Political Viewpoint - Leigh-on-Sea

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Leigh On Sea News: Political Viewpoint – By Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Infrastructure and Transport.

Political Viewpoint – By Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Infrastructure and Transport.

By Coun Kevin Buck, Prittlewell Ward. Shadow Cabinet Member Infrastructure and Transport.

I WANT to personally congratulate Kemi Badenoch for her convincing win in the Conservative Party leadership election. She will be a formidable and forthright leader of our party and will be very affective at holding the current Labour government to account.

The Conservative parliamentary Party, has now had four female party leaders, three female Prime Ministers, one ethnic Asian Prime Minister and now one ethnic black female party leader.

This has been achieved through an unbiased, open and fair democratic electoral process without the need for mandated DIE (Diversity, Inclusion and Equality) targets. It is with some considerable irony then, that the Labour Party, which appears to be consumed and obsessed with DIE targets, has only ever elected Caucasian male leaders?

Congratulations to Donald Trump for being re-elected to the White House for his 2^nd term. Whether you like or loath him, no one can deny the success he has achieved, despite what many thought impossible. Whilst neither candidate would have been my first choice, and despite his many faults, I believe Trump is the ‘lesser of the two evils’. Clearly the American electorate thought so too?

There will be much post-election soul searching by the Democrats to understand why they so badly misjudged their own voters. My personal take on it as an outside observer sat in the UK, is that it was two very different campaigns.

The Democrats were too self-centred and inward looking, consumed by their own preaching style ideological self-importance and celebrity focused, with too much negative campaigning of their opponents and their policies. This insincere slick glitzy showbiz Hollywood style of negative campaigning, came at the cost of failing to focus on any actual key successful outcomes they’d achieved in their previous 4 years in the White House.

In contrast and notwithstanding the somewhat egotistical nature of the man himself, the Republican campaign landed more personably with the people, was more policy focused and less glitzy and Hollywood ‘star struck’.

They also had highly credible members of the American business community supporting them and they kept to a few simple key messages about what issues are currently affecting Americans and what will affect them if they elect Trump. That message clearly landed with the majority of Americans and many disillusioned Democrat voters.

Closer to home, we have the new Labour government making some very extreme and purely politically motivated choices in their budget affecting many in Southend.

The removal of the winter fuel allowance (WFA) from pensioners on just £13k a year, whilst handing out £bn’s in pay rises to their union paymasters, some earning over £60k a year and more, is heartless, unforgivable and purely a political, not fiscal choice. I have no issue with anyone in the public sector earning good money, but I certainly do when it is at the expense of pensioners.

You will be told to believe pensioners must choose between ‘heating or eating’ this winter because of an imaginary £22bn black hole in the public finances left by the Conservative government. This is simply not true.

Not because I say so, not because the ex-Chancellor Jeremy Hunt says so, who is meticulous about such matters, but because the OBR has said nothing in their recent fiscal review ‘is a legitimisation of the £22bn’ and the Treasury rejected a recent Freedom of Information Request from the Financial Times asking for evidence of it, stating they were unable to provide information of it.

The next time you hear a Labour politician mention the £22bn black hole, you will need to decide who you think is lying to you?

Even politically closer to home, the 3-party coalition administration in Southend lead by Labour, have already seen their forecast overspend rocket back up to nearly £9m. As a reminder, when the Conservatives took over as a minority administration in May 2023, after 4 years of a Labour led coalition, we inherited Labours £14m forecast overspend. In just 12 months we reduced that down to under £2m.

Within their first 6 months back in office, the Labour/Lib Dem & Independent coalition have seen their forecast overspend rapidly increase again to nearly £9m. They are now using reserves to prop up day to day budgets to make them look good in the short term. This is a fiscally unsustainable position to operate in and is like using a credit card to pay the mortgage.

In the words of the late great Mrs T “the problem with socialism, is that it eventually runs out of other people’s money.”

The local Conservatives in Leigh have been very vocal and are fighting hard in opposing the building of housing on the Salvation Army Land.

Arable green belt farmland like this must be protected and preserved for many reasons. Southend and Castle Point have the potential within their respective urban boundaries, to build several thousand homes on existing developable land and brown field sites, so we do not need to tear up another farmers field to build essential housing.

Having said that, with the new rules introduced in the Chancellors recent budget on inheritance tax significantly impacting many small family farms across the country, there may soon be an abundance of unused and available farmland as many go broke?

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