David Ottewell's Politics

A while ago I mentioned political blogs in Greater Manchester. Anyway, here are a few that are worth keeping an eye on. All regularly updated, informative and well read.
Labour
Adele Reynolds
Chris Paul
John Leech watch
Conservatives
Iain Lindley
Rob Adlard
Liberal Democrats
Sajjad Karim MEP
There are plenty of political blogs that never really get going, and exist in a twilight zone between the living and the dead. I was toying with the idea of naming and shaming before I realised I’d only made one post on this blog throughout December. And that was only three lines long. Good job I don’t get paid by the word.

A quick recap:
- Eight towns and cities bid to host Britain’s first super casino
- MPs back the appointment of an independent panel to pick a winner
- The independent panel chooses Manchester (and slates Blackpool’s bid)
- Pro-Blackpool MPs, despite supporting the panel’s appointment, kick up a huge fuss and try to force the decision to be overturned
Both the House of Commons and the House of Lords will be asked to ratify the panel’s decisions next month. At the time of writing, the Commons vote will be whipped, which will minimise the number of Labour backbenchers voting against Manchester. The vote to approve Manchester as the site of the super casino will also be bundled with a vote to approve 16 other towns and cities as the site of smaller casinos. Many of the MPs who are supporting Blackpool have constituencies that are set to benefit from the smaller casinos (Tony Wright, for example, the Labour MP for Great Yarmouth). To vote against Manchester, they will have to vote against their own constituencies. Unless, of course, the current spinning in favour of Blackpool persuades the Government to backtrack and have separate votes on the super casino and the smaller casinos.
And there’s plenty of spinning. Let’s take a look at a couple of recent articles, starting with the Sunday Telegraph:
There was further controversy when The Sunday Telegraph revealed that Manchester… could not even guarantee that the complex would be built in the deprived east of the city, as it had suggested in its original bid.
That’s true. But then none of the shortlisted towns and cities could have guaranteed the casino would be built on any particular site. Whoever won would have been legally bound to consider any proposal, anywhere within its local government boundaries. (Greenwich, for example, could not have “guaranteed” its casino would have been in the Millennium Dome.) In practice, though, any bid to build a super casino anywhere except east Manchester will be rejected on regeneration grounds. The gambling companies know that; they are not stupid, and will not waste their time and money putting in a bid to build the casino in Didsbury library.
Blackpool… is now seeking an explanation from the panel on why it decided to give the licence to Manchester.
That’s plain ridiculous. The panel gave a full explanation in its report. It pointed out that east Manchester was more deprived than Blackpool and would get greater regeneration benefits; that the casino would be more successful in Manchester; that Manchester would be a better test of how super casinos would work elsewhere in Britain; and that Manchester had better plans in place to tackle possible problem gambling. All this was based on a year of detailed research.
Now the Daily Mail:
The chaos is a blow to controversial South African tycoon Sol Kerzner, whose company is in pole position to secure the right to operate any Manchester supercasino. Mr Kerzner became known in Britain as a result of his close relationship with Philip Anschutz, the Dome boss who entertained John Prescott at his American ranch.
True, but so what? Kerzner’s company was part of a consortium that was chosen by Manchester as its preferred partner to build the super casino. But that was two years ago, when we expected several super casinos to be built around the country. Now there will be just one, and Manchester council must, by law, reopen the bidding process. Many other huge gambling companies have said they will probably get involved in the race; Kerzner International, as yet, has not. The last competition by Manchester was pretty transparent, and Kerzner International only just won. The council will expect whoever wins the new bidding process to provide, as part of the deal, more facilities for the local community than Kerzner International were proposing. We will know exactly what is being offered by each bidder before a decision is made. In short, Kerzner International may not bid; if they bid, they may not win; and their bid will be subject to massive public scrutiny. I really don’t think we need worry about Prescott and his cowboy hat just now.
In addition, more than 100 MPs – 65 of them Labour – have signed a Commons motion backing Blackpool’s bid.
The important motion is this one. Eighty-three MPs have signed.
When the Casino Advisory Panel chose Manchester, it claimed it would be the best place to test whether a supercasino would fuel problem gambling. But addiction experts fear that locating a supercasino in the middle of a poverty-stricken residential area in the east of the city would lure the poor and problem gamblers… But insiders said that if the Joint Committee looked again at the supercasino bid, they might call for the criteria to be changed so the best regeneration bid – perceived to be Blackpool – is accepted.
Newsflash: poor people live in Blackpool too. And the “best regeneration bid” is presumably the one that produces the greatest economic benefits for the poorest area. That was certainly the panel’s view. The fact is problem gambling is going to be a danger wherever the super casino is sited. Whether this can be controlled is something the Government wants to test before agreeing to build any more. Manchester would be a good test because it is comparable to many other British cities; Blackpool would not, because it is not. And the idea that the super casino would single-handedly transform Blackpool’s economic fortunes was scorned by the panel. Blackpool, as they pointed out, needs a proper, sustainable economic “plan B”.
The facts are pretty simple. MPs agreed the decision should be made by an independent panel. Why? Precisely to avoid the kind of political cajoling that has now reared its ugly head. The panel did a thorough and professional job, as anyone who reads their report can see. Yet many of those same MPs are now crying foul because they didn’t get the result they wanted. They’d do well to remember that it is the panel – and not them – that has crunched the numbers. It’s the panel – not them – that has heard detailed evidence from all the bidders. This pro-Blackpool campaign is based on sentiment, not fact. As Blackley MP Graham Stringer points out, if the Government caves in now it will lose credibility. Why should they ever bother setting up any independent panel ever again?
Here’s a thought experiment. Imagine that the panel had chosen Blackpool. Imagine that it was supporters of the Millennium Dome that were kicking up a fuss, and calling for politicians to exercise a veto. What would Blackpool’s MPs, and the national press, be saying about the panel then?

Just got back from Brussels for a meeting of the Commitee of the Regions – essentially representatives from regional bodies (like the North West’s assembly) across Europe.
Serious stuff later, but it was puzzling to hear the explanation for one of the Estonian delegates dropping an objection to a key report being presented by Liverpool councillor Flo Clucas.
Apparently, the Estonian language doesn’t distinguish between “facility” (i.e. the place where a service is provided) and “service” (i.e. what is provided in a facility).
Does that mean Arsenal keeper Mart Poom believes “The Emirates Stadium” is synonymous with “football”? Because it always seemed like it Arsene Wenger who thought that…

I blogged a couple of months ago about how there were 10 areas, including Greater Manchester, battling it out for public transport cash in return for introducing a form of “smart” congestion charging.
That’s right – despite the backlash over our plans, nine other places are seriously considering going down the same route.
The nationals seems to be catching up on this as a result of the news that more than one million people have signed a petition against road pricing.
Transport Secretary Douglas Alexander has promised to listen to what people say but remains keen for trials to go ahead in at least some of the 10 areas.
I mentioned before that the money that will be dished out in return – from what is known as the Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) – is not quite as plentiful as people seem to think. The headline figure for TIF is that it will start at £290m a year in 2008/09, rising to £2bn a year by 2013/14. But the majority of that sum has been earmarked for what the Government is calling “productivity” schemes. Those include major improvements in heavy rail, certain motorway and A-road projects, and (surprise, surprise) London’s Crossrail.
Only £200m a year is currently due to be available for “congestion-busting” schemes (i.e. those proposals, like ours, to introduce a form of road pricing in return for better public transport).
What we didn’t know last time I wrote was that Greater Manchester will be bidding for £1bn from the TIF in return for its planned congestion charging scheme. That money would pay for the full Metrolink extensions as well as improvements in busways and additional trains.
it would also pretty much exhaust the TIF “congestion” pot.
We know that the West Midlands is another of the 10 potential bidders and its proposals, although less advanced than ours, are even wider in scope. They have suggested they would want up to £2bn before introducing road pricing by 2014. That’s actually more than will be available in “congestion” TIF for the entire country.
Bluntly, then – it seems the Greater Manchester and West Midlands schemes can’t both go ahead.
Given the pressure under which Mr Alexander finds himself on this issue nationally, it’s reasonable to assume he will want whichever major pilot goes ahead to be as acceptable as possible to the local population. Could it be, then, that a major factor in whether it is us or Birmingham (or even somewhere else) that becomes main the guinea pig for road pricing will be which of us wants it most – or rather which of us doesn’t want it least?

I doubt the good folk of Birmingham will be tying themselves up in knots over news that most people now consider Manchester to be England’s second city.
These things are usually dismissed as a “bit of fun” and in a way that’s right. You can compare skyscrapers, or airports, or football teams, or even pit Oasis against Ozzy; in the end, though, there are just too many imponderables to declare a true second city. Does size matter, and how much? Or is it the (local) economy, stupid? How do you offset cultural wealth, say, against average GVA? Is international reputation more or less important than the number of people who travel into the city for work? You might as well try to settle things with a googlefight.
So Birmingham needn’t bother keeping a watchful eye on Manchester? Well actually it should. And not just Birmingham but Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool and all the rest.
The fact is the whole second city debate is pretty parochial and increasingly irrelevant. The real competitive threat isn’t from within these shores. A successful city these days has to be an international city.
Greater Manchester’s been busy trying to assure its future in a global economy. To do that it has identified a niche where it can compete not just with the likes of Birmingham but with cities like Turin and Valencia – not to mention places in China and India. That niche is manufacturing, of a sort, but it sure ain’t cotton. It’s the industry of ideas.
Central to this is the “Knowledge Capital” plan to create more than 100,000 new jobs in creative and high-tech industries. The new merged university – with its goal of increasing its cutting-edge research to become one of the world’s top 25 by 2015 – is one obvious key. But look closely and you’ll see all recent economic initiatives have been pointing in the same direction. The plans to create a “Mediacity” at Salford Quays; the building of the conference quarter around the GMEX; even the huge new International Arts Festival, which will make its debut this summer. Thus is an “ideopolis” born.
It’s working, too. Those who complain that Manchester is getting “handouts” are putting the cart before the horse. The Quays isn’t ready to become a major centre of broadcasting excellence because the BBC is moving five departments there; the BBC is moving five departments there because the Quays is ready to become a major centre of broadcasting excellence. We aren’t a successful conference city because Labour came in 2006 and is coming back in 2008 and 2010; Labour came – and is returning – because the facilities are so good.
Private companies are also getting on board. It wasn’t charity that led the Bank of New York to choose Manchester for its new business centre. The 47-storey Beetham tower – the tallest residential building in Britain – wouldn’t have been built without the financial backing of Hilton. More investment from other major multinationals will follow.
Second city? Who cares? That’s yesterday’s debate. We’re too busy looking forward to tomorrow.

The rush of MPs signing up to the early day motion favouring Blackpool over Manchester for the supercasino seems to be coming to a halt.
There are 66 names today, up from 59 yesterday.
New signatories include Barbara Keeley, the Labour loyalist and Worsley MP. Voters in her constituency will doubtless be keen to hear why she’s questioning a decision that could be worth £100m a year and thousands of jobs to the Greater Manchester economy.
Is it a political risk she would have taken before securing her seat in this game of musical chairs?
Others, already on the list, from Greater Manchester: Jim Dobbin (Lab, Heywood and Middleton) and Mark Hunter (LD, Cheadle).

Sorry to keep blogging about the supercasino, but blame Blackpool…
The town’s mayor has apparently waded into the debate, saying: “Does Manchester want our sea, and our tower as well? They might as well have it all!”
Sorry, Blackpool, but this is precisely the kind of “but it’s mine!” attitude that cost you any chance of winning. The supercasino was not “yours”. And nobody took it from you.
You bid, we bid; you lost, we won. The facts shows you didn’t need it as much as East Manchester, it wouldn’t have been as successful in Blackpool, it would not have been a good test of future supercasinos in other British cities, and it wouldn’t have cured your economic woes.
Address those facts if you want; but don’t try to tell us you had some god-given right to win.

At the time of writing, 59 MPs have signed up to an early day motion expressing “surprise and regret” that Manchester was chosen ahead of Blackpool for the supercasino and calling for the decision to be scrutinised by a group of politicians.
Some of these MPs are from Blackpool, but the majority are not; two are from Greater Manchester (Labour’s Jim Dobbin and the Liberal Democrats’ Mark Hunter). Most of the rest are from north Wales and northern English constituencies, including in places like Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds.
The choice of location for the supercasino was plagued with accusations – some from backbench MPs – of interference by senior politicians. We all remember this, for instance. Yet the independent Casino Advisory Panel proved just that – independent. It spent a year collecting detailed evidence. It ranked the bids against clear criteria. And Manchester – the non-political bid, the unfashionable bid, the most deserving bid – won. There could be no more blatant political interference than this after-the-fact EDM.
What gives these MPs the right to question that CAP’s decision? Is it supposed to be their democratic mandate? Because the likes of Joan Humble – the Blackpool MP who started the EDM – voted for the Gambling Bill when the Government had made clear that, if the Bill were passed, the decision on the location of a single supercasino would be decided by the CAP. Gordon Marsden, another Blackpool MP and a co-sponsor of the EDM, didn’t seem so opposed to the panel on March 1 last year when he said in the Commons:
I want to take as my text what the Secretary of State said…
“We think it is important to take a controlled and cautious approach to the introduction of these new types of casino.”
I believe that the Government have done that by setting up the panel and charging it with certain responsibilities.
Are the MPs signing up to the EDM now claiming to know more about relative deprivation in East Manchester and Blackpool than the panel that many of them supported, which pored over official government figures and visited each proposed site? How many of the politicians have visited Beswick recently? Are they better placed than the CAP to judge where a supercasino would be the biggest commercial success, or most help local people?
How would people in the north west feel if Blackpool had won and then a bunch of London MPs ganged up to lobby in favour of the Dome?
And – most important of all – what’s the point having an independent panel of experts if MPs are just going to try to ride roughshod over it when it doesn’t give them the answers they want?

Who says we are a nation of potential gambling addicts? Erm…
Or, if you prefer, what odds on Jade Goody being the first celebrity to be pictured at the supercasino?
Or on Wayne Rooney spraining his arm playing a one-armed bandit?
UPDATE: The first link no longer works. It pointed to a page where punters could bet on who would operate the new casino. Kerzner was favourite, at 2-1; Harrah’s was priced at 5-1.

Reading through the national newspapers over the last few days, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Sol Kerzner’s company had already won the licence to run Britain’s first supercasino in Manchester.
The Daily Mail went furthest, saying in a front-page comment that Kerzer had been “anointed” ; this piece in the Times, saying that “in theory” he will face a competition, is more typical.
Kerzner was part of the consortium chosen by Manchester city council as its “preferred bidder” when it first ran a supercasino race in 2004. Back then, we thought more than one licence would be handed out in Britain. Now we know there will be just one; and that it will be in Manchester. By law, the race has to be reopened. And those casino companies that originally focused their energies outside Manchester may well pile in.
So is the Kerzner consortium still in “pole position”, as the nationals say? I’m not so sure. Sir Richard Leese, leader of the city council, has made it clear the consortium’s original proposals will be taken only as a “benchmark” for what Manchester can expect. Translation: we want more. More leisure facilities, more housing – more, in general, for the community. Manchester has been given a monopoly on Las Vegas-style gambling. Expect it to extract every penny it can for regeneration in return.
A lot of the papers are also re-heating this story I wrote two years ago. During my research I had sight of the top-secret scoring “matrix” council officers had used to determine which of five short-listed supercasino consortiums would be chosen as the preferred bidder. Without revealing too much about it, I can tell you this – Kerzner only just won. It was very, very close. This time around, the competition is bound to be even more fierce.
So will Kerzner win again? As yet, they haven’t even confirmed they will bid. Will they change their designs, and incorporate more facilities? They may have to. It’s true they have certain advantages. They know what the council wants; they have experience in working with officers in Manchester; they may even feel they are owed some debt of gratitude, since it was partly on the basis of their proposal that Manchester won the supercasino licence.
But it is far too early to talk about a winner when the race hasn’t even begun.