If you’re just twiddling your thumbs this half-term, why not try tapping your toes? The Lighthouse on Paignton’s seafront has a whole host of activities and events going on during half term. There’s an Art Pit, radio days, drum workshops and more while away the wet afternoons. Take a look at the schedule…

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Ladbrokes has published its odds for the Devon seats in the General Election. But what do all the numbers mean? Take a gander and offer us some advice, please. Comments below.

Devon Central
Conservatives 1/7
Liberal Democrats 4/1
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Devon East
Conservatives 1/500
Liberal Democrats 20/1
Labour 100/1

Devon North
Liberal Democrats 4/6
Conservatives 11/10
Labour 100/1
UKIP 100/1
English Democrats 100/1
Green 100/1

Devon South West
Conservatives 1/500
Liberal Democrats 20/1
UKIP 66/1
Labour 100/1

Devon West and Torridge
Cons 1/20
Lib Dems 7/1
Lab 100/1
UKIP 100/1

Exeter
Labour 5/6
Conservatives evens
Liberal Democrats 16/1
UKIP 50/1
Greens 100/1

Newton Abbot
Liberal Democrats 4/6
Conservatives 11/10
Labour 100/1
UKIP 100/1

Plymouth Moorview
Labour 4/9
Conservatives 13/8
Liberal Democrats 50/1
UKIP 50/1

Plymouth Sutton and Devonport
Conservatives 2/5
Labour 15/8
Liberal Democrats 25/1
UKIP 66/1

Torbay
Conservatives 2/5
Liberal Democrats 7/4
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Totnes
Conservatives 4/11
Liberal Democrats 2/1
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Tiverton and Honiton
Conservatives 1/200
Liberal Democrats 20/1
UKIP 50/1
Labour 100/1

Keep an eye on the changing predictions at Ladbrokes.

Know your candidates, check out our Devon Candidates and Constituencies page

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With nary a regard for the Working Time Directive, Anna Pascoe burns all kinds of candles to fulfil her role as a Prospective Parliamentary Candidate (for South West Devon, since you ask) – and that’s on top of her full-time job – but she still has time to match Vince Cable, have a week campaigning, get her unique tyres fixed… and write about it all for the PRSD. Take it away Anna…

Monday, February 1
The icy snap certainly isn’t over for the year and I delicately made my way over to Buddle Woods in Plymstock this morning to inspect damage caused by anti-social biking in the dell there. Was disappointed to see that an area once packed with bluebells was now a muddy mess of damaged trees, plants and lumped-together earth, dangerous for anyone to try to pass along walking normally, with a stick or a pushchair. Causing long-term damage to the environment and troubling local residents for the sake of some ‘fun’ biking is not acceptable, and I will be writing to local councillors and nature organisations to enlist their help in this matter.

Then it was over to Ivybridge for a full day of campaigning and meeting residents with our candidate Tony Barber and the Lib Dem team (we did squeeze in a spot of lunch in the rather fine Sportman’s Arms, conveniently in the Filham ward).

Tuesday, February 2
I woke today to discover that the latest algorithm/hackette had calculated me to be the 32nd most influential Lib Dem on Twitter. This is what I’ve been striving for all this time, I thought to myself as I wended my way to work (joking aside, I was equally-placed with Sir Vince Cable, which pleased me greatly!)

After work it was time to risk a netball match with my not-really-very-much-better little finger. Managed to play the whole match, but my finger didn’t thank me for it, and a further stockpile of ibuprofen was in order for the rest of the week.

Wednesday, February 3
Final preparations for Thursday’s A Debate About South West Devon with Lembit Opik were the order of the day today (along with cleaning the bathroom), sorting out the order of ceremony and chewing my fingernails wondering what questions would come up… Got the bus to work and put in some more work on our green tourism review, getting one of the newer staff members involved with some projects too. Ploughed through some more emails before bedtime, which was unpleasantly close to getting-up time today.

Thursday, February 4
The day of A Debate About South West Devon dawned and with the dawn a weary PPC crept to the station to get the train to Lostwithiel, to be reunited with her abandoned car and the earliest available appointment for the mobile mechanic arm of the hire company’s ‘preferred partner’. My run of luck continued as we discovered that my car has slightly different tyres to standard issue, so waited while a different replacement tyre had to be fetched. Finally I arrived in Plymouth though, to set up the venue at Fort Stamford with an array of Devonshire delights for the attendees. Lembit was good-natured and good value as ever, chatting to guests and putting everyone at ease. Special thanks to Richard Smith of the Chamber of Commerce for chairing the debate, we got the chance to have a good old chinwag about the problems facing the licensed trade before the debate started proper.

It was good to hear what local people were really concerned about, and a key theme of the debate was that Liberal Democrats want people to decide politicians’ priorities, not the other way round. The issue of MPs expenses came up, and both Lembit and I agreed that sundry allowances should be done away with, and simply travel costs paid for MPs who live outside of London. Lembit also raised the point that it is ridiculous that MPs decide their own pay at the moment, and of course it should be an independent body doing this.

Friday, February 5
Having planned a photo shoot for the next Ivybridge election leaflet, we were astounded when the day actually began bright and sunny and not the grey drizzle we had anticipated! We made the most of this by getting the photos out of the way first and then it was straight to knocking on doors, where the boon of signing up two new members boosted our spirits further. No time to sample any more of the Sportsman’s Arms tasty fodder today unfortunately, as it was off to work for me in the afternoon, to greet a busy new intake of guests at the hotel.

Saturday, February 6
A long day at work called for an early night in with a pile of campaign admin tonight. One thing I promised to give some thought to was a tweet from the amusingly-monikered Jannery Paxman, who has appeared on Twitter recently, to hold those who seek office in the Plymouth area to account. He asked what I (and other PPCs) thought was a fair salary for an MP. I’ve often thought that if I put in overtime at work to the tune of the amount of hours I spend working as a candidate, I’d probably be fairly well off, but with no time to spend the money – as opposed to the current situation of not being very well off and having lots of things that need spending money on, and no time to get a second paid job.

I’d like to dispel the myth that parliamentary candidates are in the first carriage of the gravy train in terms of pay – I don’t receive any money for being a PPC (and nor do I seek to). I did a few sums to work out a rough answer to Jannery’s question. At the moment, I work 45 hours a week at my paid job (five days a week) and depending on whether I do the day or the evening shift, two-three hours before work and five-six after (or vice versa) on the PPC role.

On my days off from my paid job I probably spend around 12 hours on the PPC role. Working on the presumption that as the next MP for South West Devon, I would devote all of these hours to the job, that’d be in the region of 100+ hours a week. Which would come in at somewhere between £30-35,000 based on the current adult minimum wage. £7 an hour would be up to £40k, £8 up to £45k and £9 up to £50k. The problem is, that hours are unregulated and decided on the motives of each individual MP. We need to come up with a system that takes into account the varied nature of an MP’s role, but ensures that an MP who rarely attends, speaks or votes at Parliament and doesn’t do much for the local people does not simply receive the same salary as an extremely hard-working and dedicated MP elsewhere.

Sunday, February 7
The week drew to a close with a day shift at work. I did manage to sneak an hour’s break to have a Swedish massage in the hotel’s therapy room to ease out all the aches and pains of another busy seven days. Treating myself to a takeway on the way home, I lit the fire and settled down to another evening of work on the Ivybridge by election literature and campaign roster – with one watchful eye on Dancing on Ice, of course.

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Teignbridge MP Richard Younger-Ross was at the Beating Bowel Cancer reception at Westminster last week, and he’s bought back an effort to beat cancer in the South Devon.

In Teignbridge, people are served by the Southern bowel cancer screening hub, which began in September 2006 and by October 2009 had detected 763 cancers, representing 19.2 per cent of all cancers found nationally.

Richard told the PRSD: “One in three people can expect a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime. Outcomes for people with cancer are improving, but they could be better. I’m proud of the world-class charitable medical research we undertake in the UK, but more still needs to be done to prevent, detect and treat cancer.

“If, in the next three years, the Southern screening hub meets Beating Bowel Cancer’s target to bring screening participation up to 77 per cent (from its current rate of 57.2 per cent) then a massive 773,583 people will have participated. 1,633 cancers will have been detected and mortality could be reduced by 8 per cent.”

• Cancer is the campaigning cause of the day – Gordon Brown has announced that “Every cancer patient to b offered free one-to-one home care if Labour win the election #welovetheNHS #labour” according to Twitter

(image: roll out of the NHS Bowel Cancer Screening Programme)

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They say a week is a long time in politics, I have to tell you actually It’s not, well not this week anyway!

With a by-election in full swing and my commitment to meet as many people as I can before the election, it has made for a busy week.

In between canvassing I fitted in a brief visit to a rural primary school, with a very interesting discussion with the head teacher about the value of rural schools. Now I should tell you that I am a big fan of small schools, especially as my son went to one and I know it gave him a brilliant foundation into senior school.

That’s why I simply can’t understand why central government struggles to give our Devon children the money to do the job well (There is an excellent web site called Fairer Funding for Devon Schools, you should check out for more information.) Surely, if you want the best, then you just pay for it – and what could be a better then investing in our future by giving primary education all the resources they need? That means fair funding to all our pupils, not just the ones in London.

On Thursday, I took another break from knocking on doors to go to a second primary school, this time to talk about politics, the general election and school councils. I was given just 20 minutes to explain the whole thing to eager children and introduce the fact that they plan to reinstate a school council there. It was great fun and I hope the children learnt a little something about how precious our democracy is.

Although they certainly won’t be inspired by the four parliamentarians (three Labour MP’s and one Tory Peer) charged with theft and the apparent plan of at least three of them to claim that this should be dealt with by Parliament not in the courts.

Of course they may well be innocent, and they have the right to defend their position. But doesn’t make you want to say, WHAT?! I mean, surely it’s not just a matter for Parliament?

After all, we wouldn’t be allowed to say hey it’s up to my company to investigate any alleged theft, not the courts. Sorry guys, stealing is a crime and it should be up to a jury to decide if you did it, not some internal committee. No one is above the law, absolutely no one.

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The South Devon Green Party will put up a new candidate for the Totnes Town Council seat it had already won after their latest incumbent revealed that he wouldn’t be a member of the Green Party while Paula Black, the first Green Party county councillor, was still a county councillor.

It means another by-election for the town council seat, but Richard Fairfax, the chap in question, hasn’t elaborated, and Paula Black, the person he helped get elected as the first Green Devon County Councillor, said she has no idea what he’s going on about.

In another twist to this already tangled tail, the Fairfax fella said he would continue as an election agent for the Totnes Green Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, Lydia Somerville.

In a spirit transparency Lydia told thisissouthdevon: “It is a Green Party matter and we are addressing it in our own way.”

Other Totnes Town Councillors have describe the whole thing as a ‘pantomime’, which continues – candidates who want to contest the once-filled and now-vacant seat on the Totnes Town Council have until noon Friday, February 12 to get their nominations in, with the election taking place on Thursday, March 11, if more than one person puts their name down.

We’re also confused as to who will stand for the South Devon Green Party in the General Election in Exeter – Paula Black says it will be her, but other sources have suggested it will be Andrew Worthley. If you know, comment below!

• The South Devon Greens is apparently the largest chapter of Greens in the country. Will they manage to make any inroads in the next elections (district and general)? Comments below, please.

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Plymouth has been home to student protests over possible rises in course fees, where students were out in force,campaigning against their increasing debt.

With the ‘average’ student facing an ‘average’ debt of around £22,000, and claims that the increased fees would see that jump to a debt of £34,000, students are calling on politicians to pledge not to increase tuition fees.

Plymouth University has been signaled as one of the 20 ‘battlegrounds’ by the NUS, which has threatened to call for students not to vote for candidates which don’t support their campaign.

There was also an event at Plymouth University about the fees review and student support (see Luke Pollard’s video below), attended by Luke Pollard (Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate – PPC – for South West Devon), Linda Gillroy MP for Plymouth Sutton, Stuart Bonar (Lib Dem PPC for Plymouth Moor View), and Matthew Groves (Conservative PPC for Plymouth Moor View)

stuartbonar told us on Twitter: “The Lib Dems have opposed tuition fees from day one. Every vote cast for the Lib Dems and every Lib Dem seat won at the next election will make the abolition of student fees more likely.”

Luke Pollard, who previously was President of Exeter University’s Guild of Students and spent the last two years advising The Open University on Higher Education policy, told us: “What we need to ensure is that the current fees review maintains the principle of ability to learn, not ability to pay and that we resist Tory plans to scrap widening participation or Lib Dem measures that would reduce the number of places for students at universities.

“Nor should we allow the Tories to offer discounts to the rich who can afford to pay their student loans off in one go. The debate is very much live and I’d encourage students to get involved.”

According to the NUS only three candidates have signed the pledge so far, Stuart Bonar, Liberal Democrat PPC, Plymouth Moor View; Linda Gilroy MP, Labour, Plymouth Sutton and Alison Seabeck MP, Labour, Plymouth Devonport.

But we went back to the record books (okay, They Work For You) to find out where Devon politicians stood on introducing tuition fees in the first place. We were surprised to find that the Labour MPs in Devon supported the introduction of tuition fees, and they all sit in university towns.

But don’t take our word for it. Here’s the results, and check them out on They Work For You, where you can see what else they voted on and whether their voting record tallies with your opinion – guess which ones didn’t want an inquiry into Iraq, for example.

East Devon: Hugo Swire (Con)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.

North Devon: Nick Harvey (Lib Dem)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.

South West Devon: Gary Streeter (Con)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.

Exeter: Ben Bradshaw (Lab)
Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees.

Newton Abbot: Richard Younger-Ross (Lib Dem)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.

Plymouth Devonport: Alison Seabeck (Lab)
Dunno, although she doesn’t vote against the party (‘Never rebels against their party in this parliament,’ says her They Work for You page.)

Plymouth Sutton: Linda Gilroy
Voted strongly for introducing student top-up fees.

Tiverton and Honiton: Angela Browning (Con) (who is stepping down)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.

Torbay: Adrian Sanders (Lab)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees.

Torridge and West Devon: Geoffrey Cox (Con)
Dunno

Totnes: Anthony Steen (Con) (who is stepping down)
Voted strongly against introducing student top-up fees. votes, speeches

Here’s what Labour’s Luke Pollard and Linda Gilroy made of the event…

• Much as we can giggle at those foolish Tories, could the NUS campaign hit the Devon Labour MPs who voted for student fees in the first place? Comments below, please

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Funding has just been made available for voluntary groups which work with adults with leaning disabilities in Devon.

Jackie Milan, carers’ worker said: “These grants are available for groups which run social activities for adults, giving carers much needed respite.

“So much good work goes on in our towns and villages, and these grants will make such a difference to people’s lives”.

If you know of any such groups in Teignbridge, the South Hams or West Devon who would like to apply for funding, contact Jackie Milan at South Devon Carers’ Consortium on 07879 881298 or email jackiemilan.sdcc@tiscali.co.uk for an application form or more information.

(image: Jackie Milan carers’ worker)

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Up to 15 new parking spaces have been created in Teignmouth town centre – inspired by ideas from David Cox and Chris Bray – simply by re-jigging some of the town’s existing parking bays!

Former county councillors David Cox and Chris Bray noticed last year that some of the existing parking bays around the town did not make the best use of the road space available. Having drawn this to the attention of Devon County Council Highways Authority, they were delighted to see that their proposals have now resulted in seven extra spaces being created in Carlton Place and with a similar amount of additional spaces being formed in other parts of the town.

David Cox told the PRSD: “As I was walking through Carlton Place last year I noticed that even with cars parked on either side of the street there was still enough room for three lorries to pass with ease, and I remembered from my childhood, that the road was originally a two-way street.

“It suddenly struck me that the parking spaces parallel to the Riviera building were a throw back from that time and hadn’t been up-dated when the road became a one-way street decades ago”.

Inspired by the situation in Carlton Place, Cox and Bray hunted around the town scrutinising the town’s existing parking bays and produced a list of other, similar sites, where simply re-painting white lines could, potentially, create additional parking spaces. Engineer’s from Devon County Council studied the proposals before approving the modifications which were implemented recently.

David Cox said: “Of course, we realise that this isn’t going to resolve all of Teignmouth’s parking issues, however, the new parking bays will give Teignmouth over a dozen extra spaces from virtually thin air, and at no extra cost to the community that has to be a step in the right direction.”

• What better usages of space can you come up with? Comments below, please!

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Relations with the US were on the agenda in Brussels this week.

Hilary Clinton is upset that the European Parliament’s justice and home affairs committee voted yesterday to reject the latest proposal for a regime governing bank account data transfer to the US (to help them fight crime).

The matter will have to come to the floor of the House before a final decision can be reached, but I think we will follow the committee‘s advice. And Barack Obama has upset the EU by letting it be known he will not attend the six-monthly EU-US summit planned for this Spring. He is too busy with other business.

My week started in Brussels. I found myself again defending the European Arrest Warrant as the case of England football supporter Garry Mann went to the European Court of Human Rights. (If you listened to Radio 4 or 5-Live or watched news channel on Tuesday morning you may have heard me.) Mann was convicted of attacking police after a football match in Portugal in 2005 and encouraging others to do the same. Unsurprisingly, Portugal wants him to serve his sentence. Is Mann the victim of an injustice? As Lord Justice Moses said, if there is a problem, it is that he had poor legal representation.

But most of my week has been spent in Cyprus with the European Parliament’s ‘contact group’ for relations with northern Cyprus. We met political leaders on both sides of the green line. They are making progress towards an agreement to unify the island, but it is slow and may be too slow to prevent the election in April of a more nationalist community leader as ’President’ of northern Cyprus.

Both sides want return of land which they were forced off in – or just before – the 1974 Turkish invasion and which, in many cases, has since been developed by others. The irony is that if they agreed to settle for something less they would all become hugely better off: the estimated benefit of the ‘peace dividend’ is a EUR 1.8 bn boost to the island’s economy, lifting the average income of Greek Cypriots by 25 per cent and of Turkish Cypriots by 40 per cent over five years.

Greece and Turkey are also occupying minds in Brussels. Next week we vote to adopt (I predict) a report on Turkey’s progress towards EU accession which will be more critical of Turkey than before, particularly on issues regarding Cyprus. And we note the monitoring arrangements put in place to ensure that Greece deals with its budget deficit, which is four times higher than the Euro zone rules allow. At 12.7 per cent it is lower than the UK’s deficit, but Greece’s public debt is equivalent to 112 per cent of GDP, while the UK’s is still under 70 per cent.

Much of my effort this week has gone into an oration I have been asked to give about Chris Clarke at his memorial service at Wells Cathedral this afternoon. He was truly an inspiring leader and, to me, a trusted friend. I hope I can do him justice.

• Graham Watson the Lib Dem MP for the South West and is just one of your six South West MEPs

(image of Graham Watson by Salty1977 under the Creative Commons)

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