The Campaign for Better Politics - Official Website

New Blog

2009-08-17T14:55:00.000-07:00

It's time for a revamp and time to get a better system of updates.
The Campaign for Better Politics is going to change over the weekend with more news and comment and better interactivity.
This old design is erm, old, and in dire need of change.
In the meantime, please keep me posted with malpractice in politics and I will highlight it to all!
Remember tweet with me at www.twitter.com/betterpolitics or Facebook me at www.facebook.com/campaignforbetterpolitics

US Eyeopener

2009-06-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

Apologies for my lack of blogging recently but I have been away to the USA where I must admit shock in finding much anti-Obama feeling.
With the big 'O' wanting to create a fairer healthcare system there will be a cost to the taxpayer which is bringing much fear.
Unlike their British cousins, the Americans have long-shunned a free-for-all at the point of service NHS (though I admit the British system is not totally free).
One family man was at pains to "Obama-bash" angry at such an idea while another was fuming at the Obama's administration having more of a say in Government donations.
But I was amazed at such pessimism when the administration is trying to change a system so badly neglected and rotten under Bush.
It is time for Americans to get behind Obama and his plans.

End of Brown 2

2009-06-03T06:41:00.001-07:00

Michael Fabricant's Facebook status is intriguing:
"I was told by a prominent back-bench Labour MP immediately after Prime Minister's Questions: "Gordon will be gone this time next week". I think a Labour groundswell is growing. Unlike Tony Blair, Brown is neither believed nor liked."
Let me know who this was!

End of Brown?

2009-06-03T03:58:00.000-07:00

SO Hazel Blears and Jacqui Smith have got the hint and left.
But by leaving days before a reshuffle and potential massacre at the elections, this leaves Brown completely open for criticism.
With the expenses row still raging and anger over British politics, will the ultimate fall guy be the Prime Minister?
The Guardian has finally come out and made noises about it.
But from what I hear, Brown could be out this time next week with Alan Johnson waiting in the wings.

Next Prime Minister?

2009-05-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

WITH Harriet Harman throwing her hat in the ring (or not?), it 's time to check out the latest odds for who will take over Gordon Brown as Labour Party leader?
The odds are (thanks to Paddy Power):

Harriet Harman 3/1
Alan Johnson 6/1
David Miliband 7/1
Jack Straw 8/1
James Purnell 8/1
Jon Cruddas 8/1
E Miliband 10/1
Ed Balls 14/1
Hilary Benn 16/1
Douglas Alexander 20/1
John Denham 25/1
John Hutton 25/1
A Burnham 25/1
Alan Milburn 33/1
Yvette Cooper 40/1
Jacqui Smith 66/1
Charles Clarke 66/1
C Flint 66/1
Liam Byrne 66/1
John McDonnell 66/1
Dianne Abbot 80/1
Hazel Blears 80/1
Tony Blair 100/1

Ed Balls' 'Balls-Up'

2009-04-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

BALLS is back in the news for the wrong reasons!
And it just so happens I am supposed to be meeting the Schools Secretary already under fire for the Sats exams and expenses this week. Tweet me @betterpolitics www.twitter.com/betterpolitics with your questions.
Now it seems he has been slagging off his colleagues behind their backs as part of a bid to become party leader. For more see here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1171892/Schools-Secretary-Ed-Balls-used-Damian-McBride-undermine-ministerial-rivals.html And poor Mandy might have been in the firing line.
He, of course, denies it and Tessa Jowell has been wheeled out to back him up. But surely this is just another balls-up for a hapless minister.
Maybe it's time for him to say goodbye.
*By the way, what the hell is Richard Branson doing?

The Dawn Bin Raiders - What a Waste of Resources

2009-04-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

IMAGINE being woken up at half-five in the morning by strange men sifting through your wheelie bin before gathering all of your rubbish and pouring it into a white van.
You are likely to feel slightly afraid wondering what the hell is going on! You might even call the police for fear you are being robbed!
But this scenario is being played out in Lancashire where the county council is sending out agency workers in the early hours of the morning to look through people's bins! It recently happened in a surburban part of Chorley where one woman said she was about to call the police and another man approached them to ask why they were snooping at such a ridiculous time.
Why? Apparently, to find out what we are throwing away as it helps them launch campaigns to minimise the wrong things going to landfill! And the county council say they are justified in doing this.
An article is set to go into a local newspaper about this scandalous activity which one councillor thought was a wind-up! And so did I when I first heard of it.
Not only that, it costs £30,000 of taxpayers' money per "waste audit" and a team of up to nine people are needed for this. They sign confidentiality agreements apparently so we can all be safe they won't be nicking our identities any time soon with the information they find!!! I'm not convinced.
In this era of constant privacy breaches, this really takes the biscuit and I urge anyone who reads this to write to the county council to vent their frustrations!
I will post the news article here when it finally goes up online.

Weird Week in Politics

2009-03-28T03:13:00.000-07:00

SO, we want to reform the Monarchy so Catholics can get involved, travel around the world while briefing against Alastair Darling and then have a big party in England for the G(insert whatever number sounds impressive) conference. I'm actually more of a fan of G4 from X Factor!
It is all exhausting stuff but a is a lot of it actually needed? Shouldn't we just be getting on with the job instead of farting about?
I was also taken by Fred the Shred getting his posh car and house targeted in Scotland. If you know this mystery group, which says it is "only the beginning" please get in touch.
Also, bloggers Derek Draper and Guido Fawkes had a go at each other on TV - and it was utter drivel. I would post a link to the video but it's not worth it! Oh go on, then here it is:

Finally, as a print journalist, it was terrifying to see something that did not feature in the news at all in print or broadcast involving a Tory MEP slating Gordon Brown getting 1m hits on YouTube. The result, the BBC and friends retreated and ran the story anyway.
You can watch the rant here. But, I must admit, I don't think it's worth the hit rates it is getting.

RANT OF THE WEEK: Sir Fred - This Recession's Scapegoat

2009-03-17T15:03:00.000-07:00

OH, how I am fed up of reading about Sir Fred Goodwin and his pension! Another day, and yet another series of stories about it.
Now, he's apparently walked off with another £3m - but hey wait, no he hasn't he has given it back it is reported a couple of hours later. And he's still set to claim £600k or is it £700k a year? I lose track.
To be quite honest, yes it is disgusting and stinks but it's happened and we are all fools for it.
The recession stinks and mistakes have been made so where is the scapegoat? Sir Fred fits that bill as the ex-RBS chief.
And what next?
Oh, we've got local authorities wanting to sue RBS for not revealing details of investments with Cherie Blair leading the arguments as barrister! Unbelievable! What's the point?
The sensible finance chief officer of Lancashire County Council told me he doesn't see the point - it's just lobbing more taxpayers money towards American lawyers and who loses out - we do! And why do we want to do that? This is coming from a man who is overseeing a local government pension pot losing £2.2m a day so he has a right to be angry but he is taking a considered response.
Maybe it's time the rest of us do that - including those trying to find convenient scapegoats for a wider and endemic problem.
It's about time we focused on solving it instead of looking for those to blame.

Blogging Accountability

2009-03-14T03:21:00.000-07:00

IT is a bleak time for journalism with job losses and redundancies biting at daily and regional papers across Britain.
With profits down at Johnston Press, the company is looking to shake up its management on newsdesks upwards making painful job losses. The same is true at GMG where the Reading paper is going bi-weekly and there are set to be horrific losses at the MEN and its weeklies.
Soon, we could get to the stage where there are simply no local papers left or all that remains is news run on tight budgets by few people with no resources. The result - a poor product which people will not buy anyway making the situation worse.
The internet has flourished with blogging, Twitter and all the rest. It has been good for papers to embrace this but the problem is - it doesn't make anywhere near the same money that traditional newspapers did (note the word 'did'). This is made worse by an active online community of untrained journalists blogging away rivalling the sources where people once went for their news.
And I must admit, today, I too read blogs instead of going to newspaper websites because the content is often more interesting, free from the constraints of owners or editors and can be exclusive.
With papers going out of business as I write, there will be few quality reads left alongside a growing amount of blogs and tweets or whatever attracting the reader.
My only worry is the lack of journalism training tied to those writing them and the resources they have to gain access to the movers and shakers. The authors also often have little concept of libel so risk being sued.
I think it is time for the Government to look at the issue of the decline of newspapers and the media - especially as it is supposed to be a key part of democracy.
In the meantime, as a trained journalist, I'll hedge my bets by blogging, writing for a newspaper and tweeting (or whatever else I can do right now to get people's attention!).

Worst Political Quotes of All Time

2009-03-08T11:22:00.000-07:00

TO celebrate idiocy in British politics, let's celebrate some of the worst quotes, or misquotes, of our time.
Feel free to add your own by tweeting @betterpolitics

1. "Now is not the time for sound bites. I can feel the hand of history on my shoulder." - Tony Blair

2. "I did maths for a year at university. I don't think I was very good at it. And some people would say it shows." - Gordon Brown, who recently told the House of Commons he had "saved the world".

3. "Voting Tory will cause your wife to have bigger breasts and increase your chances of owning a BMW M3." - Boris Johnson

4. "I don't make predictions. I never have and I never will." - Tony Blair.

5. "Only in Britain could it be thought a defect to be too clever by half. The probability is that too many people are too stupid by three-quarters." - John Major.

6. Lady Astor to Churchill: "Winston, if you were my husband I would flavour your coffee with poison"
Churchill: "Madam, if I were your husband, I should drink it"

7. "Do not underestimate the determination of a quiet man." - Iain Duncan Smith, shortly before resigning Conservative Party leadership.

8. "We're not saying, 'We're politicians, trust us.' We know you don't trust us." - Michael Howard.

9. "Go back to your constituencies and prepare for Government." - Former SDP leader David Steel before his party came third in the 1983 election.

Phil Woolas - It's Time to Knight Him

2009-03-04T02:55:00.000-08:00

STEP forward Mr Phil Woolas, our favourite Home Office minister.
And isn't it about time we knighted this man especially as he goes on a new crusade of slagging off the Office for National Statistics.
He claims it is playing politics by releasing data to the general public!
Heaven forbid should a statistics body release statistics - what were they thinking?
Oh, wait up, it seems the immigration minister is not happy they are releasing information about immigration figures specifically about the number of British residents born abroad. It is "naive" and "sinister", he says.
But let's get real here, isn't the real politics taking place by the minister himself by making an issue of this so publicly.
And in an era of "open Government", it should not matter if the public knows such information - we are legitimately allowed to have it. We don't live in a former Communist dictatorship, and we quite frankly find the minister arrogant and he has shown appalling judgement here himself.
This is bully-boy tactics of the first kind and I now welcome the Manchester student who recently and successfully threw a custard pie in Mr Woolas' face.
See http://tinyurl.com/afsexv for BBC story.
Relive the classic cream pie moment:

Right Said Fred

2009-02-26T08:39:00.001-08:00

A CONTRACT is a contract and as sickening as this sounds it is allowing Sir Fred Goodwin, former RBS chief, to walk away with a disgusting £650,000-a-year pension.
RBS has posted massive losses - the worst in history though this is still less than predicted.
But Sir Fred was bred under a system which rewarded failure as much as gain.
Now, it is all good and well to moan and point to him and use Sir Fred as the scapegoat for banking's failure.
But he is merely cashing in on what was promised.
It is sickening, it is wrong, but it is too late and Government ministers should quit moaning about it and make sure this NEVER happens again.
See Sir Fred in action:

A Funny - Draper v Dale

2009-02-20T02:31:00.000-08:00

Here at Better Politics we like to stay out of online spats such as the on-going tit-for-tat stuff involving Labour's Derek Draper and the Conservatives' Iain Dale.
But this video spoof of Downfall is sure good value.

Supermassive Black Holes

2009-02-20T02:24:00.000-08:00

IT'S time that we as tax payers stop forking out millions and millions to the pension pots of local government schemes.
Better Politics knows of one local government scheme in England which has a growing deficit of £25 A SECOND - that equates to over £2m a day. Yes, the stock market has gone down but even the scheme's own financial expert does not think it can come back to parity - it is currently £2.1bn in debt. He says there's only a 35% chance of this happening in the next 20 years!
And who pays for this in trying to plug a dying pension system? Well, surprise surprise, it's us - the tax payer. We are the mugs - again.
One pension expert thinks that one day there will be nothing in the pot left to pay out pensions. This, though, will never happen while the Government guarantees these dying gold-plated systems based on final salaries.
No one in the private sector these days can retire on final salaries yet council officers can.
We pay around £35 a year from our council tax bills to go towards other people's pensions - it's not on and it needs changing now.

Bankers v Politicians

2009-02-08T12:36:00.000-08:00

Darling knows how he does it but the next in line for vitriol are the bankers (again!). This time, quite rightly, RBS.
Yes, it is disgusting that bankers, who are failing spectacularly, want to continue paying themselves big bonuses in such an economic climate.
But what on earth can Darling do? He's clearly angry that we've just bailed out RBS for £20bn abd £1bn will be paid out in bonuses. This is bloody annoying.
But we need to be serious when tackling this and start to bring back teeth into government before making empty threats.
RBS should be ashamed of themselves, of course, but let's see action before we go into rant mode on Sunday morning television.
My answer would be to threaten to withdraw our hard-earned tax pounds in any bailout.

£172k Bill for Police Bridge Crossing

2009-01-14T06:17:00.000-08:00

POLICE are paying a massive £172k each year to go over the Humber Bridge each day.
Humberside Police have spent £863,928 over the past five years on the bridge toll – known as "home to work passes" – for staff working on one side of the bridge and living on the other.
In 2007/8, £208k was spent, following revelations made by the Hull Daily Mail.
Ian Watson, assistant chief officer for Humberside Police, defended the expenditure as "good value for money".

Failed Banks Cash in On Christmas

2008-12-08T12:32:00.000-08:00

SO, it comes to the campaign's attention that Lloyds TSB is forking out 35 pounds a head for staff this Christmas for parties!
We think this is an outrage given 5.5bn pounds of cash was pumped into the failing bank recently at the taxpayers' expense.
Shindigs include a booze up at the Preston Marriott Hotel where staff were treated to a five-course Christmad dinner with all the trimmings, booze and party games.
And you think that's bad - what about the RBS splashing out 30k on a Christmas do at Blenheim Palace.
In such times of hardship, and at our expense, this is plain wrong and we take a stand.

Back in Action

2008-11-29T04:23:00.000-08:00

After technical issues, the campaign is back up and running. Hope it wasn't missed too much.
As ever, keep emailing us examples of where government can be made better!!

VAT for the Chop?

2008-11-23T02:49:00.000-08:00

SO the Sundays are full of speculation that VAT is set to be cut by 2.5% to 15%.
This measure is something the Campaign welcomes and could kick-start the economy to come out of the impending recession by boosting consumer spending.
That said, a VAT cut must happen alongside a raft of other measures to help individuals and small businesses, in particular, through such hard times.
Taxing empty business properties MUST end and the government should at least look at Keynesian-type projects to help curb the rapid rise in unemployment.
Borrowing is going to be a major problem over the next few years but if it has to be done to stop the rot, then we would support it. But only as long as we are not held to ransom.
But what we will not support are high and rapid tax rises "justified" by current conditions. We want to know where our money is being spent and IT MUST be spent wisely and properly.
Cut silly and wasteful spending first before high tax rises.

Strictly Come - Get On With It

2008-11-22T07:45:00.000-08:00

THIS campaign is fed up of reading about MPs and senior politicians using parliamentary time and resources to winge about a BBC1 Saturday night entertainment show.
Yes, it's a shame John Sergeant is not On Strictly Come Dancing and you might be upset.
But there is a credit crunch going on at the moment with a major economic downturn needing turning around - Strictly Come Dancing is a distraction and surely there's better things for politicians to winge about.
Stop wasting our tax dollars and do some work!
LET US KNOW IF YOU'VE SPOTTED YOUR LOCAL POLITICIANS SPEAKING OUT ABOUT THIS AND WE WILL NAME AND SHAME HERE.
A couple can be found in the Brighton area. See here: http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/media/2008/11/brighton-argus-dancing-row-gets-political.html

Here is John - the "dancing pig" - in action:

BNP List

2008-11-19T10:32:00.000-08:00

THIS campaign does not condone the BNP - quite the opposite, we oppose the racist and fascist views that it often represents.
But we are totally against the witchhunt and leaking of its list of members.
These people are often misguided but they should not be prone to the sort of death threats and attacks that have now happened after pmembers' personal details including names, phone numbers and occupations of members (including children) were published.
Those who leaked this document should be also be named and shamed as the breach probably breaches data protection laws for a start. They should be brought to justice.
Now, it is out in the public, and it is too late.
And the site which features the leak - WikiLeak - has become so overloaded by users trying to download the list it has now gone down!

PFI in Lancashire Hurts, Financially!

2008-11-19T10:24:00.000-08:00

TAXPAYERS in Lancashire might not be too pleased to hear that PFI projects in their county is costing BILLIONS of pounds more than what they were first valued at!
A whopping £2.5bn in payments must be found over 25 years for projects originally worth just £424.9m - and that's just county council projects covering a few schools and a waste management project! That does not include NHS and other agency PFI contracts.
And of those billions, £609m must be forked out in interest!
The Campaign for Better Politics thinks this is plain crazy and is yet another example of building public projects by the back door. Enough is enough!
PFI is killing this country and holding us further to ransom in tough economic times. It's time to campaign for it to be scrapped!

A Gallery Nobody Wants Millions Overbudget

2008-11-18T11:45:00.000-08:00

TAKE a controversial art gallery and millions of pounds worth of public money and you've got the perfect cocktail for waste!
Yes, and this time it's Colchester Council to burn public money by admitting a further two million pounds is needed to compete the town's Firstsite Newsite Gallery.
The project has a 7.3m shortfall with the taxpayer haing to pay at least 3.75m towards the scheme.
Yet, nobody seems to want the gallery!
--
FROM COLCHESTER GAZETTE:
http://www.gazette-news.co.uk/news/3856238.Colchester____2m_more_to_finish_off_new_art_gallery/

Failing to Represent

2008-11-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

THERE are 19,000 local councillors in England. With expenses sometimes as high as 50k for one of these, it's a very scary number.
And here is another frightening figure in a supposed age of progress with a black president set to take the helm in the USA - just 150 of those are women from ethnic minorities.
This is in an age where New Labour has tried to promote representation within politics. But it has clearly failed.
The 150 figure is in fact DOWN 14 on two years ago.
This is not good enough.
In the words of Barack Obama, can we change this? Yes, we can!

Jolly to the Seaside

2008-11-16T08:43:00.000-08:00

THE Lancashire Telegraph has spotted a gem where Blackburn with Darwen Council sent 80 people on a three-day 'jolly' to Blackpool - very nice. And we paid!
They spent two nights at the four-star Imperial Hotel, it is reported, enjoying full breakfasts as part of seminars discussing "health and wellbeing".
And the cost - £23,000!
The borough’s council leader admitted: “It probably wasn’t the smartest thing.”

Now, How to Use A Road DVD - Cost - 15K

2008-11-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

READ ON - FROM KENTONLINE

[http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kol08/article/default.asp?article_id=51010]

The senior politician in charge of Kent's roads has defended a DVD that advises people how to use a town's ring road.

The DVD, which offers tips on how to avoid accidents and overcome confusion in Ashford, has been criticised by some as a waste of money and unnecessary. It cost £15,000 to make.

But Cllr Keith Ferrin (Con), KCC's cabinet member for highways, insisted the DVD would be helpful and said it had been misrepresented in the media.

While Cllr Ferrin was prepared to concede there may have been other ways to get the message across, he insisted there was no harm in producing the video.

He said: "Most of it is not about how to cross the road. That is just a part of it and is designed to give people a bit of information about what to expect.

"This is the first scheme of this kind for Kent. People in Ashford will not have come across a scheme like this before and there is no doubt they need a bit more understanding about how it works."

People should not rush to judgement without having seen all of the DVD first, he added. "They should not take my word for it [but] look at the whole video. If they do, I don’t think they would come to the same conclusion many of those who have taken us to task have."

The county council would have been criticised had it not produced something to give people advice, Cllr Ferrin argued.

"If we had done absolutely nothing at all, we would have been criticised. If it was only about crossing the road, [the criticism] would have been fair comment.

"But the concept of shared space may mean something to some people, but not everyone. We had to try to explain what it was all about."

Asked about complaints over the language used in the DVD, which at one point urges road users to "use all their senses", he conceded: "I might have used different words."

How To Throw Away Rubbish - A Guide

2008-11-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

YES, because none of us know how. Councils up and down the country have taken to producing videos and sending them out to residents showing people how to throw away rubbish. I just wonder how many of these videos and DVDs have ended up in the bin after being watched. I just hope they were disposed of correctly.
Here's one such example, courtesy of Preston Council... and the videos only cost three grand of taxpayers' money to make!
---

The Campaign - Contributions Kindly Welcome

2008-11-13T10:53:00.000-08:00

As you can see, the campaign is starting to get going but in order to thrive it needs contributions and an evolving goal.
We are looking for as many people to get in touch and contribute their ideas as well as share where they have seen negligence in local and central government and public agencies.
Email the campaign at campaignforbetterpolitics@gmail.com to get involved and share your thoughts. All contributions are most welcome.
The campaign is also looking for regular bloggers to contribute posts to the site and help promote the cause.

Defra - It's All Balls

2008-11-13T10:37:00.000-08:00

YET again, the department for cows and sheep - sorry, I mean Defra, has surpassed itself by splashing cash on another useful project.
No, not schemes to protect Britain from another outbreak of Foot and Mouth - but five grand on caviar inspectors!
The training for 16 inspectors aims to help them"undertake inspections of those trading commercially" in caviar or roe eggs.
Why? Because someone needs to help stop "caviar crime"! Duh! Well, why not?
And if you think that sounds like balls then how about this one. It's emerged that in such troubled times a government quango has spent 12k on golf balls.
The UK Trade and Investment, which answers to new Business Secretary Lord Mandelson, has forked out 12,030.50 pounds of public cash on branded balls in the last three years.
Why, this time? Because we need to give "corporate gifts for business leaders" in rich countries.
Well, I'm sure those golf balls really drove a wedge into key business deals! Caviar anyone?

More Money in the Bin! Literally!

2008-11-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

TODAY'S WASTE OF THE DAY! Read on...

Weston Mercury
Refuse blunder wasted public money - council auditors
12 November 2008

"TAXPAYERS' money has been thrown away by a council waste blunder, according to a report.Auditors say North Somerset Council paid hundreds of thousands of pounds too much for its waste collection services from 2002-04.Grant Thornton's report states the unitary authority paid Biffa, its contractors at the time, between £183,000 and £298,000 more than it should have done.It also criticises council officers and the company for destroying historical documents relating to the investigation.The report states the council failed to notice irregular trends in waste disposal until the company's contract ended.The abnormalities relate to the amount of business and domestic waste being produced in North Somerset.In the year after Biffa's contract finished in 2004, the amount of commercially-produced waste increased annually by 3,500 tonnes while there was a corresponding decrease in domestic rubbish.North Somerset Council dismissed the findings and has insisted its waste monitoring has been effective.The unitary authority conceded it had investigated taking legal action against the company, but was advised a lawsuit would be unsuccessful.North Somerset Council environment chief Councillor Carl Francis-Pester said he was disappointed with the report.He added: "This external audit investigation relied heavily on work carried out by our Internal Audit team and as a result of tightened controls, waste management has not been considered to be a significant internal control risk for a number of years."

PMQs Disgrace

2008-11-12T04:39:00.000-08:00

The Campaign for Better Politics was one of the first groups to call for an inquiry into the death of Baby P following the apparent failings at Haringey Council.
And today David Cameron at PMQs used his questions rightly not to focus on the economy but on this tragic case to ensure it never happens again.
But the result was a slanging match with Gordon Brown shamefully accusing Mr Cameron of playing party politics.
It resulted in heckling from Labour MPs with even speaker Michael Martin in a moment of wisdom intervening to get a grip on proceedings.
We do not focus only on wastes of tax money but also ethics and proper conduct.
This was not proper especially with the death of a baby boy involved.
Mr Brown must apologise at once.
---

Tooty Fruity Loopy

2008-11-12T04:33:00.000-08:00

BEHOLD! The powers of the European Union are far reaching and staggering.

And today, the EU is to show what good work it can do by... banning regulations on the sizes and shapes of 26 fruit and vegetables.

What a masterful stroke in such economic times of hardship! Now we can all eat bendier bananas and peachier peaches than before.

And how much time and money does it take the EU to discuss and develop such policy? I'm sure the answer is just as bending - mind bending!

Media

2008-11-11T05:14:00.000-08:00

The Campaign for Better Politics is a new pressure group available to comment on all stories.
We will feature all contributions on the website as part of our campaign.
For a quote on any issue email campaignforbetterpolitics@gmail.com
We aim to respond within one working day.
For urgent media inquiries, first subscribe as a member via email and a mobile phone number will be sent to you.

Haringey Council Inquiry Call

2008-11-11T04:55:00.000-08:00

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7706598.stm

Haringey Council is back in the news and yet again it relates to a child's death.
This is the same council which failed spectacularly in the case of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie and has now been at the centre in the case of a 17-month-old boy who was repeatedly seen by doctors and social workers yet was not taken out of his mother's care.
The baby, known as Baby P, was repeatedly used as a punch bag and suffered a broken back. After months of suffering, the baby boy died - he also had eight fractured ribs, multiple sores and missing fingertips.
He was taken to hospital three times, was regularly seen by social and health workers and a paediatrician two days before he died who failed to notice the injuries! He was also on a child protection register with the council!
Lessons must be learned from this case and there must be a full public inquiry examining why no action was taken.
Our opinion is the authorities should hang their heads in shame and someone MUST be held accountable.
We will be watching with interest.

Join the Campaign!

2008-11-11T04:46:00.001-08:00

The hope is from this seed will grow a campaign and political movement to stop the brainless from wasting our time and money.
We will highlight idiocy and wrongdoings in a way that is understandable but where lessons can be learned and improvements can be made.
But there are also many strong and effective councils and organisations we will applaud.
And, unlike the TaxPayers' Alliance, we are also interested in ethics, accountability and transparency.
Help keep us in business and let us know what you find!
Happy hunting.