Richard Graham - Government

So now we know. The government has demanded £15m cuts from the Hospitals Trust budget this year - over half of the proposed savings come direct from the Treasury. And we don't know what savings they will require in 2011 if they were still the government.

Up to 200 beds is a BIG change in the hospital service. Which is why the county council committee has referred the proposals back to the government. But we know what is happening: Labour is bankrupt and our frontline services are going to suffer unless we are very careful.

Regionalisation of the Fire Service Control Centre

They did a great job in the floods of 2007. Everyone knows that: official enquiries have confirmed it. But the former Fire Minister - Parmjit Dhanda, MP for Gloucester - decided to regionalise the control room of the Fire Service. Local knowledge in this regional centre will not be as good, the IT system is struggling to cope with a huge increase in data, and the whole concept of command and control is diminshed. Added to which the project is now hugely delayed and the budget over spent by many hundreds of millions. The project is now unlikely to be ready until 2013 - three or four years later than intended. That is Mr Dhanda's one legacy as a Minister - a white elephant, wrong for Gloucester, and hugely expensive for the taxpayer.

I oppose this. Regionalisation of the Ambulance Service has caused slower response times, the service underperforms both its targets and what it previously achieved. The emergency services, the Bishop and the Citizen oppose it. Only the former Fire Minister is in favour. He should have stuck up for for Gloucester, not for the government's regionalisation agenda.

E mail me at richard@richardgraham.org (see the link on the home page) if you want the control of our Fire Service to stay in Gloucester.

Railway Triangle

After thirteen years of New Labour and nine years of Mr Dhanda, this grizzly entrance to our city looks the same as it did when they came to power - just more weeds and falling down buildings.

Lots of impractical new initiatives - rugby stadiums, new railway stations etc - but no action and no results. It is time to sit down and talk with the main players and resove this issue once and for all.

ID Cards

Mr Dhanda was strongly in favour. I never wanted them. The government has now recognised it's a waste of time. Once again our MP was on the wrong side of the argument. His track record - whether on the Ghurkas resettling in Britain or on the waste and Big Brother society of ID cards is weak.

Detention without charge

I wrote in 2007: "Currently we can detain suspects for 28 days before charging them formally. That is the longest time of any country in the west. The government has proposed this be increased to 90 days, then 50 was proposed, I think they currently propose about 40. Mr Dhanda is strongly in favour of all of these proposals. I am not. They're unnecessary, and will not help us to fight terrorism effectively. We made do with 28 days during the Second World War and setting up poice state legislation will only antagonise further innocent people brought in for questioning. In a city as multi cultural as Gloucester this will lead to trouble. So let's drop this proposal."

And guess what? The government HAS dropped them.

Education
One of my great friends is a man who was once a teacher - an inspiration to adults and children alike. For years this Oxford educated physicist was Head of Science at one of the largest comprehensive schools in this part of the world. He resigned about five years ago to take early retirement. Why? He was exhausted and fed up with the endless bureaucracy, paper work, national target chasing and other impediments to actual teaching that the goverment put in his way over the years.

'Education, education, education'.

And yes, as the son and brother of teachers - I agree. But there has to be a better way than the current countless restructuring of and paper directives from the state system. the Conservatives will get back to:

Phonetics is how you teach children to read
Competitive sports are good for children
Conkers and snowballs, sensibly monitored, are part of growing up
Having classes without any streaming is not good for the children in the class

The Conservatives have published new policies which would make a huge difference - including having streaming in all classes and giving the Headteacher final say on who stays at or leaves the school. they focus on increasing discipline and improving results

Do you agree with these proposals? e mail me at richard@richardgraham.org