Interestingly the BBC hardly reported 20 economists supporting the Conservative contention that the £178billion deficit run up by Labour needs to be tackled sooner rather than later. When 60 other economists supported Brown’s line that we can spend our way out of recession (which is what his policy amounts to) it was headline news on the BBC. To add to its fairness and objectivity the news item referred to the 60 as ‘leading’ economists. There was no qualification of the adjective of course – other than their agreement with Brown (and the BBC?), one presumes.

Locally our papers seem anxious to give credibility to the ’story’ put about by our two Lib Dem MPs about the impending closure of A&E and maternity services at Kingston Hospital. This is in spite of a very explicit letter from NHS SW London setting out the facts in the matter and a clear statement from the Health Minister in the Adjournment Debate last Monday.  One might have thought it in the public interest that this letter be published in its entirety. However, it was written on 27th January and I haven’t seen it in the local papers yet.

One wonders if Mr. Falchikov’s kitchen table isn’t groaning under new confections the media might swallow. Time will tell. Watch this space!

Apart from a great meal we were treated to an amusing after dinner speech by Justine Greening MP, just coming to the end of her first term as MP for Putney. It was very appropriate as she and Helen Whately have much in common and we’re all hoping that Helen will join her as one of a growing body of young Conservative women in the House after the Election.

I was particularly heartened to meet new people from Surbiton Hill who have recently joined the Association and one of our candidates in St. Mark’s Ward who helped to organise the very successful Farmers’ Market in Maple Road last Saturday.

It really is great to see the energy and dynamism of new people coming into the party these days. For myself I am more enthusiastic about the quality of the slate of candidates we have ready for next year’s Council election than I have been since Wansdyke in 1976. I can’t wait to see what they’ll do in the Guildhall!

Now I wonder why the Telegraph is concentrating on the second homes issue, apparently to the exclusion of all else. It seems to me that, by ignoring matters like the above they’re ignoring the elephant in the room.

Source: http://msn.shoothill.com.

Of course these are the tactics of a politician in despair, and the fact that he was once a civil servant working for Brown at the Treasury, does not mean that he isn’t (and wasn’t) a politician thinly disguised as a civil servant. The desperate man is the Prime Minister, of course, who must take responsibility for the actions of his creature. He won’t, though!

I fear the next election may see a lot of dirty tricks from our friends on the Left. If past form is anything to go by, they won’t be  limited to the Labour Party or to Parliamentary elections. I still have in my possession a copy of a letter purporting to come from one of our Conservative councillors, of  Asian origin,  announcing his intention to quit the party during the local election campaign in 2002. I know that the candidate himself didn’t write it, but I still spend the odd idle hour wondering who did……….

My contribution to the debate was as follows:-

Mr. Mayor,

We are making a budget tonight in circumstances most of us have never encountered before. 32 years ago I did encounter them, in Wansdyke, North Somerset, not long after the last Labour government had gone to the IMF, in similar circumstances to those we face today, to ask it to get us out of the mess they had made.

The watchword then was, as it should be now, to cut your suit according to your cloth, safeguarding the services of those who need them most, pruning out waste and avoiding unnecessary spending on grandiose schemes that benefit relatively few of those who actually pay our Council Tax.

Doing this we managed what isn’t being managed in this budget – we made a modest cut in the district rate and went on to repeat that performance in the subsequent two years. We were determined to beat inflation.

This budget imposes a CT increase this year and proposes further similar rises in the next two years – on top of all the rises there have been in years gone by. We have given in to inflation.

I want to concentrate on safeguarding services for those who need them most. The provision of services to people with learning difficulties has been identified as a high budget risk area. I am relieved to see that the Administration is alive to this. However I cannot suppress two concerns:- we cannot simply shrug off the way in which the specific needs of some of our most vulnerable in this regard have been dealt with by the PCT with our connivance. I refer of course to the users of Springboard, for whom Cllr Mary Clark has fought so valiantly and with little by way of practical support from the administration. Of course one could say they aren’t our responsibility, but if the PCT was strapped for cash to run it, why did RBK not help? It was fast enough to find another £600,000 a year for 3 years for the Rose out of the taxpayer’s pocket, in this Budget, and that wasn’t our responsibility either.

There is a further consideration to which I don’t think we have given enough consideration in this Budget and that is the impact of the credit crunch upon the willingness or ability of persons of working age, dubbed ‘baby gloomers’ in the press, to contribute financially to the support of elderly and infirm parents. And the unprecedented cut in interest rates to next to nothing will undermine their ability through their own savings to look after themselves. This is a recession which is likely to hit us in the south east much harder than any previous one in my lifetime and pressure on care services for adults, especially the elderly, could, in my view, increase considerably more than this budget allows for.

Budgets reveal an Administration’s priorities, Mr. Mayor. This budget reveals some parsimony towards the vulnerable people of the Borough which sits ill alongside the repeated acts of generosity towards the prestige project across the road. This is why I cannot associate myself with it.

Now there’s an e-petition from Helen Whately and others, which I’m supporting, together with Nick Kilby.

Please see the link in the article posted on the Surbiton Hill Councillors’ ward blog and sign the petition on line. More than one person per household may sign

The ‘fact-finding’ event took place on 4 February.  It follows the PCT’s announcement that it plans to develop a new £15m polyclinic  on the Ewell Road site offering a range of health services to the local community.

Plans under development by the PCT would enable patients to access a GP seven days a week, as well as having other NHS services on site.  The aim of the fact-finding event was to explore what other complementary services could run alongside those offered by the PCT.

In the near future, the Council will be having further discussions with the PCT and other partners and will consult extensively with local residents.