Tomorrow is my 31st birthday. Tomorrow is also the first time in 5 years that I won't be called a manager. Professionally, I think it's what you call reaching rock bottom. There is something to be grateful for as I do still have a job. There are many in the public and private sector who have lost their jobs; their livelihoods; their family lives.
The decisions I take as a councillor may not be as monumental as changes to the NHS, but I perhaps more than most appreciate the impact on lives that decisions have.
This week we have seen yet another Conservative website appear, spouting more politics of fear. But I suppose that their candidates must make money somehow. Suffice to say I think the content of the websites are utter rubbish.
Save Libraries = Couldn't agree more.
Save SureStart = Agreed. We hope to be able to reverse some of the cuts this council has also put in place. But we know Conservatives don't like SureStarts as they were our idea and you just need to look at the decimation which is occuring in Hampshire.
Labour started the strikes = As Shakespear said "In time, we hate that which we often fear". The local Conservatives fear the workers; they fear their solutions to problems; they fear loosing power.
Yet again, the choice which the Conservatives put forward are naive. They paint a picture of cuts to service or sacking staff. No imagination. No new ideas to generate new income streams. All whilst being in the pocket of the Unions. Laughable. I can say hand on heart, during my campaign to be elected last year, I personally received the princely sum of zero pounds and zero pence from my union. If memory serves, I think we as a party locally have received a yearly donation in the realms of tens of pounds, rather than hundreds and thousands.
We in the Labour Party are a broad church. Some on the right, and some on the left. We do some things which the Unions are proud of, such as the minimum wage. And there are some things which we have done as a party which the unions don't like, such as stating that strikes during the Olympics would be wrong.
Our relationship locally is stronger than it has been for some years. We are the party of the public services; the working man; the National Health Service. But please, do not be under any misapprehension; we are not a Trades Union. We are a political party.
As the Tories have stated that 92% of the Labour Party's income is from the Trades Unions. Can I ask how much of the Tories fundraising comes from those who will benefit from the privatisation of our National Health Service? Since 2001, the Conservative Party have received 333 donations from people and companies involved in private healthcare provision. Indeed a senior local Tory also works for a company who will benefit greatly from this privatisation concocked by the ConDem Government.
Now, I ask you, who is the puppet of who?
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