10/03/2010 by Steve Barclay.

The Labour Government’s top down approach to planning risks serious traffic problems in Whittlesey.  A plan has just been submitted for 460 homes on Feldale fields as you come into Whittlesey from Eastrea.  We need significant improvements to the transport infastruture of Whittlesey before another major housing development is considered. 

This proposed scheme would mean up to a thousand extra cars, most of which will travel into Peterborough along the A605.  This road is already congested at peak times.  Some cars will also travel onto Drybread Road and past the Alderman Jacobs school. Few trains stop at Whittlesea station with most passing straight through, and Network Rail has no plans to extend the platform and encourage more trains to stop locally.

Whittlesey also has issues with flooding, and such a major development will put further pressure even without the potentially added risks we hear about from climate scientists.

Cllr Martin Curtis is leading the fight against this development, and has set up a facebook site to gather local views.  If you agree that this planning development would be bad news for Whittlesey, please add your support at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=384643594767

Posted in Labour Failure, Whittlesey | No Comments »

08/03/2010 by Steve Barclay.

On the 25th September I blogged that the Labour Government would sign a number of contracts at the 11th hour, which would prove to be poor value.  “I suspect we will see a surge in last minute Government contracts being signed early next year before the General Election”.  So it is little surprise to hear today their announcement of £11 billion of new IT contracts.  As David Blackburn writes in the Spectator online:

“An £11bn bender is irresponsible in this climate, plus Labour has a baleful record on IT contracts. It has bungled a staggering £26bn on flawed IT systems, many of which were introduced without pilot schemes. Ever the optimist, I’d hoped the government might become responsible; yet again I’ve been mugged by the reality of Brown. Rushing implementation is a concern. These latest programmes are for the most part extensions of the failed NHS and MoD super-computer systems; will they be any more effective than their predecessors?

But this episode speaks more of the government’s mindset. Whatever the question, Brown’s answer is to throw good money after bad. It is scarcely credible that he can reduce the deficit within four years.

After years of wasteful spending (which Labour spin calls prudent investment), Gordon Brown cannot give up his addiction to spending our cash. Do you believe rushed contracts on IT systems, most of which have a disastrous track record, are going to be a good way of spending money we do not have (paid for with extra borrowing?).  For those who say they will not bother to vote, or indulge in a protest vote, are you happy to go on like this for another five years with Gordon Brown wasting our cash?

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20/02/2010 by Steve Barclay.

… or a second longer Mr Brown, your record is crystal clear!

On the day another book comes out describing Mr Brown as an abusive bully to his staff, he asks you to take a second look.  At what?  Is it at his decision to send toops into two wars whilst cutting the helicopter budget?  His cynical promise of British jobs for British workers whilst encouraging massive immigration?  Or perhaps his manifesto pledge of a referedum on the Lisbon treaty which he betrayed and is now part of our law?

Alternatively we could have a second look at his economic record.  Grabbing vast sums from our pensions, selling our nations gold reserves on the cheap, or saying he had ended boom and bust before the longest and deepest recession since records began.  Or we could look at the pledge to be tough on law and order, only to let over 80,000 prisoners out of jail early.

What about a second look locally?  Building a Fire HQ costing millions where the computers don’t work, which now stands empty costing a further £117,000 a month.  Scrapping our new College of West Anglia a month before building, whilst allowing 13 to go ahead all of which just happened to be in Labour constituencies.  Or giving extra funding to his own constituents in Scotland who get more per head than those in North East Cambridgeshire.

As for the banal slogan - “a Britain fair for all” - is there any politician in any party who does not want fairness? What about treating his own staff fairly rather than bullying them.  Is it fair that the gap between rich and poor has grown since Labour came to power?

New Labour has been defined by spin.  Today’s campaign launch is a classic.

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19/02/2010 by Steve Barclay.

January is usually a month when the government receives bumper tax receipts, as many people settle their income and capital tax bills.  The Government has been in profit every year in January since records began.  Today we discover that instead of the expected £2.6 million surplus, Labour borrowed another £4.3 billion last month. 

Debt interest is now over £1,000,000,000 a week. This is money wasted.  It would pay for a lot of doctors and teachers.

Total government debt is now £848,000,000,000.  The figures are so big it is difficult for any of us to fully get our heads around the sheer enormity of Gordon Brown’s reckless spending. 60% of our borrowing is to pay for every day spending, not to pay for the cost of the financial crisis.  Gordon Brown’s political benefit today is on the back of young people who will have to pay the bills for years to come.

We are currently viewed by the financial markets as a worse prospect than Spain or Italy.  City experts predict our debt this year as a proportion of our country’s income will be worse than Greece.  Already the ratings agencies are warning the UK that our triple A rating is under threat. 

We are fast reaching a tipping point.  The budget next month must tackle this ticking tomebomb before the markets refuse to take any more of our debt and plunge the country into a financial crisis.  Whoever wins the election, none of us should doubt that tough times lie ahead.

Posted in Labour Failure, Finance | No Comments »

15/02/2010 by Steve Barclay.

I discovered an interesting fact today which shines a light on the way the Labour Government has wasted millions, whilst adding paperwork and red tape to the lives of so many of us.

The job of the Arts Council is simply to give away money.  When Labour came to power in 1997, it had 206 staff.  Now it has 765 staff.  That is a lot of extra wages and final salary pension schemes.  It is also a lot of extra paperwork for community arts groups to fill out to keep all these all busy.  I wonder how many small businesses in North East Cambridgeshire could allow their wage bill to balloon in such a way?

Posted in Business, Labour Failure | No Comments »

26/11/2009 by Steve Barclay.

The Government’s Social Care Green Paper will hit 4,960 pensioners in North East Cambridgeshire, taking away their Attendance Allowance worth an average £60 a week.  A further 1,510 will lose their Disability Living Allowance worth £75 a week.  This is so Labour can pay for their latest eye catching announcement of a new National Care Service.

Both benefits are currently based on need.  Instead Labour plan to make them means tested.  So anyone who has been careful, lived within their means and saved will be penalised for doing so.

It is good to see Malcolm Moss MP giving a commitment to vote against this proposal and fight what is an attack on one of the most vulnerable groups in our community.  This is a bad policy, being introduced for political headlines at the expense of a vulnerable group. 

This is the tip of the iceberg for what Labour will do if Gordon Brown gets another five years in power.  If this money is to be pooled with the rest of the funding for social care, all disability benefits will become means-tested.

The message is also clear for anyone else with savings.  Labour will cut any benefits you are currently entitled to - if they have no care for the disabled then no other group will be safe from further means testing under Gordon Brown.

Posted in Labour Failure, Malcolm Moss MP | No Comments »

19/11/2009 by Steve Barclay.

£50 million for Network Rail announced today to spend on rail stations.  So how much will our share be?  Zero.  Ten stations have been earmarked for improvement, and nine of the ten are in Labour constituencies.  We don’t even get a share of the £3.25 billion planned to be spent over the next five years.

What about the money for new Colleges?  Earlier in the year we saw funding for further education colleges cut with just 13 getting the go ahead.  All 13 were in Labour constituencies.  Our new College was scrapped, one month before building was due to start.

Is it any better on road transport?  £1.5 million has just been announced today to be spent improving road safety - a major issue locally.  But this is money for roads overseas.  Fenland Road Safety Campaign earlier this month submitted their petition to No 10 for funding for the Fen roads adjacent to waterways, but we were told no money was available.

Network Rail has £3.25 billion to improve 2,000 stations over the next 5 years, but none of these are in North East Cambridgeshire.  Funding will improve Peterborough (so Labour ministers heading to their heartlands in the North East can have a smooth journey) and also in Cambridge (the south of the county again given priority) but none of our stations are included.  There are no plans for example to extend the platforms at Whittlesey and Manea, or to link up Wisbech.  Yet the Government wants more houses built here.

Taxpayers locally keep being short changed.  Safety on local roads matters.  Anything that reduces the loss of life from road traffic accidents is to be welcome in whatever country it is, but action overseas does not mean that no action at home is acceptable.  Likewise a good train service from Cambridge & Peterborough is great news for our commuters to London -but they have to get to Cambridge or Peterborough in the first place.   And scrapping our College will not help them have a job to go to in the first place.

Posted in Fenland Road Safety, Labour Failure, Manea, Whittlesey | No Comments »

25/09/2009 by Steve Barclay.

I suspect we will see a surge in last minute Government contracts being signed early next year before the General Election. Ministers can then claim credit for any success from these projects in the future, whilst the cost attached is picked up by the next Government. It will also allow them to cite these projects when trying to justify the massive debt already incurred. As many of these ministers are also about to lose their seat and so will soon be looking for work, they may also be tempted to curry favour with a potential future employer.

Firms seeking Government contracts will also be in on this.  The next Government‘s Ministers starting their careers will often delay signing new deals until they have had time to understand their departments.  Even if they want to sign, an emergency budget straight after the election will likely tie their hands and require quick cuts (even “savage cuts“ in the very unlikely event that the Lib Dem leader gets his fantasy of playing Prime Minister).  Firms will therefore push to bring forward any Government contracts whilst the current minister is still at their desk. 

The loser will be the taxpayer (again).  We will all have to pay for these contracts signed in haste, by ministers heading for the exit door.  It is not the best environment in which to negotiate a hard bargain.  Expect them to sign quickly whilst they still can, further increasing the error in the Government‘s debt forecast.  Last year the Government forecast they would borrow £40 billion this year.  It now looks like being £200 billion - more than five times an estimate made only last year.  How much will be on the country‘s credit card by the end of their last minute dash to the shops?

Posted in Labour Failure | No Comments »

11/09/2009 by Steve Barclay.

News today that the Prime Minister has issued an apology to Alan Turing, the brilliant mathematician and code breaker, for his treatment after the Second World War.  Yet if Gordon Brown really does care, why has he ignored the 21,920 signatories to the Number 10 petition less than six months ago for extra funding to preserve parts of the historic Bletchley Park?  The wooden hut where Alan Turing and others cracked the German enigma code and developed the modern computer is failing to bits.  Can you imagine the United States letting such a historic landmark in their country be treated like this?

The news on the car radio was brought to life for me as I am up in the Scottish Highlands and visited the Culloden battlefield this morning.  It made for an interesting contrast.  There is a superb new Visitor Centre at Culloden, and it is well worth a visit if you are in the area.  One negative however is that a road has been built through part of the battlefield which means the full scale of the battlefield is lost.  No doubt at the time it was seen as not being worth the money to preserve the full scope of the battlefield - in fact for many years there was nothing even to mark the spot of the fallen in battle before the local landowner acted.  Yet is this not what we are doing with Bletchley Park - preserving some bits of a heritage site but letting other bits decay and be lost to future generations?

I am sure Gordon Brown’s apology is heartfelt.  The treatment of Alan Turing was terrible and his early death tragic.  Yet without cash to preserve Bletchley Park, the apology risks being a gimmick which is more to appeal to voters than recognise Alan Turing.  A better tribute would be to act to preserve where he worked, so that future school children can visit the simple wooden hut and appreciate first hand the brilliance that helped saved thousands of lives and shorten the Second World War.  It might even encourage some to become future scientists - it is not as if our country does not need to develop more.  Surely that would be a more fitting tribute to Alan Turing than a soundbite.

Posted in History, Labour Failure | No Comments »

01/09/2009 by Steve Barclay.

Visit an elderly relative who has just gone into residential care.  He is paying £540 a week for his single room with space for his thin bed, one armchair, a sink in the corner and not much else.  Along the corridor are identical rooms where other residents pay nothing.  His mistake is to have lived within his means and saved over the years.  He is now paying over £2,000 a month from his life savings whilst those who spent their money and did not save get the same care and facilities for free. How can this be fair?

At his first Labour Conference as Prime Minister in 1997 Tony Blair promised to act.  In 1999 they appointed a Royal Commission.  Dither and delay then continued with a Green Paper, followed by a public consultation. After 13 years in power the Government is no further forward. Yet this issue is not going to go away.  Forecasters say that in the next two decades a quarter of the UK population will be over 65, with those over 85 expected to double.  There is no painless solution but the next Government will need to act.  As with the news today that electricity blackouts are forecast in a Government report within the next 8 years, it is clear the current Government will not take the tough decisions on key long term issues.

Those saving who are some years away from residential care also risk losing out unfairly from the current Government’s approach.  Labour is borrowing £500 million a day (in 1997 we borrowed all year what this Government is borrowing every 2 days) and paying for it by printing money.  Working out when to stop printing money will not be straight forward.  The Government’s biggest concern will no doubt be deflation - if the debt is big now then deflation would make it worse.  Yet this makes it more likely that money will be printed for too long, igniting inflation.  Inflation might help reduce the Governnment’s, companies and individual debt, but for pensioners living on their savings it will be devastating.  We should not underestimate how painful inflation can be and the hardship it causes.  Nor once started is it painless or popular to cure - it was inflation that drove the last Conservative Government to join the ERM.

So should children save?  After all, today is the day the first generation of children receive the Government’s top up to their Child Trust Funds (£500 to children if neither parent works and both claim benefit, but £250 to children where both parents work).  Estimates say that the Child Trust Funds for some children will be worth £10K when they are 18 years old.  These same children will have to pay back all this money plus interest in the form of higher tax (the money they receive today is borrowed from the next generation which is them) and those who go to university are receiving money to pay for future tuition fees i.e. what used to be free. Both schemes provide jobs for administators to deal with the paperwork, also paid for with money borrowed from the same children’s future tax bills. 

The consequences of the massive expansion of means testing under Gordon Brown as Chancellor and now Prime Minister is that more people will look to spend rather than save. It is no different to what their Government has done in not putting money aside in the boom years. And to think Gordon Brown used to talk about prudence.  A priority for the next Government must be to try to re-build a culture of saving, but it will not be easy.  The message risks being wiped out by the bills being run up today.

Posted in Labour Failure, Age Concern | No Comments »