Another one bites the dust...

Fresh from the cabinet carnage that saw the back of one of the many Browns that swarm around Downing Street, tonight those with an interest in the great transport debate will note the demise of another familiar name, that of Tom Harris MP (the now sacked Parliamentary Under Secretary at the Department for Transport).
 
I looked at his blog and he appears to be able to project a lifestyle such as most of us can only dream of, though presented in a self disparaging sort of way, "rubbing shoulders" with the mischievously coquettish Sarah Alexander at a "Soho club", which must represent something of the zenith of any politicians career. My first thought was therefore - "Way to go Ivan!".

However, the reason for this blog entry is just that we activists get to know the names of the top nobs at DfT and Tom Harris MP was one of these, and he represents a trend amongst Labour warlords that I find really irritating. At the same time that they refuse - in the face of all common sense - to knock silly road schemes on the head, they list their hobbies as "fell walking". It seems a really common hobby amongst the Labour elite, they are if you like "closet nature lovers". I seem to remember that the fondly departed like Robin Cook and John Smith had similar interests, and may even have died - quite enviably perhaps - out on the hills.

Quite probably having spent the larger part of their career in office arranging for the degradation of the spots they are secretly hankering to enjoy a walk on. As if the open moorland could just be taken for granted. Believe me in these parts, the celebrated Dark Peak, it can't - nowhere is sacred to the Highways Agency!

So how is it that when in office they are quite happy to leave the demanding work of defending beauty spots, and safeguarding some of the finest hillwalking in the countryside to local campaigners like us and will not lift a hand to help? I find this truly exasperating. I would say to all those MPs who have those secret hankerings to roam the open countryside; to taste its invigorating air and take in the magical and breathtaking views on offer; its suggestion of something more than the simply factual -  stop taking the countryside for granted! It is under threat, as never before, from inappropriate renewable energy projects that are just intended as Trojan Horses into the green belt and from ridiculous housing quotas, and from awful road proposals. So why not stand up to be counted?

By the time you choose to retire there may be nothing left, so give a bit more thought when campaigners write and ask you to help them, and their campaign to consider the natural environment. Its your environment too after all!

Pull Your Finger Out

How's this for grabbing the headlines: whilst posting leaflets for the coming elections, a dog bites Andrew Gwynne MP's finger as he penetrates the letter box. He makes a rapid call to his Councillor wife and zooms off for medical treatment, but then what? ONLY THREE SEPARATE BLOODY PICTURES OF HIS FINGER IN A BANDAGE in the local press, plus also a picture pf him having a book presented to him by Gordon Brown - because of his bitten finger!

Now it certainly could be said that this MP should have pulled his finger out yonks ago for his constituents because in Denton West all 11,000 suffer in the worst air polluted locality in Greater Manchester, and he wants even more pollution stuffing into his constituents lungs (including children and babies) with the extra effects of the Bypass.

But what contempt is this when a Labour MP, whose party created a war in Iraq under false pretences, requires his bloody finger being photographed in all the local press, and the poor sodding Armed Forces sent out there are returning with missing limbs, in wheelchairs and with shattered bodies whilst this MP seeks public sympathy for his sodding finger. This is not an April fool, it's fact isn't it Mr Gwynne? - and being a disabled Army bloke myself, you can stick your finger where the sun doesn't shine.

Should you want another grotty Labour story read "labour kicks out the Councillor who disappeared" by Rochdale Labour group in the M.E.N April 3rd 2008 - where did he vanish to? Sod me it was Spain again, the home for quirky Councillors.

Come on Tameside Reporter, would you like pictures of my 14" scars as an ex-squaddie, or are you waiting for Andrew Gwynne to get a sodding cold at an election?!

Organ Grinder - or (Road)Munkey?

James Purnell MP is in the news again. It seems there were more fake photo ops, and a BBC Freedom of Information request has nailed his spin that he had no idea about the plans to fake the photos.

But let's read between the lines here. Here' s a quote to savour:

"A spokesman from Mr Purnell's office said it was sent to a general e-mail address used by the constituency office"

His office says he doesn't deal with those emails. So in that case, who does?

Who answers the phone and deals with all James' emails? Stalybridge & Hyde Constituents will know that it's none other than our friend the Parliamentary Political Operative to James Purnell MP - Councillor Sean Parker-Perry (aka Roadmunkey). Oh dear. So did he not tell his boss about the Hospital's plans?

Once again, Parker-Perry is proving himself to be a huge political liability for his MP, the Labour Party and the people of Longdendale. We welcome his further efforts to secure a bypass for Longdendale, because at this rate his 'Midas Touch in reverse' can only scupper any plans for it.

Spot the fake...

After noticing that a weblog has popped up documenting James Purnell's fake photo album, here's a little gallery of clearly fake photos that can be added:

Purnell lurking around the rear entrance to the Stalybridge Civic Hall...


...lurking around the front....


...and joined by a few friends.

All of these people - James Purnell MP, Cllr Roy Oldham, Mike Flynn, Tom Levitt MP, Cllr Sean Parker-Perry & Cllr Jonathan Reynolds - have not and will not be appearing at the Public Inquiry (held at the Civic Hall) to defend their cause, the Longdendale Bypass...

What a bunch of fakes

'Fake Purnell' on the loose in Tameside

The media are all over the Stalybridge & Hyde MP James Purnell. It seems that the MP has been 'photoshopped' into a photo-opportunity at Tameside Hospital for this week's press that he didn't actually attend (dutifully carried by the Glossop Chronicle/Tameside Reporter).

And as we've been noting over the past few months, Purnell's staff love to mess with the internet. We chronicled how a member of Purnell's staff, Longdendale Councillor Sean Parker-Perry, had been behind the now dormant 'roadmunkey' weblog and was extremely active in altering wikipedia articles about his boss, as well as other articles like the Longdendale Bypass (some bright spark has begun to chronicle these edits here).

We wonder has this will all turn out for Purnell and his minions? We'll add more when time allows...

**10.30 p.m. update - the story's set to run, with Purnell employing the 'broken record' approach with Gordon Burns on tonight's North West Tonight (video below) - very reminiscent of Michael Howard vs Jeremy Paxman! Contradictions abound and Purnell is on the ropes. But will the media latch on to the equally dodgy meddlings of his underlings?

Miliband: a call for comments

The Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, has a blog too (which, like this blog, has occasional typos). And today, we're treated to a post about the Kinder Mass Trespass.

The intial irony is that he talks about 'responsible ramblers'. Exactly what Benny and Co were not - they dared to stray from the path. But the Minister wants us to keep within the boundaries and behave ourselves. Politicians love their contradictions, and the old guys and girls are conveniently no longer around to tell us the real story.

And they weren't convicted for trespass - something which was not a criminal offence then, but is very much so now, even more so under New Labour's raft of new laws - but for 'riotous assembly' and 'breach of the peace' (for scrapping with the Duke of Devonshire's gamekeepers, the police of the countryside in those times). Another myth that allows Labour to blather on about how good the the CRoW legislation is.

You'd expect him to trawl out some comments about Benny Rothman, as indeed he does. After all, it's good to butter up the Labour Movement, and there might still be a few votes amongst the CPGB. But I doubt even Miliband knows that Benny was at Twyford Down, or his history of opposition to road schemes. And even if he does, there's no chance of it popping up to spoil this picture of harmony that the blog post presents.

At the end, Miliband displays his knowledge of Ewan MacColl's 'the Manchester Rambler', which I wager someone mentioned to him on Saturday. And although the first verse mentions Crowden, the last verse is a battle cry for environmentalists:

So I'll walk where I will over mountain and hill
And I'll lie where the bracken is deep
I belong to the mountains, the clear running fountains
Where the grey rocks lie ragged and steep
I've seen the white hare in the gullys
And the curlew fly high overhead
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

MacColl's scene of tranquility, which can be found (relatively) at Swallows Wood and on the hills around Longdendale has nothing to do with this government which plans to wreck it all. The local MPs and Local Authorities all want to massively increase the traffic and pollution. Indeed, CO2 emissions will rise by 9%.

All of which will perhaps make interesting reading for this week's paper - because we're aware that local Green campaigners were invited to meet Miliband in Glossop. What did they say, and did the bypass get a mention? We wait with baited breath...

If you have the time and you support us, pop over to David'd blog and leave a comment. But going on the record of some other blogs like this, and websites like this (both coincidentally run by Labour Party people), a request for a link or a debate will not even yield a response.

(Oh, and by the way David - there were 400 Manchester ramblers, not 4000)

The Kinder Mass Trespass & Labour's Greenwash

Today and Sunday, people will gather to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Mass Trespass on Kinder Scout.

Much is being made of this anniversary. Indeed, there are several guided walks, exhibitions as well as a 'celebration' evening at New Mills Town Hall tonight. The Trespass is rightly celebrated as a hugely important event in a struggle in which ordinary people strove to reclaim land which was once held in common, that which has been stolen by the ruling class and policed and treated as if it were their own back garden, leading eventually to the creation of National Parks.



The local MP, Tom Levitt, is making the most of the limelight at tonight's event. You wouldn't expect anything else from such an opportunist, always eager to be seen in the foreground at a photo opportunity.

But if Benny Rothman (one of the best known Trespassers jailed for riotous assembly in 1932) were here, I'm pretty sure he'd have cause to object to Levitt's presence. Putting to one side the issue of Levitt's lick-spittle like (continued) backing of the Labour Party's war in Iraq plus his advocacy for the spending of countless billions on the replacement of Trident Nuclear weapons, he is a leading advocate of the Longdendale Bypass. But doesn't an MP love a contradiction? It's called having your cake and eating it: the man who will be introducing tonight's soiree, celebrating the trespassers and the National Park, is also the man who is declaring war on that same Park. He's brought the Environment Minister with him especially. As if we need our noses rubbing in it.

Why am I sure that Benny Rothman would object? Because he dedicated his life to society's struggles, not least that of the destruction for the environment by the forces of conspicuous consumption and capitalist accumulation. He played his part in objecting to and campaigning against many of Manchester's road schemes, as well as the destruction of Ashton Moss byTameside MBC. But in 1994, at age 83, he took part in another Mass Trespass, this time upon what remained of Twyford Down, where construction of the M3 motorway was underway after protests and mass actions against it. At the time, he wrote an article for publication in the Countryman magazine about his day. He saw no need to make a fuss about his actions - for him, this protest was the natural thing to do and he was energised by the then nascent radical environmental movement whom he regarded as comrades in the same fight, a parallel that went completely over the heads on many so-called radicals on the left.

Although Benny's presence at the 1994 Trespass is not widely known, the relevance of this event to the situation we face in the Longdendale Valley andGlossop could not be clearer. Just as the Tories carved up many of the green places in this land in the 1990s to built pointless and ultimately fruitless roads, the Labour government and their Barons in local government are proposing a new wholesale onslaught on the countryside, and all of this at a time when they preach to us about preserving the environment, curbing carbon emissions, and consuming less. This road and others will fundamentally contradict each of those so-called priorities. It's a lie -Greenwash masquerading as 'business as usual'.

The Mass Trespass was a tactic in the strategy of reclaiming the land from those who accumulated it as conspicuously as they did their wealth. In the times of the 6 day week, Sunday held a chance to walk the wild land in order to defeat spiritual poverty and leave aside material poverty, even if only for one day. 75 years later, the struggles we face are about preserving what we have fought for as well as the land itself, and about advancing a movement to change a mode of production that threatens our very existence as a viable species.

Purnell's bleating in the Chronicle again

Purnell 'prematurely' begins work on the bypass. Is he premature in other respects too we wonder?

But he can't quite manage a front page like last week's article on the Peak District National Park objecting to the bypass. Though I'm in danger of boring you all to death, here's his letter in full:

"Bypass is now the only answer"

I write in response to your front page story last week regarding the Peak District National Park Authority and the Mottram-Hollingworth-Tintwistle Bypass.

I must insist that the record is set straight on the issue of possible alternatives to the bypass. All alternatives - including an HGV ban and major public transport improvements - have already been carefully analysed and rejected as being inadequate.

The forecasts showed that an HGV ban would only reduce the traffic flow in Mottram by two per cent. It is no longer enough for those who oppose then bypass to offer empty rhetoric in place of a solution. My constituents need relief from the traffic coming past their homes, and the evidence is clear that only a bypass will solve this problem.

As you'd expect of a politician, Purnell is using the research selectively. A response by the Highways Agency (HA) (opens PDF) to a Freedom of Information request in April last year shows his 2% reduction in traffic figure applies to the Hyde Road A57. Mottram is said to be 'negligible' (no figure given), but Tintwistle (not in his constituency of course) showed an 18% drop.

What he's not telling you is that the model the HA used was for a HGV ban on the A628 from the summit of Woodhead between the A6204 and the A616 - i.e. not the entire route. Unsurprisingly, the model showed HGVs using other routes to avoid it. And at the end of the FoI response, the HA trumpet that they are conducting a study into an 'Area Wide' HGV restriction in the Peak District National Park of which "the conclusions are not yet known".

So where is this study, and will the HA have it ready in time for the Public Inquiry? Or will it be conveniently be buried? In the meantime, Purnell's 'smoking gun' is clearly only 'half-cocked'.