Bumblebee motorways could be key to flowery future

A Tameside Euro-MP is calling for a national network of flower filled “rivers” to be introduced across the UK in an effort to preserve vital insects for future generations. Many plants reproduce by bumblebees and other insects carrying pollen from plant to plant and a recent dramatic decline in the number of bugs could endanger commercial crops such as apples.

Environmentalist group Buglife is pushing for local authorities to provide strips of wildflowers across the country to provide habitats for butterflies, moths, bumblebees and hoverflies and routes for them to move along. The flower filled strips would be 50 metres wide and would run alongside existing footpaths and roads.

Tameside Liberal Democrat Chris Davies MEP wants to see the environment section of the EU agricultural budget used to pay for the scheme. He said, “These corridors of wildflowers will provide beautiful walkways while helping to maintain insect species and wild pollinators that contribute an impressive £400 million to the UK economy each year.

“People have motorways to move around the country for work and now we need similar facilities for the tiny unsung heroes of our farming community, the humble bugs.”

The huge pathways, known as B-lines would cross the country providing nectar for insects to eat and pollen for them to spread. Each county of England would have two lines, one running north to south and one running east to west joining together to make a national network to bring back vital bugs to Tameside.

Chris says, “Everyone would win with this scheme from the biggest industrial farming company through the family farmer and nature enthusiasts to the tiny fauna that make our green and pleasant land what it is.”

“Die in Tameside not Zurich,” says MEP

Chris Davies MEP

Chris Davies MEP

Lib Dem Euro-MP Chris Davies says that people seeking medical help to die should be able to do so at home in Tameside and not be forced to travel to Zurich.

Liberal Democrat Chris Davies has welcomed the result of a referendum in Switzerland rejecting a proposed ban on foreigners taking advantage of the country’s law permitting medically assisted suicide.

More than 150 people from Britain have travelled to Switzerland to seek help from the organisation Dignitas, based in Zurich.

Davies, who has written about Swiss practice and met on several occasions with Ludwig Minelli, who founded Dignitas in 1998, described the law in Britain as “cruel and inhumane.”

He said: “In a civilised country the freedom should exist for people who are suffering unendurably to seek medical assistance to due. It amounts to little less than torture to force people to live against their will in circumstances that most of us hope we will never experience. (more…)

One Year In

Nick Clegg MP

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg MP

One Year In: Coalition and Liberal Politics – Nick Clegg’s speech to mark the first anniversary of the Coalition

Yesterday morning at the National Liberal Club, Nick Clegg gave a speech to party members to mark the first anniversary of the Coalition Government. In the light of the past year, and of last week’s election results, Nick set out to answer what these mean for the Liberal Democrats – both as a party and in government.

 

I think it is obvious that this is a moment when as a party we need to take a hard look at ourselves. We were given a bloody nose by the voters last week. We lost almost 750 council seats. And of course the AV referendum delivered a clear ‘no’ vote.

So, a year into coalition government, some vital questions are being asked. In particular – what does this mean for the Liberal Democrats? And what does it mean for the Government? I am going to try and answer those questions today. (more…)

AV defeated

Nick Clegg MP

Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg MP

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg MP responded to the news of the clear “no” vote in the referendum on changing the voting system to AV:

“When you have such a overwhelmingly clear answer you just have to accept it and move on.

“This is a bitter blow for all those people who believe in the need for political reform, but the answer is clear and the wider job of the government, and the Liberal Democrats in government will continue, to repair the economy, to restore prosperity and jobs and a sense of optimism in the country.

“That is the job we started and we will see it though. We will dust ourselves off and move on.”

Say YES! to the Alternative Vote on 5th May

On 5th May you have a choice. You can keep the discredited First Past the Post system to elect our MPs, or you can choose a new and fairer system – Alternative Vote (AV). Back the campaign for change at www.YesToFairerVotes.org

AV is a small change that makes a big difference.

Saying YES! to Fairer Votes Means:

MPs working harder to earn – and keep – our support. Your next MP would have to aim to get more than 50% of the vote to be sure of winning. At present they can be handed power with just one vote in three. They’ll need to work harder to win – and keep – your support.

A bigger say on who your local MP is. Ranking candidates gives you more say – in who comes first and who comes last. If your favourite doesn’t win, you can still have a say. It’s as easy as 1,2,3…

Tackling the ‘jobs for life’ culture. Too many MPs have their ‘safe seats’ for life. Force complacent politicians to sit up and listen, and reach out to the communities they seek to represent.

It could change politics here across Tameside.  At the last General Election, of the three MPs in the area, only one had the support of a majority of voters.

AV keeps what works with our current system, and eliminates many of its weaknesses. It’s a long overdue upgrade to make a 19th century system fit for the politics of the 21st century. Our parliament will better represent our communities. MPs will have to have a better view of what your community thinks – and that’s because they will have to listen harder to your views. It’s simple. If someone wants to represent your community they need the votes of the majority of the community. That’s what making every vote count really means.

On May 5th: Vote YES

Body scanners should not compromise privacy

MEPs on the European Parliament Civil Liberties committee are expected to adopt tomorrow their opinion for a report on aviation security, with reference to ‘naked’ body scanners in particular. The European Commission is considering putting forward an EU-wide legal framework on the use of body scanners at EU airports within the next year or two.

A number of EU countries have been trialling naked and other body scanners, in the UK at Manchester and Heathrow airports.

Liberal Democrat European justice & human rights spokeswoman Sarah Ludford MEP said: “If body scanners are going to be approved as screening methods at EU airports, it is absolutely essential that we put in place EU-level rules to protect privacy and human dignity and prevent storage of intrusive images. There cannot be a situation of confusion where every body scanner in the EU is subject to different rules.”

“The latest advances in body scanner technology mean that newer machines produce a gender-neutral ‘stick figure’ image instead of an actual ‘naked body’ image. The best solution would be to phase out ‘nude’ body scanners and install the more modern ones quickly.”

“In addition, since the European Commission advises that a full manual search can provide equivalent security to a body scan, passengers should be allowed to choose a pat-down if they prefer.”

Local MEP calls for Arrest Warrant changes

Chris Davies MEP

Chris Davies MEP

Tameside’s Lib Dem Euro-MP is backing a call for changes to the European Arrest Warrant.

A report from the European Commission urges EU countries to stop using the warrant for petty crimes such as bicycle theft.  The result has been a huge increase in the number of arrest warrants issued – currently 1,000 a month across the EU.

Supporters say that since its introduction in 2004 the warrants have been used to smash paedophile rings and to extradite terrorists from other EU countries back to Britain to face the courts.

But local Liberal Democrat MEP Chris Davies says that they should only be used for serious crimes.  He wants provision made for a national court to be able to refuse extradition to a second country if there is a real danger of them not getting fair treatment.

He said, “The days of the Costa del Crime are gone thanks to the EU and the European Arrest Warrant is an extremely useful tool to fight terrorism.

“If police forces are using it to chase down bike thieves who have crossed a border though then that is clearly ridiculous.

“The EU needs to be honest about the fact that the quality of the legal system is better in some countries than others and take action to bring the worst legal systems up to the standard of the best.

“In the meantime, there needs to be a judicial safety valve in place to stop people being extradited to face uncertain justice.”

Warsi wildly inaccurate on voting reform

Baroness Kishwer FalknerResponding to the article by Conservative Co-Chairman Baroness Warsi in the Sun today, Liberal Democrat peer Baroness (Kishwer) Falkner dismissed claims that the Fairer Votes referendum would help extremist parties.

Baroness Falkner said:“I’m shocked and frankly appalled by the distortions being spun today by Baroness Warsi and the ‘No’ campaign.

“Using the battle of Cable Street for her wildly inaccurate argument undermines the heroic and important action of that day, it ridicules the progress our society has made and will appeal only to the very people she says she wishes to stop.
“While the BNP agree with Baroness Warsi and are calling for a ‘No’ vote, the Muslim Council of Britain and Operation Black Vote have strongly come out in favour of reform because to truly stop extremist parties getting elected, we need to vote yes.
“Under AV, no one can get elected unless the majority of people support them which quite obviously makes it harder, not easier, for extremist parties. That’s exactly why the BNP are campaigning for a ‘No’ vote.
“The No-campaign has resorted to baseless scaremongering because they can’t make any positive case for the status quo. People won’t be fooled by this.”

Not too far. Not too fast.

Tameside MEP Chris Davies writes in his blog today about the plan to reduce Britain’s deficit:

“Most people know that the country is in a very bad situation. But I don’t think many of them realise just how bad things are, or how much worse they could get if the Government gets the strategy wrong.

To understand you have to go back to 1997.”

Read the full story here on Chris’ website.

Former Tameside MEP Den Dover could face jail

Den Dover, the former Tameside Conservative MEP, has been ordered to pay back £345,289 to the European Parliament and could now face prosecution for fraud.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg today dismissed attempts by Dover to avoid repayment of the money that the European Parliament stated was wrongly claimed between 1999 and 2008.

Dover made the following illegitimate payments from the allowance paid to MEPs to meet the costs of paying for staff:

  • £101,068 for three cars
  • £15,404 for office supplies and equipment, £89,235 for postage and stationery, £100,735 for the costs of rent and renovation of Den Dover’s ‘office’, which just happened to be in his private home, and £20,767 for telephone costs (MEPs get a separate allowance for all these office expenses, and none of them are supposed to be paid from the staff budget)
  • £17,880 for ‘entertainment expenses’
  • £200 in donations to the Conservative Party

The Parliament also sought the repayment of £167,903 it claimed represented the costs of VAT that had not been paid. But the Court concluded that this was a matter for dispute between the British authorities and the former MEP.

Dover was ordered to pay his own costs.

Tameside’s Lib Dem MEP Chris Davies, a longstanding campaigner for tighter rules on the use of public money, is calling on the police to investigate former Tory MEP Den Dover and believes he could go to jail.

Chris, who in 2008 made public the contents of a secret auditors’ report into financial malpractices by European MPs, commented: “Most MEPs know the difference between right and wrong when spending public money, but Dover treated the European Parliament like a private piggy bank and let greed overtake honour.

“The Parliament has been shamefully weak in the past and has too often turned a blind eye to abuses, but it is now demonstrating that such behaviour will no longer be tolerated.

“I am calling on the police here to investigate whether Dover’s actions were fraudulent and warrant criminal prosecution. I expect the parliamentary authorities in Brussels to provide them with full cooperation. In my view Dover tried to cheat the public purse and should go to jail.”