halifax

The 7 election candidates in Halifax

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A screenshot of the map of the Halifax parliamentary constituency

So, there’s a General Election coming up on the 4th July. Although I live in Sowerby Bridge, our local constituency is Halifax, as we’re lumped with the larger town just up the road.

Since the last general election at the end of 2019, there’s a couple of changes.

New constituency boundaries

The first change is the constituency boundary. Whilst there will still be 650 constituencies across the United Kingdom, the boundaries have changed to ensure that there’s a more even balance of population in each. In our case, the Halifax constituency has grown slightly, and now includes part of the Ryburn ward which used to be in the neighbouring Calder Valley constituency. This adds the villages of Sowerby and Triangle.

A new MP

Our previous Labour MP, Holly Lynch, decided not to run again. She is currently pregnant with her second child, and trying to run a re-election campaign whilst expecting doesn’t sound like my idea of fun. She’s been our MP since the 2015 general election, and was re-elected in 2017 and 2019.

So, using the list from WhoCanIVoteFor, here’s who I’ll be able to consider voting for next month:

Labour: Kate Dearden

Kate is the Labour candidate, and most likely to win; Halifax has elected a Labour MP at every election since 1987. Indeed, since 1964, the Tories have only held the seat for the four years prior to 1987. As I’m a member of the Labour party, I’ll be voting for Kate.

Though not born in Halifax, she grew up not too far away in Bingley, and has worked in trade union roles prior to becoming a political candidate.

Reform UK: James Griffith-Jones

Reform is Nigel Farage’s latest political vehicle, and is fielding candidates in just about every constituency in England, Wales and Scotland this time. Previously known as the Brexit Party, James previously stood for UKIP in a local council election in 2016, but there’s a lack of information about him on Reform’s web site. Reform may be popular with some of the more rural areas of the Halifax constituency but I can’t see him winning here. The Brexit Party previously came third in 2019, beating the Liberal Democrats, but only winning 6% of the vote.

This post was edited on Wednesday 26th June in response to a comment from James Griffith-Jones who states that he is not a ‘far-right’ candidate.

Green Party: Martin Hey

Martin is already active in local politics, having been elected a local councillor in the Shelf and Northowram ward a couple of years ago. Judging by his profile, he’s a bit of a NIMBY and concerned with the amount of housebuilding proposed for the area. In the last general election in 2019, the Greens came last with just 2% of the vote.

Independent: Perveen Hussain

In addition to the six parties fielding candidates, there’s one candidate standing as an independent, who is Perveen Hussain. According to her candidate statement, she’s a local businessperson and a campaigner, especially around Palestine. The Park ward in Halifax has a large Muslim community and she may see some support here.

Liberal Democrats: Samuel Jackson

We don’t know what Samuel Jackson’s middle name is, so I’ll leave the Nick Fury comparisons out for now. He’s a local lad, born in the constituency, who works in one of the local textile factories. As mentioned, the LibDems polled fourth in 2019 with a little under 5% of the vote.

Workers Party of Britain: Shakir Saghir

Now this is an interesting one. The Workers Party GB is George Galloway’s latest vehicle, and Shakir recently outed Labour in the Park ward in the recent local council elections. I happened to drive through the ward on election day last month, and his posters were everywhere, alongside photos of Galloway and lots of messaging around Palestine. Policy on Palestine has been one of Labour’s weak points this year.

WhoCanIVoteFor reveals that Shakir was previously a Tory, having stood several times for the Conservatives in local council elections. His switch to the Workers Party seems to have helped him get elected in Park ward, but I would be surprised if he can repeat that success across the wider Halifax constituency. Also, as someone who used to work in Bradford West during Galloway’s last stint as an MP between 2012 and 2015, he comes across as an absolute grifter.

Conservatives: Hazel Sharp

Hazel Sharp has her own, rather basic web site. She’s originally from Scotland, but now works as a physiotherapist for the NHS. Which, considering the current Tory government’s record when it comes to the NHS, is surprising. Having looked at her Facebook page, her campaign seems to be focussed on a handful of more rural areas, with nothing from the suburbs of Halifax itself.

The Tories have come second in every election since losing the seat in 1987, and only lost by 400 votes (1%) in 2015. However, with their frankly disastrous campaign and falling poll ratings, I would be very surprised if Hazel is elected as Halifax’s next MP.

FWIW, I realise that Diamond Geezer has done the same for his constituency in London, but I had planned to write this for some time. Anyway, if you live in Halifax, vote for Kate Dearden on the 4th July.

Recent days out

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A model of an armoured elephant at the Royal Armouries museum in Leeds

Although it’s currently the bleak midwinter – and I mean bleak, with sub-zero (Celsius) temperatures last week and Storm Isha this week – we have managed a few days out. Some of these were in the first week of the year, as our eight-year-old didn’t go back to the school until the following week.

Here’s where we’ve been:

Manchester Science & Industry Museum

A photo of Stephen Hawking's wheelchair, currently on display at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester

The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester is somewhere that we typically end up at least once a year. This time was mainly for the Food, Poo and You exhibition, which features content from the presenters of Operation Ouch (including Dr Chris, writer of Ultra-Processed People). It didn’t take much convincing our eight-year-old to go to an exhibition about poo, and it’s well presented. Just be aware that, whilst the rest of the museum is free, this is a paid-for exhibition and you’re advised to pre-book. My wife happened to be working that day and so I expect we’ll be going back before it finishes in June, after which it’ll probably go to the Science Museum in London.

Also there at the moment is Prof Stephen Hawking’s wheelchair. I was naturally more excited about this than our eight-year-old was.

What isn’t at the museum at the moment is, well, about three quarters of the museum. It’s just what’s available in the ‘New Warehouse’; a huge restoration programme means that the other buildings are closed. The Power Hall should be open again next year if all goes well.

Eureka

A photo of the Eureka National Childrens Museum in Halifax

Considering how often I pass Eureka, and the fact that we have a young child, it’s perhaps surprising that it’s been almost seven years since my last visit. And like that time, it was partly due to some Tesco Clubcard vouchers expiring. The museum hasn’t changed much in that time; the main difference was that the car garage is now a community area with a bus and a smaller electric car exhibit.

It’s still a good museum for half a day, and at eight years old our child isn’t too old for it. There’s a new Eureka, focussing more on science for slightly older kids, in Wirral which we need to visit at some point.

Royal Armouries, Leeds

A disarmed AK-47 rifle that has been covered in sprinkles and Love Hearts sweets

The last time we went to the Royal Armouries was for Thought Bubble, back in 2016. Museums about war and armour aren’t really my thing, but our eight-year-old had read a library book about them recently and so it was an opportunity to see some of those things in real life.

The Reloaded exhibition is interesting, as it looked at guns as gifts and objects of desire. There were also a couple of commissioned art pieces, such as an AK-47 covered with sprinkles and Love Hearts. It’s always fun to see the elephant armour too.

We have a few more busy weekends coming up, so I doubt we’ll be going anywhere else for a few weeks.

A child-free night out

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Our toddler is approaching 17 months old now, and yet last night was the first time that Christine and I had a child-free night out, as a couple. We’ve struggled to get childcare in place, and our toddler is still breastfeeding before bedtime. Thankfully, this time we managed to arrange for a friend to look after them.

We went to a recording of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue in Halifax. This is the second time we’ve seen the show be recorded; we saw the last two episodes of series 61 being recorded in Bradford in 2014. This time, they were recording the last episode of series 67, with guests Susan Calman (who we also saw later in 2014) and John Finnemore. Graeme Garden, one of the three regulars, wasn’t present for the recording, but Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor were.

Though not quite a sell-out, the Victoria Theatre in Halifax was very busy. Tickets for ISIHAC recordings tend to only cost around £5, and so it’s a relatively cheap night out. Though each show is only around 30 minutes when broadcast, significantly more is recorded, and two episodes are taped at each recording.

These two episodes will be broadcast in July, I believe. Watch out for Susan’s lovely singing voice (although her vocal range did prove a limiting factor in the Pick Up Song round), and some controversial moves in Mornington Crescent. Sadly, you won’t get to see John’s facial expressions as he sings One Song To The Tune Of Another, such are the limitations of radio.

When we got home at about 10:30pm, our toddler was still awake but very, very tired. Suffice to say they were still asleep when we put them in the pushchair to go to the childminders this morning. Apparently they’d been perfectly happy whilst we were out. Hopefully, if our finances improve and we can get childcare again, then we’ll be able to have a few more nights out.

Going back to Eureka as an adult

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A photo of the Eureka National Childrens Museum in Halifax

When I was a kid, I used to love going to Eureka, the national children’s museum in Halifax. I was eight years old when it opened in 1992, and so I was in the right age group to visit. I remember going with primary school at least once, and with my parents on other occasions.

Eureka turns 25 this year, and I took Lizzie along a few weeks ago. She’s been three times now – once with me, and twice with her mum. I took her because Christine was working that weekend, and we had a Tesco Clubcard Days Out voucher that was about to expire.

There are still quite a few bits of the museum there that I remember. I remember pedalling on a fixed bike, and seeing a skeleton appear doing the same motions. That’s still there, although the rest of the gallery around it is new. The SoundSpace gallery is new; Lizzie found this really stimulating with lots of sound and light. We also spent a little bit of time in Living and Working Together, and All About Me, but having arrived there after lunch on a Saturday there was only limited time.

When Eureka opened, it was almost unique in the level of interactivity offered. So many museums at the time locked their exhibits behind glass cases, and there would only be the occasional button to press. Eureka was different – you could play with just about everything. It was all about learning through play – a concept that it now applies to its nursery, which is consistently rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted. Nowadays, many more museums have exhibits which are accessible to kids, but Eureka was pioneering in this respect.

Eureka entry prices

Although it’s a national museum, Eureka doesn’t receive any central government funding, hence the need to charge an entrance fee. Our local MP, Holly Lynch, has been campaigning to change this. Making it free would be fantastic for Halifax, as it could bring in many more visitors to the town. Work is already ongoing to better link the town centre and the Piece Hall with Eureka and the railway station.

As it stands, for a family of two adults and two children aged 3 or over, a day out at Eureka is almost £52. Whilst the tickets are then valid for unlimited repeat visits within the subsequent 12 months, it’s still a big initial outlay. And that doesn’t include food at the café, parking or travel. It would be great if the museum could become more accessible to those on lower incomes.

Eureka is still a fantastic museum for kids. Quite a lot has changed in 25 years and I’m pleased to see how it’s developed. But it was also nice to go back and see things that I remembered when I was younger. And now that we live nearby, we’ll be getting the most out of our annual passes.

Kate Lycett’s Lost Houses

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Bankfield Museum

Running a stately home is a lot of work – you only have to watch shows like Downton Abbey to see why. (note: I have never watched Downton Abbey.) Organisations like The National Trust spend millions every year to keep their properties going. Not all houses are lucky enough to have someone maintain them and some have fallen into disrepair or been demolished.

With this in mind, artist Kate Lycett has painted a series of pieces called the Lost Houses of the South Pennines, which has gone on display in Halifax’s Bankfield Museum. All of the paintings are of houses and stately homes in Yorkshire which are no longer standing, such as Manor Heath in Halifax (now Manor Heath Park) or Horton Hall near Bradford.

What makes Kate’s paintings stand out is her attention to detail. All of the paintings show the houses as if they were still in their heydays – lights on, and with an almost ethereal glow, giving them life again. Gold leaf has been woven in to good effect.

Alongside each piece is a description of the house – who built it, what it was used for, and its ultimate fate. Photographs are also provided, as are Kate’s scrapbooks that she used during her research. Ironically for an exhibition at a Calderdale Council venue, many of those houses were demolished by its predecessor organisations. Dry rot seemed to be a major problem in several properties but I think money (or the lack thereof) has been the major factor in most of the houses’ demise.

We’ve visited twice – Christine and I were lucky to be invited to the opening night by a mutual friend of the artist, but we also popped in with my parents at the weekend. It looks like it’s been pleasingly popular.

All of the paintings are for sale by sealed auction bid, but you can also purchase limited numbered edition prints that are signed by the artist. These include the gold leaf that the originals have. The exhibition runs until early April, and is free to visit.

Dara Ó Briain’s Crowd Tickler

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dara6
Dara Ó Briain at the 2014 Festival of Curiosity, by Sandra on Flickr. CC-licensed.

Wednesday last week marked 30 months of marriage for Christine and I. Co-incidentally, the Irish comic Dara Ó Briain was performing his latest show Crowd Tickler in Halifax on the same day, and a handful of tickets were still available the week before, so we went to see him.

This was the second time we’d seen Dara in Halifax; we also saw his previous show, Craic Dealer, a few years ago. If I’m honest, I was a bit disappointed with Craic Dealer, having not found it as funny as some of Dara’s other material. We’d seen This is the Show (or ‘TITS’ for short) broadcast on TV, which is worth watching as and when it’s available, and we always make time to watch Mock the Week when it’s on.

Fortunately, Crowd Tickler is a great show. It’s part-improvised, based on interactions with the audience and some local factual knowledge that Dara has gleamed either through research or previous visits. If you get front row seats to one of Dara’s gigs, expect to be asked a number of questions throughout the show. Thankfully, Dara isn’t the sort of comedian to utterly ridicule you but there may be a few laughs at your expense.

My favourite routine was about TV dramas, particularly on streaming services like Netflix, and how there are so many and that they can sometimes tend towards the utterly ridiculous – ‘a Scandinavian crime drama about a detective who smells crime scenes!’. Which was funny in itself, until Dara pointed out that this is basically the plot of Marvel’s Daredevil.

And then he went about improvising our own crime drama, based on audience suggestions. So we ended up with a detective with Tourette’s who used to be a taxidermist, investigating a ping pong player who killed someone with a rollerskate.

Another of my favourite routines of his was about tunnel boring machines. Doesn’t sound like the most interesting subject but if you see people tweeting him ‘Poor Chuggy!’ after a gig, then you’ll know why.

Crowd Tickler is almost at the end of its run with only a few more shows left – Dara has been touring it for over a year now. There’s just a couple of UK dates, a few nights in Dublin, and then he’ll be off to tickle various European nations in the new year. Fortunately, a DVD of the show is due out in a little over a week (sponsored link), and based on what we saw, it should be a very good show to watch.

528 bus from Halifax to Rochdale

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Blackstone Edge Reservoir

Today’s blog post is about a bus service. You may be wondering if I’m scraping the barrel here – surely there’s nothing interesting about a bus service? But Diamond Geezer blogs about buses and makes them interesting, and I think that this particular bus service qualifies.

The 528 bus service

The 528 bus runs once every hour from Halifax to Rochdale, via my home town of Sowerby Bridge, Ripponden, Blackstone Edge, Littleborough and Smallbridge. Drawn on a map, it operates on a near direct south-westerly line, taking around an hour to complete the journey. And it’s quite a scenic route – the photo above is of Blackstone Edge reservoir, as between Ripponden and Littleborough the bus runs through open moorland. On a nice day it can be quite spectacular. I’ve used it a couple of times, once when I needed to get to Bury for work, and another time when the trains weren’t running because of engineering work.

It isn’t the only way of getting between Halifax and Rochdale though. It’s quicker by train, with the fastest services taking around half an hour. Plus the trains run twice an hour during the daytime whereas the 528 is hourly.

There’s also another bus service, the 590, which also runs hourly. The 590 runs via Luddendenfoot, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge, Todmorden, Walsden before rejoining the 528’s route at Littleborough. It takes longer – about an hour and a half – but passes through more populous settlements.

First 66783 YK05 FJF
P927949 by Ingy the Wingy on Flickr, CC-licensed.

Change of operator

At one time, both the 528 and 590 bus services were operated by First, the Scottish-owned large national bus and train company that operates the majority of buses in West Yorkshire. First still operate the 590 service, but several years ago the 528 was taken over by a company called Centrebus Holdings. This was a joint venture between the managers of Centrebus, a bus company in the Midlands, and Arriva, the large national bus and train company owned by the German state railway company Deutsche Bahn. Last year, the managers of Centrebus sold their stake to Arriva. This allowed Arriva to take full ownership of the company, which is now branded Yorkshire Tiger. Their buses retain Centrebus’ orange livery but with black tiger prints on the side. It makes me smile that a bus operated by Yorkshire Tiger crosses the border into Greater Manchester.

The reason for the change in operator is because the 528 bus is a subsidised service. It’s not commercially viable without taxpayer support, which comes from Metro (part of the West Yorkshire Combined Authority). Over recent years, First have pulled out of a number of subsidised services in West Yorkshire which run more as a public service than for profit. When these services have been put out to tender, Centrebus have often won.

Centrebus 775 YJ10 EZH
Huddersfield Bus Company 775 YJ10 EZH by Ingy the Wingy on Flickr, all rights reserved

Cuts

The weak economy and austerity cuts being imposed by central government led Metro to review the services it was subsidising earlier this year. In some cases it was supporting services that were used by just a handful of people. This wasn’t providing value for money, and so a consultation process was held. And one of the proposed service cuts was the 528. Not just cut, but cancelled completely with some replacement buses running only as far as Ripponden as bus number 560. There would be no bus links between Ripponden and Rochdale, and those wanting to use the bus between Halifax and Rochdale would have to use the slower 590 service.

Whilst a large number of other cuts were proposed, the cut to the 528 received the most vocal opposition. In particular, the consultation was only held in West Yorkshire; residents of Littleborough and Rochdale were not asked for their views. Meanwhile the buses used on the 528 route were downsized from large single-decker Optare Tempo buses to smaller Optare Solos.

Redemption, of sorts

The outcome of the consultation was published a couple of weeks ago, and like many consultations that propose cuts, the end result was something in the middle. The 528 will still cease to exist when the changes take effect early next year, but it will be replaced with a new service called the X58 which will operate the same route. ‘X’ services are express services and this will hopefully reinforce the fact that it offers quicker journeys between Halifax and Rochdale than the 590, with the potential that more people will use it. It’ll retain the same hourly service interval as the 528 bus service, although it will not run late into the evening and its frequency will be reduced on Sundays.

I’m pleased that the bus service will be kept, even if I personally don’t use it very often. Whilst some buses can be run at a profit, it shouldn’t mean that those that aren’t profitable are withdrawn, provided that they serve a useful public service. Serving small outlying villages may not make much money for the bus companies but it can be a lifeline for the residents who rely on these services.

Update: The X58 bus service began on the 25th January – you can download the timetable here.

Update 2: As of 2025, the 528 bus has been replaced again, and is now the 587.

Tumbleweed

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Looks like I’ve been a bad blogger and not posted here for a while. Oops.

Here’s what I’ve been up to:

  • The slightly cryptic last sentence in my Blackpool post last month refers to the fact that my new girlfriend lives in Blackpool. Her name is Christine (that’s her actual first name, not a pseudonym), we’ve been seeing each other for about 6 weeks and I’ll probably say more about her as time goes on. It’s a distance relationship but we’ve managed to make time to see each other most weekends.
  • In October I went to see Ash when they played a gig at Bradford Gasworks. They were awesome. They’re also releasing a new single every 2 weeks over the next 12 months, the first 3 of which are out. You can buy all 26 for £11 which isn’t bad.
  • I’ve recently bought some noise-cancelling headphones, which actually do seem to work – my walk to work on a morning is now quite tranquil as I don’t have the noise of cars and the rain in the background, and can instead have my iPod at a lower volume. I only bought a relatively cheap Philips unit for £20 – the sound-cancelling unit is almost as big as my iPod nano – and bar some minor sound distortion they’re good for outdoor use.
  • I visited Halifax on Saturday – another local place that I’ve never really been to before. The Piece Hall is well-worth a visit for the small, independent shops. The rest of the town is nice but mostly full of typical high-street shops, so not worth spending much time visiting. And I’m a bit old for Eureka!, even if it is made of wall-to-wall awesomeness.
  • Firefox 3.6 Beta 3 is out. It’s noticably quicker than 3.5, although on my Mac it fails to start if Nightly Tester Tools is enabled. So right now I’m running with barely any extensions enabled.