by Paul Scully | May 3, 2013 | News |
In the latest chapter of the fight to save services at St Helier hospital, clinicians have pushed our local hospital to the bottom of the pile in their recommendation. They had been promising an elective care centre on the site to soften the blow of losing A&E and Maternity. Now their preference is to put that elective care centre in Epsom leaving St Helier as a small local hospital.
Local hospitals don’t have a good track record in Sutton with Carshalton War Memorial, Queen Mary’s and Sutton Hospital itself all closing down over the last couple of decades.
You can read the detail of the recommendation on the BSBV website.
There is a crucial meeting next week where local Sutton GPs meet to decide whether to support the next move to consult residents on these proposals. That meeting is open to the public and I would strongly urge you to go if possible. It’s being held at St Bede’s Conference Centre at St Raphael’s Hospice next to St Anthony’s Hospital on London Road in North Cheam on Thursday 9th May at 1pm.
The campaign by local politicians has resulted in a worsening of the situation. It’s up to the community. It’s up to you to make your view heard.
Please sign the petition by clicking on the button on the right hand side of this page to let them know that you care about local healthcare in Sutton.
by Paul Scully | Apr 24, 2013 | News |
My team and I have been busy this week delivering 40,000 copies of the Chronicle across the constituency. If you didn’t get a copy have a look below. Articles include an update on St Helier, our local economy, immigration, EU, policing in Sutton, the ongoing financial problems of Sutton Life Centre and a bit about me. Let me know what you think.
(Click on Fullscreen to read it in detail)
by Paul Scully | Apr 18, 2013 | News |
I joined many thousands of people lining the streets of London yesterday to pay my last respects to Baroness Thatcher. Standing outside the Royal Courts of Justice, we saw the gun carriage pass us just after the coffin had been transferred at the Church of St Clement Danes as shown in the snatched photo. This is the central church for the RAF and was a fitting stopover for the event which had the military centre stage.
The atmosphere was one of respect and gratitude. A couple of protestors made their point with one being put in their place by an elderly gentleman and another dressed as a miner, succumbing to the convivial atmosphere and having a souvenir photo taken with her arms around a policeman. A particularly touching moment was when spontaneous applause broke out and accompanied the procession along The Strand and Fleet Street like an aural Mexican wave. My group watched the service in a nearby pub, surely one of the few times a West End pub has had choral music blasting out of its surround sound system.
I wanted to attend for a number of reasons. Yes, this was a historic day and being a part of the pomp and ceremony that Britain does so well is very special. However this was a chance to mourn the passing of one of our greatest prime ministers and to thank her for her achievements which helped spur me on to get involved politically myself. The thousands of doors I have knocked on, the tens of thousands of leaflets that I have delivered were largely the product of my upbringing in the Thatcher years.
The wall to wall coverage has gone through the differences of opinion with a fine tooth comb. As we’re approaching Thatcheration point, I’ll leave it to others better qualified than I to write in detail about her time in office and its effects on our country. However there are two areas that I have pondered about over the last week. It is difficult for many to remember quite how bad the state of the country was in 1979 when I was aged 11. We look upon Greece and Cyprus as ‘basket cases’, but the UK was in much the same position then. People couldn’t take more than £50 of their own money out of the country when they went on holiday. To get a phone or gas cooker installed people had to wait for months. 29.5 million days were lost to strike action in 1979. It took someone with the courage of their convictions and the determination to plough through regardless to make even a small dent in the situation. It took Margaret Thatcher to smash through the system.
Another myth that has been allowed to develop is that Margaret Thatcher did not believe in society. Her speech has been quoted so far out of context but I am pleased that the Bishop of London sought to address this in his excellent sermon. The society whose existence she denied was not communities, families and groups brought together with common laws, customs and principles. It was an empty word, a lazy substitution for “someone else, anyone else” which inevitably ended up as the State that she believed had replaced the real meaning of society. That is just as true today as it was then. This is not about self-obsession, clambering over others to get what you can out of the world. It is about realising that we are all individual components in our society, our community and we all need to be playing a role and taking responsibility for what we can to keep the well-oiled machine working effectively.
Whatever your views, she was elected three times. Listening to some of the coverage, it is easy to think that no-one voted for her rather than the 13.7m in 1979, 13m in 1983 and the 13.7m in 1987. I did in 1987, the first election in which I could vote and I am grateful for what she achieved on my behalf.
by Paul Scully | Apr 13, 2013 | News |
Around 38,352 people in Sutton & Cheam are benefiting from the biggest income tax cut in a generation this April.
On 6th April, Conservatives in government increased the amount of money people can earn before paying any income tax to £9,440 meaning 24 million people across Britain will pay up to £600 less income tax this year than in 2010.
An estimated 3,155 people who live in Sutton & Cheam will have been lifted out of income tax altogether by this government. Together with tax cuts made since 2010, Conservatives will have taken 2.2 million people across the country out of income tax.
The coalition agreement stated that by the end of the Parliament, the first £10,000 of people’s incomes would be tax free. Following the announcement in the recent budget, this is a promise that will be met next April. As well as taking the lowest paid out of tax entirely, this cut benefits all income tax payers. By next year, the personal allowance for income tax (your slice of income for which you pay no income tax) will have been increased by a whopping 54% by this government:
- 2010/11 – £6,475
- 2011/12 – £7,475
- 2012/13 – £8,105
- 2013/4 – £9,445
- 2014/5 – £10,000
This is obviously great news for people in Sutton & Cheam. Whilst the government has to keep making tough decisions to balance the books, it is right that Conservatives have prioritised hardworking people – rewarding those who want to get on in life by letting people keep more of the money they have worked hard to earn. Extending the number of people who can still work without paying any income tax leads to a fairer tax system and helps in the aim of always making it pay to work.
Constituency figures from HM Treasury, December 2012
by Paul Scully | Apr 12, 2013 | News |
I joined Cllr Eric Allen and Steve O’Connell for a walkabout around Cuddington Rec’ yesterday to see where the proposed perimeter park will go following the announcement of £100,000 funding from Boris.
Local residents Barry Ivens and John Weir have long campaigned alongside Eric to secure this money and it was good to see their work bear fruit. Their Friends of Cuddington Park Group bid for a further £5,000 in a local council participatory budgeting exercise. The next step is for the council to consult residents on the plans.
One thing I have noticed about the local area is how the council often does half a job and forgets about Worcester Park and North Cheam in favour of Sutton town centre and Carshalton. The pathway at the St Clair Drive entrance which just suddenly fizzles out into a patch of mud sums it up really. If Barry, John, Eric and Steve can get the job finished, it will encourage cyclists and others to make better use of the extremely attractive park.
In the latest chapter of the fight to save services at St Helier hospital, clinicians have pushed our local hospital to the bottom of the pile in their recommendation. They had been promising an elective care centre on the site to soften the blow of losing A&E and Maternity. Now their preference is to put that elective care centre in Epsom leaving St Helier as a small local hospital.
