Catch up Thursday

I took a few days off because of the easter holidays for the children. Also pretty clear that once the election gets called next week I am not going to be seeing a lot of them in the evenings. Will always try and do breakfast with them!

Been delivering and canvassing most of this week and had a meeting over the pretty ridculous scheme being proopsed for Hook Road that has gone to planning appeal.

Easter Sunday

Good day yesterday. Lunch with parents and family in Old Malden interspersed with some church. Quite tired today at the end of the ‘pre’ ‘pre’ election and the start of the ‘pre’ election on Tuesday. Also good to see more daylight in the evenings, makes knocking on doors a little bit easier.

Tomorrow will be spent catching up with paperwork and updating the campaign diary ready for meeting on Wednesday of all ward Chairman.

Borough wide newspaper arrived Thursday and that and targeted letters going out this week before election gets called next week (4th or 5th). Then we start again. Good teams in place all over Borough now, just a small job to start plugging a few gaps where people are away for Easter.

Howard Flight and the Lib Dem Flight of Fancy

When the Howard Flight story began to break I had some sympathy for the man. Until that was I heard that he had been warned by Michael Howard’s office on two occasions that he should not say the things he did because they were not true. It is quite clear there are no secret plans for massive cuts. This is particularly clear by the way in which Blair himself was caught out last week trying to spin Conservative proposals into something that was a fabrication. As I have said on this blog before the nonsense of the Labour attempt to smear is that two thirds of the slower growth rate is accounted for by the fact that Labour have themselves pledged to make those reductions.

It is rare that I consider a politician odious but I have to say that the current secretary of state for health (whom Jeremy Paxman described as the “labour attack dog”) is really deeply unpleasant and unappealing. He too attempted to spin that somehow our health proposal was to make people pay for operations which is itself a down right lie. All access to the health service would be free at the point of delivery. What is clear though is that the health service has not the capacity to deliver the operations it currently requires. To give a real example my understanding is that Kingston hospital is tuning away 50 pregnancies a month from its maternity department due to lack of capacity

Labour spin and deception are nothing in comparison with the methods of total spin used by the Lib Dems in Richmond Park. In a recent tawdry leaflet they have wrongly and fraudulently claimed that the Conservatives (who are the opposition in Kingston Council) were proposing to increase charges for the elderly and disable home care then it is no surprise that Jack Straw has called the Lib Dems the “Vultures of Politics”. To set the record straight it was in fact the Liberals themselves who were hiking the charges, as well as introducing means testing, even though this is totally contrary to their own national policy for free personal care. To make it worse we now know that less than 10% of those taking this care have bothered to apply for means testing as it such a debasing and humiliating thing to make them do.

Unfortunately for Richmond Park Liberals it is not just us that are saying this; The Kingston Labour Party, the Surrey Comet, The Kingston Informer (no website), The Kingston Guardian, The Richmond and Twickenham Times, Age Concern Kingston, the Kingston Centre for Independent Living and the Kingston Council website (sorry, not able to make the link as yet again the Council website is not working!!) all agree with us. Our budget proposals were to take away the means testing and revert to the previous lower and fairer charges. Just a shame that the local MP could not control his Council and bring them to heel. The Conservative proposal would not have increased Council tax and would have cost only £65k or the equivalent of 0.001% extra Council tax they could have levied which would have taken the Lib Dem Tax rose from 4.99% to 5.00%. They had options and instead they chose to stamp on the elderly and disabled of Kingston rather than do the right thing.

Rotary

Attended a rotary lunch today. Very good event with a good attendance. The Greater London Authority member for SW London, Tony Arbour, was giving a speech on the responsibilities, or maybe that is irresponsibility, of the Mayor for London. Struck me what an excellent charitable organisation Rotary was for bringing businessmen, and those with an interest in charitable works, together.

This evening was spent delivering, mopping up a few roads before we launch into a borough wide newspaper next week.

The £35bn Cuts Claim

Following last nights blog on the budget I thought readers might find this report interesting. Draw your own conclusions.

The Great Budget Bribe

Never would I have believed I would see a budget painted as a give away that actually raised more tax than it gave back.

This Government has still not learnt when to stop spinning and painting one picture when the reality is different.

£200 Council Tax rebate for households over 65 - well yes but only for one year, the year when an election is due. Totally outrageous but I think it will backfire because voters are not stupid.

Free bus transport for over 65's - Yes, but only after we have had legislation and even then it will only be off peak travel. In itself fine but why not tell it straight instead of just spinning something different?

And then the plain lies.... Labour say "Tory Cuts". The Conservatives are not proposing £35 billion of cuts because we intend spending to rise in education and health. In any case Labour has a damn cheek because £22bn of the savings are the savings they identified in the Gershon review!! What we have said is that spending should rise less fast than it would under the tax and spend Labour Government.

Of course the Lib Dems are silent in this debate because it is their policy to have higher overall taxation and spend even more that either us or Labour. In fact the taxation difference between Conservative and Lib Dems is £8bn. We would cut taxes by £4bn but they would increase taxes by £4bn

Catholics abort Labour?

Michael Howard seems to have created another storm over an issue that for some is a strange change of battleground: abortion. Interesting that it was not a policy announcement merely an interview with all party leaders for Cosmopolitan magazine. (there appears not to be an online version of this magazine)

Should the date at which abortion is legal be reduced to 20 weeks from the current 24 weeks? Well back in January I got asked this question on this blog. Below is what I said then and I stand by it today.

Pro choice but again with caveats. I believe that the current date at which
terminations can be allowed should be reduced. Science has changed and moved on
and I think there is a real chance that we are currently destroying sentient
human beings that could exist outside of the womb.

Some claim that there are circumstances of foetal abnormality that can still be identified after this time but I do wonder how much of that is merely the current set of test times and whether they too could be reformed. Is there a Doctor who can answer this for me?

One of the stranger aspects of this is the supposition that somehow Catholics were more likely to support Labour than the Conservatives. I am not sure that this is always the case but would be interested to hear what others, especially Catholics, might say about this.

Channel 4 are watching

Interesting news that Channel 4 want to follow this blog during the lection campaign as part of their election coverage.

Should be interesting to see what they make of it!

Lord Lamont Dinner

Last night we held a fundraising dinner with Lord Lamont of Lerwick.

Excellent evening that coincided with the publication of a report (Whatever happened to the golden legacy?) that says that the success of the economy today is only because of the Conservative Government of the early and mid 90’s.

In fact the Evening Standard even called Lamont a “Brilliant Chancellor”. (Lamont paved the way for Britain’s boom.)

I think the time is coming when we Conservatives need to stop apologising about Governments of the past, as much of what was done was successful. After all people voted for it. As has now been demonstrated the events of Black Wednesday did not signify as high a level of economic mismanagement as some would try to spin.

This morning we were mopping up the final bits of delivery before we change to pre election activities next week.

Sick Blogger

Apologies to those who like regular blogs but I have been struck down with gastric flu the last few days, seems to be going around the children.

Should be back to normal blogging next week.

Bed crisis at Hospital

I have had a call from a resident who has a mother she says is sleeping on a camp bed in Surbiton Hospital.

I have rung the PCT (they run Surbiton hospital) and they confirm they have had to put up extra beds in the "day room", although they would not confirm that they were camp beds. They blame Kingston Hospital (the acute hospital) who have a bed crisis.

Spoke to the Chief Executive of the hospital and she confirmed there was a problem with more admissions from A&E than normal.

Our hospital and it's staff do a great job. But the job they do sould not be in difficult circumstances if you consider how much tax we have now paid and the Government have directed towards the health service. We should have an adaptable service that meets the needs of the patients and it is clear the current organisational structure of the health service does not do that.

Day away

Spent today in York on meetings for work. Trains worked well and very impressive that you can get there in under two hours.

This evening had a meeting to discuss the constitution of the Council, not something to et the normal voter ablaze.

After that I attended a residents meeting for those against the telephone mast in Raeburn Avenue. Good meeting with a lot of people there and a strategy to really have a go at Orange over this.

Not feeling to great this evening and hope this is not something I am going down with.

Quiet weekend

Had a fairly quiet weekend. Some delivery on Saturday into St. Mark's and Surbiton Hill. Being Mothering Sunday also some work on getting presents from the hildren and lunch organised for my wife.

Another busy week ahead.

Grand Avenue School identifies the election issues

Paid a visit to Grand Avenue School to talk to some of their classes about being a politician and trying to explain to them what a politician does and what the difference is between local and central Government.

Of the two classes I spoke to both ended up in a debate about tax. Quite surprising considering the age. Even for them tax is an issue, manly because their parents and carers pay for it. Tax is all around us and when you tell kids of that age how much of their payment for sweets go to the Government they can soon understand how serious tax is as an issue. As ever all we need do is find the language that the voter will understand!!

Budget Council meeting

Well what do we do with this Lib Dem Council? They have seen the number of people employed by the Council rise by 22% in 4 years and add over £21m to the annual wage bill. We give them a method by which they could reduce staff by less than 1%, concentrating our reductions on bureaucrats, policy officers and Human Resource managers and they refuse it. Instead of our below inflation Council Tax increase they go for a whopping 5% rise, the highest in London.

We even gave them a method to remove the savage means tested scheme for personal care charges for the elderly and disabled and they refused it.

So much for their policy of free personal care when all they needed to do was make a small budget saving of £65k. It seems our Lib Dem MP and his Council are happy to go into this election with an attack on the elderly and disabled.

I met a lady at an Old Malden coffee morning last week who was a Lib Dem supporter but now feels at home with the Conservatives. How the political landscape in Kingston and Surbiton is changing.

Old Malden traffic calming

Last night we had a meeting on the traffic scheme proposed for the Manor Drive area of Old Malden.

Our job was to review what had gone on in the committee that decided to push ahead with the scheme. The residents had asked for it to be reviewed because they were unhappy at various aspects, in particular the method of consultation.

An odd meeting in some ways. The Co Chairmen of the committee that decided it agreed that there was new information they did not have when they took the decision. They also agreed that it would have been better had the results of the consultation gone back to the special residents working group that had been set up to look at the scheme. They even admitted that making the decision without reference to the residents broke their own consultation code the committee had adopted. And yet they refused to countenance the matter being redecided. Instead they hid behind a fig leaf that if they did not implement they “might” lose the funding. Now tell me that money does not lead and the proposal being a good one take second place?

I accept that some form of traffic measures need to happen, as do the residents, but there is a real need for Councillors to take heed of residents advice and not ride rough shod over their views when it suits them. Still we have been here before with this Council and flawed consultations!