Richard Graham - Government

They did a great job in the floods of 2007. Everyone knows that: official enquiries have confirmed it. but the Fire Minister - our MP in Gloucester Mr Dhanda, wants to regionalise the control of the Fire Service. This means transferring those who receive calls and despatch vehicles from Gloucester to Taunton in Somerset where they will be part of a regional team which decides where to send our county's fire engines. Local knowledge in this regional centre will not be as good, and that was key in the crisis.

I oppose this. Regionalisation of the Ambulance Service has caused slower response times, the service underperforms both its targets and what it previously achieved. Ironically the Fire Service sometimes helps them out in the Forest and Cotswolds now.

All the county's emergency services are against this, the Citizen is against it and the Bishop has spoken publicly against it. Only the Fire Minister is in favour. He needs to stick up 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.

Waste

The county council has the difficult task of deciding what technology to use for a new incinerator when the tip at Hempsted closes in 2009, and where to site it. Most of Gloucestershire's waste is generated from its city and largest borough town - Gloucester and Cheltenham. Gloucester MP (Dhanda) senses that the easiest option for the transportation of our waste may be a site close to the M5 and the edge of Gloucester (Javelin Park) and thinks he is on a winning streak by opposing this in advance of any decision or consultation. So he has been busy creating images of Victorian chimneys belching out evil smoke all over Quedgeley (think the 'dark satanic mills' of Jerusalem). And he invokes, as he always does, his usual bogeyman - the Cotswolds cavalry in the county council - as the people to blame for dumping this new monstrosity on Gloucester.

Why not, he suggests, site the new incinerator in the Cotswolds? He knows it makes no sense environmentally or logistically to move large amounts of waste from Gloucester and Cheltenham up the Cotswold escarpment to a district largely classified as an Area of Natural Beauty, but never mind - he reckons, Gloucester doesn't want a new incinerator and don't mind where else it goes. Dhanda rubs his hands with glee - votes from Quedgeley, not a natural heartland for a failing new Labour government!

Besides, it's more fun to write about incinerators than say Northern Rock, the decline of our educational standards compared with other countries (he was in the Education Ministry, after all, until a few months ago), the endless missing of government targets (teenage pregnancies, separate wards for different sexes, a new failure every week), the unbelievably expensive (in lives and money) and pointless war in Iraq (yes, Dhanda voted both for and against the war, showing the flexibility of conviction we have come to expect from new Labour) - or even his idea to relocate Gloucester Football Club to the heart of rugby - the Kingsholm home of Gloucester RFC.

Here are two things Dhanda assumes Gloucester has forgotten. The first is that the whle idea of incinerator - all his talk of dark satanic mills is totally at odds with the professional advice of his own government's Environment Ministry. They recommend easte to energy and provide regeneration benefits for incinerators. They also forbid multiple site solutions and like single, concentrated solutions for PFI financing (the only source of government sites).

The second is more telling. What proposal has Dhanda made for a credible alternative site?

None. Could this be because there are good alternatives along the M5 in the constituency his colleague and neighbouring MP Mr Drew - who is already precarious enough in the next general electionand might not thank him for finding a better site in Stroud?

So let me propose an alternative where Dhanda fears to tread: Sharpness. It has good access to the main roads. It has a much smaller nearby population, is on the wide banks of the River Severn and is used to large plants that sound more alarming than they actually are (eg the nuclear power station, now being decommissioned). And there may even be a chance to use the Sharpness-Gloucester canal for transporting some of the waste. Of course this is a very sketchy idea: the waste strategy papers will have to be gone through in detail and the county council has plenty of time to consider different options both of technology and site in due course. But, since Dhanda has opened the debate, I will move it on by proposing an alternative. Perhaps Mr Drew will have his views. Since Mr Dhanda and I share the same goal - keeping the incinerator away from Gloucester - then I look forward to his support for my proposal.

Let me know on richard@richardgraham.org (there's a link on the front of the home page of this website) what you think

Railway Triangle

This government owned site has been an unlovely, unused space in the centre of Gloucester for too long. Mr Dhanda should be ashamed of his government having done nothing about this asset after 7 years of being Gloucester's MP. Lots of talk, but what has changed? I wonder what the Freedom of Informatioon Act would reveal about the substance of meetings our MP has had with Rail Network

The Urban Regneration Company (GHURC) had a vision of creating a new world built around a new rugby stadium here, but the uncertainties involved - the condition of the land (contaminated), the length of time likely to be spent over planning applications, the number of other partners and the complexity of the project meant that the GRFC pulled out.

The GHURC now has a new plan about to come forward in detail - based on a science park. Meanwhile there are rumblings that our MP is keen to get Gloucester station moved into the Railway Triangle, enabling perhaps some of the land. Would this make any difference to the nuber of trains coming to Gloucester? It isn't clear either if this is the case or what the cost would be. It sounds easy, shifting a station a few hundred yards - it isn't. Nor is it cheap. Has any research been done on the impact of passenger numbers? Or are we in soundbite territory - a press release to move the station, knowing that it would make no difference to passenger numbers or train operators and that neither Rail Network or its owner the government has the money to change things anyway? I do hope not.

In practical terms the best hope of increased services from Gloucester lies in the funding of a double line from Kemble to Swindon, which would mean that services between London/Reading/Swindon to Gloucester would increase sharply. This would be good news for everyone in Gloucester - business, families and students alike. It would, I believe, in the short term provide more additional services at lower cost than moving the station into the Railway Triangle. And I too will try and research what the true situation about the limitation of services and the station location is.

I haven't discussed the ITEC (Elmbridge Court) plan here because the only proposal on the table now is for a park and ride to reduce congestion into central Gloucester. Some people think this is unnecessary, but the amount of traffic in Gloucester is only going to go one way - up. If we don't want Eastern Avenue and the ring road to Cheltenham, Tewkesbury and the A40 completely clogged up we have to think of ways of reducing traffic.

Let me know via the e mail link on the home page what you think about Gloucester Station

ID Cards

This is easy. Mr Dhanda is strongly in favour. I don't want them. They're unnecessary, they'll cost a fortune and none of us have any confidence in the government (probably any government) seeing such a plan through on time, within budget and without losing everyone's details.

Do you agree? (e mail richard@richardgraham.org)

Detention without charge

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.

What do you think? (let me kow from the link on the home page 'contact Richard')

Health

The latest report by Derek Wanless nade it clear that despite record additional government expenditure of £43billion from increased National Insurance payments after 2000, there is very little improvement in the health service, if any, to show for this. A huge amount of taxpayer money has, in effect, achieved nothing.

Part of the reason is the government's extraordinary negotiating errors on pay. Firstly it has allowed doctors an increase of take home pay of about 30-50% while dropping their out of hours' services.

Secondly they underestimated how muich work consultants were doing and so again have overpaid them. And thirdly it has continued to employ too many 'facilitators'. We need less clipboards and more doctors and nurses.

And thirdly there is the continuing obsession with targets. Crucial appointments for cancer sufferers are organised in line with targets and then patients have to wait for several hours for their appointment to actually happen. There are too many targets and everything is still directed towards them, rather than patient care. Brown can talk about 'care not sure' but all the detail of what his government does is driven by targets. The government hasn't really understood that the more targets you have the more people you employ to monitor them, and the less people care about them.

No-one wants to criticise their local hospital, and the GRH is very good in many ways, but to pretend that the NHS is delivering a great service at the moment - after so many (is it 8 or 10 since 1997?) major re-organisations - would be untrue. The professionals are fed up with restructuring. They would probably prefer never to see another politician ever again. Which is one reason why our plan is for an independent NHS, run by the pros and answerable to Parliament but not directed by politicians.

I believe that one of the government's top priorities should be to sort out how it pays all who work in the health sector so that the current wastage of money is stopped.

What do you think would help improve our health service? e mail me at richard@richardgraham.org

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. Can we please have it laid down in law that:

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.

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