Article – Published in Reform, The next 10 years – 01 March 2012
In ten years Reform, more than any other body, has changed how politics works in this country. An obsession in believing that more money is the answer to practically every problem is giving way to a debate that increasingly focuses on outcomes.
How these outcomes are achieved is likewise becoming a secondary issue to most people. This change in the debate has been so pronounced that it is easy to underestimate just how dramatic it has been. Fighting an election, for example, on league tables of expenditure will soon be the pastime of only a fast disappearing political breed. Reform has given focus to the voter’s demand that politicians should never forget that they spend not their own money but that earned by taxpayers.
Chair of the Oxton Labour Action Team, Matthew Patrick is holding a public meeting on Friday 9th March, 7:30pm, at the Trinity with Palm Grove Church (63 Alton Road, Oxton, CH43 1UZ), following complaints about dog fouling.
Frank, who has been working closely with Matthew Patrick, will also attend the meeting to speak with local residents about their concerns.
Article – Published in The Liverpool Echo – 27 February 2012
You may have noticed the Prime Minister is beginning to devote more of his time to the Scottish Question. He was up there recently wooing voters with a pledge that he would be prepared to concede even more powers to a Scottish Parliament.
Article – Published in The Liverpool Echo – 13 February 2012
THE Liverpool City Region’s Child Poverty and Life Chances Commission published its first report last week, but will it make any difference? Will it lead to real change? The commission was established by the City’s Regional Cabinet and they asked me to chair it. I wrote about the commission’s birth in an earlier column, but in this column I want to concentrate on one aspect of the report.
Article – Published in The Times – 10 February 2012
The 903 children reported to have been taken into care last month (“Children in care at record as parents given fewer chances”, Feb 9) are but the tip of an iceberg of cruelty and neglect.
I recently asked three headteachers in my constituency how many families of children who came to their school they would not wish to live with themselves if they were children and, if the budgets were unlimited, how many children would they take into care that day. Their answers were 40 and 20 per cent
respectively.
Frank used a Westminster Hall debate yesterday to accuse unnamed Wirral council officers of “crass inefficiency” which has cost the town £60 million in missed development projects.
Article – Published in The Liverpool Echo – 06 February 2012
LABOUR learned one big lesson from the £26,000 cap on benefits debate. The Tories did not.
Let me rewind the film. Last year, the Tories introduced a huge Welfare Reform Bill. It had one main aim – to change attitudes about work.
Large numbers of claimants want to work and are denied the chance. But there are also many claimants who have never worked and do not show much sign of ever doing so.
