I’m glad to see that Mike Law has done a rapid u-turn and re-started his blog.
GIven the utter uselessness of the 60 Labour councillors when it comes to holding their mayor to account and the spinelessness of the Newham Recorder, Mike’s blog is pretty much the only place where serious questions get asked about what is going on in Newham.
Apparently it costs the US government 1.8 cents to make each 1 cent coin. Which is nuts, when you consider that a penny is pretty much worthless.
I have no idea how much it costs our government to mint the 1p and 2p coins, but I wouldn’t mind betting it takes a loss on each one.
Why do we still have copper coins? You can’t buy anything with them and they just fill your pockets up needlessly.
It would be far better if we got rid of the 1p and 2p pieces and priced everything to the nearest 5p. No-one would miss them. And it wouldn’t necessarily put prices up, as I can’t see retailers moving their £9.99 price point up to £10 – they’d be more likely to go down to £9.95.
New Zealand got rid of their coppers in the 1980s, and went so far as to abolish the 5 cent coin 5 years ago. They now make change with just a 10, 20 and 50 cent coin.
It’s time we followed suit. So let’s make a change for the better and say goodbye to our copper coins.
I’m somewhat at a loss for words at the news of the death of Steve Jobs
Obviously I didn’t know him personally, never met him, but Steve Jobs probably had more impact on my adult working life than almost anyone else. The tools I use daily are almost all the result of his vision, his perfectionism, his drive.
There’s a quote from his 2005 Stanford address that should stand as a guide to us all in the time we have left to us:
“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
A new post by me on my employer’s blog about the Amazon Kindle Fire and its potential impact on the tablet market.
Enjoy!
People have expressed surprise that the mayor has proposed to borrow £40 million to lend on to West Ham United FC to part-finance their bid for the Olympic stadium. They ask how one of the poorest boroughs in London can afford to take on such debts.
What they obviously don’t realise is that Newham has already has massive debts. According to the draft statement of accounts for 2010/11, the council’s “total external borrowing at 31st March 2011 was £1,186 million.”?????? Against that, “the Council had investments of £303 million.”?????? Which leaves a net position of £883 million of debt.
That level of debt is truly shocking, but what is more alarming is the massive growth in those debts during the mayor’s reign.
As at 31st March 2002 Newham’s total external borrowing was £616 million. With investments of £91m that left a net debt of £525m.
Today’s total debt figure of £1,186 million represents an increase of 93%. Even taking the major increase in investments into account, the net debt position has increased by 69% over the past 9 years.
Although the council claims that the current debt is “well within [our] approved borrowing limit” it is a frighteningly large sum. According to the 2001 census (the most recent data on the council’s website) there are 91,822 households in Newham.
That means the council owes the equivalent of £12,916 per household.
Last week the Newham Recorder published a story headlined Newham councillors getting £25k each expenses, claiming that the average councillor received £24,333 to service their wards.
The story also stated that “the basic allowance for councillors newly elected last year was reduced to £9,579.”
It is a sad reflection on local journalism in Newham that neither claim is quite correct.
The £24,333 average applies if you only count the 40 members of the council who served the full 12 months from April 1 2010 to March 31 2011. It completely ignores those who left the council at the May election and those who joined after it. This tends to inflate the average, as those 40 councillors were generally more senior.
The basic allowance, sadly, hasn’t gone down. The reason new councillors only got £9,579 was that they didn’t serve a whole year and therefore only received a pro rata portion of the allowance.
There are plenty of reasons to attack the mayor and his cronies for their free-and-easy attitude to taking home our money, but the Newham Recorder does none of us any favours by getting the numbers wrong.
So if the Recorder got it wrong, what is the truth about councillors’ allowances?
Well, in the year ending 31 March 2011 the 61 members of the council (the mayor and 60 councillors*) collected a total of £1,221,752 in allowances and expenses. This works out at an average of £20,029 per member.
But even this doesn’t really tell the full story, as some councillors get far more than others as a result of “special responsibilities”. The top 10 earners in 2010/11 were:
Councillor Baikie’s allowance includes an additional special payment for serving 2 six-month terms as deputy mayor.
The full report on members’ allowances in 2010/11 can be found here: http://goo.gl/EGDP7
When looking at the above figures it is worth remembering, for context, that average income for a household in Newham is £27,600 a year.
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* That is 60 ‘full-time equivalents’ made up of 39 people who served a full year, 21 who served 1 April to the May election and 21 new councillors who took over their seats and served from the May election to 31 March.
When the Coalition came into office last year they agreed as part of their programme of government to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650 to 600, which will save the taxpayer about £12 million a year and result in seats that are much closer together in terms of size.
The Boundary Commission, which decides on how parliamentary constituencies are made up, has produced its initial proposals for England. These include an overall reduction in MPs for London, but the changes for Newham and the surrounding boroughs involve a slight increase in representation.
The commission found that Newham was too large for two constituencies, as both the existing constituencies (East Ham and West Ham) have electorates in excess of 86,000, which is over the maximum permitted under the new arrangements. Therefore they have proposed a West Ham and Royal Docks constituency containing nine wards, including three (Beckton, Boleyn, and Royal Docks) from the existing East Ham constituency; a revised East Ham constituency that contains six Newham wards and two wards (Clementswood and Loxford) from Redbridge, which are currently in the Ilford South constituency; and a new Stratford constituency with five wards from the north west of Newham, together with the four southernmost Waltham Forest wards.
The full list of wards for the new proposed constituencies are:
West Ham & Royal Docks constituency:
Stratford constituency:
East Ham constituency:
The full Boundary Commission proposals for London are here: http://t.co/aoYHPPF
Unsurprisingly, an analysis by the Guardian shows that all three seats will be safe Labour. Based on voting in the 2010 election Labour’s majorities will be 20,382 in West Ham & Royal Docks, 20,032 in East Ham and 16,926 in Stratford. The only minor surprise is that the Lib Dems will be the main challengers in Stratford (by a small margin, it has to be said).
The Boundary Commission will be holding hearings on its proposals for this part of London at East Ham Town Hall on Thursday 27 – Friday 28 October 2011. More information is available at www.consultation.boundarycommissionforengland.independent.gov.uk
You can also write with comments to Boundary Commission for England, 35 Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BQ, or by email to london@bcommengland.x.gsi.gov.uk. The closing date for comments is 5 December 2011.
The thing is that with the exception of crossbows – an issue that lives solely in Sir Robin’s imagination – these are all important things that need to be dealt with. But by labelling every initiative a ‘crackdown’ you remove all meaning from the word. And you end up taking the same approach to everything – as the saying goes, if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
My look at Apple’s influence on the tablet market, on the company blog: tinyurl.com/3hz7rg5
Once again, enjoy!
forestgatedotnet 