So Saj Karim MEP is off

I see the breaking news that the Liberal Democrat MEP Saj Karim has defected to the Tories. He has been one of the two Lib Dem MEPs in the North-West since 2004. I haven’t had a great deal to do with him in the European Parliament, but he came to my attention because of the excellent work he did on behalf of Mirza Tahir Hussian’s family. (You will remember that Leeds man Mirza Tahir Hussian was facing execution in Pakistan, despite a clearly ‘unfair’ trial). But two questions about Saj’s defection occur. Would he have defected if he won the reselection contest in the North-West (he was of course well beaten into second place by Chris Davies)? And I assume the Tories are now going to force him to stand down as an MEP. After all when Bill Newton Dunn defected to the Liberal Democrats from the Tories in 2000 the Tories demanded he step down. So will the Tories make the same demands of their new man?

A perfectly good story on ‘Yorkshireness’ belittled by inane interviewing

 The Yorkshire content of the BBC Politics Show this lunchtime took a look at a couple of parts of what had been Yorkshire (Saddleworth and Redcar) to set up a discussion on Yorkshireness. The indomitable Len Tingle was interviewing some folk in Delph in what is now Oldham MBC and our own (and blogger) Chris Abbott was interviewed in Redcar. To that point it was an interesting and well put together piece. But then we go back to the studio with presenter, Claire Frisby, and two guests, Austin Mitchell MP (groan) and the Chairman of the Yorkshire Society, Paul Whitleley. This could have been a good discussion on what we mean by ‘Yorkshire’ and why it was important to one’s identity. Instead it very quickly degenerated as we got typical nonsense from Austin Mitchell blathering on about South Humberside (does he mean North Lincolnshire?) and then Claire Frisby trumped her own clichés by suddenly bringing up ‘God’s own country’. Poor Paul Whietely barely got a word in. And then it was all over as we got a blast from the Delph Brass Band to finish the piece.This was a missed opportunity to have real discussion about Yorkshire identity; indeed the point is the discussion could have gone so much deeper. I want somebody to say hang on Yorkshire is different largely because of its economic history. And of course the point I continually make is that Yorkshire’s economy has changed so fundamentally over the past couple of decades and we deserve more support from central government.

My own contribution to the debate is a Yorkshire Post column from a couple of weeks ago and which I reproduce below.

A bridge too far in our long wait for a better rail route

By Stewart Arnold

DRIVING across the Humber Bridge a couple of weeks ago, I was aware of a couple of dozen people waving placards and balloons in the direction of the north bound traffic.

Realising that this was the demonstration against the Humber Bridge Tolls, I sounded my horn in support. As I headed home, I reflected that over the years the Humber Bridge has been more of a barrier than a link to the communities on either side of the estuary.

Aside from the costs for people from the south bank attending high care units in Hull and East Riding hospitals, there really are few employment and recreational crossovers in my experience. After all who wants to add £5.40 to their travel costs?

One report I read went further, stating that on the south bank house prices were artificially low whereas the cost of petrol and other commodities were higher than the national average. The writers of the report put this down to the impact of the bridge.

So I would see sense in scrapping the debt and lowering the tolls to 50p or a £1 for a car to cover the annual running costs. The debt is actually pretty modest in the scheme of things, about £330m – especially when you consider the announcement just the day before the demonstration that the UK Government was to give over £5bn to the Crossrail project.

In giving the go-ahead, Gordon Brown said it was a great day “for London, Crossrail and the economy”. He added later, almost as an afterthought, that the project had enormous importance, not just for London but for the whole country. There is little doubt however that with its east-west route this is a project of principal benefit to London and the south-east.

Crossrail can be added to the long list of major public and private capital projects in London and the rest of the south over the past few years: the Millennium Dome, Wembley Stadium, the new high speed rail link to the Channel Tunnel and, of course, the 2012 London Olympics to name but a few; this amounts to nearly £34bn worth of projects.

In the context of such a sum, I cannot believe that the Government is unable to find a solution to writing off the debt on the Humber Bridge. For me, the political will to find such a solution is a good indicator of just how seriously the Government takes the North.

There is more to this commitment to the North than just the Humber Bridge debt, though; more importantly, we want real progress on a high speed north-south rail link.

The evidence for such a link is mounting. There is rapidly rising demand on our railways (and this despite fares rises). There is growing congestion on our roads and at airports and of course a realisation that transport cannot be excluded from the measures needed to tackle global warming. Such a link would also provide a tremendous economic boost to the North just as high speed trains are revitalising regions of France as their network expands.

The not-for-profit organisation Greengauge 21, established to assist the debate on high speed rail, has said it is not necessary to build complete end-to-end high speed lines on the French or Japanese model. Instead the UK could follow the example of Germany where shorter sections of high speed line have been built connecting with existing routes.

Their proposal is for a West Coast route linking London and Heathrow with Birmingham, through the North-West and then on to Scotland. Naturally, the specific north-south route is still to be determined as the project has not been approved but in any case Greengauge 21 do say that any north-west route would be the basis for a future extension to serve the Eastern Corridor with high-speed rail at a later date.

The economic regeneration issue is a strong card to play when chasing investment. After all, it was the positive impact that basing the 2012 Olympics in London would have on the east of the capital that helped secure the bid two years ago. The budget for the Olympics has now risen to £9.35bn, a figure nearly four times the original estimate and
a huge sum of money just to regenerate east London. This revised budget figure compares with Greengauge 21’s estimated cost for the north-south
high speed rail link of £11bn on 2007 prices.

Despite the upbeat tone of the booklet Yorkshire Gold Strategy prepared by the Yorkshire Committee for the 2012 Games, the opportunities for this region as a result of the London Olympics look pretty limited beyond a bit of tourism (entirely unquantifiable) and the possibility of a national team or two basing their pre-Games training in the region. There is a danger that with all the real action taking place in London and the south, we in this region will be bystanders.

Well, I have a suggestion to partly overcome this. I think a sponsor should be found who would offer discounted rail fares to London for all those from the North who hold tickets for events at Olympic venues in 2012. This would be a practical measure to bring the Games closer to those of us in the North.

It would be nice to think that those making use of this offer would be using the newly- constructed high speed rail link, but even with the best will in the world this would not be completed by 2102. Nevertheless it could be in place to make travelling to Paris a whole lot easier for the Olympics of 2020.

Stewart Arnold is the former chairman of the Campaign for Yorkshire.

Does today’s Politics Show give us an insight into the real Chris Huhne?

 Today’s Politics Show picked up on a press release entitled ‘Clegg’s calamities’ apparently issued by the Huhne campaign. Not only did it show a rather vindictive streak in its own right but the hectoring and bullying of Clegg by Huhne that followed was car crash TV at its best! I can’t believe that Huhne will benefit from this episode.

As one who has yet to make up their mind in the leadership vote I was therefore intrigued by the insight into Chris’s psyche. How on earth did he think this was appropriate in an internal party contest? It surely shows very poor judgement.

I was the voice of diesel

Postings have rather taken a secondary role just over the last few days not least because of a family bereavement, of which more, possibly, in the future.

I was interested to read that the AA says 150,000 drivers a year are putting the wrong fuel in their car. This set me reminiscing. At the time diesel was first introduced onto the frontline pumps at garages (as opposed to the big hosed beast the truckers used round the back) I was working for Gilbarco the petrol pump manufacturers. As a device to alert customers at the pumps that it was in fact a diesel pump they were about to use, we introduced the idea of a voice message being activated just as the nozzle was removed. You might remember the slightly synthesised voice went: ‘This is a diesel pump. Are you sure your vehicle requires diesel fuel? If not, replace nozzle and go to another pump’. Of course it very quickly became an irritant to drivers but it did serve a purpose in the early days as cases of diesel being put into petrol cars had become legion. Well, I was that voice of diesel. I’d like to think the technical guys thought my educated yet insistent tones entirely appropriate for this task but working in the marketing department at Gilbarco at the time I just happened to be around when they were working on the prototype so I recorded the message for them and the voice box eventually became the standard fitting. Of course, such pumps have long since disappeared, but given today’s report it is perhaps time to re-introduce the talking diesel (or indeed petrol) pump and naturally I am willing to offer my services once again!