Candidates shun Maidstone's carers

If the local volunteer bureau wrote to local parliamentary candidates inviting them to discuss an important green paper on social care with dozens of local carers, you think they would jump at the chance - wouldn't you?

Well I jumped at the chance and I was expecting to be able to engage in useful debate with both my opponents and the carers. The only problems was that my opponents weren't interested.

Letters went out in July to the four candidates from the Maidstone Carers Project. Labour candidate Rav Seethrum and Lib Dem Candidate Peter Carroll failed to reply to the letter and failed to turn up on the day. Conservative candidate Helen Grant replied to the letter by email just two days before the event to say she wouldn't be attending (but would arrange a meeting with the Volunteer Bureau separately).

I find it astonishing that the candidates were not willing or interested enough to even respond in a timely manner to turn the offer down. The invite went out in July! They could have easily negotiated another day for the debate.

It says volumes about how much they don't value the voice of people who are working extremely hard with little support and often no financial reward. Exactly what the country would do without these people is beyond me. Peter Carroll may be proud of the Gurkhas, but carers do an even more important job and rarely get any recognition.

On a positive note however, I was able to spend a couple of hours engaged in useful discussion with a bunch of people that I have great respect for.

There were two main concerns that they raised with the social care paper, firstly that free social care had been rule out by the government. It was heartening to listen to views that were clearly left leaning (and in Maidstone...) about who should fund social care and why it should be free. The carers were clearly of the mind that care should be paid for out of income tax, not from an insurance scheme that they start paying into once they retire.

The other important issue was the scrapping of the Disability Living Allowance and Attendance Allowance that is suggested in the document. A fundemental point was raised that these allowances are not about paing for care so much as being paid for the extra cost of living that being disabled incurs. If you can't drive and have to buy all your shopping in the corner shop, you will pay a lot more for your food. If you are at home all day and not moving around much, you need the heating much higher than other people.

One of the hallmarks of how civilised a society is, is how it cares for its sick and vulnerable people. Clearly government thinking is concerned with how little we can get away with giving. Clearly the other candidates in Maidstone are not bovvered much at all.

Addendum: I received an email from Helen Grant today (3rd Dec) telling that she did contact Maidstone Carers Project in early August and has met the project leader today. That is good news - this project is important and deserves support!

More Fib Dems in the Fant campaign

I laughed off the first leaflet which claimed that the Greens can't win in Fant because we haven't got a councillor in Maidstone. That was clearly absurd and people in the ward thought so too. The latest leaflet from them is even very disappointing. No only do they continue the bizarre claim that the Greens can't win, but they go on to claim they are a green party. 

They have clearly forgotten that their parliamentary candidate opposed the South East's largest onshore windfarm. They have forgoten that Fremlin Walk was built under their watch. That one of their Fant Ward councillors wanted to knock down Fant Hall, a valuable community resource, and put housing on the site. That they opposed a CO2 reduction target for Maidstone Borough Council. That they refused to hold Kent County Council to account over their U-Turn on traffic calming in Fant. That they refused to make CO2 reduction a priority target across the borough.

They are claiming that LibDem councils across the country are leading green initiatives. Airport expansion in Liverpool, Manchester, Exeter and Norwich. Road building in many places including the M74 and Newbury By-pass. So Green.

They also claim that I came a distant fourth last time. Sure I came fourth, but distant it was not. Con: 679 (33%) - Lib Dem: 572(28%) - Lab: 470(23%) - Green: 326(16%). That looks like a fairly even split to me with all four of us at 25% +/- 9%. There are few places where parties are this close. Distant - my arse!

Please stop telling lies. It simply debases politics, shreds the turnout and destroys trust. How about discussing and debating policy?

I don't want to put a negative leaflet out exposing these lies but I am so tempted...

I'll see your 25,000 letters and raise you 5,000

How many campaigns for the same thing does an area need?

Last week LibDem PPC launched his Full Maternity at Maidstone Campaign, saying that he is going to write to 20,000 women asking them to sign his petition to save the obstetric unit at Maidstone. This week Helen Grant is going for 5,000 more, writing to 25,000 women and pushing a pram from Maidstone to Pembury. To suggest that Helen is bandwagonning would be disingenous, MASH was formed last year to campaign for service to stay at Maidstone, however the timing of her actions are clearly suspect.

Obviously the campaigns are worthy in their own right (and I'm happy to sign either petition - or both), but they are just one example of what is wrong with modern politics. Where there is common cause, parties and candidates should work together, not duplicate efforts. Elections should be fought on issues, differences and policies, not on who can get the most publicity fighting from the same corner. I strongly suspect every PPC for Maidstone and the Weald thinks that Maidstone should keep it current range of services.

So all I need to do now is find 30,000 women in the constituency to write to and then I'll need to find a women in labour to push on a bed down the A26/A228... I wonder how Rav will beat that?

Maidstone LibDem opposition to the South East's largest wind farm

Yesterday I discovered that the LibDem parliamentary candidate for Maidstone was a leading voice in the opposition to Little Cheyne Court windfarm on Romney Marsh. I gather that the wind farm had complete opposition of the local authorities which really surprised me, as the impact of climate change induced sea level rise on Romney Marsh will be devastating. So much for LibDem claims of being green... I'll add that to my long list of LibDem supported anti-green measures (airport expansion, road building, being funded by Tescos, etc.).

Fortunately local Greens have backed the wind farm which opened last month. There can be no place for nimbyism in tackling climate change and the energy crunch.

LibDem says tax the poor, not the rich

Lib Dem candidate, Peter Carroll, has stuck two fingers up at people on low incomes in his commentary on the credit crunch. The latest copy of their Focus has him saying that the reduction in VAT should not have happened and that there should be a reduction in income tax instead.

Anyone with a basic understanding of economics knows that VAT is a regressive tax and income tax is progressive. The lower your income the greater the impact of VAT on your spending power, i.e. his idea will hurt pensioners, the unemployed etc. rather than people on higher incomes. On the other hand income tax payments increase the more a person earns and reducing income tax means that the rich get richer.

I find it quite bizarre that Maidstone LibDems are backing such an appalling stance. So much for their claims of being progressive!

This is the transcript:

Peter Carroll said, "I agree with Vince Cable that the VAT cut was a waste. The Government should have cut Income Tax instead. Such a move would have given people more spending power which would have helped local businesses."

Kent Police confirm Lib Dem error

Since receiving a letter from Peter Carroll telling me that violent crime is on the rise, he has bizarrely maintained that he is correct.

To back up the evidence from the British Crime Survey which clearly shows that violent crime has fallen dramatically since 1995, I wrote to the Chief Constable and have now received confirmation that: "Mid Kent Police Area was showing a financial year reduction of violent crime by 11.6% at the end of September 2008 compared to the same period last year."

Mr Carroll's comments that he is trying to reflect how people feel and that he is not trying to raise the level of fear simply do not wash. His statement was unequivocable: "violent crime is on the rise", it was not "people are worrying more and more about violent crime" or "many people are worried about".

I also suppose you have to ask what changed over the last 10 months. In Dec last year, the Lib Dems proclaimed: "Crime Down Under Liberal Democrat Leadership". I accept that they were talking about overall crime with that statement, but if violent crime was rising then (which it wasn't), why not mention it.

Forget the facts, why not change the story to suit the purpose?

Nuff said.

Row with Lib Dem PPC

"I'm not sure how [Mr Jeffery] can say violent crime is not increasing..." said Lib Dem PPC for Maidstone, Peter Carroll in this week's Your Maidstone. Er... perhaps it is because the well respected official statistics in the British Crime Survey says so?

Mr Carroll goes on to say: "I'm trying to reflect how the public in Maidstone feel about crime.", however his letter said something very different: "Violent crime is on the rise".

Peter Carroll's version of reality?

Dear Stuart....

Violent crime is on the rise. Post offices are being closed. Older people have seen the value of their pensions sink.

Older people deserve a fair pension.

Peter Carroll
Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone


I received the above words in a mail shot letter from the LibDem PPC this morning. It is letters like this that make me ashamed to be involved with politics:

Violent Crime

Violent crime in Maidstone fell from 2006/07 to 2007/08, and I could find only one district in Kent where is rose during that period. From 2002 to 2006 an upward trend was seen, however this coincided with the introduction of recording standards by the police - so as the police had been counting differently the data is far less reliable. Police records have been considered poor sources of crime information (cue a barrage of comments?)

"violent crime has fallen by 41% since its peak in 1995" says the British Crime Survey, the report that is considered to give the definitive view on crime.

So what do I make of Carroll's statement that "violent crime is on the rise"? Clearly he wrong and it seems like a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. Furthermore it looks like an attempt to scare the public into believing that we are living in a more violent society than we actually are. This is akin to the worst tabloid jounalism.

Post Offices

Well either he slept through the first part of the year or he knows something that I don't. Post office closures in Maidstone closed last winter. Claiming they are being closed is simply untrue, locally. I have no idea why he would make such a statement, other than to try to worry people that more may be closing.

Pensions

The value of pension funds that are based on shares are falling. I agree that they are. Mr Carroll seems to think that in the face of a global recession, he can make things better! Of course we should increase the level of the state pension, that is a given, but that will not affect those pension funds as the stock market collapses.

Personal letter from the Lib Dems

Just received a 'personal' (i.e. mail merged) letter from Peter Carroll (LibDem prospective parliamentary candidate for Maidstone) asking for my vote and telling me that he is fighting to stop hospital cuts, wants more people prosecuted for crime and criticising local councils for being wasteful. Sorry Pete, but strangely enough I've decided to vote for someone else instead... oh, by the way the LibDems have been more or less running Maidstone Borough Council for the last 20 years (except for the last few months), are your 'wasteful' comments directed at your collegues? I assume that he is writing to all voters in the constituency (65,000) - at 30p each, about £20,000 - political parties are not given a level playing field in this country, another affront to democracy, but hey ho it's just one more nail in the coffin?

Meanwhile Helen Grant, Tory ppc has been offered the chair of Maidstone Museum. Helen's only connection with the town (as far as I know) is that she will be a parliamentary candidate, and while she stands a good chance of being the MP here, this is an overtly political appointment. It smacks of all the usual Tory distaste for local people.

To ensure balance, this was pointed out by James Grieve and Ben Six and is a poignant reminder of one of the many reasons why I got into politics:



Finally, the Kingsnorth Six go on trial on Monday in Maidstone. Just as the film above and the recent climate camp showed, the right to protest and the right to free speech have been quashed. I shall probably be arrested for blogging soon...