Amber Rudd has RESIGNED!

If you haven't already heard, our Member of Parliament, Amber Rudd, has resigned from the Conservative Party whip, consequently, she has resigned from the Conservative & Unionist Party/Cabinet/Government (BBC)! Why? Well, quite frankly, why did she join Boris Trump's (Johnson's) cabinet in the first place?!? 

She gives 2 main reasons, first, that she doesn't believe Boris and his assertion that he is working for a 'deal' with the EU, that he wants to leave the EU without a deal, ie, that Boris is a serial liar who cannot be trusted. Secondly, the sacking of "21 talented, loyal One Nation Conservatives... I cannot support this act of political vandalism." 

Hastings Pier Demonstration & Did You Miss Me?

I'm guessing you didn't miss me, but I did miss the supportive demonstration of Hastings Pier on Saturday, I realise it's too late now, but below is the programme for the event. It seems that about 250 supporters turned up, and our MP, Amber Rudd, and the Leader of the Council, Peter Chowney, were there too, apparently Ms Rudd was there to translate for the owner, Mr  Gulzar: see film on youtube.

There are other photographs of the event on the Where do we go from pier? facebook group, and more film and excellent analysis at the Hastings Independent Press facebook page, I'd also suggest you watch out for the Hastings Independent 2-weekly newspaper which has been exploring the whole saga with some very astute journalism... I shall be writing more once I get sorted out again now I'm back, please look forward to it, many thanks!

Political, but has to be said following our MP's comments!

I can understand that Amber Rudd is happy to be back in the Cabinet after having resigned as Home Secretary following the Windrush scandal, but maybe, just maybe, she shouldn't be so ready to accept a policy as so "fantastic" that she had no part in creating. Indeed, though she did say Universal Credit has been so good for Hastings people, transforming lives, she couldn't deny that there has been an enormous rise in people in Hastings (including workers, such as nurses) having to use Hastings Foodbank (Daily Mail). Come on Amber, you did nothing to help the Hastings Fishing Industry, please now try and help your Hastings constituents who are in relative poverty, and make up for not using your Cabinet influence for local good in the past!

If you would like to contribute towards Hastings Foodbank, please go to their website or their facebook page...

Spinraza, (not so) NICE, and SMA Type 1

Guest blog by Natasha Kelly, many thanks and respect to her:

Imagine taking your baby to the doctors to be told that they have a critical genetic disorder that will more than likely kill them before they reach their second birthday (just let that sink in for a moment).  

Now imagine part of that is to watch them lose the functions they need in order to live, their ability to swallow, to eat, to move at all, to breath before finally a common cold kills them!  

Now imagine they are completely aware as this disorder does not affect their brain at all, imagine the questions they would ask if they could and the heartbreak knowing their was nothing you could do.  

Now imagine the doctor saying their is a drug that could help, it wont cure your baby but it would stop the deteriorating and in some cases regain strength back for your baby, to eat, sit up and maybe one day walk!! (Fantastic right??)

Now imagine that your baby cant have that drug as NICE have decided its not worth the money! 😡 your baby is not worth the cost!! (Let that sink in)

This is what the SMA community are currently fighting! Please contact your local MP, come to the protest on the 7th September in Manchester or London, kick up a fuss with us, let them know our babies are worth it!! Whatever the cost!!

Many thanks again to Natasha and Elsie-Rose, now from me:

Spinraza is a medication that can be used to treat Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and is injected directly into the central nervous system. In clinical trials it has been found to halt the progression of the condition, indeed, in 60% of recipients with SMA Type 1 it has significantly improved motor function.

Although accepted for 'restricted' use in Scotland (website), the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has refused to support the NHS using Spinraza as a treatment in England (website). The opinion of NICE is that, although evidence provided showed a "substantial clinical benefit" it's cost is too high and there are a "a lot of uncertainties around its long-term benefits."

The protests mentioned above and organised by Treat SMA (facebook page for more details, website) are both planned for 11.30 am Friday 7th of September 2018 at the Department of Health, 39 Victoria Street, London SW1 0EU, and at NICE, Manchester City Tower, Piccadilly, Manchester M1 4BT. If you cannot be at either, we would be very grateful if you would contact your MP please; here for details. If you live in the Hastings & Rye constituency, Amber Rudd MP (details), or email her at amber.rudd.mp @parliament.uk

The young girl in question here, and local to Hastings, is Elsie-Rose (in the photograph above), a local fisherman's grand-daughter, and you may have noticed, lately I've been writing plenty about SMA Type 1 and the Elsie-Rose & Friends Foundation. If not, and you'd like to read more about both please have a look at this recent blog, many thanks, and many thanks for your support!

Don't forget #treatsma #smaawareness and #spinrazachangeslives

Amber Rudd Resigns as Home Secretary!

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, but it's sooner-ish... Very recently our Member of Parliament and Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, told the Parliamentary Home Affairs Select Committee "We don't have targets." She has since 'apologised' and said she was not aware of "specific removal targets."

Last year (January 2017) she wrote to Theresa May, the Prime Minister, "I want to ensure that we have sufficient beds to deliver the 10% uplift in enforced removals over the next few years" - That suggests she did know about targets more than 15 months ago, and now she has resigned as Home Secretary; see the BBC website.

Hastings Rail Summit (3)

Another report @marshlinktrains have advised me of, written by John Minter for the Rye News (link), many thanks, though not exactly representative of my opinion!

"Last week Amber Rudd held the fourth of her annual rail summits. There was much talk about the Javelin service in 2024 and improving the Hastings/London travel time and I have no doubt she and her fellow MPs in the local area are working hard on this and, I believe that she genuinely wants to see improvements in our rail services. However – and there is always a ‘however’ – if we are to see long term improvements in our rail communications, we surely must, first of all, go back to basics.

The Marsh Link would, in the pre-Beeching era, doubtless have been considered a branch line. And, in its own way, I suppose, it is, linking a variety of small communities with a few major stations that can then take passengers on to wherever they wish to go. It sounds simple, and surely it should be simple. All we need is a regular service with trains leaving when advertised and arriving on time at their connecting stations and at a time which gives only a modest waiting time between arrival and subsequent departure of the main line train. From that base a wider and more impressive service involving Javelins, bi-mode trains and the rest could be built.

But what do we actually have? A service of two-carriage trains which have, in the past (although current record is better) been subject to regular breakdowns, and which are two small for the number of passengers at certain times of the day, resulting in severe over-crowding. In addition there have been delays and cancellations for over a year due to industrial action, which surely is inexcusable. The operating company wails that the Unions are being uncooperative and the weak and inept leadership of the Department for Transport does little to help, saying it is a matter for the operators.

Next May a proposed new timetable is to be introduced. Hooray, one might think – at least a chance now to get connections with the main line services sorted out. Sadly not. There seems to be little positive change in timing to meet connections, but the one thing they have done is to recognise the popularity of the Ashford - Rye - Hastings - Brighton service. And the change they have made to help their passengers? Why, cancel the through service, of course!

The reason given is that it is too popular, so to discourage passengers from using it, the train will terminate at Eastbourne. Thirty five minutes later another train will (we can only hope) arrive and take the onward-travelling passengers to the stations between Eastbourne and Brighton. Some time ago I saw an old episode of Yes Minister where Sir Humphrey was praising the efficiency of a new hospital: zero waiting times, no bed-blocking etc. On being asked how this miracle had been achieved his answer was, “Its simple Minister, there are no patients yet, so it runs perfectly”. 

I find it difficult to believe that there are no four-carriage diesel trains anywhere in the country that could be made available for the Marsh Link - in fact I don’t believe it. Just as I don’t believe that with proper leadership the current strike situation could not have been resolved a long time ago.

The root cause, of course, of all these problems is that Southern are only contracted to manage the railway and, it seems, are paid regardless of results. The railway is ‘owned’ by the government, in the form of the Department of Transport, who quite clearly think the answer to everything is to blame Southern and to accept not one iota of responsibility.  

I am all for privately run railways through the franchise system – generally speaking the network and the trains that run on it have improved out of all recognition since the days of British Rail. And as a commuter from those days, I really don’t want to go back there. But, for heaven’s sake, all this talk of fast connections to the Capital whether by the Javelin or just faster standard trains is completely absurd if the Company concerned cannot yet run a simple branch line efficiently.

Please, Southern and DfT, learn how to walk, then you can begin to run."

Hastings Rail Summit (2)

I have been made aware of this report of Friday's 'summit' on the MarshLink Action Group website by @marshlinktrains on twitter, many thanks!

"Huw Merriman (MP for Bexhill) started proceedings to emphasise Bexhill’s support for the Javelin project but also because he is a member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Transport. He pointed out the absurdity of the low average train speed to London from Hastings/ Bexhill compared with equivalent journeys on other national routes and emphasised the objective to improve travel times from the South East (irrespective of the longer term objective with the Javelin). With regard to the strikes over the last year or more, he said the Rail Select Committee has received confirmation from the Office of Rail and Road (“ORR”, the independent safety regulator) about the safety levels provided by onboard supervisors (“OBSs”) and equated them with the current guards/ conductors: MLAG remains doubtful about the ORR’s assertion and, beyond the strict safety issue of a driver being able to operate a train, is concerned that passengers (particularly disabled passengers), remote from the driver, are not being reasonably protected by the rail operator, particularly when it is envisage that trains would still run without an OBS onboard. Unsurprisingly, the ORR’s position was supported by Nick Brown (COO of GTR/ Southern) in explaining the recent improvement of operating statistics. Most telling, Southern has been able to operate a large percentage of services across their franchise on strike days (though, as pointed out last week in response to my piece in Rye News, Southern is no longer able to run a bus service to replace the Rye Shuttle). Not a lot else was said about current services. But he did advise that all OBSs are now fully safety trained for their role (which I found rather surprising) but I imagine they are not trained for the routes they operate. With regard to Southern’s near-future services, the May 2018 timetable is still subject to discussions (including with the local rail action groups) and then approval from the Department for Transport but it should be announced before the end of the year.

With regard to the proposed Javelin service, Huw Merriman advised that he and Amber had made significant representation to promote the service including to the rail minister to reference the Javelin service in the SouthEastern franchise which is soon to be out for competitive tender (and representatives of all three of the pre-qualified operators were present at the Summit). There had also been meetings with train manufacturers (such as Hitachi, manufacturer of the Javelin) about suitable equipment, noting that the means of propulsion (whether electric/ hybrid or bimode) has not yet been decided. Of course, fundamentally, approval of the whole Javelin project has not been given yet but all those present, including Paul Maynard MP (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Rail/ “Rail Minister”), used positive language to suggest it could be in place by 2024 and acknowledged the project made sense. However, there are several fundamental issues to get through in this modern world of ours, not least the significant issue of funding (rail infrastructure is not simply paid for by Network Rail nowadays). The first part of funding is to demonstrate an economic case and, for this purpose, Mott McDonald has updated their previous study and were present to summarise the results in advance of their formal release date at the end of October – fortunately the results were very positive. The next part of the exercise is to find funders and a person has been identified and given that responsibility.

The earliest stage towards getting the Javelin along the MarshLink is surprisingly current – to remodel the line at Ashford station to enable HS1 Javelin services to get it into Platform 2. Cllr Keith Glazier (Chair, Transport for the South East) explained the work being done to achieve this (as an add-on to other mandatory works at Ashford station relating to the international services, works which start next month): he said this was an opportunity that could not be missed and asserted that funding would be found. From the Rye perspective, apart from improving the route of the Javelin services to Kent, the works would have the short term effect of making the interchange from the MarshLink to HS1 easier, across the platform between Platform 1 and 2: this also gets the HS1 line closer to the MarshLink line, thinking of the longer term objective.

Amber Rudd closed the meeting with very positive words but she recognised that considerable work was still needed to get the project to fruition. We look forward to further news as the project advances but, in rail terms, 2024 is not a long way away."

Stuart Harland

Chairman, MLAG 

Oh yes, and I'm standing up for Amber Rudd too...

I presume most people who read this blog will have already received a letter from Arron Banks, as the chair of Leave.EU, a right-winger with much too much money, it appears... In the past he bankrolled the Ukip, then, and now, he bankrolled Leave.EU, in fact, he's the biggest ever political donor in Britain! Anyhow, not understanding what 'representative democracy' means, it appears, he's trying to talk us all into joining the local Conservative & Unionist Party so that we can de-select the Home Secretary before the next general election! 

Well, I may not agree with many of the policies our MP supports, indeed, I try not to be blatantly political in my blogs, but, surely, genuine members of the Conservative & Unionist Party, who have paid up their subs for years, chose her to represent the Tories at the last couple of elections, and the Hastings & Rye electorate chose her to represent the constituency at the last 2 general elections. Isn't it up to those people to decide whether she should win the seat again at the next general election, not some rich xenophobe who doesn't even live in the constituency? 

Also, the letter is full of errors, notably that "52% of the electorate" - "voted to leave the European Union" - Indeed, 51.89% of those who could be bothered to vote did vote to leave the European Union, and, remember, many people were disenfranchised for the referendum, but the actual percentage of the electorate who voted to leave the EU was 37.1%, and only 26.5% of the British population. 

The other error that stands out significantly is that we vote for MPs to represent the whole of the country, not just those people who voted for them; they are meant to work in the best interests of all, and, whatever our MP is doing, we must assume that she is doing it in the best interest of the whole country, as she sees it and believes is correct, whether we agree with her or not. So, the people of Hastings & Rye chose her as an MP, it should be up to the people of Hastings & Rye to either re-elect her or not at the next general election, not Arron Banks!

A Reply... One Year On!

I was told by our Member of Parliament's Office Manager, Dr Louise Sargent, on the 15th of August 2016 that, in response to my missive to Amber Rudd MP (see my blog of 15th of August last year), "Amber... will write to you as soon as possible." 

Well, a year later, she has now written to me, inviting me to the Hastings Rail Summit 2017 in October, where, I am advised, there will be presentations from Rail Minister, Paul Maynard MP, Govia Thameslink Railway (who operate Southern), Southeastern Railway, Network Rail, Transport for the South East, and South East Local Enterprise Partnership. Of course, I've taken up the invitation!

It will be interesting to see if the Southern fiasco is sorted out by then...

Many Police About?

A heavy police presence in Hastings Old Town yesterday gave evidence that the Home Secretary, and Hastings MP, was in town for the Old Town Carnival; at least 5 police officers, and a police vehicle can be seen in this photograph taken yesterday midday!