It's time to re-start the Paddy for Afghanistan campaign

Gordon Brown has made a big speech this morning telling Afghanistan's President Karzai to take the issue of corruption seriously. It is widely accepted that the Afghan Government is a by-word for corruption and little progress can be made in the country until the issue is taken seriously by those who have the power to change it.

According to the BBC:

Gordon Brown has told Afghan President Hamid Karzai he will not put UK
troops "in harm's way for a government that does not stand up against
corruption".

There was considerable disquiet in the UK and elsewhere at the time of the Afghan elections that British and other troops are being sent to fight in the country - with significant casualties - to enable an election the result of which is doubted by just about everyone in the country and around the world. Put simply they say, why should British troops be dying to support a corrupt regime which rigs elections?

A year or so ago, it was seriously mooted that Paddy Ashdown would be asked to take over as the UN's chief representative in Afghanistan. He had performed a similar role in Bosnia and had made it his first task to root out corruption and establish the rule of law. Paddy's take on this is that the rule of law is a precursor to democracy. As he said at the time - what's the point in having elections if the system is corrupt. There's no point voting if you know that the election will be rigged and whoever gets in will be out to line their pockets in any case. Never was this thought more ably proved than in the case of the Afghan elections.

Paddy had the support of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, of the US Government and of our own Government. And he was willing, albeit reluctantly, to serve. So why wasn't he appointed to the role? Because President Karzai objected. The feeling was that Karzai knew that Paddy's first mission would be to stem the corrupt practices - just as he had in Bosnia. Perhaps Karzai feared that his own interests - and certainly those of his cronies - would be harmed by Ashdown.

If Brown and the International Community are really serious about tackling corruption in Afghanistan, isn't it time they re-started the movement to get Paddy Ashdown in charge in Afghanistan?

Still no idea of what Tory/Indie coalition stands for

A way back in June, Tory Council Leader Alec Robertson promised to produce a manifesto setting out what the new coalition administration at County Hall stood for. This is needed because it is unclear to local residents whether we should believe the Tory manifesto or the 31 different Independent ones. We need to know what vision the administration has for Cornwall - what they hope to achieve and on what basis we can judge their success or failure.

With a new administration, the process was always going to need some time - Alex Robertson said it would be ready by October.

October came and I asked for an update on progress. Cllr Robertson said that what would actually be coming was a Business Plan for the Council - not exactly a political manifesto but it should at least have given us a clue what they were on about. But, they were failing to meet their promise to produce this by October and so we would have to wait until November to see the draft document.

Now we have the agenda for November's cabinet meeting and, guess what...

Yep, no sign of the Business Plan on the agenda.

Another broken promise and no idea what the Tory led administration stands for.

Cabinet set to agree to localism - at last!

After the shock of putting localism on hold, it looks like the cabinet will finally be allowing devolved decision making in the county.

Localism - allowing local members to work with town and parish councils and others to take local decisions - was a key plank of the move to unitary status. Without localism we would have all decisions being taken in Truro. There would also be a huge gulf between decision makers and people.

It was a massive mistake, in my view, for the new Tory led administration to stop localism in its tracks. It sent the message that Cornwall Council was not interested in what local people have to say.

After a lengthy consultation process and endless meetings - led by the Communities Scrutiny Committee - the Cabinet will next week consider a proposal that would see localism start again. It appears that Cabinet Member Lance Kennedy will accept the recommendations of the scrutiny committee word for word.

That's great, but it is incredibly frustrating that we should have had to wait so long. Liberal Democrats said that we should have let the local committees develop at their own pace and in the direction they wish - exactly what the new report says. So why we had to wait for a decision that could have been made four months ago is anybody's guess. There is no doubt that relations with town and parish councils have been hurt as a result.

Cabinet told to think again on severance scheme

Cornwall Council had its first call-in meeting today and this resulted in the first reference back to Cabinet.

Under council rules, most decisions are taken by the Cabinet rather than the full council. Ordinary members have no say in the decision itself but can object if they feel that the process for taking a decision was faulty in some way. It's a bit like a judicial review.

In this instance, members of the Corporate Resources Scrutiny Committee objected to the decision on introducing a new severance policy for staff at the council. The Cabinet chose to harmonise the seven old council policies (sensible and needed) and agreed a new policy.

However, there was significant concern from the unions that they were not consulted on the change and from members that they were not involved and that the Cabinet had not considered significant alternatives. And so the decision was called-in. It emerged during the meeting that the reason that the new HR panel was not consulted was that its terms of reference were so badly drafted that they could not be asked for their thoughts and that the 'consultation' with the public was in fact a 'finger in the air' exercise with absolutely no consultation.

Despite all these failings, Cabinet Member Jim Currie said that he believed that the procedure followed was sensible and robust and that the resulting policy was a good one. Scrutiny Committee members weren't allowed to judge the policy itself, but they clearly rejected Jim's assurance that the procedure was good by voting unanimously to demand that the Cabinet re-consider.

I'm very glad to have been a part of that decision and hope that we will now have a chastened Cabinet which will take future decisions in a more open way and following proper consultation.

An email from 10 Downing St

This really doesn't need any comment from me. It's the response to my signing a 10 Downing St petition:

"You signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to "resign".

The Prime Minister's Office has responded to that petition and you can view
it here:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page21213

Prime Minister's Office"

Click on the link and you get this:

"The Prime Minister is completely focussed on restoring the economy, getting people back to work and improving standards in public services. As the Prime Minister has consistently said, he is determined to build a stronger, fairer, better Britain for all."

So that's alright then.

Ridgegrove gets the all clear

I'm delighted to be able to report that, following the safety audit of the play facilities on the Ridgegrove Estate, the remaining equipment has been given the all clear and will remain in place.

I'm delighted for this, but wary that it is only a small success in an on-going battle.

Whilst the swings etc are safe for the timebeing, I'm still going to be pressing the Council to replace the equipment that has been removed recently and to guarantee to replace equipment when it goes beyond its safe life in the future.

The safety audit was carried out by an extremely efficient officer from the former Caradon Council. Whilst I had been warned that even the smallest deficiency could see the equipment ripped out (a flake of paint was mentioned), I was glad to see that his attitude was to point out how easy it was to repair anything that was wrong. Hence he told us how cheap and easy it is to replace the shackles which are close to the end of their life. The other officers present were therefore able to recommend that the maintenance work is done without losing the play equipment.

It's great to meet a 'can-do' officer and team.

Inevitably, one piece of good news has led to another problem. In the report of the safety audit, the Council points out that the nearest suitable ball playing area is 1224 metres (very precise!) away at Priory Park. They note this as being walking distance.

I would question whether more than ten minutes brisk walk is fair for an 8-10 year old to kick a football around, but there is something even more troubling in this.

That is that the 'safe walking route' shown on the map takes would-be footballers down Dutson Road to Newport Square. This stretch of road has no pavement and forces pedestrians to walk on the outside of parked cars - in the middle of a main road. I have therefore urgently written to the Cabinet Member for Housing, Mark Kaczmarek, who sent me the report to ask him to clarify whether this can really be classed as 'safe'.

TV review - Defying Gravity

I'm a sucker for American drama series but tend to have a low threshhold for trash TV. Because I'm a UK political hack I have to love the West Wing (and do). I also love the Sopranos and am waiting to start seriously watching the Wire. I'm also a big fan of Studio 60 - even if it got humiliated and then dumped by the US networks.

And so I started watching Defying Gravity - the story of a five year mission to explore new galaxies, search out new life, boldly go... etc.

You see there's absolutely nothing original in this show. Simply tweaking five years into six and making the mission into an exploration of our solar system rather than the galaxy as a whole does not differentiate the basic premis from Star Trek. The crew might not be exactly Kirk, Spock and so on, but they are the generic cardboard cutouts that US central casting produces nowadays and these are the direct descendents of those that were around when Trek was made. They may all hold US passports, but you can be damn sure that they come from the far reaches of the globe as recently as their grandparents.

I fully realise that this is intended as tea time drama (I'm watching it on I-Player and so really don't know what time it is put out) and so we can expect little in the way of ground-breaking here. But they could have done a little better with the basic plot lines.

Do we really have to hear the baby crying everytime 'the one who had an abortion' is on screen? Please give us credit for memories a little longer than goldfish. I'm assuming that nerdy geek's non-swimming will be brought back as a plot line at some point (when they discover lakes on Venus?) but you can bet that we will not be forced to exercise our little grey cells when that moment comes. We'll get the full five minute soft focus flashback.

And then there is the big mystery... the strange force which is dictating events on the space ship. So far I've seen two episodes and the writers have been determined to shove the force into our minds at every chance. It's as if they don't understand the basic theory of suspense. You have to trail little nuggets for us to piece together rather than blare out

"There's a mysterious being. But we're not going to tell you what it is yet."

It's just like Lost. In Space.

Could the six year nature of the mission be screaming any louder - 'Please re-commission us for another series'. But, like Lost, the slippery slopes will be reached as soon as series two gets the thumbs up. That's the point that I stopped with Lost. A tight drama with an obvious end point suddenly became this flabby pap which would be milked for all it was worth. And then cancellation would come without enough time for a decent ending and with none of the quality writers left on staff to give it a decent burial.