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by Paul Scully | Mar 7, 2008 | News |
Now I know that MPs too often think their parliamentary orations are Churchillian but I saw that a bit of Shakespeare seems to be creeping in to the proceedings by the back door. My political anorak eagle-eyed colleague at work noticed that a Hansard reporter seems to have drifted off to a world of Shakespeare, perchance to dream. Have a look at the bottom of this page. Any rational explanations would be welcomed. Failing that your best Shakespeare/Parliamentary puns will have to do. Make them good otherwise I’ll have to make the unkindest cut of them all.
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by Paul Scully | Mar 4, 2008 | News |
The Council Tax increase has been confirmed at 3.4%. Only the LibDems could consider this a good news story, yet they gamely tried to justify it.
We were told that each of the neighbouring councils had bigger increases. This is true, though not the whole picture. Residents in Croydon, Merton and Surrey – all Conservative Councils – still pay far less that we do here in Sutton. One neighbour, Kingston not only had the third highest rise in London but retains the crown of having the highest tax burden of any London Borough. I’ll leave you to guess who runs that Council (clue: same party as Richmond, the second highest tax bill in London).
Croydon residents know what they are getting for their extra money. £1.5m is being invested in extra policing and £4.75m is going into recycling initiatives including recycling facilities for every block of flats in Croydon, something we have failed to do in this Borough which sells its green virtues at every opportunity. Excluding flats means that a massive proportion of the residents in Sutton simply cannot recycle very easily. It also pushes the onus onto householders to meet targets that the Council sets.
This budget is merely treading water offering nothing new for residents except bigger bills. At the same time residents in Hammersmith and Fulham are seeing their bills cut by 3% for the second year in a row, there is a freeze for pensioners’ bills in Hillingdon. Wandsworth and Westminster residents continue to pay just one-third of the amount than we do.
by Paul Scully | Mar 4, 2008 | News |
Last night we had our annual bunfight that is the Budget debate. It was a strange affair, with little offered by the LibDems. Instead they say smugly attacking the Conservatives. As a politician, I don’t mind this. As a resident, this leaves me fuming. Who on earth is running the Borough if the LibDems are continuing to act as an Opposition party rather than a group that should have a positive track record to boast about after 22 years with their hands on the purse strings.
I’ll cover the Budget in two posts as one matter caught my eye in particular and illustrates the LibDem Council’s approach to their Budget perfectly. We caught the LibDems out using the interest from huge sums of Government money to lessen its own council tax increase. Conservative councillors discovered that the mystery savings which cut the increase from the controversial 4.9% to the ‘benign’ 3.4% has come from a variety of sources including the interest creamed off from the Building Schools for the Future funding for Stanley Park High School in Carshalton, and a surplus of council tax from new homes.
This follows the previous controversy when the Lib Dem Council consulted on a 4.9% projected council tax increase in December 2007. The current above inflation increase of 3.4% has been set by using additional money from sources termed in council-speak as “slippage” and the “buoyancy of the Council Tax base”. We confronted the Lib Dem finance executive councillor for either not being up-front about this hidden surplus when official documents announced a 4.9% increase or for simply not knowing of its existence through incompetence. No answer was forthcoming.
During the debate the LibDem executive councillor for learning services confirmed that quarterly instalments of £2.056 million have been received by the Council – from the Department for Children, Schools and Families – totalling some £6.168 million. He also confirmed that projected earnings in interest were £150,000 for 2007/08. After considerable pressure from Conservatives over the last week, he agreed that all revenue in interest should be ‘ring-fenced’ to be used exclusively on the project to build the new Stanley Park School.
It is good news that they have reversed their policy under pressure to ensure that the considerable revenue in interest from the school grant will be used only for the benefit of the Stanley Park School. Using this money’s interest to partially offset the council tax increase is just not acceptable. School children should not be short-changed because this Council can’t control it’s spending.
This does mean that the budget is now incorrect to the tune of £150,000 because the Lib Dems cannot cream it off anymore. How will they make up this shortfall? Maybe we can do a swap with parents’ School Vouchers?
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by Paul Scully | Mar 2, 2008 | News |
No not that one. We have a Full Council meeting tomorrow where we will listen patiently to Cllr Drage telling us that we have never had it so good and that we should be grateful for only having to pay an extra 3.4% tax in the coming year.
He won’t be speaking for an hour with a glass of whisky as in the Parliamentary debate. Fifteen minutes is more than enough for all of us before we correct him on a few points:)
I’ll report back tomorrow
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by Paul Scully | Mar 2, 2008 | News |
After a hard-fought campaign, I look forward to the new version of the LibDem posters sprouting up around Cheam Village.
First the result:-
Conservative 1541
LibDem 1454
UKIP 260
Labour 106
Turnout 44.1%
So, Jonathan Pritchard was elected in a tight race. UKIP ran an campaign that, though negative and uninformed had a significant effect winning 7.5% of the vote.
The great surprise was the LibDems. I was taken aback by their newsletters which were cynical and negative. Despite running the Borough for 22 years, they resorted to personal attacks and failed to demonstrate any track record of success in that time. Instead they promised to tackle crime in Cheam despite regularly telling councillors and residents that Cheam had very little crime. They even started to steal some of the campaigning techniques from UKIP with some of the UKIP headlines being repeated word for word in the LibDem Focus. My surprise came from how clearly they demonstrated that they were living off their successes in the 1990s, with no new ideas for the Borough.
I could only agree with several women that I spoke to throughout the campaign who felt patronised by the claim that they should vote for Wendy Mathys because Cheam already had two male councillors and they didn’t need a third. So much for the best man (or woman) winning. I would like to see the councillors being broadly representative of the community in which they live but quotas and female chauvinism is really not the way to go to acheive this.
Paul Burstow MP must be concerned with the result. He allied himself very closely to the LibDem candidate but could not swing any extra votes. Midway through the campaign he rediscovered the art of communication using House of Commons headed paper to write unsolicited mail to residents. I’m sure his local electorate will take a dim view of using parliamentary stationary to influence a council election whether or not he paid for it himself. Maybe he hasn’t noticed the media coverage about MPs using parliamentary resources for their own ends.
Cheam has the lowest Labour vote of any ward in London, so this was never to be a happy hunting ground for them. Nonetheless they sought to ask questions of residents to debate local issues. It was an interesting tack and deserved a few more votes from the LibDems for being positive.
As for us, we picked three main themes, crime, planning and council tax. Our campaign was positive, though taking the LibDems to task where necessary. Unlike their campaign we played the ball, not the man to take a footballing analogy. It has been a hard slog for the last few weeks. We did not take a single vote for granted despite the misquote in the Sutton Advertiser and I’m really pleased that Jonathan came out as the worthy winner. He will be an asset to the residents of Cheam and he will be an asset to the Conservative Group as we look to build on this in order to win the election in 2010 when we can really effect the change required to make Sutton a better place to live.
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by Paul Scully | Feb 22, 2008 | Carshalton Central, News |
The latest round of Post Offices in London to be closed was revealed on Tuesday. 169 branches were identified with 2,500 closures in total earmarked across the country.
Sutton has its share with Carshalton Road, opposite the BP Garage joining Gander Green Lane, Bishopsford Road, Mitcham Junction and Wythe Lane for the chop. The shopkeepers seem to have mixed views but I fear for the less mobile who will find the mile or so travel to the nearest alternative difficult.
Conservative Parliamentary candidate Ken Andrew has collected 2,000 signatures around Carshalton and Wallington and Philippa Stroud has been proactive in raising support in Sutton for the campaign to stop these further closures. Philippa’s petition is also online, so please show your support here. There are a few weeks of consultation. Any chance of success in reversing this decision depends on your support. Please take a minute to register your protest.
Now I know that MPs too often think their parliamentary orations are Churchillian but I saw that a bit of Shakespeare seems to be creeping in to the proceedings by the back door. My 
