Home » Posts tagged 'Liberal Democrats' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: Liberal Democrats
Some of my best friends are Liberal Democrats
Tribal politics are ugly. We’re told that the general public hates it.
Like any religion, it’s probably more sensible in reaching your conclusions on the basis of the actual teachings rather than the quality of followers. That said, I respect many people in all the major political parties, including the Green Party.
In Labour, I feel that we cannot afford to be judgemental, almost to the point of blaming the public when they don’t agree with us. I have an issue with how Labour has failed to explain why it spent so much money on the banking sector, to recapitalise its debts. But more than that, I have an issue with why some of the public have an impression that Labour misused taxpayers’ money. A consistent observation amongst various polling organisations is that people trust all parties equally poorly with the running of the economy, but they view Labour to be worse. However, also interesting, is that many members of the public consider themselves to ‘be the lucky ones’ when commenting that public services in their locality have been good. Peter Kellner has often referred to this NIMBY aspect, and it’s particularly relevant as it implies that many in the public do not perceive a link between spending money on public services and improved quality (even if their public services happen to be good).
I consider myself to be libertarian too, in that I strongly believe that the State should not be obstructive to the aspirations of its citizens. However, I feel equally passionately that the State has been allowed itself to have its reputation smeared, together with some poorly-paid and hard-working members within it. This is why before Labour starts attacking the Liberal Democrats on their record it is essential that Labour concedes its poor record in its draconian, authoritarian approach to civil liberties, possibly precipitated by 9/11. Furthermore, Labour did not particularly appear to value well for immigrant workers, it is felt by some; and furthermore it paved the way for the commodification of the NHS, but obviously not to this degree.
And we’re nowhere near 7 May 2015 yet. I think my colleagues who cite a “wipeout” of the Liberal Democrats in local and national elections should be careful what they wish for, as it is very likely a “pure” Conservative government would have been ever worse (hard though that might seem to be.) The demise of a Liberal force in the UK would be dangerous if this handed the Conservatives its first ever majority in over twenty years. It could be that the Tories and UKIP hold the ‘balance of power’ in 2015 anyway, and, together with the boundary changes, we are in unchartered waters.
I do not blame the Liberal Democrats for wishing to make use of this term in government at all, but I feel some LibDems should be mindful whether this has been make or break for them as an opportunity to become “the third party”. The problem is that the Liberal Democrats have always had a tendency to turn things into a ‘one-in-a-lifetime opportunity’ – it will be sad if Labour blame them for changes in the social infrastructure ultimately which Labour started, and which paradoxically only leads to a Conservative majority.
Drop the Bill – HM Government must publish the Risk Register
In November 2011, as described in the GP magazine, the Information Commission ruled that the Department of Health breached the Freedom of Information Act by failing to provide a copy of the risk register requested by former shadow health secretary John Healey. The Department of Health’s response to why they would not wish to publish the Risk Register is provided in this blog article. The analysis provided in this letter is markedly at odds with Andrew Lansley’s own headline of an article published in the Guardian in 2010 here: “An open, transparent NHS is a safer NHS”.
In ‘Any Questions’ on Friday evening, Tim Farron himself discussed the improvements in the Bill which had resulted as a result of the Liberal Democrats’ intervention, citing the influence of Shirley Williams and Paddy Ashdown, and explained that he was not in favour of marketisation of the NHS. He further explained that he wished for stability, and did not wish for ‘doctors and nurses to be mucked around by politicians’. Indeed, Nick Clegg has previously provided that the intervention in the NHS legislative process is a victory for the Liberal Democrats in the democratic process.
Neil Foster on the highly influential ‘Liberal Conspiracy’ website has written as follows:
Many Coalition MPs and Ministers will be wondering how they can save face and pull back at this late stage.
There is one way: publish the Department of Health’s Risk Register. The unpublished advice and projections in the Risk Register are likely to reveal an array of unknowns and significant potential for spiralling costs and deterioration of patient care.
If not, then why is the Health Secretary so keen to avoid the instructions of the Information Commissioner to release it?
The ‘last-minute revelations’ from the Risk Register should enable Coalition MPs to say with a reasonably straight face that they have taken on board the warnings alongside those of the Health Select Committee.
However without the publication of the Risk Register there is no plausible exit strategy for MPs who have ignored pressure to repeatedly vote for such a controversial Bill.
The EDM reads as follows on the UK parliament website:
That this House expects the Government to respect the ruling by the Information Commissioner and to publish the risk register associated with the Health and Social Care Bill reforms in advance of Report Stage in the House of Lords in order to ensure that it informs that debate.
The details of this EDM are as follows. As you will see, despite the problems with the parliamentary system of whipping allowing the Liberal Democrats to stand up for the views on the NHS, a number of Liberal Democrat MPs have indeed put their name down.
- Session: 2010-12
- Date tabled: 30.01.2012
- Primary sponsor: Morris, Grahame M
- Sponsors:
At the time of publication, the following MPs had signed up:
| Name | Party | Constituency | Date Signed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Campbell, Ronnie | Labour Party | Blyth Valley | 01.02.2012 |
| Caton, Martin | Labour Party | Gower | 31.01.2012 |
| Clark, Katy | Labour Party | North Ayrshire and Arran | 31.01.2012 |
| Connarty, Michael | Labour Party | Linlithgow and East Falkirk | 02.02.2012 |
| Corbyn, Jeremy | Labour Party | Islington North | 31.01.2012 |
| Crockart, Mike | Liberal Democrats | Edinburgh West | 02.02.2012 |
| Cunningham, Alex | Labour Party | Stockton North | 02.02.2012 |
| Dobbin, Jim | Labour Party | Heywood and Middleton | 31.01.2012 |
| Durkan, Mark | Social Democratic and Labour Party | Foyle | 31.01.2012 |
| Gapes, Mike | Labour Party | Ilford South | 02.02.2012 |
| George, Andrew | Liberal Democrats | St Ives | 30.01.2012 |
| Hancock, Mike | Liberal Democrats | Portsmouth South | 30.01.2012 |
| Hopkins, Kelvin | Labour Party | Luton North | 30.01.2012 |
| Lavery, Ian | Labour Party | Wansbeck | 01.02.2012 |
| Leech, John | Liberal Democrats | Manchester Withington | 30.01.2012 |
| McCrea, Dr William | Democratic Unionist Party | South Antrim | 01.02.2012 |
| Meale, Alan | Labour Party | Mansfield | 31.01.2012 |
| Mearns, Ian | Labour Party | Gateshead | 30.01.2012 |
| Morris, Grahame M | Labour Party | Easington | 30.01.2012 |
| Mulholland, Greg | Liberal Democrats | Leeds North West | 30.01.2012 |
| Osborne, Sandra | Labour Party | Ayr Carrick and Cumnock | 02.02.2012 |
| Pugh, John | Liberal Democrats | Southport | 01.02.2012 |
| Rogerson, Dan | Liberal Democrats | North Cornwall | 02.02.2012 |
| Shannon, Jim | Democratic Unionist Party | Strangford | 31.01.2012 |
| Sharma, Virendra | Labour Party | Ealing Southall | 30.01.2012 |
| Sheridan, Jim | Labour Party | Paisley and Renfrewshire North | 02.02.2012 |
| Skinner, Dennis | Labour Party | Bolsover | 31.01.2012 |
| Vaz, Valerie | Labour Party | Walsall South | 30.01.2012 |
| Wright, Iain | Labour Party | Hartlepool | 02.02.2012 |
For an excellent article from Thursday on this, please refer to Eoin’s blog here.
Andrew Lansley has concealed a ‘risk report’ that has examined the potential dangers of his NHS Bill. He simply refuses to publish it. I am told that the reason for this is that the report contains a very serious warning about the long term damage the bill will do to the NHS. The chief warning in the report is that Lansley’s reforms will spark a surge in health care costs and that the NHS will become unaffordable as private profiteers siphon off money for their own benefit. The report specifically warns that GPs have no experience or skills to manage costs effectively. The profit element contained in Lansley’s reforms is the chief reason for the report citing these worries. This is the reason Lansley refuses to publish the report, because he has claimed that his bill will make costs in the NHS more affordable. This flaw in the bill if exposed would undermine his entire argument and it is the reason the report will not be published until the bill becomes law. But you can help prevent that. Labour Left Chairperson & Labour MP Grahame Morris has tabled an early day motion to force Lansley to publish the report. Please help ensure that your MP does their bit to support the motion. Democracy & transparency must prevail.
Please comment there if you would like to raise your concerns.
Welfare Reform Bill suffers three heavy defeats in the House of Lords amidst success of the Spartacus Report campaign
The government suffered an extraordinary threefold defeat on its Welfare Reform Bill in the House of Lords last night (11 January 2012), as campaigners and peers combined successfully to oppose cuts that would hit sick, vulnerable and disabled people particularly badly.
With a few exceptions, the Liberal Democrats voted with the government as they generally have throughout the divisions in the Lords on the welfare bill, but their support was overwhelmed by a big turnout from Labour and crossbenchers. Crossbenchers Lord Patel and Baroness Meacher, and Labour peer Baroness Lister, were among those who fought an expert rearguard action against the coalition, with a few Liberal Democrats also rebelling. Crossbenchers have also been furiously lobbied by disability campaigners arguing that they should not be made to suffer for the economic crisis.
The votes are a huge triumph for Sue Marsh, Dr Sarah Campbell, Kaliya Franklin, and other disabled activists and researchers who, this Monday, published the ‘Responsible Reform’ report (#SpartacusReport). This research document caused an Internet sensation with their #spartacusreport campaign, as it galvanised charities, NGOs, politicians from all parties, churches, medical professionals and public figures into lobbying for a substantial rethink on welfare reform. Peers and MPs were subsequently inundated with pleas to stop welfare and disability cuts this morning, with thousands of copies of the report exposing the sham of the government’s consultation on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) being sent on to decision-makers and policy experts. The Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, also expressed serious concern.
Plans to means-test employment and support allowance (ESA) payments for disabled people after only a year were rejected by peers. The means test would have applied to cancer patients and stroke survivors, and was denounced by Lord Patel, a crossbencher and former President of the Royal College of Obstetricians, as an immoral attack on the sick, the vulnerable and the poor. “If we are going to rob the poor to pay the rich, then we enter into a different form of morality,” He also said: “I am sympathetic to cutting the deficit, but I am highly sympathetic to sick and vulnerable people not being subjected to something that will make their lives even more miserable.”
The government was defeated by 224 votes to 186, even though Lord Freud, the welfare minister, claimed that the cost of the amendment would be £1.6bn spread over five years. The other defeats were over plans to time-limit ESA for those undergoing cancer treatment, and to restrict access to ESA for young people with disabilities or illness. Lord Freud countered that the 365-day time limit was not arbitrary and was similar to limits imposed in France, Ireland and Spain, and struck a “reasonable balance between the needs of sick, disabled people claiming benefit and those who have to contribute towards the cost”.
The defeats do not augur well for the government’s chances in future votes in the Lords on the bill, which includes housing benefit caps. The bill is at report stage before returning to the Commons.
In addition to last night’s humiliating defeat, the Conservative Mayor of London has been revealed to have opposed disability cuts; major charities, the TUC, the thinktank Ekklesia and others are calling for a legislative pause; and both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly are declining to pass the traditional consent legislation for the UK parliament on the Welfare Reform Bill.
The House of Commons has the power to reverse the Lords amendments. Royal Assent is currently timed for March 2012.
Is the law political?
The law is supposed to solve the problems within, and arising, from society, and is not meant to create them. Sometimes the judiciary are able to implement, and correct mistakes in the, interpretation of the law written by the legislature. Within such a framework, it is possible for the day-to-day process of the law to be non-political, even if the creators of the law are, at any particular stage of time in England’s history.
It is hard to ignore that the use of language can impinge on areas of activity of corporate life; take for example the reference by Ed Miliband, the Labour Leader, to private equity firms as ‘predators’. Private equity practice seats exist in virtually all the major corporate law firms in the City. The fact that the Lord Chancellor is currently from the Conservative Party as such should not matter, as he is a professional barrister, and indeed studied law at Cambridge. Lord Justice Laws, at a recent meeting of ALBA, did however query what gave judges any particular advantage in able to adjudicate on matters of social justice. The fact that society has recently been faced with issues of social justice including the law, such as the eviction at Dale Farm or the revision of the Disability Living Allowance system, is unfortunately inescapable. The Law Society and the Bar Council are not supposed to be political, but notare against the legal aid cuts in their current form. That is not to say that they are in complete denial over the funding problem in legal aid; indeed the Law Society have proposed an alternative method of funding, which would save a substantial amount of money.
‘Sound off for justice’ and ‘Justice for all’ maintain that their campaigns are not political. However, senior people I talk to in law centres in London come to a conclusion that it is not possible to divorce politics from legal aid funding. Poverty unfortunately is political, as the Shadow Attorney-General, Emily Thornberry MP, suggested yesterday on BBC’s ‘Any Questions’. It happens that access-to-justice could disproportionately affect people on the basis of their income, in that cases of access-to-justice could become much harder to obtain for poorer people for certain problems. With many law centres set to shut down altogether, the legal services for immigration, housing and asylum, and welfare benefits, look set to be affected. The question is whether the poor will suffer disproportionately. Rich people will possibly be able to afford superinjunctions as before, as the evidence that the top 1% of the population have been affected substantially by the recession is lacking. This top 1% includes some (at least) well-paid lawyers in London.
In recent months, it has been argued that much policy is not entirely based on macroeconomics, but has a strong ideological basis. In the 1980s, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher promoted “deregulation”, and this mantra appears to have been resurrected with some success by David Cameron, the Prime Minister. “Deregulation” presumably means ‘getting rid of the law’, but one is not absolutely clear whether Cameron means it in a libertarian way; one is told not. It does however pose a problem potentially for workers in manufacturing industry, potentially, who see their employment rights whittled away. Absolute deregulation would, of course, mean that the energy oligopolies could make a massive profit, maintaining an extremely high shareholder dividend, while elderly and poorer people do not burn as much gas over the winter saving money; and the law would not regulate against abuse of dominant position. In an extreme form, there would be no taxes, so a windfall tax, even for utilitarian good and justice, would be out of the question.
It could therefore be a political convenience that the law is not seen as political. Most astute pundits think that the Legal Aid and Sentencing Bill will become enacted after it passes uneventfully through the House of Lords. This because the Liberal Democrats will vote for it, as indeed past precedent provides (in the form of the Health and Social Care Bill). It does not matter that this Bill might affect the quality-of-life of children and families affecting Liberal Democrat voters or activists. Past precedent is all important.
Explosion of the deficit and implosion of the Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats can never be trusted with the economy again. Cable once uttered in Parliament with almost delusion of grandeur that it didn’t matter where the economic recession came from. Probably having choked on his coffee that morning, he could not contemplate the concept of a global recession?
The left wing continually warned that if you strangle the economy manufacturing output will fall, benefit payments will go up, tax receipts will go down, and GDP will go down. We now have the issue of the UK doing extremely badly, with extremely poor growth. If you add to this the Eurozone crisis and the debt ceiling, and the marked falls in stock prices, you see a situation where the bankers need to be bailed out again. The challenge for George Osborne is not make the deficit explode, now that he now has generated poor growth. The challenge for the Liberal Democrats is to ensure that they do not totally implode come the next election, having voted for the Conservatives’ policy throughout this term so far.
If I were in a Con/LibDem marginal, I'd vote LibDem
Yes, I am really angry at Nick Clegg having backtracked on everything I thought he stood for – especially the cuts and tuition fees. Yet, despite my strong reservations, it’s clear that the architects of this faulty plan – especially the deranged Health and Social Services Bill – are the Conservatives. The likelihood is that the referendum to AV will pass a ‘no’ vote, but I feel that if I had a difficult choice between a Conservative and LibDem winning, in spite of my ‘you know where you stand with the Conservatives’, I would much rather not return an unmitigated Conservative local council. This is because I fundamentally disagree with David Cameron and George Osborne, whether it be on the economy, the NHS, education or the Big Society. With some exceptions, I am overall very impressed with those LibDems who have a social conscience. When it comes to the MPs at Westminster, the same difficulty will emerge, and my feeling is that AV won’t make it much better; whilst tactical voting might be more likely under AV, it would be wrong to imply it’s not happening at the moment.
So it really is a difficult one – but the one who has remained unaffected by all this is David Cameron, whose leadership appears to go from strength-to-strength. He was won much unga-bunga factor by waging war against AV, and I suspect he hopes to do the same in Brussels. If he can attract some of the UKIP vote, he may even think to form a minority government with the UKIP party in 2015. The LibDems in the meantime have made their bed, which makes it painfully difficult for some of us. By not voting, we are guaranteed to give the Conservatives a greater share of the vote.
This time, LibDems, expect the worst because of your political magpie Clegg!
For ages, the Liberal Democrats have argued that it is a matter of expectation management. They say that they have always confounded the pundits who have consistently exaggerated the extent and timing of their demise. Nick Clegg has demonstrated remarkable alacrity in underlining that this is bound to be a tough time for the LibDems, as they “repair the mess” left behind the last government. Since 2010, the Coalition government, only made possible through the voting support of LibDems MP, have scrapped EMA, SureStart, Building Schools for the Future, seen the introduction of a Health and Social Care Bill which people say is either disastrous or catastrophic, and caused falling consumer confidence and a worsening recovery.
Nick Clegg offered so much – a clean break from “broken promises”. Within months of his government, he broke his ‘categorical promise’ on tuition fees – nearly 80% of higher education establishments will be pricing their courses at the top rate. People voted for Clegg believing that the LibDems would make a difference, but the reason why the LibDems would be wise to get rid of him is the same reason that Tiger Woods and Wayne Rooney were dropped in their lucrative advertising contracts. This is where the expectation management comes in – this time, we can expect the worst for the LibDems, including the full works, including being demolished at local councillor level and the AV referendum – and, according to the polls, overwhelmingly, we will get it.
This makes a big difference for Labour. The LibDems (Chris Huhne, Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes) are considering legal action, apparently, over what they feel to be fraudulent misrepresentations (i.e. lies) in the anti-AV campaigning, and the country is now in a real economic mess. Labour would be wise to distance itself from the LibDems at this point; the ‘progressive left’ olive branch has been resoundingly dismissed by the right-wing LibDems, and without this branch, I, for one, should be happy for the LibDems to sink without trace. David Cameron is probably regretting having introduced fixed terms, as seeing this Coalition limp on, despite the fact that both parties can work together but dislike each other immensely, will not be in the country’s national interest until 2015. Ed Miliband should, of course, be ready for an election at any time, but it is a fairly firm fact that David Cameron – despite the enormous unpopularity of the cuts, but paradoxically boosted by LabourUncut – has grown from strength-to-strength. It will once again be a two-horse race, but will thankfully no longer have at its centre, the Political Magpie that is Nick Clegg.
Extradition – testing the value of human rights
The Conservatives don’t like the Human Rights Act; the Liberal Democrats like it. Now they are in coalition, and have somehow formulated a position on control orders. Extradition is much more difficult, from the point of view of the legislature. The law of extradition from England and Wales was made less complex by the Extradition Act [2003] which was a response to the raised terrorist threat in Europe. Extradition was made much easier.
The judiciary provides relative certainty in this world of uncertainty. The decision by the European Court of Human Rights to block the extradition of Abu Hamza, the radical Muslim cleric, to America to stand trial on alleged terrorist offences poses a challenge to the Coalition government. The Conservatives promised to repeal the Human Rights Act – but that would make no difference because the European Convention on Human Rights would still apply to British law and it is on this that the Strasbourg court relies for its judgments.
It is an absolute prohibition for a signatory to the ECHR to remove anyone to a place where they would be subject to inhumane or degrading treatment. Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits “inhuman or degrading punishment”. The article has a long history, expressly evoking the 1688 Bill of Rights, which prohibits “cruell and unusuall punishments”. Unlike other rights, Article 3 is unqualified, which means that a State is not permitted to justify a breach on any grounds. It is now uncontroversial (in the courts, at least) that to return a person to a country where there is a real risk that they will be in danger or torture, loss of life or inhuman or degrading treatment would breach Article 3. Therefore, the courts have no choice but to prevent any extradition or deportation which would put a person at serious risk.
Gary McKinnon has been accused of hacking to various U.S. computers. Gary McKinnon’s legal battle has included a number of appeals to the Administrative Division of the High Court. In July 2009, Lord Justice Burnton rejected his claim that, due to his mental condition, his detention would involve inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment which would, if committed in this country, infringe Article 3. The judge held that the bar for inhuman and degrading treatment had been set high in previous cases, and stated that McKinnon also claimed under Article 8, the right to private and family life, but this was also rejected, as his extradition was found to be a lawful and proportionate response to his alleged offending. Unlike Article 3, Article 8 is a qualified right, which means that it can be overrided if there is a strong public interest in doing so.
The case has now been adjourned by the Home Secretary so she can consider the medical evidence afresh. Geoffrey Robertson QC calls this a test case for principles and suggests that the Home Secretary’s “main difficulty will be to override her Home Office advisers who have for years fought an unremitting, expensive and merciless battle against this poor man and his indomitable mother” However, the legislature – or rather an important part of it – has meant this story has taken, for the time-being, a turn for the worse. Nick Clegg, last week, said it would be ‘better all round’ for the two not to discuss the details of the case, which has now been grinding on for seven years. The Americans are demanding the extradition of Gary, 45, despite medical experts warning he will kill himself if sent to the U.S. for trial. Mr Clegg had been implacable in his support for Gary in opposition. He stood by Mrs Sharp’s side at a demonstration outside the Home Office in December 2009.
What we do not have is clarity on the future of the Human Rights Act. Mr Ken Clarke, the Justice Secretary, said Britain would seek to kick-start reform of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the European Court on Human Rights when it takes up a key role in Europe later this year. However, Lord Justice Woolf has signalled there is very little chance of anything changing because it would mean persuading 47 countries who are all signed up to the Convention. The Prime Minister has announced a commission to examine the creation of a British Bill of Rights and the country’s relationship with the European court. Lord Woolf, who was the country’s most senior judge between 2000 and 2005, said a Bill of Rights would also cause conflict between the two.
The upshot for David Cameron and Nick Clegg – talk is cheap, when the future of human rights in individual people are at stake.
If we are serious about left progressive politics, we should appear to mean it.
It is easy to blame the demise of ‘left, progressive politics’ on Nick Clegg. This vehement dislike for Nick Clegg is inadvertently encouraged by the spin and media factories of the Liberal Democrats to argue that a majority of people voted for a Coalition – this is not true, as no-one can vote a priori for a hung parliament (as such). I would argue that people wished to vote anti-Cameron instead, in favour of a left progressive agenda. In fact, the last thing they wanted was a Tory Lite in the form of Nick Clegg – but that’s what they’ve got.
This is what worries me about the future. I am still keen on the growth of left progressive politics. Labour conceded a long time its mistakes on the erosion of civil liberties (e.g. periods of detention in terrorism, ID cards), but needs to be aggressive in demonstrating that it had over a period of centuries a commitment to civil liberties, in fact. The Tories simultaneously argue that there has been an erosion of civil liberties and that the Human Rights Act is too ‘liberal’. The Liberal Democrats strongly indorsed the Human Rights Act (1998) before they got into bed with the Tories for political opportunism; the Tories violently opposed the Act, preferring an unenforceable aspirational Bill of Rights instead.
The future includes aspiring Councillors like Lisa Harding. Here is her website:
http://lisaharding.mycouncillor.org.uk/
There is no doubt about Lisa’s commitment to her Party (the Liberal Democrats), nor indeed to her local constituency.
Indeed, a friend of mine on Facebook wrote as follows,
Really, really interesting that was. Thank you. If all councillors showed this much enthusiasm for the history of the place they are representing we’d all be a darn sight better off. Well done Lisa Harding.
There’ll be a cold day in hell before the Lib Dems ever get a vote from me. But with people like this on their team, they should be very proud. I shalll mail this to Mr Clegg and voice my approval after work 
I will not go as far as to say the Labour Party as a whole should ‘work with’ the Liberal Democrats. After all, we know the rather unpleasant diatribe that Tim Farron and Nick Clegg have produced against Labour’s spending during the world recession. However, I would really like an appreciation that a progressive left agenda can be worked out on human rights. Take for example the disaster that was waiting to happen between the Tories and Lib Dems on control orders. And also – for any chronic patient in the NHS or any parent sending their kid to school in the state sector – such demonisation and vilification of the State won’t be tolerated any longer. The ‘Big Society’ has failed, and there is a reason for that.
Oldham and Saddleworth
My letter from Ed Miliband
Shibley,
As you may have seen on last night’s news I have been campaigning in Oldham East and Saddleworth against the Tory-led Government’s VAT hike. This increase in VAT, which kicked in at midnight, is the wrong tax at the wrong time. This is the message we need to get out in Oldham East and Saddleworth.
And we now have just 9 days left to do it before polling day.
Our excellent Labour candidate is Debbie Abrahams. Her campaign team have just had a great new leaflet printed spelling out what the VAT hike means for real families – even on Nick Clegg’s own figures the average family will be £389 worse off.
Our campaign centre is open from 8.30am until 7pm every day from now until the election. It is located at 11 Lees Road, Oldham. OL4 1JS. If you want to call ahead or if you have any questions then please call: (07872) 417249.
I will be back campaigning in Oldham East and Saddleworth before polling day so I hope to see you there.
We need to send that message to David Cameron and Nick Clegg – VAT is the wrong tax at the wrong time.
Yours,
Ed Miliband ?Leader of the Labour Party
My letter to Ed Miliband
Dear Ed,
I will not be physically attending Oldham and Saddleworth, as I find journeys difficult on grounds of my disability.
However, I am confident that Labour will hold its head up high, given how the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have brought politics to all-time low regarding taxation. Even today, I noticed that you had to warn about George Osborne misleading the public on the degree to which VAT is progressive. This is a far cry from the photo-opportunistic pledge of David Cameron and Nick Clegg at the last election, and sadly I expect nasty politics from them locally as they campaign for this seat, and fail.
Yours sincerely,
Shibley
Member of the Holborn and St Pancras Constituency Labour Party
