Ticket touts

Recent post on cricinfo about Ashes tickets has reignited my disdain for the most anti-social, sub-human parasites - Ticket Touts.

But it's not just sport. Imagine this. You go to the cinema to see a film you’ve been looking forward to all year. But, alas! It’s sold out. You trudge off, dejected, only to find outside the cinema a tout selling the tickets for three times the price. Back at home, you find tickets to the film on eBay being sold at a similar markup.

A perverse scenario perhaps, but this happens for every gig by a well known band. Fans are gazumped from seeing their favourite group by professional ticket touts who have the time and resource to camp out on ticketmaster at 9am on a Monday morning and buy up all the market for a particular gig. The tickets are then auctioned away on eBay or sold on Seatwave, and the remainder flogged outside the venue. No tax is paid on this black market profiteering. It’s hardly a legitimate market activity.

Governments are rightly loathe to interfere in free markets, but this market brings no benefit to anyone except cash in hand touts. On the other hand, government has a widely accepted role to protect its citizens from malicious commercial exploitation. I believe in a government that intervenes in such circumstances, and if elected as an MP, I would fight tooth and nail to put an end to ticket touting.

It’s not too difficult to achieve. Online auction and retail sites should be permitted to resell tickets, but only at the face value, plus their normal transaction fees. This way, purchasers could still offload tickets for events they cannot attend, and the websites are reimbursed for the service they offer. It would be easy to monitor through spot checking against original ticket face values, and could potentially be penalised through measures such as account deactivation and blacklisting rather than criminal proceedings. Industry should be given the opportunity to enact this voluntarily before steps are taken to legislate. As for touts at the venue themselves, spot checks by undercover enforcement officers and the seizure of tickets would act as a substantial deterrent.

Next time you log in to ticketmaster the afternoon a gig goes on sale and find it sold out already, because you had work or school, ask yourself whether its yourself or the 21^st century spiv that government should protect.

Campaign video diary 2

Door knocking with Anne Begg in Aberdeen

"City square would be like Dons signing Ronaldo"

So goes today's front page of the Evening Express, following last night's public meeting organised by my colleagues Anne Begg and Frank Doran.

Beneath the vociferous debate and Ian Wood bashing, I was struck by some gaping holes in the economic argument. The majority of the funding will come from a public sector loan, repaid through 'an increase in business rates'. The square is designed to attract businesses to city and keep them here, but won't whacking up business rates put people off? Or does Sir Ian mean an increase in the number of businesses, not the rates? Will a huge Red Square sized square really attract more businesses?

Questions, questions. Perhaps more worrying was how the meeting revealed yet again that city's business leaders are still living a future oil industry fantasy. They believe by making Aberdeen a more attractive place to live and do business, the main service companies will continue to base themselves here to support exploration and production in other counties (this is why the larger runway at Aberdeen airport is also important to Sir Ian). But these business leaders should know more than anyone how businesses follow their customer!

If you had a gas leak, would you call a plumber from Glasgow? If you're drilling in Brazil and your reservoir pressure is dropping, are you going to get an engineer in from Rio or Aberdeen? Geography aside, most national oil companies put 'local content' conditions in their contracts. Sir Ian Wood knows this. All the business leaders in ACSEF know this. Why are they pretending?

Twitter me! @gregwilliamslab

"Twitter and the election: is it worth the risk?" writes BBC news.

So, like a red flag to a candidate, you can now follow me on twitter @gregwilliamslab . I'm sure the first person to bother looking will be the Labour press office.

Wise words from Stuart Milne; not so wise from the Tories

Stuart Milne, the Aberdeenshire property developer, has raised a stark warning on the future of the North East economy. Anyone I've met so far on the campaign trail will have heard my fears that unless we have a decent transport infrastructure, there's just no way we're going to hang on to energy industry jobs. Our quality of life in Aberdeenshire is being drained by the incessant traffic jams and the lack of a viable rail alternative. I support the Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route, but the money wasted whilst the SNP government dithered on committing funding could have been spent on progressing the Aberdeen cross rail scheme, ensuring we're taking cars off the road too.

It's these sort of issues our politicians should be focusing on. Not the retrograde hijinks of the Tories today. Alex "CHAT" Johnstone is busy sweating over what to do with a Conservative councillor he employs who uploaded a video to you tube (he's now taken it down) depicting Alex Salmond as Adolf Hitler. Are these guys really the sort of people we want representing us in Westminster? Also, clearly the comparison is incorrect. In my historical studies, I don't recall Adolf Hitler auctioning lunches with himself.

It's not just Alex who's been scraping the barrel. With the Tories, on the back foot after caving in to Labour's plans not to choke off the recovery and subsequently slipping down the polls, David Cameron resorted to personal attacks on Gordon Brown. When the going gets tough, Cameron resorts to the childish name calling that has turned Prime Minister's questions into a farce.

This election is about people as well as policies. What sort of people do you want representing you in parliament? And what character of person do you want running the country? We've seen today what we'll get if the nation votes Tory.

Campaign video diary 1 - Mearns FM radio debate

Thanks to Mearns FM for hosting the debate.

CHAT

This week saw the latest of Alex Johnstone's leaflets appearing across Aberdeenshire. Now, normally you're not supposed to reference your opponent on your website, but so you can make up your own minds, here is the front cover.

The Conservatives have decided that their policies are so awful they've replaced them with cooking recipes and quizzes. Perhaps they even think sticking a baby photo on the cover will distract voters from their plans to cut Sure Start, child tax credits and trust funds for families?

If you want to chat about what's really at stake in this election, give me a call on 07930 927375 and we can 'chat' about what Labour are planning to do, and what's going to effect you. Or just drop me an email. And if you want cooking recipes, you're better off voting for Jamie Oliver than Alex.

To compound an embarrassing week for the Tories Annabel Goldie, head of the Scottish Conservative party, arrogantly claimed that the Tories didn't need to win any seats in Scotland to have a mandate to govern here. It's that sort of attitude and contempt for democracy that left millions of Scots embittered during the last Conservative government, and led to Labour setting up the Scottish parliament to rectify the democratic deficit.

Economic recovery - a balanced view

The Conservatives’ analysis of the recent Pre Budget Report in local papers was highly politicised. A balanced view is needed, as befits a budget that strives to balance the country’s books whilst protecting the most vulnerable.

We have seen how Alastair Darling and Gordon Brown are committed to helping pensioners by upping the basic state pension by 2.5%, benefitting an estimated 1 million people in Scotland. They also commit to the future, by guaranteeing access to a job, work experience or training to all 18-24s who have been claiming job seeker’s allowance for 6 months. And Labour is also committed to helping working families, by increasing child tax credit.

Yet the Labour government are also facing up to the difficult choices. Towards meeting the their commitment to halving the budget deficit in four years, banking bonuses will be taxed at an additional 50%, public sector pay will track below inflation, and the £26.5 billion of savings already achieved will be built on by cutting quangos and consultants.

Meanwhile, opposition candidates crawl over the budget deficit figures without the courage to explain how the UK got into this situation. The reality is that under the Thatcher government in the 1980s, vast swathes of British industry were abandoned whilst global banks were encouraged to set up here, and reduced banking regulation paved the way for the excessive risk taking that ultimately caused this recession. Because of the actions of previous Conservatives, our economy is uniquely dependent upon the banking sector, compared with countries such as Germany who returned to growth much quicker due to a broader manufacturing sector.

Labour acknowledges this. That’s why the Pre Budget Report includes £150 million of funding to support the growth of the low carbon industry. By becoming leaders in exportable green technology, our country will be in a much stronger economic position for the 21st Century. These measures are also incredibly important on a local level, in sustaining local engineering and manufacturing jobs here in the North East of Scotland once the oil has run out.

What would the Conservatives do? Such is the luxury of being in opposition that they don’t offer a credible alternative. We do know, however, that the Tories’ priority is an inheritance tax giveaway of £200,000 to each of the 3,000 wealthiest estates. They would pay for this by scrapping the Child Trust Fund for those on incomes as little as £16,000 and cutting Child Tax Credits.

And what of deceit and dishonesty? The Shadow Cabinet continues to withhold whether their party’s biggest donor Lord Ashcroft, who is pumping thousands into seats like West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, pays tax in the UK or in a overseas haven. How is that honest, or fair? Meanwhile the Tartan Tories, the SNP, are just as bad, claiming their budget has been reduced for 2010, when the reality is that Alex Salmond asked for part of the Scottish Budget to be brought forward, which he then frittered it away in a unpopular independence campaign, and now has less to spend.

The Pre Budget Report epitomises the choice voters face at the next election: a Labour government that has made the right choices throughout the financial crisis - on Northern Rock and on help for businesses and families, and who are intent on rebuilding the public finances whilst protecting public services. Or, a Tory government of David Cameron and George Osborne, who got it wrong on the recession and are now getting wrong on the recovery, proposing to choke it off in a tsunami of gleeful spending cuts and tax breaks for the wealthiest.

Flooding meeting in Stonehaven

I attended a meeting of the Stonehaven and District Community Council last night. There was considerable debate over the role of different local authorities in managing the disaster, and plenty of suggestions over what needs to be done as soon as possible to prevent a repeat occurrence. To me, it seems that dredging the river is a priority.

I was particularly concerned for local businesses, who still need to trade, particularly to sell perishable stock. Please, if you want to help Stonehaven, go to the town and shop, and spread the word that Stonehaven is still open for business.

Climate change stall in Banchory High Street

With other Labour party activists, I held an interactive stall on Banchory High Street to raise awareness of what local residents can do to reduce CO² emissions in their own home.

Shoppers were presented with a model house demonstrating domestic contributions to the fight against climate change. They then voted on what energy efficiency measure was of most interest to them by placing a green flag in the house, before being presented with a leaflet with further information to take away.

With everyone looking to world leaders to agree a global deal on C0² reduction at the Copenhagen conference, it’s easy to forget the difference we can all make at home. Local activities like this, and those by the Banchory Energy Reduction Initiative, are important in raising awareness.

The most popular C0² reduction method on the day was loft insulation, which can save an average home £150 off their heating bills. Local suppliers can be found by calling the Energy Saving Trust on 0800 512 012.

Call to rescued banks

At the Labour party conference, I took the opportunity to urge the banks rescued by the government to accept their obligation to resume normal lending to first time buyers.

At a fringe meeting organised by the Building Societies' Association, I warned the panel that there was no point helping nationalised institutions 'remutalise' if they did not provide the products that customers actually needed.

I was quoted in the Press and Journal stating "if we don't do something now we will have a generation condemned to wasting money on rent and lacking the security of having a home of their own."

Alex Salmond listens to himself and nobody else

At the recent oil industry conference Offshore Europe I was appalled, yet sadly unsurprised, to hear of Alex Salmond's behaviour. He attended the opening breakfast briefing late, and only in time to give his own speech!

It's incredible that at a time when the oil industry is looking to government for direction, Alex Salmond neglected to listen to prominent industry figures such as the head of Shell Upstream.

I attended several plenary sessions and seminars at Offshore Europe, questioning industry leaders and presenting my concerns to Lord Hunt, Energy Minister, and Jim Murphy, Scottish Secretary. I was particularly concerned by an investment bank's forecast that credit would not return to our industry for 18 to 24 months. The North Sea still has attractive and prosperous oil and gas fields. I urge the banking industry to reconsider.

Photo of Jim Murphy, Scottish Secretary, and I discussing oil industry concerns.

Scottish Labour reveal West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine Westminster candidate

Greg Williams has been selected as the Labour Party’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for the 2010 Westminster General Election. His appointment follows a unanimous vote at a meeting of the West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine Constituency Labour Party.

Speaking of his selection, Greg Williams said “I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to stand for the Labour Party in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine. With people’s faith in politics and trust in politicians at an all time low, I believe we need MPs with new ideas and a commitment to reform. I’m delighted to be able to provide voters with that choice.

“The people of West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine deserve a representative who will stand up for the things that matter to them, such as developing sustainable local communities across the shire, which are served by efficient and affordable transport. We also need to face the challenge of growing our local energy industry into a green, renewables economy, to ensure everyone’s long term prosperity. I believe I am the right person to do that.”

Harry Bygate, Chair of the West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine Constituency Labour Party, said “I’m delighted to confirm Greg Williams as our candidate for the General Election.
“Greg provides the people of West Aberdeenshire with a fresh and distinct choice, as well as a commitment to the core values of welfare and opportunity, and a working knowledge of local industry. He has a desire for meeting people and discussing their concerns that is uncommon amongst today’s politicians.”

Greg Williams lives in Aberdeen, and works for a locally based oil company. His interests include hiking, cycling and history.