Posturing on the Police

Today, presumably off the top of his head, Boris Johnson announced that new draconian punishments would miraculously be added to the powers of police officers, judges and magistrates dealing with knife crime.

Diane Abbott, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, declared: "This is just posturing on crime and Boris Johnson knows it."
 

Johnson supported Tory cuts to the police and has no plans to restore the frontline officers that successive Tory governments have axed. In his time as London Mayor,Johnson promised to recruit 'thousands of extra police' but, of course, never delivered on his promise.

The Tories aren't really putting 20,000 extra officers on the streets to tackle the knife crime that has become an epidemic during their time in government. Nor do they intend to do anything about the youth services they cut, or funding for drug prevention schemes. It goes without saying they will do nothing whatever about the spike in school exclusions. All these things - all these cuts and fiddling with figures - have contributed to rising crime.

Tinkering with police powers will not disguise a decade of Tory failure.

Repairing the damage

Lord Willy Bach, your Labour Police and Crime Commissioner, explains what cuts to police budgets really mean for Leicestershire.

Our MP claims the Tories are “the Party of Law and Order.” What a joke! Leicestershire has lost 550 police officers over recent years. Our Youth Services have been savaged. Now – surprise, surprise – just before a likely General Election, there is a promise of 20,000 new officers. Even if that promise is kept (and that’s a big if) it would still not get anywhere near the number lost to the cuts.

Meanwhile I have carefully and responsibly increased the number of police officers each year I have been in office. For this year, up to June 2020, the number is 107. By raising the police part of the Council Tax and making sensible use of Reserves, I have set about repairing the damage caused by almost a decade of Tory and Lib Dem austerity.

Of course the fall in police numbers affects the crime rate. Not only is there an increased population in Lutterworth and Broughton Astley, but new offences like Modern Slavery and People Trafficking demand specialist investigative skills.

It was unforgivable of the Tories to cut the police force to the level it did. A Labour Government will ensure we have the right number of officers to properly protect our communities.

Tory threat to NHS

The Health Service Journal has today revealed the extent of the threat posed by a re-elected Tory government. Essentially, the HSJ says: "Closing wards and services, blocking choice of private providers, systematically extending waiting times, and stopping some treatments are all being considered under a national programme targeted at the health economies with the highest overspends."

In response, Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Health Secretary and Leicester MP, says:

"With 48 hours to go until the General Election, the true scale of the secret Tory plan for cuts and closures across the NHS has been revealed by the Health Service Journal.

"We now know if the Tories are re-elected on Thursday we'll see hospital wards closed, waiting times growing, treatments rationed and staff cut.

"The fact that NHS bosses have described this as the most extreme and difficult NHS finance process they have experienced and would challenge the value basis of the NHS, will make chilling reading for patients and their families who deserve the very best levels of care.

"Every single day the Tories are in power hospitals are being left to crumble, staff are being let down, waiting lists are growing and patients are being denied the care they need and deserve.
"Let's be clear - these new, secret Tory plans will only be stopped by electing a Labour Government on Thursday.

"The NHS cannot survive five more years of a Tory government. That is why Labour has pledged to bring the health service back from the brink with a multi-billion pounds rescue package. The British people deserve nothing less."

Incidentally, did you see this story on the BBC lunchtime news? No, me neither. Funny that. Questions may need to be asked.

Amanda Hack - your Labour Candidate for South Leicestershire

Amanda's election address should be dropping through your letterbox any day now.  Congratulations to the election team - it looks great and the contents are spot on.

If yours hasn't arrived yet, here are some key points:

• We've seen massive cuts to local services - social care, children's services, school support, youth services, all either closed or cut to the bone.  The next tranche of Tory cuts will close libraries and museums.  Labour is committed to a fairer alternative.
• The NHS as we know it cannot survive five more years of Cameron.  Labour will hire 20,000 more nurses and 8000 extra GPs, funded by a clamp down on tax avoidance, a mansion tax on properties worth than £2 million, and a levy on tobacco firms.
• The cost of childcare has risen by 30% under the Tories.  Labour will provide 25 hours free childcare each week for parents with 3 and 4 year-olds.  Labour will work with primary schools to provide childcare for school-age children from 8am to 6pm, and help parents balance work and family life.

Find out more about Amanda and her campaign by visiting the constituency party's website or by following Amanda on Twitter @hack4labour.

The Democratic Deficit

Local councils were created to provide local services for local people.  Their origins date back to at least the Anglo Saxon era.  The idea, essentially, was that local people would vote for local representatives because they agreed with what they had to say about local needs.  If there were no great needs, then the councils needed to raise less money.  If there were great needs, then a majority vote of local people effectively endorsed a bigger budget.

For thirty years or more, governments of all persuasions - yes, including New Labour - have cut back local decision-making and, to a greater or lesser extent, local revenue raising.  David Cameron hasn't achieved much in his single term prime ministership but he has blown a truly massive hole in the concept of local democracy.

* The Tory-led Government has imposed the biggest funding reductions in the public sector on local councils.  Funding for local government has been cut by 40% over this Parliament, with councils having to reduce their budgets by a total of £20 billion by 2015/16.

* David Cameron and Eric Pickles are distributing these massive cuts unfairly – hitting those that can afford it least the hardest. It is scandalous that the areas with the greatest need are shouldering the largest reductions in central government funding.

* The Prime Minister says “we’re all in this together”, but his local authority of West Oxfordshire – one of the least deprived areas in the country (ranked 316 out of 325 in the indices of multiple deprivation) – is getting an increase in spending power of 3.1% in 2013/14, while most places faced significant cuts.

* The most recent Local Government Financial Settlement means that over this Parliament – between 2010-11 and 2015-16 – the ten most deprived areas will have had their spending power cut by ten times the amount of the ten least deprived areas.

* The Government is hitting the poorest people in those communities too. Eric Pickles lectures councils and says they have a “moral duty” not to increase council tax bills this year, but at the same time he has dropped his own council tax bombshell on people on the lowest incomes. 

* At a time when carers, the disabled, single mums, war widows and veterans are having to pay more council tax and the hated bedroom tax, the Prime Minister refuses to rule out cutting taxes for millionaires yet again. It tells you all you need to know about whose side he is on.

In Spring 2013 the IMF said that the Conservative-led Coalition was "playing with fire ... with the growth flat-lining... [and] should be easing off some of those spending cuts."

This is Robert Peston on BBC Radio 4's PM last Tuesday:

There is a debate still to be had about whether or not the UK approach over the full period of the parliament was the most effective in terms of generating recovery.

It shouldn't be forgotten that UK national income is still below its peak of the first quarter of 2008.

Other counties that are currently growing more slowly than ours, such as Germany, have an income that is about that of 2008.  In other words, these countries have continued along the path of enrichment better than we have and they are wealthier than they were before the crash of 2008 whereas we are less wealthy than we were before the crash.

Thanks to David F.

Tory cuts - NHS crisis

The Sunday Times reports that in the last six weeks 8000 operations have been cancelled as hospitals fill up with elderly patients – that’s a 17% increase in cancellations compared to the same period in 2012, itself a 20% increase on the year before.

The Department of Health says the number of cancellations remains low in the context of ‘millions’ of operations performed by the NHS each week.  (You’ve got to question that statistic – are we all having one each?)  Our own David Fish says this is ‘head-in-the-sand denial.’  DoH bureaucrats and ministers have been warned plenty of times by front-line health professionals that when it comes to essential healthcare, cuts means crisis.

 

Labour’s Shadow Health Minister Andy Burnham says the cancellations are because more people than ever are being admitted to hospital from A&E – “a clear sign that too many frail, older people are struggling to cope because of the loss of care support at home.

“David Cameron’s fingerprints are all over the crisis in A&E.  On his watch, it has got harder to get a GP appointment and people are ringing surgeries to be told nothing is available for days.  Add to that his severe cuts to social care, the closure of Walk-In Centres and the break-up of NHS Direct and we have an A&E crisis made in 10 Downing Street.”

Good luck tomorrow!

DAVID GAIR

 Standing in LUTTERWORTH DIVISION

to press for a proper bypass to the east of the town.

 

SANDRA PARKINSON

Standing in BROUGHTON DIVISION

to make your roads safer

ELAINE CARTER

Standing in BRUNTINGTHORPE DIVISION

to win funding for rural communities

 

 

All your LABOUR CANDIDATES are campaigning to save your libraries, services to schools, and grants to essential voluntary and community organisations from FURTHER TORY CUTS.

 

Good luck to all in tomorrow's County Council elections.  Voting takes place from 7am to 10pm, so they must be expecting crowds.

 

If you want to know what these elections mean nationally, there's a fascinating article here.