TLIAD: "Wheear 'ast tha bin sin' ah saw thee?"
- Thread starter Lord Roem
- Start date
Thande
Donor
I think this flowering of TLIADs is a very good thing, and you should certainly make your own attempt.
I think I certainly will - have to put my old-style TLIAD back into storage for the moment then and see what new concept looms upon me next.
Ooh nice.
And re Bradford vs York, whilst York seems logical historywise, politically Bradford makes more sense for New Labour
And re Bradford vs York, whilst York seems logical historywise, politically Bradford makes more sense for New Labour
Tuesday 5th August, 2014
Yorkshire Assembly, Bradford
“I love Bradford in the Spring Time...” as the old song doesn’t go.
What with the ‘Silk Road’ Spring a couple of years ago, it was not surprising that the subject of my next interview used the Yorkshire Election of that year to stage his political comeback, some three years on from the hammering he received when he attempted to get re-elected in Bethnal Green.
“From Bishkek to Bradford” had been the slogan of his Socialist-Green Party - hyperbolic it may have been, but it certainly had an effect. Bradford West being the only Labour loss in the Assembly Election. Anywhere else, and with any other candidate, it may have passed unnoticed. However, when the ‘where’ is the constituency that is home to the Assembly building itself, and when the ‘candidate’ is such a forceful candidate as George Galloway - the fact that it almost relegated John Healey’s election to the third page is not especially surprising.
Galloway’s Glaswegian drawl seems curiously suited to the Members’ Canteen of the Yorkshire Assembly Building. Built around the ruins of the old Odeon that dominates the centre of Bradford, it was a surprise choice to host the legislative building when the design competition was launched back in 2001. Galloway, however, is delighted.
“It is a gorgeous edifice,” the old firebrand jabbers in-between gulps of cloudy lemonade (Galloway is, of course, teetotal) “a fitting tribute to the working men and women that made this city what it is today!”
Such a remark is typical Galloway. Bombastic and tinged with a level of faux-sincerity, yet I have to constantly remind myself not to warm to him. With the Reform Conservatives still reeling from the sudden resignation of Anne McIntosh and the the fallout from the Secretaryship of Philip Davies, it is not surprising that Galloway has become the unofficial Leader of the Opposition in the Odeon. His party is no more coherent than UKIP, but just as with Mr Carswell, Galloway has made himself the face of the Anti-Politics Brigade, and his attempts to outflank Healey’s ‘Anti-Austerity Assembly’ from the left have proven remarkably successful.
The division bell rings, although Galloway does little to follow the scramble of his fellow MYAs. He instead nonchalantly proffers his iTab, voting via the Assembly Application.
He gives me a smile, “there’s no point rushing about, it’s only another Tory attempt to censure the First Secretary for spending too much.”
I note that that makes him sound approving of Mr Healey. He snorts.
“John Healey is another member of the Blairite Junta who felt like he didn’t have a future when the Boy Wonder got kicked out in 2009” he bluntly states, “I’ve not much time for John Reid either, but at least he knows a phoney when he sees one, and Healey’s a classic example of the sort of person who’d sell his grandma if it would stop people bringing up Iraq all the time.”
I think that is a little unfair (and also a decade out of date as an insult) but I decide to keep my trap shut.
What is it about the Assembly that specifically appealed to him, I ask. I specifically want to know what convinced the Pied Piper of Tower Hamlets that his talents would be better suited to Bradford, rather than his native Glasgow.
“Katy Clark is doing a good enough job of leading a genuinely left-wing Labour Party in Holyrood,” he says, “and I’ve not much time for supporting yet another Unionist splinter group - we only just managed to save the Union last time around.”
Galloway’s Unionism is one of the most fascinating things about his politics, given that many of the Bright Young Things in the Red-Greens seem to view overhanging wisterias as a sign of Imperialist Aggression. He has explained in the past that he sees Separatism as the road to a new era of Sectarianism, at least north of Gretna, but I am curious to know if he longs for a secessionist movement in God’s Own County.
“Not a chance,” he continues, “I’d rather not leave London in the thrall of the Neo-Liberals in the Home Counties.”
We both pause at that. The division bell has stopped ringing - but we still have a little time before Galloway is due to show a visiting cohort of Pakistani Parliamentarians into the Chamber.
I ask my final question, would he be prepared to do a deal with Labour in the event of a hung Assembly?
He smiles.
“Perhaps if they agree to get rid of Fylingdales.”
The Pentagon must be quaking in their boots.
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Alex Richards
Donor
Oh Lord. The Gorgeous One poised in a position of power.
Also, with Carswell as UKIP leader does that mean Farage is in a South East Assembly?
Also, with Carswell as UKIP leader does that mean Farage is in a South East Assembly?
How did we not see it coming?
I'm really liking this TLIAD, Jack. I get the sense that the YA is a uniquely powerful organisation , and as such is a popular target of certain political characters who feel they can get more 'bang for their buck' than at Westminster. And, of course, it's delightfully written with an undercurrent of humour.
I'm really liking this TLIAD, Jack. I get the sense that the YA is a uniquely powerful organisation , and as such is a popular target of certain political characters who feel they can get more 'bang for their buck' than at Westminster. And, of course, it's delightfully written with an undercurrent of humour.
Devvy
Donor
RAF Fylingdales is supposedly primarily used for the ballistic missile warning system, rather then anything else. (genuine question) Would Galloway really be against that? I'm certainly happy for it to be there considering it's primary purpose.
If you mean RAF Menwith Hill, just round the corner from home, which is supposedly part of the ECHELON system and spying on every electronic transmission it can get it's ears on (and the spy satellites it links to), then I'd imagine Galloway being completely anti-that!
Otherwise, nice; great reading
PS:
Ah yes. Missed that; ah well. Penistone line is a rural line with absolutely no strategic purpose and not linking any urban areas that haven't got other better links, and hardly well used. It's not going to make the list for electrification until everywhere else is done.
Thande
Donor
Good use of Galloway there and I like the little nods to the butterflies like Blair going on and on. So TTL saw the big 'Arab Spring' analogue in Central Asia instead--which is not too far-fetched considering there were some attempted revolutions in the area in the mid-2000s, it's just they ended up a bit of a damp squib by comparison. I like the name Silk Road Spring.
Very nice. I do like this journalistic style of TLIAD. Anyway, I am intrigued by the very different political structure of England. It's interesting that the Tories managed to get enough seats to make a minority government work. Not something I would have expected. Nor would I have expected Galloway t' put himself in the situation of leading a party in Yorkshire. It works surprisingly well though.
I wonder how many other regional areas have their own assemblies now.
I wonder how many other regional areas have their own assemblies now.
Thande
Donor
Labour only got 2.2% more votes than the Tories in the Yorkshire and the Humber region at the 2010 general election and I am fairly certain the Tories topped the polls at the lower-turnout 2008 local elections if you add them up, though I've never done it. (Given that the Tories topped the polls in Greater Manchester at the 2008 local elections...)
The Tories also came top in Yorkshire and the Humber in the 1999 and 2009 Euro-elections, though those are less comparable to any other vote of course. 1999 is particularly crazy when mapped by Westminster constituency, it looks like some sort of super duper William Hague landslide.
Please remember that Yorkshire is mainly rural and (apart from the old industrial heartlands of West and South Yorkshire, Hull and sometimes York) votes solidly old fashioned (ie at heart pre-Thatcher) countryside Conservative. So a minority Tory run Yorkshire Assembly is actually quite likely especially if the Labour vote splits.
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The positioning of Fylingdales means that it is not really useful for providing early warning to the UK, instead being designed to give warning to North America.
It is however a primary strategic target for anyone who might want to attack the US from this direction. Given how it is handily defended by the RAFs North Sea QRF, the most effcient way to disable it would one or more small yield nuclear cruise misiles.
Which isn't so great for anyone who lives in Scarborough or the Vale of Pickering. (myself included)
Also great Yorkshire TL, I wish there were more of them. Flat caps, whippets, and real ale must abound!
Wednesday 6th August, 2014
Stalybridge Railway Station, Stalybridge
The Buffet Bar at Stalybridge Station is phenomenally good. It is to CAMRA members what Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port is to Catholic Pilgrims, being as it is the starting point of the so-called ‘Real Ale Trail’ - where beer aficionados spend a somewhat squiffy afternoon slowly making their way from Tameside to Leeds along the Huddersfield Line, drinking at every one of the excellent station pubs along the way.
Wistfully looking at the three be-cardigan’d men clutching their Day Explorer tickets, I set two coffees down next to Linda Riordan, the unashamedly left-wing Cabinet Secretary for Transport and Infrastructure. That said, I’m a stickler for chatting to anyone about the railways, so I am prepared to look away from the inviting pub clips for the time being.
Stalybridge has yet to be annexed into the Yorkshire Reich, but I have been informed by her office that she has just concluded a meeting with the Mayor of Greater Manchester regarding the Woodhead Tunnel, so the station, being as it is close to the border, makes for a suitable meeting place.
Riordan has been MYA for Halifax and majordomo at the Yorkshire Transport Authority since it was established under the “Yorkshire and Humberside Act, 2011”, prior to that, she served briefly as Under-Secretary for Housing in the dying days of Fabian Hamilton’s government. Since re-entering government, her Departmental Authority has taken over day-to-day operation of local bus routes, certain regional railway services and strategic investment and lobbying. Riorden has been at the forefront of the latter, leading the campaign for electrification of the Hull-Liverpool Route as far as the Pennines.
“It was delayed, typically,” she notes, dunking a hob-nob, “and the failure to get the properly elected City Region Mayors that we wanted for Greater Manchester and Merseyside until recently hasn’t been great either.”
I find myself warming to Riordan. She is clearly someone who has a precise way of doing things, but that is certainly no vice in a job that calls for such clear attention-to-detail. Thanks to an increase in the size of the bloc-grant from Whitehall that was brought in as part of the Transport (Devolved Assemblies) Act, 2006, Yorkshire has enjoyed somewhat of a renaissance in Railway infrastructure. Whilst per capita spending still remains far, far below that enjoyed by Londoners, I was gratified to know that my unpleasant Pacer journey that took me from Penistone to Leeds the other day is probably one of the last ones, the glorified bus chassis is to be phased out by 2016 (only twenty years later than expected...).
I say as much to Riordan, who gives a brisk nod.
“That is precisely what the Assembly is good at,” she says, “actually managing to get enough people together to tell DafT precisely where they are going wrong.”
I am slightly taken aback by her cavalier use of the disparaging acronym - doesn’t she appreciate that London still holds the purse strings?
“Yes, but hopefully - not for much longer. John has been excellent at lobbying for some limited income tax policy to be devolved to us in Bradford. Despite his many flaws, Stewart Hosie was very effective at lobbying for it up in Holyrood, and I cannot see the Prime Minister denying to Leeds what he has given to the Lothians.”
As a member of the Conservative Party’s sizable Scottish diaspora in England, Liam Fox has certainly proved surprisingly willing to further the devolution agenda throughout our increasingly Disunited Kingdom. Cumbria-Lancashire may still lack the Assembly that we enjoy in Yorkshire and in the North East, but the City Region Mayors seem to be firmly on the agenda, and the clamour for electoral reform from the swelling ranks of Mr Alexander’s Liberal Democrats and from the less antediluvian members of the Labour Party also seem to be hinting at a substantive re-think of the constitutional question.
I recall my thoughts outside Leeds City Hall, and I decide to ask her if the Idea of England is dead.
She pauses. Outside, another gang of Real Ale Fans have alighted from the Piccadilly Train. The bar once again swells.
“I wouldn’t say that ‘England’ is dead as such,” she replies, “after-all, we’re all English during the World Cup, to name just one example, and whilst we're fortunate enough to have our regional pride and identity - you don’t really see that same love for such meaningless terms as the ‘North-West’, do you?”
I nod my head - it is a point that I’ve considered quite a few times.
“But certainly, I think that a lot of people in places like the Midlands are looking at how much better the provision of public services has got in areas that have devolved government and are wondering where their new buses and social housing is.”
Is it that - or is it more a case at resentment from non-devolved areas getting uppity at subsidising poorer regions. The Wessex Regionalists and Libertarians did astonishingly well in the previous month’s Winchester by-election, after-all.
“I don’t think that we are looking at ‘Balkanisation’ or whatever rubbish The Economist came out with the other week,” she says dismissively, “this is about giving ordinary people control over their futures in a much better way that they could ever be granted at Westminster - and I’m not going to apologise to bankers having to stump up a little bit extra.”
She drains her cup.
“I mean - I dispute the idea that the South subsidises us anyway,” she adds, “we’ve got a larger economy than the whole of Scotland for a start, and we can’t be the sort of left-wing dinosaurs that the London Media complain about all that time anyway, otherwise why would EY have re-located half of their offices to Leeds last year?”
The point is conceded. Riordan leans towards me, eyeing up the crowd at the counter.
“Now, why don’t we have a proper drink?”
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Having been born in Hull and raised in York I am all for the idea. Would Yorkshire be a monarchy? Would Arthur Scargill be king? Or would it be the rightful heir of Richard 3rd? Yorkshire Day would be a national holiday, as would November 5th, when we would celebrate the heroic yet doomed attempts of that son of York, Guy Fawkes, to blow up Parliament. We would commit to the flames a model of Parliament, followed by an effigy of that foul usurper, Henry Tudor.