Everything that could have wrong, went wrong.

From the relatively minor (sent Ferdi to school in school uniform when he was supposed to be in tricolor colours for Bastille Day) to the majorly annoying (three-year-old washing machine will cost a minimum of £175 to repair).

In between these two points there were numerous phonecalls relating to minor and major problems, and general scatty brained forgetfulness.

Running parallel to this Jo is away at a conference all week so it wasn’t until lunchtime that I had anyone other than a smiley seven-month-old baby to offload my problems on.

At about 1pm Jo rang to update me on all things conferencey and she told me about a talk on aid work in Malawi where people have to walk miles for clean water, healthcare is an occasional visit from an international aid organisation or missionary group and malnutrition is the norm.

Tonight I am sitting writing this next to the bath filled with drinking water with two healthy children – one of whom is sulking with me after quickly removing a plaster.

After a cacky day at the coalface we all sometimes need to have a look at the around us and get a little perspective.

Tomorrow there will still be issues and problems to be sorted with varying degrees of seriousness and success but in main they will be annoyances and not life critical.

PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release 19 May 2010
A FRESH START FOR CALDERDALE
An agreement between the Liberal Democrat and Labour groups has been reached that will see them taking over the leadership of Calderdale Council in a joint administration at the Annual Meeting of the Council on Monday (24th May)
This follows the local elections that saw both the Liberal Democrats and the Labour groups increase their numbers by two, whilst the Conservatives lost ground, recording their worst result in Calderdale for over 13 years.
Cllr Janet Battye (Liberal Democrat, Calder) will become Leader of the Council and Cllr Tim Swift (Labour, Town) will become Deputy Leader. Both expressed their commitment to working together to promote a new way of running the Council that will involve more councillors, be more open to the wider community, and establish a new and more positive direction for the Council.
Cllr Battye said: “Following the elections I have spoken to the leaders of all the other groups, but it became clear that the Conservatives were not willing to change the way the Council is run. We and the Labour group are agreed that significant changes need to be made if the Council is to provide the leadership that Calderdale needs. We hope that all Councillors from whatever political group will take advantage of the increased opportunities for them to be involved in running Calderdale Council for the benefit of local people”
Cllr Tim Swift said: “The local Council elections gave a clear message that people want to see change in the way Calderdale Council operates. If the Council is to regain the trust and confidence of local people, we need to demonstrate that it is possible to run the Council in a way that is open, treats people fairly, and delivers on the services people need”.
Among the priorities of the new administration are:
- A more open and inclusive style of council decision-making;
- A commitment to making sure that basic services such as street cleaning, are delivered to a high quality
- A new drive to work with partners to secure jobs and training for local people;
- Making sure that when the Council promises major schemes, they really do happen;
- A pledge to continue to modernise services, to improve value for money and keep the Council tax low.

This arrangement is subject to confirmation at next week’s Annual Meeting of the Council.

The Council’s Cabinet will be made up of the following councillors:
Cllr Janet Battye (LD) – Leader of the Council
Cllr Tim Swift (Lab) – Deputy Leader of the Council
Cllr Peter Wardhaugh (LD) – Performance and Resources
Cllr Barry Collins (Lab) – Economy & Environment
Cllr Olwen Jennings (LD) – Children and Young People
Cllr Bob Metcalfe (Lab) – Adults, Health & Social Care
Cllr David O’Neill (LD) – Safer and Stronger Communities.

ENDS

Canvassing locally was exceptionally good with more volunteers and votes coming to us. Quite a few said that the leader’s debate and Nick Clegg’s performance on the back of our hard work locally meant they would back us both in our local elections and in the general election.

The Lib Dems are on the up because we have the vision and drive for change that people can believe in (oooo that’s a bit Obama-esque).

If you visit the bbc swingometer this would be translated into the following seats in Parliament:
Con 245
Lab 276
LD 100

Labour would be the largest party in Parliament despite being third in the popular vote.

Even worse, Labour would have 176 more seats than the Lib Dems.

Bonkers!!!

In areas like the Upper Calder Valley where I live there is already a long history of community voluntary work which improves the communities without the need of any centralised quango imposing targets and quotas.

There is a serious danger that introduction of a ‘national’ voluntary service could see many small groups being pushed aside by regional managers who think they know best and ignoring the needs of communities.

The direction of resources must be determined at community level otherwise such a scheme will end up as just a Tory election gimmick which I suspect it is anyway.

He knocked Mssrs. Darling and Osborne out of the water on the deficit, the banks and taxation.

This isn’t just my opinion, the interweb is full of commentators declaring King Vince as the winner. Take for instance this of Channel4′s Factcheck:

Cathy Newman’s verdict
Vince Cable reinforced his reputation – telling the truth for example on the income gap being worse than when the Tories left office.

Alistair Darling, on the other hand, boobed on the death tax. And George Osborne remains confusing on child tax credits.

And here’s the lesson for all three political parties as the campaign gets underway: the public likes honesty.

Our online voters made Cable the winner. And FactCheck’s provisional analysis is that he has been rewarded for speaking truer than his two opponents

What I can’t wait to see is George Osborne’s probably futile attempts to justify making a national insurance cut after weeks and months of calling for action to be taken on the £70bn deficit.

I trust Vince ‘the brain’ Cable will demonstrate the intellectual and arithmetic failings of the wannabe Tory chancellor.

After a panicky couple of weeks it looks like the Tories are returning to their core vote after failing to make any headway on the middleground.

After hearing the appalling  duck and weave by the Tory shadow chancellor, George Osborne I don’t think he should have turned up either.

Compare and contrast with Vince ‘The Brain’ Cable.

Steph Booth,the wicked stepmother, of Tony Blair won the candidacy after the previous candidate for deselected by Labour’s high command for failing to disclose being cautioned for criminal damage.

Steph Booth is accused by some members of the local Labour party of being instrumental in the removal of her predecessor.

For full background and the latest unedifying bout have a sneaky peek at http://www.hebdenbridge.co.uk/forum/index.html

It leaves me asking one question:

SHOULDN’T YOU LOT BE FIGHTING AN ELECTION!!!

Our Hilary Myers and the Tory’s Craig Whittaker certainly are.

This park is part on an ongoing regeneration of the old methodist’s cricket pitch. About 5 years ago the methodists were selling the land in a blind auction and a community group formed to save the park from development.

With a little bit of help from Hebden Royd Town Council and a lot of work at a community level the group were able to buy the land.

Today’s opening was the latest stage in what has been an exciting development locally, driven by a small and committed band of volunteers.

As I’ve been involved on and off (expanding family and mayoralty permitting) with the community group since the beginning of the project, I was pleased that the mayor of Calderdale was unable to make it this morning so I could do an impromptu opening.

Thanks Arshad and thanks to all those involved.