Bonkers Budget adds up to cuts

He may be smiling... but you definately wont be...

Have just had a quick look at the budget figures and they are bleak and depressing. It is clear that the chancer Cllr Jarrett and his Tories have utterly mismanaged the finances for 2011/12 and have presented a bonkers budget for 2012/13 that simply doesnt add up.

In many other authorities across the UK the ruling group (whether Tory, Lib Dem , Labour or NOC) have actively consulted the public in open forums. Our administration has been desperate to keep the budget process hidden from public view; and we now know why.

There are many Councils controlled by Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats who have successfully managed the finances. This is not a partisan point; this is the incompetence of our current Conservatives in Medway.

The budget is a bloody mess

We have eye-watering shortfalls and cuts within caused ostensibly because the Council is spending too much.

In addition this is another budget which is very likely to fall apart and result in a budget, like this years, which will require a Tory raid on our capital reserves. An unsustainable position for the future.

This blog has reported on countless botched projects and overspends over the last 12 months at schools, bus stations, transport schemes and beyond. Not helped by the fact that Medway Tories oversee one of the mose fraudulant authorities in the country. They have simply lost control; all analysis points to a lack of political control.

Residents across Medway will likely feel that the Tories were elected on the basis of false promises following the publication of this bonkers budget.

Cuts to front line services are happening and will get even worse.

The draft proposals, which will be debated at the next Full Council meeting on 23rd February, show dramatic cuts to adult social care budgets, including ‘Supporting People’ funding which is targeted at the most vulnerable in society, including those with mental health issues and victims of domestic violence.

The budget also presumes that the closure of the Balfour Centre will go ahead, precluding the outcome of the consultation – but also offering another stark contrast to the Conservative election pledge of “Continuing to improve front line services such as care homes”.Likewise Sure Start centres, which give invaluable support to families across Medway, were a key source of debate during the election.

The Tories claimed Medway’s Sure Start centres were ‘safe’ with them and would not see funding reduced – yet they are now highlighted as a target for budget reductions.

The good news items are directly lifted either from our manifesto or are a result of the previous Labour administration in Medway

Good News items

Freeze in Council Tax - This was proposed by Medway Labour at the budget last year and it was copied by the Conservatives in the local election manifesto. We have led on this locally.

Lowest Council Tax in Kent - This is the lowest tax in Kent because under the last Labour Council we scrapped an entire tier of local government from the majority of Medway. Whilst Tory Kent has a district and County system we have a single layer of governance. The fact the Tories have maintained our record was due to tax rate capping by John Prescott and under Eric Pickles.

Bad News items (which stand out for me) on revenue and tax wheezes by the Conservatives

• Tory bulky waste tax to be introduced – we will see second charges for collections at£17.50 per collection
• Park and Ride – disposal of popular park and ride at Horsted
• Roads / Potholes – Road Maintenance (re-surfacing and potholes) budget reduced by £250,000
• Crematorium 'income' will increase

Of course the real bad news is in the small print which I and others will be going over with a fine tooth pick over the next couple of days.

Tory Airport spin no basis in fact

It seems that local Conservatives are so desperate to distance themselves from the Conservative plans to bulldoze the Peninsula that they are even blaming Ed Balls.

Ed Balls who visited Medway this week to highlight the failure of the reckless Conservatives on unemployment has actually never said anything directly about the Island Airport.

Peninsula Tories, who have been following the lack-lustre 'pie-in-the-sky' campaign led by Tory Council leader Rodney Chambers (pictured right) are feeling the heat; they are all likely to be held directly responsible in the ballot box should the proposal take-off in Westminster.

Only this week local Tories and MP's were stating to the media and Twitter followers that the government has 'no plans' for an airport. A position which stands in absolute tatters with the revelations in several broadsheets.

You can not believe a word they say.

To prove a point a full transcript of what Ed Ball's actually said today can be found here and the excerpt below:

DM: OK, we’ve heard the strategy what about specifics. You mentioned infrastructure projects there and a lot of business leaders have been talking over the last few days and weeks in particular about airport capacity. Now in government you supported a third runway at Heathrow, now you don’t, do you support an entirely new airport perhaps in the south-east?

EB: Personally and historically I always supported the third runway at Heathrow but the government has taken that off the agenda, they say it is not going to happen. We in the Labour Party accept that they have now killed that off certainly for the foreseeable future. The question is: are there other places where you can get the capacity into the south-east? I think it is really important for business and for job creation, it is important actually for the northern regions too, that we have extra capacity so we are saying to the government: you have taken Heathrow off the agenda, have a review, we will support you, find the capacity in the south-east to boost airport capacity which is really needed for jobs and growth, and I wish the government would listen. It seems to me to be very anti, not just business but of regions, jobs and growth for them just to turn their face against it.

Labour have supported the expansion of Manston and have openly campaigned for this position.

We all know that Tories locally are now in a desperate and dithering denial about the Tory plans to pave over the Peninsula; but to latch onto a statement with no reference to Cliffe/ Hoo or the Island shows how they will grasp at any straw, however thin, to distance themselves.

Tories should put the interests of Peninsula residents first and run a visual campaign against Hilton, Osborne and Johnson.

Tories backtrack on knife crime

The Conservative's today will abandon their pre-election pledge that anyone found carrying a knife can expect to be sent to jail.

This comes as the Conservatives unveil the soft on crime, soft on the causes of crime approach to law and order.

Mr Vaz, Labour Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee said the Tory 'u-turn' was very disappointing and would damage our communities and the fight against crime.

A policy agenda that will see career criminals released onto our streets at the same time that Police officers are cut, magistrate services downgraded and the pursuit of partisan police commissioners.

A policy agenda which will see anti-social behaviour blight the poorest parts of Medway as resources are skewed away from police priorities in favour of partisan priorities.

Squandering of millions of pounds of tax-payers money on elected police bureaucrats whilst communities suffer.

Remember this? Another Tory pledge broken

This government's hypocrisy is shameful and their values are the wrong ones.

Crime should pay. Not the victim.

Coulson in the spotlight

The Tory spin machine is tonight chugging and puffing away on overdrive as new insights are revealed from journalists working for News of the World former editor, and Tory spin supremo Andy Coulson.

Andy Coulson was employed by David Cameron to be his spin-chief extraordinaire after he resigned from his job, after it became clear that journalists in his office had been hacking into the phones of thousands of celebrities, royals and politicians.

In exploits which make the Draper incident look like shrivelled whitebait, this was organised spying on an industrial scale.

The allegations in the New York Times are so damning that Cameron must now do the honourable thing for the public and the electorate.

This is a major test of judgement for our young and inexperienced Prime Minister. He must fire Coulson.

The NY Times article makes clear that Glenn Mulcaire, a junior journalist at the time, had hacked his way into the messages of the royal princes, the aire-to-throne of England Prince William and his brother Harry. He went to prison, and although Coulson denied all knowledge of it, he subsequently resigned as editor. All along, the line of News International (the newspapers' owner) has been that this was just one bad apple, but the clear evidence is that it was a far more sustained campaign.

Two things remain truly disturbing from the article:

First, the Metropolitan police have failed to pursue the investigations with anything like the full vigour of the law. Despite having evidence that the tapping and hacking may have been far more extensive than Coulson or Mulcaire admit, the police have only investigated further or prosecuted in relation to a tiny proportion of those almost certainly affected.

Second, it seems extraordinary that Coulson is still the prime minister's director of communications. He has admitted that under his watch News International paid police officers for information. For all we know this was a regular habit. The New York Times claims that during his time he freely discussed Mulcaire-style "investigations" with his journalists and that these unlawful news-gathering techniques were pervasive.

This blog finds it hard to believe he didn't know how his scoops were being sourced, and if this is the case he has corrupted himself and the Prime Minister whose judgement on hiring the man must now be in question.

The most worrying aspect of all this is that unless the police take proper action, these illegal practices will carry on. And unless David Cameron sacks Coulson, he will be openly condoning some of the dirtiest politics in Britain.