I live in Dukes ward in Southport. So far I have only received any election campaign material from the Liberal Democrat Candidate Tony Dawson who, I am told, is guaranteed the Dukes ward seat.
This is of particular irritation to me. Living in Dukes ward and being currently represented year on year by Ron Watson the, until recently, Conservative councillor who had a large hand in having our children's A&E services moved to Ormskirk without any of the dependent transport link improvements that were required being carried out, I feel very unrepresented. The main two problems affecting me personally with the hospital services move are; number 1, that I don't drive. Consequently I have no access to A&E services for my children unless my husband is around to drive us to hospital. This means if my child needs urgent treatment I have to call an ambulance which will have to transport me and the three other children to Ormskirk at great unnecessary cost to the NHS, where we will have to stay until my husband comes home from work 20 miles away or if on a thursday, from watford at past 11pm blocking a bed in the hospital.
Number 2, if we were in a car crash we would be taken to different hospitals. This is not something I would allow unless severely injured. I would have to compromise mine and my children's health either through the stress of the separation or through physically discharging or refusing treatment for myself so that I could stay with them. All this makes me angry and I would be very glad to see the back of Sir Ron or at least to have the opportunity to mitigate the representation that is being made on my behalf.
However, looking at my options on 5th May I become frustrated again. No-one has bothered campaigning in my area apart from Tony Dawson who has only pushed the usual "Focus" propaganda and a leaflet claiming he has formed "strong cross party relationships" through the door but who has not come to speak or engage.
The Focus magazine generally makes me feel angry recently anyway. In fact not so long ago (16/2/11) I had cause to write to Mr Dawson about claims he was making in the focus magazine that he writes. A transcription of the emails follows:
"In this edition of "focus" I notice, along with a smear campaign against certain conservative councillors, there is a big story about how the lib dem councillors have kept council tax rates down. Is this not a blatant untruth? I was under the impression the council tax had been frozen by DCLG.
Another point is, that if you are going to blame labour for the deficit because of overspending, then I would like to see some evidence to support this claim. I have asked repeatedly for evidence from the government, Mr Pugh e.t.c. and I have never received a response - even when I asked west lancs conservative David sudworth in person, no-one who says it seems to be able or willing to explain themselves. I would like some evidence that it is labour's fault for overspending and that the coalition's plan to reduce the deficit is a duty rather than a choice. Also a demonstration of how coalition policies on welfare, housing, the nhs, local authorities etc are expected to rebuild the economy.
The final point is about the picture and caption used to illustrate the point about housing benefit. Is the house of a housing benefit recipient? I suspect not - it is a "mansion" selected to deliberately inflame prejudice against vulnerable people in the south.
As mr Pugh will know rents in the south and in London are very much higher than in the north of England - an example is that my husband's rent for the one bedroom flat in willlesden green that he moved out of was the same monthly amount as the mortgage on the new four bedroom southport home we moved into shortly before we married 2 years ago (£800 per month).
LHA rates are set based on the local area, circumstances and the number of rooms. A person claiming housing benefit cannot claim for more than the amount set for the number of bedrooms and living rooms they are entitled to. Fairness is not about everybody getting the exact same amount of money in this case, it is about everybody having access to a decent home.
What you are suggesting implies that people in the south are getting a better deal which is not true. They are often much worse off. They are often entitled to much lower standards of housing which also cost a lot more. The problems are with the lack of social housing and the necessity for the vulnerable to be homed in private housing.
It is in fact those in the north who do best out of the housing benefit system in terms of the availibility of affordable and decent private homes which can be paid for with LHA and also in terms of the relative space allowed by LHA.
Private sector housing is expensive for everyone - for renters, buyers and for the government paying the private landlords for "social housing". The answer is not to only build more "affordable housing" since this is likely to be snapped up by property developers and rented out, it is to build more social housing, this is the only way around the problem. Rent control, stricter regulations about mortgage lending and an increase in the average wage (a reduction in wealth inequality) might also help.
I want to finish by saying that at the May election I cast my vote for Mr Pugh and since then I have watched the southport libdems increasingly become the mouthpiece for the conservative led coalition. Employing off putting trumpet blowing for things which are not their responsibility and smearing labour and the conservatives at every step. This is not the kind of behaviour I expect from political representatives and Mr Pugh's recent voting record, his assertions about the deficit which have not been substantiated and this latest smear campaign full of Tory spin and criticism of conservative councillors is enough to put anyone off the lib dems for life!
I'm not party political I look for moral qualities, southport lib dems are failing categorically.
K sumner"
His response followed a day later:
"Dear Kat,
WIth reference to your recent e-mail, I am not going to give a step by step
response to every point, but I would emphasise that there is no smear of any
Councillor in the FOCUS. On the contrary, there is backing for Councillors
with whom we broadly disagree about many issues but have been treated
abominably (these, incidentally, include Labour councillor Les Byrom) by
people who are meant to be their colleagues.
The Labour councillors in this area have pushed forward policies that would
require a Council Tax rise in Sefton of 40 per cent. They refuse to face up
to their moral and legal duty. Why they choose to take this stance while
being paid large amounts of public money to take responsible decisions is
for them to answer - no other Labour Party councillors appear to be behaving
in this way. In any case, local Lib Dems led the action to act in the same
fashion as Labour Party have in Liverpool and Manchester. Responsibly.
It is largely accepted that about 2/3rd of the present deficit is
'structural' ie down to the previous government and 1/3rd is due to the
banks. Alan Johnson. Tony Blair and Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson
have all been quoted as saying that a deficit reduction programme roughly
comparable to what is happening had to happen and Labour was planning to do
this if they had won the election. We can argue at the fringes abut
precisely how fast the programme should be but it would never get far away
from where we are now.
The last government spent its 13 years pouring money into the pockets of
rich landlords, especially those in the South East, inflating the rental
values of housing along the way. The house in the caption is indeed typical
of those for which Housing Benefit is being paid in London at the moment (it
is a little on the 'cheap' side, actually). Rents are largely high as a
result of government not building housing and/or forcing housing onto the
market. Labour's record on house building in 13 years was appalling. I have
worked professionally in the Housing Benefit field for the past 15 years so
I do know what I'm talking about on this subject.
I am NOT implying that people in the south are getting a better deal. It is
the rich landlords who get the better deal. But do not kid yourself that
rented housing in the north (including this area) is better as a result of
this awful system because it is not. I deal weekly with the results.
I would be more than interested in any evidence which you could show me of "
the southport libdems increasingly become the mouthpiece for the
conservative led coalition.". Both John Pugh MP and the local Lib Dems are
regularly and publicly constructively critical of what the government is
doing in Health, Education, Local Government.... But yes ,we are proud of
pulling 800,000 people out of Income Tax. Yes, we are proud of linking the
Pension back to Earnings. Yes we proud of trying to stop wasteful idiocy on
the Council. Because nobody else was ever going to set these things as a
priority.
When someone leaves you in a mess and takes no reponsibility for it, you can
either sit in that mess and become more miserable or you can bite your lip
and work out ways of getting out of it. There are NO painless ways of
getting out of the mess in which we were left. Some of us are prepared to
do something about it. It's not fun, but it's required of anybody who would
take on the job of representative governmeent.
Tony Dawson"
I didn't respond to Mr Dawson's reply because I felt he had so comprehensively failed to understand any of the points I was making that there was no point engaging in any further debate.
My position is certainly not one that says a deficit is desirable. Mr Dawson has fallen into a trap which is common.
Frustratingly, for a person who believes that people should try to analyse facts with as open a mind as possible, before deciding on balance what their view is, and who is fundamentally opposed to the existence of political parties (at the very least political parties in their current form) I am often told I am a "labour voter" or people assume I don't believe the budget needs to be sensibly administrated and protected from long term deficits or structural problems which might cause serious problems for state finances.
People who oppose the Conservative ideology which blames the vulnerable for their vulnerability (an echo of the Victorian idea that the poor were biologically criminal) are not necessarily people who vote or support Old or even New Labour. They are simply people who oppose one political ideology just like those who oppose traditional labour principles are not necessarily conservative supporters. People who attend union events are likewise not necessarily union members or labour voters either. It is a way of dismissing someone's considered beliefs and ideologies which I really despise and is something I encountered recently at the PCS meeting from the UKIP candidate Peter Harper.
Mr Harper accused the audience of being labour voters and of buying slave made goods from abroad without actually listening to what any of us felt about either subject. He is a good demonstration of why I feel political parties are largely unhelpful things.
Terry Durrance the UKIP Parliamentary candidate is by contrast in my view, a thoroughly decent man. He has considered and well thought out political ideology. He is willing to engage with people about the issues that concern them whether they share his ideology or not. He is proactive and concerned within his community. He does not dismiss people if they disagree with him. He is the kind of person I support in politics who stands on his own merits who has been drawn to his party because it reflects his ideology and who isn't about trying to tell other people who they are or what they think, he is simply proud of what he believes in.
Political parties allow for all of this negative campaigning and they also allow for what I have seen from Mr Dawson and his opponents. A lack of actual engagement with the people on the doorstep. As demonstrated by the palpable difference in desirability I feel there is between Peter Harper and Terry Durrance, membership of a political party does not mean the individual is desirable to you as a representative, which is all the more important on the local level.
There is a political vacuum in Dukes ward. I feel my choices are the great unknown or the utter rogue. I want to be guided by the person not the party. Therefore, no matter my general political opinions, I would choose my representation from almost any party if I felt the person would represent me. Sadly no candidate has been out on the doorstep, possibly because Dukes ward is considered a safe win for Mr Dawson?
There are many things that our local politicians have done and are doing which I disagree with but in "Focus" magazines that I have received in Dukes ward, I have seen personal attacks on candidates like Brenda Porter, often employing little more than rumour or bending the truth. Whether you happen to like or agree with Cllr Porter or others who have been mentioned by name, is immaterial - it is a rude and negative method of self-promotion.
A good example of the bending of the truth can be found in the current issue where Mr Dawson claims that he didn't vote for the new Bootle Leisure Centre (amongst other similarly ridiculous claims)... He is, as yet, not an elected representative so I would hope he had not voted in the council! I'm sure he will claim that his format was not designed to mislead but it is not an acceptable comparison to make. Eric Pickles didn't vote for the new leisure centre, Tony Benn didn't, the Queen didn't, I didn't, neither did Mr Dawson his party however leads the council which made the decision. This is a statement of fact. It says nothing however about how any of us would vote if elected councillors.
Mr Dawson is capitalising on this doubt through the clever representation of statements of fact. Not a political behaviour that I like or admire or that I feel is particularly ethical or desirable.
SInce my e-mail, personal attacks on councillors have been fewer, which I am glad about, but the magazine still contains vile political manoeuvring such as the inclusion of the phrase "How much did Bootle Labour vote to spend on local Youth Services? Or on the Elderly? Or children? Real priorities. Not a single penny. So, what did labour councillors vote for? To take your money and run! Only Labour Councillors decided to NOT cut their huge allowances this year." Again, this is bending of the truth.
The labour councillors on sefton council did not vote to increase spending because, to my knowledge there was not a proposal to increase spending tabled to vote on. They did however vote against the Tory and Lib Dem supported program of cuts to Sure Start Centres that would have seen Phase 2 and 3 centres closed contrary to public law and statutory guidance. Labour opposition and Gemma Brannan's legal savviness is what provoked the council to table the review that is under way not something Lib Dems should be venerated for.
Tony Dawson says in his response to me about council tax that:
"The Labour councillors in this area have pushed forward policies that would
require a Council Tax rise in Sefton of 40 per cent."
The key words here are "would require" this is not at all the same thing as saying or implying that council tax would rise by 40% if labour had their way as was written in Focus. Council Tax has been frozen by central government. If council tax cannot rise there is no point in mentioning it in that context, it is merely scaremongering. The reason behind this is that there is no money coming in from central government anymore and the proposals labour councillors have tried to make have largely been to mitigate the damaging effects of those Lib Dem/Tory coalition cuts, normally this might cause council taxes to rise but I believe would more accurately be attributed to the withdrawal of central government support than councillors trying to protect vital services.
Mr Dawson fails to acknowledge the other side of this "Hobson's choice" that the lib dems and tories and the labour party are on different sides of. There is no money in sefton council. The Lib Dems and Tories have supported cuts to services, labour have not supported cuts to services arguably each way has merit or does not, depending on your principles.
In the face of the freeze on council tax there are, in reality only three options available to councillors and the chief exec - agree the cuts, resign rather make them or oppose the cuts from central government as not legal. It would appear the lib dems and tories are choosing the first option, labour, to partially support the third option (they are quietly opposing cuts on a local basis). None of those choices, in my view, should be used to promote political advantage for the other side - they are all murky choices made in an undesirable situation.
The lib dem votes to support the cuts are certainly no better.
Mr Dawson by responding to my question asking for evidential justification of statements like "the mess labour left us in" and "overspending by labour" frustrates me more. An adequate response cannot begin with the words "it is largely accepted". This brings to mind the traditional scolding your received as a child "would you put your hand in the fire if your friend told you to too?!". Clearly, I am writing to Mr Dawson as a person who has not accepted those statements as fact asking for evidence to support claims which he has made in a printed document.
What he is not aware of is that I am willing to consider arguments based on their merit. I have no personal allegiance to Labour that would allow me to be biased in their favour. I could put forward a comprehensive case that demonstrates that the budget deficit/surplus has been more often in surplus under labour than it was under the conservative administration before but this, whilst provable using statistics like these, is the kind of political one upmanship I hate and is one measure which says nothing about the reasons behind the functioning of the budget.
It doesn't matter really who caused what - what matters is how things can be improved. Not just in times were are told there are economic problems, but always. Politicians, public servants, should be most concerned with how the public interest can be served, as is their legal duty.
Mr Dawson follows this point up with "well the labour party would have done the same". This is another ridiculous non-argument but it also reflects well the lack of choice I have as a voter.
Austerity cuts or lighter cuts to public spending are not the indisputable "only way" to reduce a budget deficit. Whether they even will reduce a deficit, "rebalance the economy" or stimulate growth is not even a given and is widely disputed by respected economists, there is certainly not agreement and historical and modern examples of austerity's negative effect on economic growth and recovery are plentiful whilst evidence in support of austerity lead recoveries are scarce. The European Commission, I have mentioned before, who called for Governments to reduce their deficits does not even believe austerity stimulates growth.
Public spending cuts are not the only choice that could be made even if they are the only choice available to me as a voter. Even if they were the best choice, it is not correct to represent them as the only option, especially to someone who is seeking a balanced argument and to make their own decision, from a person who appears to have nailed their colours to a mast. I am not asking him for a comment on what my political choice is, but on the wider issue and the claims which he is part of promoting.
His position is that labour caused the deficit through overspending - that is a perfectly common and acceptable argument but I am not going to take it at face value. What evidence is there to suggest that Labour caused it? The place to start is asking people like Mr Dawson who make the claim that they did.
My view is that it was initiated by Thatcher's destabilisation of the economy by incentivising consumerism, making the economy reliant on casino banking, deregulation of the market, destruction of the manufacturing industry (all building up structural problems within the economy) and then perpetuated by the Major Government and the subsequent Labour Governments who failed to regulate industry or control wealth inequalites, and who introduced the tax credits system which, rather than equalising income forced the majority of British families into an unsustainable situation where they were reliant on Government welfare in order to survive and, which allowed the real economic crisis to worsen - that, largely the private sector, is not contributing enough into the economy in terms of paying wages that people can live on, in terms of paying adequate pensions to support those in old age, in terms of using UK labour, in terms of paying UK taxes on company and shareholder profits.
These are the real causes of the structural problems in the economy and along with the banking crash and the recession are the main contributors to the deficit and to the debt. The Governments of the last 40 years are ALL to blame, if you are into that kind of thing. Along with anyone who, rightly or wrongly, has used credit, avoided taxes, stretched to a mortgage they couldn't quite afford, applied for tax credits instead of campaigning for better pay and conditions. But the Governments are the most to blame. Even the private sector and the wealthy individuals who are profiting out of this are not strictly as much to blame as the Governments who are meant to be responsible for running the country and take a large proportion of wages in tax, increasingly from the ordinary people rather than the rich, in order to administrate the state which they are legally required to do in the public interest not in the interest of business or the rich.
What we have ended up with is effectively a largely corrupted protection racket the kind of which is only normally seen in novels or Channel 4 docusoaps about the darkest inner city areas. We pay more and more, we get less and less, we are frightened into allowing them to take more and more. At work, at home, at school, in the GPs surgery, the Hospital, on the roads... in all aspects of our lives.
On my way home from the PCS meeting I had a great discussion with a taxi driver. As well as telling me that he didn't feel he understood much of what is happening in politics at the moment, and that he always votes labour but that is mainly because his dad used to badger him about the importance of voting, and that he has always voted labour but he doesn't feel they represent him anymore, but that others represent him less, he said "But don't you think we are better off than we were 50 years ago?". After consideration I answered "no, I don't". My view of the situation 50 years ago, whatever the national economic situation, is that people were largely working in stable employment, they mostly earned enough money to keep their families on one wage and without a huge level of government support, they had housing, healthcare, free education, they didn't have the burden of large debts and the tax system was more fairly distributed to target the wealthier and benefit the poorer and those supporting dependents, there was sexism, racism e.t.c. but economically people were in a better position provided by their income from work.
People might earn larger sums now but the cost of living is much greater and taxation is much less fair not to mention that we have this hideously unsustainable system of debt and welfare which maintains most people. I think we have regressed. The Conservatives see this as out of control public spending but what it actually is a structurally supported prioritisation of market rather than public interests which has contributed to the destabilisation of the economy.
What is fundamentally lacking in most debates about austerity or the deficit/debt is a dialogue about taxation. What about sorting out your income as well as your spending? Are we able to effectively manage a budget with a tax collection system which is failing and is being called inadequate by Government ministers like David Willets? When tax fraud, is rising - the tax gap was estimated to have risen to £42bn in HMRC statistics from this year's budget. Can we afford not to introduce a tax on bank transactions? Can we afford to cut corporation tax? To cut jobs at HMRC? To not invest in HMRC?
I say it all the time because I feel like I am part of only a few limited people who are talking about it - Laurence Rankin from the Green party did mention it at the PCS meeting but otherwise it was largely ignored: The budget deficit is about an imbalance between tax income and public spending. The commonly promoted political belief is that the only way to "rebalance the economy" is to reduce public spending but what about taxation?
Exclusively slashing spending can be very counter productive. Central Government cuts to early intervention programs like sure start or health and social care are a good example that represent an immediate small saving but result, in the long and medium term in large social, financial and community costs which are difficult and expensive to "fire fight" but also to actually solve. Cut sure start you cut breastfeeding support and women's aid early intervention resulting in worse public health outcomes associated with low breastfeeding success rates (increase in SIDS, child mortality, child illness and infection and maternal cancer rates and obesity) and crisis (police, social services, courts, lawyers e.t.c.) rather than early intervention in abusive relationships which all have far reaching and multi-agency associated costs for the state which are very difficult to manage and account for and which importantly cause unnecessary suffering and fragment society and contribute to poverty for the individual and importantly for children.
Everyone seems to agree that vital services should be cut as a last resort only. Some argue that it should be a program of public spending cuts but that these should target "middle management waste" and perpetuate the myth that public sector managers cause inefficiency and waste. Alex Orme, Conservative candidate in Park ward who spoke well at the PCS meeting believes that DCLG has failed to support councils to implement savings properly but in the face of such deep and frontloaded cuts like Sefton is experiencing (£160 per person this year) I am not sure simply cutting waste could be a goal especially when you consider the already committed contracts for outsourcing which cannot be changed.
I am sure there are inefficiencies, as there are in any system, but taking the NHS as an example and comparing it to a wholly private system like in the USA blows the myth about public sector inefficiency out of the water! The US system costs more (around twice in %GDP terms) and delivers less. There is no evidence at all to suggest that the public sector has more unnecessary management waste than the private sector where it is common place to pay vast sums to consultants who make mass redundancies in order to ensure perpetual year on year, often unsustainable and counter productive growth in profit for shareholders.
The only tangible difference is in public perception - the people working in the private sector are productive and those in the public sector are burdensome. This is a simple corruption of reality. Yes, the money being paid to public sector staff is coming from the public purse but public sector industries are often the best use of public funds. Governments have certain duties to the public which require them to incur costs. This is like your need to eat lunch - you can make it yourself at minimal cost or you can eat out at greater cost. Fulfilling the Government's duties to the people using the private sector often costs more and delivers less like in the privatised utilities which cause the deaths of 100s of people annually whilst still making a profit for shareholders - a representation of their transferred priorities.
Early intervention programs dealing with problems that will cause the government to incur costs and infrastructure systems like utilities and healthcare can sometimes be changed into the private sector by legislating the duty of the government away (this does not stop the need just the duty to consider the need which can have associated costs to the state), but other things like the duty to keep citizens from destitution come from a higher legislature than westminster and cannot be legislated against or ignored without the risk of expensive european court cases and fines.
Increasing money allocated to tackling benefit fraud or for welfare reforms can be counter productive too. Benefits are such a pittance that you can easily spend loads of money, reforming systems, collecting evidence and prosecuting fraudsters and recoup only minimal savings. There is much more money in adequately funding tax collection but HMRC can barely cope with the workload now. The policy on welfare fraud (which is a tiny percentage of entitled benefits which go unclaimed) depends on your perspective. Some may want to tackle it on principle at any cost but this may not be possible in tough economic times and these people will need to apply the principle equally to tax fraud also.
The two fundamental differences between the public and the private sectors are that 1. the public sector has legal duties to the public, the private sector to shareholders, and 2. That staff in the public sector are less badly paid and enjoy less badly funded pension schemes (I say it this was because public sector working conditions do not often meet living costs but private sector working conditions are worse). The Government's suggestion to transfer en masse the administration of public services into the private sector could ultimately be very bad for the economy as it could result in higher costs to the treasury and worse outcomes for both individuals and the public interest. This is almost universally demonstrated in any sector where the government maintains a duty but outsources the infrastructure designed to administrate that duty.
In short, all of this is why I want people like Tony Dawson and his "labour overspending" and Tony Robertson and his "we have to make these cuts if we don't want to go the way of greece and ireland" to justify their claims with evidence.
What they are excusing and arguing for is the loss of hundreds of thousands of people's jobs, increasingly regressive taxation, loss of public services, privatisation of public services, loss of opportunity, poverty, a squeeze on income, increasingly expensive education, the decrease in social mobility and a switch from a focus on early intervention to one that maintains minimal input only into crisis intervention. In the face of all that what I want is someone to tell me how this will ultimately benefit the public and the economy and why it is necessary.
I don't want to hear that it is what everyone thinks. That isn't true and it isn't a reason to support it. Tony Robertson's claim is even more ridiculous - austerity has worsened the economic situations in Greece and Ireland.
I haven't made any claim as far as Mr Dawson is aware so I don't believe I am required to either explain my own opinion or to justify my belief. I have merely asked him to justify his claims which anyone is entitled to ask when a claim is made.
I still maintain that the house in the picture was not a "typical" housing benefit home in London and my experience of housing in London and here does not equate with his claims where most people are able to live in at least an adequate amount of space even if the housing is inadequate, contrary to london where housing is more often of both inadequate size and quality. His focus on negative politics, bending of the truth to suit and false claims that he focuses on strong cross party relationships are why I am not voting for him but I am left with an absence of choice as a result of the political vacuum existing in Dukes ward.
I am, in the face of this, coming round to the idea of AV, which had it been in use in this election, would still have allowed me to vote a la first past the post for my favourite candidate (by simply marking only a 1 on the ballot paper) but could have meant that Labour, UKIP, The Southport Party and the Conservatives felt it was necessary to court my vote, although it is likely the campaign would have been presented as a "pick us as your second choice" which is entirely ridiculous. As it stands I have never heard of nor spoken to any of the other candidates other than in the Visiter article of 22/4/11 here. For someone who feels it is important to vote the situation isn't ideal.
