There is a lot to unpick from Carillion’s demise and the lessons to be drawn. Here are some initial observations. The House of Commons Library Briefing, The collapse of Carillion, tells us that “In the eight years from 2009 to 2016, Carillion pai…Read more…
Swindon Advertiser journalists strike
Congratulations to the Adver journalists on having the courage to take industrial action. For the younger ones amongst them this will be the first time they have taken strike action. They would not have done so without having genuine grievances. Someti…Read more…
Why is housing benefit stopped when claiming Universal Credit?
The difficulties facing people on Universal Credit are now widely known. People making a claim are faced with a wait of 6 weeks or more before they get their first payment. One of the critical components of UC is the housing element which replaces hous…Read more…
“A radical programme of action”
This is an article published in the Morning Star on October 10th 2017 Jeremy Corbyn’s conference announcement that Labour would be carrying out a review “of social housing policy – its building, planning, regulation and management” is very welcome. So is his comment that “Labour would speak…Read more…
May: limping towards the finishing line?
Writing this on the Monday before the election only a mug would predict the outcome. The polls are all over the place. However, given the fact that May called the election to give herself ‘a stronger mandate’, if she does not secure an increased majority she will have suffered a big…Read more…
No price on democratic rights
A letter to the Swindon Advertiser What exactly does InSwindon think it is? The town centre’s political police? They don’t appear to even know what is on their own website. Under the page ‘for Business’ it refers to charges for leaflet distribution under two pieces of…Read more…
Homelessness and the Housing Revenue Account
Swindon Council’s second raid on the housing account As Swindon Council faces the decline of central government Revenue Support Grant year on year, it has scrabbled around desperately looking for ways of saving money. Its imposition of parish councils on the town without a democratic mandate…Read more…
Tackling “rogue landlords”?
A number of new or amended regulations in relation to the Private Rented Sector have come into force on April 6th. 1) Rent Repayment Orders Rent Repayment Orders (RROs) were introduced by the 2004 Housing Act in response to situations where the landlor…Read more…
Paying more for worse services
This is a letter to the Swindon Advertiser Paying more for worse services I’ve just received my council tax notice with a 10.9% increase for 2017/18. As Mr Renard finally admitted in his column residents are paying more for less. These very high increases are the result of the flagrantly…Read more…
Park Library campaign success
Faced with the prospect of an end to funding for Park Library, Parks & East Walcot Community Forum called a meeting to discuss the situation. The individuals and organisations that attended agreed to campaign for the Council to maintain Park Library as part of its core service. We managed to…Read more…
20 years of defending the safety critical role of the guard
The current struggle in defence of the safety critical role of the guard is not a new one. The threat to eradicate this role began in 1997. Although the media has presented the issue as one of who will open the train doors, it is about who controls the train. In the event of a […]Read more…
A ‘low wage, low welfare’ town
It’s all very well David Renard clutching the Cities Report for a photo opportunity, but if you want to make an objective assessment of the state of the town you have to look at all of it, rather than picking out a few tables which can be used to show the brilliance of our municipal […]Read more…
Statistics of the health crisis
The word crisis is often over-used, but the NHS is facing a genuine crisis in which its component parts are struggling with the amount of work they face and the financial and human resources which they have at their disposal. A House of Commons Briefin…Read more…
Disenfranchising the electors of Eldene & Liden
Swindon Council is ruled by anti-democratic clique. They have imposed new parish councils on non-parished areas without any democratic mandate whatsoever and against considerable opposition. They have set a ridiculous deadline with the new parishes hav…Read more…
Israel cannot be both a ‘Jewish state’ and a democratic one
“So the settler agenda is defining the future of Israel. And their stated purpose is clear. They believe in one state: greater Israel. In fact, one prominent minister, who heads a pro-settler party, declared just after the U.S. election – and I quote – “the era of the two-state solution is over,”…Read more…
The Great Western Hospital and the “beds crisis”
You didn’t need a premonition in 1999 (“We warned this would happen says pensioner over beds crisis at GWH”, Swindon Advertiser) to know that the new hospital would be short of beds. Swindon TUC helped set up an NHS Defence Campaign which cut through the propaganda of the Trust…Read more…
Park Library kept open, but…
Park Library is to remain open and funded by Swindon Council. This is a success for our campaign which raised 1200 signatures calling on the council to amend their proposal to include Park in the core Library service. Better open than closed. Yet the c…Read more…
The local government funding crisis and how to resolve it
With the election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader for the second time we have been told that this has consolidated Labour as the “anti-austerity party”. Whilst this is certainly the aspiration of Jeremy and his supporters Labour can only be judged on what it does not just what it says. The…Read more…
Park Library petition – Catch 22 Swindon style
Swindon Council has refused to table Parks and East Walcot Community Forum’s petition for discussion at the November council meeting. The petition, which has more than 1,100 signatures, calls on the council to amend their proposal to include Park Library in the core provision of the new…Read more…
An attempted coup against the members
At the time of writing Angela Eagle has very generously paused her leadership campaign to give Jeremy Corbyn more time to resign. The real reason, however, is that Corbyn’s opponents are so well organised that they can’t yet agree on a single candidate to stand against him. It appears…Read more…