Hello again,

Next week - I’ll be in Kimberley on Monday and in Bramcote on Thursday. The Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions is visiting the constituency this week and I’ll give a report in next week’s newsletter.


Over 80 people attended a meeting on Friday evening in Chilwell to discuss the threat to Green Belt in the Chilwell and Toton area. I went along with Conservative Councillors from Toton and Chilwell and both County Council Councillors for the area.
The local Labour MP was there along with the Lib/Dem leader of Broxtowe Borough Council, Cllr. Michael Rich.

The Nottingham Evening Post turned up but left before the meeting began thereby missing some rather interesting copy!

Everyone agrees  the Green Belt around Chilwell must be protected from any development. Residents are not prepared to sit back and wait and see if the areas currently highlighted as suitable for development meet a set of criteria that they haven’t been consulted about. They want and expect their elected representatives to do everything they can to see off this very real threat to their communities “green lungs”.
Unfortunately this deep seated desire remains somewhat lost on some elected representatives. Such was the perceived complacency, Councillor Rich was booed by members of the public.

Now I make it very clear (mischievous misquotes are somewhat a feature of political life in Broxtowe) I am pleased your Labour MP has written to so many of his constituents about the threat to the Green Belt. Quite properly he is taking the issue seriously; he certainly should attend public meetings and make such representations as he can. But he should also be doing what only he can do as your MP – namely being Broxtowes voice in Parliament. This threat to the Green belt is a direct result of Government policy. It is the Government who has set a target for new homes in the Nottingham conurbation and it is the Government who imposed the system to deliver that target. Months ago he should have met with the relevant Government ministers on your behalf and that’s the one thing he hasn’t done.  This point was ably made on Friday evening by both Cllr. Michael Rich and Cllr. Richard Jackson (Conservative group leader) and they are both right.


In the constituency

I would have been at the heart of the campaign in Broxtowe as soon as the report which identified the threat was published on November 30th 2007 (you may remember that it was the Conservatives who raised the threat at the first opportunity on December 12th at Council meeting).

I would have immediately met with the leaders of all three political parties on the Borough Council including the Independent Councillors for Nuthall, to establish and agree a properly co-ordinated all party campaign against the threat to Broxtowe’s Green Belt. Working together we would have agreed a strategy on how we would see off this threat.

With the support of all the political parties and the Independent Councillors I would have written to everyone in the constituency (using the £10,000 Parliamentary allowance which all MP’s receive) at the beginning of December.
I would call and attend public meetings.
I would have alerted the local media at the beginning of December.

Your voice in Westminster

In December I would have requested an immediate meeting with Hazel Blears MP who is the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and her two Ministers of State - Caroline Flint MP, Minister for Housing and John Healey MP, Minister for Local Government.
•    I would have made clear to them the all party opposition to the threat to build on Broxtowe’s Green Belt and the strength of public feeling.
•    I would have challenged the Governments target of 60,000 new homes in “Greater Nottingham”.
•    I would also have called for immediate reform of the fundamentally undemocratic system which has been imposed on Broxtowe Borough Council.

Following his appointment on January 28th I would have met with Phil Hope MP, the Minister responsible for the East Midlands. I would remind him that when he was appointed he said; “My message to the people of the East Midlands is that I am here to take on your causes and I will do so with relish”.

I would have brought together the MP’s for Ashfield, Gedling. Sherwood and Rushcliffe (the Christmas recess provided a great opportunity).

Your MP is paid a great deal of your money to be your representative in Parliament, instead he is raising various red herrings to divert your attention from the fact he refuses to challenge his own Labour Government.

Your Labour MP knows fine well the consultants who are assessing the sites are under no duty whatsoever to meet with local politicians (a point well made by Cllr Rich on Friday evening).

Your Labour MP should know that two City Councillors sit on the board of Nottingham Regeneration Ltd and as they are both from the Labour Party you might think he could use his obvious political contact with them for a spot of serious lobbying. But in any event NRL is also under no obligation to consult with politicians; and the point has to be made that this wretched and undemocratic system was established by the Government with the full support of your Labour MP.
Your Labour MP has indeed raised the matter with Gordon Brown at Prime Ministers Questions. Here is the question:
“Local developers in my constituency have put forward proposals to build on virtually the entire green belt in the area. I do not expect the Prime Minister to comment on individual proposals, but does he agree with me that Labour stands for sustained, planned development of affordable housing with good public transport available, not for rewarding speculative greed?”
Beware the spinning red herrings! If you are opposed to development on the Green Belt in Broxtowe – write/e-mail the Borough Council (full details are available on our web site broxtoweconservatives.com.) Ask that copies are sent to the leader of the Borough Council and strategic planning at Notts County Council. The leader of Conservatives on the Borough Council, Cllr. Richard Jackson has achieved an agreement from the Borough’s Planning Department that all your letters and e-mails will be copied and sent to NRL.

Finally, thank you to everyone who has e-mailed me copies of their letters and e-mails. The strength (and may I say passion) of opposition is enormous. Together we can protect and preserve our Green Belt.

Should we make the Spring term longer?

There is a side of me that wishes I was a “real mum”; the sort that bakes mince pies for the school Christmas Fayre as opposed to buying them and sprinkling them with icing sugar; the yummy mummy who makes stunning costumes for the school play and turns up at the school gates looking all cool and elegant ten minutes before the bell rings. Instead of course I am pretty hopeless. I did once make an angel dress for a nativity play and attended a harvest assembly only to discover parents were not invited (they stuck me on a chair in the corner with a pitying smile).

Anyway the point is that this failing of mine no doubt explains why I hadn’t appreciated until Monday evening just how short this spring term is, even though my youngest (Notts. educated) ended her half term just as my oldest (Derbyshire) began her break.
On Monday evening the topic was raised by the head teacher of the Nuthall school where I am a Governor. Easter is rather early this year and our Nottinghamshire school calendar dictates this term must finish just before the feast with the subsequent two week holiday. The result is a seriously short term just 9 weeks. As the head says this is not a great way to educate children. A number of local authorities have decided to make Easter a long weekend and continue the Spring term to make it more valuable. This makes considerable sense. So I have spoken to County Councillor (and former teacher) Philip Owen and he will table a question on the subject at the County Council. We are interested to know your views so please send me an e-mail with your comments.

I’ve had various comments about the theft of my wig and gown from my car (someone said that given the history of my wig – I once dropped it down the loo – no-one in their right mind would want it.) 

Anyway, I was gossiping with one of my neighbours who told me that her car had also been entered one evening in the last few weeks and she had had her sat nav stolen. As you might imagine I asked her if she had reported the matter to the police and she said she hadn’t “what’s the point? They aren’t interested and I’ll never get it back”.

I should add that my neighbour and I have been friends for more years than we’d care to admit so I felt able to give her a bit of a lecture on why she must report the theft; how brilliant the police had been to me and so on.

The practical point is that we can’t blame the police for not tackling crime if we don’t report it. As it happens there is a real problem with thefts from motor vehicles where I live in the city at the moment and the more information the police have the better they can do their job.

The political point is that I have long suspected (based on anecdotal as opposed to actual evidence), that one of the reasons this figure fiddling Labour Government has been able to claim that certain crimes are falling is because people have a similar attitude to my friend. So please don’t let your own despair and apathy be used by Labour to fiddle the real level of crime.

Finally, you may remember my somewhat scathing comments the other week about large electric gates. My friend has said gates. The thief climbed over them.

I’ve never known Young Offenders Institutions to be on “lock down” because they are full. This week young criminals were being taken to police cells all over the Midlands and the North West because of overcrowding. This in the week when senior medical officers went public on their concerns about prisoners being kept in police stations rather than in prison. Meanwhile the Government comes out with its usual baloney blaming judges and magistrates, accusing them of sending too many criminals to custody who should be on community sentences.

I will give you an example from my work this week, to illustrate the Governments dishonesty.

Over a year ago I represented a persistent thief who has a serious drink and drug problem. The Judge passed the right sentence – 8 months imprisonment but suspended it for two years with a package in place to help get him off drink and drugs, do some community work and stick with probation. He was told he must comply with the order and not commit any offences. The first time he returned to thieving he came back to the crown court and the judge gave him a second chance. My client went on to commit yet more offences – this time the magistrates gave him yet more chances but when he burgled a shed and stole a bike he was back in the crown court. What else could the judge do but activate the suspended sentence? The alternative had failed. My client got a total of eight months and will spend 4 months inside. He’s never been in custody before I hope he will now understand he has to stop offending and assuming he doesn’t succumb to the abundance of drugs in prisons, will come out clean.

Our prisons are overcrowded because Labour broke its promise to be “tough on the causes of crime”. We need to build more prison places now and the Government needs to accept responsibility for its failed policies and broken promises.

Northern Rock

Well it was a first – the Chancellor of the Exchequer announcing the nationalisation of a high street bank, even though back in November he told Parliament such action would mean a ‘slow lingering death’ of Northern Rock, its assets and of ‘Britain’s reputation as a major financial services centre’.
The nationalisation of Northern Rock doubles the exposure of the taxpayer – from £55bn to £110bn. That is £3,500 for every family in Britain. It means every time a homeowner fails to meet a mortgage payment in this falling housing market, every family in the country will bear the cost
Northern Rock is now a Government bank. It can borrow and lend more cheaply than any of its high street competitors. It can drive its private sector rivals out of business. In my view this is totally unacceptable, both politically and economically.
What is striking is just how little the Government is prepared to tell us about the company, though I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised. We don’t know how much we are paying for it, what exactly we are buying, how long we are buying it for, or what the Government plans to do with it once it has been bought.
What a Conservative Government would do
Northern Rock needs rescuing and reconstructing with the Bank of England at the helm. It is like the approach that the Chancellor himself proposes for future bank rescues.

A Conservative Chancellor would have enabled the Bank of England to apply to the courts for powers to appoint new management at Northern Rock, which would have the freedom to act without pressure from shareholders to safeguard the interests of creditors, including the taxpayer. Retail depositors would continue to be able to access their money as at present and the Government guarantee would continue.
This would avoid exposing the taxpayer to the massive additional risk of nationalisation. It would ensure that the Government (or rather the tax payer) would be first in line to get any pay-out if Northern Rock goes under. It would avoid the enormous damage to Britain’s reputation that nationalisation will do. It would also prevent any political interference

Obama v Clinton

A long standing friend of mine who now lives and work in New York with her American partner came home this weekend to visit her parents in Bramcote. Over dinner, the conversation inevitably turned to the American primaries. I was inclined to Hilary Clinton for no other reason than her sex; then along came Barack Obama…my problem with Barack is that he’s rather too left of centre for me. I’ve been quite a fan of John McCain since I heard him address the Conservative Party conference in 2006. The man is a true hero and a courageous politician. So Obama or McCain? My American friend is a dyed in the wool Democrat and a big Barack fan so that’s him sorted. I reckon it’s a win win either way. 

Keep sending me your e-mail comments and check out our web site for updates through the week.

As ever
Anna