A letter for the Free Market to deliver

Dear Taxpayer,

Once again, the Conservatives are demonstrating the insanity of their policies. This time it’s the forests and, surprise, surprise, they want to sell them! The idea behind this is apparently nothing to do with the budget deficit but to do with David Cameron’s “Big Society”, where he shifts responsibility from Westminster onto other interests.

In this case, his suggestion is that local community groups could buy up the forests and look after them themselves, as well as businesses buying them for commercial use. He never pointed out that private individuals might want to buy too, and for good reason. The average person wouldn’t be able to afford their own bit of woodland, however someone with a fair bit more money than the average person would. In fact, they could buy an awful lot of it and, if they owned an estate they could expand their lands significantly. Fantastic! - Now some wealthy people can buy our – yes, the taxpayers – land under the guise of “The Big Society” which you’ll remember, is where David Cameron flogs the country’s assets off to people who have lots of money.

Why should community groups have to buy it anyway? These communities pay tax already, some of which goes to the Forestry Commission, and their tax bills aren’t going to get any lower, even with this sell-off. David Cameron and his team are fairly smart, so they know that people will think like this too – so why is he proceeding?

Let’s think about this for a moment. The Conservative Party’s biggest donors are big businesses and wealthy landowners. Businesses and wealthy landowners are often to be found pushing for lower tax rates. The solution: a place where wealthy landowners, such as yourself, can invest in a renewable resource that just keeps on giving. You can buy some woodland and find that money really does grow on trees, just buy some woodland, wait for it to mature and then tear it all down. Not only that, but it’s exempt from inheritance tax, Capital Gains Tax and income from money made on this land is income tax free too! - Your won’t need to worry about paying the kid’s private school or university fees! Don’t worry folks, it’s all part of the Big Society, where David Cameron sells land to benefit Conservative Party donors.

What’s next? We pay for woodland through tax – it gets sold off, okay, we don’t all go for walks in the woods. Still, we pay tax for things like new hospital scanners, most of us are never going to have use them, but we still pay tax for them nonetheless. Will those be sold off too? Will patients with cancer have to pay to see if their tumours have shrunk?

The Big Society is a circus. We can see the animals are slowly being flogged off and the bears are dancing to a song of new promise to distract us from the elephant in the room, the real meaning of the big society. The ringmaster is David Cameron and we are the clowns.

Yours faithfully,

The People

Vandals, and other words pertaining to Fife Council

Published Dunfermline Press: 28/01/11

Sometimes I wonder if the Council puts any thought into what they’re cutting. Do they take us seriously? Really? I mean if they considered it fairly, would they have cut the hugely popular and successful music tuition programme down to the bare minimum? Even in the face of a huge public backlash and a musical protest, a number of councillors took advantage of the free concert before returning to their desks and doing precisely nothing about it. Did they listen? No.

Did they take the hint that young people’s educations shouldn’t be taken so lightly? No. Fife Council have announced that they propose to close the Ardroy Outdoor Education Centre too, an absolute gem of an establishment which does great work in giving young people experience of the great outdoors and of the importance of conservation. It means so much to the people who visit it – for some deprived youngsters, it’s their first proper experience of the real outdoors.

Teachers, pupils and parents have been contacting the Council, not only asking them to reconsider their decision but also offering two generations of testimonies to the Ardroy experience.  Some questioned how the council could afford £6.8million on a new museum for Dunfermline, when Ardroy costs the council just £250,000 per year. The Council replied that the outdoor curriculum was voluntary for schools and “a good number of Fife Schools already go elsewhere” – yes because, according to the Save Ardroy campaign website, the centre is booked “virtually every academic week through to June 2013” They then suggest that the Council would be free to invest in outdoor education at Lochore Meadows, on the edge of Lochgelly. Hold on a second - the great outdoors doesn’t have a toilet and a visitor centre to have your packed lunch in - where’s the real outdoor experience when you go home at the end of the day?

Nothing was said about where the £6.8million that is being contributed by the council to Dunfermline’s new museum is coming from. Nothing.

It gets worse too, this email was generic. The councillor who wrote this did not address all the points raised by the objectors and instead showed what he thought of the objectors by simply copying and pasting the same text time and time again. Do they take us seriously? Really?

Young people’s services are just too valuable to be cut like this. Outdoor education gives young people a chance to learn about ecology and conservation. Youth clubs give something to do for young people in some of our most deprived areas. The Scottish Youth Parliament gives Fife’s young people representation in politics and a real chance to make their views heard. With musical education is already on its way out, just how much is going to go and what are we going to be left with?

It seems to me that the Council just doesn’t understand, their generic reply email referred to the objectors’ “emotional attachment” – perhaps, but what this is really all about is making sure young people learn about living away from home, the environment, conservation, team-building, caring for each other. This is not just some emotional attachment; this is about twenty people’s livelihoods and the experiences of thousands of school children who all learnt valuable life lessons that couldn’t be replicated at school, or even at Lochore.  Living and learning together is an invaluable experience that no child should go without.

Overly Opinionated

Published 12/01/11 - Dunfermline Press

A few things around Christmas have got me thinking about society, the media and our wonderful ability to have an opinion on anything – regardless of how little information we have about it. For example, Frankie Boyle took a slating when he used racist terms in his show. Obviously that sort of language isn’t acceptable at all, and plenty of people complained about he was racist towards certain groups. He wasn’t, if you’d seen the show (and I bet a fair few of those complaining hadn’t), you’d know that he was in the middle of a routine about how little the media (and to a much lesser extent, society) seems to care about the innocent civilians caught up in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. I believe that term was used to emphasise the fact that we don’t care about them as much.

This leads on to my second point, the Joanna Yeates case. Joanna’s landlord, Chris Jefferies, was released on Police bail on Sunday after being arrested on suspicion of her murder. Within hours the media was drawing attention to his scraggy hair, unusual dress sense and the fact he lived alone, demonising him to the public, portraying him as a potentially evil man. Have they not heard of Innocent until Proven guilty? They have no evidence - yet they can’t wait to imply he’s guilty, it’s shocking. Let’s wait and see if Mr Jefferies is arrested again, then let’s wait until after the jury has made up their minds. Then, and only then, we can properly make up our own minds. We seem to love making kneejerk reactions, it seems that everyone has to have an opinion even if they know very little – a look at few forums for national newspapers proves this, “I never watch [Boyle’s] shows, he’s disgusting”

Then again, people will soon have to make up their minds on who to vote for in the Holyrood elections in May. I think we’ve given the Government long enough now to have a fair shot at governing and we do have evidence to back up our judgements. The Lib Dems promised to vote against raising tuition fees – of the 57 present for the vote, just 21 voted against the rise. David Cameron said he would protect SureStart nurseries, yet it was reported this week that an English Council was planning to slash the scheme by 60% and that many more councils were likely to follow.

And now on an altogether different tangent, since it’s a new year I’ve been thinking about new year’s resolutions for some of the big names in politics at the moment.

Nick Clegg – Put some money away for your children’s university education...

Vince Cable - Stick to the dancing, since your policies are much like your dance moves: 1, 2, 3 – about turn! Oh, and stop declaring war on people.

David Cameron – Make the ‘Big Society’ work by doing something unpaid, being Prime Minister for instance, you have a rather large income as it is...

Lindsay Roy – Keep up the good work! Inside sources at the Labour party said they wanted a “Lindsay Roy – type character” to fight the Oldham East by-election.

Comebacks and other annoying things

Published 23/12/10 - Dunfermline Press

And the award for the remarkable comeback of the week goes to...[drumroll]...the snow! Much to the disgust of teachers, drivers and anyone who wants to hear about anything else on the news. But please, this Christmas, spare a thought for those trying to make it better for you. The Train Conductors, the Bus Drivers, the people who work in the Fife Council contact centre. They’ve been getting it in the teeth for the last few weeks, they’re not responsible for what’s happened but since they’re the public face of the operation – they get the blame. It’s not terribly fair. And no-one wants to be sad at Christmas.

 So, I’m taking it upon myself to try and explain what’s been going on and why everything is just as good as it can be. Ok, let’s start with the trains. The trains can get through snow with no problems whatsoever, the issue is that their electrical parts don’t like it one bit. The snow can be sucked into the engine’s cooling fans, blocking them causing the engine blocks to heat up and a safety system shutting the engine down. The compressors, which compress air to allow the drivers to take the brakes off don’t work in the extreme cold. You might have noticed the rather large lumps of ice stuck on the side of the trains, these are a nuisance since they can fall off and bounce off the sleepers, possibly damaging the underside of the train – as you can imagine, ScotRail aren’t too happy about letting trains run when that happens.

Then there’s the council, and boy, are they taking a beating. In my role as a Community Councillor, I receive updates on what the council has been doing each day to cope with the snow and ice. If I’m honest, given the extreme weather, they seem to be doing pretty well. On one particular day, in the ‘south area’ of Fife, they had over forty vehicles ranging from gritters and ploughs, to wee clearance machines hard at work on what they define as ‘primary routes’ – immediate access routes to schools and hospitals, as well as bus routes – and a few more on secondary, less important routes. There’s been much criticism of how smaller streets haven’t been cleared too. The answer, quite simply, is that there’s thousands of kilometres of streets but, they are not as important as the roads between our towns and villages, which we need for the emergency services and food deliveries, among other things. Also, the snow was quite often undoing their hard work not long after. 

Then there’s the buses which have struggled through the snow with some semblance of a service. But more than once entire routes have been suspended entirely, why? Among other things, cars that have struggled in the snow have been abandoned on some roads – making them impassable. Also, some drivers not being able to get to the depot. Give them credit though, they have tried to keep some major routes going especially the 7 and the 19.

So, with more colder winters on the cards what are we going to do? Snow tyres, perhaps. More organisation? Perhaps, although the council has done fairly well. More information – definitely. We complain because we can’t see what’s being done. So, tell us (like they have on FifeDirect) and keep us informed. But please, please, don’t harass the person on the other end of the phone. They’re probably as annoyed as you, it’s just they’re not allowed to admit it.

Thoughts on the 1909 to Edinburgh.

Aviemore in December is meant to be a Winter wonderland. It ain’t. It’s a mere -8^oC, there’s around an inch of sn-, sorry slush, on the ground and an entire season’s worth of snow on nearby Cairngorm. Getting around is difficult to say the least, when the locals refuse to use the backroads – it’s bad. The buses are at the mercy of the A9 and the gritters, while train services are being disrupted by snowploughs heading down the single track sections and the newer units being unable to cope with the arctic temperatures being experienced. As a result, I’m evacuating Aviemore on a train that’s been delayed 40 minutes caused by the crew being delayed by the same amount on a northbound train. Not only that, but the train is 20 years old instead of just 5 – that’s technology for you. Luckily, with all the disruption there’s a few of these things (I believe it’s a Class 158 – if you want to look them up and know what I’m talking about) lying around spare – so they’ve put three of them together to get everyone a seat.

The train crew have carried on this extra-helpfulness in their respective positions. The driver – by making the thing go like a Bat out of Hell (90mph between Aviemore and Kingussie? Hell yes!). And the Conductor by searching for passengers who have connections to catch and keeping them informed. As I got my laptop out I realised it was out of battery. I bumped into the Conductor and asked him if there was any First Class service tonight (given that it’s near identical, just a different pattern on the seat, a plug socket and a lamp)- result! The reply, “sit where you want tonight, mate”, gave me some much needed leg room, an article and a blog post!

The Conductor’s just passed me looking for Glasgow passengers, “Good news folks, the Aberdeen train’s been delayed and it’ll be in Perth at half past”. Well, they could have replied with some more enthusiasm anyway. Most of them just grunted their approval before going back to listening to the latest Clubland album.

So, given the above example, you’d be forgiven for thinking that ScotRail would like to have Conductors on every train. The fact is they don’t. Instead, they favour a method known as DOO, Driver Only Operation. This would mean that the Driver would be the sole person onboard responsible for the safety of the train, as well as its passengers. Instead of Conductors, Ticket Examiners would be employed. Ticket Examiners receive only 80% of a Conductor’s wage and do not get trained on the types of trains or the routes they work, so in the event of a problem or emergency a Ticket Examiner would not be able to help the Driver other than to evacuate the passengers (which they are trained in, along with First Aid). Also, their only job is to issue and check tickets and give advice on train times. There’d be no more phoning control to find out what the Aberdeen passengers should do. No one there at the doors to help your Granny get up the step, instead the driver would just look at his monitor, or at a mirror, while the train was stopped.

It gets worse too, regulations require worked conventionally to carry both a Driver and a Conductor when passengers are onboard. DOO would mean the Driver Could leave without a Ticket Examiner if one wasn’t available – would you feel safe on the last train at night, knowing that the only guy in charge of your safety is up the front Driving?

Post Script: The train is now between Perth and Kirkcaldy, the crew changed over in Perth and the journey is achingly slow. The train coasts for 3-4 minutes before the rumbling whine of the engine returns to pull us back to speed, which doesn’t take long at all. I’ve also not heard a word from the Conductor, over the tannoy or anywhere else. Typical, eh?

In the interests of balance:

·         Trains have operated without incident under DOO, largely out of Glasgow Central, without incident for over 25 years.

·         The Airdrie – Bathgate line opened on 12^th December 2010, the Conductors that worked the original Edinburgh -  Bathgate service were downgraded to Ticket Examiners, and kept the original pay and conditions. The dozens of new recruits didn’t.

·         Procedures have existed to ensure DOO is as safe as possible, yet a communication system with the Driver is hardly going to replace the human presence and knowledge a train Conductor has readily available.