Local issues for the next election

Are you interested in making the next general election a more transparent process? Then you might be interested in the Democracy Club, a network of volunteers to help mySociety and TheStraightChoice ahead of our next big vote.

They want to know what the local issues for the next election are for a variety of areas to help inform their website - so we'd love to hear from you what you think are important decisive topics for the local area.

Here's a possible list to get started:

1. Flooding - is enough being done to protect local residents? Can the various agencies responsible for flooding work together well enough?
2. Green transport - is enough being done to keep public transport low to encourage cars off the roads? (The endlessly increasing bus fares are a personal bugbear of mine. Especially when you have to get on a 47, pay £3.30 for a return and there's someone smoking dope on the top deck at 9AM.)
3. Congestion - why is driving into or through the city centre such a convoluted unmitigated nightmare?
4. Council finances - how can central government help to make BCC more transparent? How can we counter local borkups like BCC spending £2.8 million on a new, broken website and having the head of the scrutiny committee say that local people aren't interested in how the council is run?

And a few yes/no ones:

1. Should South Birmingham PCT be allowed to continue with presumed opt-in to Lorenzo patients record system?
2. Should the redevelopment of the Central Library go ahead? (though I realise it's not in B29).
3. Should we get the Stirchley swimming pool redeveloped?

Perhaps a better question is "Are there any local issues which divide the candidates standing at the next election" - let us know in the comments below, or by using the hashtags #localissues and #b29 on twitter, and we can feed them back to Democracy Club :).

European elections - results

No Rusty Lee for MEP, despite UKIP coming second in European Parliament elections in the West Midlands overall.

Celeb MEP-fans need not panic, though - Michael Cashman got returned, though this time it'll be a lonely Birmingham-Brussels commute without any other Labour colleagues (and despite his registered address seeming to be in London...).

Local results: unavailable from Election Office?

Interestingly, although BCC is the Election Office for the Euro elections, and their election results page promises that results are published online before anywhere else, they don't seem to be providing any stats - linking instead to the BBC.

The BBC main news site has a full list for the region, and the BBC's WM area has a partial local breakdown for Birmingham. It's not clear whether we'll ever get a local results list off the BCC ... even though they are very revealing, showing that for Birmingham itself, UKIP was placed fourth behind the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems.

UKIPerie

Despite predictions of major upsets, 5/6 MEPs are the same - just UKIP's Nikki Sinclaire being a new bunny, though according to her rather horribly yellow site (not yet updated to celebrate her win), she's been working as the other UKIP MEP's political advisor. Nikki's also planning to travel by Easyjet and stay in 2* hotels to use her MEP allowances to the best benefit of UKIP. Would be great to see those receipts published on her site, perhaps?


Our WM MEPs are now:

Tories:

• Philip Bradbourn
• Malcolm Harbour

UKIP:

• Mike Nattrass
• Nikki Sinclaire

Labour:

• Michael Cashman

Lib Dems:

• Liz Lynne

WM extremism?

I'm pleased the BNP didn't get any MEPs in the region, though they did poll 8.6% of the vote - or 121,967 votes in total - with a 34.8% turnout. Seems pretty high, even though it's only an increase of 1.1% on 2004 - perhaps some comfort to be taken in a worsening political and economic situation not moving the WM electorate to extremist views.

Unless of course, you take UKIP to be an extremist view. Perhaps this will prove to be the election in which UKIP became the acceptable face of anti-European, anti-immigration policies. It remains to be seen how acceptable they remain with respect to the alliances they may make in the European Parliament, and where they go with policy statements like "we believe the traditional British way of life is inherently good, and should be promoted for its own sake": cuddly fascists are still fascists.

B29 Constituency Profile

As promised, here's an overview of the parliamentary constituencies that touch on the B29 postcode area.

I have to admit I was slightly surprised how much of the area is actually a part of the Northfield constituency rather than Selly Oak.


(click on map for large version)

Note: Outline shown on map is not the whole constituency - just the portion that exists within the B29 postcode area. This map illustrates the overall constituency outline of Birmingham.

All three constituencies are currently represented by Labour MPs with Lynne Jones in Selly Oak, Gisela Stuart in Edgbaston and Richard Burden in Northfield.

Selly Oak Liberal Democrats

As an interesting addition to my post on Lynne Jones - MP for Selly Oak, I recently found www.publicwhip.org.uk which contains a fascinating insight into the parliamentary voting behaviour of all MPs, including Selly Oak's very own Lynne Jones.

For those with a bigger interest in politics the site also contains a wealth of interesting information on policies, the House of Lords, and a fascinating customisable diagram of who-is-where in government on any day in the last ten years.

Back to B29, and in the interests of political neutrality, I thought I'd highlight the Liberal Democrat's web presence for Selly Oak.

Dave Radcliffe (left) is the Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the Selly Oak constituency.

The website itself is fairly useful - details of advice surgeries run by the Lib Dem councillors, a selection of local news (although at the time of writing in a slightly bizarre order), and a much more comprehensive overall Lib Dem news section.

If you're wondering about the difference between the Selly Oak Constituency area and the B29 postcode district area then here is the constituency map to be compared with the B29 map.

I might attempt to produce a combined version in the next day or two to demonstrate the complete political make-up of B29.

Lynne Jones - MP for Selly Oak

Lynne Jones has been MP for the Selly Oak constituency since 1992.

Party politics aside, her website feels like a really useful tool for people living in the area to get a better understanding of what is going on.

Plenty of press releases, events, and articles offer an insight into Lynne's day-to-day work for the Selly Oak area and her views on important matters.

The area I found most useful is this section on local issues which neatly outlines latest information and Lynne's views on such issues as the 'Studentification' in Bournbrook and Post Office closures.