Wobbling over Wolsey

February 26, 2010 — admin

The purchase of Wolsey Place has attracted a lot of debate in various places, including local Lib Dem blogs and a dismal Facebook group set up by UKIPpers, who have taken a break from blaming everything on Europe.

I’m disappointed that having agreed to it in council, some Lib Dems in Horsell are trying the old “we don’t have to follow the party line” gag just as they did over county hall. No – you don’t have to follow the party line on a Horsell issue such as development in the village or bus service cuts. But this is nothing to do with Horsell specifically and it’s a major financial commitment that the council has signed up to on a cross-party basis. For local activists to now try and wriggle out of their party’s official position on Wolsey Place is opportunistic and disingenuous. If they were so concerned, did they lobby their leadership against cross-party agreement?

For what it’s worth, Horsell West councillor Tony Branagan voted against the purchase but now the matter has been resolved he is committed to defending the council’s position, even though it wasn’t his own. How very easy to abdicate responsibility in the face of hard questions – to me, elected representatives need more fibre than that and Tony has it in spades.

I’d prefer a world where Woking Borough Council was debt-free, as it was six years ago under Jim Armitage. But that isn’t the council we’ve got and only a firesale would restore that position. In the circumstances, the best place to spend the borrowed money is on appreciating assets and generating revenue. So let’s look at Wasteful Woking and see just how inaccurate the UKIP information is.

“Not only do they splash out 68M for Wolsey, they also just announced a 2.5% council tax increase. It’s time to take some control back!”

And just think how much more your council tax would be without £1.5m in revenues next year from Wolsey Place. This is a totally misplaced statement based on the notion that Woking Borough Council itself has written a cheque for £68m.

“It will take the council 50 years to pay back the loan for Wolsey Place, a development that will probably be beyond it’s usab…le life within 20 years. That means a major capital expenditure to either rebuild or upgrade the current site. “Invest to save” is a phrase usually best applied to upgrade work or repairs that will lower future bill and fixed cost base. Not buying a leaky old shopping centre and half occupied office.”

What is wrong with taking 50 years to pay back the loan? People with mortgages usually pay them back over half that and they usually borrow a good deal less than half the money. As time goes on, the value of the repayments will decrease while the rental income keeps pace with inflation ie the value of income over repayments will increase hugely over 50 years. If the centre is sold on, the loan could be paid back or if the site is sold in say 15 years, it will be most likely be worth a great deal more than was paid for it and will cover substantially the amount of the loan outstanding.

Whatever the author’s view of the shopping centre, actually looking at the books (rather than guessing wildly) revealed a sound basis for buying. In addition, there is potential for development in the future, although that’s not something I think would be considered for some time. For the record, floors one to five of Export House are empty, with six to 15 occupied. The internal decor and facilities are very good and I know that because I work on the 14th floor.

Elsewhere, we’ve had concerns about maintenance, unforeseen legislation and all sorts of other things that really scrape the barrel. There are always risks associated with everything – given all the information available, councillors on all sides took the view that this was worth doing.

Finally, there are Lib Dem concerns about the process, about the fact that the deal was done with press and public excluded (Part II). I’m no fan of Part II and as a journalist I fought tooth and nail to find out what was going on “behind closed doors”. But consider this – councillors are elected by the people to take decisions. As residents, we’d no doubt prefer everything to be decided in public but just because the press and public are excluded doesn’t make the process less democratic. These are still the same councillors making the same decisions under the same constitution in the same way that magistrates confer in private rather than open court. And the Lib Dems, who have to a person all been involved in Part II items in the past, know that perfectly well.

In his blog Denzil Coulson claims that the Lib Dems have helped rescue us from a financial disaster this year by backing Wolsey Place. If that makes him happy, so be it - but he is right that the financial outlook for 2010/11 is a lot better because of this purchase. Remember that net of repayments, net of tax, net of maintenance the council will get £1.5m a year from the Wolsey Place purchase – it pays for itself and a lot more besides.

So t’s time that UKIPpers stopped spreading rubbish about the deal that was done for pure electoral gain and that Lib Dems locally had the bottle to agree – as Denzil seems to want to say – that this deal was the very best of the bad job that Woking’s borrowing is.

Posted in Economy, Woking Borough Council, elections. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Tracking the story

December 8, 2009 — admin

There’s been quite a bit in the nationals recently about the narrowing of the polls, with some putting the Labour lead in single figures. It’s not hugely surprising, I think we are see the Eurosceptic Conservative contingent flipping over to UKIP, which are votes I don’t necessarily think will stay there at the polling booth. In addition, I think there are a couple of other things happening.

People forget that polling is a highly subjective craft that can be made to go one way or the other. Back in the summer of 2008, DC was regularly polling 15 to 19 point leads and the race was on in the press to rubbish the PM and publish the poll with the most ridiculous possible lead. Now the race is on – led by the Observer a couple of weeks ago, to follow the line that the general election is going to be a very close-run thing and publish the “breakthrough” poll that suggests a hung parliament is more or less certain.

I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing for the Conservatives – people will shy away from a hung parliament and where they shy to will more likely be David Cameron than Gordon Brown. These polls are focussing activists and reminding them success is not, nor ever has been, certain. We’ve been here before during the Brown bounce, during the weeks following the collapse of Lehman Bros (about this time last year) and yet the PM has been hammered in subsequent local and Euro elections.

There is no doubt that a sense of optimism about the economy is helping Gordon Brown. But that sense of optimism is totally misplaced because the truth is that he hasn’t been straight with people in this country about how hard it will be after the election to pay off the cost of recession.

And I think that is where DC needs to go next. The economy may feel better, but it’s going to get worse again once those votes in 2010 have been cast. While Labour patters on about Eton and tried to get everyone interested in class warfare, the Conservatives should be sticking with the change argument and the feeling that whatever the apparent green shoots, the party to deliver change and steer the recovery competently is the Conservatives. I think that message will stick.

We also need to take on Labour about it’s appaling record on poverty and wealth creation. A Conservative strategy for poverty alleviation is a vital tool in the governmental box. By getting people into work, we lower the welfare bill and get debt paid off quicker. On the other hand, Labour’s attempts to get people into work have been spectacular failures because they aren’t serious. Far better to leave people on benefit and voting Labour for fear of the Conservatives, they reason.

By taking on Labour over poverty, aspiration and the real cost of recession, we’ll get them busy clearing up after us rather than standing still while Labour plays dirty with the politics of envy. It’s positive message from us about change; and a negative one from them about fear of change.

Posted in Labour, Polling, elections. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

On the March

December 6, 2009 — admin
Could Gordon be gone by April?

Could Gordon be gone by April?

There appear to be loudening whispers around Westminster at the moment that a March election could be on the cards. March 25 seems the most likely date for it if the PM wants to go early as it gives more time.

Evidence to suggest that this is at least an option being considered is increasingly stacking up. Firstly, there were the Labour Party staffing advertisements, which have been appearing in greater numbers recently. Secondly, it would offer the PM something of an advantage of surprise. It could also allow him to fight on the basis of Christmas-boosted economic figures and allow him to postpone the pre-Budget report until after an election.

It has certainly caught the minds of journalists at very high-placed political news outlets such as the Spectator, New Statesman and Daily Telegraph. Things don’t just pop into so many journalists’ minds at the same time on the same subject by chance – someone is briefing them. It could be Alistair Campbell, brought back to feed the PM with some snide one-liners about class war. Alternatively, it could be coming from the Conservative side, talking up a March election to get activists focussed and make Brown look scared if he waits until May.

It could be both but it’s certainly an interesting Phoney War. My own feeling is that the election will be on May 6 because Labour simply doesn’t have the money to run two separate campaigns. But then the PM could go on March 25, spend everything on the general election and leave the local elections to dangle – it’s not like Labour’s local government presence could get much worse anyway.

Polls at the moment seem to be narrowing slightly to Labour’s advantage – or more accurately, since the Labour vote is static – to the Conservatives’ disadvantage. A lot of that I think is the fall out from the Lisbon Treaty and Eurosceptics switching to UKIP. Hopefully, by the election time they will understand that a vote for Lord Pearson and his merry crew is a total waste of time and actually helps the PM stay on for another five years. I am confident that many of these UKIP waverers will stay within the Conservative Party but there is a huge amount of work ahead.

The most important thing is not the opinion poll figures but getting your supporters out to vote for you. If Labour thinks they have more chance of doing this in March, so be it.

Posted in Polling, Roll on 2010, elections. Tags: , , , , , , , . No Comments »

UKIP’s major point

November 28, 2009 — admin

An interesting story in The Times today about the relationship between UKIP and the Conservative Party, which threatens to become even more bitter than that between the Tories and the parties of the left.

The story says that UKIP offered to not fight the general election if the Conservatives gave a written guarantee (as opposed to a cast-iron one) that a referendum would definitely be held after the election and that its MPs would be given a free vote in a Commons ratification. He got no answer, although both the BBC and The Times say that Lord Strathclyde acknowlegdes the meeting have taken place.

In case anyone didn’t know, UKIP elected a new leader last week, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, to take over from Nigel Farage. This is obviously his attempt to make some headlines and announce his presence on the scene and that’s all fine. I’m glad that six months ago, the Conservatives had the foresight to see that Lisbon might be ratified ahead of an election and that this delicate siutation required careful planning, not more rash promises. In addition, a pact with UKIP endorses an openly Eurosceptic view, which may have caused further conflict within the party. We were right to reject their silly politicking.

What is interesting to me is the idea that, this one policy demand satisfied, UKIP was prepared to stand down from elections. In addition, Lord Pearson continued:

“And then when we had the referendum – which we believed we would win – we would then be out of the European Union and then at that point UKIP, well it would have been up to UKIP, but it would probably have disbanded because its major point would no longer be in existence.”

I thought this was a major party with policies on a range of issues. It appears, in fact to be a single-issue pressure group that stands for election and paradoxically ends up taking votes from the one mainstream political party that can deliver its single issue objective. It’s an incredibly short-sighted organisation.

If, as I hope it will, Britain ends its membership of the European Union within the next 10 years, there is a great deal that will have to be planned for to ensure that we remain competitive and politically engaged inside and outside the EU. For 35 years, our politics has operated on various fringes of Europe and to place ourselves outside that will require plenty of adjustments. Adjustments for the better, perhaps, but adjustments nevertheless.

But as soon as the exit from the EU is achieved, that appears to be UKIP’s tipping point to disband according to its new leader. Never mind the implications of the exit, never mind the work that follows it – we’ve got we wanted and now we’re off. This group doesn’t know the first thing about running a country – it’s only interested in tunnel vision politics and single issues. Successful politics understands that issues tend to happen simultaneously and everything, as Lenin once said, is connected to everything else.

So if you aren’t that keen on Europe and are thinking about voting for them in Woking or anywhere for that matter, try asking this of your UKIP candidate when they come knocking – what happens during life after the EU? Then ask yourself whether you really want people bought into a party with no concept of strategy to be your MP or local councillor.

Posted in Conservatives, Europe, politics. Tags: , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Blair ditches project

November 19, 2009 — admin
Herman's not a German but he's supported by them

Herman's not a German but he's supported by them

It’s okay, panic over – Tony Blair will not become President of Europe and we can all sleep a little easier. I don’t imagine for a second that the “winning candidate” – and I use the term advisedly given that I don’t remember receiving a polling card for this particular “election” – is going to do a vastly better job. Herman van Rompuy seems like a unpleasantly devout federalist who talks about standardised taxation and exectly the sorts of things that will have people running to UKIP.

It reinforces my belief that the UK and the EU are increasingly incompatible in terms of their future direction. What pro-EU Conservatives and Liberal Democrats don’t seem to get is that the European ideal is a Franco-Germanic concept designed to ensure those nations’ national interests remain predominant. I don’t blame them for that – for 200 years Britain pursued often brutal foreign policy to ensure our national interests were enforced – but we are surfing over a waterfall if we don’t recognise where the EU path is leading us.

The most scary thing for me is not the single currency, tax regime, foreign policy etc – it is the idea of Mr Rompuy being “named” as the EU leader and “chosen” by other leaders. This is exactly the kind of thing that the Politburo used to announce through Pravda and identical to the way that the Chinese president is “elected”. For me, the worrying thing about the EU is that it is sucking up the democratic mandate further and further from the people it seeks to govern. I can’t accept that this makes Europe safer, more harmonious or prosperous.

Tony Blair as EU President would have been a dreadful thing precisely because he holds the sort of centralising, anti-democratic tendencies that would re-inforce this worrying trend. Voting by region every five years is not democracy – no-one should sit in the European Parliament unless they have been directly elected by voters and I’m still not sure why if the European Commission is necessary it cannot be chosen out of the parliament in the same way as the cabinet in Westminster.

A separate EU presidential election ought to occur if we are to have an EU president. But since the chairman or woman of the EC ought to wield sufficient power, I cannot accept that a president is necessary in addition.

There is so much waste, so much interference and so much anti-democratic instinct in Brussels that DC should ignore it altogether for six years. Then, two years into his second term, he should hold a full EU membership referendum – once Britain has built up her economic and social strength once again – to settle this question once and for all. A strong Britain needs Europe and vice-versa – but my view is that leaving the EU would make us focus on what we as a nation want to be in 2050 and beyond.

Posted in Europe, politics. Tags: , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Not even tea time…

November 5, 2009 — admin
It's been a busy day...

It's been a busy day...

…And already we’ve got the Bank of England demonstrating the state the economy is in by having to create another £25bn of wealth kick-start our growth once more.

Gordon Brown is obviously pretty determined that the UK needs to come back into overall growth as soon as possible to prevent more dire headlines and preserve the faint possibility of hanging onto his job. The threat of inflation should this process not be handled correctly is, in any case, a post-election problem. If the Treasury pushes us into inflation, it’ll be DC’s fault or if Labour somehow scrapes back into power via a hung Parliament, Gordon has got five years to sort it.

This isn’t leadership, it’s sabotage.

Elsewhere, those squeaky-clean alternatives to the Conservatives, UKIPpers, who have spent the day condemning the new Conservative policy on Europe, have had to face up to the reality that one of their former MEPs was siphoning off £2,500 each month from taxpayers in Europe.

Tom Wise claimed £3,000 a month to pay for his secretary and then gave her just £500, spending the rest of it on whatever he felt like. So this idea that UKIP is the perfect antidote to MPs’ expenses and will also provide a EU “in or out” referendum is total nonsense.

A vote for UKIP is a vote for the Liberal Democrats in Woking and Gordon Brown nationally. I will never understand the political reasoning of those that vote for them – why would you cast a vote out of dogma that will end up having the opposite effect to the one you want?

Finally, the French are so incredibly annoyed about the new Conservative Euro-policy that one of their ministers has had a moment of temporary madness. That’s what I call a positive outcome.

Posted in Conservatives, Economy, Europe. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

You kip, You pay

October 19, 2009 — admin
Nigel Farage - standing down

Nigel Farage - standing down

I once flirted with UKIP membership - back in around 1999, when things were really bad for the Conservative Party. I looked at their website and it all seemed pretty sound. But then I realised that if I wanted my Eurosceptic view to be represented in the European Parliament, I needed to vote for a party with a realistic chance of influencing a voting block.

I also realised that every vote not cast for a Conservative would be a help to the Liberal Democrats and Labour and that their resultant MEPs would represent exactly the pro-integrationist, pro-federal and pro-power transfer European ideals that I opposed.

Since that time, I’ve never contemplated supporting UKIP and have come to regard it as a complete political menace. Not only does the party harbour some views that are, shall we say, too off-field for even the right of the Conservative Party (and as someone on the left of the Conservative Party that’s a long way past my tolerance level) but they seem completely incapable of understanding what a political contradiction they are.

In council and Parliamentary seats across the country, areas that would otherwise be represented by Conservatives are instead represented by Liberal Democrats and (less so now) Labour because UKIP has taken a greater number of votes from natural Conservative supporters than the winning margin. It’s totally crackers, because the loyal UKIPpers have ended up with a representative opposed to everything they stand for rather than one atune to their views but more moderate.

During the MPs’ expenses nonsense, UKIP has been benefitting from the ill-done deeds of mainstream politicians. Goodness only knows why. Let’s start with Ashley Mote in 2004, move on to the issue about MEP attendance, the arrangement with the BNP and the latest saga about donations from a supporter not on the electoral register.

Over expenses, they have no MPs to be subjected to scrutiny but the indications from Europe are that if the party had MPs, they would be among the most generously expensed. The weasel words from the UKIP website about transparency are not worth anything – if you really want to vote UKIP because you detest the EU that much fine; but please don’t vote for them because they are trustworthy on expenses!

Personally, I believe that the UK should renegotiate our relationship with the EU into the trading and neighbourly co-operation one that was voted for in 1975. But voting UKIP isn’t going to deliver that.

The price of UKIP is pro-European elected representatives - not to mention about £2million each, apparently.

Posted in Europe. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Spoilt for choice

September 3, 2009 — simonashall

Pity, pity, pity the poor voters of Buckingham in May 2010. I suppose you could argue that rather than being saddled with Labour luvvie John Bercow masquerading as a Tory as a shoe-in next time, things have slightly looked up for them with the news that UKIP fruitcake Nigel Farage is to break parliamentary tradition and stand against him.

Iain Dale expertly analyses the delicate political and Conservative implications of this bold move but really – is this best that we can offer the voters of this part of the world? What a sad reflection on our political scene this is.

Posted in Conservatives, Other blogs, politics. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »
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