Campaign Update

It’s now just over a week until polling day.  In ten days time, we will see whether I have succeeded in my efforts to convince enough voters in Wyesham to choose me as their County Councillor.  The campaign has thrown up a lot of interesting issues and concerns, as well as presenting a lot of opportunities.

There is no doubt that people are angry.  They are angry with a Conservative government in London who are attacking the living standards of the poor and middle-earners in our communities; they are angry with Liberal Democrat yes men who are allowing them to get away with it.  They feel betrayed by a Government who said they had the country’s best interests at heart, but whose performance has shown that they are only prepared to help the richest in our society. 

People are also angry with the Conservatives at County level, too.  Voters are aware that Monmouthshire has the second lowest level of Council Tax collection in the whole of Wales.  They are sick of paying their bills, only to find that services are being cut because others don’t pay theirs.  And what is the Tory response to this?  Cut the number of staff working in the collection department.   People are angry at an administration that has taken Monmouthshire to second bottom position in the league for providing services; bottom of the league for paying bills to small businesses; sliding down the league for school attainment.

In the face of this, my message has been unremittingly positive.  People seem to be appreciating the simpler ideas that can make a difference.  I have recently become an Age Cymru Ambassador for Older People, committed to standing up for the charity’s three main principles; firstly, to protect frontline services, exactly what Labour have pledged to; secondly, ensuring that older people are safe in winter – chiming with my efforts to keep the police station in Monmouth from closing; thirdly, trying to make more public conveniences available for older people.  To this end, I’ve written to every cafe, restaurant and pub in Monmouth Town centre asking them to join me in opening up their facilities for older people to use.  I am yet to receive a response from any of them.  Those who eventually do respond will have their co-operation trumpeted loudly.  Ideas about calming traffic, opening up more opportunities for young people, allowing businesses and job seekers to advertise on the County Council’s web site, car-sharing schemes for commuters, all ideas that cost little or no money but that can make a big difference to people’s lives.

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As with any campaign, there have been humorous moments to remember.  I am indebted to Mrs P who answered my introduction with the words: “ooh, aren’t you handsome!”  There was the less witty man who tried to squeeze my hand so tightly that I would be injured and gain a sympathy vote (?).  Then there were the mother and son couple who remarked “He’s got it, ain’t he Mum?  He certainly has!” Whatever ‘it’ is!  I was also on the receiving end of a lovely compliment today, when a man told me that I was: “..the most impressive individual we’ve had round here at this election.”  The man had been canvassed by Monmouth’s M.P. a few days earlier!

The most amusing moment came with a great Tory ‘fail’.  Both myself and my opponent are saying that we would support local jobs.  I had my leaflets printed in Monmouth.  Hers were printed in Cardiff.  I think that says all we need to know!

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk

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Published and Promoted by Gwyneth Marsden on behalf of Liam Stubbs, both at 37 Elstob Way, Monmouth, NP25 5ET

I'm standing - and standing up for Monmouthshire

Regular readers may note something new at the bottom of this page.  It's known as an 'imprint' and it's a legal requirement for all election candidates to carry.  Everything I write and distribute between now and May 3rd is technically published and promoted by my electoral agent, Gwyneth Marsden.  If I don't carry the imprint, one or both of us could end up in prison!  The only complaint from Gwyneth, who is also agent to two other candidates, is that it looks as though we all live in the same house!

I'm standing for election to Monmouthshire County Council, as the Labour candidate in the Wyesham Ward.  So why am I standing?  Well, for the last 8 years, Monmouthshire has had a Conservative authority and it shows.  Problems are mounting up and priorities are all wrong.  Last year the Tories managed to bank £1.5 million in surplus yet cut services to the most vulnerable in our society.  Something has to change.

Unemployment is rising, particularly among women, yet the Tories attitude is to close their eyes and pretend it is not happening.  We need to support small and medium businesses, the type of business that will engineer economic growth.  How?  Well, we can make a start by letting them use the council website to advertise job vacancies, saving them a lot of money.  Better still, lets have a section where people looking for jobs can upload their cv's, creating an instant skills match.  We currently have to wade through pages and pages of self-congratulatory PR before we get to anything useful on the site. 

I want to see a local 'kitemark' for businesses, rewarding those who help the local community, have good employee relations and reach their recycling rates.  These businesses should be rewarded by being allowed to use council sites for free advertising, be invited to showcase at public functions and helped to reach their target audiences.  At the moment, unscrupulous companies fly post and nothing is done about it.  Why are our good companies being put at a disadvantage?

Monmouthshire has one of the worst records for paying it's bills.  This acts as a death sentence to some small scale suppliers.  Labour will guarantee all bills are paid within 30 working days.

The Conservatives are letting pensioners down hugely.  My last blog spoke of the appalling way they have been forced to pay for the tax cut to millionaires.  Simple things can make lives a lot better.  Labour in the Welsh Assembly is working with Age Cymru to enable businesses to open their toilet facilities for senior citizens use.  There has been no movement on this in Monmouth.  I aim to persuade EVERY pub and cafe in town to display a sign welcoming older people to use their facilities.  Simple things to make people's lives easier.

Monmouthshire's secondary schools have been allowed to slip down the Welsh league tables, despite having some of the most talented teachers and students in the country.  The news drew a stunningly flippant and complacent response from the Councillor responsible for schools.  This reprehensible situation needs to change.  The £1.5 million surplus that the council banked last year should be put to use repairing our battered school buildings and employ more Learning Mentors and Teaching Assistants, taking the pressure off teachers and giving our children more one-to-one support.

As a rural county, Monmouthshire has transport issues.  The night-time economy suffers greatly from the lack of public transport between the towns.  I want to look at new ways of funding buses, to encourage people to travel between the likes of Chepstow, Monmouth and Abergavenny, bringing extra custom to pubs, restaurants and theatres.  A night bus service will cut the temptation to drink and drive and end the ridiculous situation of no evening public transport.

Under the Conservatives, Monmouthshire has sunk to second bottom of the league for Council Tax collection.  Honest families who work hard and pay their bills are being forced to watch others get away with it because of the Tories shocking level of incompetence.  Under Labour, this will change.  No longer will people have to see their services suffer because of this poor leadership.  The 'Can't Collect, Won't Pay' days will be over.

Monmouth is a county with massive potential, currently being let down by its leadership.  After eight years, all the Conservatives can boast is that Council Tax will not rise this year.  It's time for a change.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk

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Published and Promoted by Gwyneth Marsden on behalf of Liam Stubbs, both at 37 Elstob Way, Monmouth, NP25 5ET

New thinking is unfair on the old

Last week’s budget contained few surprises as most of the measures had been loudly trailed in advance.  George Osborne did manage to offend the nation’s pensioners by freezing and cutting their personal tax allowances, a dangerous thing to do given the numbers in which they cast their votes.  As Steve Richards of The Independent tweeted: “I have always struggled to see why George Osborne is seen as a strategic genius. I struggle a little more after today's budget.”

Once the enormity of his error hit home, the Conservative community set out on a damage limitation exercise designed to help the Chancellor down from his self-constructed gallows.  At first, the spin tried to make out that it didn’t matter too much, that pensioners were being compensated in other ways.  Pensions were due to rise in April, so most pensioners would not be worse off.  When that argument failed to stand up to scrutiny, a far more sinister approach was adopted.

Apparently, we want all sectors of the community to feel the pain during these austere times.  Pensioners, we were told, have got off lightly so far.  If you’re not convinced about that, just take a look at what they have had in their lives.  They got the best of the NHS, of social services, of community housing before social dumping and the right to buy turned estates into ghettoes.  They were around during full employment, their savings were protected by high interest rates, they bought houses on the cheap and sold them for a fortune, retiring early on their final salary pensions and living the life of Riley.  All of which, of course, is complete claptrap.

Today’s older pensioners returned from the beaches of Normandy or left their ordinance factories determined to create something better.  Before they could benefit from the NHS, they had to build it in the first place.  They worked the long hours needed to establish social services, to create the industries the country needed to recover, paid the taxes to support universal education.  They paid National Insurance all through their lives, had a level of expendable income that most people would baulk at now.  Those who retired more recently blazed the trail through the sixties and seventies, taking risks and challenging orthodoxy, winning the freedoms we take for granted today.

Even worse, it is these very people that are supporting others now.  Many families are so hard pressed, they are relying on the older generation to help them out.  Families who are lucky enough to have two incomes often rely on Grandparents as their major source of childcare – often unpaid – to allow them to make ends meet.

Now that it is no longer possible to turn people against each other on the grounds of race or gender, those who frequent the gutter of British politics encourage us to feel bitterness towards an older generation for being fortunate enough to have lived most of their lives in different economic circumstances.  Pensioners, the line goes, should be made to pay.

In other news, Barclays Bank Chief Executive Bob Diamond is estimated to have received a tax cut in the region of £1.24 million thanks to last week’s budget.  “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk

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National pay a necessity for local heroes

If I glance over my shoulder I can see a small hill out of the window.  That hill is quite significant, as the stream that runs alongside it is the border between England and Wales.  It is true to say that the two places are very different, in identity, culture and outlook, though from here, there doesn’t appear to be too much difference.

Many people cross this particular border every day, particularly to work.  A lot of public sector workers are happy to live in an area where they don’t work – indeed if you are a nurse, teacher or involved in several other professions, it can often be a bonus to not live alongside the people you interact with every day.  NHS professionals can save themselves all sorts of embarrassing situations by ensuring they don’t bump into their patients at their local shop.  All this, though, may well be about to change.

Over the last few days, a suggestion has been floated that public sector workers should be paid according to local economic factors rather than to national pay scales.  This is yet another attempt by an increasingly snide and nasty Government to denigrate public services.  The idea that two people doing exactly the same job, with the same stresses and same professional requirements should be paid differently just because they live in different areas is a sinister attempt to change a complete community culture.  I happen to think that society values the work that our public sector workers put in, a view which I think I share with the majority of people.  Clearly the Government in general, and George Osborne in particular, has a lower opinion of us.

The justifications for this move have been quite staggering in their hypocrisy.  One excuse was that it would allow wages to be lowered in poorer areas, thus giving the private sector the ability to compete for the best people.  Now I might not have been listening properly, but I’m pretty sure that Cameron and co have spent the last two years telling us that we have to pay bankers the top rate or we would lose the best people to other countries.  Apparently it’s different when it comes to the best youth workers, police officers and care workers.  If we want to attract those people to work in different areas, we apparently have to pay them less.  Apparently some in the private sector complain that they cannot attract the best people.  I would have thought raising the salaries they pay might help that particular quandary.  If they cannot afford that, they need to cut their cloth accordingly.  If they cannot afford to pay for the jobs they need doing, then a long hard look at their business model may be in order.

It has also been pointed out that Labour supported a regional cap on Housing Benefit.  This, some Conservatives have argued, shows that support for regional caps would be easy to obtain.  This, however, highlights the Tories feelings about public servants - they seem to think that working in the public sector is akin to claiming benefits.  Perhaps they will reflect on that the next time they are rushed to A&E.

Regionalising pay will not produce winners, only losers.  There will be a ‘brain drain’ from poorer areas.  After all, why should someone at the top of their profession bother working in areas like Hartlepool or Bury when they can earn far more in Hertfordshire or Buckinghamshire.  And what of those I referred to earlier that live in one place and work in another?  What of public servants who live in Cheshire and work in Stoke?  At a stroke, they will see their disposable income sliced away.  They will no longer be able to afford to live an area different to the one they work in.  The only option would be to move to the ‘cheaper’ area, ghettoising the public sector almost overnight.

We are constantly told that we need a ‘level’ playing field in business, something I’m all in favour of.  Tipping the scales in this manner creates anything but.  It is an unwarranted attack on many people who give their all for other people.  George Osborne should hang his head in shame.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk
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Council under fire for officers' "fictional residents" writing - Wales News - News from @walesonline

Council under fire for officers' "fictional residents" writing - Wales News - News from @walesonline

Allotting power to people is no bad thing

Politics is rarely described as the stuff of myth and legend.   In the Labour Party, however, sentimental stories abound.  Our heritage is built on tales of Keir Hardie and Clement Attlee, Barbara Castle and Nye Bevan, folks of such grit, character and determination that even the most hardened, old style Trades unionist can become moist of eye.

There are other myths which rear their heads, though, far more dangerous ones, malicious jibes which can have a very dangerous effect on even the most mild policy ideas that flow forward. 

One of the most pernicious labels that the Conservatives have ever managed to stick on Labour is that we are the party of ‘Big Government’.  Such claims have had two effects – one positive and one very, very negative.

The negative connotation is fermented in the minds of voters.  ‘Big Government’ is synonymous with interference, of an Orwellian superstate intruding into every aspect of people’s lives.  This line of attack was regularly trotted out during the early Blair years as the Tories found themselves unable to put forward an alternative agenda.  It was hardly accurate, but some of the mud flung during that time stuck.

The positive view of ‘Big Government’ is the Corporatist State that delivered the NHS, universal education and social security, a method of Government which survived from the early war years right up until the collapse of consensus in 1979.  That was the genuine era of ‘Big Government’ and a lot of Labour Party members are still emotionally and politically attached to the notions formed in that era.  One of the problems with that notion, however, is that Labour was actually only in power for 17 years of that near 40 year period.  Labour may have played a large part in constructing the Corporatist State, but the Tories actually spent more time running it.

In the early days of the Labour Party, a lot of time was spent discussing just how socialism and redistribution were to be achieved.  Many, including Hardie himself, the Fabian Society and some Trades Unions favoured a localist approach.  The argument went that conditions in the mills of Lancashire or the blast furnaces of Teesside were so particular to those areas that decisions about them were best made by people on the ground.  Local Unions, local people and local politicians would find the best ways of running services and industries, making them work for their particular area, rather than having a ‘one size fits all’ policy for different industries.  Once the party had decided on a programme of nationalisation, central strictures made more sense, but that is no longer a world we inhabit.  Outside the NHS and education, there are very few areas which present problems needing national cures.  It is growing increasingly likely that the localist agenda favoured by Hardie would be more likely to fit today’s issues than Attlee’s agenda.  Glasgow Social Services face vastly different issues than those operating in Monmouth.  The best we can do is to look at best practice and to adapt ideas to meet local needs.

One small but significant example concerns allotments.  I doubt you would be able to find too many people arguing that such ideas are not a force for good.  How to administer them, however, is rapidly becoming a big problem.  Here in Monmouth we have an issue with plots that are not being utilised, despite being allocated to specific people.  There is also a waiting list of people chomping at the bit, waiting to grow their own.  One of the problems is that the allotments are administered by the County Council in Cwmbran, around 26 miles away.  Why?  There is already a committee in situ, so why on earth do decisions concerning a local resource need to be taken by people who may never have set foot on the ground concerned?  Better, surely, to give control of the facilities to the committee.  If someone’s patch goes unattended for a fixed period of time, let the chair knock on their door to ask why.  In the case of sickness or incapacity, the patch becomes the committee’s responsibility until the person is well enough to tend it once more.  If the tenant is simply not bothered any longer, then the committee should have the power to declare the land vacant, allowing the next person on the list to take possession.  If the list were ‘blind’ then no-one would be able to favour their friends.  All of this could be backed up by a little dedicated administrative time from the County Council.

While this is a small example, it is the kind of issue that matters greatly to those concerned.  There are plenty of services that are already run by local people whilst remaining in public ownership.  The problem is that they are dominated by bureaucracy.  Surely cutting that layer of administration and letting people get on with what they already do is a better alternative?  It is not a Trojan Horse for privatisation, nor is it an excuse to cut.  It is a practical step towards giving power to people.  None of those iconic figures who make up the Labour Party’s back story would object to that.  Neither, of course, should we.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk
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Government by the wealthy, for the wealthy

If anyone had doubts as to where the Cameron government’s sympathy lay, the events of the last few days amply demonstrate that this is government for the few, not the many.

The row over bonuses in the banking sector saw battle lines clearly drawn: the public on one side, annoyed that they see living standards falling while the industry responsible for many current problems continues to over-reward poor performance.  On the other side, Cameron sent out an army of ministers to explain why the world would go to hell in a hand cart if Stephen Hester wasn’t given shares to the value of £963,000.  Just as he did with Rupert Murdoch last summer, Ed Miliband chose to stand with the outraged against the rich and powerful.  More kudos to him for that, but shame on Ian Duncan Smith, who claimed that the banking world would be plunged into some kind of “chaos” (his word, not mine), if the Government started to interfere with the pay arrangements of the sector’s higher echelons.  I can just imagine it.  They might all threaten to stop lending money to individuals and small businesses, preferring instead to twist the Government round their little finger.  Pretty much as they did a year ago with ‘Operation Merlin’.  It’s worth remembering that current Government policy has led to nurses and teachers having to work longer for less reward.  It has also led to bankers choosing whether to add a £963,000 bonus to their £1,200,000 salary. 

After Miliband threatened to force a Commons vote on the issue, Stephen Hester climbed down.  Chillingly, the Government then reiterated their refusal to interfere with any other bonus payments RBS choose to award.  It’s worth remembering that the financial sector donated £11.4 million to the Conservative Party last year.

Another move by the Conservatives, wholeheartedly supported by the LibDems, has been to alter the arrangements for payment in the legal system.  Under new legislation, the present ‘No Win, No Fee’ system will be altered.  As things stand, all costs in a successful action brought under such a deal are borne by the guilty party.  So, for instance, if I beat you up and you bring a successful civil case against me, I have to pay all of your costs.  Under the new proposal, you would have to pay a percentage of your lawyers costs for the pleasure of successfully suing me.  I’ll be better off, so if you don’t mind, I’ll beat you up next year if it’s all the same with you.  Why change the current arrangements?  Well, I have a sneaky suspicion that some law firms are not particularly happy with the level of damages that courts are setting.  As I am not a particularly wealthy man, the court cannot fine me millions for beating you up (apologies, that’s twice I’ve done it now).  A fee taken as a percentage of damages related to my circumstances would not be huge.  On the other hand, if you have to pay some of your costs, it would be more worthwhile for the lawyers to only pick wealthy clients.  If you are wealthy, the law firm could make sure they get their pound of flesh from you whatever the outcome of the case.  If you can’t afford to pay their fees then I guess it will be even cheaper for me to beat you up (I really must stop doing that).

All in all, it has been a mixed few days for the wealthy and the powerful.  It looks like lawyers will get away with charging victims of crime rather than the perpetrators, but it’s not great news if you’re a money driven Chief Executive of a state owned bank.  Perhaps Ed Miliband will choose the legal system as his next moral crusade.  Given his success in forcing the Leveson inquiry and making RBS climb down, victims of crime had better hope he does.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk
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Needing to Ed in the right direction

Being Leader of the Labour Party, especially in opposition, is not an easy job.  Support is often sympathetically, rather than enthusiastically, given and enemies are never difficult to find.  Take this January comment from a senior M.P.:

“The man doesn’t understand the Labour Party.  He is isolated, depressed.  He won’t last beyond the end of the year.”

Cutting stuff.  Although, that quote wasn’t from this January, it was from January 1995.  Nor was it from a sitting M.P. but came from the late, great Gwyneth Dunwoody.  She was talking about Tony Blair.  Twelve and a half years and three General Election victories later, he did go before the end of the year.  Despite his failings, he proved a few people wrong along the way, too.

Ed Miliband is coming in for the same sort of criticism Blair had to put up with, as well as Wilson did and others in between.  People expect the Leader of the Opposition to be able to perform miracles, to storm ahead in opinion polls and to take the country by storm.  Even if Ed Miliband did all that, though, would it matter?  Neil Kinnock usually had a very healthy lead over Margaret Thatcher in the polls, but that hardly stopped the Conservative gaining a three figure majority in the poll that mattered, in 1987.

Real votes count and in the traditional Tory area of St Albans, Labour took a council seat at a by-election with a huge swing last week.  One Council seat may not mean a lot in the great scheme of things, but these were real votes cast in real ballot boxes.

Most of the disapproval seems to be coming from the media, or is at least media lead.  The two newspapers most vociferous in their criticisms are the Sun and the Times.  Both these publications are owned by Rupert Murdoch, whose News International stable is up to its neck in the phone hacking scandal.  The one party leader who brought the phone hacking issue to the fore, the one who was willing to break with Murdoch and risk his newspapers ire was Ed Miliband.  For this reason, should we be surprised that they are turning on him?  The Times published a disgraceful cartoon last summer, showing one starving child in the Horn of Africa saying to another “I’ve had a bellyful of phone hacking”.  This amply demonstrates the low standards the Murdoch empire will stoop to in trying to deflect attention away from their disgusting behaviour.  Stirring opposition to Miliband is another ruse to this very end.  Remove him, the theory goes, and his successor may not make such a principled stand.  Fortunately, not everyone has the same moral cowardice practised by News International on a daily basis.

I would accept, however, that Miliband is tainted by association.  Outgoing governments are not popular – if they were, they would not be outgoing Governments.  Labour were rightly criticised for over spending, but are being wrongly blamed for the majority of the current economic problems.  It was Gordon Brown who made the Child Trust Fund universal, rather than only applicable to those who truly needed it.  It was not Gordon Brown who caused chaos in the Eurozone.  It was Labour who failed to impose stricter regulation on the banks.  It was not Labour who allowed American banks to become so heavily involved in the sub-prime market.  Labour have to be honest about their failings in Government.  They do not have to accept the ridiculous and dishonest Tory line that the current situation is all down to Labour.

Ed Miliband needs to put forward his principles and hope they resonate with the people of Britain.  He has already started to do this by attacking the poor ethics of the ‘get rich quick and don’t give a toss’ merchants that have dominated British business for too long.  Unfortunately, Cameron and Clegg have both been quick to try to steal those ideas for themselves.  Not bad for a man who supposedly has no direction and poor leadership – having the Prime Minister and his deputy trying to muscle in on his ground.

To my mind, Miliband has one real problem at the moment, and it is a substantial one.  He’s not being himself.  A recent set-piece speech included an urge to David Cameron to “..bring it on”.  Whoever wrote that phrase or at least allowed it to stay in the speech needs to be sacked immediately.  I cannot for one minute imagine Miliband being the kind of person who would use that phrase.  He is not Clint Eastwood.  He’s more the kind of bloke you know who has intimate knowledge of tax returns or I.T. requirements.  Let him relax and talk to people in his own way.  He may not be the most charismatic politician in the world, but that does not matter as long as his substance shows through.  At the moment, those around him are not allowing this to be the case.

After years of showmanship, of slick politicians who looked more likely to sell you a photocopier than to provide ideas for the future, the country could benefit from a serious politician who had more substance than style.  Ed Miliband could be that politician.  But he will only succeed if his advisors realise that he should be allowed to actually be Ed Miliband.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk

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Bank on local people to lead a revival

A new year is a good time to set out new directions.  We make resolutions that involve changing our behaviour and generally seek out ways in which this new period of time is different and distinctive from the last one.  Given the dreadful economic outlook which hangs like a huge grey cloud over all of us, there has never been a better time to rethink the way we do even the most fundamental things.

Traditionally, anyone hoping to start a new commercial venture has an anxious time, putting together a business case to present to an investor, normally a bank, order to obtain funding.  If that hurdle is cleared, the next step is usually for the request to be referred up the chain of command until the final agreement is given by a regional or even national office.  So by the time the crunch decision comes, the people who have the final say are far removed from the environment in which the initial application was made.  This means that most business decisions are made on a theoretical model, rather than on the practicalities faced 'on the ground'.

A good example of the problems this can bring has come recently in Monmouth.  A new coffee shop has opened, a branch of Cafe Nero.  Now let me say that I have nothing against Cafe Nero and have sampled their latte many times during my time in Bolton and in other places too.  Unfortunately, around the time that this chain cafe has opened, two locally owned and run cafes have closed.  This is not just another case of market forces taking their natural course.  It's a situation that takes money out of the local economy.  When a chain opens, the profits it makes are distributed in the form of dividends to shareholders, wherever they may be.  When a locally owned business makes money, the profits are usually recycled into the local economy, supporting local suppliers and distributors.  I'm no expert on Cafe Nero's purchasing policy, but it would not be unusual for large businesses to buy in bulk and deliver.  So milk, for example, will come from the cheapest source nationally, rather than helping to guarantee the survival of a local dairy.

It's my feeling that local issues need local solutions.  If someone wants to start a business locally, then decisions about it should be made as close to home as possible, including issues about investment.  The Bank of England recently printed a great deal of money in a process known as 'Quantatative Easing', money which was given to banks to lend to businesses, but the majority of which is sitting securely in bank vaults.  That money was intended to kick start the economy, but will not achieve the objective unless it is put into the hands of people who know where it needs to be used.  We need community investment partnerships, made up of councillors, members of business organisations and voluntary groups to decide what kind of businesses towns need.  Forget large and unwieldy regional development bodies, allow locally elected people to take charge of their towns and counties.  Give them the power to attract businesses to their areas.  Allow community investment partnerships to decide where resources need to be allocated.  And most importantly, give them the money to back people who want to create local jobs and local services. 

At the moment, the QE money is serving no purpose.  Even if it was used for investment, the decisions would be made a long way from local communities.  I'd rather see someone with business ideas going to a local partnership to ask for loans and grants to help them get started and the QE money could fund that.  Yes, there may be an issue of overlap, with people having vested interests, but this is important too.  Of course the local butcher does not want a competitor on his doorstep, but why should his voice not be heard?  Surely two identical businesses in a small community is a bad thing anyway?  One example of that here in Monmouth goes back to coffee.  You would need more than two hands to count the amount of places you could buy a cup around the high street.  If you're after a new cd, however, forget it.  Diversity keeps the shoppers coming and keeps a town alive.  Local people know that, so it is they who should be making decisions on the direction of their local economy.

Of course, there's always an issue of trust when financial matters are concerned.  Could we have faith in local people not to misappropriate large sums of cash?  Or perhaps, in the wake of the expenses scandal and the financial crisis, we should leave this money in the hands of politicians and banks.  Just a thought.

liamstubbslabour@hotmail.co.uk
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