'The cost of living is up.'

That was one of the main headlines from David Cameron's speech responding to Alistair Darling's first budget. It was one of the best speeches I have seen him make, good attacks, some good put downs (especially to Ed Balls) and a good section on alternatives.

The Chancellor's speech itself was obviously a very nervous one. It was short and it left out a lot of stuff that is in the book. If you believe what you are told it was also an optimistic one. As someone looking to get on the property ladder the longer-termed fixed rate mortgages is good news but still no scraping of the stamp duty!

Money Money Money

This has been a long week.

Wednesday night was the Maidstone Borough Council Budget Meeting where the whole council debates the budget for the next year including the council tax and the council's spending priorities.

The coalition budget put forward by the Leader of the Council has forgotten that we are the elected representatives of the people of Maidstone. Now I will not be criticised as being against the green agenda. Environmental issues are incredibly important and should be included in a Council's work programme. However you cannot forget that you are there to serve the residents of the Borough and to help some of the most vulnerable people in the community.

The Conservative amendments sought to fund companion passes and concessionary fares which due to Government policy has now been taken away. We were outvoted by the Liberals, Labour and the Independents. Considering the Labour group spoke out a few weeks ago at our extraordinary meeting when I seconded Cllr Batt's motion on the issue and said that we should fund these passes ourselves I was shocked to see them vote against proposals that would do just that.

An amendment was added to the budget that gave £50,000 to the 2012 Olympic Working Group (which I am on) to help provide financial support to potential 2012 athletes from Maidstone. There are 33 of them. I voted for this amendment because I know how important funding from various places has been in allowing my brother to progress his golf career. I want to be able to help talented people throughout the Borough to achieve this incredible honour of representing their country with their talent who may not be able to do so unless they have some help.

The budget was then voted through.

Tonight (Friday) I am in a hotel in Warwickshire for the Conservative Councillors Conference. It has been a great day today with a good speech from David Cameron and a good speech from Eric Pickles. They outlined some of their ideas for making Local Authorities more accountable to local people and for giving power back to local councillors. Hopefully I will be able to give you more of an update later on.

Corben Cup

Last friday the Maidstone and the Weald Conservative Association held its AGM in Coxheath. There was a great turn out to see both Ann Widdecombe and Helen Grant speak to us. The outgoing Chairman CcllrAlan Chell gave us a full report on the state of the association and the newly elected Chairman Cllr Brian Moss told us his plans for the future of the Association

Yours truly had good night when I won the Corben Cup for inspirational achievements over the past year. nfortunately as I had sat at the back of the room I had to hobble all the way up which took some time due to my bad ankle!

Here is a photo -

Ridiculous phrase

Now I could understand someone supporting the new 'smoking licenses' idea. I would not agree with them even slightly but I could just about stretch myself to understand that someone could agree with the idea.

However the 'brain' behind the idea has called the philosophy behind it 'Libeterian Paternalism'. Surely we can all agree that this is a rediculous phrase. It's like 'friendly fascist' - it just doesn't work. Libeterianism and paternalism are basically two completely opposite things.

Or am I being crazy?

I think he might win you know.

Just found this. I like it. A lot.

Celebrate Maidstone Come On.

BBC Radio 1's most popular DJ Chris Moyles announced live on air this morning that the Radio 1 BIG WEEKEND event will be held at Mote Park in Maidstone. The dates are the 10th and 11th of May.

Tickets are free and are available from the Radio 1 website soon.

I can't wait.

Concessionary Fares

Last night at Full Council I had the honour of seconding a motion put by Cllr Batt on Concessionary Fares. The motion called on the Government to reconsider its ill-thought out scheme for concessionary fares.

The current system of travel vouchers works very well because can be used on different forms of transport and can also be used to allow carers to accompany their elder or disabled patients.

The new scheme proposed by the Government allows free bus travel for everyone over the age of 60 and anyone suffering from a disability. It is a great headline but unfortunately that is all it is. Just another in a long line of snap policy decisions designed to grab those headlines. However when you look closely at the proposals they are poorly conceived and actually decrease the quality of life for many.

Being able to travel home in a taxi for free allowed people to do their shopping independently without a huge walk to the bus stop – something that I take for granted being able to do it but an elderly lady carrying heavy shopping may not be able to do it.

Then what about elderly people or disabled people that cannot get onto buses. Out in the rural areas where buses are infrequent and ancient there are not many that are designed to allow easy access. What good is a free bus pass to those who cannot use it because they cannot get on a bus or because there rural area is not served by a bus.

Many Councillors spoke as part of the debate and there was wide-spread agreement between most groups that the Government had aced unfairly and was creating a very difficult situation for us.

This is a statutory scheme so we have to sign up to it. The Government are not even paying for it. With the grant that we will receive from them we will still be £0.5million short of how much this is going to cost. That saving will come as a result of cuts in services elsewhere probably. What else can we do? Secretary of State for Local Government Ruth Kelly said last week that ‘the current system of administration and reimbursement is not absolutely perfect’. How gracious of her. If that is the level of insight we can expect from our Ministers it is probably worth getting out now. Just don’t count on a taxi to the airport.

The Labour Members last night were in a shambles. First of all they suggested that to keep the current scheme of concessionary fees running (which we can do as a supplement to the statutory Government scheme but must fund ourselves) would cost merely £15,000. Unfortunately that is just incorrect – it would actually cost over £85,000.

Their speeches were so weighed down in statistics and figures that it was difficult to understand what they were actually saying in defence of the Government. They then went on to suggest that to pay for the scheme all we had to do was raise council tax higher – the necessary rise is 4%! People just cannot afford that, even if it is a typical Labour tactic of taxing its way out of a problem.
Now this is actually a contradiction of their own Government’s policy which will cap Council Tax rises at around 3%. Surely they knew that? They were accused by one Councillor of playing to the gallery – and it was very good to see so many members of the public in attendance.

Cllr Oldham added an amendment to the motion that called for the Cabinet to look at other ways of financing supplementary schemes to limit the damage of the Government plans. The motion as amended was enthusiastically supported by almost every member of the Council. Even two of the three Labour Councillors supported it despite having spoken out against it.

It was a strongly supported motion which I gladly seconded because this is an issue that affects the quality of life of those members of the public that need a bit more support to facilitate their independence. It also showed that we back benchers are worth something of we are proactive.