‘General Synopsis’ give us their view of recent going-on in the House of Commons connected to the proposed Isle of Wight council cuts. We welcome differing views or opinions. Just write them down and send it over – Ed.
You know how it is when you’re young and in love. The world’s at your feet, you feel invincible, there’s nothing you can’t do, nothing you can’t be.
You’re about to marry into a well-connected family, you’ve climbed over more backs by the age of 30 than most people do in a lifetime – surely the only way from here is up. Right then, it’s the respite centres, the libraries and the public loos next.
But for Island Tory leader and parliamentary wannabe David Pugh, the announcement last week of his engagement to thirty-something Rachael Bushby coincided with somewhat less euphoric news from his political bedfellows.
This is 2011, not 1980
Dave, they told him, you’ve lost the plot, you’ve gone right off message and you’re EMBARRASSING us. This is 2011, not 1980, the Prime Minister is David Cameron, not that awful grocer’s daughter, and we REALLY don’t think your slash-and-burn crusade on the Isle of Wight, wherever that is, is going to do any of us any good.
ET TU, ANDREW?
So who from within the Tory ranks has found the cojones to wield the dagger? Which among Pugh’s 23 council cronies has broken ranks and tried telling him what they know he doesn’t want to hear, with the attendant risk of being cast into the Outer Darkness. Well actually, none of them.
Step forward Grant Shapps, local government minister and another young-ish rising star of the Tory Party. At his shoulder, metaphorically, is Island MP Andrew Turner, whispering in his ear about a little local difficulty.
A question of double taxation
Turner has asked Shapps a Commons question about double taxation in the context of cuts to services which the Government expects councils to make.
He wants to know whether it’s right that the cost of running things like libraries should be pushed onto town and parish councils, so they have to tax villagers and townsfolk again if they want to keep the services running. The Tories did, after all, he reminds Shapps, promise a Council Tax freeze in their manifesto.
“Something of a hand-grenade”
Shapps didn’t get where he is without recognising an elephant trap when he sees one. He realises that Turner needs some fairly urgent help in dealing with the troublesome Pugh. So his answer goes well beyond the usual evasive verbosity of such occasions. It’s plain, it’s specific, and it’s decidedly anti-Pugh. In short it’s something of a hand-grenade. And it’s in Hansard.
Mr Turner: What can be done to stop local authorities withdrawing services, such as libraries and lavatories, and expecting town and parish councils to take them over, thereby increasing the local precept? People will not benefit from the Government’s support to protect them from council tax bills rising if the local precept rises instead.
Grant Shapps: My hon. Friend makes a valid point. Unless an authority has already merged its human resources, legal services and planning departments and cut the chief executive pay that Opposition Members are so keen to defend, there is no excuse for trying to charge more for those services, or indeed, as my hon. Friend points out, for trying to shove them off on to, perhaps, parish councils.
Which of the Shapps recommendations have been done?
Right then, young Pugh, have you done any of the things Mr Shapps told you to? What about merging those back office functions? Human resources? No? Legal Services? Ah, no, they’ve been very useful to you, haven’t they? That Davina Fiore and her advice on the Livingstone defence turned out useful, didn’t it? PughTube and all that. Planning? That’s right out in the long grass, isn’t it? This year, next year, sometime, never… And Mr Beynon’s pay cut? He gets £150k, plus benefits. That’s more than the Prime Minister. Go on then, cut it, we dare you.
So Pugh hasn’t done any of that, but he’s still going after our libraries and our loos, our swimming pools and our lifeguards. He’s going after Westminster House, a lifeline for people who can’t speak up for themselves. And he’s doing all that for what? For a dogma from an age that only he and a few backwoodsmen around him are still living in. A Thatcherite after his time.
Time Gentlemen please
His opponents have told him. Now his political allies are telling him too. Isn’t it time more of the rest of us told him? Enough is enough, Mr Pugh. Time to spend more time with your family. Or doing something else. Anything else. Ever considered a career as a public servant?
Image: drb62 under CC BY-SA 2.0
