also important - though road gritting rarely covers the width of the road, meaning that cyclists either have to cycle in the snow and ice towards the side of the road, or try to share the narrow cleared strip of tarmac with cars - this too needs to be addressed.

Local residents have told me that they want to see action on the cyclepaths issue. Having clear cyclepaths all year round means more people getting more exercise, less congestion and more money in people’s pockets, and I think it’s a great idea. Fellow Lib Dems Victor Chamberlain and Cllr. Paul Ankers have also covered this issue. What do you think?

Hooray, I’ve finally got a blog up and running. I’ve been campaigning in Fallowfield for many months now, and it’s been great to get to know local residents and talk to people about their issues. I hope that this blog will complement the activity I’m doing on the ground with the Lib Dem team, and help more people reach me with their concerns.

As your Lib Dem candidate, I want to know about what affects you in Fallowfield. I’ll do my best to put pressure on the Council where they’re not doing their job, and to stand up for all Fallowfield residents. I’ll use this blog to keep you up to date with what’s going on in Fallowfield and what I’m up to, and to ask you to give me feedback on where you think there’s room for improvement.

I look forward to getting to know people online as well as in person!