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James Gray's Blog

James Gray's column from the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald.

Voting Responsibilities

There’s a tired old refrain about no-one being interested in/ trusting/ respecting politics/politicians/Parliament/people in authority. And I wholly accept that people are angry and upset with so much in Britain and the World today. Our Broken Society, our broken economy, and our broken politics, all need urgent action, alongside so much else. But I just do not accept that that has led to apathy, cynicism and disillusion. My experience is the opposite. People seem to me to be more involved, interested and aerated about politics than they have been for many years, and my prediction is that we will see a record large turnout at the forthcoming General Election.

Just think of what’s been happening in the last week or so. The Tories’ poll lead has narrowed, which, if nothing else will sharply focus the voters’ minds. Can they afford to waste their vote by abstaining or voting for a minority party? I think not. People are increasingly realising that in this election their vote counts more than ever. I personally may be disappointed at the poll gap narrowing. But I welcome it as a stimulus to electoral excitement and democratic vibrancy.

Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s evidence to the Chilcott Enquiry was eclipsed by the retired military chiefs being astonishingly public the following day that he was being economical with the truth in saying that he had fully funded recent military adventures. Mr Brown may have missed those stories, since he was at that moment hotfoot to a photo opportunity with said well equipped soldiers in Afghanistan. His announcement of 200 armoured vehicles to replace the Snatch Landrovers was initially welcomed until it was discovered to be a rehash of an ancient announcement of 400 such vehicles.

Simultaneous tragic violence in Baghdad surrounded the elections there, at least leading some of us to wonder whether or not there really is any kind of fragile democracy emerging. Was it really all worthwhile? Will the Afghan experience be better or worse, and why is so much Afghanistan money being exported to the Gulf countries in apparent expectation of a collapse of the corrupt Karsai Government?

At home, questions were being asked, and mud slung about Lord Ashcroft, Lord Paul and Michael White, each of whom made substantial donations to the three main parties. (The third, of course, being a convicted fraudster who gave £2 million to the Liberal Democrats.) The Lord Chancellor is on the mat over whether or not he should have said more about the reasoning behind the re-incarceration of the murderer of Jamie Bulger. Was it right to leave it to the tabloids to leak it? The economy and housing market are failing to match the green shoots of early Spring; our hospitals are, or have been, shut down through MRSA and C difficile; immigration, law and order, education, long-term care. All are fully in the public eye.

Well with all of that and so much more happening in Britain and around the World, and with the crucial British Elections looking uncomfortably close, anyone who I meet on doorsteps who says they will not vote because they can’t be bothered will meet a withering stare if not worse. People around the world are losing their lives to get the vote; and it’s only a generation or so ago that women achieved universal suffrage here. The worlds in a mess; Britain’s a shambles. Lets all start to put it right by taking our voting responsibilities seriously.

Funny Old Business

The pace of the run-up to the General Election, the stress for all concerned, and the possibility of drama increases by the day. Locally, candidates of all parties are in frenetic last-minute planning – drafting leaflets, ordering posters, planning the campaign itself. Interest groups are worrying about whether or not to hold hustings meetings, the Council is worried about postal votes, military electoral registration, and where (and when) to hold the count.

Nationally, what at one time looked like a pretty comfortable lead in the polls for David Cameron’s Conservatives seems to have narrowed to a possible hung parliament, with quite possibly Labour being the largest party. Mr Cameron’s dramatic (and unscripted) 45 minute speech in Brighton last weekend seems to have gone down well in most quarters, and may well lead to a renewed improvement in the polls. It had echoes of Margaret Thatcher’s “You turn if you want to, the lady’s not for turning” speech which, by coincidence was also heard in Brighton. In particular, David set his face against any panicky “lurch to the right” which many on the dinner party circuit enjoin us all to do. “Its all about the EU, immigration, law and order,” they declaim, urging the Tories to go to lengths to knock spots of the Labour Government.

That approach is to ignore the polling realities that in order to form a Government, the Tories have to appeal to a very wide swathe of people, many of whom will not have voted Conservative for a long time, some of whom never. My experience on doorsteps is that they are not at all concerned about the EU and immigration. They are worried about their jobs and the economy; they are worried about their family and the health, education, long-term care and other services they need: and they are worried about ‘Politics’ not just Parliamentary sleaze, but also such things as the relationship between Parliament and Government, voting systems, the role of the Scottish and Welsh Parliaments, the power of the media and so on. The people want radical solutions to the problems in the economy; they want decent services for their families at an affordable tax rate; and they want honesty, far-sightedness and transparency in our political machinery. David Cameron is intent on delivering those things, even if that is to the disappointment of some who would much rather see us take the fight to the enemy on good old battle grounds such as immigration and law and order.

From a personal standpoint, I have always found in the four general elections I have fought as a candidate, that no matter what the circumstances, stress mounts for the last month or two. Not only are the candidate and his volunteers and helpers increasingly under pressure to get things organised and seek to maximise their vote, which inevitably leads to stresses and strains and disagreements over tactics; but as a candidate there is a very strange personal stress too. Of course I hope that my party will win the election and form a Government. Of course I hope that the people of North Wiltshire will prove overall to have been relatively satisfied with what I have done on their behalf over 13 years. It would of course be a personal disappointment if not. But more than all of that, the incumbent at least, is fighting to save his job. It is an odd thought that at least theoretically one might find oneself without an occupation a month or two from now, at least in some cases through no fault of the candidate’s own. It’s a funny old business, politics.

Queensberry Rules

A bogus newspaper calling itself the “Wiltshire Mail,” but which is actually a voice piece for one of the other political parties, has been joining the other junk mail on North Wilts doorsteps in recent weeks. It contains a number of relatively mild personal attacks on yours truly, which I have no intention of dignifying with any kind of response.

However, it might be timely just to say this to the other parties who will be fielding candidates against me at the General Election:- I pledge that I will be campaigning on the issues and the issues alone. I will be seeking to persuade the voters that a Conservative Government led by David Cameron will be better for all of us than a Labour one led by Gordon Brown, and that I personally will continue my thirteen years of fighting for the people of North Wiltshire. I will make no personal attacks of any kind on other candidates, nor indeed will I react, aside from libel, to any underhand personal remarks they may choose to make. Let’s make this a clean campaign discussing the problems the nation faces and how each of the parties will try to solve them, and leave personalities out of it.

I do also feel strongly that the same should apply nationally. We all sympathise deeply with Gordon Brown’s tragic loss of a child. Of course we do. But that tragedy will neither make him a better nor a worse Prime Minister. His Piers Morgan interview and its content were carefully planned. It was a wrong thing to do. I equally dislike claims in the tabloids that he regularly abuses and assaults his staff. If he does, he certainly should not. But I want to know what he’s going to do to mend our country if he gets another five years in the job, not about his relations with his secretary.

Talking of pretty nauseating and unconvincing press interviews, I have to say that all I want to know about Tiger Woods is whether or not he will win the next major golf tournament.  I want to know about Sir Nicholas Winterton’s political views and career rather than his pretty dopey remarks about Standard Class railway passengers. And when we get to the much-vaunted TV debates amongst the party leaders during the campaign itself, I very much hope that they will be weighty and courteous exchanges about the great matters facing us all, rather than a PMQ- style punch-up. (Which may be fun but really adds very little to the sum total of human happiness.)

So let us try to leave behind our fixation with each other’s private lives, and focus on the problems facing the world, whose magnitude is perhaps greater now than ever before. Poverty, ignorance, terrorism, warfare, climate change, jihadism, the national debt, profligate overspending, the economy in turmoil.

When it comes – and it may not be long away now - I shall be carrying on the very long and honourable North Wiltshire tradition of decent, pleasant, civilised campaigning. I shall robustly argue that our great country is in a shambles, the blame for which lies squarely in Downing Street, and that only a Cameron Government can start to get things sorted out. But no matter what the personal foibles, characteristics, private lives or history of the other candidates may be, I shall make no reference to them whatsoever. When the bell rings to signal the start of the campaign, let’s come out fighting. But let’s stick to the Queensberry Rules.

Cross Party Consensus

Government- or at least good government - is a tough and difficult business. You could even argue that the true test of a government’s success is not how popular it is – which after all might just demonstrate that they are doing what the people think they want in the short term rather than what will be good for the country as a whole in the longer term- but how unpopular it is, which may well indicate that it is actually doing the right thing – videlicet Margaret Thatcher in 1981/2. If we Conservatives form a government at the general election, I am confident that we are taking on such a huge mess that we will soon be one of the most unpopular governments in recent history, which will actually demonstrate that we are doing a good job. By the time of the following general election, it is to be hoped that the people will have come to realise that we did what we had to do for the long-term benefit of the nation as a whole.

There’s been a bit of - slightly self-righteous - media tut-tutting about Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley breaking off talks about long-term care for the elderly because we would not contemplate the death tax which Labour are considering. Why should those who look after their loved ones at home in later years then have to contribute a whacking £20,000 to those who can’t or won’t? We are proposing a voluntary form of insurance instead - a lump sum payment of £8000 on retirement against the cost of possible long-term care. We estimate that those who eventually do not “claim” on that insurance policy will pay for those who have to.

But quite leaving the policy question on one side, I have some difficulty with the very notion that cross-party consensus is necessarily the right thing anyhow. Surely our system of parliamentary democracy depends on groups of people of a like mind – our political parties – coming up with ideas for the betterment of society which they then put to the people in a general election manifesto. Voters consider the various options on offer and cast their votes accordingly. Cross-Party consensus denies them that opportunity to choose. What’s more, since it would involve greater or lesser compromises it may well land up with some kind of lowest common denominator. Tough government demands tough choices which may be temporarily unpopular with the electorate, even if they are actually the right thing to do. Cosy cross-party consensus, government by committee, is likely to produce weak and therefore ultimately unsuccessful government.

And anyhow, it’s not just about how we should care for our evermore aging population. It’s about how we should pay for that care. The devolved government in Scotland, for example, chose to guarantee free long-term care at home for all. That is a political decision which the Scottish Nationalists took, and they have had to cancel a number of other projects to pay for it. At the elections the people will judge whether free long-term care is more or less popular than more or better schools, fewer potholes or rebuilt hospitals. That is a political judgement, and it is right that it is made by a political party who submit themselves to the judgement of the people in a general election.

So roll on our election. It cannot come too soon. The people will then cast their (doubtless quite definitive) judgement of the last 13 years without having that judgement clouded by bogus “cross-party consensus.”

A Rotten Parliament

It’s been another rotten week for Parliament, with the - perfectly justifiable - massive media focus on MPs’ expenses. Those who were on the fiddle in any way must pay the penalty by losing their jobs (as has happened to perhaps 20/30 people) or being prosecuted (and they should most certainly not be allowed the defence of Parliamentary  Privilege ). Those MPs who over claimed and are objecting to the retrospective change in the rules should just pay up and shut up. In my case Sir Thomas Legg decided that I had overpaid my landlord by some £300, or £75 per year, against my rent over the four year period . I cannot imagine how he came to that conclusion. I have always paid my rent on demand and by direct debit straight to the landlord, and reclaimed that figure. However, for the sake of closure, and to avoid endless crawling over ancient accounts, I have indeed  repaid the £300 requested . And I wholly support the efforts of the new independent body, the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, who are busily consulting on what system should be put in place to replace the widely discredited system of pay and allowances which currently exists.

All of this is a huge diversion away from real life. As we see the beginning of what may turn out to have been the most intense period of warfare for many years; as our economy totters along with the highest national debt for years; as the Greek and Spanish debts look like endangering, perhaps toppling the Euro project; as this discredited Government tries to do whatever it can to avoid humiliation in the polls which cannot come too soon; as all of that goes on, we in Westminster are chattering about whether or not an 18th Century Bill of Rights should be used to protect three Labour MPs from prosecution in the courts. What we need in the nation is direction and leadership on these great issues and more. So let’s deal with Westminster scandals and move swiftly on to the Election and set about putting our country back to rights.

For myself, I had a busy week - calling my own Westminster Hall debate on Multiple Sclerosis issues (I am Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for MS and Patron of the North Wilts branch of the MS Society); welcoming Neston Farm Shop to Parliament for the Countryside Alliance Rural Awards, of which they were the Wessex Regional Winners; visiting Scisys, a company in Chippenham producing high tech solutions for industry and government; meeting the new Station Commander at Lyneham (You can just guess what we discussed!); attending yet another repatriation in Wootton Bassett; spending a fascinating and enjoyable 6 hours of Friday evening with the Wootton Bassett Police, Sergeant Jo Spencer showing me around and giving me an insight into the excellence of our local police force; surgeries in Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury, looking into the Malmesbury Health Workshop, canvassing in Calne, attending a drinks party in East Tytherton. These things are the real meat of a Constituency MP’s week, and I would not swap them for all the great affairs of state you could mention.

So I do hope that Sir Thomas Legg and his aftermath, and the ever-more imminent General Election will truly draw a line under the last ghastly twelve Parliamentary months, and begin to restore the reputation of politics and our Parliament. We have so much to do and must not waste more time before we set about it.

Royalty

It’s been a bit of a Royal week for us all in North Wiltshire. It was great to see HRH the Duchess of Cornwall, or just “Camilla” as she is known to local people at the 60^th Birthday event for Age Concern Wiltshire on Wednesday. They are a great organisation doing important and sometimes difficult work, which was marked and celebrated by the Duchess’s presence.

Then, of course, as has been extensively reported, she and the Prince of Wales were back in Wootton Bassett on Friday to thank the people of that wonderful town for the way in which they support our armed services by paying respects to the returning bodies of servicemen. There was something absolutely magical about the deluge of snow which landed on us all just as they were laying their wreaths.

It was a unique honour for the town to see the two of them wander down the High Street, stopping off for a drink in the Cross Keys which has done such great work supporting the bereaved families, and then dropping into the Conservative Club to chat to so many local people. The whole event was very much in the spirit of Wootton Bassett- no ceremony, no pomposity. Just two very special Royals quietly thanking the people of this very special town for what they do so well.

I don’t think I am breaking any confidences when I report the Prince’s brief remarks to me when I was presented: - HRH: “Hear you’ve been seeing a lot of my wife lately?” MP: “Yes, Sir. It was great to see her at the Age Concern Party on Wednesday at RAF Lyneham.” HRH “Ah yes, Lyneham. Got to keep it open. Keep up the good work.” MP: “I promise to keep fighting for it, Sir.” Hmm…. I’m not sure that the excellent new Station Commander who was standing beside me liked what he heard!! It was a simply wonderful visit and a huge honour for the town, which will without doubt go down in its annals.

The visit exactly coincided with Mr Blair’s evidence to the Chilcott Inquiry. Sounded like pure spin to me, at which Mr Blair is an unequalled expert. There was an irony that at the precise moment that Their Royal Highnesses were thanking the people of Wootton Bassett for what they do, Mr Blair was twisting and turning to try to avoid any personal blame, seeking to justify the unjustifiable without anyone knowing he was doing it, trying to obliterate the memory of the many servicemen’s bodies which had been carried down that very High Street.

I simply cannot understand Republicans. The Royal family do wonderful work being the true leaders of the Nation without fear or favour. They have their influence – like the prince’s off-the-cuff remark to me about RAF Lyneham – but rise above the hubbub. Their presence at an event like the Age Concern party or so many others in this area is so vastly more important than it would be if, for example, we had a President. If that were the case, it might well have been President Blair. But he couldn’t have come to Bassett because he’d have been too busy with Chilcott. We should thank and respect our magnificent Royal family - ours would be a vastly poorer nation without them.

Political Correctness

My politically correct credentials (such as they were) may have been dealt a further blow by three –on the face of it – politically incorrect speeches in one week. I proposed the toast “To the Lassies” at the Rotary Club Burns Supper in Chippenham on Friday, and again in the House of Commons on Monday, and then spoke at the Oxford Union against a motion praising ‘all-women shortlists’ for candidate selections. A toast to “a person or persons of undeclared gender and ignoring their sexual tendencies’ might have been more modern. It would also have been less fun. And I like to think that that great egalitarian and lover as well as respecter of women, Robert Burns would without doubt have disapproved of all-women shortlists! 

It is easy to parody people like me – and the bard himself – who start from the realisation that men and women, people of varying creeds, religions, races and habits are different. Of course they are. ‘Vive la difference’, as or French brothers and sisters would put it. But people being different should not lead to any presumption that they are at any kind of disadvantage because of those differences. White, black, male, female, gay or straight: it is my passionately held view that all were born equal; and all must be treated equally.  ‘A man’s a man for a’ that’ declaimed Burns famously. We are all humans, and we all have equal rights. Discrimination of any kind must not be allowed.

But discrimination cannot be corrected by positive discrimination – all women shortlists and the like – which in my view are almost as obnoxious. I do not know how the Black and Ethnic Minorities Housing Association (which exists) is any more justifiable than, for example “The white male middle class housing association” (which of course does not) would be. Positive discrimination of that sort actually implies unfair discrimination against the grouping which may well be the majority. (White, straight, middle class.) Why should they be put at a disadvantage merely because of their age, class, sexuality or race any more than a black gay or disabled person. A man’s a man for a’that.

What’s more women (like the excellent new Conservative candidate for Devizes, Claire Perry), or black people (Like Wilfred Emmanuel Jones, the candidate in Chippenham) would not appreciate the patronising approach which suggests that they have got where they have got because they are respectively a woman and a black person. They have succeeded because of their own abilities, which positive discrimination in their favour would tend condescendingly to diminish.

So let us enjoy and relish differences and diversity. Let us be happy to treat people differently. I am not ashamed that I open a door for a lady or stand up when she comes into a room. I have no shame about being as ribald and straightforward with my gay and black friends as I am with my white and straight ones. Walking on egg-shells to avoid upsetting someone who is different to oneself is of itself patronising.

So call me old-fashioned if you will. But I passionately respect the differences between people. I hate discrimination and snobbery. But I hate inverted snobbery and positive discrimination as well. Good manners, respect, politeness. These are the things which bind a society together. Or in the famous old motto of Rotary International “Service before self.”

Campaign Medals For Air Med Evacuation Teams

There are some people who go into politics hoping to change the world. I guess a few are successful- Churchill, Thatcher, Obama, Roosevelt, Disraeli…. But if that’s your political motivation, then most of we political mortals are likely to be frustrated and disappointed. It is surely better to accept that at most we can try to make a few things better here and there - “round the edges” as it were.

When I visited our troops in Afghanistan last weekend, I was lucky enough to see the RAF Air Medical evacuation teams in action – both on a converted C-17 returning wounded soldiers to hospital in Birmingham, and working in the state of the art hospital in Camp Bastion. What a brilliant job they do. Soldiers injured on the very front line are whisked by Chinook to Bastion Hospital, then by Hercules or C-17 either direct or via Kandahar to Selly Oak Hospital. It often takes 24 hours from wounding to operating table, all thanks to the teams which, I am proud to say, are based in RAF Lyneham.

But you can imagine my horror both when I met them all last year, and again when they came to a reception in Speaker’s House in London in the autumn to hear that because of the technicality that their presence in Afghanistan is not constant (how can it be – they are bringing their patients home), they are not eligible for the Afghan Campaign medal. They are not, of course, doing it for the medal.  But the task which they are carrying out is just as – often very much more – dangerous than the jobs done by many soldiers who are in theatre without a break. So I lobbied quite hard on this one. Spoke to ministers on several occasions, wrote to the Secretary of State and generally made myself a bit of a nuisance.

Well I was very glad when I saw some of them at the weekend to be able to tell them that in an informal chat with an MOD Minister just before I had left, he was hinting that he had listened to their complaint, and that he was hopeful of righting what is by any standards a demonstrable wrong. No guarantees yet, but I am hopeful that the MOD may decide to offer the campaign medal not on the strength of continuous service in theatre of war, but on the basis of the total number of days served in a certain period, thereby making the Air Evacuation teams from Lyneham eligible for it. If so, it cannot come too soon.

Trips to visit the troops such as that last weekend are hard work- and hard work for our hosts who lay on such interesting visits. But they are well worth it in terms of finding out the problems and triumphs of conducting a high intensity war in as distant and inhospitable land as Afghanistan. Only by being out there on the ground can politicians hope to gain some kind of an idea about what it is actually like for our brave soldiers, sailors and airmen and women.

And if on return I can help sort out a few details –like medals for Lyneham’s RAF medics – I may not change the course of the war, nor make history, but maybe I can be personally satisfied that I have helped just a little bit around the edges.

Trivial or Great

There is a very narrow gap between trivia and great and important matters of State. The snowy weather is fun for lots of people. It’s pretty, sledgable, seasonal, and lets children have a few buckshee days off school. Yippee! (Although I guess that most of us are getting pretty tired of it now, and spare more than a thought for the cold and elderly, the essential services working under difficult conditions, and those suffering from assorted injuries as a result of snow-bound over-exuberance.) Yet if the grit or the strategic gas supply runs out, it could have terrible consequences for our already miserable economy. And therefore for our even more miserable Prime Minister.

The plot to remove him, apparently hatched in a curry house by Messrs Hoon and Hewitt, and the possibility of others like Bob Ainsworth potentially joining them, truly looks like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. Yet it could have a real and lasting effect on the outcome of the General Election, and therefore on all of our fortunes.

It was a welcome relief from political shenanigans to experience some real life in Malmesbury on Friday. I spent a shift with the Ambulance there, and as you would expect was immensely impressed by the sheer professionalism, determination, caring yet unselfconsciously cheerful approach of all of the people I met. They do a great job on the ground. Yet I remain deeply worried that the amalgamation of the Wiltshire Ambulance Service with all of those from neighbouring counties into the so-called Great Western Ambulance Service will not only do nothing to improve the service (it is now much worse performing in many way than the old and much abused Wilts Ambulance Service), but would also have the effect of sucking our ambulances from rural Wiltshire into neighbouring urban centres.

And so it was. Clinical team leader Philip Green and Emergency Care Assistant, Gina Magor and I were summoned to pick up a sick gentleman in Bath and take him to the Bristol Royal Infirmary. It took us four hours all told, during which time Malmesbury’s sole ambulance was not available for local jobs. And I am told that this happens all the time. The local ambulance takes people into hospital in Swindon, Bath or Bristol, and then gets a local job in those areas, often meaning that they do not return to Malmesbury for the entire day. I spoke up against the amalgamation at the time, my objections being pooh-poohed as out of date parochialism. But I have to say that my experience on Friday precisely confirmed my worse fears. Like so much of our public services I saw brilliantly professional workers hampered by absurd, time-wasting and expensive bureaucratic practices. Bring back the old Wiltshire Ambulance Service, I say. The amalgamation was another apparently harmless piece of management re-organisation which has real and lasting effects on the lives of the people of North Wiltshire.

Lyneham and Wootton Bassett

Lyneham and Wootton Bassett have certainly been in the eye of the storm this week.

I strongly support the great British respect for free speech and the right to protest - after all that’s one of the things our soldiers have fought and died for in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is essential that Anjem Choudary should be allowed to express his views - even if they seem to me, and I think to most people, including much of the moderate Islamic community, to be almost as eccentric and obnoxious as those of Nick Griffin and the BNP at the opposite end of the spectrum. He must be allowed to speak if he wants to.

But he must not be allowed to do so in Wootton Bassett. Our repatriation ceremonies - and I have attended perhaps to thirds of them - are absolutely apolitical. No comment is made about the war, either in favour or against. We simply turn out in all weathers, and often twice a week, to pay our respects to soldiers who have fallen in service of Queen and country. That’s why we are so opposed to the proposed Islam4UK march - it would be hijacking out quiet and simple ceremonies for political purposes.

I have always advised David Cameron, for example, against coming to repatriations, as his presence might be thought to be ‘political.’ A number of MPs have attended alongside me on various occasions, but always incognito, in the crowds alongside the Mayor and the Royal British Legion. Mr Choudary and his like can say whatever they want on the media - and perhaps the threat of the march alone has achieved that through wall-to-wall media coverage without the march itself having to take place. They can have their protests wherever they want to, and I strongly recommend Parliament Square to them. But they must not be allowed to sully the purity of the quietly respectful ceremonies of the good people of Wootton Bassett.

How ironic to have had all the fuss about the Islamic march on Monday, yet another sad repatriation on Tuesday and by strange coincidence a debate in Parliament on Wednesday on the future of RAF Lyneham. I was able to raise a raft of arguments against the new cargo plane, the A400M, without which there is even less logic in the move to Brize Norton. I’d like to see the Hercules fleet stay at Lyneham, supplemented by C17s. That solution would also save the taxpayer a great deal of money. And above all it would avoid “putting all of our eggs in one basket.” I put together a weighty dossier detailing all of this and handed it over both to the Minister and his Shadow - who after all may well be the one making the decision in the end. As with all debate, we can but see what effect it all has.

New Year 2010

Is it a sign of age, or perhaps of busy-ness, that Christmas and New Year, Remembrance Sunday, Burns Night, the Summer Solstice and one’s birthday all seem to come round quicker and quicker? Is it just nostalgia, or when I was a child, did the two weeks before Christmas really stretch out like an eternity? Even General Elections – which are separated by up to five years - seem to recur in the twinkling of an eye.

2009 – indeed a large part of the decade which we are now leaving behind with a sigh of relief- has been something of an Annus Horribilis. In a military area like this, and as we stand yet again down Wootton Bassett High Street for a Repatriation, and as we see yet another close shave terrorist attempt, and the threat of many more pending, who amongst us would not pause to ask “Is the World on 1/1/2010 really a better place than it was on 1/1/2000?” As we hear of redundancies and layoffs, of economic uncertainty, and service cuts and tax rises to come, we wonder “Has Boom and Bust really been abolished?” Are our services better? Are our streets safer or nicer places to be? Is our Global environment more secure? Is our political system still the finest in the world? Are we safer? Are we happier? Richer?” I fear that few of us would answer anything but “no” to those questions.

But was it not Confucius who said that the best view in the world was from the bottom of a ladder looking upwards? In other words, I suppose that the good news as we look forward into the New Year is that it can’t really be any worse than the last one. It’s all there to play for. And none of us –optimist or pessimist alike – should allow ourselves the indulgent luxury of predicting or worrying about the future. We can but stride out into it, doing our best, as well as hoping for the best. As King George VI so memorably said in his broadcast to the Nation at the outbreak of the Second World War: - “I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!”

So of course there are things to look forward to which we hope will make our world a better place. There’s the General Election which we hope will bring about a cleansing of the electoral and political system and lead to renewed faith in politics and our Parliamentary system. Many of us hope that it will also lead to a fresh Government of a bluer hue, a renewed economy without excessive pain, rebuilding of our broken society and so many other changes. All of those things are important. But far more important than any of that is what you and I and our friends and families and communities can do in the New Year. How can we work together better? How can we make this a better place, give our friends and neighbours a better life than last year? What can we do to help those less fortunate than ourselves? These are the questions which – if answered thoughtfully and correctly - can give us all hope for the future.

So in the words of the old Scottish song which my father used to insist on singing relentlessly and tunelessly every New Years Day: “A gude New Year tae one and all; and mony may ye see. And during all the year tae come, O happy may ye be!” Or roughly translated: A Good and prosperous and Happy New Year to you all.

A Pragmatic Christmas

The vitally important negotiations at Copenhagen seem to have produced a bit of a fudge. The green lobby will be devastated, the climate change sceptics self-righteously smug. My own pragmatic view is that if we act sensibly to limit Carbon, but global warming turns out to have been a figment of the imagination as we freeze over in 100 years time, then it really won’t matter, especially since we will have benefited our own green-technology producing economy in the meantime. If, on the other hand we do nothing but we turn out to be wrong and the Globe suffers catastrophically as a result of our inaction, then we will look pretty silly in retrospect. So let’s do what we can to prevent disaster, but not get too carried away with the whole thing.

Perhaps a similar approach is right with regard to the economy. Gordon Brown constantly claimed to have abolished Boom and Bust. It sometimes feels as if Boom is the only one he did away with! The fact is that economic cycles come and go, and all we can hope to do is to lessen their worst effects on the people. Claiming to have done away with cycles is positively King Canute-ian in its foolishness. More pragmatically sensible is the following advice: - “The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” Sounds sensible? It was said by Cicero in 55 BC.

A similarly modest, Conservative, pragmatic approach seems to me to be sound with regard to Christmas. I am full of admiration for those people who cover their entire house and garden with flashing Santa Clauses. I’m just glad I’m not an insomniac living next door to them. I’m all in favour of a decent Christmas dinner, a few carols and mulled wine, a bit of holly here and there. But I sometimes worry that Christmas has become a massive orgy of eating and drinking and present-giving, wildly disproportionate to our religious convictions. As someone said on the radio, Christmas without Christ is M and S.

So I do hope you all have a lovely time, a goodly amount of cheer, a decent dose of sentimentality. I hope that you keep the hangovers and indigestion under control and realise that family stresses are one of the most common side-effects of Christmas. I hope that you will spare a thought for those who cannot be quite so self-indulgent, perhaps particularly at this time, our servicemen in Afghanistan, our emergency services and essential service workers, our clergy.

 To them, and to all of you, I would just say: “Have a Very Happy, if pragmatically fairly modest Christmas.”

Education, Education, Education

“Education, Education, Education.” Remember that? It’s true that during the last thirteen years, the Government have spent a record amount on education. We have new schools in Abbeyfield, Malmesbury and Wootton Bassett to show for it - although there are some concerns that the Private Finance Initiative which paid for them is the public equivalent to HP. But Alistair Darling’s promise in his Pre Budget Report to maintain education spending was wildly inaccurate. For a start, there will be an extra burden from a 1% increase in National Insurance on all employees earning £20,000 or more, which will have as damaging an impact on education as on business. Anyway, some might argue that that record high spending over 13 years is to blame for the economic mess we find ourselves in - an economic mess which Mr Darling went to lengths to try to ignore. It wasn’t so much a Pre Budget Report. More of a Pre Election Report. But the press and people alike have seen through that pretty quickly.

I’ve had a bit of an ‘education, education, education’ sort of time recently. Students from Hardenhuish and Sheldon Schools and Chippenham College came up to Parliament for a tour and a bit of a chat in a Committee Room - and some Christmas shopping in the afternoon for those that didn’t come to Question Time. I also went to Hardenhuish and Bradon Forest Schools for seminars about Politics and Parliament, spoke at the A-Level Prize Giving evening at Wootton Bassett School, and not so long ago visited Malmesbury School to meet the students visiting from Malmesbury, South Africa. Last week I went to the lovely Carol Concert and Prize Giving for Calder House School in Colerne, a private special school which particularly helps pupils with dyslexia. We are so fortunate in North Wiltshire in having so many outstandingly good schools - comprehensive and private, colleges, primary and specialist.

But unlike Mr Darling, I take the view that the vast mountain of debt needs to be paid off, and paid off quickly. We calculated that during the hour or so that he was on his feet last week delivering his statement, the National Debt had increased by roughly £10 million. The £1.5 trillion we owe would, if it were piled up in £1 coins, stretch from here to the moon and back twenty-five times, or some such. And every aspect of our lives we are going to have to feel a little pain in the next few years if we are to pay off that debt, rather than sticking our heads in the sand, hoping that somehow or another it will go away, and leaving it to our children and children’s children to sort out, as the current Government seem to be doing. Or at least perhaps they’re just leaving it to someone else to clear up the mess - classic scorched earth tactics.

So as we come to the end of term and head off for the welcome Christmas break, let us take time to celebrate the excellence of the education our schools in this area provide. Let us thank the teachers, governors and other school staff who do such an outstanding job, and are more deserving than most of the break. But let us also be ready to realise that Santa Claus doesn’t bring our public funds - that can come from one place only, namely your and my taxes. And without being too scrooge-like about it, let us be ready to realise that some tough times lie ahead, and be ready to tighten our belts just a little bit.

Tax & Benefits

Sometimes as an MP you can feel like something half way between an Ombudsman and a social worker – both of which roles I greatly enjoy. I had surgeries in Chippenham and Corsham last Saturday, Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury the week before, and 30 or so constituents called in with queries varying from:- Working Tax Credits, long-term care of a disabled person; Porton Down Tests compensation, housing, central heating grants, home education, immigration, planning, Europe, political correctness, and a host of others. Very few of these issues are anything directly to do with being an MP, but I am happy to see what I can do to help anyhow. When people feel frustrated with poor official organisations, or bewildered by the complexity of modern regulations and bureaucracy, or at the end of their tether one way or another, they very often (quite correctly) turn to the MP for help.

The previous day I had had a meeting with Nationwide in Swindon who told me of the public’s lack of understanding of many of their products, and general mystification with the modern financial world; and then I was in Devizes taking part in the Carers Rights Campaign Action Day. I strongly support carers of all kinds, who quite apart from anything else are relieving the State of a huge potential burden of care, amounting we were told to some £87 billion. Here in North Wiltshire there are 7355 carers, many of them juggling work and caring responsibilities. I salute them for all they do, very often under very difficult circumstances.

It was a lively meeting which ironed out quite a few queries and ideas over the morning. But one issue which became very obvious is that too few people know about, or fully understand, the various benefits to which they are entitled. Carers Allowance, Council Tax discount, Pension Credit, Housing Benefit. All come with a maze of regulations and myriad forms. I had to admit to the meeting that many benefits are now so complex that when someone consults me in my surgeries about them, for fear of giving the wrong advice, I very often refer the constituent to the true experts on all of this, namely the Citizens Advice Bureau!

Benefits should be clear, fair, and accessible to all who genuinely need them. And much of the current benefits system fails on all three counts. Services provided by central government have become increasingly complex, the small print ever smaller, remarkably few people claiming all they are perfectly entitled to, and a few others disgracefully claiming a few things to which they demonstrably are not entitled.

I have always had a dream of a system of tax and benefits under which each of us declares our financial situation to the State, those with income then paying their taxes duly, those without drawing down whatever benefits to which they are entitled. Leonardo da Vinci used to hold open house in Florence, his guests throwing money, food or other spare items into a big basket; other friends in need helping themselves on some occasions. It is said that Leonardo always made a decent profit, with more people giving than taking. If only we could organise our tax and benefits system along the same lines!

Tale Of Two Cities

Two events in the last week – one in Parliament, the other in the constituency- made me think of that wonderful opening to A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair….”

Parliament – MPs, staff, journalists – a good few hundred of us, turned out on Monday to welcome home 19 Light Brigade recently returned from Afghanistan. Led by the band of the Scots Guards they marched through our historic Carriage Gates, halted in front of the 1000 year old Westminster Hall which has seen so many heroes return, and where, as Chairman of the All Party Group for the Army it was my honour to welcome them home and thank them for their efforts. (And then to escort them down to the Terrace of the House of Commons for a few beers!)  What an immense feeling of pride at welcoming these heroic young men and women home. It was we in Parliament who sent them to Helmand, and so it should be we who acknowledge their service.

In my speech, of course, I remembered the eighty-one comrades in arms who did not return with them, but whose bodies were carried down Wootton Bassett High Street. And again, I feel a huge sense of pride that it is that wonderful little town in my constituency which week by week stands proxy for the nation in remembrance and tribute.

Yet the pride which we felt in Parliament and down the High Street is more than tinged with sadness, with regrets, with concerns about whether or not we are doing the right thing, about whether or not our boys have the best possible equipment to do their jobs. Pride tinged with great sadness in all of it.

But of one thing I am certain. And the soldiers in Parliament on Monday were more than certain, as are those who come to Wootton Bassett: the lives of the fallen must not be wasted, and must not be thought to have been wasted. There are two parts to that. First, it is quite wrong to say: “We mourn these brave young men, and we should therefore pull our troops out.” That is not only illogical; it would mean that their lives had been truly wasted. If it is a just and necessary war, then we must wage it no matter what the casualties may be, but if it is not, then we should not be there at all, even if there were no casualties whatsoever. There can, of course, be a debate –amongst those who know far more about these things than you or I- as to whether or not our strategy and tactics are quite right. That debate is as old as warfare itself. There will always be a multitude of armchair generals ready to do that. But it’s not a debate for us.

What we did in Parliament on Monday, and what we do week by week down Wootton Bassett High Street is simply to honour the service – in some cases including the ultimate sacrifice – of our men and women of war. They carry out their orders. The orders of the generals and politicians who sent them to war. And they do so magnificently, and without question. That is why recognising their efforts in these ways, and thanking them for it, quite leaving aside any kind of political judgements, is so overwhelmingly important.

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