Contemptible spin from Cheryl

 

This is an extract from a letter I will send today to the Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan.

 

Dear Cheryl,

It's disappointing that you are indulging in spin and political posturing. The 'news' that some passport jobs would remain was 'announced' in a letter to me dated the 6th of October. It was  're-announced' in Newport on Monday.

Your orchestrated charade in presenting the 'news' as a victory for yourself will be greeted with contempt by the hundreds of families threatened with an  impoverished future. Your conduct is cynical opportunism. The proposal to concentrate the cuts in jobs on Newport is brutal, unfair and irrational.

You should be be using your high office to defend all local jobs. The anger against this savage cut is universal in Newport. Representatives of your party are fully behind the campaign to fight to retain not some jobs but all the jobs. 

This proposal was mooted by a civil servant in 2008 and firmly rejected by Government because it would unfairly rob Wales of its share of jobs enjoyed by all other devolved nations.. Are the civil servants now deciding policy? 

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Paul Flynn

 

Marks and Spencer blow

Commercial Manager

Marks & Spencer

October 13, 2010

The news that you are planning to close your Newport City Centre store is a devastating blow.

Thousands of my constituents are shocked and upset. I know that your store provides a high quality service and acts as a magnet for shoppers to other businesses. Of course I understand the move to an out-of-town shopping area to cater for the car owning shoppers.

However, thousands of Newport people travel by bus or on foot to use the superbly conveniently located shop. I have had calls from bewildered shoppers who see no alternative to the services that you have long provided. Unfortunately closures of this kind demoralise the shopping public and tear the heart out of the Westgate Square shopping area.  This could spur an accelerating decline in retail business in the centre of Newport.

I would urge you to reconsider this decision. You owe an obligation to your Newport customers who have loyally supported you for many decades. I would be grateful for an opportunity to discuss this matter with you in Newport or London.

Below is a typical letter which I received from a constituent.

Dear Paul,

I was horrified to read that Marks and Spencer are abandoning the Newport town centre. Having worked for them in the seventies, I have always been proud of their ethical and family-like approach to business. Can they really understand the implications that such a move would make to their customers and more importantly, the town we live in ?

Two or three times a week, I walk into town, visit M&S, sometimes have coffee with a friend and pick up a few things in other shops. In M&S I buy foods in a different way to Sainsbury or Tesco. The sell by dates are short, assuring freshness, but it’s impractical for weekly shopping. If the move takes place my visits to M&S will be, sadly, rare and many of my friends are in the same position. Some will use Tesco Express but it will not suit everyone.

Without people like me coming into town on a regular basis, what hope do the local traders have of surviving these difficult times. Without  quality stores like M&S it will be twice as hard to entice new business to the town and the shop keepers and café owners will ask themselves how long they can remain.

The elderly and disabled will be hit yet again. From my recollection of visits to the new proposed site, the parking is often inadequate. Even with a free bus many will have to walk to a bus stop, catch a bus then change at the town centre. Coming back with shopping would be a nightmare and the whole process would take most of the day. Valley people would probably desert us completely.

Please do whatever you can to prevent the disastrous consequences of this proposed move.

Yours sincerely,

(a constituent)

Comments

[Kay Tie]

"I wanted to start a small toy shop but the rates were too high."

And there is your fundamental problem. The whole way local government gets funded is a massive problem. 75% of its money comes from central government, and most of its spending is dictated by central government.

Most local authorities have picked on businesses to pick up the tab, since they don't get votes. This resulted in huge town-killing costs, so rate capping and then the national uniform business rates came in.

We need to return to a model where most spending is local, most money is raised locally, and national government does much less. For sure, the loons like Derek Hatton might take over and run a city into the ground. Mrs. Thatcher felt compelled to wrest powers from these loons, whereas the correct response to the voters of Liverpool should have been: "You made the bed, lie in it." The rest of the country could have looked on and learned the appropriate lesson (the flip side being that ideas that actually work well get copied).

[DG]

Katrina, I don't know of any such committee butwould be interested in getting involved. I agree that the High Street of the future will have to compete on its individuality. Newport has that in spades.

[Kay Tie]

"It's a bit soon to call Denis MacShane 'bent' KayTie before he is tried."

Really? I think we all know Elliot Morely is bent, and he hasn't been tried yet.

"However eight laptops in three years will take some explaining."

Butterfingers?

[Katrina]

Is there a save our town committee that anyone knows of? The thought of wandering around boarded up shops isn't appealing. Cwmbran has turned itself around, so can Newport. I think we need cheaper buses( it's almost cheaper for me to take the family into Cardiff on the train than to use the Newport buses), free parking and to stop trying to compete in the same way as Cribbs and Cardiff. Maybe as was suggested by another person here we need to lower the rates to charity shop rates. We could offer favourable rates to small independents and reinvent ourselves as a Market town( although of course our Market is now Asda). I wanted to start a small toy shop but the rates were too high. Or is the next step to let Tesco move into the indoor Market ( well as we needed Morrisons to save the Lysaght why not?) yet again the only winners are supermarkets....

[Paul Flynn]

It's a bit soon to call Denis MacShane 'bent' KayTie before he is tried. However eight laptops in three years will take some explaining.

[Kay Tie]

Another day, another bent Labour MP gets his collar felt:

http://order-order.com/2010/10/14/macshame-of-the-labour-blogosphere/

The sound of silence..

Tribalism is a terrible thing.

[Kay Tie]

"A rubbish con game which leeches off of evereyone else."

That's what bubbles are. Except that "everyone else" plays along too. Dud you think Sarah Beeny made TV shows for just a few financiers?

"Where has that got us?"

The hang-the-bankers movement is poorly targeted. Arbitrageurs, forex dealers, futures traders, none of these were to blame. Yet smacked they will be. Group punishment was very much a favourite technique of tyrants.

Focusing on regulating the specifics of what happened is like preparing to fight the previous war: the next gold rush will be in something else, probably stoked up by some act of government that tilts the playing field suddenly so a few people get rich and sucker in the next wave to start it all anew. Emerging markets, green energy, something desperately fashionable that's not anchored in fundamentals.

[Ad]

'All the fraud and foolishness that we blame is just what happens whenever there's a gold rush.'

Which is the whole point really. A rubbish con game which leeches off of evereyone else.

'is just what happens'

And thats the explanation.

'So let us not get carried away with the specifics of this crisis.' Where has that got us?

[Kay Tie]

"You cannot blame the previous government for what happens in America and Ireland where the situation is the same."

Yes and no. The root cause of this is the low interest rates after the dot com crash. All major economies coordinated a low interest policy, which caused ordinary people to load up with debt, primarily mortgage debt. This is the true cause: we as a people brought forward prosperity from the future, but that the future is now.

Ireland is a special case because of the Euro: extra low interest rates set off an enormous property bubble, which bled into Northern Ireland.

All the fraud and foolishness that we blame is just what happens whenever there's a gold rush. It happened in the late '80s, in the 1920s, and in countless manias of the past (South Sea joint stock corporation, anyone?). So let us not get carried away with the specifics of this crisis, since the next one will have different specifics but almost certainly the same cause: debt-funded mania.

[Ad]

'This is what can happen when a failed government (your government) runs the economy into the ground.

What are the root causes of the cut backs and austerity? You cannot blame the previous government for what happens in America and Ireland where the situation is the same. Its to simplistic just to blame the last government for the economic ills.

[Joe page]

This is what can happen when a failed government (your government) runs the economy into the ground.

Tough when it bites in your own backyard, isn't it ?

[Kay Tie]

"High street businesses have suffered declining sales for years now."

Only in relative terms. In cash terms, they've done very well.

It's very important to understand the difference between "proportion of economy" and absolute inflation-adjusted business. For example, the proportion of the economy that is manufacturing is way down, but the absolute amount of money made by manufacturing is up on the pre-1980 levels. They just do it with fewer people, and those people who were in manufacturing do something else. It's an excellent example of efficiency: making more with less. It's what makes us all richer.

[Patrick]

High street businesses have suffered declining sales for years now.

Customers that used to shop solely in the high street now use the internet (far cheaper), and out of town retail parks are easier to park etc.

How many Newportonians shop at Cribbs or in Cardiff?

Boarded up shops are now common in every town across the country. Shops (especially small family businesses) simply cannot affort the high rates.

Massive rate reductions ,like the charity shops have, might be the only way to go.

I think it more likely for empty shops to be demolished and exchanged for housing.

[alesum]

Keep up the good job.
Alesum:summarizing the world.

[D.G.]

Maybe M&S will reconsider now that we can get some movement on the Friar's Walk scheme (will it keep the name, I wonder?)

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/8448100.Victory_for_city_in_Iceland_battle/

It occurs to me I owe HuwOS and his family a meal there if they actually build the thing...

[Kay Tie]

"It's disappointing that you are indulging in spin and political posturing."

Sounds like you're peeved the other lot adopted your lot's trademark behaviour. And why so peeved the civil service were involved? Not everything these days is decided on a sofa by a minister and a spin doctor. Hadn't you heard that there is a new way of doing government now?