Well, there are now a large number of posters up around the Ward. I made 100 laminated signs and have 20 left which I will put up this evening, weather permitting. I have signed the main arteries but still have a few peripheral areas to cover off, including Rein Road and Scotchman Lane.

Candidates are not allowed to put up signage on street furniture in Leeds. It is permitted to put up signs on grass verges subject to various constraints, namely no less than 40m from a junction, no less than 0.5m from a kerb, not on trees, not obscuring posters by the opposition etc. etc. They can’t go up more than 7 days before polling day and have to come down again 7 days after.

The reality of Elmfield Ward is that there aren’t really many suitable places that meet these constraints and there are other obstacles put in the way of independents such as the need for indemnity insurance.

So, that leaves that old political fallback, using telegraph poles. Poles are an oddment in the street scene as they are generally tuned out and invisible to everyone as are streetlights, bollards and various shaped and coloured cabinets that abound. Telegraph poles are used to provide wiring to premises and in new developments they are rarely used as the builders provide underground ducting. The name telegraph pole is a 19th century term and it predates the telephone considerably from the days of Morse.

There are two types of telegraph poles, the traditional wooden ones and the more modern metal ones. I can recall being fascinated as a young boy when the Post Office (Telephones) turned up to replace a pole outside our house using a specialised lorry which included an enormous hole drilling device. (As the poles have to be strong enough to support a man working at the top of them they also go down several feet below the ground as well.)

Wooden poles can have laminated signs stapled onto them easily enough and it is a good idea to put them out of arms reach as someone may decide to pull them down for whatever reason.

Every pole poses a small challenge. Which way should the sign face? Does the cable cover get in the way? Is it actually visible to passers by or is foliage going to obscure it? I decided to generally put them facing oncoming traffic & occasionally on both sides or at right angles depending on local conditions.

Often poles aren’t in a useful place at all- for example, Chartist’s way has all of the poles in Central Ward, and most of them on private property.

I decided to give metal poles a miss- it would need cable ties and be more fiddly to remove again afterwards.

Strictly speaking, poles are the property of BT and affixing signs to them probably requires permission. After a good look around the BT website for guidance and a fruitless trawl through their various voice menus, I have sent them an email to their general enquiries and will see what response comes back. So, I have made the effort, which is more than can be said of the “make money now!” brigade and a lot of the local builders as well. Labour took a long time to take their signs down and there aren’t any up again yet.

As I made my way around the patch, I removed a number of older political signs, all from the Morley Borough Independents put up for the June elections. I had previously complained to them about being a bit dilatory in taking them down and whilst most have gone they had put up so many throughout the Morley South (& North) Ward(s) that I imagine we will still see odd ones flapping in the breeze for months to come. They confirmed they don’t want them back and they wouldn’t be any use anyway, they are discoloured and damp.

I bought myself some kitchen style steps from Handiman Supplies in Morley on the basis that they would be easier to carry around than my Aluminium stepladder which is much bigger. Being a Round Tabler, the proprietor offered me a three step version for the price of a two step one. On reflection, as I only went up two steps anyway, the smaller one might have made more sense as it was still too big to go in the back of the car without a bit of messing about. It also would have been lighter and easier to carry around!

The BNP in West Yorkshire were given a hard time on telly last night and in the papers this morning. I have mixed feelings about the whole business, I believe that they are entitled to their views and to express them freely, no matter how repugnant. It also seems to me that the extreme left Searchlight crusade is equally as distasteful in their opposition and tactics. I was shown a copy of their leaflet by an Elmfield elector, it really laid into Labour big time about attendance. I didn’t see the programme last night (I was still out stapling) but I was curious to read this morning whether Chris Beverley had been specifically named, it seems not.

Here is a scan of the candidate biographies from the Wednesday Morley Advertiser.

Yesterday, the Morley Obtiser (in its Morley Advertiser manifestation) printed the biographies of the by-election candidates for Central and Elmfield Wards. (they also printed my letter about the New Pavilion mentioned on Tuesday, which if it comes up trumps for an interior photo I’ll be delighted about.)

I use the term biography loosely, as the responses err more towards personal election pledges rather than “An account of a person’s life written, composed, or produced by another”.

When I first wrote my spiel, it came to 227 words, much more than the 100 words requested. Here it is below:

Ian is aged 46 and is married with one son.

Born in Tyneside, Ian has travelled and worked extensively around the UK as well as abroad.

He moved to Morley in 1994 and now works for in Bradford as a Telecommunications Project Specialist.

In the local community, Ian is a Parent Governor of a Primary School and treasurer of the school P.T.A. He is also a member of Morley Civic Society.

He restarted a defunct neighbourhood watch scheme in his street and is the current co-ordinator.

He was also an active member of Batley Round Table holding officer positions of Secretary and Treasurer until enforced retirement under age rules this year. He has been chief firer for the Needless Fireworks event for the last three years.

His hobbies include architecture, theatre research, lighting design, visiting theme parks and writing articles for newsletters.

Ian is a trustee of the Communications Management Association which is the professional body of the business ICT user community.

Ian has followed proceedings of Morley Town Council since September 2002 and looks after the www.morley.gov.uk website alongside several others.

Ian has no time for party politics and is fiercely independent. He is delighted that Morley Town Council (and now Leeds City Council) are now “no overall control” and disputes they are under independent control as that is somewhat like herding cats!

After a ruthless rethink, the key points were lifted out and bulleted in the format seen on the biography page. The paper have paraphrased it into third person to good effect, with only two minor quibbles- “He has been involved in Right to Read schemes in Bradford” should say “He is involved in…” as it is a current activity. The other minor quibble was the omission of “(now too old!)” after “former active member of Round Table”. I had included that to make it clear that it was past tense because I had to step down because of being over 45, not that I had lost interest or given up.

Whenever I have stood on a Committee I have always had the view that I have to fulfil my term of office as I was voted into the role on that basis. I have only resigned once as far as I can recall, when I was Magazine Editor for Mercia Region of Eighteen Plus in 1980 and landed a job in Norway. However I actively sought and trained a co-opted editor so that the transition was seamless.

They have printed five candidate photos, omitting the Labour prospective for Central Ward. On closer examination the picture of Jean Lancaster (my Labour opponent) is cropped from the petition photo the previous week. I wonder if Labour took a conscious decision not to send in photos? Other than the fact that both of them are retired, I can see no obvious reason for not doing so as I certainly want to see who I am voting for as part of making an informed decision.

All of the other candidates have passed a comment on how they will put the world to rights once they are elected. I have deliberately resisted the “Bread and Circuses” approach as I suspect that expressing such sentiments are more sound bite than reality. Being a Councillor on a Minor Authority isn’t going to change the world and there are always two sides to every argument.

Terry Grayshon (bless his cotton socks) has a misprint in his write-up that caused howls of laughter in the Grey household last night, despite missing it on first read…

If elected to Morley Town Council I shall continue my philosophy of representing the ordinary man in the street by listening to what the pubic of Morley are saying and putting those words into action.

I have a fairly straight-forward philosophy in life, which I have paraphrased below in a number of opinions; -

· Don’t say you are going to do something unless you intend to do it.
· Don’t make too many assumptions without all of the facts, but hunches are good in the absence of them.
· Prejudices are perfectly acceptable in advance of actuality (the word means to pre-judge) but postjudice is ignorance.
· People can do anything they want provided it doesn’t dump on anyone else. Getting the boundaries right is the hard bit!
· People are entitled to a superficial level of respect but have to earn real respect. A superficial level of respect is also known as politeness.
· People are entitled to personal political and religious views (no matter how irrational) and to express them freely. However, the law should not protect their choices from scrutiny & ridicule.
· Personal responsibility trumps state interference every time. The state has no business in social engineering, or indeed in 90% of the things it pokes its nose into. The state is not your friend.
· Legislating against human nature is a waste of time, it always leads to unintended consequences.
· Political correctness is a blight on society and needs to be derisively mocked and exposed for the manipulate idiotarianism it is.
· Racism is a hijacked word used to stifle opinion and curtail freedom of thought- what it often really means is culturism.
· Property is not theft- taxation is.
· Incitement is not a crime in a free society, unacceptable action is.

I have had this world view a long time but never felt that the traditional political parties aligned with it. If I had to rate myself on a scale from left (red) to right (blue), I always put myself as centrist (which if you mix red and blue gives purple). Then I came across the “Worlds smallest political quiz” a few years ago.

This expressed politics in a two dimensional model rather than the one dimensional flat line. It can be seen that centrists horizontally can vary when also mapped vertically as from anarchists (or fascists) at the top to statists (socialists) at the bottom. You can take the quiz yourself online, it can be found at http://www.theadvocates.org. You can also download an acrobat file that explains it succinctly. Whilst it reads a little strange being based on American political definitions rather than British ones, it makes perfect sense without too much thought. The ten questions cause much debate but I think the theory is sound.

In case you were wondering, my score makes me a moderate libertarian.

Tonight I’ll be pounding the streets of Elmfield Ward armed with short steps, a stapler & some laminated posters, weather permitting. I’ll try and grab some photos with my picture-cam to break up the text.

Last night I had to fill in a couple of forms for the election office. The first one was to nominate “polling agents” who are entitled to enter the polling station, check for nefarious goings on and talk to the staff there. Great lengths were made to distinguish them from “Tellers”, who appear to have no particular legitimacy other than precedent. Tellers are the people who loiter around outside the polling station and check you off after you have voted. Their main purpose seems to be so that the political parties can go and knock on the doors late in the day if there seems to be a wave of apathy in a particular stronghold area.

I understand that the political parties can get hold of the records of which electors have actually voted after an election, but not, of course, which candidate they voted for (Although the left-leaning journalist Polly Toynbee wrote a recent article in the Grauniad decrying how voting was too good for many of the electorate and there was a subtle inference that they could find out who someone had voted for, link here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1231150,00.html). I wonder if a £10 investment in a Data Protection Act search might yield enlightening results?

The second form was to nominate people to attend the count at Morley Town Hall. Only three can attend on this particular occasion, namely the candidate, the candidate’s guest (Mrs. Grey of course) and a “counting agent”, i.e. someone else to scrutinise proceedings and make sure it is fair and above board. The count takes place at 9pm on the 22nd, i.e. straight after the polls close. Realistically it is unlikely to take more than an hour as with probably only 1500 or so ballot papers to count (based on a 25% turnout across Elmfield and Central Wards) & only one candidate to select on each paper, it is simply a case of sort and count.

With a maximum of 18 observers and presumably a handful of staff, it is likely to rattle around the Alexandra Hall so might be held in the smaller Morliean Hall below (indeed that might be the reason for capping counting agents). I don’t know whether both Wards will be counted at the same time, if not then Central will be done first as alphabetism prevails.

I am aware that I need to maximise my profile within Morley as I am up against two candidates who have the might of a national party political machine behind them. There are three more editions of the local papers to come, which might spring a few surprises. Blatant electioneering is not my style and I have rebuffed suggestions of staged photos around contrived local issues as I am sure that Morley has had quite enough of that!

Thinking laterally, I composed another letter to the Morley Obtiser, regarding something last week that I think has some mileage so here is the pre-story to set the scene. On Tuesday night I went to the regular monthly meeting of the Morley Civic Society, which is generally held in the Town Hall on the first Tuesday of the month at 7:30pm (a much more civilised time than 7pm for those of us with children). I was surprised that there were only two others there, Jill Haigh and Colin Crabtree. Two things had depressed the numbers, frantic preparations for Morley in Bloom (the summer judging actually took place today) and a Morley Forward meeting downstairs that Colin had excused himself from in order to join us.

Morley Forward has been the subject of much debate within the Town Council as the local Labour Party insists on calling some of their leaflets Morley Forward as well. (It has now been renamed something like the Morley Town Centre Partnership which isn’t as snappy but it is much clearer what it is about).

Once we had sorted out business with the Civic Society, Colin said he would rejoin the meeting downstairs and I asked if I was able to join it as an observer. As far as he knew it wasn’t a problem so I entered quietly, grabbed a chair and sat down behind some people near the door. The room was laid out with long tables arranged in a big rectangle and I quickly realised that I was actually sitting behind the Chairman so I rapidly moved off to one side.

Gazing round the room, I realised that I immediately recognised about half of them as local Councillors and attendees of the Town Council. Of the others, perhaps half again were familiar from other meetings & I was able to piece together who some of the others were as the meeting progressed. I was able to borrow meeting paperwork in order to fill in some of the gaps on the topics being discussed.

Later on, Alan Gray from the Rugby club was talking about Morley Carnival in the old days and passed the comment that choosing dates for events was difficult as no one really knew what else was going on. This struck a chord with me as every year we dither over when to hold our school gala as we try to not let it clash with nearby schools and of course they are also dithering as well. I am also aware that the “What’s on” in the local papers is sometimes sadly lacking being based on a business rather than a community approach.

There was talk about how having a Town Manager would resolve that sort of thing but I suspect we are a long way away from having one. Then it struck me, we have a Town Clerk (& assistant) in the Town Council office every day covering at least the mornings, and so the office could readily look after the minor admin of a task.

I put my hand up & was eventually invited to speak. I expressed my idea to the meeting, which, was received politely & with a few nods round the room but the next person talked on another topic and the meeting moved on.

I realised yesterday that good ideas start as tiny sparks but sometimes you have to fan the embers for the flames to take hold. My letter picks up the story…

Letter to the Editor

Recently, I sat in on the latter stages of a meeting of what used to be known as “Morley Forward” in the Morliean Hall. I didn’t set out intending to go there but as a consequence the regular Civic Society meeting upstairs was much depleted in numbers & I was curious to see what went on.

One theme emerged later in the meeting that I immediately related to; - the lack of co-ordination between the various community groups so that sometimes conflicting events ended up on the same day. Whilst the Town Council keeps a diary for civic occasions, no such scheme exists for other events beyond “What’s on” in the Morley Papers.

I did suggest to the meeting that a second diary kept in the Morley Town Council office would be of considerable benefit to the community and well worth the small cost and time involved. Of course, there is often a big gap between a bright idea being suggested and anything actually happening so I have decided to move things along.

I have sounded out the idea in principle with the Town Clerk who had no immediate objections. I have now written to the Chairman of the Community Development Committee asking that the idea be given due consideration at their next meeting.

Of course, there are practical aspects to such a scheme but I’m sure that with a clear set of guidelines and a spirit of co-operation we could enjoy future events with dates chosen in full knowledge of what else is going on in Morley.

Ian Grey

Here is the text of the letter written to Cllr. Joe Tetley, Chairman of Community Development and Regeneration. That is enough blogging for today!

Dear Cllr Tetley,

You may recall my suggesting the Town Clerk keeps a Community Diary on behalf of the town at the recent meeting of what used to be “Morley Forward”.

I have given this idea further thought and also sounded out the Town Clerk to see if there were any immediate obstacles to such a scheme. On that basis I wish to make the following suggestion to your Committee for due consideration (& hopefully acceptance & implementation).

My initial thoughts on such a scheme are as follows:

Agenda Motion:

That the Town Clerk keeps a Diary for the recording of community activities and makes available the information on date availability to interested community groups on request.

I enclose some first draft guidelines overleaf that I hope may be a useful starting point for the implementation of such a scheme.

Best regards,

Ian Grey

COMMUNITY DIARY SCHEME

Morley Town Council maintains a community events diary for the benefit of event organisers when choosing suitable dates. In order for it to work well, the following guidelines should be observed: -

Guidelines for the community groups:

· Events can be recorded in the Community diary on request, on a tentative, provisional or confirmed basis.

· Tentative means that more than one entry may exist in the diary and plans are preliminary. Provisional means there is only one main entry & the event planning is well advanced but subject to confirmation. Confirmed means that the event is booked and highly unlikely to change.

· Dates recorded are not bookings or reservations and are therefore not specifically reserved by inclusion. Any event may be held on any date regardless of diary entries. However good practice is to check the diary and give due consideration to potentially conflicting events.

· On recording a date, a name and contact details must be provided and will be made available to others if requested.

· The diary is open to inspection during normal office hours in person or via telephone/fax/letter/email enquiry.

· It is the responsibility of the Community Group to keep the Town Clerk informed of changes or cancellation. Morley Town Council provides this service for the benefit of the Community, however it will not be held responsible for any errors or omissions, however caused.

· There is no obligation on the Town Council to publish contents of the diary to any third party.

Guidelines for the Town Council Office

· A process needs to be developed that only uses one repository, whether paper based or on Computer. The simplest way would be a large diary a different colour to the Civic diary.

· Provide information on diary contents to callers on request.

· Where an entry is requested, record the name of the event, the community group involved and contact details, along with the date of the request and a sequence number. Events should be categorised as tentative, provisional or confirmed as described above.

· Where multiple dates are requested for tentative events, ensure each date is cross-referenced so that when made provisional or confirmed, the other dates can be noted as being released.

· It needs to be made clear that the diary is not a reservation system and it is first come, first served for the recording of entries.

· There is no restriction upon the recording future dates, in which case a list may need to be kept until availability of paper based diaries.

Draft guidelines by Ian Grey, 13/7/2004

I’ve written a letter to the local paper today. It is nothing to do with the election, rather a celebration of the New Pavilion re-opening as “Puccinos”. This is a letter I’ve been meaning to write for some time and has been hold whilst the building work has dragged on and on. The arrival of “Puccinos” will revitalise the east of the town centre in an otherwise static area and the owners are to be commended on such an enterprising venture.

He is the text of the letter; -

I was delighted to see that the new “Puccinos” café/bar has finally opened in the former New Pavilion this week and particularly pleased to be given a chance to see inside the smart new restaurant.

Morlieans of all ages will undoubtedly have very fond memories of the building, whether as a Theatre, a Cinema, a Bingo Hall or even in its last incarnation as an alternative night club.

With a personal interest in both architecture and entertainment history, I have been fascinated by this remarkable survivor for a long time and disappointed that no photos of the interior decoration appear to have been found, despite the determined efforts of Ronnie Barraclough and the late David Atkinson.

I continue to hope that somewhere in Morley, maybe in a shoebox up in a loft, there are some hidden treasures waiting to be discovered. Perhaps this letter might trigger a memory….

Now that the building is open to the public again, there is an opportunity to perhaps open it to visitors for a guided tour on heritage weekend (on September 11th/12th) if the owners and local historians are willing. Whilst most of the past has been sadly swept away, the memories of Morley Entertainers live on inside those walls.

When I decided to stand for the By-Election, I had to fill in a couple of forms and received a stack more of them to be going on with. I knew what to expect as I still had the paperwork from the May 2003 Election but it is still a fairly laborious process reading and understanding the paperwork.

Whilst Morley is a Town Council, Town Councils and Parish Councils are interchangeable other than in name, both being “Minor Authorities”. Morley Parish Council declared that it would henceforth become Morley Town Council during 2000 and it came to pass that it was so.

Firstly, I had to persuade two people who lived in the Ward to propose and second me. They then had to sign the form and be clearly identified by their “electoral number” which consists of three letters and a number. The first two letters are MS (for Morley South, the Leeds City Council Ward) and the third letter represents the polling district. There are nine districts in Morley South, lettered MSA to MSJ (missing out MSH for some reason). Elmfield Districts are MSC (1798 voters, to the west) and MSG (1564 voters, to the east) and each district has its own polling station, one at Cross Hall Junior, the other Elmfield Infants. There are actually 3368 voters, six more than shown in Parish paperwork but I have no desire to add them up in the electoral lists.

When being nominated, I am entitled to provide up to six words of description which, if acceptable to the Returning Officer, is printed on the ballot paper. Needless to say, I just chose the word “Independent”, resisting the temptation to prefix “fiercely” &/or suffix “and proud of it!”. Criteria for acceptability mainly relate to possible confusion with registered parties, although offensiveness might also be deemed unacceptable.

I also had to return a consent to nomination form which had to be witnessed by someone but that could be anybody so was actually Mrs. Grey, as she was there….

To qualify for nomination, in simple terms a candidate has to a) be a registered elector in the Parish, &/or b) live in the parish, &/or c) work in the parish, &/or reside within 4.8 kilometres of it. The candidate also has to be over 21, a British/EU/Commonwealth citizen and not disqualified due to bankruptcy or nefarious doings. Another exclusion is paid office under the local authority.

Meanwhile, back to the laminator….

This evening I have managed to do some laminating and choosing some rosettes as well as a Governor meeting, sorting out my mobile and squeezing in a cup of coffee in the new Puccinos. They gave me a quick look in the restaurant bit, it is very smart indeed and I wish them every success. Tomorrow I need to fill in some forms and some more preparation work.

I saw someone I knew outside the Library earlier, they hadn’t seen my leaflet yet but they had received a BNP one.