1st May Elections

What are the current councillors, candidates in the forthcoming elections, doing to create jobs in the North East?
Sure we have plenty of jobs in the North East – mostly in Public Sector. What about commercial jobs? Connectivity is the most important feature in the new knowledge age (goodness knows manufacturing is moving out!).

Transport – prices keep going up, there’s many times more growth in transport in the South East. Would it be a good idea to link North airports with the London airports by high speed, and cheap links? There’s no more air space over London, and if company execs land or take off in Newcastle (or Leeds, or Edinburgh) they’ll do business here on the way past. Surely it makes sense?

Broadband – I’m a knowledge worker. Luckily I’m a specialist. But the Broadband is so bad here that I can’t work from home when I rely on the internet. If I can’t work from home I may as well go to client site, and surprise surprise that means outside the North East – I might as well move house to somewhere else (and take my votes and spend with me) as so many of my friends have been forced to do.

It has to be worth investing in communications to bring jobs here

Slugband

Holding back on broadband? Only getting 512kb/s? What does it mean?
A company in Shotton Colliery has to close its doors (and terminals) because the web training packages won't download fast enough to use; it opened to train broadband engineers! Doctors across Co Durham can't use the flagship "Choose & Book" package - part of the £10bn Connecting for Health programme, in front of patients because it runs too slowly!
People are leaving the North East to find work because 1- there are few knowledge jobs here and 2- they can't work from home because broadband is too slow. Perhaps now it's time to change?

Local Elections 1 May are fun!

I've been looking at the choice of candidates for the forthcoming elections. What fun!
Candidates list themselves as "Local Conservatives" - is this an attempt to distance themselves from the "National Conservatives"?
6 candidates give Durham University addresses (4 Conservative, 1 Lib Dem, 1 Labour). Is this because they are University lecturers with too much time on their hands, or because the parties have had to resort to cradle-snatching?
Which raises a far more important point. How many democratically elected candidates have actually done a real job, have seen what it is like in the real world? How many have had to live within their means, instead of doing a Derek Conway and taking public funds for members of their family (but of course, he was "underpaid as an MP" so he deserved it)
It seems they go from studenthood to parliamentary researcher to candidate to member of parliament or other council with no real work in between. And they can shortcut the system by fighting a few losing elections whilst they are still students! We pay for all this!