NORMAN BAKER! Good or bad MP?

[Jim in the West]

I was at an aviation industry conference today where he spoke....one thing's for sure, he is not afraid to make a speech to an audience who he knows will find 99% of what he says unpalatable. So, from a positive perspective, he is a man of principles who sticks to his guns. In that respect he is a lot better than the majority of MPs who seem incapable of giving a straight answer.

 

[Leekbrookgull]

Well living here in Leek N/Baker is not my M/P !! However i wish was, i have e-mailed him over Dr Kelly and 'Recall' in both cases he has written back. More than my Labour M/P can do !

 

[Screaming J]

I was at an aviation industry conference today where he spoke....one thing's for sure, he is not afraid to make a speech to an audience who he knows will find 99% of what he says unpalatable. So, from a positive perspective, he is a man of principles who sticks to his guns. In that respect he is a lot better than the majority of MPs who seem incapable of giving a straight answer.

I cannot - and will never be able to - get past his attitude to Falmer. He can single handedly save the World from destruction but it still won't be enough from me. Not only was he was on the wrong side I can't get over some of the things he said about the club.

 

[The Oldman]

Leaving aside his opposition to Falmer, I am not sure what he has acheived for the Lewes Constituency which includes Newhaven and Seaford. He is always jumping on local issues such as the redevelopment of Newhaven Harbour or the revitalisation of the town but the town and harbour continue to decline.
He has always opposed the dualling of the A27, only reluctantly agreeing to the stupid 3 lane bridge over the railway at Beddingham as it gave his green credentials a boost 'cos it cuts down on pollution as cars do not have to wait at the level crossing. If he really wanted to stop people being killed and reduce pollution he would have joined other MPs who have been fighting for a dual carriageway to Polegate .
In Seaford we have a rotten seafront with no decent flood barriers. Never seems to push for funds to sort it out. However, he fought to save all our threatened sub post offices. They all closed of course.
The trouble is he has no real power but likes to talk as if he is in control.
He loves to talk on national issues and expose the bad workings of parliament, appear on TV and Radio at the drop of the hat but in reality acheives little.
As DougDeep says he is the best MP that Lewes has had but that is only because he followed generations of moribund Tory MPs who were unapproachable.
I remain unconvinced.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

I cannot - and will never be able to - get past his attitude to Falmer. He can single handedly save the World from destruction but it still won't be enough from me. Not only was he was on the wrong side I can't get over some of the things he said about the club.

Word.

 

[Jim in the West]

I cannot - and will never be able to - get past his attitude to Falmer. He can single handedly save the World from destruction but it still won't be enough from me. Not only was he was on the wrong side I can't get over some of the things he said about the club.

I'm not saying I agreed with him on Falmer! And I don't agree with him (or his party) on their policy towards aviation. In fact, there's probably not much I do agree with him on, but at the end of the day he appears to be one of the very few politicians with a few principles and someone who isn't just out for himself.

 

[Guy Fawkes]

Apart from the fact that he was claiming £20K for an office within his own house.

Norman Bakers halo slips as his expenses are questioned | People in the News | People | The First Post

Also his dodgy dealings with a property he owned at Beddingham, something the press should have investigated

He is just someone who seeks publicity, hell he'd turn up for the opening of a crisp packet if he thought he'd get in a paper or 2

His opposition to the road improvements for the dangerous stretch of road on the A27 around the Firle area shows that, rather than build a safer duel carriageway on this stretch, he would rather continue to put lives at risk because he his anti private transport - (kinda somes up whats wrong with this country, he's someone who would rather keep the old, outdated and inadequate, rather than provide what the country actually needs)

He suits Lewes though, as its a town that is stuck in the past, (refusing to let high street chains in that don't fit there vision of Lewes so just about every other shop in Lewes is a charity shop or antique boutique.)

The sooner he's out of a job the better.

 

[mona]

This might help people take a view:

Norman Baker MP, Lewes (TheyWorkForYou.com)

Falmer apart, I think his voting record is fairly positive.

The view I take is that Lewes MPs often have funny names. I thought Sir Tufton Beamish ruled in a hang 'em, flog 'em sort of way. From that website, I have now learned of the existence of a Viscount Cantelupe MP. This wins hands down. If he wasn't on Herbie Hancock's original recording of Canteloupe Island he should have been.

Dandyman, are you moving from champagne-quaffing, hell-raising socialism to woolly-minded soft liberalism?

 

[mona]

As for Baker, he is more a colonial governor than an MP; ruling the natives with a firm hand and showing them the right way while looking after the interests of the creoles (best represented by the Sussex Uni graduates who stayed on).

 

[Lord Bracknell]

What? Mr B? YOU wrote press releases? Jesus - how many of us did he have writing them then? He had me doing two or three a week for starters!

Don't you remember his "Ten Point Plan?" He could only think up three points. I had to come up with the other seven.

Points 9 and 10 were good, though ...

9. err ...

10. ... that's it.

 

[Rowdey]

Knobber..

When i lived in Rodmell, he stuck his oar in when we wanted to put up a (nice olde worlde..) sign letting people know where the car park was... and it got stuck in planning and never came out again..

Later that year, some huge 'VOTE FOR ME' orange signs appeared in all the fields from Kingston to Newhaven..

Hilariously, some scoundrel knocked down some of these signs and painted others in blue paint..The Express and Rodmell Parish times had headlines for a week..

And the hotel thing at Falmer (everything anti falmer in fact..)

 

[drew]

I never thought I'd defend him but 7.5k per annum for an office is not exactly excessive.

I think the point is that he was paying rent to himself for a room in his own house! His argument would probably be that he could have rented out the room to someone else but that's not the point. He made use of the system to line his pocket.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Also his dodgy dealings with a property he owned at Beddingham, something the press should have investigated

He is just someone who seeks publicity, hell he'd turn up for the opening of a crisp packet if he thought he'd get in a paper or 2

His opposition to the road improvements for the dangerous stretch of road on the A27 around the Firle area shows that, rather than build a safer duel carriageway on this stretch, he would rather continue to put lives at risk because he his anti private transport - (kinda somes up whats wrong with this country, he's someone who would rather keep the old, outdated and inadequate, rather than provide what the country actually needs)

He suits Lewes though, as its a town that is stuck in the past, (refusing to let high street chains in that don't fit there vision of Lewes so just about every other shop in Lewes is a charity shop or antique boutique.)

The sooner he's out of a job the better.

I'd be fascinated to know what dodgy dealing is alleged to have happened at Beddingham. His house was knocked down to build the bridge over the railway. Are you suggesting that there was something dodgy about this? The alternative was a more expensive, far more intrusive bridge closer to Mount Caburn that nobody wanted to see.

As for the A27 scheme that he opposed at Firle ... he was quite right to do so. The early nineties proposals were completely over the top. They included building TWO new roads - a dual carriageway and a new single carriageway - parallel to the existing Firle Straight and the former A27 alignment that is now known as Wick Street - giving us FOUR roads in total. If that was the best that the Highways Agency could come up with, it deserved to be thrown out. Baker wasn't the only opponent of the scheme. It was universally opposed by just about everybody, even people who support road building as an essential element in economic advancement.

Since then, there has been no proposal coming out of the Highways Agency for any major scheme on the A27, apart from the new flyover across the railway at Beddingham.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

I think the point is that he was paying rent to himself for a room in his own house! His argument would probably be that he could have rented out the room to someone else but that's not the point. He made use of the system to line his pocket.

That's certainly what Jason Sugarman and the Tories want everyone to believe.

 

[Hunting 784561]

I'd be fascinated to know what dodgy dealing is alleged to have happened at Beddingham. His house was knocked down to build the bridge over the railway. Are you suggesting that there was something dodgy about this? The alternative was a more expensive, far more intrusive bridge closer to Mount Caburn that nobody wanted to see.

As for the A27 scheme that he opposed at Firle ... he was quite right to do so. The early nineties proposals were completely over the top. They included building TWO new roads - a dual carriageway and a new single carriageway - parallel to the existing Firle Straight and the former A27 alignment that is now known as Wick Street - giving us FOUR roads in total. If that was the best that the Highways Agency could come up with, it deserved to be thrown out. Baker wasn't the only opponent of the scheme. It was universally opposed by just about everybody, even people who support road building as an essential element in economic advancement.

Since then, there has been no proposal coming out of the Highways Agency for any major scheme on the A27, apart from the new flyover across the railway at Beddingham.

Well done. They gave up and you remain in the 17th century, as requested.

 

[drew]

That's certainly what Jason Sugarman and the Tories want everyone to believe.

So, rather than just making a pointless comment, what is the actual truth?

 

[Lord Bracknell]

So, rather than just making a pointless comment, what is the actual truth?

I don't know. Apart from the fact that Baker claimed £7,500 a year for three years for his constituency office.

What I do know is that on the last three occasions I have spoken with Jason Sugarman he has been banging on about there being something dodgy about Norman Baker using the former shop premises underneath his house as his constituency office. Sugarman always comes across as being very disappointed that no-one else seems to be slating Baker about this. It was certainly Sugarman's people who planted the story in the Argus.

Expenses claims of outspoken Lewes MP From The Argus)

 

[drew]

I don't know. Apart from the fact that Baker claimed £7,500 a year for three years for his constituency office.

What I do know is that on the last three occasions I have spoken with Jason Sugarman he has been banging on about there being something dodgy about Norman Baker using the former shop premises underneath his house as his constituency office. Sugarman always comes across as being very disappointed that no-one else seems to be slating Baker about this. It was certainly Sugarman's people who planted the story in the Argus.

Expenses claims of outspoken Lewes MP From The Argus)

From what I can glean from various sources, he rented a shop/office from a landlady who then sold the whole building to him but he continued to claim rent for the office. He said he bought the building because it would have been awkward if he had a 'hostile' landlord! So, he owned the building which I understand he used as his home and charged us rent for using a bit of it for work! His defence was that it was agreed by the fees office, a defence used by countless others!

I don't like the man and I voted for him in 1997. Little did I know then!

 

[Seagull73]

I'd be fascinated to know what dodgy dealing is alleged to have happened at Beddingham. His house was knocked down to build the bridge over the railway. Are you suggesting that there was something dodgy about this? The alternative was a more expensive, far more intrusive bridge closer to Mount Caburn that nobody wanted to see.

As for the A27 scheme that he opposed at Firle ... he was quite right to do so. The early nineties proposals were completely over the top. They included building TWO new roads - a dual carriageway and a new single carriageway - parallel to the existing Firle Straight and the former A27 alignment that is now known as Wick Street - giving us FOUR roads in total. If that was the best that the Highways Agency could come up with, it deserved to be thrown out. Baker wasn't the only opponent of the scheme. It was universally opposed by just about everybody, even people who support road building as an essential element in economic advancement.

Since then, there has been no proposal coming out of the Highways Agency for any major scheme on the A27, apart from the new flyover across the railway at Beddingham.

And in retrospect now, how short sighted was that view? The road is the ONLY major corridor along the South Coast, and frankly cannot cope with the volume of traffic that goes along it daily, aside from how dangerous it can be.

Aside from that, the 3 laned bridge is a joke, and that's Baker's doing. The rest of the stretch desperately needs a dual carriageway to Polegate, but how do you then deal with the fact it narrows to a single carriageway Eastbound over the bridge. It's a fudge, a mess, and that's Baker's short-sightedness that hasn't helped at all.

 

[Hatterlovesbrighton]

He's fine I suppose, he's just a bit of a wierdo. Was reading Private Eye the other day and he was listed as appearing at some anti establishment conference talking about Kelly. I believe he is also a big believer in UFOS.

I liked Rathbone. For a tory he had very progressive views on Europe, but was treated horribly by the party after he lost the seat. He and Baker had a debate at our school and he wiped the floor with him.