OUR WEEKLY ‘INDEPENDENT’ NEWSPAPERS

This may well sound like sour grapes, but where have the questioning voices gone? Where are the counter arguments; - a glimpse of the ‘other side of the coin’?

 

You've overstepped the mark!

Just to pick out a few of the statements that deserve questioning, let’s start with Cllr Jim Fitzpatrick. 

In his letter to the Editor, he was raging at the Longdendale Community Group, (That’s the group, who, when the objections to the building of TESCO in Hattersley were being voiced, he said ‘he’d never heard of them!) Basically, he accused them of producing a leaflet that was, in his words, scaremongering!

This was because on reading the councils preferred plan for their region, they discovered it included the council's proposal to build a huge industrial area on green field sites near the M67 junction; to which, when the group were informed, they quite rightly feared that it would add considerable misery to what is an already hyper-congested area.

Cllr Jim, went on to claim that, ‘This process has been well publicised in the local press, on the internet and on Tameside Radio. He said, he was staggered that the LCG weren’t aware of it!’

Well it didn’t surprise me! Especially when 'The Advertiser' is not delivered ‘free’ in Mottram & Longdendale like it is in other parts of the borough, neither do residents receive the Tameside Citizen! The newly revived ‘Tameside Reporter’ at a cover price of 45p, is not widely bought in the area, and people do not spend days searching the council’s website. Now this might be upsetting to our councillors considering the money they spend on advertising, but the council’s own propaganda radio station, 'TAMESIDE RADIOOOOO' is not as popular as the council would like to believe.

If I say it's a tax, it's a bloody tax, right!

The paper would not be complete without the trappings from a local Taylor who as well as saying he agrees with welfare reforms, he then counter argues by regaling readers to a story of total inaccuracy in which he confuses the under occupancy housing benefit reduction (which is something that will reduce the amount of housing benefit for those living in social housing who happen to have excess capacity) with a so-called ‘tax’ of which it is no such thing! (a tax is something one pays on top of a purchase price!) - semantics maybe, but that's what the council bosses revert to when they're found wanting!

He then, after replacing the lid on the ‘Brillo tin’ and with the sun blinding the reader from the rays reflecting off his newly polished brass neck, said, If councils and social landlords had been allowed to build the much needed properties then this problem would not be with us! - Really!

He fails to tell us that housing was a great Labour failure, which consisted of a decade of building the least housing stock since the war in both private and social sectors! 

Every thinking person knows that Labour neglected social housing during its thirteen years in office. So, now, in order to tackle the problems of homelessness, overcrowding and poor accommodation caused by this nationwide lack of social housing, we find the present Government at least trying to sort out the mess!

What Cllr Taylor and the rest of his comfy career councillors will not tell you, is that under the last Tory Government, between 1979 and 1996 the total building for houses by local authorities and by registered social landlords were *913,690, while from 1997 to 2008 under Labour, building totalled a significantly lower *290,750. However, the most striking aspect of the figures is the steep decline in local authority housing during the period in question, which fell from a peak of *88,530 new homes in 1980, to a low of *130 (yes, one hundred and thirty houses) in 2004. 

Now, considering the lack of new building, the growing number of people on the housing list in Tameside and his purporting to be a Senior Local Authority councillor, who tells us he puts the people before his career, perhaps Cllr Taylor should have concentrated less on moving 'War Memorials' and closing 'Public Footpaths' and cleared the way over his years in office for more social house building! – with national waiting lists for social housing running at four million, it’s plain to see that the failure to reinvest the monies following the ‘right to buy’ as introduced by the Tories followed by the lack of building under Labour is at the root of the problem. - A problem that has now come home to roost!

Of course politicians won’t tell you this; and neither it seems, will our ‘independent newspaper’ that just so happens to be owned by a social housing landlord who have a few of our Senior councillors sitting on their Boards of Directors!

He then finished off his criticism by saying he did not see any of the Government’s policies in either the Tory or Lib/Dem manifestos. But there again he wouldn’t would he, seeing as they are working from a document called the ‘Coalition Agreement’

– By the way councillor, while we’re on the subject of keeping promises that have been made in manifestos, perhaps you could explain the following:

In 1997, a few days before polling day, in an interview reported in the London Evening Standard, Mr Blair was ask directly, "Will Labour introduce tuition fees for higher education?"

Mr Blair's answer was: "Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education."

Labour manifesto: Labour In 1997 said Labour has no plans to introduce tuition fees for higher education. You then introduced tuition fees ... In 2001 you said: 'we will not introduce top-up fees and have legislated to prevent them'. You then introduced top-up fees."

Some years later it was left to Labours Alan Johnson to explain, “…even if the manifesto pledge had been breached, sometimes it was necessary for governments to change course: "There will be occasions when politicians do have to do something different to what they said they'd do because circumstances change!"

*Source: The Department for Communities and Local Government

Which way is the wind blowing, Ed?

Then we had the pontificating of the Denton & Reddish MP Andrew Gwynne, who, with more faces than the town hall clock wrote a piece regarding the ‘Injustice of the cuts’

Following the usual 'hand-wringing’ and patronising platitudes he announced he was backing Ed Miliband when he outlined what he called ‘a fairer tax system that works for everyone!’

This proclamation consisted of saying that they would introduce a ‘mansion tax’ on homes worth over £2million. Unfortunately, neither he, nor anyone else in the Labour party have said how this would be achieved, as it would either involve revaluing every dwelling in the country to amend council tax bands or applying a one off tax, which, for many reasons, could easily be avoided!

He then went on to say, They would reintroduce the 10p tax rate which would be a real benefit to ‘ordinary working people’ particularly the 2,750,000 basic rate tax payers across Greater Manchester.

What a load of condescending crap!

If he and his Labour cronies were so concerned about the ‘ordinary working people’ of Greater Manchester, perhaps he could explain why he, the two Ed’s and David Heyes voted with the majority of Labour MPs to keep the clause in the Finance Bill in 2008 abolishing the 10% starting rate of income tax. - If it was OK to remove it to make tax fairer then, how can it be fairer to re-introduce it now?

At the time, it was estimated that over five million of the poorest people living in Britain – those earning less than £18,500 a year – would find themselves worse off.

However, before you all run off and book your holidays on the strength of this fantastic economical boost from the Labour leader; The Policy Exchange, the centre right think-tank reckons that if a low paid working family is on in-work benefits such as universal credit, the true value of the 10p band as opposed to 20p is only 67p a week! (That a massive £34.84 a year!)

Source: HANSARD: Income Tax — Abolition of starting and savings rates and creation of starting rate for savings — 28 Apr 2008 at 22:00  

Included in those who voted to abolish the 10p rate were:

Name	Constituency	Party	Vote
Edward Miliband	Doncaster North	Lab (minister)	aye
Edward Balls	Normanton	Lab (minister)	aye
Andrew Gwynne	Denton and Reddish	Lab (PPS)	aye
David Heyes	Ashton-under-Lyne	Lab	aye

Mr Gwynne then went off on one of his own scaremongering episodes by suggesting that the cuts to police budgets which may deliver reductions to the front line puts our community at risk, however, official statistics all show that crime is reducing. 

Both recognised methods of measuring crime (the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) and police-recorded crime) have shown a decrease in crime over the past decade.

As an MP Andrew Gwynne knows full well that the system for recording crime in England and Wales is widely recognised by international standards as one of the best in the world.

So instead of getting behind the police for reforming in the right way, he prefers to scare his constituents by highlighting the worst case scenario.

…And you wonder why voters turn away in droves!