Minns: 'Let them eat crisps!'

So the council tax rise in Hull is only going to cost each household the price of a packet of crisps a week.

But these aren't ordinary crisps.

These are Walker's Sensations sweet chilli crisps!

Not so sure that's the right analogy in countering our image as a 'fat city' but I hear they're very popular in the Avenues!

The Lib Dems Budget, they claim, will only cost each household 50p a week for council services - a 3.8% percent rise.

Sadly, this is being subsidised by hard working families. Healthy school meals - universally free under Labour but scrapped by Minns - are going up 10p a meal. That's a 9% rise - a whopping three times the rate of inflation to rake in £100,000 a year.

So a family with three kids at primary will now have to find £702 a year for healthy school dinners that they had free under Labour!

It's effectively a tax on families, a tax on healthy meals and a disinsentive in the fight against obesity.

So guess what some families will be tempted to give their kids?

I bet it won't be the Sweet Chilli variety.

Humberside lives again!

I'm sure very few Telegraph journalists have ventured north of Watford.

But you'd think that at least they'd know where Hull was!

The Telegraph's website has just created a new on-line interactive political map of the UK. It's all very whizz bang and they must have spent thousands on it.

Unfortunately, all three Hull consituencies have been moved to North Lincolnshire - Hull East is sandwiched between Grimsby and Doncaster North, Hull West and Hessle now has Brigg and Goole and Cleethorpes as neighbours and even Hull North is south of the Humber.

I'm sure Terry Geraghty will be delighted!

Minns Spins in Bins

Glad to see the officers and the GMB are trying to come to a sensible agreement over the dispute over rubbish collection in Hull on Christmas Day and New Year's Day.

But it's not been helped by our childish Lib Dem leader using the press to bully refuse workers into worse pay and conditions.

A £250 bonus payment for working a day over Christmas might seem a lot but their pay and conditions have been radically restructured over the years.

But it's as nothing to the thousands of pounds of council tax given to a London PR company that helped to get Minns and his grossly exaggerated flood damage figures on the media 24/7 ('There's been £350m DAMAGE!..no £200M!..ok, er,..£51m') which caused insurance premiums to double in some parts of the city.

Then his claim that binmen in Hull were amongst the best paid in the country on a starting salary of £22,374 was exposed as a lie when Labour's Daren Hale proved it was actually £14,800.

And don't take my word for it on bullying - even his former colleagues are revealing the truth.

In a six-page e-mail sent to all councillors at the Guildhall, Councillor Joyce Korczak Fields claimed she was "bullied, threatened and blackmailed" by the Lib Dems.

I remember on local election night chatting to a pal when Minns bounded over and excitedly said: "Shall we take a sweepstake on who's going to be the first of my lot to defect?"

So there you go.

They steal free school meals from your kids

They kick public sector workers at Xmas

and they even have contempt for their own

People have woken up to you Carl.

And they're getting organised.

There IS such a thing as a free lunch

Really must congratulate West Hull Labour Party for putting on the Thank You event for John and Tony at the KC.

Sally Waters from Alan Johnson's office worked tirelessly in planning a fantastic do and raised thousands of pounds for next year's council elections.

Tony's speech was very moving and the anecdotes were hilarious. Especially the one about.....actually, I'd better not!

But what struck me was how well TB looks now. He's lost quite a few pounds and it seems the premature aging seems has reversed - and this from a man who's charged with the simple task of trying peace to the Middle East!

I don't think people realise the stress politicians - local and national - have to deal with. They never switch off, they're always on call and they can be sacked every four years irrespective of whether they're doing a good job or not!

So as each year goes by, I become less judgemental of politicians from different parties.

I have friends from all shades of the polticial spectrum. We all want to make things better - our differences lie in the priorities and the approach.

But when it comes to our children , you'd think we'd all share common ground.

Which is why the Lib Dems decision to axe Free Healthy School Meals in Hull continues to anger and frustrate me.

How can anyone NOT see the social and educational benefits of making sure each primary school child has a full stomach for the day ahead? If we're really serious about tackling the ticking timebomb of obesity, we need to instill healthy eating habits now.

The Lib Dems say that those who are entitled for Free School Meals will claim them. But a recent study found that 250,000 children eligible for FSM, don't eat them. Stigma plays a big part in this.

The interim evaluation of Eat Well Do Well by Professor Derek Colquhoun confirmed children became more focused, performed better and the classrooms were calmer.

Where Hull led, others are following. Scotland is now piloting a similar in several areas scheme and Wales may consider implementing it.

But in our city, take up of School Meals has in less than two months dropped from 62%to 45%

All that good work thrown away because the health and achievement of our children is, according to this Lib Dem council, not a priority.

Seconds for free school meals?

Great to see that the legacy of Eat Well Do Well continues to have ramifications across the UK.

The Scottish Executive, having studied our universal school meals programme, will today provide free lunch for more than 35,000 primary school children for six months in five areas across Scotland.

I seriously believe that the Hull pilot will be held up as a turning point in the fight against child obesity.

The University of Hull evaluation of Eat Well Do Well will be out this year, which should confirm the initial findings that pupils' concentration and readiness to learn was improving.

Hopefully this study will spark a real debate into what we can do to give our children life-long healthy eating habits and what price we're prepared to pay for it.

Liberation, liberation, liberation

In the week that Phil and Kirsty gave Hull its now yearly kicking, I was really proud to see our sons and daughters making history in Westminster - again.

The cast of Hull Truck Youth Theatre's Slavers last night became the first actors and actresses to ever perform at the House of Commons to mark the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. They perfomed in Westminster Hall, just after children from around the world - including Hull again - discussed slavery in a special parliamentary debate organised by the British Council and JP.

The play Slavers, by my mate Rupert Creed, is a really, really powerful piece of theatre - a ‘back-to-the-future story’ that recreates the tale of the slave trade and its abolition through the eyes of young people in Hull.

More than 200 people crammed into the Grand Committee room to see it and we all witnessed a very moving performance from such a talented cast with pupils from Hull College, Trinity House, Archbishop Thurstan, Endeavour High and Malet Lambert.

To top it off, Hull's Freedom Road singers performed on the Commons terrace at the after-show reception.

All-in-all, it was great to see that 200 years after Wilberforce, Hull people still making their mark in the corridors of power - only this time, they were all wearing hoodies!