Brown's Vision hidden in Queen's Speech

A Zen master once asked what is the sound of one hand clapping? The answer is the appropriate response to Gordon Brown's program for the new parliament. True there is a lot of legislation and a few sound bites, but is there is nothing on the biggest problems facing our people today. On immigration there is actually nothing. On reform of the benefits system, almost nothing, and absolutely nothing on able-bodied people ending up in permanent dependency on the State. On crime we have a measures to do things to people after they have been convicted, nothing on prevention or detection or getting more police out on the street. Then we have a manufactured row in the making about extending the detention without being charged of terrorist suspects to 56 days from the current 28. There is absolutely no evidence that this is needed, and no terrorist suspect has ever failed to be charged or released inside the current 28 days, so the only reason for this is to get the opposition to vote against and then portray them as soft on terrorism. Never mind actually doing any good for our country. David Cameron's response was to call Brown weak. Personally, I never thought I would miss Tony Blair.

John Baron MP: ISTC for Basildon is now killed off

Having now been told in writing by the Government that no Independent Sector Treatment Centre (ISTC) for Basildon would go ahead against the wishes of the local NHS, and having recently met with SW Essex Primary Care Trust (PCT) and been informed of their decision to oppose the idea, John Baron MP has said that the proposal for an ISTC for Basildon has now effectively been killed off. John and Basildon Hospital have long argued that such a scheme would disrupt existing NHS services, undermine staff training, and threaten patient choice. Now the plans appear to have been blocked.

Commenting, John said:

“Given that a Government letter to me has clearly stated that an ISTC will not be imposed on Basildon against the wishes of the local NHS, and now that both SW Essex PCT and Basildon Hospital have come out against it, a local ISTC is now dead in the water.”

“Major changes to the health service cannot proceed without the support of the local NHS and residents. I have therefore written to the Government reminding them of their promise and asking them to confirm that plans for an ISTC for Basildon have now been shelved.”

“I welcome the PCT’s decision to oppose an independent hospital in Basildon. Our existing NHS Hospital would suffer a drain of resources if a new hospital was set up next door. This would have bad effect on training budgets, planning, and cross-subsidy of services.”

“The ISTC project has been subject to secret negotiations between the Government and a private provider, with local patients and the NHS kept in the dark. There were many unanswered questions about who would pay the bill if patient numbers fell below the level agreed between Whitehall and the private sector. My concern was always that local services would suffer as a result.”

Conservative Nigel Hastilow Resigns in Race Row

A Conservative parliamentary candidate has resigned after writing a column in a local paper which said that Enoch Powell was right in his infamous 'Rivers of Blood' speech in 1968. Powell was sacked from the Conservative front bench for that one, and so expressing admiration for him was a little unwise to say the least.

Immigration has been a toxic issue in British politics for years, with those who want to close down debate on what is a legitimate political issue pointing fingers and screaming 'racist!' at anyone who dares to say that immigration might not be an untrammelled good. They have come out of the woodwork again in the form of Peter Hain who has been drivelling on about the 'racist underbelly' of the Conservative Party. That is the sort of abuse that you would expect from a government that has no idea about the numbers of immigrants in the country or their contribution to the economy, and desperately wants to close any debate down. Well, it won't wash this time. Hastilow, might have show extraordinarily poor political judgement, but that is as nothing when compared to the serial incompetence of the Labour government that Peter Hain's drivel is an effort to cover up.

John Baron MP slams new bin taxes

John Baron MP today warned that families across Basildon District face the prospect of new bin taxes on top of council tax. After confusion in, Labour Ministers have finally confirmed that new taxes for bin collections will go ahead. In July, a cross-party Parliamentary Committee savaged the bin tax plans, warning of more fly-tipping, neighbourhood bin wars, non-payment by the public; it said that the plans would raise the overall burden of taxation.

John said, “Bin taxes will harm the local environment and public health by leading to a surge in backyard burning. The evidence shows this is what happened in the Republic of Ireland after bin taxes were introduced. Illegal burning of household waste releases toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. On top of tip-taxes, they will also lead to an increase in fly-tipping and put at risk Basildon Council’s good record in this area.

“Meanwhile, the set-up and running costs of such a complex tax, which involves installing microchips in every bin, will mean the overall burden of taxation will rise. Families now face the double whammy of record council tax bills and new bin taxes.

“The soaring costs of waste are yet another example of how Whitehall and EU burdens are being imposed on Basildon Council. The answer is not to create new local taxes. Labour Ministers must stop imposing unfunded obligations and red tape on local communities and cease hiking up local taxes by stealth.”

News of higher taxes comes as new official figures published by the Government have exposed that fly-tipping across England is soaring. Basildon Council has a good record in recent years in fly-tipping but, in total, cleaning up after fly-tipping has still cost local taxpayers £1,372,304 over the last three years. The Keep Britain Tidy campaign is warning that new bin taxes will make the problem even worse.

Nothern Rock Nationalised

There is an old saying; 'if you owe the bank £1000 then you are in trouble, if you owe the bank £1000000 then the bank's in trouble'. Well now Northern Rock owes the Bank of England £23bn, and so the risks associated with that failing company have now been smoothly transferred from shareholders and depositors to taxpayers. The Bank of England, the FSA and the Treasury regulate banks in the UK, and all three have had a hand in this mess. The FSA failed to monitor Northern Rock's activities adequately, despite the fact that the Rock's business model was different to every other major financial institution. You would have thought that this would have brought some special scrutiny, but you would have thought wrong. Then there was the Bank of England's refusal to follow the other central banks in providing liquidity when the money markets dried up. The inevitable logic of that was that they were happy for a major bank to fail if it came to it, but of course they weren't so why take a course of action that would make it happen? Then we come to the treasury who sleepwalked their way into the first run on a major UK bank for a century. Let us be clear, Northern Rock is now effectively owned by the government who both finance it and guarantee its deposits. Safe in the arms of the State, Northern Rock's management are doing nothing to sort out their company, no closures, redundancies, repricing of products, nothing. In fact it is a question why those clowns are still running the show. It's not as if the Chief Executive is even a qualified banker.

Labour has been making it up on immigration

Let’s get this straight, the government have had no idea of how many foreign workers there were in the UK and no idea of how many of the jobs created since 1997 have gone to foreigners. Against this background we have been told for years that immigration was an unmitigated good and as recently as the 2005 general election anyone saying different has been branded a racist or a xenophobe. Now it turns out that the number of foreign workers in the country is at least 1.5 million and that more than half of the jobs created since 1997 have gone to them. This last is very serious as whenever the number of people on benefits refused to decline the government always pointed to the numbers in work as a defence. What these numbers are telling us is that the large numbers of people who a locked into dependency on the state by Labour’s failed policies have stayed there while the jobs that they may have had are taken by new arrivals. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence of this as well if you talk to ordinary people in ordinary parts of our country, many of whom have been traditional Labour voters. That leaves aside the strain on public services and on the housing market of our steeply rising population. Now David Cameron has announced that a new Conservative government would tighten up on immigration, as well as doing something about people trapped on benefits, which also means being trapped in poverty. Labour meanwhile are floundering as ministers face the ruins of policies going back ten years. The country, and some of their own backbenchers, demands that they get on top of this situation. So far they seem to be in denial.

Wickford Action Group rubbish Laindon Centre Regeneration

Wickford Town Centre doesn’t need ‘something doing to brighten it up’ which is the view of the 'Wickford Action Group' in their recent letter in our local paper; it needs proper regeneration to halt its decline. There is certainly a serious problem if you talk to the traders on the High Street, including the one who asked me if it was worth renewing the lease and staying in business because things have got so bad. There are also local examples of town centres going badly wrong and you only have to go to Grays or Laindon Town Centres and then consider what having half of the local shops boarded up does to a community. Basildon Council is not waiting for Wickford to reach a terminal state, which is why there is a Master Plan and why we are progressing with delivery. Another complaint is about town centre housing; this is government policy, which means that a local Council cannot turn down legal planning applications for residences in the Town Centre. We also don’t want to build on the surrounding Green belt that is Wickford’s vital green lung and gives the town so much of its character as a town instead of a suburb of Basildon. What is most disappointing is that the Wickford Action Group is now trying to rubbish regeneration efforts elsewhere in Basildon District, particularly in Laindon where regeneration of the Town Centre is desperately needed. They go so far as to claim that Councillors are misleading the people of Laindon in the consultation process there. In fact the consultation that has been going on is by the private owners of the Laindon Centre and nothing to do with the Council. So, who is misleading who?

Northern Rock saga trickles on

Northern Rock's bailout from the Bank of England is now over £20bn, and climbing. Given that the interest rate on the loans is around 7% and that most Northern Rock mortgages are for less than this amount, this means that the Northern Rock loan book is growing increasingly unprofitable. Worse still, the haemorrhage of market funds from the Rock is likely to continue as commercial loans have to be repaid and no more are to be had. So, what we have is a bank with rapidly decreasing profitability and little in the way of assets: few branches, unexceptional computer systems and a toxic brand. Two questions immediately spring to mind; why on earth are their shares still trading and what is in it for the two or three prospective buyers? There is no good answer to the first. It is impossible to accurately value Northern Rock shares and they should be suspended to stop the uninformed or downright foolish from investing further. The second question is more interesting; all of the buyers want some level of government support and the most likely scenario is that the various players are looking to a time when the capital markets will start to operate again and then the long term value of the Rock's generally high-quality mortgage book can be realised.

There is also the small matter of sorting out the regulatory shambles that led to this situation. Someone needs to get a grip there.

Liberal Democrats now predicted to win some seats!

Following a revision of the predictive model, the Electoral Calculus site has revised its election prediction to Conservative 267, Labour 334, Liberal Democrat 16; giving Labour an 18 seat majority. This is based on the most recent opinion polls and takes the Liberal Democrats from a prediction of no seats to merely having their parliamentary representation cut by nearly three quarters.

Locally this prediction yields:

Basildon and Billericay

MP John Baron (CON)

Electorate	64,873	Turnout	60.20%
	2005 Votes	2005 Share	Prediction
CON	16,454	42.13%		46.60%
LAB	12,867	32.95%		34.47%
LIB	4,830	12.37%		5.26%
OTH	3,096	7.93%		9.04%
MIN	1,805	4.62%		4.62%
CON Majority	3,587	9.19%	Pred Maj	12.12%
Basildon South and East Thurrock MP Angela Smith (LAB) Electorate 71,108 Turnout 58.95% 2005 Votes 2005 Share Prediction LAB 17,363 41.42% 42.88% CON 16,902 40.32% 44.59% LIB 4,960 11.83% 5.04% OTH 2,446 5.83% 6.90% MIN 250 0.60% 0.60% LAB Majority 461 1.10% Pred Maj 1.71% CON Gain Of course, there is probably a long way to go to the actual election, though with 'decisive' Gordon in charge who knows, but if I were Angela Smith I would be a little worried. This particular contest is marked by an incumbent who is actually a pretty good MP and a challenger in Stephen Metcalfe who will make an excellent MP. The people of Basildon and East Thurrock are lucky to have such high quality candidates for the next general election.

English votes for English laws

A proposal for a parliamentary Grand Committee of English MPs to deal with English-only laws is being considered by the Conservative Party. This is a very good idea, and the only way to really balance out the democratic deficit created by Labour's ham-fisted approach to devolution. Currently, Scottish MPs decide on policy for England while English MPs are excluded from doing the same for Scotland. In fact on many issues the Labour Party relies on its Scottish MPs to push English policy through parliament. Of course, Labour is now predictably whining about how the proposal puts the Union in danger when what has actually put the Union in danger is their own incompetent approach to devolution that has led to a separatist government in Scotland and mounting English resentment of subsidising Scottish state handouts that are not available in England. But there is another reason why Labour is complaining, and that is the electoral math. It is quite conceivable that there could be a Conservative majority in England, even if our skewed electoral system made for a Labour national government. A Labour Prime Minister would have to deal with an effective Conservative English government, in addition to whoever was in power in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and Labour do not relish that prospect one bit. Well, tough; this is the inevitable consequence of what they started, and the only hope of rebalancing the constitutional arrangements for our nation. Just for once it would be nice if they though about our country first instead of obsessing about their party political interests.