Fund Raiser

"An Audience with Ann Widdecombe"
on Saturday, Feb 9th 20083pm - 5pm at Maplesden Noakes School Buckland Road Maidstone Tickets £10 / Concessions £6*including Afternoon Tea*from Crossroads, Holborough Rd, Snodland. Tel: o1634 249090or on the door

Parking Charges set to Rocket

The LibDem run council has been forced by the Conservatives to reveal their plans for swinging increases in parking fees at a council meeting held on 12th December 2007, which are likely to come into effect by Feb 2008.

Conservative Councillors had predicted draconian rises as the LibDem’s had recently voted to raise a whooping additional £100,000 net, from motorists to help fund their cash strapped recycling programme.

Charges for on-street parking will jump by 25 to 33% depending upon length of stay, while evening charges are to go up 50%. Businesses are to be directly hit with permit charges increasing by 43%. The up to 3 hours car park tariff will rise by 14% essentially affecting all motorists who have to park in the town centre at some point.

All of this comes after the LibDems put the pinch on parking spaces by closing the Coombe Quarry Park and Ride site. A move which will send 70,000 additional car journeys into Maidstone town centre over the year, ensuring there is a captive market for parking spaces.

This is a shameful money making scheme, thrust on motorists to plug the holes in the LibDem’s previously un-costs decisions.

Northern Rock hits £57Bn bail out

Mervyn King the Governor of the Bank of England, has extended the Banks guarantee to cover any loans made by other financial institutions to the Northern Rock. This now means each and every taxpayer is exposed to the tune of £2000. This guarantee accounts for an additional 30% of the Rocks balance sheet.
The question is now, when do we call it nationalised?

Data, Data, Where for art thou data

More Data lost

This time the data, learner drivers names and addresses was lost 6 months ago; and the government knew. Yet ………………………………

Educational Standards are Slipping.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published the finding of its 2006 assessment of educational standards, this is call the PISA with an assessment made of more than 400 000 fifteen year old students from 57 countries. Those participating countries account for somewhere close to 90% of the world economy with the focus of the tests on science, reading and mathematics.

Britain has slipped down the ratings dramatically, from 7th to 17th in reading and 8th to an appalling 24th in mathematics.

This gives undisputable evidence that Labours educational policy is not working.

In an attempt to refresh the memory on just what labours policy might be I visited the new departments website, for Children, Schools and Families,

“The Department will build on the successes in education and children’s services that we have seen over the last decade” so they are in denial.

But then in the next sentence “It will now focus on the significant challenges that remain – raising standards so that more children and young people reach expected levels”.
All this from the party of Education, Education, Education. One can only wonder at what they have previously been focusing on in that case!

There is a simple reason for this, it is called poverty of aspiration, our youth are uninspired by life under this Labour Government of uniformity and blandness.

Power to the People

David Cameron has today launched the Conservatives’ Green Paper on decentralised energy.
• In the face of the enormous challenge of man-made climate change, ‘business as usual’ is not enough. Britain needs dynamic industrial change if it is going to compete and win in the low carbon era.
• We need to move from a top-down, old-world, centralised system to a bottom-up, new-world, decentralised system. By enabling people to generate their own electricity, we are literally giving them more power over their own lives.
Key policy recommendations
Power to the People: The Decentralised Energy Revolution sets out a way of changing the architecture of Britain’s energy supply. Although this does not involve dispensing with the national grid, we want to enable every small business, local school, hospital and household in the country to generate electricity through micro-generation.

£200,000 Government job for data disc loss boss

Mr Paul Gray who initially so it seamed, did the apparently decent thing by quitting as HM Revenue and Customs boss over lost data discs, has not gone so far after all, and remains working for the government.
He was praised for resigning with "honour" when discs holding the child benefit database were lost in the post.
However channel 4 News reported that he had begun a short-term Cabinet Office post and is still paid more than £200,000.
But a government spokesman said Mr Gray's period of notice meant he would continue to be paid until 31 December whether he was working or not.
"In the meantime he has agreed to a request from Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell to undertake a short piece of work on cross-government matters until Christmas," the Cabinet Office spokesman said.
He added the period of notice meant "he could receive payment for no work or receive payment for doing some work.
"It was thought to be better in the public interest that he did some work. There is no additional cost to the public purse. He will leave the payroll on December 31."

I was going to say well Mr Gary was a patsy for Brown-Lazy-Mr Bean-Controllers but, £200,000. Does this mean he will get a massive pay off to go with his tax payers rather large salary!

Freedom of Maidstone for Ann

Last night at a special meeting of Maidstone Borough Council, Councillors of all persuasions bestowed the Freedom of Maidstone upon The Rt. Hon. Ann Widdecombe, this is the highest honour that the council can give.

The motion was proposed by Cllr Paulina Stockell and seconded by Libdem Leader Cllr Fran Wilson with all speakers praising Ann for her unstinting hard work for the people of Maidstone over the last twenty years.

Only 32 individuals have received the councils highest honour since 1897, last nights event was also graced by Sir John Wells another Freeman of Maidstone and Ann’s predecessor as MP for Maidstone.

Labours second largest donor is not even eligible to vote in a UK General Election.

The Mail on Sunday reporter Jonathan Oliver has uncovered, and published in the MoS today.
"The focus of the sleaze scandal engulfing the Government switched dramatically last night to the Labour Party's second biggest donor - an Iranian-born car dealer who is not even entitled to vote in general elections.
Mahmoud Khayami, a French citizen, has given a total of £830,000 in the past eight months, making him Labour's biggest individual backer after Lord Sainsbury.
The party said it would launch an investigation after The Mail on Sunday discovered that:
• Khayami made his first donation - of £500,000 - just 24 hours after becoming legally allowed to do so, by having his name added to the Electoral Roll.
• The tycoon - who runs a car dealership in California and has a villa in Cannes - had waited until the age of 77 before adding his name to the roll.
• Khayami is a close friend of Labour-supporting "fixer" Anthony Bailey, whose clients have included Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe regime, and whose own £500,000 donation was rejected by Labour because of fears it had come from foreign sources.
Even though his name is on the register, he is permitted to vote only in local and European ballots, not general elections.
Commentators said that while he was thus technically qualified to make party donations, the fact he had done so meant Labour was 'sailing close to the wind' on donation rules.
But Tory frontbencher Chris Grayling said: 'It is now very clear Gordon Brown had ordered a 'dash for cash' ahead of an early Election.' "

This report comes after a week of revelations about illegal (Jack Shaw’s words) funding of the Labour Party by Abrahmas, as a second Police Investigation is launched. Perhaps the Labour Party ought to read the laws that they pass a little more closely, since they clearly can not rely on having any common sense. Either that or they think they are above the law and can just carry on getting away with it. Time and again the Labour Party treat the public as fools and with contempt.
Paraphrasing Vince Cables career topping comment, “we have seen Stalin become Mr Bean in a week”

Quote of the day

Not so much Stalin as Mr Bean: Gordon Brown is made to play the fool in stage farce

"The House is punch drunk after a solid ten days of crisis non-management. There are almost too many to keep track of and the Labour-donor sleaze scandal is so complicated that it makes a bowl of spaghetti look straightforward. "

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2963664.ece

Value of PFI deals 'is uncertain'

Does any of this sound familiar?

The government's private finance initiative has not offered the taxpayer value for money, according to a committee of MPs.
In a report published on Tuesday, the Commons public accounts committee said public authorities often failed to secure a good deal on contracts with private firms.
There are some 800 PFI contracts worth £155bn up to 2032, but the MPs said that the managing of some projects had "got worse" since it last reported on the issue four years ago.

Committee chairman Edward Leigh said he was "very concerned" that public authorities were cutting essential services "to keep the PFI contracts affordable".

"If the public sector is to get value for money from the deals, then the market must be truly competitive," he added.
"What we find instead is that a third of recent projects attracted only two viable bids. This may well become an even bigger problem than it is at present."
With an average three-year tendering period, Leigh said the "costs of making a bid are driven up", resulting in schemes being delayed and the market interest weakened.
He warned that a lack of "PFI expertise among the public sector procurement teams is resulting in poor negotiating with bidders who often have the whip hand".
"The public sector must not be placed in this vulnerable position," Leigh said.
"PFI deals were supposed to give us certainty about the long-term costs of providing public services. The reality is different."

Sell off Victorian jails built on prime land.

The Sunday Times has reported that Nick Nerbert, the conservative shadow justice secretary is expected to disclose conservative proposals to sell off victorian prisons currently residing on prime inner city land. The report suggests that £350m could be netted to help pay for modern more specialist prisons.

In his speach Nick Herbert says
"Policy Exchange's research has shown that there is huge potential for remodelling the current prison estate and selling off some of the oldest Victorian prisons in inner city, high value locations, either building on a new site or rebuilding on the same site (with a smaller footprint) a modern prison that is cheaper to maintain."

I realise that Maidstone Prison is 'listed' but this policy has, to use the new vernacular 'legs' for Maidstone. While we must wait for the details, one can not but think that this might suit Maidstone very nicely. Afterall Maidstone Prison occupies a huge site and can hardly be the best use for this prime land.

Lib Dems hit by MEP defection to Conservatives

Sajjad Karim, who represents the North West Region, said of the Lib Dems “I’m afraid that the Liberal Democrats have lost their way and are no longer a serious force in politics.”

Labour Party boss quits over donations cover up

The BBC reports today further party donation irregularities,
Labour general secretary Peter Watt has resigned following the revelation that a property developer made donations to the party via two colleagues. David Abrahams gave over £400,000 through associates.
Mr Watt told a meeting of officers of Labour's National Executive Committee he had known about the arrangement.
Under the law, those making donations on behalf of others must give details of who is providing the money.
He added: "I was aware of arrangements whereby David Abrahams gave gifts to business associates and a solicitor who were permissible donors and who in turn passed them on to the Labour Party.
While Mr Watt is reported to have said "Consistent with my own and the party's commitment to the highest standards in public life, it is with great sadness I have decided to resign my position as general secretary with immediate effect."
Surely common sense would have enabled him to see that passing money through associates was not consistent with high standards in public life.

6 More Discs Lost

As the police search buildings belonging to TNT as they hunt for the two missing 24m data discs, the HMRC as admitted that another 6 disks have gone missing having apparently been posted on the 24th Oct from a tax credit office in Preston to Whitehall.
These discs contained recordings of telephone conversations between a tax credit claimant and the HMRC.
This rather effectively demonstrates that the ‘two discs’ episode is not the isolated incident that Darling and Brown would prefer us to believe and the balance of probability now resides firmly in the camp of those who suggest that the security of personal data is not held high by the HMRC, (an understatement if ever there was one) this is a cultural reality rather than singular incompetence.

Tax Freedom Day 2007 is 1 June

The Tax Freedom Day calculation shows just how far into each year we spend working for the Treasury, before we earn any money for our selves.
Does it really seem right that on average we are all working a full 5 months before we earn any for our selves?
You will not be surprised to discover that Tax Freedom Day is getting later and later under Brown, it is now a full week later than just back to 2002. A whole extra week working for Brown.

As a nation have we really had value for money for this extra weeks work?

The Tax Freedom Calculation is determined by taking the Net Nation income and then calculating how much is siphoned off in the direct and numerous indirect stealth taxes.

More on this subject of how the calculations are made can be found on the Adam Smith Institute website (http://www.adamsmith.org/wrapper/)

NHS to underspends by £1.8bn

The NHS is predicting a massive £1.8bn underspend this financial year. This is 2% of the total NHS budget and comes at time when inflation is running at 4.2% (RPI inflation rose to 4.2 per cent in October 2007, www.statistics.gov.uk) and the DoH as just instructed the NHS pay review body that staff should get no more than a 2 per cent rise.
The Department of Health can justifiably be accussed of bust and boom health economics espcially since only 2 years ago the NHS was over £500m in the red.

For the area covered by the South East Coast Strategic Health Authority (SHA) this amounts to £60m.

National Audit Office (NAO) critical of governments privatisation of the defence firm Qinetiq

While the report states that the taxpayers could have gained ‘more money’ from the deal, perhaps tens of millions more.
“The value of the shares of the top 10 managers was £107 million at the time of the flotation, from an initial investment of £537,250.” This is a cool 19,990 % return on their investment, nice work if you can get it.
“we consider that the returns in this case exceeded what was necessary to incentivise management to deliver this growth in the value of the business.”

13th year in a row The EU Audtors unable to sign off accounts

Reporting back - Richard Ashworth MEP, November 2007

Court of Auditors report

Even before the European Union's Court of Auditors delivered its verdict on the EU's accounts on Monday night, it was easy to predict what its contents might be. For the thirteenth year in a row, the EU's auditors were unable to give a positive statement of assurance for the EU's 2006 accounts.
Trust in the integrity of the accounting procedures is a vital foundation stone of any democracy. If the people don't have confidence in the integrity of the governing institutions of Europe then we have all the credibility of a banana republic. I would like to explain in a little more depth why the auditors came to their decision, and some of the steps I have been working towards that will enable us to move closer to ending this annual debacle.
Firstly, there is the issue of inadequacy of internal controls and the regularity of the transactions the EU conducts. The court makes reference to administrative errors, misapplication of funding and the failure to follow correct budgetary procedures. While the auditors rarely make reference to fraud, they are absolutely right to say that inadequate fiscal discipline and controls inevitably leave the Commission vulnerable to corruption.
But the comments above are usually as far as the Court can go – because they can only comment on the transactions they can see, and that’s a mere 26 percent of them. 74 percent – the overwhelming majority – of transactions are carried out by the national governments and their agencies. For example, in the UK a large amount of EU money is spent by Defra. If you’re one of the farmers I recently met still waiting for their 2005 CAP payment, you will not be filled with confidence! The Court of Auditors is unable to scrutinise these accounts and, while that does not mean each of them are cooking the books, it does create a lack of transparency and accountability.
Cast your mind back to 2005, when EU leaders agreed to the seven year budget deal. The European Parliament threatened to block the whole budget unless the national governments promised to provide the parliament with evidence of self-certification for the transactions each member state carries out on behalf of the EU.
Frustrated with the glacial pace at which the Commission and Council of Ministers were moving on this matter, I put down a parliamentary question in September demanding to know what progress has been made. The response was far from encouraging. Reading between the lines, the earliest a system of self-certification could be up and running would be 2010 but, because the auditors work two years in arrears, that would mean 2012 would be the earliest we might see a positive declaration of assurance. That is simply not acceptable. Although the bulk of the criticism for this ongoing debacle rests with the governments, we must never forget that the buck stops with the Commission. Thirteen failures in a row is NOT acceptable, the Commission MUST attach far greater urgency to solving this problem.

Brown slated by five former defence chiefs in The Lords

Admiral Lord Boyce was highly critical of Brown’s decision to give the defence secretary a second job as secretary for Scotland.
"It is seen as an insult by our sailors, our soldiers and our airmen on the front line.
And I know because I have reason to speak to them a lot. And it is certainly a demonstration of the disinterest and some might say contempt that the prime minister and his government has for our armed forces.
And it shows an appalling lack of judgement at a time when our people are being killed and they are being maimed."
Another former defence chief, General Lord Guthrie, said Mr Brown had been "unsympathetic" to the military.
Lord Guthrie said: "In my experience... he [Gordon Brown] was a most unsympathetic chancellor of the exchequer as far as defence was concerned - and the only senior Cabinet minister who avoided coming to the Ministry of Defence to be briefed by our staff on our problems."
General Sir Richard Dannatt also raised the issue of the strain placed on resources by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

E-mails reveal data check warning

The BBC has revealed today that

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) officials were warned to ensure CDs containing benefit details of 25 million people were delivered "as safely as possible".

One email sent by an NAO official on 2 October, 16 days before the data went missing. It said: "Please could you ensure that the CDs are delivered to NAO as safely as possible due to their content."

But another e-mail from the same day, from an HMRC official, appears to suggest officials were concerned about the cost implications of stripping sensitive data from the files.
It says: "I must stress we must make use of data we hold and not over burden the business by asking them to run additional data scans/filters that may incur a cost to the department".

Another message, dated 13 March from an NAO official, with all names blanked out, says: "I do not need the address, bank or parent details in this download - are these removable"

Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "These emails conclusively show that senior officials at HMRC were involved in the decision to send sensitive information to the NAO, and that the NAO explicitly requested that the disks be sent 'as safely as possible due to their content'.

No evidence to support extension to detention without charge beyond 28 days

Sir Ken MacDonald the director of public prosecutions has told MPs that "Our experience has been that 28 days has suited us quite nicely."
He added: "Our experience so far has been that we have managed - and managed reasonably comfortably.
"Of course it's always possible to set up hypothetical situations in which it could become extremely challenging - and it's for Parliament to decide whether it wants to proceed on the basis of hypotheticals - rather than the evidence we have received so far,"

It also turns out that the Labour Ex-Attorney General Lord Goldsmith had not supported the last attempt to extend detention to 90 days in 2005 and would have voted against it in the House of Lords had it not been voted down in the House of Commons. “I didn't see any evidence during my time to indicate that longer than 28 days was necessary.”

Too Little Too Late

In the wake of the largest data security breach this country has known, Brown orders spot checks of all government departments.

Of course what is now needed is a change in the culture, this can only be brought about by a change in the Government.

Who in there right mind can have any confidence in this shambolic government to act on their behalf?

Gordon Brown Fails to Protect 25m

Catastrophic Tuesday

As the full weight of the long and far reaching significance of the data protection failure becomes apparent, it only takes seconds to find who is actually to blame for this, a certain Gordon Brown. For it is he who preformed the shotgun wedding on HM Customs & Excise and Revenue in 2005. This cost-cutting exercise has now bitten back.

While all the papers ran front page today with this I think the FT summed it well.

"Mr Brown’s administration has failed in one of the first duties of government: to protect its citizens. Never mind breaches of data protection laws. Fraudsters armed with details of bank accounts, national insurance numbers, and the names of almost every child in the country could wreak identity theft havoc on an un-dreamed-of scale."

Northern Rock Up

A few words from George Osborne Shadow chancellor

“This is not about the commercial interests that the Prime Minister spoke about last week, but about the public interest and the £900 that has been pledged on behalf of every taxpayer in Britain. The Chancellor talks about the Government’s liabilities being secured against £100 billion of Northern Rock assets, but he does not say that many of the assets are already promised to other creditors. Will he confirm that the free assets at Northern Rock could be closer to £40 billion and that total Government liabilities, through both the facility and the deposit guarantee, might now be approaching the total of the available assets, putting the taxpayer further at risk.”

10 Day Cover Up Over Unprecedented Data Protection Disaster

Computer discs that contained the personal details of all families in the UK with a child under 16 have gone missing in the post.
The data on them includes names, addresses, date of birth, National Insurance numbers and bank details of 25m people effecting 7.25m families.
This can only be described as a "catastrophic" failure; in fact words can but fail to describe the actions of HMRC staff as the computer discs were posted in standard mail. Who would do this?
Darling apologised for what he described as an "extremely serious failure on the part of HMRC to protect sensitive personal data entrusted to it in breach of its own guidelines".
The BBC reports that the data was sent on 18 October and senior management at HMRC were told it was missing on 8 November and the chancellor on 10 November, while the Chancellor kept quite for 10 days.
This is the same man and government that the British Tax payer has no choice but to trust to get the £40Bn back just lent to Northern Rock.

Just image what damage this lot could do with the Data on an ID card system!

Conservatives Education Green Paper in Summary

Practical steps, employing common sense principles

"We believe that ensuring every child has an excellent education is the principal role the state can play in making opportunity more equal."

1. Immediate action driving urgent improvement
Improve discipline and behaviour in schools, shifting the balance of power in the classroom back in favour of the teacher.
Get every child who is capable of doing so reading by the age of six, so that every minute in the classroom thereafter is productive.
Reform the testing regime in primary schools to reduce bureaucracy and focus on every pupil’s real needs.
Deliver more teaching by ability which stretches the strongest and nurtures the weakest. Reform the schools inspection procedure to ensure there is tougher, more effective and more searching scrutiny of under-performance.
Champion excellence in the comprehensive sector by evangelising for the best professional practice in the state system, and more generously rewarding those who deliver for the poorest.
2. The supply-side revolution
Provide over 220,000 new school places. That would meet the demand from every parent who lost their appeal for their first choice school in our most deprived boroughs.
Allow educational charities, philanthropists, livery companies, existing school federations, not for profit trusts, co operatives and groups of parents to set up new schools in the state sector and access equivalent public funding to existing state schools.
Ensure funding for deprivation goes direct to the pupils most in need rather than being diverted by bureaucracies.
Divert more resources to pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring they get the earliest possible opportunity to choose the best schools and enjoy the best teaching. Make it easier to establish the extended schooling (from summer schools through Saturday schooling to homework clubs and breakfast clubs) which drives up achievement, especially among the poorest.
Remove those obstacles in terms of centralised bureaucracy, local authority restrictions and planning rules – which prevent new schools being established. Allow smaller schools and more intimate learning environments to be established to respond to parental demands.

Education, Let Teachers Teach How They Know Best

Raising the bar, closing the gap.
David Cameron has today promised 220,000 extra school places as part of Conservative plans to raise school standards and make opportunity more equal.
Speaking at the launch of 'Raising the bar, closing the gap', the Conservative Green Paper on education, David said, "It's time for a revolution in the supply of education in this country."
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, set out plans to tackle educational under-achievement in the immediate term through policies such as more teaching by ability and giving teachers more power.
And he laid out plans to increase the number of good school places through a long-term programme that:
- Allows educational charities, co-operatives and parents to set up new schools
- Diverts more resources to pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds
- Removes obstacles which prevent new schools being established

Six Months Of Non-Delivery

Despite the Conservative Party securing the largest number of Councillors in May 2007, the Liberal Democrats took control of Maidstone Borough Council by forming a coalition with Labour and the Independents.

Hell bent on taking control rather than acting in the best interests of our Borough, this coalition of mismatched ideas, priorities and people has led to virtual paralysis in the delivery of services to the people of Maidstone. The LibDems point to their decision to introduce a new recycling service as their single major achievement but at what cost and what about other important council services?

Since May, major frontline services have been cut, others are threatened and they have been unable to guarantee that our Council Tax will not rise significantly next year to pay for their mismanagement of council services.

The Conservative Group has reviewed progress of the Lib Dem coalition since May and believes it is right for our Borough to be made aware of their failures:

Park and Ride GONE
PCSO’s funding threatened by LibDems
NO grip on planning
Lack of clarity and ambiguity over concessionary fares as Labour propose to centralise the process
NO PLAN for 07/08 municipal year
Ruling group CANCELS Council meetings claiming that there is no business to be transacted!
BIN SNOOPERS to monitor your waste

Maidstone Conservative Group’s conclusion is that:

Pensioners will suffer from the closure of the Park and Ride in South Ward and the South of Maidstone; they will be hardest hit from a cut in concessionary fares and we will see an increased fear of crime because of the potential threat to PCSOs.
For a group desperate to cling to power in a coalition which brought together a group of people whose only interest was power, the result has been inertia. The people of Maidstone are suffering from their lack of leadership, lack of direction, lack of vision and lack of budgetary control.

Lord West security advisor performs hand brake turn.

The junior minister Lord West brought into the government by Brown as security advisor has been force to perform a hand brake turn to avoid a head on collision with his new master Comrade Brown. Not something that Lord West would have been used to doing in a battle ship.

One moment Lord West was not in favour of extending detention without charge and then after a few minutes with Brown he had changed his mind. Who is advising who on security?