John Hemming's Web Log

The link is to 67 photographs from various sources on flickr.com The following also have photographs http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/tornado.htm Councillor Mullaney's pictures http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/tornado-july30th.htm these are Martin's from today which are the more severely damaged areas. http://peteashton.com/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/image_galleries/tornado_gallery_Copy.shtml bbc pictures http://www.andypryke.com/pub/MoseleyTornado Birmingham Post and Evening Mail http://www.flickr.com/photos/brumblebee/29447977/in/set-663795/ http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/birmingham/2005/07/319922.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/brendadada/sets/680458/ I have put this entry in because I am getting a lot of Tornado searches from my entry a few days ago and I thought it would be useful to collate photo lists somewhere. I will edit this entry to add any other photographs. If anyone wants any list added please email me at the usual addresses (either City ...

Work continues in the aftermath of the Tornado. There is an information point as above. Clearly certain properties are unusable and may need to be demolished. I understand the local Housing Association (MDCHA) has had to rehouse about 20 families. When we contacted Government Office on Friday they were not interested, but I understand that the government recognise now that this is something out of the ordinary and are going to be more supportive of the city council. There will remain, however, a substantial number of real problems to be resolved.

We have been told that next year's NRF for Birmingham will be over £32,000,000. That is obviously good news for the city. There is a difficulty, however, in that in informal meetings representatives of the government have been threatening to not pay that money to Birmingham unless I am sacked as chair of the BSP. I confirmed this in an informal discussion with Graham Garbett (director Government Office West Midlands) on Monday this week. If the government say they will fine Birmingham £32 Million unless I resign of course I will fall on my sword. This is not, however, something that the government should get involved in. I have always had concerns about Civil Servants trying to exclude elected politicians from decisionmaking. After the discussion on Monday I spoke to Joe Montgomery (director Neighbourhood Renewal Unit) and asked him for his views. He said he would talk to the minister. Joe phoned me on Wednesday, but would not answer the question as to whether or not it was ...

Local Councillor Martin Mullaney has some photos on his website. The City Council used its new Emergency Management routines. I saw some of the swirling in the wind which was reported to hit 130 mph. I have never seen winds as strong. Climate Change is arguably part of this. It is easy to find pictures of trees falling onto houses. And houses that used to have chimneys. Or a school with no roof at all. or lots of missing slates which must have been flying all over the place. Firemen had to break into some places. What was surprising was how only a small distance from the tornado no damage was done at all. Top floor rooms in flats suffered as well. I suppose it is surprising that there is any glass left in this greenhouse. It will be interesting to review how well the new approach to emergencies has been in the city. Some people have not been able to stay in their properties. The local North Moseley Mosque opened up space for temporary sleep as did the Kings Heath Community Centre...

The arrests in Heybarnes Road were just outside my constituency (and ward). They have, however, had an impact on the atmosphere in the city. It appears that quite a few of the people arrested have been Somalian or East African. There have been quite a few tensions between Somalians and Kashmiris in recent years. As usual a lot of this arises from economic displacement which drives most of such conflict. Many of the Somalians are actually Dutch Nationals having come across from mainly Rotterdam, but also other places in continental Europe.

Silent Calls are particularly worrying. One option is that instead of silence a record message tells people what is going on so that they don't worry. This still should be kept to an absolute minimum, but it is interesting that the government are considering this option as well.

The figures for Birmingham's NRF for the next two years have been announced. The first year is going up from £22,043,488 to £32,266,410 next year which is an increase of £10,222,922 and 46% and then to £37,624,119 in 7-8 an increase on this year of £15,580,631. I am expecting the usual attempt by the bureaucrats to remove the democratic accountability from the spending decisions.

The Council Mouse in Birmingham has been the scene of a "Noughties" version of "The Birds" the film of Alfred Hitchcock about birds attacking people. In Birmingham .... surprise surprise .... it is Seagulls. We have three Seagull Chicks (quite large ones), looking for somewhere to park in the Council Mouse Car park sometimes they pick a parking place where there already is a car such as that of Talib Hussain (the James Bond film star - he was on the credits). Meanwhile Mummy (or Daddy) Seagull keeps guard. and if you come close to her babies she attacks The last photo was taken by me whilst I was being attacked by Mr or Mrs Seagull. A short time afterwards Councillor Tim Huxtable (known by the Evening Mail as "the Smiling Assassin" because of his track record in stopping councillors' junkets) was the victim of an accelerated avine assault. Perhaps the Seagulls are worried about the fact that he might prevent them going to Austria. Councillor Tariq Kha...

I am thinking of establishing a research website to complement this blog. I could do this via my London office webservers. Alternatively it might be worth using some of the various services on the web (all of which are relatively sensibly priced). This would enable the various people I am working with to also maintain sections of the site. We could have elements dealing with all the different campaigning issues. Does anyone have any recommendations for people who offer web services where different users can access different parts of the site?

The link gives a list of reports from the Office of National Statistics on GDP. Clearly there are issues about the economic and environmental sustainability of growth. It remains, however, an important factor in government planning. We are putting together a simple summary of key statistics. The key for growth at the moment is that the growth over the past 4 quarters is 1.7%. Stories such as This telegraph story compare the actual 12 month figures of 1.7% to Gordon Brown's prediction of 3-3.5%. This will have a further impact on the government's finances. This chart is useful for looking at the recent past. Reports in the media indicate the worst 12 month period since 1993. I have not seen the evidence for that, however. What surprises me is the Treasury's plan to merely maintain their current plan. I understand the argument that we have relatively low national debt. There is, however, a question raised about the long term economic sustainability of their financia...

I was reviewing research on the Local Government Standards Code and other issues when I found out about the further attempt to cause loss of life on the tube. That seemed to be followed up by some other attempt today. Sadly there remain people whose agenda rests in attempting to polarise society - including those who have sent out emails purporting to come from religious institutions.

I managed to get a number of points raised as questions to the Home Secretary before the Speaker interrupted yesterday. This question he ignored: Does he agree that to achieve a calm and peaceful world we need to stand on two legs: security and justice? We cannot have justice without security but, at the same time, we cannot have security without justice. We need to focus on ensuring that justice is done, nationally and internationally, and that it is seen to be done, for example, under international humanitarian law. He did respond to the point about CCTV. CCTV does operate well to track situations although, of course, it cannot prevent any one event. It can, however, ensure a speedy response and prevent subsequent events (as part of law enforcement). We do, however, have to be careful not to forget the second leg of justice. Too much of a concentration on security has failed in the past (eg Northern Ireland in the early 70s). Another point that has missed the media has been that t...

My EDM 400 FAMILY TAX CREDIT REPAYMENTS 23.06.2005 Hemming, John That this House notes that there is a substantial problem with the hardship caused by the clawback of overpayments of family tax credit; and calls for no clawback to occur until the weekly amount of clawback is agreed verbally, by email or in writing by the recipient Relates to the biggest problem that people face who are on tax credit. The government decides how much money to take from people without talking to them, starts directly debiting it and waits until they squeal. I wrote a letter to Dawn Primorolo (Paymaster General) on 22nd June, resent it on 12th July because of no response and a month later have still not had a response. I am going to find where her office is and deliver it in person this time. Much that there is a lot of chaos dealing with tax credits if they changed the system this way it would not cause so much personal grief.

Apart from the linked story, there is little editorial from Chevron's Advertising campaign about willyoujoinus . I also had a very complacent response from the governemnt about when global oil supplies will peak. The government point to the IEA's prediction of post 2030. They also make reference to the misleading point that the quoted reserves are 30 years plus of production. That is not a relevant issue as what matters to people is what they can use each year. As soon as that figure is constrained then the global economy switches into scarcity mode and resource costs start going up rather than down. This is where the Uppsala Protocol comes from. However, for the moment we have the government ignoring the issue publicly. Gordon Brown is also playing games with the current account deficit (Golden Rules etc). I am not quite sure what he is hoping for. The "something will turn up" strategy is not prudent. Still the whole political agenda has taken a step up in gear...

Today I attended a meeting at Birmingham W1 (170 Picadilly) which was to bring people together to promote Birmingham. Five of the Birmingham MPs were there. There are a number of areas in which we are working to lobby central government on behalf of Birmingham. One is to get New Street Station redeveloped and another is on the relocation of civil service jobs to the City Region. The important thing is that we are developing the approach of the City Region which includes the hinterland around Birmingham (or commuter belt). In my meanderings around the corridors of power I have found considerable support from MPs for Solihull, Kidderminster, Bromsgove, Lichfield as well as those from Sandwell and Birmingham (including Sutton). One lesson from today is to bring someone who knows how to use my camera. Hopefully you will be able to tell which of these three photos I took. - -

I was very busy yesterday (hence no blog entry). Meetings in Birmingham (and I put a lot of effort into avoiding inefficient meetings) took a lot of time. I then spent the whole of the afternoon in a meeting of the parliamentary party followed by another couple of events. This left little time. I then find in the newspaper today that one of our policies is about to changed. Well, if would be nice to be asked about it before it is announced.

It is important to understand how the families of British Troops feel with every story such as the one relating to 3 soldiers dying on Saturday. Their worry about their family members at risk every day in Iraq increases. The government's problem (and the problem of the US Government) is that every day the belligerent troops remain in Iraq the problems get worse. The foolish actions of the US in attacking Falluja in total contravention of international humanitarian law have massively increased support for the insurgency. The world is full of actions and reactions. Most of the principles of justice act such that anyone committing an unjust act tends to find that it reflects back upon them at a later stage. If people do not take care it gets to a stage whereby the emotional demand for revenge is so great that it overwhelms people's sense of priorities. Any student of Iraqi history in the 20th Century will note that the defining political issue of the 1920s was military bases. The ...

I started the day at Sheldon Community Centre looking at plans for a children's play area, doing a bit of "tie dye" and making a "Fish Base" from which I made a traditional flapping bird that the children found quite entertaining. After my advice bureau I went to Birmingham's "Birmingham United" event in Chamberlain Square. The Evening Mail and Birmingham Post have been good in supporting actions to make sure that people unite after the attacks designed to divide us. At the same time politicians have a responsibility to act to ensure that society does not end up further polarised. There are two legs that are needed to any strategy. The two legs can be identified as security and justice. If we have one without the other then we will not be able to progress. The errors government's have made in the past is to focus on security ignoring justice. That has resulted in things such as a growth of terrorism in Algeria, the growth of the "tr...

The government seem to wish to avoid answering the question about the forecasts for government spending, income and deficit. They have referred me to a source for the information. This is another of today's answers. "Information from the 2001 Criminality Survey notes that 27 per cent. of prisoners had spent time in care as a child. This is closely in line with the equivalent figure of 26 per cent. as found by the 1991 National Prison Survey." They are still evading the issue of how many people are not adopted/fostered by families because they make potential adopters jump through too many hoops and they given up trying. There is, of course, a key underlying issue which requires a distinction between those children who end up in children's homes and those who do not. The other question, of course, is what proportion of people who are in care end up in jail. Clearly many people are adopted and end up being pillars of the community. The big question is what the conseq...

This written question reveals part of the continual revolution that hits the health service in Birmingham. It ignores the Primary Care Groups and other organisations that perhaps the NHS wishes to forget. Payment by Results and the plans for 15% of health care to be done by private providers is going to have unpredictable effects on the hospitals.