Sunday, 31 January, 2010
 | Should Gordon Birtwistle resign? |
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A series of interesting questions came up yesterday around my fellow Prospective Parliamentary Candidates, Gordon Birtwistle and Julie Cooper.
The first was whether Gordon Birtwistle should stand again for election to Burnley Borough Council on May 6th. The second was whether it wouldn’t be better for him to resign as Leader of the Council immediately to concentrate on fighting the election, so letting a replacement Leader concentrate on the important task of steering Burnley Council through a period of particularly tough budgeting.
These questions were then extended to Julie Cooper, who while not up for re-election as a councillor in May is Leader of the Labour group and so too has a demanding role to play over the next few months.
Some say that Gordon Birtwistle is hedging his bets just in case the good people of Burnley don’t vote for him in the numbers he hopes.
That might indeed be the case, but my concern is that with the parlous state of Burnley Council’s finances, any Council Leader must first and foremost, concentrate on that job. Surely the Lib Dems have other candidates they feel are capable of stepping into Councillor Birtwistle’s shoes. Darren Reynolds perhaps? Or maybe Justin Birtwistle would like to follow in his father’s footsteps?
Not convinced that Burnley will remain Labour, it may be that Julie Cooper is hedging her bets too, but again the issue must be that a group leader must be able to concentrate on council work at this crucial time. I wonder which one of Labour’s councillors has his or her eye on that job.
So, it seems like we have a couple of councillors who don’t have the courage to concentrate on the important matter of explaining to the people of Burnley and Padiham why they should be the one to represent the constituency on the national stage, but are so desperate to have a job after the elections they are hedging their bets.
Worse still it appears we have two councillors who don’t seem willing to hand over the reins of power to others in their party at this critical time for the council and for Burnley.
That speaks volumes.
Richard
Friday, 15 January, 2010
| Aspiration - the reality |
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I have no doubt that Labour in Burnley will try and say it is the party of aspiration.
Well, let’s look at the facts:
Despite Labour’s rhetoric, its policies have failed to improve social mobility. Independent research by the Sutton Trust published in December 2007, found that Britain has the lowest social mobility in the developed world.
There are now 400,000 more families in severe poverty under Labour - the number of families living in severe poverty rose from 1.4 million in 1998-99 to 1.8 million in 2005-06.
Despite Labour’s complex system of tax credits and allowances, the least well-off people are still taxed the most. The government statistics office found that the poorest fifth of households pay a higher proportion of their income in taxes than any other group.
As for education, pupils on free school meals are 181 times more likely not to get a single good GCSE than to get three As at A-level. In fact children from wealthy backgrounds are now four times more likely to go to university.
It really is time for change in Burnley. Only Conservatives support aspiration so that people from every background, not just the rich, have the chance to get on in life.
Richard
Sunday, 10 January, 2010
| Islam4UK march in Wootton Bassett |
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Last week, the extremist group Islam4UK announced that it was planning a march through the Wiltshire town of Wootton Bassett. Islam4UK is the latest incarnation of al-Muhajiroun, the group founded by the exiled radical cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed.
I am absolutely clear in my view that the police and the local authority should prevent this march from going ahead. The actions of Islam4UK are utterly objectionable and welcome the fact that so many British Muslims have slammed what Islam4UK is trying to do.
We can’t go on like this. The law should already have made it possible for them to be prosecuted for some of their activities. This unrepresentative group has close links with banned preachers of hate and has arranged for them to preach in the UK by audio and video link.
The Government should now ban this group altogether.
Richard
Sunday, 20 December, 2009
| Merry Christmas |
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A Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to everyone in Burnley and Padiham.
With my very best wishes,
Richard
Monday, 14 December, 2009
| Pre Budget Report |
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It is now entirely clear who are the real victims of Gordon Brown’s class war – hard working families.
The cornerstone of Labour’s Pre-Budget Report (PBR) was a tax on jobs that hits everyone earning over £20,000 – well below the average wage. Of all Labour’s tax rises, this will be the one that it is the Conservatives’ priority to avoid.
But Labour’s failure to deal with the £178 billion just stokes up higher taxes and higher interest rates if they win the election.
You can already see Labour’s arrogance when it comes to Burnley’s families and the disabled. What were presented as permanent increases in benefits, including child benefit and disability living allowance, in fact turned out to be a temporary rise for the period of the election, followed by a real terms cut.
This tells you everything you need to know about how this Government has lost its moral compass.
Analysis of the PBR also shows that, as a result of their planned National Insurance rise, £446 million of which will come from the NHS, Labour plan a real cut in health spending. Compare this to the Conservative pledge to protect health spending.
Does anyone now really believe a Labour government would be good for Burnley?
The quicker change comes, the better.
Richard
Saturday, 05 December, 2009
| Bankers' bonuses |
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Labour is in a muddle again. This time over its policy on bank bonuses.
First, Labour’s City Minister, Lord Myners claims he will veto big bonuses, but then the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, says the banks should be ‘restrained.’ Lord Mandelson said “I understand the point that RBS directors are expressing – they say they have to remain competitive in the market in recruiting senior executives, and this is why it’s important that all the banks are equally restrained, and RBS is not singled out.”
Barely six months ago, Gordon Brown said “We are fundamentally changing the way we regulate our banks. We are banning them from giving bonuses at the moment where we have taken over the banks.” (Hansard, 17 June 2009).
Conservatives are clear - in addition to G20 proposals, no cash bonuses above £2,000 should be paid out this year by retail banks and that money should go towards increasing lending to the families and businesses who propped up the banks in the first place.
Richard
Sunday, 29 November, 2009
| The NHS - not safe with Labour |
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This week we heard about the failings at Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
What shocks me is that once again Labour is describing this as an ‘isolated case’ and their response is unacceptably complacent.
We’ve all heard of NHS managers focusing on trying to hit Labour’s targets over and above looking after patients. It is unacceptable that inspectors can then score hospitals as ‘good’ when many patients could tell them that the opposite is in fact true.
That is why a Conservative government will scrap Labour’s targets and instead focus on the quality and results of the treatment that patients receive.
As people across East Lancashire continue to tell us: The NHS is NOT safe in Labour’s hands.
Richard
Saturday, 21 November, 2009
| Hunting Act |
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Over the last week I’ve received a number of emails about my views on the Hunting Act, which appear to have been orchestrated by the Labour Party.
I can’t say it’s been upper-most in my mind and it does say something about Labour’s priorities that at a time when we are struggling to emerge from the deepest and longest recession since the Second World War, with record levels of debt and deep social problems, they focus their attention on the Hunting Bill. But then again Labour has already devoted over 700 hours of parliamentary time to this issue.
David Cameron has been quite clear that a Conservative Government will give Parliament the opportunity to repeal the Hunting Act on a free vote, with a government bill in government time. We are currently considering what form repeal legislation should take and are assessing various proposals, including some form of regulation of hunting, so that the interests of animal welfare remain paramount. What is certain is that a Conservative government would devote only the minimum time required to repeal the legislation, not the 700 hours that Labour took to produce an unworkable law.
For those who have long memories, you’ll remember that the independent Burns Inquiry in 2000 failed to conclude that hunting was more cruel than other methods of wildlife management (The Final Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Hunting with Dogs in England and Wales, 2000).
Earlier this year, Jim Barrington, the former Executive Director of the League Against Cruel Sports, said: ‘like a lot of people I was quite horrified by hunting and took the view that stopping it would improve animal welfare. But the Hunting Act has failed on every level, not least of all on animal welfare’. He also said, ‘I think hunting is a positive and vitally important part of wildlife management, provided it is done within proper rules.’
The legislation is so badly written that in February this year, the Crown Prosecution Service said a High Court ruling on the definition of hunting made the Hunting Act ‘wholly unworkable,’ and in May the Association of Chief Police Officers said that gathering evidence of illegal hunting is difficult, the ban is hard to enforce and chief constables have more pressing priorities.
Now, I take a straightforward view on most things and I am convinced that all legislation must be evidence based, so if elected I will make my decision based on the evidence presented at that time as this would be a free vote.
Thus far I am to be convinced that maintaining the legislation achieves the improvement in animal welfare the vast majority of people want to see and would therefore vote to repeal the Act.
Richard
Sunday, 15 November, 2009
| Poverty |
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I do find it shocking that Labour still dares to call itself a progressive and compassionate party when severe poverty under Labour has risen by 900,000 people since Labour came to power; when there are 800,000 more adults living in poverty under Labour and when there are now 4 million children living in poverty. In fact, inequality has risen under Labour and is now at its highest level since a consistent measure was introduced in 1961!
As for social mobility, the Sutton Trust has confirmed that people are no now more likely to escape the circumstances of their birth than they were 30 years ago. A fact not helped in Burnley where 25% of adults have no qualifications whatsoever – a figure twice the national average. What a disgraceful waste of talent and proof if proof was needed that Labour has utterly and systematically failed this town.
So what’s the Conservative alternative? Our answer is two-fold: first, making opportunity more equal – in which our school reform and training policies will play key roles; and second, actively helping to create a stronger, more responsible society.
Richard
Saturday, 07 November, 2009
| Small businesses are Burnley’s life blood |
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There can be no doubt that small and medium sized businesses make an important and sadly, often overlooked, contribution to Burnley and Padiham, not only through the employment they generate but through the wider role they play in everyday life.
In fact, over 70% of Burnley’s two and a half thousand businesses employ less than 5 people. Everyone can probably name a handful of these businesses and will also know some of the people who work for them.
But we all know that many businesses – small, medium and large – are finding this recession particularly difficult. Some even wonder whether they will be here in a year’s time.
That’s why Conservatives have spent time talking with the men and women who run Britain’s small businesses to see how a Conservative government can best help them now and into the future.
We will reverse Labour’s planned increase in small company corporation tax, from 22p in the coming year back to 20p. And, we’ll make the tax system, and business regulation in general, easier to follow – reducing complexity and therefore costs for small businesses.
We will make the small business rate relief automatic for small businesses in England, saving firms up to £1,100 per year. This will be of particular benefit to small shops, who will also benefit from our pledge to improve the planning system to support town centres.
We will reform government procurement to help small and medium sized businesses win more work, including scrapping the rule that companies have to provide three years of fully audited accounts before being able to bid for government work. That’s important as one-third of all businesses in Burnley are less than 4 years old.
New businesses are the lifeblood of any town, so any new business started in the first two years of a Conservative Government will pay no employer national insurance on the first ten employees it hires during its first year. We’ll also introduce a “Work for Yourself” programme to help people become self employed, and support and help the next generation of entrepreneurs.
Finally, we will provide a £2,000 bonus to small and medium sized businesses for every apprenticeship place they create and offer £5m for small firms to come together to form Group Training Associations.
Conservatives understand the importance of small businesses. After all, a town without its entrepreneurs is a town without its dreams.
Richard
Sunday, 01 November, 2009
| Housing scare stories |
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In yet another sign that Labour is getting desperate, and will resort to underhand scare stories, Labour is now alleging that Conservatives have secret plans to hike social rents to market levels and kick social tenants out of their homes.
I am happy to confirm to tenants across Burnley that these stories are completely unfounded and baseless. They are nothing more than scare tactics designing to frighten social tenants into voting Labour.
This Labour government has done nothing whilst housing waiting lists have shot up, hurting some of the most vulnerable people in Britain. Rather than deal with its own record of housing failure Labour is now planting completely fictitious scare stories.
It’s time to end Labour’s lies. The people of Burnley deserve better.
Sunday, 25 October, 2009
| BNP - authoritarian and isolationist - a recipe for disaster |
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This week saw the appearance of Nick Griffin on BBC’s Question Time. While I and many others thought the panel, but especially the audience, exposed his shallow and hateful views for what they are, it is clear that the full range of the British National Party’s policies must be exposed to scrutiny.
No-one should be in any doubt that Griffin’s party traces its roots directly from the British Union of Fascists, many of whose members actively supported both the aims and methods of Germany’s National Socialists. Their views on race and nationality are well known and Nick Griffin’s reference to the ice-age inhabitants of this wonderful country clearly ignores the successive waves of arrivals, starting with the Celtic tribes, in a bid to suggest his party’s “blood and soil” philosophy has been consigned to history.
I firmly believe people are individuals and should be treated as such. Those – of any background - who would divide Britain into groups according to race, colour or religion would drag this country down, not free its people to use their skills and achieve their dreams.
At its heart, the British National Party is isolationist and authoritarian.
Its policies on trade would see us turn inwards with a loss of those jobs dependent on exports and foreign investment. There are over one million such jobs in the northwest alone. Add to that the knock-on effect of other people losing their jobs as a result and very soon Britain would be in the grip of a massive recession, with hyperinflation taking hold as the new regime printed money to pay for its spending plans. Very soon exchange controls would be introduced making foreign holidays a thing of the past.
Voting would no longer be a British right.
You might think this is a bad joke, but no. For example, the BNP has a policy of removing the voting rights of those who didn’t complete its military training. And those that do complete the training will get to take their assault rifles and ammunition home – ready for use. The prospect of violent, drunken racists rampaging through Burnley’s streets with assault rifles is too horrific to contemplate.
The BNP does not believe in a free market economy. The state will direct both workers and businesses – so all those small businesses in Burnley will be told what to do. Or be forced to close.
As for taxes, the BNP want to remove income tax (where the rich pay more than the poor) and replace it with a tax on consumption (a sort of massive VAT). And, we all know what would happen then – the taxes on consumption would need to be huge, so people would spend less, employers would need less workers and would pay lower wages too. The result? A recession on a scale never ever experienced before.
All mainstream parties have an obligation to address the voter alienation and disillusionment that fuels support for extremism.
A Conservative Government will address voter’s legitimate concerns:
So, we will take action on immigration.
A decade of Labour’s failed asylum policies, the dramatic increase in immigration, and failure to tackle illegal immigration has damaged race relations in Britain today. Uncontrolled immigration has helped to create a culture of fear and resentment - among British people of all ethnic backgrounds. We will manage economic migration. For economic migrants from outside the EU, we have proposed a two-stage process for deciding which applications should be successful. The first stage would be to make eligible for admission those who will benefit the economy. The second stage would be an annual limit to control the numbers admitted with regard to the wider effects on society and the provision of public services. There is a proper national debate that we should have about immigration.
So, we will repair our broken society.
That is the great task for the next Conservative government - not just because it is both morally and socially right, but because, in these troubled economic times, getting our economy right means getting our society right. Tackling joblessness, getting people off drugs, and putting children on the straight and narrow are the only long-term, sustainable ways of cutting the cost of social failure and bringing down taxes and the cost of living.
So, we will deliver radical welfare reform.
It is our moral obligation to end the culture of long-term welfare dependency in Britain. In a responsible society, individuals who are capable of working accept their responsibility to work – and the government accepts its responsibility to help all those who can work get into work.Instead of keeping people on benefits and locked in a cycle of deprivation, we will support families. Using the savings made from our programme of welfare reform, we will end the couple penalty in the tax credits system lifting 300,000 children out of poverty.
Richard
Sunday, 18 October, 2009
| Answering the scaremongers |
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I was asked the other day about another scare story doing the rounds – this time that Conservative’s would “raise tuition fees to £7,000.”
As with the lie that we are planning to abolish Sure Start, this story is total nonsense.
We share the idea that those who benefit from higher education should meet some of the cost of their degree, but we must make sure that those who could gain from university are not put off by the prospect of debt.
That’s why – for months – Conservatives have been calling for Labour’s ministers to get on with the review into student finance. What we need is robust information on the options for funding higher education and that needs to be on a cross-party basis, so we can end the uncertainty for universities and students.
Richard
Sunday, 11 October, 2009
| Antisocial behaviour |
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Last week Conservatives published a radical plan to tackle binge drinking and alcohol-related violence and disorder on our streets.
The Police are fighting a constant battle against alcohol-fuelled antisocial behaviour in town centres – including Burnley’s - at weekends, leaving them overstretched.
A Conservative government will introduce significant price increases on the problem drinks that are strongly associated with anti-social behaviour and give tough new powers to local councils to prevent irresponsible retailers and premises from selling alcohol. Key measures include:
· Significant tax increases including on alcopops, strong beer and strong cider that contribute to violence and disorder on our streets. As a result, a 4-pack of super-strength beer will be £1.33 more expensive, 4 cans super-strength cider will be 74p more expensive and a large bottle of alcopops will be up to £1.50 more expensive.
· Supermarkets and other retailers will be banned from selling alcohol below cost price. This will help tackle the ‘pre-loading’ trend – young people and binge drinkers consuming cheap alcohol at home before going to town centres.
· A much tougher licensing regime. Local councils and the police will be given new powers to restrict the large number of late licences awarded to shops, takeaways and other venues.
This new approach will have a significant impact on the problem of drinking and antisocial behaviour, but leave responsible drinking unaffected.
Richard
Sunday, 27 September, 2009
| Shadow health minister comes to Burnley |
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This week Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Minister for Health, came to Burnley on a fact-finding visit. I’d raised the problems around the A&E and the very real concerns it had generated and Andrew felt it was important that he came to see the problems in person.
Andrew was very clear in an interview with the Lancashire Evening Telegraph after his meetings that there was no reason why there shouldn’t be an accident and emergency service at Burnley General Hospital and that the term “Urgent Care Centre” wasn’t recognised within the NHS.
Unfortunately some people are already bemoaning the fact that Andrew came to Burnley at all, seeming to prefer ‘campaigning’ to action.
In my view the people of Burnley are entitled at an A&E service in Burnley. It’s not about party politics. It’s about healthcare.
Those that scaremonger should be ashamed of themselves. They do both the people of Burnley and the hardworking staff of the NHS a disservice.
Richard
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