Dear Editor

What’s going on? Local services seem to be under threat like never before. First, there’s the post office closures, eleven all told across Calderdale, and none of them welcome judging by recent letters to your paper. Then there’s Northern Rail’s proposals to cut train services at several stations along the Calder Vale line – Sowerby Bridge, Mytholmroyd and Walsden to be precise, all meeting with cries of protest from local people. And then last Thursday we saw the demonstration outside Halifax Town Hall on behalf of Kerbside, our much valued, locally run and socially responsible recycling service, threatened with closure because “the big boys” from Sita are moving in on behalf of Calderdale Council. And as if this wasn’t evidence enough of the threat to local services, in Todmorden the PCT is allowing two village surgeries to close forcing local people to travel much further to see a GP.

All these decisions smack of big brother centralisation and control. Each authority is quick to put forward its “rationale” for change. They all boast of having undertaken the required “consultation” but local people are left wondering why, if the decisions are so sensible, nobody is happy about them? I say, if we are going to improve our public services, we need to move to greater decentralisation. More of a local say. New Labour’s ten year experiment in central control has patently failed to deliver the real changes we want to see.

Even David Miliband, writing in the national press last week, had to admit to his own government’s failure. “With hindsight … we should have devolved more power away from Whitehall and Westminster” he said. Yes, I agree David, and as a result we are all going in the wrong direction, a direction that is less fair, less sustainable and certainly not what people want. Thanks New Labour!

Hilary Myers

Lib Dem PPC Calder Valley

Dear Your Say

I must on this occasion add my voice to that of Cllr Baines (MP’s: tell us why you voted for Post Offices to close, Your Say June 30th) and express my dismay at our two MP’s woeful stance on the current round of unnecessary closures. Across Calderdale, local communities are facing the imminent loss of long-standing and vital services. And for no good reason! Any commercially-minded person will tell you that for a business to prosper it needs to grow and diversify, responding to change in a competitive market. But thanks to New Labour, our sub-Post Office network has been forced to operate with one hand tied behind its back. And then they say they’re not profitable and a drain on the public purse! And it won’t stop here. Before long our Post Offices will be a feature of “The Way We Were” sections of our museums rather than a feature of the lived-in British landscape. And that will be a very sad day. Post offices are a valuable community resource. They are a part of our national heritage that has served us well and could, with the right policies, continue to do so. Shame on both our local Labour MP’s for voting to get rid of them!

Dear Editor,

In the week that the local Labour Party decide who will stand as their candidate for the Calder Valley in the next General Election, I would venture a couple of observations. Firstly, they have an all-woman shortlist. This is the result apparently of a central Labour Party policy that tells local parties that where their last MP was a woman (Chris McCafferty in this case), then they must choose another woman. Secondly, from what I hear, they are not altogether happy about this arrangement. I can just imagine how the men who would have liked to stand would be feeling. And I wouldn’t want to be in the women’s shoes either, having to answer the inevitable challenges.

In the Liberal Democrats we too are committed to the principle of getting more women elected. But not at the expense of the “best person for the job” principle. We choose instead to invest in training opportunities for our able women, helping to develop their confidence and campaigning skills. And we organise mentoring and support arrangements to local parties to encourage women to put themselves forward. We even have a policy that ensures that minority groups are represented on the longer shortlists. But we stop short of barring good candidates from standing on the basis of their gender as the Labour Party are doing. I, for one, stood for selection against three male candidates and won convincingly on a one member, one vote basis. Unfortunately, the Labour parliamentary candidate, however able they may be, will never benefit from the same level of endorsement or confidence in their position.

]]> http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2008/07/all-women-shortlists-in-candidate-selection/feed/ http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2008/06/northern-rail-timetable-change/ http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2008/06/northern-rail-timetable-change/#comments Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:34:21 +0000 Hilary http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/?p=11 Hilary attended a public meeting regarding changes to rail timetables affecting local and national services, especially in Mytholmroyd, Todmorden and Walsden.

RE: PUBLIC MEETING IN MYTHOLMROYD WITH NORTHERN RAIL 30^th JUNE

Hilary Myers, Parliamentary Spokesperson for the Lib Dems, was also at the meeting. “Quite a number of people from Walsden had travelled to Mytholmroyd to add their voices to the protest”, she said. “Clearly, the issues are going to be the same there with additional pressure being put on the station car park in Todmorden which is always full by 9am on a weekday as things stand. There seems to be a lack of joined up thinking on the part of local transport planners.”

Asked about the Liberal Democrat response to the Government’s announcement that it will be consulting on its long-term rail strategy later this year, Hilary expressed disappointment. “It seems we are going to have to wait until 2012 before the Government publishes its long-term plan for the railways. We in the Lib Dems would give this matter far higher priority. It was apparent from last night’s meeting that Northern Rail’s problem is how to improve the service overall without reducing it at the smaller stations. They shouldn’t have to be faced with that choice!”

Full text below the fold:Dear Editor,

As a champion of the democratic principle, I am always dismayed and frustrated by the confusion experienced by local people when confronted by several tiers of local government, an array of more or less accountable bodies and the views of politicians who may, or may not, have any power over a given situation.

Your correspondent, Jonathon Timbers (Avoiding the Specifics, Letters 20.3.08) displays just such confusion over the role of his Ward Councillor, Janet Battye (Lib Dem). While he applauds the Lib Dems for attending lots of meetings and canvassing the views of local people, he complains that over the last twenty years nothing has happened to “shift power into the hands of the likes of you and me”. Indeed, Jonathon, I couldn’t agree more. But the Lib Dems have never held power in Calderdale in the last twenty years. The Council has been dominated by either the Labour or the Tory groups. They do, however, have a coherent set of principles and policies. All they need is for enough of those people who yearn for more of a local say to give them their vote and things could really begin to change. Jonathon says that their involvement doesn’t achieve a lot “other than an exercise in building good will” and that “benefits the party and not the people”. Well, how else can you build support with the electorate and gain the mandate you need to change the system unless it’s by goodwill and increased party support?

I for one have seen Janet in action on Calderdale Council. As the new leader of the only opposition to the cosy Tory/Labour consensus, she’s forever challenging the ruling groups on their decisions and checking to see if they are delivering on their commitments. And, until such time as the Lib Dems gain control of Calderdale Council, we should be very glad that we’ve got someone as “tenacious” as Janet holding the ruling politicians to account!

Yours faithfully

Hilary Myers

The plan to close one in every five branches was taken by Labour last year. Calder Valley campaigner, Cllr Hilary Myers met the Party’s Post Offices spokesperson Sarah Teather MP at the Liberal Democrats’ conference on 8^th March to discuss the Government’s closure plans.

“Labour’s plans to close thousands of Post Offices will hit communities hard across Britain,” said Hilary Myers, the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Calder Valley. “The closures come on top of a further 7500 already closed by Labour and Conservative Governments.

“Post Offices are vital facilities for local communities and their closure will hit residents hard. We must do all we can to stop these closures from taking place.”

Liberal Democrat Post Offices spokesperson Sarah Teather MP said, “Gordon Brown and Labour need to listen to the people who are concerned about their plans to close Post Offices. The axing of branches means that many, often the most vulnerable, are denied access to Post Office services or face long journeys and even longer queues in other Post Offices.

“Closures also lead to the loss of other local shops and businesses, ripping the heart out of local communities.

“Once again the Labour Government is cutting local services for short-term savings while ignoring the long term damage they cause. This is no way to run a country.”

Ends

22.11.07 – for immediate release

Abandon your support for crazy ID cards plan,

Calder Valley Liberal Democrats tell Chris McCafferty MP

The Government’s data disaster over child benefit records shows why plans for Identity Cards must be scrapped, say Calder Valley Liberal Democrats.

Following the revelation that the personal details of 25 million parents and children have been lost by the Government’s Revenue and Customs department (HMRC), and may have fallen into the hands of identity fraudsters, Calder Valley Liberal Democrat parliamentary spokesperson, Hilary Myers, has written to Chris McCafferty MP urging her to withdraw her support for the ID cards scheme and a National Identity Register in which the Government want to store the personal information of everyone in the country.

“The fiasco at HMRC has shown the dangers of the Government holding huge amounts of information about each one of us whilst being slipshod in the way that same information is kept,” said Hilary Myers.

“This whole saga of incompetence has been shocking and families in Calder Valley are now rightly asking whether their personal details are safe.

“The National Identity Register, which the Government are setting up as part of the Identity Card scheme, will hold vastly more information on each and every one of us than Revenue and Customs managed to lose.

“The possibilities for the loss of that information, either accidentally or through illegitimate means must make the Government stop and think again very seriously about their plan to store all the data they can on us on a central register.

“This is a clear illustration of the real dangers of a big brother centralised state.  State control of personal identity details is a real threat to our civil liberties.  The Government should respond to the anger and now abandon its ID card scheme. It is clear that the Government cannot be trusted to manage effectively mass databases of personal information.

”Chris McCafferty MP voted for Identity Cards when the scheme went through Parliament despite some Labour MPs taking a principled stand and joining the Liberal Democrats in voting against the Government’s big brother plans.

“But a debacle on this scale must surely give her cause to think again. I have written to her calling on her to press the Government to end the Identity Card scheme for good and to ensure that we do not risk a personal data disaster on an even more catastrophic scale.”

Ends

]]> http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2007/11/abandon-your-support-for-crazy-id-cards-plan/feed/ http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2007/10/the-general-election-that-wasnt/ http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/2007/10/the-general-election-that-wasnt/#comments Mon, 08 Oct 2007 17:41:43 +0000 Hilary http://caldervalleylibdems.org.uk/?p=12 Letter to the Hebden Bridge Times regarding Gordon Brown’s eventual decision not to hold a General Election, in response to Bernard Ingham’s column.

Dear Editor,

In his column last week headlined “Brown missed his chance to ‘walk it’ “, Bernard Ingham advised the PM “not to read the runes” in Hebden Royd as they “might mislead him”. But if readers were watching the BBC News on the eve of Brown’s clumsy climb down last weekend, they will have seen footage of Hebden Bridge – singled out by pollsters precisely because the Calder Valley constituency is seen as a telling barometer of the nation’s polling intentions.

Commenting on the recent dramatic swings in the polls, Sir Bernard went on to opine that “there is something inherently fragile in political opinion”. Might I suggest, in view of the shameless posturing of the two main party leaders during the run up to The General Election That Wasn’t, that what is really inherently fragile is once again our electoral system itself?

What we need is fixed terms for government at national not just at the local level and we the electorate should insist on this as part of a thorough overhaul of our unrepresentative and unfair political process. Only then can we hope to be spared in future from the instability, the unnecessary media speculation and the unseemly political antics of the past few weeks.

Yours faithfully,

Hilary Myers (Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Calder Valley)