David Ottewell's Politics

Well, if Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese was trying to stimulate debate on his blog, his call for a congestion-charge referendum has certainly done the trick.

You can see there are 38 responses so far, including one of mine. A number of people have raised this story in the MEN earlier this week, about plans for a new council car park under the Peace Gardens.


Hypocrisy or a non-story? My view is that anyone who tries to say the issue of councillors’ car parking is completely separate from the TIF bid is dancing on a pin head.
Most people expect the politicians who are pushing the bid to support the world-class public transport they say we will get in return for the charge in deed as well as in word.
It is true that councillors, like the rest of us, would have the option of continuing to use their cars and pay the charge. But telling us they will need more car parking spaces in future doesn’t exactly inspire confidence that the transformation in our trams, trains and buses will be as great as we have been led to believe.
That’s a perfectly valid political point that will not be lost on the Labour leadership in Manchester.
It’s for that reason I expect the car park plan to be ditched, and sooner rather than later.
Sir Richard has not responded to this issue on his blog as yet. It will be interesting to see if he does.

Is Tony Lloyd, MP for Manchester Central, lining up a future career as the next Jeremy Paxman?
Here he is interviewing energy minister Malcolm Wicks on behalf of his constituents.
It’s worth watching just for the bit at the start where Mr Lloyd – who is actually one of the least arrogant MPs I know – says: “I’m here today with Malcolm Wicks… I, of course, am Tony Lloyd.”

No surprise that Bury rejected plans for a directly-elected mayor in their referendum yesterday.
Under Tony Blair, Labour ministers pushed the idea of such mayors very hard indeed. But up and down the country, they were greeted with apathy. There are still only a handful of directly-elected mayors outside London.
The mechanism for triggering a referendum on whether to have a mayor – a petition signed by just 5,000 people – remains in place. In Bury, this was achieved on the back of a single issue (the congestion charge).
The fact the referendum in Bury was lost can be read in a number of ways:
a) People don’t vote on single issues. They might oppose the charge, but they aren’t willing to change the foundations of their democracy just because of it
b) People actually broadly support the congestion charge, which would come with £3bn of public transport improvements
c) Bury’s current Conservative administration is already against the congestion charge, so there was no point changing things.
Two further points. Firstly, I don’t agree with those politicians saying the campaigners who won the right to hold the referendum have wasted public money. They weren’t the ones who set up the 5,000-strong-petition “trigger” mechanism – that was Tony Blair. They merely took advantage of it, as was their democratic right.
Secondly, the turnout in the referendum, at 18 per cent, was shocking. Imagine that the result had been different, and the “yes” campaigners had won by a whisker, yet the turnout had been the same. In that case, fewer than 10 per cent of people would have expressed a desire for a directly-elected mayor – yet the borough would have got one anyway. That can’t be right.

Oh dear. MPs are coming in for another battering after voting last night to keep their “John Lewis” expenses and submit them to internal rather than external scrutiny. For the record, here’s how our MPs voted.
For keeping the allowances:
Janet Anderson (Lab, Rossendale and Darwen)
Andy Burnham (Lab, Leigh)
David Chaytor (Lab, Bury North)
Ann Coffey (Lab, Stockport)
Andrew Gwynne (Lab, Denton and Reddish)
Beverley Hughes (Lab, Stretford and Urmston)
Brian Iddon (Lab, Bolton South East)
Ivan Lewis (Lab, Bury South)
Tony Lloyd (Lab, Manchester Central)
Ann Winterton (Con, Congleton)
Nicholas Winterton (Con, Macclesfield)
Phil Woolas (Lab, Oldham East and Saddleworth)
Against keeping the allowances:
Graham Brady (Con, Altrincham and Sale West)
Paul Goggins (Lab, Wythenshawe and Sale East)
Mark Hunter (LD, Cheadle)
George Osborne (Con, Tatton)
James Purnell (Lab, Stalybridge and Hyde)
Andrew Stunell (LD, Hazel Grove)
Did not attend:
Hazel Blears (Lab, Salford)
David Crausby (Lab, Bolton North East)
Jim Dobbin (Lab, Heywood and Middleton)
David Heyes (Lab, Ashton under Lyne)
Gerald Kaufman (Lab, Manchester Gorton)
Barbara Keeley (Lab, Worsley)
Ruth Kelly (Lab, Bolton West)
John Leech (LD, Manchester Withington)
Ian McCartney (Lab, Makerfield)
Michael Meacher (Lab, Oldham West and Royton)
Paul Rowen (LD, Rochdale)
Ian Stewart (Lab, Eccles)
Graham Stringer (Lab, Manchester Blackley)