Category Archives: Misc

Election 2010: Who will Deliver what You want?

I undertook to publish the results of our local survey on your priorities, once we had at least 100 respondents. The results are set out below – and, beneath them, the Conservative policies to address the priorities you have identified.

The Economy

1. Would you prefer to see the next government prioritise tax increases or public sector savings to reduce current levels of government debt? Select one of:

2. Do you support Conservative proposals to find savings necessary to cut corporation tax to boost business growth? Select one of:

3. Surrey pays the Treasury £5.5 billion in taxes each year. But the county receives back a third of the national average level of funding for local public services. Select one of the following that best describes your view of this arrangement:

4. Which of the following Conservative tax proposals is most needed. Select one of:

NHS

5. What is your greatest concern about local HS services today? Select one of:

Schools

6. What if any are your concerns about local schools in Elmbridge? Select one of:

Law and Order

7. Which of the following measures are most important in the fight against crime? Tick all that apply:


Greenbelt

8. How would you describe the balance between development and preservation of the greenbelt in Elmbridge? Select one of:

Your Priorities

9. Which are the most important issues for you and your family in Elmbridge? Tick all that apply:


Across the range of priorities you have highlighted, it is the Conservatives providing the answers, including:

  • Cutting the bulk of the budget deficit within 5 years.
  • Cutting wasteful and excessive state spending, to reverse Labour’s NI tax on jobs.
  • Cutting the main and small business rate of corporation tax – to promote job-creation.
  • Giving local authorities a greater share of the revenue from business rates, to invest in local business growth.
  • Freezing Council Tax for 2 years.
  • Scrapping stamp duty for first-time buyers on homes up to £250k.
  • Changing the ‘funding formula’, so Elmbridge’s taxpayers get a fairer deal back from the Treasury to fund local public services.
  • Cutting Whitehall targets and NHS managers, to make local health services more accountable to local communities.
  • Freeing parents, faith groups and community organisations to set up good new local schools – with state funding, but not all the bureaucracy.
  • Cutting police red-tape, so officers spend more time on the street.
  • Supporting local community groups – like Hersham Youth center, and Sunbury and Walton Sea Cadets – providing positive activities for youngsters.
  • Scrapping top-down housing targets, and strengthening local democracy, to preserve our greenbelt.
  • Opposing a 3rd runway at Heathrow.

(Sample survey size: 101 respondents.)

Local Meetings – Meet the Candidate

We are holding a series of local events in the run up to the election, so I can meet and hear from local residents. The first two are on Friday 26 March (8pm at Christophers Church Hall, Hinchley Wood) and Friday 9 April (8pm at Claygate Village Hall, Claygate). Further details here. All are welcome!

International Women’s Day

By invitation, and in commemoration of International Women’s Day (8 March), Christine Jesman has kindly contributed the following post on women in local government, highlighting the public service in Elmbridge of Helen Rowley Lambert (1836-1900):

The Municipal Housekeeper

Local government rarely generates the same amount of interest as parliamentary affairs and whilst efforts to redress gender imbalance in parliament, through Labour’s Emily’s List and the Conservative’s Women2Win, are well recognised, the work of the Women’s Local Government Society, who held their AGM in London last Friday, remains relatively unknown. The organisation had its origins in the 1880s when it campaigned for women to be allowed to sit on local boards, existing in various forms until 1925. It was reformed in 2007 to mark the centenary of women winning the right to stand as councillors. With the number of women councillors in the UK remaining stubbornly at around 27% for almost three decades, this cross-party society has resumed its campaigning for greater female participation in local government.

As March is Women’s History Month, with its theme for 2010 of ‘writing women back into history’ it seems appropriate to raise the profile of a long forgotten ‘municipal housekeeper’, as the early women pioneers of local government were often called. In doing so we highlight the little known fact that for almost half a century before women gained the parliamentary vote, some women could vote, and be elected, in local government elections.

Few women chose to undergo the ordeal of standing as a candidate for the school boards, Parish and Rural District Councils or as Poor Law guardians and after 1907, as Town Councillors. Of those that did, historians have linked many with networks of temperance, social purity, liberalism and the women’s suffrage campaign. In Surrey the picture was slightly different with a Conservative woman from Thames Ditton achieving greater electoral success than almost any other woman in the nineteenth century.

Helen Rowley Lambert (1836-1900) was motivated by a sense of personal duty and deep religious commitment, compounded by the grief of sudden widowhood and childlessness. Her public life began in 1880 following the death of her husband. She eschewed a political identity but occasionally attended Conservative meetings. She was a member of Thames Ditton School Board from 1881 until her death. She became a Poor Law guardian in 1891 and continued this work as a Rural District Councillor from 1894 onwards. In 1896 she was elected to Esher and the Dittons Urban District Councillor, a position held by few women at the time. As a local newspaper reported towards the end of her life, when it was widely known that she was suffering from terminal cancer, yet continued her public service:

‘While many gifted ladies have been eloquently advocating the rights of their sex by voice and pen, others have been quietly, but none the less effectively demonstrating the great value of women’s work in various public capacities. Among the latter Mrs. Rowley Lambert stands out as an ideal example’. (Surrey Comet 3 Feb. 1900)

Mrs Rowley Lambert has been lost to history. Her story is re-told today – on International Women’s Day.

Christine Jesman lives in Esher, and holds a D.Phil from Sussex University on Conservative Women in the Late Nineteenth Century

Credit Where It’s Due!

Today, Conservative Home praises Elmbridge Borough Council for its efforts in managing to freeze council tax despite the tight financial situation. It is a significant achievement, and credit goes to the officers and councillors for taking the tough decisions required. If only we had such rigour and discipline in central government!

Equitable Life, Lousy Deal

Yesterday, David Cameron gave a cast-iron pledge to end this government’s dithering and give Equitable Life policy-holders the compensation they deserve. He said: ‘If we win the election, we’re going to sort out Equitable Life very early on.’

In 2008, the Parliamentary Ombudsman blamed the collapse of Equitable Life on a decade of regulatory failure – attributing responsibility to both ministers and officials – and recommended an apology and compensation. Nearly two years on, the government has failed to act. The Equitable Members Action Group estimate that 15 policy holders die every day whilst the government delays. The government has buried the issue in the long grass – in a truly reprehensible manner.

Ian Taylor has pressed hard for action for policy-holders in Elmbridge. If elected, I will build on that momentum, and campaign relentlessly for swift and just compensation for the victims of this long drawn out fiasco.

Stoke d’Abernon Residents Association

My thanks to all those from Stoke d’Abernon and District Residents Association who came along for a drink and a chat at the Old Plough, last Thursday evening. I learnt a great deal about local issues – from anti-social behaviour to daffodil planting!

A particular thanks to Ian Nelson for organising, and landlord Bob Ketley for putting up with us.