Political Viewpoint

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

 THE general election is over and the dust has now settled, or has it?

 I must first start by congratulating Southend’s two new Labour MP’s. Whilst it will be no surprise that I did not vote Labour in the general election, it is of course in everyone’s interest that as the City’s two new constituency MP’s, they are as successful as they can be and I wish them well in their new roles representing all of us here in Southend.

 The overall outcome of the general election at national level was of no surprise to almost every grass root Conservative. For me, therein lies the issue the party must now address. That at a local level, I and many others could see the political hierarchal disconnect within the party and what it eventually led to.

 The national party had become disconnected from those that put them in power and instead, had become hell bent on egotistical infighting for the top jobs. It was quite frankly unedifying to watch from the inside, so it can be of no surprise to our party leaders what the general electorate thought of it all.

 At the first opportunity, we can always rely on you as the electorate to let us know what they think and true to form, you did!

 What is deeply disappointing is that whilst we at a local level, were fighting hard on the ground, knocking on doors, speaking with residents and generally working hard in our wards, some elected egos seemed more preoccupied with personal aspiration and party-political infighting?

 This was clearly apparent to many and is not the way to conduct ourselves as a party or to retain the trust of those whose interests we are elected to represent.

 There is now an ongoing period of internal reflection to redress this and I hope our new party leader heeds the feedback from those of us who pound the pavements week in week out and knock on doors on their behalf?

 In the recent local and national elections, not only did we lose some extremely hard working and dedicated councillors in May, but to lose Anna Firth as our MP was deeply regrettable.

 Given the unimaginable and horrific circumstances of Sir David Amess that led to Anna becoming our MP, in that time she has been an absolute stalwart local champion for Southend West. She was born and grew up here and there is nothing more she could have done as she stepped into the void left by Sir David.

 Locally since May, we have the return of the Labour led 3 party coalition. This is predictably supported by the Independents, some of whom are ex labour party members anyway, so no surprises there and the Lib Dems, who have consistently supported Labour locally for a number of years. That is certainly the case for the majority of the last 8 years that the 3-party coalition have governed Southend.

 So what does the coalition have instore for Southend? Given the political horse-trading nature of such multi-party coalitions, you can be certain to see large swaths of the City, if not in its entirety, have 20mph speed limits or zones, with speed bumps etc. This will almost certainly be the price for the support of the Thorpe Ward councillors, and we can expect to see the 20mph speed limit/bumps back on the agenda in Thorpe Bay very soon?

 Almost certainly there will be some form of congestion or ULEZ style emissions charging for either road use or incorporated in to parking charges and induced traffic congestion in Queensway, as they proceed with the disastrous highway scheme of closing the current dual carriageway underpass.

 The latter in Queensway, will see the highway underpass closed and the re-introduction of the road design that prevailed in the 1950’s/60’s. That is, a surface two lane road feeding into a roundabout at Porters Grange (currently the underpass), with numerous traffic lights and pedestrian crossings all within 400 meters of the roundabout. Since the financial collapse of Swan Housing, there is currently no procured supplier to deliver any of the Better Queensway housing or road scheme.

 Only in local government could you have the insanity of spending £20m+ of public money building a road no-one has asked for, for a development that no one has yet said they can financially deliver, but the road will be built anyway and return the city centre to 1960’s traffic congestion, which the underpass was originally built to relieve? A road to nowhere!

 Nationally, if ever there was a short political honeymoon, it seems Kier just experienced it. He and his Labour Party colleagues made many promises to convince you to trust them with your vote and your taxes, some of which have already been broken.

 Within a month of taking office, rather than making the ‘billionaires pay’ as their rhetoric promised, they’ve actually taxed school children and robbed pensioners of a much-needed winter fuel allowance, whilst dishing out huge unfunded inflation busting pay rises to public sector workers. It would seem that unless you are on state benefits, the current government assumes you are in the billionaires category?

 Labour are very predictably proving once again that they are not the party of personal aspiration, but the party of wealth demonisation and redistribution.

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