The conservatives leaflet

Well, in my limited time here, I have never seen anything form Labour here, but even if something did drop through my doormat, I'd give it as much of a grilling as I'm about to give the Conservatives campaign leaflet ... the lack of response from my MP's office on national matters that are important to me is also a driving factor in this ... but here goes.

Before I start, however, I must issue this challenge to the Lib Dems and Labour ... drop you're campaign letters through my door ... I DARE you.

This one, unfortunately, doesn't help the conservatives cause in the area...

The thrust of this leaflet is houses. Homes. Their bullet points pledge the following...

*) Tear up Labour's South East Plan and stop the Government dumping 17,000 new houses in Mid Sussex.
*) Scrap the density targets which encourage flats instead of a mix of family homes
*) Set local communities free to decide their own rate of growth and provide funding to councils for infrastructure.

This doesn't make sense on a number of levels.

The first is that the Government have a responsibility to provide housing. There are laws (which it seems that some councils in the TV programme Tower Block of Commons are willing to ignore) on population density in housing.

The government HAS to provide housing. NIMBY's have to be brushed aside; and yes, my own property value is likely in the firing line here. The problem is that the Nimby's have been calling for the wrong thing .... and haven't been vocal enough in demanding action on the issues that would prevent new homes being required in the first place. Let me explain...

There is a "burning issue" scheduled for later this month which I actually wrote a number of months ago, stating that we're heading for overpopulation and what I believe is the only way for the government to take control of the situation ... make adults responsible for the financial cost of bringing up their children. OK, state sponsor a couple of kids but beyond that, they need to be footing their own bills and put in place the only possible sanction left if they fail to provide a decent upbringing for their extra kids ... jail.

OK, the plan isn't quite as simple as that, there are complexities involved such as what if someone loses their job ... but the basic fact of all this is that we can't continue having a system where the state funds a rabbit breeding programme.

So what I want to know from the Conservatives is not how you're going to stop perfectly legal and necessary building work, but what you're going to do about our overpopulation problem ... or are you just going to follow China's shining example?

How the fuck can the local community be set free to decide their own expansion? Is the local parish council going to issue licences to families to allow them to have kids or nip round and batter the hell out of families that don't comply with parish regulations? What utter stupidity.

To me, "Set local communities free to decide their own rate of growth and provide funding to councils for infrastructure." means, "We're going to make the local communities responsible for the problems that we actually haven't got any idea on how to solve." The other thing is that local areas will then do things their own way in a devolved sense. On one hand there is sense in a community achieving its own local needs, but if there isn't a national structure for controlling the delivery of those needs, then all hell could break lose as has been evidenced with what has happened on the local Mid Sussex level lately. Corruption and mismanagement on a local level HAS to be managed and policed according to national rules. Central government can't just dump their responsibilities on to local areas and expect things to just work.

What is the point of providing councils money for infrastructure when you're effectively preventing the building of new homes? Agreed, existing infrastructure needs improvement and repair, but this doesn't add up.

As for Cameron's pledge to Mid Sussex, it starts, "I won't promise things I cannot deliver." He then continues to list a whole load of things that he can not deliver. Or more appropriately, he falls short on the very thing that he has been falling short on for many, many, many months ... actual details on how he intends to deliver these promises. Come on, Cameron, change the record ... either stop promising things or actually tell the public what you're going to do to deliver on them. Do you think all the voters are thick or something? Oh, and while you're at it, Cameron, I've got a letter that has been in your offices since last year and it hasn't been replied to. If you can't organise a system that responds to letters in a reasonable time scale, then how the hell are you going to organise a government?

Nicolas Soames demanding improvements from the rail operator. This is a tired mantra. Remove their franchise and have it replaced by who, exactly? My opinion is that public transport needs to be ... public. It should operate at a loss if it has to, but its chief purpose is to get people to where they need to be in order to keep this economy ticking; not building a nice coffer for shareholders and management.

He is backing a ground-breaking declaration calling for action to prevent the UK population reaching 70 million in under 20 years. It would be easy for me to say, too little, too late, but that wouldn't be fair. Again, however, this is high on promise, short on direction and action. We'll have to wait and see what is actually delivered by this.

"What are the conservatives doing for Mid Sussex?" Well, what ARE they doing for Mid Sussex?

Nicolas Soames MP led the successful campaign to stop the downgrading of A&E and maternity services at the Princess Royal Hospital. Oh, well, what about all the peoples voices who made this happen? The people who stood on the front line? He had a job to do what the people wanted and if he stood in the way, then he would have had the people to answer to. What about the people? This wasn't a conservative vicrory, it was a PEOPLE victory.

Mid Sussex has the third lowest council tax in Sussex and local councils are among the most efficient in England ... despite huge government underfunding. Yes, and that is a good reason why the council is now at the lowest legal level that its reserves have ever been. The residents have not been paying a tax that accurately reflects the level of service that they have been receiving. Only 10p in every £1 tax actually goes to fund local services. The rest goes to county and the police. The district has been running on its savings for years and now we've hit the buffer. This is where vote winning politics rather than dealing with realities has put us. Now we ARE against the buffers.

Well run recycling, refuse and street cleaning services - a recent survey showed 87% of residents are satisfied. Well, this can be flipped either way; 13% of people, more than one in ten, unsatisfied. Most targets applied to service delivery wherever I have worked, has been 95% as a minimum, sometimes higher depending on the service. Even of the resellers I deal with on Amazon, I think the lowest satisfaction rating I'll actually deal with has been 93%; lower than that and I consider it as too risky. You can't actually draw very much of a conclusion on this, but claiming 87% satisfaction as a victory is a bit of a dubious one.

Conservatives cut the salary of the District Council's Chief Executive and have slashed senior management by 40%. Well, that's a barefaced cooking of the books. John Jory was on about £90,000 when he joined. He has had an average of a 10% pay rise every year since he has been here and not only that, he has been at pains to defend this wage to staff all throughout his holding the post while saying that the council has been under performing and must tighten its belt. Through a transfer of a section of his bonus in to salary, he is now on over £130,000. Don't believe me? File an FOI request or try and find the documents on-line that state his earnings over the last five years while he has been here.

On the subject of cutting senior management by 40%, two tings; firstly the remaining heads of service received a hefty bonus and on top of that, there was a new level of management put in to place. So, creating a saving and then spending the money on other mnagement isn't as much of a saving as is being put forward here. The council's activities need serious investigation.

Leading the way on transparency ... one of the only Councils to publish spending over £500 online for line-by-line scrutiny. Well, that is fine, providing you can actually find the reports on the web site; the important ones that is. However, transparency has been a nationally led thing from government; not a locally initiated plan.

Snow Action - well, if the MP (whomever they were) didn't praise the efforts of people to keep the county moving and running during that time ad the ongoing road repairs, then their popularity would sink a little ... but I have to find myself questioning as to why this statement is on a party political leaflet?

To finish off, oh goody, we have yet another Council Leader. You know ... I've lost count of the leaders that have resigned over this or that. Here is another one. Let's hope he fairs better than the predecessors.