10 Comments

1. Twydall Man says:

   Thursday 28th February 2008 at 22:57

   An impressive start I agree – especially from the perspective of someone who hasn’t voted Conservative for a long time!

   Must say I was also impressed with David Cameron on the Portillo on Thatcher documentary on BBC Four this week (not so impressed with Michael Howard though!)
2. Alan Collins says:

   Thursday 28th February 2008 at 23:04

   I have to admit I am yet to watch the Portillo on Thatcher documentary, so cannot comment.

   However, there is a wonderful thing called BBC iPlayer, and so I shall hopefully get time to watch it this weekend.

   As for Michael Howard, I wasn’t too impressed with him when he was our leader, but fortunately I wasn’t a member of the Party until he had announced his intentions of resigning as Leader (which meant I could vote for Cameron in the Leadership election).

   A lot of people saw David Cameron as being the change our Party needed and, although it has not always been easy and there have sometimes been occassions where Conservatives have been left thinking “what on Earth did he want to go and do/say that for?”, he is a remarkable leader, complete with a mix charisma and content, style and substance, and I believe he will make a great Prime Minister.
3. Twydall Man says:

   Friday 29th February 2008 at 00:25

   I don’t want to spoil your enjoyment of the documentary, but there is an underlying theme that change is needed.

   Be interested in seeing your comments on the programme once you have seen it!
4. Cllr John Ward says:

   Friday 29th February 2008 at 11:25

   I haven’t yet seen this either: been too busy with the budget stuff recently!

   The campaign looks good, and does perhaps finally drive home the message that — hard though it might be to realise — it is actually the Conservative Party, of all people, who are the true champions of the vulnerable, the decent and the hard-working members of our society.

   I had difficulty with this some years ago, owing to propaganda and media bias (which is now much more widely known than it was back then). It has turned to be true!

   Indeed, even last night it became clear that both the Labour Government and their mouthpieces in the Medway Labour Group leadership (both their leader and deputy leader) justified taking nearly £28 million pounds from Medway’s funding every year because, as they both put it during the Budget Council meeting, “Medway has no deprivation”.

   Especially bearing in mind that there are 29 deprived neighbourhoods in Medway (determined using the Government’s own data from the Index of Multiple Deprivation), most of which are in wards represented by Labour councillors, this really is an insulting untruth.

   No: Labour care little if anything for their deprived areas, and have no desire to improve them anyway because (as history has shown elsewhere in Britain) they would lose votes.

   Instead, as Alan mentioned in another discussion just hours ago, they’d rather pump what is effectively our tax money into poorly-run and overspending Labour councils (and there are plenty of those, well-documented in some cases) to bail them out, rather than doing something about why they are in such desperate straits every year.

   The wasted millions (billions?) on that exercise could be doing some good in the areas (such as Medway) where there is the motivation to keep the council lean and put maximum effort and resources into services for the poor, deprived and vulnerable members of society.

   You’ll never get that with any Labour Government at Westminster!
5. Twydall Man says:

   Thursday 6th March 2008 at 14:23

   I have looked at the Conservative Party website at all the posters, and have offered my opinion on the Man of Kent blog, found in the Local Blogs list to the right of this post.

   I would interested to hear your views
6. Twydall Man says:

   Friday 7th March 2008 at 00:06

   I have been thinking about Cllr Ward’s comments about the missing £28m a year – I haven’t noticed this mentioned in the press before now.

   Is there a source that would back this up?
7. Cllr John Ward says:

   Friday 7th March 2008 at 17:03

   I covered this on my ‘blog HERE.

   Both my own calculations year-on-year and the sum of the two deductions from the calculated “need” amount (the official calculation) point to around £28 million taken away from Medway this year, though most commentators are concentrating on the so-called “floor damping” element alone.

   Cllr Mason has a letter in the local press today pointing out a £25 million distortion of funding relative to Medway (we are very similar Authorities in many, with similar needs); and I have a table of the official CIPFA per capita funding figures for the current year showing that the Medway situation is even worse than that (though more difficult to put across in a letter without a lengthy explanation).

   Oh yes, it’s genuine all right. That part isn’t really at issue, as the facts are “out there” for anyone who bothers to take the trouble to check could easily find out independently. The trouble is that few do in fact bother…
8. Twydall Man says:

   Tuesday 11th March 2008 at 20:59

   Thanks for explaining this situation, and providing the link to your blog. Sorry to ask another question, but why hasn’t this information appeared in the local press so that Labour can either confirm the figures are correct or provide their own justification?

   As I have said in earlier postings and in my own Man of Kent blog, honesty is the only way to restore people’s faith in politics, and this information should be in the public domain so that we can fully understand the decisions made about local services.
9. Alan Collins says:

   Tuesday 11th March 2008 at 22:34

   I think, Twydall Man, one of the frustrating things you find in local politics that the local media can be highly selective when it wants to be – although I won’t personally elaborate on that point (John can if he wants to).

   Cllr Jarrett, the Conservative Group Deputy Leader, has tried to highlight this issue in some of his opinion pieces in the Medway Messenger – although this is usually followed by a hasty dismissal and attack from Cllr Godwin, the Labour Group Leader, and the last word is often the one which sticks in people’s minds.

   Even if that last word distracts attention away from the important underlying problems John highlighted above.
10. Councillor John Ward says:

    Wednesday 12th March 2008 at 05:05

    The methods of journalism are used ruthlessly by today’s media to promote the message that accords with their own agenda. This is as expected.

    I have worked with local media for many years, ever since I first volunteered on a Talking Newspaper in late 1974 and have learned much about the subject since then. I could quote numerous examples of bias, some subtle, others not so, both locally and nationally.

    It is now fairly well known that most of Britain’s mainstream media are “left-leaning”, including the BBC, as mentioned on this site, as well as on many others — there are even three ‘blogsites dedicated to this one topic alone, all on my own Blogroll.

    Our local media are much the same, most blatantly during (and immediately prior to) election campaigns, when — despite all the rules applying to the media at such times — they managed to “tweak” matters to suit their agenda. I have kept some examples on file, in case I ever end up doing a talk on the subject…

    As far as the efforts to publicise the facts are concerned, yes Cllr Jarrett held a press conference some months ago, using a map of England showing the huge variations in funding. This did appear in the local newspapers once and then was forgotten about. I haven’t forgotten, though, and the photo appears HERE. A larger photo of just the map (which might be clearer to read) is HERE.

    The figures are taken from the official data obtained from CIPFA, no less. Both I and Cllr Mason have the authoritative list of both the Government grant and Council Tax income (for the current year) for all English Unitary Authorities. I might put it up on one of my websites one of these days…

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