Tory ‘Toffs’

The hypocrisy of New Labour; below is the result from a search in Burke’s Peerage of the name Dunwoody.

2 matches found	Search again

1.	Family Name: DUNWOODY Incumbent: GWYNETH PATRICIA DUNWOODY Lineage: WILLIAM PHILLIPS, of Aberdare; had:… … Preview Family Record
2.	Family Name: DUNWOODY Incumbent: (MOYRA) TAMSIN DUNWOODY Lineage: JOHN ELLIOTT ORR DUNWOODY; Dr; married Hon Gwyneth Patricia Dunwoody, MP (s… … Preview Family Record

http://www.burkes-peerage.net/freesearchresults.aspx

Prague visit

I spent a couple of days in Prague at the end of this week with the orchestra, making a brief visit to play a concert on Friday night as part of an international music festival at the incredible concert hall there.

I love Prague for all kinds of reasons, cultural, musical (Kafka, Dvorak) the coffee shops, Viennese connections (another city I love for similar reasons), the amazing history and beautiful buildings (I even like the bread dumplings!).

It’s always interesting seeing what other audiences look like in other parts of the world. You might say it was a more conservative audience, like Vienna, (I’ve never seen a more smartly dressed audience, they all looked like they were on their way to a grand ball!) but also a real spread of ages, fairly evenly from young to old. We performed some English music they can’t have really come across before, including Elgar’s 1st symphony, one of the pieces very much tied in with the history of the Halle. Despite being unfamiliar, the response was incredibly positive.

The city had changed a little since I was last there, the ugly soviet era housing blocks seemed to have been refurbished and made brighter, much less gloomy looking, there was large construction work going on, despite many very run-down buildings in the centre still. There are many very ugly buildings that jar with the beautiful old traditional buildings, as if to illustrate this isn’t just a British disease. The amount of greenery in the city is absolutely breathtaking compared to a city like Manchester. There are city centre residential avenues lined with trees (not just ornamental trees, but chestnut trees!) not just on both sides of the street but also in the middle, and most of then must have been planted in the last 5 years. Whenever I go somewhere else in Europe that regards itself as a great city, the difference in street environment is the thing that always strikes me most, the impoverished street environments in Manchester contrast so starkly. Not that everything was perfect there, despite their dynamic mountaineering mayor in Prague there are obvious problems, like graffiti – on some streets every lovely old building is daubed with large graffiti, a problem clearly worse than here.

Public toilets….or lack of

Lena St, Paton St, Dale St and particularly Back Piccadilly are increasingly becoming a public toilet and are begining to stink. Although Back Piccadilly is a small side street, a number of people’s apartments and balconies face onto it, and the patch of pavement next to the kitchens of the 4 star Bode Hotel is now soaked with people in twos and threes constantly urinating there.

I’ve reported the problem to the police, who as always are helpful and efficient in their responses, we’ll see if any have time to do anything about it. How the council didn’t see all this chaos coming is beyond most people – the fact is they did but simply don’t care what impact it has on the lives of city centre residents it seems.

Again, the council proves it cares little for the lives of city residents

City centre residents are used to the council’s lack of interest in improving residential city life, but today really takes the biscuit. Why on earth would they (via Cllr Pat Karney) oppose a New Years Eve celebration in the city on the grounds it would disrupt city residents (most I know would welcome it) and then not consult residents or plan properly for the invasion of football fans.

 

Currently, on my street my apartment building is being used as a toilet, and somewhere for people to dump cans and beer bottles. The streets around me are blocked by impromptu street parties, in some places with people putting down portable chairs in the street, putting their feet up on cases of beer and getting on with littering our city. It has been impossible to buy food locally or go into a cafe to eat. A continuing problem in our city is that laws are not enforced that would enhance residents quality of life. Public urination is illegal – not enforced, drinking in the street – illegal not enforced, littering, dropping cans and bottles is illegal, and not enforced. All these are aspects of city life that have been tackled far better by other cities for the benefit of local residents, but not in Manchester.

 

Last night I was kept awake by the fans, and I can only imagine how much worse tonight will be. Other residents I know are leaving the city centre to stay with friends, and local shops closing early. A new apartment building next door is full of football fans renting flats for the night, what happened to the Labour council’s plans to stop the ‘party lets’ that Cllr Karney trumpeted in the MEN during his local election campaign? 

 

Our public transport has ground to a halt, buses and the trams, shops are inaccessible, litter and anti-social behaviour everywhere. What will the state of our public spaces be tomorrow? -What was the strategy to deal with this, given that the council knew the numbers arriving for some time? Enough of the talk to get re-elected, lets see some action to improve residential city life, or finally an admission from the council that they never intended to fulfil their promises.