New Year same old ramblings

Well I'm still skimming through the information regarding Buxton Social Services, that will have to wait for the New Year and I have spoken to quite a few people regarding it.

But in a look back at this year what has happened.

Well locally we found out that the Fire Brigade were as bonkers as the ambulance chaps with their wanting to close down stations throughout the High Peak and working on the spin that less is more and as forecast the public haven't fallen for it one bit. We will have to see if Labour run High Peak & Derbyshire County councils do I guess.

Speaking of the ambulance service in the High Peak, East Midlands Ambulance Service has had three chief executives this year. While West Midlands Ambulance Service, what EMAS based it's Being the Best reforms on have done a u-turn and started basing double crewed ambulances in the areas that it only said needed car response vehicles. Not that hitting targets rather than helping patients is the priority. Things like this I am sure will be having a factor on the 2015 general election.

More & more people are using food banks in the High Peak, we don't have any figures as the government decided it would stop collecting data on such things. The Coalition government certainly are not making themselves very popular in the county what with food banks, the Back-to-work-scheme which I have heard is around 3% effective and probably costing us tax payers an arm & a leg. The proposed cuts to ambulance & fire cover. Though a lot of people I speak to point the finger at the last Labour government for the financial mess we're in as a nation.

The area ground to a halt in March due to snow (which was brilliant I haven't seen it that bad for quite a while). Another good reason not to close your ambulance & fire stations.

Pavilion Gardens Buxton, in the snow.

Mrs Thatcher and Mr Mandela both passed away.

But what about next year?

Well we have the European Elections in May 2014 something which I think will be an indicator for the general election next year. I suppose it depends on how flooded the country gets with EU economic migrants as to how well UKIP does. The political theme of the town does seem very divided with the Labour supporters and those more to the right polarising more. Most people seem to be of the mind set that the Conservatives and Lib Dems haven't been able to get us out of the mess Labour landed us in. In truth most people I seem to speak to seem to be like Russell Brand that they're all as bad as each other and I'm not voting. It will be interesting to see what turn out there is.

Also the Scots will be voting to choose whether Scotland should remain part of the United Kingdom or not. This I think will be a biggy. Most of the online 'action' I have seen is for the Yes to split from the rest of the U.K.

I don't know if anyone has told the U.K. OK camp that you need to be doing things online way before the event rather than three weeks before hand. I for one hope Scotland doesn't leave the U.K. I think it will lead to the break up of the rest of the nation and we'll all be worse off. But it's for the Scots to decide what happens in Scotland.

Anyway that's my mega hurried review of the year. Mrs Sea Duck is saying my fry up is ready so all the best for 2014 my friends and don't let the buggers get you down.

Derbyshire County Council Elections 2013 (results)

Well it was a glorious start to May, the weather was quite simply divine. This is echoed in another blog entitled View from the High Peak I do recommend a look, the pictures are lovely and inspired me to put a few landscapes of the Goyt Valley onto this submission.

The weather could have not have been better for the May local County Council Elections. One would have hoped that it would have not put people off from voting, however, the turn out over Derbyshire was 34% which is a touch disappointing.

My numbers come from two sources the Derbyshire County Council website and the BBC one.

 Derbyshire County Council went from No Over All Control to Labour controlled. With Labour gaining 18 council seats, the Conservatives loosing 13, the Lib Dems loosing 4 and and Independent loosing 1.

Across the country the results were;-

Conservative 1116 councillors -335
Labour  538 councillors + 291
Liberal Democrats  352 councillors -124
UKIP  147 councillors +139
Independents  165 councillors +24
Green Party 22 councillors  + 5
Residents Association  12 councillors +2
Mebyon Kernow 4 councillors +1
Liberal 3 councillors +1
Independant Health & Concern 2 councillors 0
British National Party 0 coucnillors -3
English Democrats 0 councillors 0
Idle Toad Party 0 councillors -1

There was one vacant seat. Why I have no idea?

The breakdown in my own area of Buxton is as follows,

Buxton North & East

Margaret Applby   UKIP             495 votes
Caitlin Bisknell     Labour           1138 votes
Pam Reddy         Conservative  795 votes
Graham Scott      Lib Dems       84 votes

Turn out 28.27%

Buxton West

Matthew Bain            Green Party    219 votes
Tony Kemp                Conservative  1123 votes
Bob Morris                Independent    771 votes
Fiona Sloman            Labour            952 votes
Christopher Weaver  Lib Dems       90 votes

Turn out 32.5%

Across the High Peak areas the total votes cast were

Conservative   9557       33%
Labour            10983     38%
Lib Dems        3452       12%
UKIP               2593       9%
Greens            1487       5%
Independents   771         3%

Total Votes 28,843

Labour won Buxton North & East, two seats in Glossop & Charlesworth and Ethrow
Conservatives won in Buxton West and Chapel & Hope Valley.
Lib Dems won in Whaley Bridge & New Mills.

UKIP, The Greens or Independents didn't win any division but an interesting point is that they didn't stand in every electoral division of the High Peak.

The popular rumour is that UKIP took away votes from the Conservatives. This is true, but they also seem to have taken votes from the other parties. One could argue that if they hadn't stood in Buxton North & East that the UKIP vote would have gone to the Conservatives which would have beaten Labour's Caitlin Bisknel's 1138 votes with 1290 votes.

But I don't think it's that easy.

UKIP are certainly the party of protest at the moment, I remember when the Greens became briefly the third party in UK politics. However it is UKIP's willingness to discuss the political elephant in the room, EUROPE, that also makes them attractive as well as people being fed up with the usual three main political parties. I think UKIP have made a dent in all the political parties locally.

Compared with the 2009 elections the Lib Dem vote has crashed in Buxton. In 2009 it was 1463 this year it was 174. As I noted the turn out wasn't great but it is quite a drop. The Lib Dems may be unpopular as they are in coalition with the Conservatives. Perhaps the door swings both ways in this leading to the Lib Dem unpopularity brushing off on the Conservatives as well. UKIP didn't stand in Buxton during the county council elections in 2009.

Also have the boundary changes had an impact on the results?

On the day there was a Labour car driving around Buxton, with flags and a humorous horn, gaining peoples attention. Twitter was quite active with mostly Labour but also UKIP tweeting. Something the Conservatives, Greens and Lib Dems cottoned onto and started tweeting later that morning. A thing of note is how Caitlin Bisknel used her twitter account to encourage people to get out and vote Labour, with the hashtag #fairdealforderbyshire used by the Labour faithful did seem to continually bring the party to mind. Her own blog had a mirror of the canvasing leaflet noting why to vote for her and her party. On the other hand Fiona Sloman the other Labour candidate in Buxton isn't an avid tweeter, she does seem to go leafleting and speak to people on the doorstep quite a lot, but did her lack of tweeting before and during election day have an impact on the vote. Caitlin won the seat she was contesting Fiona didn't? Did it provide an edge to the campaigning, an extra arrow in the quiver?

Question? Do social networking sites in particular Twitter have such an impact on how people vote these days?

It's an interesting question. Scientists have a phrase called the Illusion of Truth where if a subject is repeated often enough then the more people are likely to believe the subject or fact. Regardless of empirical data. Can Twitter and sites like it create an Illusion of Truth with regard to activity or popularity? Leading to candidates becoming more well known and regarded? Is there a flip side where a candidate could become notorious and disliked, or at least appear so? The simple answer is I don't know and with not having one shred of empirical date to prove or disprove I suppose I should shut up.

UKIP do seem to be more active than the other parties on Twitter as well, as well as bloggers like Peasant in Buxton which is worth a look. They note the similarity between the Labour & Conservative leaflets. Saving the ambulance stations in the High Peak (until more information is available I would look at them far from saved), gritting the roads, fixing pot holes. They note where's the difference. They do have a point. It reminds me of a conversation when Tony Blair was leader of the Labour party. A friend asked me which Conservative party would I vote for Red or Blue? What UKIP seem to offer is plain talking difference from the other parties.

I also note that no one has said how valiantly they have defended the Cobar Birthing Unit which was lost.

UKIP have done quite well considering the local paper just noted they were standing and there was no explanation of what the candidate stood for or was wanting to improve.

I spoke to a few people, friends and work colleagues, who all didn't vote.

A group of nurses were very non-plussed about it noting that they only voted in General Elections and weren't really bothered with the local situation. Various friends who after work decided a visit to the beer garden or a nice iced G&T on the balcony was preferable to voting as it was such a nice day, and it was.

Did the weather lead to more voter apathy than encouraged people to vote?
Perhaps Mrs Sea Duck's "They're all as bad as each other," attitude is more widespread than I thought? Mrs D did vote or at least spoiled a ballot paper and put it in the box.
Is it the ultimate protest vote? Where people turn round and say, no I'm not voting for any of you.
Would a broader spectrum of political parties and candidates encourage more people to vote?

What about the Greens? Well according to my own figures 5% of the High Peak voted Green. Their one tweet on the 2nd of May from @DerbysGreens was "Please remember to vote today." A touch meek perhaps, lacks a certain energy. They're highest percentage of the vote in Derbyshire and the High Peak was from the Chapel & Hope division with 10.2%. They seem to have a loyal but small following in the High Peak.

Anyway Derbyshire county council has gone red with a Labour majority. Congratulations to all those who won seats. Now remember the people who put you there and work for us and not just for your own political party.

County Council Elections 2013

I've been chatting to people about what they think about the County Council Elections this May. Quite a few people didn't know who they were going to vote for. Mainly on the basis of 'they're all as bad as each other.' However, I tried to focus conversations on what people were wanting from their council.

One of the main things that people mentioned was pot-holes. It seems like Mayor Giuliani's broken window policy many people feel that a pot hole means that those in power don't care. Mayor Giuliani of New York thought that broken windows left unpaired made people feel that things were going downhill and that those in power did not care so launched a policy of repairing every broken window reported or spotted. Pot holes seem to be classed in the same way by the people I spoke to. St John's road in Buxton and New Mills Newtown traffic lights seemed to feature in peoples evidence of this.

The second thing mentioned was the fear of loosing ambulance cover from the Being the Best proposals from East Midlands Ambulance Service. This seems to get classed as either 'insane or just plain madness' rather across the board from locals who cannot see the sense in the proposals at all. That East Midlands Ambulance Service were solely focusing on ticking the boxes for response times which are easier in the bigger towns and cities and relegating those of us who live in rural areas to second best. Feeling that EMAS have assumed the attitude of we can't hit the response times in the High Peak area so why bother. I'll blog a little more about the current ambulance stations situation this coming week as I think it's an essential service to focus on.

Other things people mentioned were housing, schools and more importantly after school care for the children as most families have both parents working. There was a mixed reception to the welfare reforms, namely some people were worse off and others thought that a cap on benefits was actually a good thing. Then the conversations moved to jobs. Or rather the lack of them. High Peakers do seem to be focusing on local issues, rather than national. However, on a national level one thing seemed to be apparent a 'fear' of immigration. Namely if more people come into the country then services will be reduced just by the increase in people using them. This was apparent on last nights Question Time on the BBC. Us Brit's seem to have developed a 'fear' of immigration?

I'm seeing more signs up regarding the election, mostly Labour with a few Lib Dems and Conservatives. As I previously mentioned, Labour do seem to have got their act together with regard to these elections. A lot of activity on Twitter, and canvasing and the signs in people's gardens. Fiona Sloman is getting a few mentions on Twitter though she doesn't appear to be tweeting much herself.
The High Peak Conservatives seem to have finally going on cyber space too. There were also quite a few placards seen showing support for their candidate Jocelyn Street.

The Greens seemed to not really being up for this round. I saw their leader on Question Time last night, she did seem to live in a Utopian world of her own, to brass tacks I didn't like her. I was toying of voting for the Green Party until then.

Apart from a few placards in High Lane (not our patch) I haven't seen anything of the Lib Dems and a few posters around were all I have seen of UKIP.

I really couldn't say which way this election could/will go. All I hope is that the turn out is high and that everyone who is able to vote  does so.

County Council Elections

There is quite a lot to blog about with what's happening in the World. Baroness Thatcher dying, the Boston Marathon bombing (horrid, simply horrid), North Korea acting like a child who's found their father's gun.  I decided not to focus on those things, important as they are and look slightly more local.

It would appear that the candidate nominations for the forth coming county council elections are now in. Nominations closed on the 5th of April. The three main parties, Conservative, Liberal Democrats and Labour are fielding candidates in pretty much every area. Some areas of the High Peak will be able to vote for UKIP, Green Party and Independents. In my own area there are five candidates.

Tony Kemp for the Conservatives, who lives locally and was one of the Conservative councillors who turned up to discuss the housing plans for Buxton back in December 2012 when none of the Labour councillers did. Conservatives raise housing concerns.

Matthew Bain for the Green Party, again he lives locally and is focused on reducing the councils carbon foot print and moving the UK towards a low-carbon economy. The Greens have a small but loyal following in the High Peak area. Mr Bain is all for locally produced products (should like Redfern's Farm Shop then and Chatsworth Farm Shop .) As well as a fair distribution of resources for all, which sounds good but reminds me of Communism.  I do like his idea for more allotments and community orchards. That would be good for the local biodiversity.

Christopher Weaver for the Liberal Democrats, another local, this time from Whaley Bridge. Living and working in the High Peak for over 40 years, he's also been a local councillor for High Peak Borough Council. The Lib Dems do have quite a green manifesto, recognising climate change, moving towards renewable energy, they also would like to freeze council tax for as long as it is possible.

Fiona Sloman  for the Labour Party another local and councillor for High Peak Borough Council. I have spoken to Fiona before and found her to be very knowledgeable, as a former trade union officer she is very clued up on what people's rights are. She has taken an active role in fighting East Midlands Ambulance Service to save the ambulance stations in the High Peak. She hosted the public meeting at Pavillion Gardens. When I spoke to her regarding the proposed changes I got the distinct impression she was genuinely concerned about the issue, the impact it would have on the people of the High Peak, rather than scoring 'political' brownie points.

Bob Morris an Independent candidate, sadly I couldn't find a link for Mr Morris or any information regarding what he stands for. Thankfully the local paper had piece which noted that Mr Morris wished to put people before 'party politics.' A local man who runs a local business, focusing on education, better roads and transport (have you seen St John's road in Buxton, the pot holes by the traffic lights are just plain dangerous). Being Independent means he won't have a party telling him what to do just the people of Buxton.

I discussed the candidates with Mrs Sea Duck who dispaired that the Beer, Baccy & Crumpet Party wasn't standing in our area. As usual I would have liked more diversity of parties to vote for, I guess the old adage if there's no one you would like to vote for then you should stand yourself applies.

I just hope that everyone who is able to vote does so.

I have had a look at Twitter to see what the parties locally are tweeting, it appears Labour are the ones who seem busy in that side of the social media with the hashtag #fairdealforderbyshire, as well as to a lesser degree UKIP. There are webpages for the other candidates with a little bit about them (some very little), but the Labour party and UKIP seem to be the only ones using social media to their advantage, locally at least.

I know that Labour has been out canvassing  in Harpur Hill and Glossopdale but I have yet to see anyone else, no flyers or leaflets through the door. A few UKIP posters around. In our area Labour seem to have a distinct advantage with just a plain good old head start. But the discussions I have heard from the electorate seem to be of the lines of the usual 'they're all as bad as each other.' UKIP and the Greens are minor parties and therefore a waste of a vote (unfairly seen that way if you ask me). Labour got us into a huge financial mess. The Conservatives and Lib Dems can't seem to get us out of it.

As I noted before I just hope that as many people do vote in these elections as are able to do so.