ConservativeHome's Local Government Blog

Liverpool Council could be sued for flying gay rights flag

Liverpool resident Stephan Gash is threatening to sue Liverpool City Council for flying a rainbow flag on the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.

Gash has put in a Freedom of Information request to find out if Liverpool had given itself the required planning permission.

"I wish it to be known that I have no problem with flags being flown from public buildings provided the required planning permission has previously been granted and paid for," says Gash

"What I do object to is people being harrassed for flying national flags perfectly legally from their dwellings or places of work, for which planning permission is not required, and being ordered to take them down."

Canterbury Council cleared of anti-gay charge

Canterbury City Council has been cleared by the Local Government Ombudsman of an accusation that it is not "gay friendly." This followed a complaint from the group Canterbury Pride. Their seem to be two defences to the charge. The first was that it was untrue - for instance that Canterbury Council had funded gay events in the past and was willing to do so in the future.

The second was that there is presently no statutory requirement on local councils to promote "Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender culture" to use the jargon description. According to Pink News this will change if the Equality Bill passes in its current form as it imposes "a duty on all public bodies to promote equality and diversity which will include LGBT issues." Should it? What would it mean in practice? An excuse for councils to employ LGBT Officers spending their time attending LGBT Conferences discussing LGBT Issues with LGBT Officers from other councils? Then writing long impenetrable reports nobody reads. Wouldn't the gay (as well as straight) residents in Canterbury rather lower Council Tax bills and a focus on getting the dustbins emptied?

In Canterbury the complaint seems to be a particular organisation that used to get funding and doesn't anymore. It is also demanding funding for a "community drop in centre for the LGBT community." Canterbury Pride also complains that there are no gay bars in Canterbury. Surely that is a matter best left to the market. If the demand is there then let them buy an existing bar or start up a new one. Perfectly reasonable to expect equal treatment from the Licensing Department in the way any application is treated. But not to demand a subsidy.

Then there is the democratic argument. Each time a "duty" in imposed from Whitehall on a Council to do something the decision is taken away from those elected locally.

Sandwell Council holds Gypsy Awareness month in schools

Labour-run Sandwell Council is proposing to hold a Gypsy Awareness Month in schools with a month of classes to include "myth busting" and telling children why gypsies feel stigmatised. The recruitment of a Gypsy and Traveller Liason Officer to the Council's Communities Unit is proposed as part of a 23-point programme.

Among the "myths" they will be seeking to "bust" is that traveller sites cause crime. The problem is they do. A National Farmers Union survey for their report Rural Outlaws suggests that 80% of farmers have suffered in some way - over half have had farm equipment stolen, over 20% had been subjected to physical threats. The report was from 2003 but I suspect the situation will have got far worse since then with councils reluctant to take action against illegal sites because of the Human Rights Act. (Although there may be something in the Government's response that this is just an excuse for Councils to avoid taking action.)

The plans in Sandwell come from the Equality and Diversity Scrutiny Panel - so let us hope nothing will come of them. The report says it's recommendations would have a "very real impact on community cohesion." It's impact would be real but negative. Mostly it would be a gift for the British National Party who already have councillors in Sandwell.

If the Sandwell councillor's objective of making the "nomadic community feel part of the wider community" is really to be achieved then the answer is equality before the law. The planning law needs to be enforced by Councils to end illegal sites. The criminal law needs to be enforced by the police, for instance in making serious efforts to recover stolen farm equipment, rather than ignore the problem because of the "sensitivities."

Councils waste millions on translations nobody reads

Freedom of Information requests from More4 News have established that Councils are spending millions on translating documents that nobody reads. As well as asking Councils and other public bodies for information on the amounts spent on translations they also asked how many downloads the translated documents had from the websites.

Haringey Council spent £386.655 on translations last year. Many did not attract a single hit on their website. Translations of Haringey Women’s Directory into Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, French, Kurdish, Somali, Spanish, Urdu all went completely unread.

Baroness Warsi, the shadow minister for community cohesion and social action, called the spending a "colossal waste of taxpayers' money that flies in the face of common sense". "Instead of translating documents which no-one is going to read, they should have spent the money on teaching people English," she said.

Quite right. But how many Conservative Councils are still spending thousands on translations? Conservative-led Birmingham spent £361,096 last year. The total spending across the country from those who responded to More4 was £50.2 million.

Another area where Boris needs to get tough

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson is engaged in an important battle over the tube strike at the moment. So one hesitates to raise other matters. But I was concerned about his justification for reatining Diversity Officers at City Hall which he gave at the Mayor of London's Question Time last month.

Conservative London Assembly member Tony Arbour said: "Let me draw your attention to the fact that under this reorganisation there are going to be 11 diversity and equality officers each of whom have exactly the same job description.  I am hard put to think that that is an appropriate thing for a strategic authority to be continuing to appoint."

Boris replied: "I do think there are issues that need to be tackled around diversity and I am not going to go back into some sort of neutral passive position where we as the GLA say that we are not going to champion active integration.  We should be active champions of integration.  Whether or not that means we have to have quite so many diversity officers or not I do not know, but we cannot abandon that basic duty."

Memo to Boris: Diversity Officers (especially those recruited by Ken Livingstone) do not promote integration. They promote multiculturalism. Division. Racial separatism. Grievance exploitation. To help you decide why not have a poll with the question: "Should Council Taxpayers money be spent on Diversity Officers?" There is little doubt what those of all ethnic groups would reply. If you are still unsure read this very robust article which shows the direction to follow.

Labour councillor quits in racism row

A Labour councillor on Cumbria County Council has been partially suspended for making a racist remark. He has also decided to stand down as a councillor as a result. Cllr Ronnie Calvin apologised after using the term "nigger in the woodpile" at a meeting with council officers. He says: "It was a phrase I have grown up with, I didn't mean it in an offensive way." The comment was not directed at anyone.

Generally for a councillor to be using the N word is pretty serious although the context is a pretty strong mitigating factor. The phrase Cllr Calvin used would have been cheerfully used by many of our parents and grandparents. These days it would be pretty shocking to hear it used by anybody under about 65. But Cllr Calvin is 74 and I think has been treated harshly. I am certainly not suggesting the comment was acceptable, in these enlightened times, but was an apology not enough? 

Tory councillor suspended for describing gays as "sexual deviants"

Pink News reports that Cllr Patrick Clark, a Conservative councillor on Derbyshire County Council, has been suspended from the Conservative Group after describing gays as "sexually deviant."

In a piece for the Duffield Scene newsletter, Cllr Clark wrote:

"I object to being required to embrace an agenda that actively supports and positively discriminates in favour of people who I consider to be sexual deviants and who engage in practices contrary to my religious beliefs."

Cllr Clark is entitled to his religous beliefs and certainly entitled to resist positive discrimination. But the "sexual deviants" reference was pretty unfortunate. Any homosexual voters in Cllr Clark's Duffield and Belper South Ward would have been entitled to have taken offence at the comments from their electoral representative. Cllr Clark told the Derby Telegraph that: "The term deviant just means different, it was not derogatory."

I think the term "deviant" is derogatory and can see that Cllr Clark's unwillingness to see any reason to apologise left his colleagues with a difficulty. But suspending him seems severe. Could they not have simply disowned his remark?

Fourteen Council officers in Lancashire suspended over email jokes

The Daily Mail reports that 14 Council officers on Labour-run Lancashire County Council have been suspended for circulating Jewish jokes by email. One issue is whether staff should be allowed to send any jokes to each other. On the whole I think they should in moderation. Good for morale. The key measure is if they perform their work competently. If they are on top of everything and so are bored with nothing to do and thus email jokes to each other it may be an indication of overmanning. But you can hardly blame them.

But then, of course, there is endless difficulty about what content is acceptable. Is swearing? Is an offensive joke? Most jokes are offensive to some extent. In this case it is hard to form an opinion without having seen the jokes. Often rabbis tell excellent Jewish jokes. One assumes these were more offensive but perhaps some were some weren't. There could certainly be problematic disciplinary hearings.

Given how hard it is to sack people on local government for doing a bad job - for idleness, incompetence, persistent absenteeism it sounds to me as though the suspension for emailing was probably excessive. A warning would have seemed more reasonable. But we don't know quite how offensive the jokes are.

Tory councillor's transexual joke led to police warning

Cllr John Yardley, a Conservative councillor in Wolverhampton where he is the Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Safer Communities, has been interviewed by police after making a transexual joke at a meeting. He was chairing a presentation and the police authority worker making a presentation said: "Let's start with an easy question to get us going. Press Button A if you're male or B if you're female." a member of the audience asked: "What if you're transgendered?"

It was at this point that Yardley committed his alleged "hate crime." He responded light heartedly: "You could press A and B together." He had been unaware that the question had been raised by a man in the audience dressed as a woman.

All very socially awkward but hardly a "hate crime." The police response is that the joke wasn't funny, that it all happened six months ago and that they didn't spend very much time on the matter. All that seems to miss the point. They shouldn't have spent any time on it. It should have been obvious to them that they had more important matters to talk to Cllr Yardley about.

Tory woman councillor accused of "sexist" email

Cllr Susie Burbridge, a Conservative on Westminster Council, has been accused of sexism. It came about after a campaign was started over a £1.50 a day parking charge for motorcyclists and scooters. against the introduction of parking charges by Westminster Council. The campaign has included angry demonstrations which it says it will continue with until the fees are dropped.

Cllr Burbridge said in an email to John Cameron, who is involved in the campaign: "To my mind your notice is not a warning. I see it as a threat. A common symptom of the male species. I am delighted you have a passion. I believe in a process where by folks can have their voice, and you are doing just that.  However, we are allowed to do what we see is fit and proper and responsible.  I also have a voice. I believe there should be a small charge."

If a male Tory councillor had made some disobliging reference to "a common symptom to the female of the species" no doubt there would be a great fuss. I suppose hundreds of motor bikes zooming up Victoria Street in protest may seem rather testosterone charged. But aren't there women motor bike riders too?

Government to spend £2 million on twenty more Young Mayors

The Government are spending £2 million on giving budgets to 20 "Young Mayors" - 11-18-year-olds chosen in elections set up in local schools. So far there are 12 Young Mayors in various Councils around the country and the Government would like to encourage more.

Some of the money may end up being well spent. But a far more effective way of measuring what young people want is whether or not they use the facilities. Some dreary municipal Youth Centre that is largely unused is a waste of money whether or not it is initiated by a Young Mayor.

This sounds like another cumbersome New Labour gimmick. I'm pretty sceptical about this cult of youth in general and wrote a piece for The Guardian's Comment is Free website which they put up yesterday. I don't go around the place looking for facilities "by and for" 43-year-olds.

Carnival Queen contest scrapped as "sexist"

The Weymouth Carnival Queen competition is being scrapped on the grounds that it is "outdated" and doesn't promote equal opportunities. The decision has been made by organisers, a group called Weymouth Community Volunteers who have taken over the event from the Round Table who have organised it for the last 50 years. Instead of a beautiful young local girl the parade will be led by a "Carnival Community Champion."

I am pleased that Conservative-run Weymouth and Portland Council have expressed regret at the planned change. It is not clear what involvement the Council have in the event and so what can be done about the situation. Perhaps the Round Table could be persuaded to take it back. Doubtless they feel cheated by the planned change.

Dumfries Tory councillors accused of "prejudice" for opposing Council grants to gay and ethnic groups

Two Conservative councillors on the Dumfries and Galloway Council, Peter Duncan and Patsy Gilroy, have been denounced by the Labour Group leader as "prejudiced" for having the temerity to oppose the allocation of grants £32,445 to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenedered Youth Scotland and £40,000 to Dumfries and Galloway Multicultural Association.

Of course the Labour tactics are to close any debate about the nature of the groups that should be funded or even any rigorous scrutiny about what they do with the money. They are seeking to avoid there being a process of accountability over the spending of other peoples money. What if the Labour councillors had proposed an amendment doubling funding to these groups and the Conservatives had opposed it. Would that have been homophobic and racist?

These are legitimate issues for Conservatives to raise because they are about value for money. The Council Taxpayers of Dumfries and Galloway, including those who are gay and from ethnic minority groups, want to see lower Council Tax bills.

Often it does represent value for money for Councils to fund voluntary groups. But these should be for those that carry out practical help not politically correct lobbying. There is no point funding a group whose main role is to sit in an office and demand still more funding. In the case of the disabled, for example, there are lot of worthwhile, caring groups that offer a good service. There are also a lot of lobbying groups that are entirely preoccupied with politics.

Labour council bans St George's Day parade

Labour-run Sandwell Council has withdrawn funding for a St George's Day parade over concerns it might attract far right elements. Trevor Collins, a spokesman for the Stone Cross St George's Day Association who organise the parade, says that they had planned to invite Gurkha soldiers to the event.

Sandwell Council have evidently been poring over photographs to spot if local BNP activitists have turned up. Maybe they did. But do the Councl not see that cancelling the event is a gift to the BNP?

Conservative-run Calderdale Council offers a more positive example. celebrate on Thursday  April 23rd, including a fireworks display and activity day for schoolchildren with flag-making and shield-making.

Cameron says councillor was impolite to display topless women calendar

David Cameron has told Nottingham's Evening Post that a Tory councillor was wrong to display a Page 3 calendar in his office:

"If you are councillor and you are there to represent people you have got to represent everyone. I don't know the details of this case but if a Member of Parliament should not have pictures of topless women on their office walls the same should apply to a councillor. It could cause offence to people... Political correctness can go too far but the good bit of political correctness is politeness. We should always think about good manners and politeness with these issues. It seems to me this one would fall foul of that."

> ConHome's original post on this.

Tory councillor refuses to remove Page 3 topless calendar

Councillor David Taylor, a Conservative councillor on Labour-run Nottinghamshire County Council, has refused to take down a calendar, featuring nude girls, from his office wall. The Council leader complained it was "inappropriate." But Cllr Taylor says people should be allowed to have what they want in their own offices and adds of his reason for putting up the calendar: "It is to have a go at political correctness."

Bristol Council orders boys club to change "discriminatory" name or lose funding

Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt has the following report on his blog:

"Just been to Bristol and feel overwhelmed by Bristolian enthusiasm as well as Bristolian madness (the latter by the city council).

After a briefing to business people on our plans to deal with the recession, I went to a remarkable organisation called the Broad Plain Boys Club. This boys club, which has been going for more than half a century, teaches boxing to boys and young men who one way or the other have come off the rails. Some of them have been excluded from school, others are at young offender institutions, others have just come out of prison. They don't just learn boxing – they are given coaching to get their whole lives back on track. But boxing and sport generally are an important part of the formula.

As so often, the organisation is really carried along by the enthusiasm of the person running it, Dennis Stinchcombe. His pride in what he achieves for these young men bursts from every syllable he utters. His son Liam also works there (as well as being a part time professional boxer) and has the same pride, as do all his staff.

The crazy thing is they have been told they will lose their funding from Bristol City Council if they don't drop the word "boys" from the name of the club as it is "discriminatory". What stupid nonsense. Girls actually use the club on Tuesday and Thursday nights anyway, but it is young adolescent men who most need what the club has to offer. That surely is what counts - not whether it has a politically correct name."

£2,000 a head "diversity" junkets exposed

Good piece in The Sun this morning about various bits of the public sector sending staff off to the luxury hotel Sunningdale Park for a five day course on "Managing Diversity" - including interactive role play with actors. Naturally with us picking up the bill of £2,000 for each participant. The restaurant courses sound like the main attraction. The article doesn't list Councils that have sent staff along but no doubt many have.

Salisbury worries about singing from the same hymn sheet

From the BBC's newspaper review: "The Sunday Telegraph says a council has told staff not to use the phrase "singing from the same hymn sheet" because it could offend atheists. Salisbury Council has issued guidance to its employees, asking: "What would an atheist want with your hymn sheet?" But an official of the National Secular Society tells the paper he uses the phrase himself. "Of course, we should all avoid phrases that can cause unnecessary offence - but this isn't one of them," he says."

Smokers under fire - and not just in Redbridge

Neil Rafferty, a spokesman for the smokers lobby group Forest, says its not just Redbridge Council to have shown anti smoking zealotry.

Often the smoking debate seems to be confined solely to the national stage where the extremist agenda is driven by the Department of Health and its agents at ASH (Action on Smoking and Health). But it is at the local council level where much of the most fevered anti-tobacco policy making is taking place with local councillors increasingly determined to outdo their national party bosses when it comes to extending the
reach of the Bully State.

Redbridge Council in Greater London is the latest to join the anti-smoking brigade with its cruel and irresponsible decision to ban smokers from fostering children. Not only will this exclude some excellent foster parents from the system and deny vulnerable children a truly transformational experience - a point forcibly made by the Fostering Network - but it also transmits the insidious message that smokers in general are not fit to be parents.

How long will it be before Redbridge excludes overweight people from fostering because they set a bad lifestyle example? And all this based on the now tiresomely predictable scaremongering about passive smoking using selective statistics and transparent exaggeration. And perhaps most worryingly for those of us who believe in personal freedom and have watched it being relentlessly assaulted by the Labour government, Redbridge is a Conservative council.

Christmas banned in Oxford

Christmas events funded by Labour-run Oxford Council are being redesignated a "Winter Light Festival" in order to be more "inclusive." But, of course, far from welcoming this "inclusiveness" Jewish and Muslim groups have joined in the criticism.

The Deputy Council leader Cllr Ed Turner seems to be all over the shop. In some reports defending the decision on the grounds that "several festivals" can be celebrated "all at the same time." But in others trying to distance himself from it as the events are run for the Council by a charity called Oxford Inspires - although since the Council are paying the bill you would have thought they would have some say in what was happening. He tells the Telegraph the renaming is "unfortunate and sends out a problematic message."

Camden Conservatives want Christmas celebrated

Camden Conservatives have put this motion to their council:

"This Council believes that attempts to airbrush out Christmas, one of the main festivals of Christianity, which is still the biggest religion of England, because of the notion that in some way it is offensive to other faiths, is insulting to Christians and British religious minorities who are libelled by insinuation.

The Council feels that this idea seems to be motivated by the wish to divide the people of this country, by emphasising, inventing and fabricating artificial disagreements, which cause needless resentment among religious groups.

This Council notes that, whilst Christianity is not the only religion to have a major winter celebration, Christmas is none-the-less one of the most valued holidays in the Christian calendar. This Council feels that as a nation we are losing sight of the real reason for celebrating the festive period and that, as divorce rates soar and the traditional family breaks down, any attempt to down play a festival which at its heart celebrates the family as an institution can only further damage a society of which many parts are broken.

This Council also believes that the renaming of Christmas as a “Winter Festival” or any other non-religious nomenclature is part of the systematic erosion of Christianity in modern life, which itself is the cause of the loss of our sense of national identity and cohesion.

This Council acknowledges that the ethical foundation of our legal and political system is rooted in Christianity and should not be ashamed to acknowledge that we are a Christian nation, after all, how is one supposed to respect any other culture, when one doesn't treasure their own.

Therefore this Council resolves to put "Merry Christmas" on all its greetings cards, official letters and websites issued in the month of December."

Hat-tip: Cranmer

Harrow replaces school crossing patrollers with lollipop ladies

Out go civil enforcement officers and in come traffic wardens.

Out go school crossing patrollers and and in come lollipop ladies.

Civic amenity sites are gone.  Rubbish tips are back.

Conservative-run Harrow Council have declared war on jargon according to 24dash.com.

Cllr Paul Osborn explained Harrow's decision:

"Our residents want to hear plain speaking and that is what we'll deliver. We are now working to ensure that council terms, which can include all sorts of baffling acronyms, don't get used when we talk to the public. Every organisation uses jargon to some degree, but we know that councils have been among the worst offenders in the past."

Flagship Tory councils under fire for working with fringe Muslim groups

That's the conclusion of an article authored by Dean Godson in this morning's Times in which he warns that both the Government and certain flagship Tory councils are being insufficiently careful in which Muslim groups they co-operate with.  The article appears after months of probing by Tory frontbencher Paul Goodman MP into the Government's Preventing Violent Extremism Pathfinder Fund.

Mr Godson, of Policy Exchange, highlights Birmingham...

"For example the Channel 4 Dispatches programme exposed hate preaching at the Green Lane mosque in Birmingham. A preacher, Abu Usama, urged that homosexuals be thrown from mountains. Yet the Green Lane mosque is one of the partnership organisations approved by Birmingham City Council."

...and Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea:

"Kensington & Chelsea Council has turned to the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre to deliver a “parental empowerment programme” that aims “to foster modern, inclusive and Islamically sound relationships between parents and children. Parenting techniques are imparted and discussed from an Islamic and wider social perspective by a trained Muslim NHS psychotherapist.”  Why is it the duty of a council to “foster Islamically sound relationships between parents and children”? Who defines what is “Islamically sound”? How does picking a Muslim psychotherapist - apparently on sectarian grounds - help to prevent violent extremism?  Likewise, Westminster City Council relies on the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre (which is not even in the city) to organise a “young people's leadership and debate programme” on foreign policy.  Why should Tory councils turn to them, of all people? The centre's name appeared in a statement on the website of Hizb-ut-Tahrir asserting that “the Muslim community in Britain has unequivocally denounced acts of terrorism. However, the right of people anywhere in the world to resist invasion and occupation is legitimate”. The statement also denounced the proscription of Hizb-ut-Tahrir - a key objective of David Cameron."

In conclusion, Mr Godson compares the state's interaction with extremist Muslim groups to working with the BNP:

"It's as if the Government responded to a violent insurgency from the neo-Nazi terrorists of Combat 18 by turning to Nick Griffin of the BNP, on the ground that he enjoys nationalist “cred” with alienated skinheads. After all, Mr Griffin is non-violent and believes that whites should participate in the political process. Perhaps he might stop bombs from going off. But what price would he exact for it - and what kind of society would we then be living in?"

Eric Pickles attacks attempt to ban prayers in town halls

Another day and another controversial implication of the Human Rights Act.

The body that represents parish councils - the National Association of Local Councils - has warned that holding prayer meetings at local councils may contravene the Human Rights Act or Race Discrimination Act.  The Association may issue guidance recommending that prayers be abandoned in order to avoid any danger of legal action.

Eric Pickles MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Local Government, issued the following statement:

"This is a deeply troubling move. Such absurd town hall political correctness will serve to undermine community cohesion and tolerance towards all religions. Prayers are an important part of the religious and cultural fabric of the British nation.  While the decision on whether to hold prayers is ultimately a matter for local councils, it is outrageous that town halls are being bullied into such a decision by so-called human rights laws.”