Bus Stops and Budgets

I spent a wet Wednesday morning trialling around Holland and Hurst Green looking a sites for new permanent bus stops. Southdown PSV have taken over from Metrobus as the local operator and have changed the service to ensure a regular half hourly service to Oxted and Redhill six days per week. According to both the operator and local taxi drivers (who have been be-moaning their loss of business) this has been a total success. I hope we managed the tricky balance of bus passengers, other road users and residents who have a bus stop outside their homes. I am sure I will hear if we didn't!

As a council we are starting to put together our budget for the next financial year. It is going to be a tough one. The Labour Government having indebted British taxpayers money on a colossal scale have no money for underfunded Councils like Tandridge and we are very aware that local residents suffering from lower incomes, the threat or reality of redundancy are not able to support a large increase in council tax. But with a large fall in our income from other sources the difficulty will be to protect the front line services which are so highly valued by those who use them.

Tandridge is a safe place, but our position near London, Kent Sussex and the M25 means that we sometimes get the odd case of serious criminality - such as the attempted armed robbery on the Londis shop and attacks on the One-Stop and two weeks ago an attempted attack on a girl in the middle of Oxted in broad daylight on a Sunday. Fortunately the girl managed to get away, but these acts demonstrate the need for a partnership between a properly funded and democratically accountable Police force and local people who keep an eye on their neighbourhood and report all criminal and anti-social acts.

Labour isn't Working

Labour have always claimed to be the party that best represents the disadvantaged in society. This claim has always been false, but yesterday's report from George Osborne just shows how fale it is. Since coming to power in 1997 Labour has presided over:

- 900,000 more people in extreme poverty and the gap in life expectancy becoming greater than in Victorian times.
- the imposition of stealth taxes most heavily on the poor. Mr Osborne asks: "Is it fair to reward enterprise and effort, yet for someone earning £100 a week, for every extra pound they earn they take home just 6p?"
- a failure to undertake schools reform meaning that the gap between the poorest and richest pupils is widening. Social mobility is falling too. This year just 176 pupils on free school meals got three As at A-level.
- a shift of burden from today's Britons to the next generation: As Mr Brown seeks to save his skin he is doing so by recklessly increasing public borrowing to pay for tax give aways today that will have to be paid for by future generations.

Fairly daming stuff

Hat tip: Conservative Home

I'm Back

Apologies for the lack of activity over the past couple of weeks. I was on holiday and then trying desperately to catch-up at work for having been on holiday. Sometimes makes you wonder what the point of going away actually is.

Anything not much to report locally - all seems to have been quite quiet - though I stand ready to be corrected.

Nationally David Milliband started what appears to have been an attempt to rest the poisoned chalice that is being leader of the Labour Party from Gordon Brown and then promptly went off on holiday. So looks like more leadership speculation will take place throughout the rest of 2008.

Nowhere left to hide for Labour

Losing Glasgow East is on a par with any byelection loss by the Tories in the 1990s. This seat was so safe they didn't even bother canvassing in the past, but no longer. Brown is a looser and Labour now know it - the question is whether they will do anything about it?

Another By-election, Another Bribe

So the Government today decided to postpone the 2p increase in fuel duty. David Cameron asked the obvious question at Prime Ministers' questions today - was the increase anything to do with the Glasgow East by-election next week. The Government denies that it is, but have look at Brown's record and make your own judgement:

Autumn 'Phoney Election' - cut in inheritaince tax
Crewe and Nantwich By-election - 10p tax U-turn
Glasgow East - Delay in fuel tax rise.

Browns Maastricht Moment?

A majority of 9 bought with the votes of the DUP - 316 to 309. The comparisons with the Major government's victory over rebels 16 years ago are clearly there; Brown is now struggling to exert authority over his party and the Labour rebellion was bigger than that Major faced. However there are differences too - it didn't get as far as a vote of confidence 42 days is unlikely to divide the Labour parties as fundamentally as Europe did to the Conservatives, but most importantly the public broadly support the government on this measure.

Personally I was against, the state is already powerful enough.

Labour's Gerrymandering

See this report on Conservative Home which demonstrates how this government has channelled funds to Labour's heartlands.

Enough said

Another U Turn?

First in a desperate attempt it was the 10p tax, will it now be tax on fuel and cars?

I don't see how Gordon Brown can afford either politically or financially to give in this time - but at what cost? Politically if Brown can't stand up to the protesters then what chance will he have in getting the 42 day detention law through and if that also goes, then what credibility this government has left must surely follow. Financially after the £2.7bn attempt to buy votes in Crewe the Treasury cannot afford to lose even a penny more. However not giving in will surely hurt Brown's popularity even more. Whatever will the PM do?

Budget Blues

With taxes up and borrowing Darling's budget did little to prepare us for the possible recession heading our way. We have been very fortunate over the past 14 years that a set of tough decisions made in the early 1990s combined with a great deal of luck have kept the UK economy continually growing. However Labour have done nothing to prepare for the bad times, so if we do hit recession over the next few years I expect it could get quite miserable.

'An Incompetence'

If this is how the Prime Minister refers to a member of his Cabinet what are the rest of us to think?

The fact that he feels it is better to go on record saying that about Peter Hain speaks volumes about the quality of some of his Ministers. Surely we are deserving of Ministers who are both competent and honest. Failing to meet either test should merit the loss of office.

Incompetence or Corruption?

The events of recent days have shown this current Government to clearly be incompetant, but much more worryingly the appearence of what may be corrupt practices within the Labour party really must undermine everything the Prime Minister claimed he stands for. Following on from the cash for honours scandal it appears that a Labour government that promised to be whiter than white is now both morally and politically bankrupt. With no vision for the future and lacking the competence to govern, surely Mr Brown is now regretting his decision not to go to the country when he had a fighting chance of winning.
I think that therefore the country is in for a period of drift and mismanagement while the government turns in on itself.

Housing Cock-up or Conspiracy

Is the Government trying to complete kill the housing market? Because it seems to be. The imposition of HIPS on all properties by the year end is just thing to stop all activity. Things are slow enough as it is but without people being willing to sell flats and small houses (for which HIPS will be a proportionately greater cost) then there will be fewer buyers for other properties. With 67% of agents already reporting a fall of properties coming onto the market, it is appears likely that the market will be near stagnant before Christmas.

Resign!

Tonight following a terrible error of judgement and the poor performance of those working for him, there will be a call for the resignation of a public figure - Steve McClaren the England Football manager. He might not go tonight, but following England's failure to qualify for the European Championship, following a very poor performance, it is inconceivable that he will still be in place for the next major competition.

This should be a lesson for all those in public life - those in positions of responsibility must in the end be accountable for their actions and those who work for them. When they get it very wrong they have to go. In the week that the Government has lost the confidential details of millions of people perhaps the Chancellor and Prime Minister should be considering their positions rather than pinning the blame squarely on the actions of a junior employee (who has now himself resigned).

Queens Speech - Plannning Reform

One of the key measures annouced in Tuesday's Queen's Speech was a Planing Reform Bill. The main purpose is to 'streamline' the procedures for gaining planning permission for major infrastucture projects (Motorways, Nuclear Power Plants etc). While it is clear that the current system can lead to a very long and drawn out process which the Government are right to target for reform, it does unfortunately appear that the role of local communities in making planning decisions will be further diminished, with Central Government taking an even tighter grip over the decisions that impact our lives.

100 Day Premiership

Only with some distance from the events of Tuesday has it really dawned on me - Gordon Brown has no new ideas of his own and absolutely no new direction for the country. Tuesday's Comprehensive Spending Review should have been the opportunity to set out the strategic vision for the rest of his premiership (or at least for the next 5 years) - it being the result of a couple of years work in HMT and 10 years or brooding. Instead the main focus appeared to be on stealing Conservatives ideas on inheritance tax outlined only days before. The rest of it was just tinkering at the edges.

At the end of his first 100 days it looks like the Prime Minister has run out of steam. Labour look to be on catch-up for the rest of this Parliament with the Conservative Party setting the agenda.

The non-election fiasco was a mistake for Brown, but he would have recovered. In retrospect I think Tuesday's non-event CSR will be marked as the beginning of the end of his premiership.

Tandridge Council Tax Payers to Pay for Brown's Mismanagement

Buried within the documents produced by the Treasury this afternoon are some figures for local government spending. Despite giving councils more responsibilities, such as paying for free Bus passes for the elderly, Government grant will only go up by 1% (and that is in total). For councils like Tandridge where Government settlements have normally been worse than the average, we are looking at real reductions in Government funding - which will have to be met with higher taxes locally, cuts to services (or even more efficiency savings).

I think the - non-partisan- local government association put it best:
”This is the worst settlement for local government in a decade. Councils will continue to work hard for the people they serve but they face tough choices. The Chancellor’s announcement will mean above inflation rises in bills for council taxpayers and businesses, and there remains a black hole in funding for the care of the elderly.”

We are now all paying the price for the Prime Minister's profligate spending when the economy was doing well.

New Chancellor - Stolen Ideas

Two of the Chancellor's big pre-budget ideas were stolen from the Conservatives. The idea of taxing flights rather than passengers come straight from the Quality of Life Report while the move to increase the inheritance tax limit (albeit for married couples only) seems particularly hypocritical given Labour's reaction to George Osborne's more ambitious proposal last week.

End to Brown Bounce

With the conference season over, and the PM's humiliating climbdown (see his interview with Andrew Marr) on the timing of the General Election we now seem to have seen a return to business as usual. With the News of the World reporting a Conservative lead of 6% in marginal seats and today's Sunday Times reporting a 3% lead overall, Labour's post Brown poll lead has evaporated. The Conservative Party are again setting the political agenda

With May 2009 likely (in my view) to be the date of the next election, I am now sure that this will be accompanied with a change in Prime Minister.

Broken Promises

By announcing a cut in UK troop numbers deployed in Iraq, Gordon Brown has already broken one of his promises on becoming PM - to announce major policy decisions to Parliament before briefing the press.

You wouldn't have to be too much of a cynic to conclude that the timing - drawing the Conservative Party conference wasn't coincidental. An autumn election appears to draw ever closer.

Brown's Speech/Autumn Election

The thing that struck me about Brown's speech is that he thinks he can continue to get away with re-heating previous spending committments(or announcing new unfunded ones) time after time. I am sure that he realises very well that when his 'Brown Bounce' finally wears off (as it will - even not this year) that British voters will twig that this is a continuation of the spin seen in the Blair-Brown years. Given this - what is he playing at?

Perhaps the public finance figures, also published yesterday, provide the answer. These show a worsening in the public sector deficit, worse that projected in the last Budget which was already forcing Brown as Chancellor to reign in on spending. This therefore is not good news for the Government.

It would therefore not be unreasonable for Brown to seek his own mandate from the country while people are feeling wealthy and are still willing to belive his promises rather than examining his record.

If I were him thats exactly what I would do - the polls suggest he would score a clear victory, Labour activists are buoyed and would campaign with enthusiasm. However, Brown is a cautious politician and he won't want to throw away the job he has wanted for so long.

The press today say he will wait until after the Conservative Conference before making a decision, but in my view the odds are now in favour of a General Election this year.