Brum taxis: lottery?

You may have seen the headlines on 11th Jan about the odd criteria being applied to people applying for taxi licenses in the Midlands.

The situation in Birmingham is still unclear: the Council's newsroom website reported the story as part of its Media Watch, but there is no release about it, and we've been asking for a link to their policy on twitter, which they seem to have been ignoring. (Not even a reply saying why they don't want to give it to us). Does this mean the BBC newsroom is overworked, inept, doesn't care or is trying to avoid the issue?

The Council's own site (the newsroom is a separate bit, presumably because the expensive new content management system on the main site doesn't allow them all the functionality they need) just has links to application forms - there's no mention of what criteria will actually be applied. I'd find that a bit weird if I were applying for something ... However, there is a list of prosecutions, which mainly features driving without insurance.

So we'll do some more digging ... I can't believe the Council doesn't understand that people are concerned about this, and that it *might* be a good idea to try and be a bit more transparent? Interestingly, although the Post reported the story, they didn't get a quote off BCC. Is that cos they didn't try, or is the BCC newsroom ignoring them too?

*UPDATE*
The newsroom got back to us after a few days (still no info from the BBC actual). They stated that: "Birmingham City Council Licensing does undertake Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks for all new hackney carriage and private hire driver’s licence applicants. In addition further checks are carried out every three years for the duration of a licence".

Other points were:

• An applicant with a conviction for any sexual offence should normally be refused.
• An applicant with a conviction for a drug related offence should normally be refused. 
• Applicants with driving offences can only have their license reinstated after a period of time equal to the amount of their ban after getting their driving licence back (e.g .if they were banned for 6 months, they can get their taxi licence back 6 months after getting their driving licence back). If the ban was due to drink or drugs, there's a min of 2 years.

Which is reassuring :)

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.

European Elections - celebrity battles

There's an election for the European Parliament on 4th June - the West Midlands region has currently got 7 MEPs, but we'll only be returning 6 this time round.

The full vote allocation rules are complicated (I had absolutely no idea how it worked before googling it, which kind of shames my degree that included politics *cough*), but essentially based on a quota system.

The list of candidates (including addresses) includes a disappointing amount of BNP candidates (tip: if you get a BNP leaflet though the door, why not send it back to one of the candidates with no stamp?) but also some celebs - Michael Cashman (ex-EastEnders) has been an MEP since 1999, but I didn't know that Rustie Lee was standing for UKIP (despite being born in Jamaica, she seems to fully support their anti-immigration policy).

So which ex-EastEnder really is the best person to represent the West Midlands? Sadly no opportunity for a cook-off - Rustie's #4 out of 6 UKIP candidates, so she hasn't got a hope of being elected despite her campaigning skillz.

I'm sceptical about the impact that regional MEPs actually have on B29 (though naturally I'm pleased that seal products have been banned in the EU - no more River Rea seal culls), but it will be interesting to see the impact of recent anti-MP feeling on MEP voting patterns.

I will vote, partly because I think it's important to express a preference, and partly because I want to counterbalance anyone voting for the BNP or UKIP.

The other parties standing are

• Labour (feat. Cashman)
• Conservative
• Lib Dems
• Green (on an anti-racism ticket)
  
• UKIP (anti-immigration muppets who deny they are racist)
  
• BNP (racist muppets, some with dubious pasts)
  
• Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship” (how does Jesus feel about the EU?)
• No2EU (a trade union backed party that reject the "European gravy train", and will refuse to sit in the European Parliament if they get any seats - not clear what happens to the MEP salary?)
• English Democrats Party (pro the English political system devolving from Westminster; anti-immigration; anti-political correctness - usual muppetry)
  
• Jury Team (coalition of independent candidates; advocate MEPs publishing details of all their expenses; backed by Esther Rantzen)
  
• Pro Democracy: Libertas.eu (similar to above - pro transparency; coalition across Europe; no distinct party line)
• Socialist Labour Party (feat. Scargill)