View from the Commons -Is That It!
A few weeks ago, in the face of plummeting opinion polls, Gordon Brown bottled out of calling an election. He argued that he wanted time to show the country his vision as Prime Minister. Well now we have had his first Queen's Speech to start the new session of Parliament and what an anticlimax. In fact it was very similar to the last ten Queen's speeches from the Blair/Brown era.
The eighth piece of terrorist legislation including the same old attempts to lock people up for months without evidence or trial. The same old ID Cards. The same old demonisation of young people. The same old Central Government dictat telling Local Councils what they must and must not do -regardless of what local communities want.
On planning for example Brown has launched his scheme to stop local Councils and local people 'interfering' in major planning decisions that affect their area. Many see this as paving for the way for Brown's controversial new wave of nuclear power stations, airport extensions and building on the Green Belt. You name it -Gordon does not want you to have any say over it.
A centre piece of the Queen's Speech was supposed to be the drive to build more housing. At last Gordon has discovered the housing crisis that he has created in 10 years as Chancellor. House prices have soared beyond the reach of first time buyers, repossessions have doubled, the Northern Rock scandal threatens to undermine the credit based consumer boom that Brown has relied upon for years. Council house building was ended by Gordon and he tried to force tenants everywhere to privatise their Council houses. Result? - Council waiting lists in Chesterfield and Sheffield have trebled since 1997. Every year fewer Council properties due to Right to Buy and more desperate people on the waiting list.
Gordon's answer however offers no hope to those in Chesterfield and 140 other Council areas who still manage their own Council properties. Gordon will still take away millions of pounds from Chesterfield Council Tenants rents. He will still take away 75% of all money from Right to Buy sales. He believes he can spend it better in London than letting Chesterfield Borough Council spend it on local housing needs. His new idea is to let a few specially chosen Councils set up private property companies, give Council land away to them and let them build new houses. Some will be sold while a few would even be let to Council tenants!
What a marvellous vision our new Prime Minister has laid out for us.
Chesterfield's Liberal Democrat MP,
Paul Holmes