10 minute read
Politics
So many of Government’s 2019 election promises were illusions
Roundabouts, dodgems, ghost trains, skyrides, all sorts of swings, a conjuror and an escapologist – all the fun of the fair? No, the last fortnight in politics! Roundabout ways of approaching the ministerial code of conduct; parties to which no-one owned up giving us those fine dodgems; there is every sign of a nationwide rail strike and no chance of taking a sky ride to anywhere nice anytime soon. Unless, of course, you are a migrant, in which case Rwanda awaits you whether or not you have been able to get a passport. What about the swings, you ask? We will see them in action shortly in the byelections that surround us here in the Vale. They were last seen in the local elections in early May. What of the illusionists, the Great Escapologist and his pal the Conjuror, who takes your money and only gives you some of it back?
I am sorry, I haven’t the energy to pursue the analogy any further.
So many of the promises which saw this Government romp home in such style at the end of 2019 were illusions.
Leaving the EU, it turns out, according to the new department in charge, has given us the liberty to have more powerful vacuum cleaners, bring on fracking, diminish workplace liberties and conditions, de-regulate white van man and reduce the need for PAT testing.
Oh, and the potential to bring back £ s d, lbs and oz and the rest of the avoirdupois of antiquity.
Is all this worth the reduction in GDP of about £80-100bn which Brexit has occasioned?
Government should govern in the best, forwardlooking interests of the nation with fairness and providing opportunity, but also with integrity and honesty.
That is not such a big ask, is it? Today, however, I perceive those at the top of Government operating in the best interests of their own class – in every sense – and their careers and memoirs.
Locally, though, there are some great positives, born small but capable of scaling up.
For example, a North Dorset flour mill is now generating power as well as flour from its waterwheel. The huge shift in energy prices lends a tremendous opportunity to this and other such micro-schemes to tap into the latent power of our rivers, to say nothing of the macro-project potential of tidal rise and fall.
We should see strong investment incentives being brought to bear here just as in other sensible, local and domestic-level forms of renewable energy such as solar thermal and solar electricity storage systems which currently fall foul of VAT disincentives.
There are myriad schemes to move supermarket surpluses into food banks and community fridges.
North Dorset is doing well on this score but there is so much more which could be done to eliminate food wastage. We could avoid some of the cost, complexity and carbon footprint of food and produce supply chains by turning on the capabilities available in our gardens and
Allotments could be an asset in a ‘greener’ future.
Mike Chapman on behalf of Liberal Democrats across the Blackmore Vale
allotments.
Yes, less choice and more seasonality, but improved food security and community well-being.
There are messages for our Planners, too. It is not rocket science to ask for allotments, for renewable energy systems, for electric charging, for higher standards of insulation, as well as more sustainable, more integrated community planning, including services and employment.
In the long run, we cannot afford not to do these things, just as we cannot afford central government handouts on the present scale ad infinitum.
Let us invest in what is needed and tax it less and tax more what is merely desirable.
Let us recognise, too, that there are limits to deregulation.
There are absolute barriers to ever-extending choice and economic free-wheeling.
There is, in the words of the originators of Doughnut Economics – worth a look anytime – a ‘safe and just space’ in which human endeavour should take place.
None of this constitutes intervention. The goal is intelligent design as opposed to muddling through in the hope the worst doesn’t happen.
The present political set-up results in the seesawing, push-me/pull-you of party-driven policy which we have seen for 50 years or more.
There must be something better. Change cannot come, though, without clarity, honesty and integrity.
Politics
More summer specials to the seaside
The Heart of Wessex line runs between Bristol, Castle Cary, Yeovil, Dorchester and Weymouth.
It is a gem which, I think, has some of the most beautiful scenery along any railway line in the UK.
The challenge to get improvements on this line has been immense, with what is a very poor frequency line.
But there has been a considerable step forward with a dramatic increase in the number of trains on Saturdays during the summer with an additional seven trains in total running to and from Weymouth.
We have also had two great opportunities for community funding announced last week which I’d like to share with you.
Firstly, the Government’s Community Ownership fund is soon inviting local groups to submit applications to purchase community assets at risk of closure.
Please get in touch with me if you would like more information or if I can assist in any way.
Secondly, Great Western Railways’s Community Fund is now open and seeks to support a number of projects identified by the communities they serve.
Information and the application portal is now live on Great Western Railway’s website and is especially focused towards projects relating to environmental issues, accessibility and inclusion, and railway usage.
I warmly encourage as many bids as possible to this fund and wish every success to those who submit their bids before the deadline of Monday, 27 June. Once again, please get in touch with me so I can lend my support to them.
I am also pleased to inform you that Dorset has been successful in obtaining an £875,000 boost to reform the Family Hubs scheme.
Family Hubs help to streamline the ability for struggling families, particularly with children requiring additional special needs to access the help and social services they need.
A new Platinum Jubilee fund has opened which will provide £3million of grants to 125 village halls across the UK.
Village halls are, like parish churches, cornerstones of our communities and integral especially to the wellbeing of rural communities.
The importance and value of our local village halls was exemplified resoundingly over the course of the Platinum Jubilee weekend.
Conservative MP for West Dorset Chris Loder
Government cash to re-write Local Plan
West Dorset MP Chris Loder has hailed a ‘major step forward’ as the Department for Levelling Up, Communities and Housing and Communities has allocated Dorset Council £135,000 to re-write the Local Plan. The move came weeks after a crunch summit the MP held in Dorchester with Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove, in which Mr Loder expressed the urgent need for Government support to re-work the Local Plan to shelve the controversial 4,000-home development on land north of the county town.
Mr Loder said: “This support is a muchneeded endorsement from the Government of my campaign against ‘Norchester’ and will mean we are one big step closer to achieving a Local Plan that really addresses the planning needs of Dorchester and West Dorset, and protects our most beautiful countryside.”
The cash injection now secured will act as a project management resource to support planning policy allocation in Local Plan for a garden village and associated technical studies, design input and community engagement.
West Dorset MP Chris Loder with Levelling Up Secretary Michael Gove.
Little to separate parties on economy
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
The Government has U-turned and implemented Labour’s policy of a windfall tax – sorry, ‘energy profits levy’ – on oil and gas firms to fund relief on our energy bills.
And to be fair to the Tories, they have actually gone further than Labour could get away with, by borrowing to provide additional support.
Listen carefully and you can hear Richard Drax spitting teeth in South Dorset.
The truth is there is little to separate the parties now on macro-economic policy or tax and spend.
The Tories have come round to the centre ground with higher taxation to better fund public services.
This provides an
Greg Williams, on behalf of Dorset Labour
opportunity to Labour.
I would advocate we go into the next election promising to stay within Sunak’s tax and spend envelope, as Brown successfully did in 1997, neutralising the usual lazy attacks on our fiscal credibility.
This windfall U-turn is symptomatic of a weak Government which has run out of ideas, and for whom the agenda is set by a mixture of events, the opposition and a zealous commitment to culture war.
Creating Daily Mail pandering dividing lines seems to be all they have left. I don’t know how our local MPs put up with it.
The recent defence of parties as ‘work events’ is perverse – no one else was having work leaving dos in 2020.
It just proves that with this Government, it’s one rule for them, and one rule for the rest of us.
Every week in the House it’s the same old show – a fading Prime Minister reduced to rattling off his old hits like an artist with no new material.
‘Got Brexit done’ – not a track that he plays in Northern Ireland. ‘Worldbeating economic growth’ – another lie.
And then that worn out 45 ‘Fastest vaccine roll-out’ with the B-side ‘179,000 Covid deaths’ that he’d rather we didn’t flip the record over to hear.
The Sue Gray report – or just Sue, as Johnson referred to her in the Commons, betraying a familiarity which adds grist to the rumour mill she was leant upon by the PM in order to pull her punches – did clear one thing up.
We know why the Government delayed implementing the second lockdown in October 2020, with the needless waste of thousands of extra lives.
It’s because the staff of Number 10 were too drunk.
Divisions may play into Putin’s hands
Putin’s creaking war machine has retrenched to the Ukrainian south and east. Too late, Putin appears to have understood his isolated country’s limits and that he has no friends.
However, divisions risk playing into Putin’s hands. Chancellor Scholz and President Macron are calling, optimistically, for immediate ceasefires and a diplomatic resolution, while harder line US insists Ukraine can win and that Putin should go.
Our Government’s more ambiguous position is that ‘Putin must fail’, which is supported by Labour. They are both saying Russia should be driven out of Ukrainian territory, presumably including Crimea, although the Labour spokesman seemed to suggest maybe not actually Crimea when questioned by me in the Commons last week.
If you want to negotiate, it’s best that you do so from a position of strength. The ‘shadow of power’ should be cast across the bargaining table, as George Schulz once said.
I believe it is right to consider what off-ramps Ukraine and its supporters can offer Putin since capitulation is unlikely. After all, surrender would most likely require an – unconscionable – invasion of Russia and who knows what further hideous tactics and weapons a vulnerable Putin would resort to if faced with humiliation.
Sun Tzu called this concept giving your opponent a ‘golden bridge’ across which to retreat.
When I have raised this in the Commons, the rebuttal is that we should simply support Ukraine in its war aims. But NATO and Europe have equity, too. This conflict and the nature of its outcome impacts on us and we are participants in it, though not at war with Russia.
We should continue to supply essential defensive systems – for example, deadly Harpoon misslies which would deal with Russian warships and help alleviate the blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, from which 90 per cent of the country’s pre-invasion grain left the country. Otherwise we risk famines and all that falls from that.
Sooner or later we’ll need that golden bridge but in the meantime we must ensure that Ukraine and its friends attain a position of negotiating strength that is as strong and compelling as possible.
