Karen Bruce

Safety concerns over axing of Elmet and Rothwell night bus

It’s a blow that bus company First has axed two Leeds night buses including the 921 Leeds – Swillington, especially as this could compromise public safety. The story is in tonight’s Yorkshire Evening Post. I would have thought that with the recession more people would be in need of public transport. I would be very interested to know how widely the service has been promoted to potential passengers before the axe fell?

When I was a councillor for Garforth and Swillington I always campaigned for improvements to public transport and was pleased to have fought for my constituents best interests for example a Swillington bus re-routed to serve sheltered housing, so older people didn’t have a long walk to get to a bus stop, and getting bus shelters as some of our older folk were being battered by wind, hail and rain.

Many of us feel that Leeds has been getting a raw deal on public transport under the Conservative and Lib Dem Leeds City Council who are not fighting our corner, and this is just another deterioration of our services!

lap dancing clubs have the same licence as cafes

This is a pic from the protest in Parliament Square I mentioned in my last post. Object and Fawcett took part and it was good to see a good few MPs there!

I wrote to my two local Labour MPs about this urging them to support the EDM and I'm pleased to say that both Colin Challen and Colin Burgon signed.

A cafe was created in Parliament Square complete with tables/chairs and a pole to show how ludicrous the loophole is that allows lap dancing clubs to be licensed the same as cafes.

We really need to keep the pressure on now as on 18th June the Government wrote to every local authority in England & Wales asking if they would support the re-classification of lapdance clubs as Sex Encounter Establishments - a hugely significant move. Local authorities have until 15th August to repond.

Lapdancing clubs need law reform

I'm in London tomorrow looking at venues for a conference I'm organizing so I'll be able to join the Fawcett Society protest as part of their 'Sexism in the City' campaign. Having written to my local Labour MP Colin Challen to ask him to support the EDM 1375 and Roberta Blackman Woods' 10 Minute Rule Bill calling for licensing reforms, I was pleased to hear from Colin that he has given his support to this and signed the EDM.

I feel very strongly that allowing the proliferation of lap dancing clubs in Leeds has already had a negative effect on our city and people's experience of the city centre and if changes are not made to the licensing laws then the situation will become even worse. The extent that this has effected Leeds means that the City Square area next to Leeds station is overshadowed by a huge lapdancing club and there are also others in what should be great areas of our city. This is an issue that effects all our towns and cities.

Lapdancing clubs have the same licence as a pub or cafe - with a premises licence. They need to be licensed as sex encounter establishments as sex shops already are. This would put power into the hands of each local authority to apply restrictions to protect those living and working in the area including those working in the clubs.

I'm also attending a Progress speech by James Purnell, ‘The progressive challenge: How can welfare foster independence and responsibility?

Should be an interesting day!

90 years ago today women got the vote

That's still cause for celebration in itself, and especially as we now have a woman running for the most powerful job in the world, the US President, go Hillary! The whole race over there is very exciting and it's also great to see the first black person Barack Obama in the running too. I think they're both great candidates, and I only hope that one of them can beat the republicans.

Although things have come a long way in 90 years, there's still a long way to go and we should keep fighting so that everyone has equal rights.

• Women earn on average 17% less than men • 1 in 4 women experiences domestic violence • Women make up only 20% of MPs I think we should always remember those women who fought so that we could have the vote and some made many sacrafices to themselves, some even giving their lives to the cause. We owe it to them to vote in elections whenever we get the chance. Wednesday, February 06, 2008 at 01:51 PM in Books, Labour Party, Politics, Young People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Karen's catch up Been extremely busy and out of the blogging habit. Following May’s election, we had our beautiful daughter Esme in the summer so I’ve been spending lots of quality time with her, and have continued with my campaigning in Rothwell and helping out constituents. Only a week after having Esme, I was sorting out a social care problem for an older Rothwell resident which resulted in a change in how the service is delivered. Stuart, Esme and I went to Labour Party Conference in September and had a good week there with Gordon Brown as the new PM. In October I organised the Leeds event for ‘No Pay Day’, the Fawcett Society and Unison’s national event on 30 October Me and Esme with Lisa Mulherin and her baby son Sean highlighting the pay gap between men and women. No Pay Day is equivalent to men getting paid all year and women only being paid until October 30 and working for nothing until the end of the year. This means that if nothing is done to improve equality that over their expected working lives Sean will be paid £188,000 more than Esme. Am loving being a mum and campaigning hard locally on issues such as the cuts the Tory/ Lib Dem coalition in Leeds are making hitting local people hard and making sure that Rothwell is not put into the shadow of the massive incinerator we could end up with under their rule. Sunday, January 27, 2008 at 10:05 PM in Current Affairs, Labour Party, Politics, Young People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Prioiritising social housing I was interested to read in yesterday's Guardian about some of Ruth Kelly's plans for social housing which included helping people onto the housing ladder by giving them the option to buy 10% of their council or housing association home. More interesting is Luke Akehurst's blog entry having seen Ruth Kelly speak on housing policy at the Fabians yesterday. Luke reports that Ruth Kelly said that the money raised from this would be re-invested in new stock. In response to questions, Kelly was reported to have said, “yes we need to build more social homes … more council homes, more housing association homes.” She suggested there was funding to come for building social housing in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. I certainly hope that this is the case, this will be very good news indeed.   In the Rothwell ward, where I live, I'm constantly contacted by people who are in desperate need of social housing and can't get anywhere because of the shocking shortage of council housing in Rothwell and in Leeds as a whole. We're in a situation where housing rarely comes up, and when it does it's all too often allocated to people from outside our area, leaving local young people and families having to stay with family or friends in overcrowded conditions, which often means that relationships, health and the education of children suffer. The local Labour Party is calling for the Lib Dem/Tory coalition who run Leeds City Council, to provide more affordable housing, including to buy, and social housing to rent. The situation in Rothwell, and Leeds has reached crisis point and we are determined that something should be done about it. I think that this issue has to be a priority and it's good that Ruth Kelly is looking seriously at this. This is, in my view, precisely what the Labour Party exists for - improving the quality of life for ordinary working people. You can read all of Ruth Kelly's speech here. Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 02:17 PM in Current Affairs, Education, Environment, Health, Housing, Labour Party, Leeds City Council, Young People | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0) £10K councillors spend to bring more diversity? Interesting article in today's Guardian about Ruth Kelly's plans that councillors should get their own budget to make it easier for them to help local people sort out problems quickly. This amount could be £10,000. This comes as part of a drive to try to make our councillors more representative of the people they represent, which they currently certainly are not. A councillor census shows that 96% of councillors are white, their average age is 58 and only 29% are women. It also shows that only 23% are in full time work with 40% retired. Only 0.3% are under 25. Not only is it bad, but it could be getting worse. The gender balance has hardly altered since 2004 and the average age has actually risen! So something certainly needs to be done to redress this problem of having councillors who don't look like those they represent. Could the reason not enough people are interested in politics be because politicians are seen as middle aged white men in grey suits? I think the £10,000 idea could be a good idea in itself although I'm not sure it will attract more people into wanting to become councillors. From my previous experience as a councillor, when I had a very small budget of £2,000 this was useful, but a drop in the ocean to really get anything done. So £10,000 could be a step in the right direction, but when you think what you can actually get for that amount, in terms of really being able to help the community, it's still a pretty small amount when you look at what a council actually spends. A raft of measures is needed to give councillors real power. The diversity issue will only be solved when all political parties take action when choosing their own candidates. The Labour party is the only party which is currently bold enough to take this major step. Ruth Kelly thinks that not enough people are coming forward, including younger people, women and ethnic minorities, because they don't think that councillors have enough power and she intends to address this. I'm glad that she's looking at this issue and I think it's important that ward councillors have more power to really help in their communities. I think that the major issue is work life balance, if being a councillor could fit in with work, being a parent and having a life then that would be real progress! The diversity issue is certainly a problem in Leeds, looking at the executive board of Leeds City Council, which is currently run by Conservative/Liberal Democrat/Green parties which clubbed together to form an alliance, even though Labour is still the biggest party by far! The coalition took over in 2004 and not one woman from Tory, Lib Dem or Green parties has been allowed to serve on the executive board, which makes most of the decisions of the council, and each executive board member leads a department of the council. Can the women in these parties not be trusted to run such things as city services, social services or any of the other council services? I suspect they would do a better job than most running them at the moment! Or could it be that this would mean less jobs for the boys? Friday, February 09, 2007 at 06:58 PM in Current Affairs, Labour Party, Politics, Young People | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0) Big Brother allows racist bullying I'd like to be able to say that I don't watch big brother but  like many people I have had a few sneaky looks. What I've seen when I have tuned in is bullying and many of the remarks have also been racist. The victim , Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress, is said to be a 'spoilt princess', I have to say though that from what I've seen she doesn't seem spoilt at all and goes out of her way to be nice to the housemates who are being horrible to her. I think that Channel 4 should step in and take action by evicting the housemates responsible, Danielle Lloyd, Jade Goody and Jo O'Meara. If no action is taken I won't even have a sneaky look at this programme ever again. I hope that this doesn't harm our good relations with India, let's just hope that our friends in India realise that these people are not typical of us British, most of us are not only tolerant but welcoming of others. I think that you can tell that from the amount of complaints there have been over Shilpa's treatment (last figure I heard was 14,500) how annoyed people are about Channel 4 and Endemol allowing housemates to behave in this manner without taking any action against them. I've put in my own complaint in today to Ofcom and would urge others to do the same. The reason this is so important is that this could give the impression to young people that it's ok to behave in this way, and with many areas such as Rothwell being targeted by the BNP, young people should know that this is not how any person should be treated. I think that the Carphone Warehouse, the sponsors of the show should cancel their contract with Big Brother now! Technorati tags: Big Brother, Rothwell, Carphone Warehouse, BNP, Shilpa Shetty, Labour Party Wednesday, January 17, 2007 at 01:38 PM in Current Affairs, Politics, Television, Young People | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0) Procession of vehicles form demo on Leeds Road A demonstration was staged yesterday by the Leeds and Wakefield Road Residents Action Group (LWRRAG). We gathered at 8am in the car park at the Stepping Stones pub in Rothwell. There was lots of media interest in the event and reporters and photographers from the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post were present. Look North and Calendar were also there filming. The event went very well with around fifteen cars taking place in the procession which drove around the Leeds and Wakefield Roads (A639 and A642) for an hour with specially made 'not a rat run' flags fixed to the cars and a lorry which was covered with the banner 'this is not a rat run A639 and A6342'. Graham Mortimer, one of the residents on the road, did a great job getting the lorry banner and flags done, they looked great, partiularly the lorry, well done! The council's failure to act on residents concerns, even to take the concerns seriously, smacks of treating us with contempt and we're determined that something will be done about the speeding cars tearing through and lorries using the roads as a rat run when they should be using the motorway. The biggest killer of young people is road traffic and although it's a 40mph road, vehicles tear past at 70mph. We don't want our young people to be in danger, so action has to be taken. Today's Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post both cover the demo along with a picture of the lorry in all its glory! Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 06:05 PM in Community Safety, Leeds City Council, Transport, Travel, Young People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Rothwell traffic toddlers capture the nation Twin toddlers Thomas and Samuel Gregory have not only captured the nation's hearts with reports on their escape from their garden on to the busy Leeds Road, and have appeared in newspapers such as The Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Sun. Their close shave has actually helped to highlight our long running campaign to stop speeding cars and lorries rat running through Rothwell making our roads much more dangerous. Tuesday, August 15, 2006 at 12:34 PM in Transport, Travel, Young People | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0) Next » Twitter Updates follow me on Twitter Categories Books Community Safety Current Affairs Education Elmet and Rothwell Environment Family Film Food and Drink Health Housing Labour Party Leeds City Council Leisure Politics Sports Television Transport Travel Web/Tech Weblogs Young People Recent Posts My new website at www.karenbruce.co.uk Incinerator issue burns on Renewing the local Labour Party in Elmet and Rothwell Open farm Sunday in Swillington A nice family visit to Wetherby Promising news for Elmet and Rothwell cyclists On the Euro campaign trail in Elmet and Rothwell Safety concerns over axing of Elmet and Rothwell night bus Labour tackling inequalities Colin Burgon MP stands down from Elmet and Rothwell Recent Comments A Modern Mother on Labour tackling inequalities Susanna (A Modern Mother) on Squeezing into a car parking space Sam Oakley on On the Obama campaign trail in Philly Paul C on Prioiritising social housing Luke Akehurst on Prioiritising social housing KarenMarshall on £10K councillors spend to bring more diversity? Paul C on £10K councillors spend to bring more diversity? Tony Sharp on £10K councillors spend to bring more diversity? Paul C on £10K councillors spend to bring more diversity? Paul C on Victory as Carphone Warehouse pulls the plug on racists Subscribe to this blog's feed Archives June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 February 2009 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 More... (c) Karen Bruce Hosted by SIX APART SA, 104 Avenue du President Kennedy, F-75116 Paris. Promoted by Karen Bruce on behalf of the Labour Party, both at 36 Town Street, Carlton, Rothwell, WF3 3QU.

Been extremely busy and out of the blogging habit. Following May’s election, we had our beautiful daughter Esme in the summer so I’ve been spending lots of quality time with her, and have continued with my campaigning in Rothwell and helping out constituents. Only a week after having Esme, I was sorting out a social care problem for an older Rothwell resident which resulted in a change in how the service is delivered.

Stuart, Esme and I went to Labour Party Conference in September and had a good week there with Gordon Brown as the new PM.

In October I organised the Leeds event for ‘No Pay Day’, the Fawcett Society and Unison’s national event on 30 October

Me and Esme with Lisa Mulherin and her baby son Sean highlighting the pay gap between men and women. No Pay Day is equivalent to men getting paid all year and women only being paid until October 30 and working for nothing until the end of the year. This means that if nothing is done to improve equality that over their expected working lives Sean will be paid £188,000 more than Esme.

Am loving being a mum and campaigning hard locally on issues such as the cuts the Tory/ Lib Dem coalition in Leeds are making hitting local people hard and making sure that Rothwell is not put into the shadow of the massive incinerator we could end up with under their rule.

I was interested to read in yesterday's Guardian about some of Ruth Kelly's plans for social housing which included helping people onto the housing ladder by giving them the option to buy 10% of their council or housing association home.

More interesting is Luke Akehurst's blog entry having seen Ruth Kelly speak on housing policy at the Fabians yesterday. Luke reports that Ruth Kelly said that the money raised from this would be re-invested in new stock.

In response to questions, Kelly was reported to have said, “yes we need to build more social homes … more council homes, more housing association homes.” She suggested there was funding to come for building social housing in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. I certainly hope that this is the case, this will be very good news indeed.  

In the Rothwell ward, where I live, I'm constantly contacted by people who are in desperate need of social housing and can't get anywhere because of the shocking shortage of council housing in Rothwell and in Leeds as a whole. We're in a situation where housing rarely comes up, and when it does it's all too often allocated to people from outside our area, leaving local young people and families having to stay with family or friends in overcrowded conditions, which often means that relationships, health and the education of children suffer.

The local Labour Party is calling for the Lib Dem/Tory coalition who run Leeds City Council, to provide more affordable housing, including to buy, and social housing to rent. The situation in Rothwell, and Leeds has reached crisis point and we are determined that something should be done about it.

I think that this issue has to be a priority and it's good that Ruth Kelly is looking seriously at this. This is, in my view, precisely what the Labour Party exists for - improving the quality of life for ordinary working people.

You can read all of Ruth Kelly's speech here.

Interesting article in today's Guardian about Ruth Kelly's plans that councillors should get their own budget to make it easier for them to help local people sort out problems quickly. This amount could be £10,000.

This comes as part of a drive to try to make our councillors more representative of the people they represent, which they currently certainly are not. A councillor census shows that 96% of councillors are white, their average age is 58 and only 29% are women. It also shows that only 23% are in full time work with 40% retired. Only 0.3% are under 25.

Not only is it bad, but it could be getting worse. The gender balance has hardly altered since 2004 and the average age has actually risen! So something certainly needs to be done to redress this problem of having councillors who don't look like those they represent. Could the reason not enough people are interested in politics be because politicians are seen as middle aged white men in grey suits?

I think the £10,000 idea could be a good idea in itself although I'm not sure it will attract more people into wanting to become councillors. From my previous experience as a councillor, when I had a very small budget of £2,000 this was useful, but a drop in the ocean to really get anything done. So £10,000 could be a step in the right direction, but when you think what you can actually get for that amount, in terms of really being able to help the community, it's still a pretty small amount when you look at what a council actually spends.

A raft of measures is needed to give councillors real power. The diversity issue will only be solved when all political parties take action when choosing their own candidates. The Labour party is the only party which is currently bold enough to take this major step.

Ruth Kelly thinks that not enough people are coming forward, including younger people, women and ethnic minorities, because they don't think that councillors have enough power and she intends to address this. I'm glad that she's looking at this issue and I think it's important that ward councillors have more power to really help in their communities.

I think that the major issue is work life balance, if being a councillor could fit in with work, being a parent and having a life then that would be real progress!

The diversity issue is certainly a problem in Leeds, looking at the executive board of Leeds City Council, which is currently run by Conservative/Liberal Democrat/Green parties which clubbed together to form an alliance, even though Labour is still the biggest party by far! The coalition took over in 2004 and not one woman from Tory, Lib Dem or Green parties has been allowed to serve on the executive board, which makes most of the decisions of the council, and each executive board member leads a department of the council. Can the women in these parties not be trusted to run such things as city services, social services or any of the other council services? I suspect they would do a better job than most running them at the moment! Or could it be that this would mean less jobs for the boys?

I'd like to be able to say that I don't watch big brother but  like many people I have had a few sneaky looks. What I've seen when I have tuned in is bullying and many of the remarks have also been racist. The victim , Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress, is said to be a 'spoilt princess', I have to say though that from what I've seen she doesn't seem spoilt at all and goes out of her way to be nice to the housemates who are being horrible to her.

I think that Channel 4 should step in and take action by evicting the housemates responsible, Danielle Lloyd, Jade Goody and Jo O'Meara. If no action is taken I won't even have a sneaky look at this programme ever again. I hope that this doesn't harm our good relations with India, let's just hope that our friends in India realise that these people are not typical of us British, most of us are not only tolerant but welcoming of others. I think that you can tell that from the amount of complaints there have been over Shilpa's treatment (last figure I heard was 14,500) how annoyed people are about Channel 4 and Endemol allowing housemates to behave in this manner without taking any action against them. I've put in my own complaint in today to Ofcom and would urge others to do the same.

The reason this is so important is that this could give the impression to young people that it's ok to behave in this way, and with many areas such as Rothwell being targeted by the BNP, young people should know that this is not how any person should be treated. I think that the Carphone Warehouse, the sponsors of the show should cancel their contract with Big Brother now!

Technorati tags: Big Brother, Rothwell, Carphone Warehouse, BNP, Shilpa Shetty, Labour Party

A demonstration was staged yesterday by the Leeds and Wakefield Road Residents Action Group (LWRRAG). We gathered at 8am in the car park at the Stepping Stones pub in Rothwell. There was lots of media interest in the event and reporters and photographers from the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post were present. Look North and Calendar were also there filming.

The event went very well with around fifteen cars taking place in the procession which drove around the Leeds and Wakefield Roads (A639 and A642) for an hour with specially made 'not a rat run' flags fixed to the cars and a lorry which was covered with the banner 'this is not a rat run A639 and A6342'. Graham Mortimer, one of the residents on the road, did a great job getting the lorry banner and flags done, they looked great, partiularly the lorry, well done!

The council's failure to act on residents concerns, even to take the concerns seriously, smacks of treating us with contempt and we're determined that something will be done about the speeding cars tearing through and lorries using the roads as a rat run when they should be using the motorway.

The biggest killer of young people is road traffic and although it's a 40mph road, vehicles tear past at 70mph. We don't want our young people to be in danger, so action has to be taken.

Today's Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post both cover the demo along with a picture of the lorry in all its glory!

Twin toddlers Thomas and Samuel Gregory have not only captured the nation's hearts with reports on their escape from their garden on to the busy Leeds Road, and have appeared in newspapers such as The Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Sun. Their close shave has actually helped to highlight our long running campaign to stop speeding cars and lorries rat running through Rothwell making our roads much more dangerous.

Karen's catch up

Been extremely busy and out of the blogging habit. Following May’s election, we had our beautiful daughter Esme in the summer so I’ve been spending lots of quality time with her, and have continued with my campaigning in Rothwell and helping out constituents. Only a week after having Esme, I was sorting out a social care problem for an older Rothwell resident which resulted in a change in how the service is delivered.

Stuart, Esme and I went to Labour Party Conference in September and had a good week there with Gordon Brown as the new PM.

In October I organised the Leeds event for ‘No Pay Day’, the Fawcett Society and Unison’s national event on 30 October

Me and Esme with Lisa Mulherin and her baby son Sean highlighting the pay gap between men and women. No Pay Day is equivalent to men getting paid all year and women only being paid until October 30 and working for nothing until the end of the year. This means that if nothing is done to improve equality that over their expected working lives Sean will be paid £188,000 more than Esme.

Am loving being a mum and campaigning hard locally on issues such as the cuts the Tory/ Lib Dem coalition in Leeds are making hitting local people hard and making sure that Rothwell is not put into the shadow of the massive incinerator we could end up with under their rule.

Prioiritising social housing

I was interested to read in yesterday's Guardian about some of Ruth Kelly's plans for social housing which included helping people onto the housing ladder by giving them the option to buy 10% of their council or housing association home.

More interesting is Luke Akehurst's blog entry having seen Ruth Kelly speak on housing policy at the Fabians yesterday. Luke reports that Ruth Kelly said that the money raised from this would be re-invested in new stock.

In response to questions, Kelly was reported to have said, “yes we need to build more social homes … more council homes, more housing association homes.” She suggested there was funding to come for building social housing in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review. I certainly hope that this is the case, this will be very good news indeed.  

In the Rothwell ward, where I live, I'm constantly contacted by people who are in desperate need of social housing and can't get anywhere because of the shocking shortage of council housing in Rothwell and in Leeds as a whole. We're in a situation where housing rarely comes up, and when it does it's all too often allocated to people from outside our area, leaving local young people and families having to stay with family or friends in overcrowded conditions, which often means that relationships, health and the education of children suffer.

The local Labour Party is calling for the Lib Dem/Tory coalition who run Leeds City Council, to provide more affordable housing, including to buy, and social housing to rent. The situation in Rothwell, and Leeds has reached crisis point and we are determined that something should be done about it.

I think that this issue has to be a priority and it's good that Ruth Kelly is looking seriously at this. This is, in my view, precisely what the Labour Party exists for - improving the quality of life for ordinary working people.

You can read all of Ruth Kelly's speech here.

£10K councillors spend to bring more diversity?

Interesting article in today's Guardian about Ruth Kelly's plans that councillors should get their own budget to make it easier for them to help local people sort out problems quickly. This amount could be £10,000.

This comes as part of a drive to try to make our councillors more representative of the people they represent, which they currently certainly are not. A councillor census shows that 96% of councillors are white, their average age is 58 and only 29% are women. It also shows that only 23% are in full time work with 40% retired. Only 0.3% are under 25.

Not only is it bad, but it could be getting worse. The gender balance has hardly altered since 2004 and the average age has actually risen! So something certainly needs to be done to redress this problem of having councillors who don't look like those they represent. Could the reason not enough people are interested in politics be because politicians are seen as middle aged white men in grey suits?

I think the £10,000 idea could be a good idea in itself although I'm not sure it will attract more people into wanting to become councillors. From my previous experience as a councillor, when I had a very small budget of £2,000 this was useful, but a drop in the ocean to really get anything done. So £10,000 could be a step in the right direction, but when you think what you can actually get for that amount, in terms of really being able to help the community, it's still a pretty small amount when you look at what a council actually spends.

A raft of measures is needed to give councillors real power. The diversity issue will only be solved when all political parties take action when choosing their own candidates. The Labour party is the only party which is currently bold enough to take this major step.

Ruth Kelly thinks that not enough people are coming forward, including younger people, women and ethnic minorities, because they don't think that councillors have enough power and she intends to address this. I'm glad that she's looking at this issue and I think it's important that ward councillors have more power to really help in their communities.

I think that the major issue is work life balance, if being a councillor could fit in with work, being a parent and having a life then that would be real progress!

The diversity issue is certainly a problem in Leeds, looking at the executive board of Leeds City Council, which is currently run by Conservative/Liberal Democrat/Green parties which clubbed together to form an alliance, even though Labour is still the biggest party by far! The coalition took over in 2004 and not one woman from Tory, Lib Dem or Green parties has been allowed to serve on the executive board, which makes most of the decisions of the council, and each executive board member leads a department of the council. Can the women in these parties not be trusted to run such things as city services, social services or any of the other council services? I suspect they would do a better job than most running them at the moment! Or could it be that this would mean less jobs for the boys?

Big Brother allows racist bullying

I'd like to be able to say that I don't watch big brother but  like many people I have had a few sneaky looks. What I've seen when I have tuned in is bullying and many of the remarks have also been racist. The victim , Shilpa Shetty, the Bollywood actress, is said to be a 'spoilt princess', I have to say though that from what I've seen she doesn't seem spoilt at all and goes out of her way to be nice to the housemates who are being horrible to her.

I think that Channel 4 should step in and take action by evicting the housemates responsible, Danielle Lloyd, Jade Goody and Jo O'Meara. If no action is taken I won't even have a sneaky look at this programme ever again. I hope that this doesn't harm our good relations with India, let's just hope that our friends in India realise that these people are not typical of us British, most of us are not only tolerant but welcoming of others. I think that you can tell that from the amount of complaints there have been over Shilpa's treatment (last figure I heard was 14,500) how annoyed people are about Channel 4 and Endemol allowing housemates to behave in this manner without taking any action against them. I've put in my own complaint in today to Ofcom and would urge others to do the same.

The reason this is so important is that this could give the impression to young people that it's ok to behave in this way, and with many areas such as Rothwell being targeted by the BNP, young people should know that this is not how any person should be treated. I think that the Carphone Warehouse, the sponsors of the show should cancel their contract with Big Brother now!

Technorati tags: Big Brother, Rothwell, Carphone Warehouse, BNP, Shilpa Shetty, Labour Party

Procession of vehicles form demo on Leeds Road

A demonstration was staged yesterday by the Leeds and Wakefield Road Residents Action Group (LWRRAG). We gathered at 8am in the car park at the Stepping Stones pub in Rothwell. There was lots of media interest in the event and reporters and photographers from the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post were present. Look North and Calendar were also there filming.

The event went very well with around fifteen cars taking place in the procession which drove around the Leeds and Wakefield Roads (A639 and A642) for an hour with specially made 'not a rat run' flags fixed to the cars and a lorry which was covered with the banner 'this is not a rat run A639 and A6342'. Graham Mortimer, one of the residents on the road, did a great job getting the lorry banner and flags done, they looked great, partiularly the lorry, well done!

The council's failure to act on residents concerns, even to take the concerns seriously, smacks of treating us with contempt and we're determined that something will be done about the speeding cars tearing through and lorries using the roads as a rat run when they should be using the motorway.

The biggest killer of young people is road traffic and although it's a 40mph road, vehicles tear past at 70mph. We don't want our young people to be in danger, so action has to be taken.

Today's Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post both cover the demo along with a picture of the lorry in all its glory!

Rothwell traffic toddlers capture the nation

Twin toddlers Thomas and Samuel Gregory have not only captured the nation's hearts with reports on their escape from their garden on to the busy Leeds Road, and have appeared in newspapers such as The Daily Mail, The Mirror and The Sun. Their close shave has actually helped to highlight our long running campaign to stop speeding cars and lorries rat running through Rothwell making our roads much more dangerous.