Best of a Bad Bunch
Local issues
Before we get on to local issues we would like to talk a little about local history. Both Esher and Walton and Spelthorne are considered safe Tory seats. Have we been well served by our conservative MPs? The fact that both are standing down in the wake of the expenses scandal suggests not. Ian Taylor is standing down not because of his appalling attendance record of at the House of Commons. He is not standing down because of his expenses claim of £179,501 (making him the 18th most profligate MP in parliament). he is not standing down because even though he is a forty minute commute from Westminster he felt the need for a flat in London but the real reason is that this unnecessary flat was used as the postal address of a consultancy he set up to advise defense contractors, and was frequently used overnight by his 29-year-old son Ralph. You or I would be at best fired and more likely arrested for such behavior but he is still the standing MP clinging on to bolster his pension even further at our expense and we have the incoming Tory candidate, a lawyer, (and we have all heard the old adage of 99% of lawyers giving the rest a bad name) thanking him for his ‘service to the community’.!
So how would Best of a Bad Bunch be any different? Well firstly since there is no party whip we can vote in the best interests of the constituents, rather than the best interests of the party leaders. We do not have one eye on a ministerial post or political advancement which means that we can concentrate on getting the country out of the mess it is in. We will both refuse any second home allowance and continue to live in the constituency (or in Rod’s case next to the constituency for which he is standing and in which he has worked for the past ten years). We will not travel first class to parliament because we don’t want to mix with ‘the different type of people’ that travel second class’ (a quote from Tory MP Sir Nicholas Winterton). We are that ‘different type of people’ we will serve the local communities to the very best of our abilities because we are part of those local communities.
We cannot promise to fill all the potholes, reduce the council tax, and matters that are presided over by the local council rather than MPs. We would hope to improve the local schools and hospitals by improving all schools and hospitals but unfortunately with such a deficit as we have been saddled with this is not going to happen overnight. We cannot reduce local crime simply by buying more policemen but we can try and make sure that such red tape and paperwork that they are obliged to deal with is kept to a minimum and let them get on with their jobs. These are all policies that have their own areas on the web site but what we can say about local issues is that when a constituent has a legitimate problem we will raise heaven and earth to sort it out. Even to be selected to run for one of the major parties you need to be owing favours to those that supported you and those that financed the campaign. If we are elected there will only be one group of people to whom we owe anything and those people will be you, the constituents.