Amanda Ramsay « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Amanda Ramsay’

Time for radical reform of the railways

02/11/2012, 05:07:00 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

The department for transport’s fiasco over the west coast mainline has cost the public purse a staggering amount: £40 million for the delays in negotiations with a startling £100 million estimated as the compensation bill. And all of this before the costs of re-running new bidding processes are taken into account!

The knock-on effect of this incompetence has held-up local and intercity rail services, to and from Bristol and in and around the city. On top of the delay and job insecurity for staff at First Great Western, the costs are hideous at a time of cuts that are threatening vital services in communities across the land.

More than ever, we need a publicly owned and integrated railway.

Public opinion is behind bringing rail back into public ownership, hardly surprising when it is estimated that £1.2billion pounds of taxpayers’ money could be saved every year by re-integrating the railways, simplifying the system for passengers and management alike. Over time this saving could be the equivalent of an across the board cut in fares of 18%.

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How do we re-engage young people in the electoral process?

03/09/2012, 02:38:52 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

Being politically active should be exciting and challenging, something to relish and throw your energies into. But with voter turnout declining sharply and only about 1% of the British population currently card-holding members of political parties, engaging young people in politics and the electoral process has never been more important.

So how do we do it?

Reducing the voting age to 16 could be a good place to start. To rehearse the well-worn argument, if you’re old enough to pay tax, marry, have children and fight and die for your country in the armed forces, surely you are old enough to vote about who runs the country?

Studies have shown that online and text voting would increase voter engagement in young people. Fraud is a huge concern with this route, but something has to change with the times. Would Saturday voting instead of the traditional Thursday help?

Raising turnout in UK elections amongst young people, maybe helped by having more young candidates to choose from. Bristol Labour party is fielding a range of young candidates at the next round of local government elections in May, including Mhari Threlfall, new student enterprise advisor at UWE (University of West of England), who tells me:

“I feel a duty to support young people. It is a bleak picture for younger people, with the average age of a councillor being 60 and rising, now more than ever it is important that young people have a voice, especially at a local level.”

Participation from younger voters might be enhanced with electronic voting options but to really improve engagement, better local and national voter registration is critical.

Traditionally, most first time voters are registered to vote by their parents or guardians, when they register the household. The Electoral Registration and Administration Bill will change all that, introducing individual electoral registration (IER). However, without direct action to encourage the young to register, apathy may be the biggest vote winner, if young people don’t bother to fill out the forms required by local councils.

The registration process for young people needs to be driven by enthusiastic young ambassadors, who can lead by example. An Operation Black Vote style campaign could galvanise a step-change in registration among young people.

Yet, on its own, a renewed registration drive will not be sufficient.

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Re-engaging young people is central to Refounding Labour

30/08/2012, 04:37:16 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

By starting the process of Refounding Labour, Ed Miliband has made much of rebuilding the party, making it more open to new members and to a broader section of society; welcome news then of the launch this month of Bristol Young Labour.

While experience of life and party politics is invaluable from older members, it is encouraging that enough young people in the city want to give their time and energy in outreach work and political engagement.

They offer the party the opportunity to refresh our politics in an age of disaffection and apathy

Young Labour is open to 14 to 26 year olds and brings voting privileges and access to events and activities that being an armchair supporter will never offer.

“Timings have worked out well for us,” explained Stephen Fulham, who chaired the launch event.

“Setting-up Young Labour alongside a mayoral election provides motivation and opportunities for members that would not otherwise be possible.

The mayoral election in Bristol on 15 November has regional and national significance and we’re networking with Young Labour groups around the country who want to help support Marvin Rees, Labour’s candidate to be the first directly elected mayor.”

Bristol Young Labour aims to engage young people across Bristol in the work of the Labour party and to reflect the diversity of young people within society.

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Making Bristol a world class city

13/08/2012, 01:20:54 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

What makes a world-class city? That’s the question on Marvin Rees’ mind right now. Labour’s candidate to be Bristol’s first directly elected mayor, set out his vision to a group of business people and local experts from across Bristol last Thursday, at an event on the Bristol economy chaired by shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna.

Rees wants to see Bristol become “a world-class city”, he told the roundtable last week, the culmination of an illuminating set of events as part of the City Conversation – the Bristol-wide policy consultation being held by Rees.

With the national economy officially flat-lining, after the Bank of England revised down its growth forecast to 0% and the latest trade figures last week show the worst trade deficit since records began in 1997, how to kick-start the local economy was a key topic for discussion.

Umunna pledged that an incoming Labour government would set up a British Investment Bank (BIB) to widen the availability of credit to small firms.

It would be an extension of the recently-launched Green Investment Bank and fill the gap left by the main UK banks. Local branches, with managers in tune with the needs of local businesses, would strengthen local economies.

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Crime and communities in the spotlight in Bristol’s “City Conversation”

04/08/2012, 08:00:12 AM

by Amanda Ramsay

Thursday night was the crime and communities’ roundtable, the fifth in a series of Marvin Rees’ “City Conversations” which will inform his mayoral manifesto.

Past events have been chaired by shadow ministers such as Stephen Twigg and Hilary Benn with Thursday night’s event featuring Bob Ashford, Labour’s candidate to be the first police and crime commissioner for Avon and Somerset, as co-host.

The focus on Thursday was on how Bristol can build stronger communities to prevent and tackle crime and reoffending.

Attended by youth workers, councillors, crime enforcement representatives and people from victim support groups, community and pressure groups, Rees was clear about his intentions to the audience:

“It’s critical that we get people from across the city working better together.

We must always remember, it’s the most vulnerable who will pay the heaviest price if we don’t get this right. It costs us all of course, but it’s the most vulnerable who pay the most.”

Like or loathe the idea of elected police and crime commissioners they are coming soon, with the poll due on 15^th November. Labour need to secure these pivotal roles to protect policing and the public from the type of populist button-pressing right wingers that have emerged in similar US elections. Who knows where that may take British policing?

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Stephen Twigg and Marvin Rees talk schools and childcare on the Bristol campaign trail

24/07/2012, 03:24:49 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

The UK is facing a schools places crisis, particularly in cities such as Bradford, Bristol, Leeds, London, Reading and Southampton. Areas such as Barking in east London are facing the prospect of a ‘shift system’, splitting the school day in two with some children attending the morning and others the afternoon shift.

Visiting Bristol yesterday as part of Labour’s city conversation, to help elect Marvin Rees as city mayor, shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg highlighted the government’s swingeing cuts with new build funding for schools slashed by a massive 57%, against a general 30% cut in most other spending areas.

Rees and Twigg met with parents and representatives of a variety of community groups, to discuss children and families as part of Labour’s childcare commission consultation. Main concerns included current government changes to working tax credits and how little help parents felt was on offer, especially to help single mothers or fathers to be able to work.

Twigg has hinted that better and more childcare will be a key focus for the party’s 2015 manifesto. This will be music to the ears of parents and employers alike, given the intrinsic link between jobs and childcare. More flexibility from employers around part-time working arrangements and more workplace childcare were among ideas put forward in Bristol yesterday.

Speaking as chair of Labour’s childcare commission, Twigg has talked about “switch spending”. That is, reducing spending in one area to fund more in another. Substantial spending cuts would be needed to fund a big improvement in childcare.

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Labour gears up for the Bristol mayoral election

20/07/2012, 02:24:19 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

Bristol’s city governance will look very different from November onwards. This week Labour launched the “City Conversation” around what should be the priorities for the first directly elected mayor for the city. Despite big Labour gains in both 2010 and 2011 local elections, at the moment the city council has a Lib Dem leader running a minority administration.

Marvin Rees is Labour’s hopeful to be Bristol mayor. He launched a series of roundtable discussions this week, kicking-off the process with an all member meeting on Wednesday of Bristol Labour Party. Transport was the topic of last night’s roundtable meeting chaired by Lord Andrew Adonis, with experts from across the city. Next week is the health and well-being forum.

Members of Labour’s shadow cabinet including Stephen Twigg, Chuka Umunna and Hilary Benn will be chairing roundtables over the coming weeks on key policy areas such as children and young people, families and communities, the Bristol economy and housing.

Developing a stronger city identity is the name of the game for Labour and Marvin is very much in listening mode with high aspirations for taking Bristol forward: “From higher education to green technology to the creative industries to finance, Bristol is home to world class activity. It is a creative hotbed and an economic powerhouse, but we punch below our weight in too many ways for too many people living here.”

One of the challenges facing campaigners though is the background to all of this. Many Bristolians had reservations, at best, about moving to a system of governance by an elected mayor in the first place. Turn-out in the mayoral referendum was very low, as indeed it was in the other nine English cities with referenda last May.

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We must keep the Post public

18/07/2012, 11:56:15 AM

by Amanda Ramsay

Yesterday the Business, Innovation and Skills select committee published Post Office Network Transformation: a progress report, scrutinising controversial plans to change post office services. It makes stark reading for users of postal services and postal workers alike.

From this summer, many consumers across the UK will see a new model of post office in their area known as a Post Office Local, moving services to within existing retail premises, such as shops and garages. The so called “Local model” will not offer the full product range of traditional sub-post offices, leaving hundreds of postmasters and their communities facing the loss of core post office services.

Billy Hayes, Communication Workers Union (CWU) general secretary, is calling for a moratorium on any formal rollout of the Locals model and says: “If this programme marches ahead, post offices close and then services fail, it will either be costly to re-open a post office or will leave communities without these services.”

The Locals model would have simply been rolled out, had it not been for the work of the MPs on the Business, Innovation and Skills select committee and the CWU, who asked the committee to carry out this review.

This Tory-led government wasted no time in getting to work on privatising postal services. Something even Margaret Thatcher hesitated to do. The Postal Services Act (2011) allows the government to privatise the Royal Mail. The Post Office is already operating as an independent company as of this year, with little noticeable political discussion or dissent. There needs to be a high profile public campaign to protect this valued institution.

Right-wing calls for these changes to post office services date back to 2010 when the government made a policy announcement: “Securing the Post Office Network in the Digital Age”. One of the arguments advanced at the time was that the rise of e-mail correspondence had reduced the need for post office services. But, the huge rise of internet shopping says otherwise, as parcel traffic is at a high.

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We need a better deal on the buses

20/06/2012, 01:39:07 PM

by Amanda Ramsay

Last week Amanda Ramsay won the “top of the policies” vote at Pragmatic Radicalism’s future of transport event, chaired by Maria Eagle MP, shadow transport secretary. The winning proposal was for a “Better Deal on the Buses”, to bring buses under a new regulatory framework.

Having worked in four UK cities: Bristol, Manchester, Plymouth and London; I have seen first-hand the huge differences in public transport available in different parts of the country. As a Bristol resident and campaigner, the contrast with London is nothing short of shameful.

Decent, affordable bus services are essential for any sense of social mobility and access to health care, jobs, leisure facilities, shops and family and friends, but too often are expensive and not efficient enough in terms of routes and regularity.

Bus route availability and costs in cities like Bristol and Glasgow could be overseen and controlled by the local authority and elected representatives, in a similar way Transport for London runs the capital’s bus system, where residents are well served across the whole city and pay just £1.35 a journey using Oyster, a pre-charged electronic swipe card. Prices are also capped.

In Bristol, it is often cheaper to get a taxi than to hop on a bus, for a family or group of friends. This is crazy, especially, for a city with bad air quality from high car usage with higher than average asthma rates, stemming from its basin-like geographical location. This is an environmental issue as well as a social policy imperative.

Looking forward to 2015, we need to demand a better deal on the buses; a better, cheaper, more efficient bus system that is all about social mobility and getting Britain working.

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Profile of Labour’s candidates for the Bristol mayoralty: Peter Hammond

28/05/2012, 02:09:08 PM

Amanda Ramsay on the leader of Bristol city council Labour group, Cllr Peter Hammond, one of Labour’s mayoral short-listed candidates.

Campaign literature has been arriving at Bristol Labour party members’ homes for weeks now, glossy leaflets, letters and round-robin emails. One says: “There’s a big chance that November’s election will be won or lost in the next fortnight, depending on who wins the selection, so I hope we choose wisely.”

Indeed, once the postal ballot result is known, expected 15 June, whoever Labour chooses will become the favourite to win in November, say Ladbrokes.

According to the bookies, former Labour councillor Kelvin Blake tops the poll at 5/1, councillor Peter Hammond comes in joint second at 6/1 with former MP Dan Norris, while councillor Helen Holland ranks 8/1 and NHS manager Marvin Rees is at 12/1.

Which one of these five short-listed candidates will be best capable of cutting it as Bristol’s first mayor?

“Words are fine,” Hammond says, pointing to his record as former leader of Bristol city council and current leadership of Labour’s 21 councillors. “But only actions change things. Under my leadership we have promoted a living wage, fairness at work, changed the council’s pay policy and fought for an ambitious new council-led housing programme.”

A local councillor for St George West ward in Bristol East, Hammond is an FE lecturer, has worked in the past on the railways and in a small business. He is also a director of Bristol Community FM, one of Bristol’s community radio stations.

“Between 2001 and 2009 I was a member of council cabinets,” he says of his time on the council scene, “and was leader for a short time. I dealt with services for both older and younger people – the largest spending departments – and instigated Bristol’s complete rebuilding or refurbishment of our secondary schools worth in excess of £250 million.”

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