I recall a joke which went as follows:

Q: How do you lose 20lbs of ugly fat?

A: Cut your head off

I never appreciated the joke then nor do I now. But what has been happening in Blackburn reminded me of this sick joke. The current coalition made up of Liberals and Tories has decided , in their words, that  "they will not be forced into subsidising bus routes".

In October last year The Tory Councillor in charge of Regeneration accused Blackburn pensioners of misusing their free bus passes and wasting tax payers money. Councillor Cottam not only accused residents of wasting tax payer’s money but claimed that it left a £ 400000 black hole in his budget that the local residents would have to make up.

What utter rubbish!

Councillor Cottam deliberately misled residents of this Borough. There was never a £ 400,000 black hole, there was actually a £ 400,000 surplus in Blackburn, money that was given to them by a Labour Government to ensure people who had paid into the system for many years could travel freely, wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

Money that should have been spent providing socially necessary routes, that would encourage shoppers into the markets and shops of Blackburn. Supporting local businesses and local residents and creating jobs for local people was given away by Councillor Michael Lee.

In a meeting somewhere, well away from Blackburn, the Leader of the Council, another Tory, Councillor Michael Lee, decided to give this money to other authorities, no decision in Blackburn, not even a discussion in Blackburn. £ 400,000 of our money just handed over to support other Tory led authorities.

The result of the Coalition's sick joke is they have cut the subsidy given to bus operators, leaving them unable to deliver a service where there are a large number of concessionary passengers, pensioners to you and me.

But as they said "they will not be forced into subsidising bus routes", regardless of the cost to residents or businesses.

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Cutting town centre buses: another nail in the coffin?

Labour group leader Cllr Kate Hollern lays bare the impact of Tory/Liberal cuts to our buses.

I could not believe the arrogance of the Tory led coalition in Blackburn, firstly I raised concerns regarding the cuts to bus services right across the Borough. Typically the Tory Councillor for Regeneration, Allan Cottam restated that it his firm believe that bus company’s and pensioners have abused the concessionary fares system and over used the service, despite the fact that he gave away over £ 300K that the Labour Government gave this authority for concessionary fares, to Tory led authorities.

This suggests the service was actually under-used by the residents of Blackburn and we should be encouraging residents to use bus services that Jack Straw fought hard to secure funding for.

The limp response from the Liberals, as with all the other cuts to service, is to support the Tory led administration, I don’t know if it is because they totally believe Tory policies, or they just want to hold onto their positions of power.

Regardless, the people of Blackburn will suffer. There will be no bus services in the Wensley Fold area; People who live in the Corporation Park Ward along with Shear Brow residents will also feel the effect. Queens Park, Bastwell, Mill Hill, Ewood, Shadsworth and Audley residents are also suffering from these cuts. Who knows which area will be next but you can bet it won’t be Livesey with Pleasington, Darwen or Beardwood with Lammack .

Then I raised the ludicrous suggestion of raising Market Traders rents by 40%, this will certainly help kill off Blackburn as shopping area. Yet the Council propose to spend thousands of pounds opposing Preston’s redevelopment. They should be concentrating on getting Blackburn more competitive rather than spending all this money on fighting Preston, shoppers need choice.

It is not rocket science to understand that if there is no bus service and nowhere to park in the town centre people will go elsewhere. Market Traders and shops will pull out of Blackburn, leaving fewer options for residents, sending them to Preston or Bolton and less people to contribute to the running costs of the town. Somebody has to pay for the huge increases increase in Officer’s salaries, They have just agreed to spend another £ 25k on increases to salaries of a few.

So who will pay, the residents of Blackburn will, either by reduced services, which we have seen a lot of recently, look at how dirty your streets are, or an increase in Council Tax, which the Tories are loath to do. They along with the Liberals want to continue to con people with small council tax increases but huge cuts in services,

If elected with a majority in the chamber, a Labour Council would put our money where our mouths are, we would subsidise bus routes, keep market rents at the same level for two years, until we have shown that the new market site can allow traders to pay for the cost of the new site.

Lets face it market traders can only pass on any increase to you the shoppers

We would get Blackburn firmly back on the map as somewhere to live and shop - on clean streets!

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This site uses some technical malarkey to track how many people are visiting the site. Among other things, it shows us which search terms people are using to get here. This month's results are very interesting:

It emerges that Blackburn Mela - cancelled by the Tory/Liberal council - is the third highest search term entered by members of the public.  Arts in the Park, which has also been dumped, is not far behind.

Labour leader Kate Hollern is quoted in the Lancashire Telegraph today in an article which reveals just £90,000 has been set aside for the poorly-attended 'Celebrate Blackburn' events.

When will Tory culture boss Cllr Michael Law-Riding realise that Blackburn residents want their festivals back?

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David Cameron said political coalitions don't work

Having arrived back from my annual holidays last week I’ve been catching up with the political news both national and local whilst I was away. Whilst there has been a lot to get through one story I came across tickled me as a friend recounted with amusement the comments of David Cameron in the wake of the recent European Elections results.

Surprise, surprise, and for the record, Mr Cameron doesn’t believe political coalitions work and argued strongly against them.

Mr Cameron has been seen quite a lot in the North West of late and was recently spied in the Telegraph offices in the centre of Blackburn. I assume therefore he has been talking to local people about their local Council.

• They will have pointed out that the Blackburn Tory Party are making a pigs ear of running the Council in coalition with the Liberals and Darwen independents.
• He will have been told that coalition partners often can’t agree and constantly fall out amongst themselves.
• He will also have been told the Council is rudderless, spending is out of control despite slashing services and they have started to be heavily criticised by external inspectors.

In short he will have been informed that the Conservative led coalition in Blackburn doesn’t work.

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Darwen Music Live is a popular, well-attended event. Where is Blackburn's equivalent?

The Tory-led council couldn't wait to scrap Arts in the Park and the Mela. Phil Riley blogs on why they're missed - and why Labour would bring them back.

It's festival time of the year - big ones like Glastonbury and Womad and, increasingly, small ones springing up all over the country. A glance at the press suggests that there's hardly a town or village that doesn't see the merits of putting on a weekend of events that will draw the local community together and introduce people to new musical experiences at the same time.

That is hardly a town, apart from Blackburn.

One of the few decisive actions taken by the Tory-led coalition since its arrival on the scene was the scrapping of Arts in the Park and the Mela - two events which were becoming increasingly popular across the town and helping to break down social barriers (something Blackburn desperately needs.) The coalition of small-minded Tories and cynical Liberals and the For Darwen Party convinced themselves that getting rid of these events in Blackburn was a good money-saving idea.

Curiously, they didn't get rid of them in Darwen which still has its free-music festival and a couple of weeks ago we had the slightly galling experience of listening to Councillor Tony Melia speaking enthusiastically about the social benefits of "Darwen Live" - yes, that's the same Councillor Tony Melia who played a leading role in scrapping these similar events in Blackburn.

Cynical behaviour by the likes of Councillor Melia who has wrapped himself in the flag of For Darwen to gain the political power that he couldn't get in the mainstream parties is predictable whilst the Tories, on the other hand, are simply following their basic political instincts - in the 1980s, they were known as the party that knew the price of everything and the value of nothing - and not much has changed. They don't like the notion of free public events and replacing Arts in the Park and the Mela by some half-baked but significantly cheaper non-events was a natural step.

The fact that thousands of people have been deprived of the opportunity to socialise with their townsfolk, widen their musical experiences, get to frequent the town's lovely parks and generally have a good time won't have come into the equation. This, of course, is what a national Tory government would look like - with cuts in public services at the forefront of an attempt to roll back the state and emphasise private and chargeable activities at the expense of public and free ones.

Sooner or later, the Labour Party will regain control of Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and, hopefully, there will still be the opportunity of reinstating free musical events that help to develop that much talked about concept of social cohesion.

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