The liberals have announced the manifesto for Southampton.

They have not given any clues what they propose for the city. They have four pledges.

They are going to keep in touch all year, so you get a leaflet which they admit they lie in.

They are going to protect vital services. Which ones, they have already said they wish to cut bin collections?

Set a fair council tax. Yet the Conservatives have proposed lower tax and cuts in tax, is that not fairer?

And be open and accountable. Whoops they introduced a parking policy which would charge people to park outside their house without any consultation.

In the article they accuse the Conservatives of being less than honest over the bin collection. We have said for 5 years we will keep the weekly bin collection, we have voted on it and put it in our budgets. Equally over parking, we have said all along we will not charge people who do not pay.

They really should pay attention.

Tax Freedom Day this year will be on June 2 in 2008.

This means that you and I will have spent five months of this year working for Gordon Brown and his wayward spending.

Government spending is set to reach £600 billion – £10,000 for person in the UK this year, which is twice as much as in 1997.

Alan does not get it

Alan Whithead is very misleading on the issue of 20mph zones. He wrote to schools along Mr Denham saying how they would introduce zones.

There is a growing trend with labour for not reading detail we have the MPs cheering a budget with increases the tax on the worst off. They then rebel when they realise that it is a Labour government that is taxing the worst off in society.

We have them introducing a car parking policy in Southampton, which will allow them to introduce a charge, for residents to park outside their home, and then they deny it was a policy. Now we have the MP making claims which he can not support. The schemes that are being introduced this financial year are the ones put forward by the Conservatives I know this, because I approved them.They are not introducing any new zones. The 20 is plenty signs are going up in the next few months. So what has Labour done they put an extra 50k in the pot. It will not deliver one new zone.Did you explain that to hazel when she popped down?

Good job Jacqui took her guards

On sky they are reporting that three men were stabbed outside the Kebab shop Jacki Smith went to for a late night kebab with her security in tow to explain how safe London is.

Full story here.

Keeping your word

School zones, our in touch local MPs are fighting so hard they have had meetings with ministers. What a meeting that must have been, the debacle over the tax con budget shows what a shambles the government is in. I am sure they said it was possible, this has never been denied by any political party.

This is the government that never says no. But the campaign that they organised in Southampton had one fatal flaw. They did not do the maths; did they get Alistair to do it for them.So the great roll out of school zones that they campaigned for sent letters to every school child in the city will start immediately since the beast is in power. Ah well no.

They will implement exactly the same number as the Conservatives were proposing. But when has that ever got in the way for labour.

Labour have a simple flaw they simply don't get it. If you make a promise people expect it. Last year we told residents we would cut council tax by 10% for pensioners, we would discount council tax for those who became police specials. Council tax would be set at the rate of inflation. In Sholing I promised traffic calming in and around Middle road. Like all good Conservatives we proposed the first three in our budget and the work in Middle road in being undertaken.

Yes I would like to have done more and I will still wish to go further in Middle road. What labour don't get is just this people expect you to deliver. To say that you will do this and that and re announce money two three four times as if it is new money people expect it, the lack of delivery is the problem. You can tell people as often as you like inflation is at 2.5% but with food, petrol and the cost of living far out stripping this rate people don’t believe you.

Labour continue to tax the poor

Brown has admitted that to tax the poor is not going to happen, is he going to reinstate the 10p rate, NO. What Labour want people to do is to apply to Labour for a fraction of their money back. Thus to keep people wedded to the state for an existence, and so they can control you and your votes.

Labour still does not understand that taxing people and then expecting them to claim there money back is insulting.

Honest and proud people feel claiming the benefits as it's an insult to them. This is part of Labour’s plan you keep more of our money. Labour also gets to expand the public sector thus claim that lower unemployment exists.

They believe the money you earn is there’s I believe the money you earn is yours, that is the fundamental difference and the one Labour has great difficulty in understanding.

Liberal half truths

We all know the liberals can be economical with the truth; the facts have never got in the way for them to tell a good story.In these elections one of the lines they are propagating is that the conservatives were going to cut the roads budget.

So Cllr Jill Baston, I challenge you for evidence. I have a copy of the proposals for next years now this current year’s road budget that the Conservatives would have implemented and I have a copy of what you are doing.

There is only three minor changes in what you are implementing you have cut two road resurfacing projects (both in conservative wards) with the money saved going into the Millbrook roundabout scheme.

The liberals have already had to apologise over lies in a previous leaflet. Which strangely, they don't know who wrote. They do not know who writes the leaflets they don’t what they are passing in council.

How the Labour government has hurt the poor

From Spectator Fraser Nelson who in my opinion is one of the best journalists at the moment.

Why are all these Labour MPs worried about the 10p tax? It is the least of the ways in which this Labour government has hurt the poor over its years in government. Let me count the ways – well, half a dozen anyway:

1) Sink schools. By granting LEAs monopoly control over education provision, bureaucrats have keep bad schools going by forcing children there. It’s the children of the poor, however. Reform points this out in its excellent social mobility report today (pdf, p15). While 47 per cent of students achieved five decent GCSEs last year, this was true for just 20% of those eligible for free schools meals. The inequality is getting worse, not better. To paraphrase Neil Kinnock, is this because the poor kids are thick? Nope. It’s because the Labour Party is on the side of the system - and not the poorest pupils.

2) Worst Hospitals. The NHS, like all bureaucracies, responds best to those who complain loudest – the middle class. So the poorest get the worst deal. Patients in deprived areas, despite being in more need of hip replacements are much less likely to get them – as this seminal Civitas pamphlet shows.

3) Poorest getting poorer. In 2001/02 the disposable income of the poorest 10% was £91 a week. The latest data (for 2005/06) has it as £89 a week (pdf, p100). These are real-terms comparisons with a staggering truth: the poorest are now getting poorer under Labour. Why? Because Brown’s policies are focused on those just below his made-up poverty boundary of 60% of the average income. Cross this arbitrary boundary and you (and your children) can be deemed “lifted out of poverty” and inserted in a Labour Party speech. But the very poorest don’t stand a chance of crossing this boundary – so they are forgotten. Leftie disdain for the lumpenproletariat is alive and well.

4) Welfare Dependency. When Labour came to power 5.7m were on out-of-work benefits. After ten years of the economic boom it’s 5.2m – most of the new jobs have gone to or been created by immigrants on whose work ethic Brown has depended. Once, Labour referred to idleness as a “giant evil”. Now, Brown has institutionalised it.

5) Protection from crime. Those living in poor neighbourhoods are 2 times as likely to be robbed and 2.5 times as likely be a victim of violent crime than those living in rich ones, according to the Home Office (pdf, p117). Where I live in Richmond, police are now everywhere – especially fond of patrolling the crime-free towpath of a spring evening. Head into the crime-ridden estates and there’s barely a police car to be seen. You’re now more likely be shot in Lambeth than East Bronx – but people like me are safer than ever.

6) Taxation. Since Labour came to power the number of income tax payers has rocketed by 20% to 31.6m as more and more of the low-paid are being outrageously caught in the tax trap. Then asked to apply for some of their money back in tax credit and be grateful for it. A quarter of those eligible for tax credits don’t claim them, and don’t enter this labyrinth of paperwork. Result? Brown’s cunning “fiscal drag” has ensnared in his complex tax system millions of families struggling to make ends meet. (HMRC pdf, p2). These are the people hit when the starting rate of tax is doubled to 20p.

Whitehead and biofuels.

In recent weeks the issue of biofuels has come to the forefront. Last week the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation – 2.5 % of fuel now comes from biofuel.

Why is Mr Whitehead and the liberals and labour group in Southampton very quite on this subject? One can guess the reasoning why, the failed Millbrook CHP scheme. The merits are well known but what has been an issue is the fuel source.Mr Whitehead apart from overseeing nearly £1.5 million of public money being spend with nothing to show apart from a few pictures. One of the areas which until very recently Mr Whitehead was pushing was championing was the use of Palm Oil, he says he got government to change the value to 2 ROC’s.

The idea of using palm oil has never been a good one. I objected to the idea back in 2006 saying the idea of transporting a fuel source half way round the world which has serious implications on the wildlife of the area that it is produced (especially the orang-utans) was madness. Now we have nearly every organisation saying how biofuels are producing higher food prices and have bigger carbon emissions.

Government acts?

Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper has announced an enquiry into the 10p tax. This is both insulting and a pretence that they are doing something. Darling said yesterday that he would not rewrite the budget even though it still has to be voted upon. The answer is do not implement the tax cut.

Here is another very simple way out, increase the threshold of taxation, to that of the minimum wage for a 36 hour week.

But what is the point of taking away with one hand to give back with another, this is the trouble with Labour - they can not justify the bureaucracy and complicated forms they have created. The creation of a state that does not allow for independence is the fear for Labour

TAX

And so the election has started, postal votes have been distributed and people are voting. As always these elections are important!!!It will be interesting to see how people vote, local and national issues seem to favour the Conservatives at present, but politics can be strange. Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling seem to be attacking the most vulnerable still in society.

The cut in the 10p rate of tax is crass stupidity and wrong. To increase the tax burden on the poorest in society is wrong, but to imply that this will be corrected by some mechanism in the future shows how the labour party is out of touch.Removal of the bottom element out of taxation in the first place would be a good start. Labour really doesn’t get it, tax can not be punitive and that is what they have created, a tax regime that is punitive.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few weeks.

What is very interesting is watching the Labour party tear itself apart in Westminster over this issue. Last year just like every budget you see the MPs cheering the budget. You now have the very same MPs seeing impending electoral misery and are scurrying round to try and change the policy. The lack of any comment about the abolition of the 10p tax rate until it was actually on the doorsteps, is exactly the sort of hypocrisy and opportunism that turns people off politics.

Conflicting messages from the coalition

One of the decisions that we made as a cabinet was the removal of the left hand ban into Bedford place. One of my regrets is that we did not do this quicker. In December I met with the traders of Bedford place, a rather nice part of the city with a lot of independent shops and bars. They had two wishes one to have Salisbury street car park renamed and the left hand turn reinstated. Both of which seemed reasonable. After much discussion with my colleagues and officers we decided to go ahead with both.

The new administration once they got in stopped this. Why? What reason do they give for this crass stupidity?

This raises a question with the coalition, is Cllr Baston making the decision herself or is the decision that of the cabinet and backbenchers.

Cllr Bogle claims along with Cllr Noon that they want the left turn reinstated. Yet Cllr Baston is ignoring the ward Councillors Thus two questions is Cllr Baston listening to Cllr Bogle and Noon and if so what has she done after listening to the two Cllr’s when she made the decision or is it based on personal opinion, (she is not a civil engineer).What influence do they have on the cabinet?

Yet to the people they don’t understand, what is the point of the ward Cllr’s saying they wish to have a left turn (they are in power), yet the cabinet member appears to making a decision on her own.

If you are in power which they are and they say they wish something the people they are speaking to expect action. The inability of labour Cllr’s to impress on Cllr Baston the importance of this to the traders shows how the divide exists between cabinet and backbenchers on issues that need to be solved. To delay this decision is gross irresponsibility while they wait for Cllr Baston to make her mind up they lose business which can not be good.. Her failure to take action is having a detrimental impact on our city.

Denham to replace Brown!

I personally don’t see it happening; equally I don’t see the Labour party disposing of Prime Minister Brown before the next General Election.

Ladbroke have released the prices of who will replace Brown. I believe it is too early to be speculating. The unfortunate thing is Labour seem to think it is Brown who is at fault for the position they currently occupy in the polls.

Historically Britain does not do one party state. The change in fortunes is based partly on the length of time Labour has been in office. 1997 is considered a long time ago and people like change, just like 1979-1997 was too long for the conservatives to be in power, by many.

Obviously party members will disagree; Labour and Conservatives will always say that they should always be in power.

One of the major problems facing the Labour is the lack of any big ideas. The 2008 budget was a failure and the legacy of Browns last budget is being felt by the worst paid in the UK. The defence that people can claim money through tax credits etc is flawed as people will see a reduction in the pay packet. Why hit the poorest in society still remains unanswered?
What Labour MPs fear is not just 80 or 90 of there largely unemployable comrades getting their P45s; it is the loss of patronage throughout the state, which they have created which is now financed by the state. A Labour defeat would have severe personal consequences for much of the clientele. They know it, and are panicking.

Economic incompetence

Very good article by Fraser Nelson on the current economic situation and the way Brown has poured oil on the fire;

1) He adopted the Tory inflation target of 2.5%, which was right for its time. But this was not designed to detect or deal with an asset bubble.

2) In instructing the Bank of England to deal in CPI rather than RPI he ordered it not to take notice of the housing market (RPI contains mortgage repayment costs, CPI does not). So rather than ask it to tackle house prices, he went the other way. This meant the bank kept interest rates way too low (the 2.0% CPI target is no substitute for a 2.5% RPI target as RPI is at least a full point ahead of CPI).

3) This meant money was too cheap. As night follows day, this led to an asset bubble.

4) Brown saw this as a one-off adjustment to a new era of low inflation and permanently cheap credit. He was a disciple of Greenspan, who thought we had entered a new era of productivity and could have cheap credit. This was a fatal misdiagnosis.

5) Brown was relaxed about Britain’s soaring debt-to-income ratios, and would angrily say that the soaring (bubble) assets somehow cancelled debt out. He either didn’t realise fully, or didn’t care about, how house prices were fuelling demand as everyone was borrowing against the made-up value of their property

You can read the whole article here

The race is on according to the Sun

After 289 days in office the Sun has started the game of who will be the next leader of the Labour party.

When is a policy not a policy?

The new Labour and Liberal Democrat beast that is running Southampton appear to asking themselves this very question. The recent approach to parking shows that confusion is at the heart of the beast. The ability to introduce a policy to charge people to park in residents parking zones is now in place, the leader of the council has said that they will have no plan to do it in the next 12 months. We have elections for the next 24 months, thus is reasonable to conclude form this that the administration plan to introduce such a policy in April 2009.

Some members say it is not a policy but I have found a few clues:

The policy is quite clear it says it on the front page of the document: ADOPTION OF A STRATEGIC-LEVEL PARKING POLICY FOR THE CITY

The second clue that it was a policy was on the recommendation of the report:

To adopt the policy at Appendix 2 as the basis for providing and managing parking in the City.

When they read appendix 2 they would have noted

2.12 Finally, there is a clear recognition that the provision and availability
of parking facilities has a value, and that users should expect to
contribute towards their provision, maintenance and management.
Charging policy is also seen as having the potential to influence travel
behaviour.

3.2 The provision and management of parking facilities creates a
significant level of cost to the Council and users should thus
pay for their use in recognition of the benefit they provide.
Charges should be set at levels that reflect the value of the
facility and that act as an incentive to consider the use of other
modes of travel – this provides the basis on which the Council
charges for the use of car parks and for parking permits, applies
differential charging scales to different facilities, and applies penalty
charges for contraventions of the operational regulations.


I do hope that this make it easy for them to know what they have passed.