The politics of the past

Sir John Rose, the Chief Executive of Rolls Royce Aero Engines, has once again drawn attention to the future of engineering employment in Britain. Many graduates are inadequately trained, and there are fewer firms now offering the opportunity to gain experience. The result is that Rolls Royce is forced to develop manufacturing capacity in Germany and the Far East.

There is an exception to this gloom. The mighty American aircraft firm, Boeing is so proud of Wolverhampton, that it is advertising  
“Boeing and the Wisdom of Wolverhampton” in the  international press worldwide. They have found a great partner in Smiths Aerospace, now a division of GE Aviation. The two firms have co-operated to produce trailing edge flaps which reduce the drag on the new 787 aircraft producing greater fuel economy: less by way of emissions, and of course employment for Wolverhampton.

More such firms are needed. If our nation is to maintain its standard of living  then we need industries actually making things. Again and again employers tell of the frustration caused by a plethora of regulation, complex taxation, and lethargic planning procedures. We must offer greater freedoms to business which in turn will enhance employment prospects. The rest of the world knows that and is welcoming enterprise with open arms. Only in the UK do we have a Government hankering back to the beer and sandwich socialism of yesteryear.

Paul

David Cameron in the Black Country

Just over a week ago I posted about the excellent work that Wolves are performing in the community in respect of the Dusk, Twilight and Midnight leagues. As a follow up David Cameron visited the Castle High School and visual arts college to see this excellent initiative in action.

David sat in on a workshop which focused on how alcohol has affected sporting personalities and specifically the strain it puts on family life. Wolves devised & developed the Dusk, Twilight & Midnight Leagues for youngsters at risk in areas of deprivation. The leagues have been operating within the Wolverhampton Area for over 6 years and just to briefly remind you of it’s aims :

To educate children and young people by developing their physical, mental, social and moral capabilities through participation in organised recreational activities.

To promote good citizenship and assist them in growing maturely as individuals and members of society.

To provide and assist in the provisions of facilities for football and project related workshops.

To provide and assist young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to gain a NVQ qualification in football.

 

Last time I met with Jeremy Hunt but this time I outlined the project to Hugh Robertson (shadow sport and Olympics spokesman).  The Project itself is a social inclusion project designed to provide free safe fun and friendly environment for boys and girls.

Target groups: Dusk league 9-11 yrs.  Twilight league 12-15 yrs. Midnight league 16+.

Workshops run by the project include diet, crime reduction, team building games, injury prevention and treatment, healthy lifestyles, self hygiene, drugs awareness, alcohol and smoking, sexual health and crime reduction.

David was presented with a Wolves number 10 shirt at the end of the day.  As a season ticket holder and with my oldest child being named Cameron, I wasn’t exactly going to pass on this photographic opportunity.

 

Paul

A service in Saint Peters

On Sunday I attended the fourth annual service of celebration for those who work in around the administration of justice which was open to the general public, attended by Her Majesty’s Judges and by Black Country Magistrates at Saint Peter’s Church. During the service we listened to a presentation by the Reverend Richard Moy, who is a pioneer Minister for young adults.

He specifically spoke about the roles of street pastors who get to know people in the community, particularly the young and those who have found themselves to be marginalised or disenfranchised. The role of a street pastor was one of not preaching but of caring, listening and helping to ease tension and create a positive environment. In Wolverhampton this involved providing enthusiastic but dehydrated revellers with water, putting young people in taxis to make sure that they got home safely and diffusing situations which could have resulted in violence.

Nationally the focus has been on gun crime and knife crime.  In London the effect of the street pastors presence has been extremely positive. In Lewisham the result was a 30% reduction in street crime within 13 weeks, a 95% reduction in Camberwell and a 74% reduction in Peckham. The five core values required from Pastors are the sanctity of human life, valuing and honouring the community, integrity, personal responsibility and the growth and development of the individual to their fullest potential.  These values are intrinsic to traditional culture, almost old fashioned, but sadly often lacking in contemporary society. David Cameron has spoken about the need to strengthen community and the family and it with these core values (traditional values) will we be able to face the challenges of a modern Britain.

Paul

Wolves in the Community

Yesterday I was at Molineux and met with Jeremy Hunt ( Shadow Secretary of state for culture, Media & Sport) and Will Clowes (Assistant Community Manger) and Paul Ireland who is working towards gaining a NVQ qualification in football coaching to discuss the dusk, twilight and midnight league. The league is a social action inclusion project, designed to provide a free, fun and friendly environment for boys, girls, teenagers and young men and women to participate in football related activities and educational workshops relating to drug awareness, personal health and hygiene and the dangers of alcohol abuse. The project also offers participants with somewhere fun and inviting to go and with something positive and constructive to do with their spare time.

The principal aims of the project are to educate children and young people by developing their physical, mental, social and moral capabilities through participation in organised recreational activities. From this will follow good citizenship and a growth in maturity, both as individuals and as members of society.  Specifically the project also aims to assist young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds to increase their educational attainments and raise personal aspiration, which is something that Paul felt he had particularly benefited from.  I know I’m in a bit of a sport mode at the moment but this initiative is just full of positive action.

Paul

Sporting achievements

Recently I met with Peter Holmes from Sport England to discuss ways to promote sport in the city and increase levels of sporting participation.

Wolverhampton boasts a magnificent sporting heritage with three Olympic gold medalists from Kenneth Hunt in 1908 up to Tessa Sanderson in 1984 and Denise Lewis in 2000. We have also had eight Commonwealth Games Gold Medalists with fifteen medals in total (Kathy Cook in particular was an inspiration for me as a young sprinter). Within the city itself we possess over sixteen sporting clubs and bodies which have over a hundred years of sporting history from Wolverhampton Cricket club (established in 1835) to Penn Cricket club and Penn golf club (established in 1908). 

As some of you may know sport is something that I hold close to my heart, and I feel is invaluable in bringing communities together. Equally the pursuit of sporting perfection and excellence in all fields be they academic or in the arts should always be fostered. I passionately believe that competition and the pursuit of excellence should be instilled in our children at an early age. The fear of failure or the inability applaud others who succeed is causing many of our schools to pursue the route of noncompetitive sports. Drive, ambition and the will to win should not be shunned and stifled, for they alone are the engine of a progressive society and vital for individual human fulfillment.

Paul

Politics and Business in the far east

Recently we were graced with pictures of our Prime Minister visiting China and India with a coterie of business advisers, journalists and Richard Branson. He spoke about new trade links, historical ties and that Britain should grasp the new and exciting opportunities available to her in the far east. We do seem to have got into the arena of politics of the obvious. Tony Blair told us that he always did what he thought was the right thing to do and Gordon Brown said that he would always do his best (forgive me, this is the very least that I’d expect any of us to do) or perhaps I’m out of touch.

The visit to the new economic superpowers reminded me of a conversation I had with a very close friend of mine. We spoke about China in particular and he recounted a recent lecture that he’d attended. China at the moment is on best behaviour. She is anxious for the Olympic games to be a success. The eyes of the World will be on Beijing this summer and the authorities will not wish this great sporting spectacle to be blighted by any controversy. After the games it may be different matter and the sleeping giant may decide to stretch out those powerful limbs and flex some financial/political muscle. When he was chancellor the Prime Minister spoke about the plight of Africa and debt relief, maintaining that as Prime Minister he would make addressing Africa’s problems a central pillar of foreign policy. In the midst of this grandiose chatter, China is slowly but surely colonising the African continent, hoovering up resources and doing deals with Governments. I doubt that the Prime Minister highlighted this issue on his visit.

Herein lies the problem. Gordon Brown appears to patently out of his depth when dealing with the Chinese and Indian administrations. If you’re not convinced take a look back at the Rover story which broke during the last election. The Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC)  pulled the plug on Rover just as the government was at it’s most precarious ( during the election). The Prime Minister, the Chancellor and particularly the Trade & Industry Secretary at the time (Patricia Hewitt) were outflanked and made to look naive at best. SAIC chose the moment to strike, negotiated from a position of strength, got what it wanted and moved on. I’ve been involved with real estate transactions on the subcontinent and it’s nothing to get personal about. You just have to understand that business and Politics in China/India are played hardball and that any leverage your opponents have over you will be exploited. I may again be stating the obvious, but until you actually experience the negotiations, involve yourself in the horse trading, you are unprepared for this arena.

It’s often said that far too many people aspire for political office with no business experience, or any experience of real life if truth be told. I’ll let other people judge that but as the Rover story quite aptly illustrates, a lack of business acumen, not understanding different cultural attitudes and poor judgement has costs us jobs and continues to harm the prosperity of the West Midlands.

 Paul 

Britain’s Moral compass

The brutal and horrifying death of Gary Newlove is an event which forces us to take a good hard look at ourselves in the mirror. In the face of constant media exposure and cynicism about the ability of politicians to really change things, have we become immune to these events occurring on our streets ?

David Cameron has spoken about the forces which undermine the family unit in modern Britain. As a parent I believe it is my primary duty to teach my children first and foremost the difference between what is right and wrong (if nothing else, this is probably the most important thing you can do as a parent). As precious as my values are to me I increasingly see examples of individuals displaying a lack of courtesy, acts of selfishness and basic bad manners. I always understood that good manners cost nothing, only perhaps a bit of time and thought. So it’s unsurprising that issues have been raised around bad parenting, a lack of morality and a broken society.

Having been out with Police patrols in Wolverhampton over Christmas, it was often said to me that once officers return children home, even if they’ve been involved in incidents, they invariably face a shrug of the shoulders and an unwillingness from parents to take their responsibilities seriously. We need serious sentencing, to really empower the police and teachers and for discipline in schools to be a central pillar of government policy (not to pay lip service to this, as has been done by the current government).

Recently the Bishop of Rochester spoke about his concerns over the failures of multiculturalism. The leader of the Liberal Democrats responded by going live on Radio and chastised the Bishop (a Muslim who has converted to Christianity) for offending minorities and dividing communities. As a well as stating that he doesn’t believe in God, the damage done by this kind of hand wringing liberalism is immense. It immediately reminded me of the issue of “Winter-ville”, when middle class white liberals become so obsessed with the idea of Christmas offending minorities, they felt it necessary to rename that late fortnight in December as “Winter-ville”. I can say, hand held on heart, that I’ve never met any non christian who was offended by the term Christmas.

It is that same Liberalism which sneers at the family as a unit, ridicules traditional values and which refuses to project a perception of right or wrong but will always produce the strongest shade of grey. Our Prime Minister has spoken about his own personal moral compass but has refused to speak about the moral compass of 21st century Britain. The Conservatives alone, have chosen to speak about this subject because in politics you can either speak about what you think is right, or stay silent, because you’ll be castigated by liberal thinking for offending some group, or perish the thought, abusing their human rights.

Paul

Police Patrol

Apologies for the delay in resuming my blogging duties but after Christmas the whole family has been down with flu and the sickness bug.

Over the Christmas period I was out on Patrol with the police in Wolverhampton to get a much better understanding of the difficulties our officers face on the front line.  The message came through loud and clear.

1. The public want to see an increased Police presence.

2. Officers want to do the job they joined the force to do, and not be tied down by bureaucracy and paperwork.

At a time when our Government is patronising officers with pay offers which seem to insult the Polices’ intelligence, they’re also increasing the numbers held in police cells thirteen fold. Concern over crime is at the forefront of voters minds and that will not be allayed by a Government which massages the crime statistics and generates increasing paperwork for our police officers.

Fortunately one member of our family seemed to avoid all the January bugs and she really seemed to get into the swing of Christmas.

Well, it was her first Christmas.

Paul

A 21st Century NHS revisited

Earlier this year I blogged about a documentary following Gerry Robinson around a Hospital to see if he could “fix the NHS”. At the end of the series he was quite despondent as he felt that the Health service was often “quite rudderless” and afraid to empower its own staff.

Last night a followup documentary was televised to see how things at changed at Rotherham.  Gerry Robinson was much more specific this time and spoke about the phenomenal amount of financial waste that he himself had witnessed. An administrative IT system which was running over ten years behind schedule and wasting 12 billion pounds throughout the NHS ( enough money to employ 60,000 nurses for a whole decade) . He also highlighted the fact that services are duplicated as the current government desperately endeavours to follow the latest fad or trendy management consultant speak.

Put simply, as someone who has lived a real life in the real world, there are far too many people involved in this government who neither posses the knowledge, or the basic skills to manage any institution, let alone the NHS (because they never had any exposure to the non political world). In the recent television series about Tony Blair, our previous Prime Minister admitted that after two years in the job he realised that it was necessary to delegate power within the public sector if it was to face genuine reform. Although he’ll never admit it, these are fundamental Conservative ideals.

When individuals gain power, a sense of responsibility often accompanies that attainment. The above issues do not relate to goodwill or prioritisation because I genuinely believe that all politicians, of any persuasion, will attempt to do the right thing once they achieve public office. However, the simple fact remains that our public services and the country as a whole requires politicians who are pragmatic, practical and in effect productive. Consistently, this government has sadly demonstrated that they are hopelessly inadequate in terms of realising these objectives.

Paul

Meeting an Icon

On Monday evening I attended a fundraising event at Michael Portillo’s house. Guest of honour was Baroness Thatcher. It’s interesting that so many of the ideas and values promoted by her have been adopted by numerous countries throughout  the world. Even in France the political elite comprehends the need to create a business friendly environment for states to prosper in the 21st century. How ironic that in Britain we seem to be so out of step with the global, common sense view. A Britain shackled by old Labour thinking, which seeks to impose higher capital gains taxes and direct business taxes on small enterprises.  A Government run by people who have no experience of business, or real life and who are making policy to manage headlines rather than the economy.

I was given the opportunity to thank Baroness Thatcher, and presented her with a bouquet of flowers.

Fortunately a guy called Mike was on hand to help me with the photographs …..

Paul