13 minute read
Politics
Children in need in our rich nation
FOR decades, many voters and pollsters have written off rural Dorset as being of any political interest due to its habit of consistently returning the same party to parliament. As I read the New Blackmore Vale’s letters page, do I detect that the blue wall might be crumbling here, too?
Indeed, I can’t help but wonder sometimes, reading the Tory columns, whether they’ve given up. Are they eyeing the next life raft to a job in a right wing thing tank, or the Campaign for Rural England?
The member for North Dorset desperately tried to connect with the thousands struggling locally this Christmas. He offered us his mawkish, jingoism-lite reflections on ‘our strong networks of community groups and charities’ that ‘deep within our British DNA [force] us to whether storms and rise to
Alan Cross, on behalf of Dorset Labour
challenges’.
Gosh, it’s like watching a re-run of Cameron’s ‘big society’ mashed up with Dad’s Army. And it’s typical of the Tories to venerate the charities that mop up after their failure to feed the country, rather than address why the UK is in this position.
We shouldn’t be. The reality is, Britain is still a rich country. Millions of its population shouldn’t have to rely on a patchwork of charities for food. Different, intelligent choices are available.
Some 800,000 children in the UK living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals because, cruelly, the threshold for qualification has not increased with inflation. PWC calculated that extending meals to them would generate £1.71 in core economic benefit for every £1 invested – higher than for an increase in universal credit. And extending free school meals into the holidays would take the fear out of Christmas for families.
Buy hey – ‘free speech… helps safeguard our liberties’ proclaims Hoare. As the Manic Street Preachers once sang, freedom of speech won’t feed my children.
I know what Conservatives will say – it’s not the duty of the state to feed people. I agree. The state should be fostering an economy that works for its citizens, providing sufficiently well paid, secure jobs so that people can feed themselves. But the Tories have failed to do that. So here we are.
For children in poverty, either the state feeds them, or it forces them to food banks like the one in Sturminster Newton - run by a Tory councillor! Truly, this is the conservative circular economy.
I choose to look forward to a brighter future next year. One where – let us dream for a second – the Tories give in to public pressure and call an election. One which brings in a Labour government. With local Labour MPs that don’t leave it to Children in Need to support children in need.
LibDems plough the middle way
MERRY Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers! I hope these columns over the past year or so have served to communicate and spotlight key issues.
Over the next few weeks, we shall be doing some surveying across North Dorset. If the proposed boundary changes come into effect, North Dorset will stretch from Alderholt to Sydling St Nicholas on one axis and from Bourton to Verwood on the other.
Ensuring we get to listen to every part of the area is a significant logistical challenge. Offers of help are always welcome!
It is so important that we do listen and that we do shape policies accordingly. We are looking to understand today’s major worries and concerns but also to find out what people want from a future Dorset.
The party in charge seems to be focusing its policy choices
Mike Chapman on behalf of Liberal Democrats across the Blackmore Vale
on the one-third of the nation it relies on while the party of the other part is relatively weak in the South-West and still appears mired in its own dogma.
Other single issue parties, of course, cover the spectrum from very right to ultra left, passing through environmental on the way. Elsewhere, we see the unwelcome spectre of Scexit. It is interesting to reflect that if you believe we should still be in the EU and want to rejoin, you now have no national political home.
The Liberal Democrats are still the party closest to that perspective but were so badly burned by it in 2019 that now there is a pragmatic, step-bystep approach to closer proximity with the rest of Europe.
As a nation, we see-saw, we veer this way and that, and we seem to be set for another such pivoting change at some point over the next two years. However, the point of balance, the centreline, the thoughtleadership, the one nation, one humanity, one world outlook comes from the Liberal Democrats.
Yes, third in votes cast last time round but second in a great swathe of constituencies across the land and the first alternative of most electors. I repeat, the first alternative of most electors in three of the four nations in the kingdom.
Just as, at a local authority level, where we have demonstrated time and again the effectiveness of policies rooted in our principles of opportunity and fairness, we have a great deal to contribute nationally.
With a properly representative and democratic system we will do so. Every proposed change to the House of Lords, every new piece of devolution recognises the essentially undemocratic nature of first past the post voting.
Still, if you don’t carry photo-ID, none of this will matter because you won’t be able to turn up at a polling station and vote under whatever system, courtesy our present government.
Politics
Forget ‘goblin mode’ – my word of the year has to be ‘change’
IN case you missed it, Oxford Dictionaries, for the first time, asked the general public to choose their ‘word of 2022’. The public chose ‘goblin mode’. Heard of the term before? No, I hadn’t either. Perhaps Oxford’s initial foray into democracy won’t be repeated in 2023?
It was on the back of this that, during a recent BBC interview, I was asked to sum up 2022 in one word. It is harder than you think. Go on, pause reading this article and have a go. Anyway, I chose ‘change’ as my word of the year. I think we have seen five principal changes this year: 1 With the death of Queen Elizabeth, an epoch sadly came to an end. We ushered in a new reign, our first since 1952. Huge change for our country and the
Conservative MP for North Dorset Simon Hoare
wider Commonwealth as a new Head of State took the helm; 2 We saw the European peace settlement, which had broadly existed since 1945, change dramatically when Russia invaded Ukraine. The costs to the Ukrainian people and to the geopolitical and economic settlement of middle and western Europe are being felt and will be for some time to come; 3 Allied to point 2 above, the era of low interest and inflation rates which had existed since 2008 dramatically changed for the UK and most advanced global economies; 4 Our climate continued to change with the hottest and driest summer on record across Europe, devastating global floods and fires; 5 There was pretty seismic UK political change – two Heads of State and three Prime Ministers in the space of four months was an unique event by any measure – and one I never hope to see repeated.
Against the above backdrop I rather hope that my word for 2023 will be able to be ‘boring’ or ‘steady’. We all need some respite from the range and rate of change.
Turning to 2023, I will continue my regular advice surgeries. These are held in locations across North Dorset, usually on a Friday. Please email simon.hoare.mp@ parliament.uk if you would like an appointment.
As we approach the end of the ‘Year of Change’ may I wish everyone across North Dorset a very Happy Christmas and every peace and happiness for 2023.
It has not been an easy year and the worries of the cost-ofliving crisis are concerning everyone. Let us hope for a better 2023.
LAST week came the announcement that I have been campaigning on long and hard in Parliament.
The Government has confirmed that funding will be allocated to The Gryphon School to finally rebuild its ‘temporary’ classrooms, which I was educated in – 25 years ago!
I have kept the pressure on the Government, having asked many questions in the Commons chamber, urging Ministers to support this bid, that is vital to for our local secondary school that reaches far and wide.
This is great news for the school and for Sherborne as a community. I will continue working to ensure this is done as soon as possible.
One of the flagship new Bills working through the Government machine at Whitehall is the Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.
Conservative MP for West Dorset Chris Loder
Some of the remit of this new Bill will deal with the current planning system and particularly issues relating to the Local Plan and development.
This follows on from a summit I held in May this year, with Housing Secretary Michael Gove. I made clear the concerns among communities against developments such as the West of Sherborne and North of Dorchester development.
The Government will soon be launching a consultation on measures within this new Bill. Among the proposals will be steps to give councils the teeth they need to say no to developers who have acted badly in the past, like failing to deliver on their Section 106 obligations.
It also removes the need for councils to provide a five-year rolling supply of development, meaning the emphasis will be less on mandatory targets, but of the needs of communities, who will now have a greater say on how their areas develop.
Back in October last year, I started campaigning for the Government to take action on the issue of short-term holiday lettings of former established residential properties at the expense of local people’s access to accommodation within their price range.
The Government confirmed a review on 29 June into this and last week confirmed its intentions to implement a licensing arrangement for short-term holiday lets which must be ‘licensed’ for their conversion from residential to take place.
There will be more information regarding this policy which will come clear into the New Year, but this is certainly good news for now and a step in the right direction.
I know the situation on the A30 in Sherborne has gone on for a totally unacceptable period of time and I will give you a full appraisal of the what has been done and what the local authority is and is not doing in my next column.
May I take the opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas.
Politics
After what’s been a difficult 2022, ’tis the season to accentuate the positive
AS it’s been a bit of a grim year in so many ways, it would be uplifting to see it out on a positive note. It is after all the season to do our best to be jolly and all that.
While I consider myself to be generally at the glass-half-full end of the spectrum, I must admit the events of this past year have had me beginning to doubt my sanity in seeing any reason for optimism. However, I do see some encouraging signs for hope.
One is a positive shift in the right-leaning media, away from outraged condemnation of environmental protesters, and towards an acceptance that the climate and environmental crisis is real and must be addressed sooner rather than later when it will be too late.
In a recent article in The Times the writer admits to having fumed at environmental protesters blocking roads and
Ken Huggins on behalf of the Green Party in North Dorset
throwing food at artworks, but goes on to reflect that he now sees that the protesters are, in fact, entirely right to be concerned, and that their cause is actually everybody’s cause.
He points out that it’s much easier to loudly condemn protesters’ methods than to address what it is they are protesting about, namely the gulf between what almost every government agrees needs to happen, and what they are actually doing.
They are bodging the issue, and failing to protect us from the unfolding disaster.
Another positive sign is the recent announcement by HSBC that it will stop funding new oil and gas fields, and will expect more information from energy clients about their plans to cut carbon emissions. It may just be another example of corporate greenwashing, but let’s be hopeful.
At a more local level, something that gives me cause for hope is the fact that although humans have the capacity to be thoughtless, selfish, greedy and sometimes downright barbaric, we also have a huge capacity for caring and compassion as was displayed during the Covid pandemic.
In my village, Hazelbury Bryan, the community response was exemplified by the actions of the Red Barn village store. The proprietors, Tara and Darren, packed up supplies of food and other items, and a team of volunteers delivered them to residents who were unable to collect for themselves.
So as we brace ourselves to see out the Old Year, and welcome in the New, let’s remember to look out for our neighbours, some of whom may face great challenges but find it difficult to ask for help. May we be slow to angry condemnation, and more understanding of those who experience the world differently to ourselves.
And let’s remember our capacity to care, both for our fellow humans and the natural world we all share.
Lords reform marginal issue for most
BATH is once again trying to tick its boxes on clean air by shunting traffic out of the city up the A350.
That means, for example, through Westbury. Could it be that there are local government elections next year?
Wiltshire Council Leader Richard Clewer and I met virtually and agreed that Bath’s plan is not acceptable. I am taking it up with the Department for Transport.
I do try not to be too partisan in this column but the detailed announcement in the Commons by the new PM on dealing with illegal migration contrasted with the Leader of the Opposition’s yah-boo response so achingly that even his own thinly populated backbench looked shame-faced.
Conservative MP for South West Wiltshire Dr Andrew Murrison
Illegal migration is at least as big an issue in the rest of Europe as here and if there had been a quick and easy solution that didn’t turn the UK into a pariah state it would have been taken.
Sir Keir must know that sniping will only go so far and that sooner or later he’ll have to get some policies.
They will then be open to public scrutiny. Bring it on.
So far all I’ve seen is a plan to abolish the House of Lords, which may excite his activists but is a marginal issue for most people struggling with the global downdraught of covid, Putin’s war and the energy crisis.
As it happens, I too am far from happy with the upper House but, to be honest, it never comes up on the doorstep. Let’s please modernise the Lords when we can but Sir Keir bigging it up as a top priority really is very odd.
On Thursday it fell to me to make a Statement in the House launching a Statutory Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding Afghan deaths that were highlighted in the summer in which the Army was criticised and that has been the subject of litigation.
Lord Justice Haddon-Cave will investigate independently and report with recommendations.
The Overseas Operations Act last year was designed to reduce vexatious claims against soldiers while allowing the most serious, credible and non-repetitive allegations to continue to be investigated.
In short, fewer speculative legal claims and no witch hunts while ensuring the high reputation of UK forces is maintained.
