Dear Sir,

 After welcoming the move by the Advertising Standards Authority to ban a television advert for payday lending firm Cash Lady, which featured former bankrupt pop star Kerry Katona, I was appalled to discover that in less than a week, a refreshed version of the offending advert is back on the air.

After viewing both adverts, one could easily be forgiven for believing the original advert has not yet been removed from broadcast. The colour scheme, style and even the script Kerry reads from is almost identical. The only real difference in the new advert is the missing slogan ‘fast cash for fast lives’.

Payday lending firms are never the answer to even short term money problems as the eye watering interest rates inevitably lead to consumers taking further payday loans with other firms to cover the original debt creating a precarious spiral.

Reckless lenders such as Cash Lady should never have been allowed to advertise on daytime television in the first place and I hope it won’t be too long before this latest advert is removed from our screens.

Yours faithfully

 

Paul Nuttall

Dear Sir,

I for one welcome the announcement by the Electoral Commission that the local authorities within East Lancashire will now be placed under increased monitoring and scrutiny as they look to stamp out voting fraud.

While on the surface elections in Burnley, Blackburn, Pendle and Hyndburn appear to be contested fairly, the sad truth is that certain political parties and their candidates are involved in widespread vote rigging, leading to increased voter disillusionment. It is no wonder that less than three in ten voters in Burnley decided to cast their vote at this month’s county council elections.

Voting reform is long overdue, not just in East Lancashire, but across the entire UK political system.

Postal voting, and other forms of absent voting, have been abused to the point where elections are won long before we even reach polling day, effectively disenfranchising those who cast their vote in person.

This free-for-all of postal ballots must come to end and be reserved only for the very few who, for reasons of ill health, genuinely cannot make it to their local polling station.

Yours faithfully

Paul Nuttall

 Dear Sir,

Dear Sir,

I’m glad to hear that private eyes are chasing up £52m unpaid university loans owed by European graduates for tuition fees.

We were forced into allowing EU students equal access to financial support and are now forced into facing the debts they’ve left behind. It’s a lot of cash and I suspect we will get little of it back. But, hey ho, it’s a million less than we hand over to the EU every single day.

Yours faithfully

 

Paul Nuttall

Dear Sir,

The council funded introduction of free all day parking at the NCP operated multi-storey car parks on Saturdays is an encouraging step in the right direction that will hopefully rejuvenate Bolton’s ailing town centre.

Tragically, and like many councils across the region, this is just another case of too little, too late as we have already seen a mass exodus from the high street with many independent retailers shutting their doors for good while many national chains have deserted the town altogether.

Sadly, too many shoppers abandoned the high street many years ago and opted for the more car friendly out of town shopping centres and retail parks.

Previous attempts to offer free parking during the busy Christmas period certainly helped the trade of the remaining retailers but Bolton needs to go even further if it is to boost footfall all year round and reverse the number of empty high street units.

These retailers will only return when they are given the full reassurances that  these parking charges will be scrapped altogether and the town made more car friendly.

Yours faithfully

 

Paul Nuttall

Dear Sir,

Last week’s publication of the Town Hall Rich List by the Tax Payers Alliance once again highlights the urgent need for wholesale reform of senior management pay in local government after it was revealed that Wirral Council employ 16 officials on whopping six figure salaries.

Whilst the comments made by Council Chief Graham Burgess, stressing that the report is out of date and that £800,000 has been saved by removing 11 senior management positions, has provided some reassurance, I remain entirely sceptical as to whether there has been any progress at all.

Senior managers are typically only removed at a tremendous financial burden to the council when the costs of redundancy packages and pension contributions are taken into account. You only have to look at previous years reports showing the vast sums Wirral Council have paid in ‘compensation for loss of office’. In 2010/2011 two employees were paid in excess of £150,000 in redundancy payments.

I guess we will have to just wait until the next TPA Town Hall Rich List report is delivered to see whether Wirral Council have actually made any progress or not.

Yours faithfully

 

Paul Nuttall

Dear Sir,

It comes as no surprise to hear that 55 percent of convicts at HMP Manchester go on to commit another crime within 12 months of their release from prison.

Whilst it is encouraging to see overall crime statistics fall, the sad truth is that much of the crime committed in the UK is by a small group of persistent re-offenders who have been passed from prison to prison without being appropriately punished.

It seems all too often that for some convicts, a custodial sentence is nothing more than a time out holiday camp between prosecutions where they can enjoy the perks of prison life.

I have long said that prison sentences for repeat offenders are far too lenient and these damning statistics unfortunately prove that the current softly-softly approach is not fit for purpose.

Although I agree that more work is needed in order to successfully rehabilitate some offenders, particularly those with alcohol and drug addictions, the stark reality is that until these prison sentences are toughened up, these criminals will carry on re-offending, blighting the communities they live in.

Yours faithfully

 

Paul Nuttall

Dear Sir,

Well done Wigan Athletic, what an exciting win!

Those dedicated 30,000 fans who travelled to Wembley will remember this FA cup final forever and those who had to support from a distance will always wish they could have been there.

The team played their socks off and deserved to win. Commiserations to Man City but on the day the better team won. And everyone knows it’s always special when the under-dog wins.

Yours faithfully

 

Paul Nuttall

Published – Oldham Evening Chronicle 3^rd May

I read with interest the latest ‘Labour Leaders Blog’ entitled ‘The Future of our Pubs’ starting with “OLDHAM Council has agreed to carry out a review of pubs across the Borough to address growing concerns from people about the rapid pace of local closures. Pubs are important to the fabric of our town, and also our nation.”  An interesting choice of words because to people who actually understand the subject and have an involvement and livelihood in Licensing the word ‘review’ brings nothing but trepidation and fear ! to review a Premises Licence means to instigate a hearing and either restrict its operation or close it totally!

It is also interesting, but no surprise, to note that the concern about the demise of the pub in the Oldham area is from the people and not the Labour run Council.  After all the last Labour Government promised a lot to the Pub and Leisure industry – radical change of law, 24 hour licences, Café Bar Culture, lower fees, simple procedures, decision making taken from Magistrates and given to Councillors to make an overall better system.   Instead they gave it the Licensing Act 2003 – a badly thought out and flawed system, tighter restrictions and conditions, much higher fees but paid to Councils instead of Courts, Reviews and Summary Reviews, Closure Orders, Alcohol Duty Escalator, enforcement from more authority bodies, Licensing Committees made up of Councillors, more legal fees and if that wasn’t enough they then stubbed the life completely out of the local with the smoking ban !

The Coalition are now doing their bit to finish the job off – wanting more money from the already dying businesses talking about Late Night Levy’s, Early Morning Restriction Orders, already bringing in Suspension of Licence for non-payment of annual fee……. I’m not even going to start on the Beer Tax !

So the Labour Leader tells us he’s “looking forward to seeing what the cross-party Overview and Scrutiny Committee examining this issue in Oldham comes up with”     Well if a Labour Government can instigate…. and Coalition Government finish off….  the fall nationally of the great British institution known as ‘our local’;   I’m sure we can rely on the good old ‘cross-party (that means Lab/Lib/Con but we all know the ratio in OMBC don’t we – mostly Labour) Overview and Scrutiny Committee to do the same for us locally.  Cheers.

Carrol Ashton

UKIP Oldham