Cllr Marc Ramsbottom

Manchester's Labour dominated Council have hit city centre residents with a double whammy after introducing parking charges on a Sunday they now propose a massive 137% increase in charges for the Residents Parking Scheme.

During last year's local elections, Labour promised a new Residents Parking Scheme for city centre residents. Having failed to deliver on their election promises, residents now face a massive hike in charges to park on the street near their home.

Over 20 million working people will be better off next year after Liberal Democrats in the Coalition Government delivered the biggest ever increase in the income tax personal allowance in the Budget.

The massive £3.5bn tax cut for working people delivers:

• The biggest ever single uplift in the tax threshold
• A personal allowance of £9,205 in April 2013
• 21 million working people getting an extra £220 tax cut
• Brings the total tax cut for basic rate tax payers to £550
• Brings the total number of people lifted out of tax to 2 million.

Manchester Lib Dem Leader and City Centre Councillor Marc Ramsbottom took to the streets of the city centre recently and sold The Big Issue in the North for a day. Wanting to find out what life was like as a vendor, Marc quickly sold five magazines on his pitch outside the Cornerhouse Theatre on Oxford Road.

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg used his speech to the Party's Spring conference in NewcastleGateshead to call for the forthcoming budget to be a "budget for fairness" and pledged that it would help working familes.

The Deputy Prime Minister pledged that by 2015 Britain would have seen an end to control orders, the first gay marriages and the first elections to the House of Lords.

Fairer taxes, promoting green jobs, protecting your civil liberties - these are just some of the achievements of the Liberal Democrats in government.

We're building a freer, greener and more liberal country - and stopping some of the worst excesses of the Conservatives. Find out more in this infographic.

Lib Dem City Centre Councillor Marc Ramsbottom is backing south Manchester Lib Dem MP John Leech's camapign to give Alan Turing a full posthumous pardon. Alan Turing was a famous mathematician and computer scientist who worked a a code breaker during the second worl war at Bletchley Park. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German war codes and played a leading light in the development of the first computer in Manchester. Turing died in 1954 after poisoning himself. He had been convicted of gross indecency at a time when homosexuality remained illegal.

City Centre Lib Dem Councillor Marc Ramsbottom has backed plans to revamped the struggling Triangle shopping Centre. Plans by its owners to revamp the listed building were unveiled to the Council which will also include relocating the Big Wheel in Exchange Square. The building, which was original a Produce and Corn Exchange, was heavily damaged after the IRA bomb, and turned into shopping centre in 1997. But the report admits that it's been a commercial failure, suffering from being 'detached and right at the edge of the shopping circuit'. It's problems are exacerbated by the position of the Manchester Wheel and 'excessive clutter and barriers to access'.

Following a Freedom of Information request by Cllr Marc Ramsbottom, Labour Town Hall Parking bosses have revealed that they have raked in £12,930 on the first day after introducing parking charges on a Sunday. The Council confirmed that 431 Fixed Penalty parking charge notices were issued on Sunday 30th October compared to only 126 on the Saturday before - almost a fourfold increase. Many residents and motorists complained they were caught unaware of the exact date when Sunday charges were coming in with only a tiny notice on the parking meters themselves to warn drivers.

In his keynote speech to the Liberal Democrat Conference, Party Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has outlined his goals for the Government and the country over the coming years. He reiterated his commitment to liberal values on the environment and human rights and his determination to ensure a fair chance for every child, saying "every child can do good things, great things, if only we give them the opportunities they deserve."

Within weeks of the local elections, Labour have already broken their promises to city centre residents by voting through a massive 18% rise in on-street parking charges - now making parking in Manchester the highest outside London.

They now also look set to extend charging to Sunday and from 7am to 7pm on other days despite protest from residents. Lib Dems demanded that the increases be reviewed at a recent Council committee, but arrogant Labour councillors described the meeting as 'a waste of their time' and refused to reconsider their plans.