Last year we saw the economy shrinking. This year we are in recession - and this is no ordinary recession. In Newton Abbot, Teignmouth and Dawlish shops are closing and small businesses are folding. The unemployment rate in Newton Abbot has doubled. We need a change of government to give the country the confidence it needs for a recovery. The money being pumped into the economy just isn't making a difference - and all those jobs Gordon promised to create building roads, houses and other public sector services cant be funded. It reminds me of the emperor who had no clothes....there is simply no substance to the promises made and no money to deliver them.
The Conservatives are planning now how they will deal with the worst set of public finances any incoming government in Britain has ever had to deal with. The national debt is set to double to a trillion pounds and our budget deficit is expected to be the highest in our history. We have to learn to live within our means and adopt a new approach to avoid waste and increase accountability. Conservatives have pledged to deliver much greater transparency so that for the first time anyone will be able to find out how and where their taxes are being spent and thereby hold the government to account.
But at least one country has seen fit to make a change - the inauguration of President Obama was a sight for sore eyes. Never in my lifetime has so much hope been placed in one man. A man of courage ...with a plan for change. And it is change we need here. And it is not just change in Britain PLC - but change in Devon. Devon seems to have been forgotten. We languish at the bottom of the funding league table on so many things. The funding level for our schools is but one. At 145 out of 148 the Government is spending £659 per child less on our children than those in neighbouring Bristol - yet our teachers are paid no less, our school buildings are no cheaper to maintain, indeed our transport costs are higher. Some 2000 parents agree with me that something has to be done and I am now finalising my petition with their support to get this changed. I have discussed the issue with Michael Gove, Shadow Minister for Education and he is fully supportive.
During the course of the New Year I have visited a number of local businesses and they are deeply frustrated. The VAT reduction has helped no-one. Business rates and National Insurance contributions are killing small businesses - along with the Revenue's very hard approach to pay deadlines - the extensions being granted are thin in the extreme. The banks who seem to be one of the key villains of the piece continue to refuse credit to businesses. And the new guarantee scheme to encourage bank lending is so vague as to be meaningless. The guarantees that were needed were for businesses, not banks. We all have to weather the storm..and the bad news is that the good businesses are as vulnerable as the bad.
Let Gordon have the courage to go to the country......but with opinion polls giving Conservatives a 15 point lead, that looks less and less likely.
Monday 26 January 2009
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