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

Twitter - @LiamStubbs

Facebook - Liam Stubbs Labour



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

Twitter - @LiamStubbs

Facebook - Liam Stubbs Labour

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
Twitter - @LiamStubbs
Facebook: Liam Stubbs Labour

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