"No big mystery"

Local Conservative Abi Brown, summing up 2017: A Year in Politics.

During the Stoke Central by-election, "the lazy journalism of the national press did at least ensure a huge backlash of positivity about the many finer points of the city"

"In 2007 ... I remember talking to Stephen O’Brien, then MP for Eddisbury and given the role of unofficial shadow minister for Stoke-on-Trent, about a ten year plan for the Conservatives in the city. I don’t think either of us envisaged that it would be executed quite so perfectly. No big mystery to our success, beyond hard work and perseverance."

President Trump in Stoke

Ahead of the planned February(?) visit to the UK, the new President Donald Trump Toby Jug has been released. Made in Stoke-on-Trent by a local pottery, of course.

The new President is known to have expressed a wish to visit our Brexit heartlands, so presumbly that means he'll make a visit to the heartland-of-heartlands which is Stoke-on-Trent. The obvious venue of the Stoke City F.C. stadium is probably out of the question for a public event, given the vehement leftist politics of the man who owns it. But I'm guessing that Alton Towers should be a fairly easy large venue to secure, given its rural isolation and existing security.

"Please sir, I want some more..."

A new study has mapped "free school meals", aiming to get a sense of where child poverty is actually happening. Stoke has seen a big improvement since 2002, despite the Great Recession of 2007 onwards...

"Our map of the whole country shows that major urban centres have tended to become less disadvantaged since 2002, as have smaller towns and cities such as Bedford, Grimsby, Stoke-on-Trent and Telford."

In the map, blue is "improved". The deeper the blue colour, the better the improvement. Inner-city Stoke is the deep blue bit in the middle of the map. The rural area to the west of Newcastle-under-Lyme has also improved.

Pink indicates the four remaining hot-spots in our area, those which have declined since 2002. As you can see, locally there are pink areas in: Nantwich (currently has 79 kids claiming); between Rugeley and Cannock (currently has 68 kids claiming); on the south-west edge of Burton-on-Trent (currently 110 kids claiming), and in the Peak part of the Derbyshire Dales (current has 150 kids claiming free school meals).

Taking the pip

Elsewhere in the West Midlands, in Warwick a set of historic 'town gardens' have been saved from the bulldozer, and a wealth of rare apple varieties discovered.

Another fine mess...

The "fine the homeless £1,000" idea has been another hugely damaging national news story for the city of Stoke-on-Trent. I'd say we now need an investigation into exactly where and who this idea came from, how it was allowed to be tabled and then taken up as a serious proposal, and why no-one seemed to realise that it would inevitably backfire — with maximum negative publicity for the city. Then the timelines on all that should be made public.

More 'fake news' from down south

"Bentilee – one of the largest estates in Europe – in Longport is overwhelmingly white working class, while Burslem, one of the original Pottery towns north of Hanley, is overwhelmingly Bangladeshi and Pakistani"

It's from the burblings of yet another idiot journalist from down south. Sussex, this time. He can be found pontificating about our city in the press today.

He's of course laughably and totally wrong: Bentilee is nowhere near Longport, let alone in it. And the two Burslem wards were overwhelmingly white at the 2011 Census — Burslem Central 83.5% and Burslem Park 90.3%.

Will these fly-by 'three hour visit' journalists ever get it right about Stoke?

More "£1 houses" in Stoke

More £1 houses in Stoke...

"The Reviving Communities scheme is taking applicants until 12th January 2018, involves empty homes in the Portland Street area [between Hanley and Burslem]."

Land Cover Atlas of the United Kingdom: Stoke

There's a new Land Cover Atlas of the United Kingdom which goes into great detail for the whole UK.

Interesting to see how much green space the UK has, in terms of the fevered debate currently going on about "paving the countyside with houses". Although looking at Stoke it seems the map becomes somewhat imprecise in urban areas.

For instance Hartshill Park, Hanley Cemetery and the Trent & Mersey canal corridor are all erroneously deemed to be red or deep red splotches of mere "Urban Fabric". The map also appears to have missed the green wooded half of Festival Park, though it has picked up the "pasture" bits. Presumably because that's the bit that Stoke Council has GIS data for, as their men have to mow it (and the adjacent Grange and Rogerson's Meadow) occasionally, while the other bit is privately and generously maintained at the expense of St. Modwen.

800 years of walking

A nice lengthy time-perspective, from a prominent group of countryside walkers in the UK...

"Eight hundred years ago a Charter was sealed establishing the right to access England’s forests, previously the reserve of kings. Now, campaigning charity the Ramblers wants outdoor enthusiasts to help it shape the future of access, looking to the next eight centuries."

Sadly, the press-release has something of an 'anti-aristocracy' tone, and the Web link for action then leads one to a survey that's hosted on the website e-activist.com — associated with the UK's tainted 'infiltrated and taken over by animal-rights activists' organisation the RSPCA. I hope this doesn't indicate that the Ramblers may be going the same way as the RSPCA and the National Trust, in terms of being infiltrated by animal-rights nutters and similar lefties (see recent issues of Country Life magazine, and reports in The Times, for the gory details on the latter two organisations).

Still, like those who once lived in Soviet Russia, I think many people are increasingly able to 'bat away' the crude leftist slant n' cant that weaponises too many narratives these days, and can instead see through to the deeper story or to more worthy long-term aims. So... here's the link to the Ramblers' e-activist.com survey. I imagine that litter and dogs are going to be high on the list of concerns, but there are also longer-term considerations such as the re-wilding of the countryside and coastlines.

Road to nowhere

What's happening with the local roads? Hardly a day seems to go by without a "M6 closed" or "A500 closed" headline. Is it some curious effect of a change in the autumnal humidity? A slight increase in the density of the haze layers?