Change we can believe in

It is a great honour to be selected to represent the Conservative Party in Toddbrook. I look forward to setting out my vision for our ward and why I should be your next Conservative Councillor.

As a 21 year old graduate, I believe I understand the concerns of young people, but I intend to engage both young and old in the political process by offering a positive programme for change in Toddbrook. I will be working for you alongside Cllr David Carter whom you elected in October. With his experience and wisdom and my enthusiasm and vision, we will make a formidable team.

The changes I want are necessary because of the lack of leadership from the current Labour - Liberal Democrat administration running the council. I want to offer something very different – real change for the better. I believe I have the vision and strength of purpose to represent you as part of a Conservative council that will bring about these necessary changes.

We are being penalised by our current council. They have failed to keep control of the council budget, which will only reduce the opportunities from which our community can benefit – and deserve. When I was selected I spelt out very clearly that I would be relentless in my determination for accountability and value for money in the spending of your Council Tax.

I will be doing all I can in the coming months to show how I intend to make our lives better. Toddbrook is a proud and strong community and I look forward with optimism to ensuring it remains so.

Please remember, I'm not just asking you to believe in my ability to bring about the necessary changes, I’m asking you to believe in your ability to bring about change by voting Conservative on May 1st.

Yours sincerely

Joel Charles
Conservative Candidate for Toddbrook

David Cameron has met with Senator John McCain to discuss a wide range of issues, including Iran, Iraq, the global economy and climate change.

The focus of their meeting, though, was Afghanistan and the need for greater co-operation between the military and the authorities there. David said Senator McCain had praised the "incredible work" being carried out by British troops.

David and Sen. McCain also discussed ways to broaden the appeal of moderate Conservatism.

Afterwards, David said the meeting had been "fascinating and very productive".

At least 20 Labour MPs voted in favour of a Conservative proposal to stop the closure of 2,500 Post Offices.

Alan Duncan said it was "astonishing" that the motion was defeated by only 20 votes, and he described the Government as having "squeaked home".

The Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform put the Labour rebellion down to "the power of argument overcoming the power of their whips".

And he attacked those Labour MPs who had campaigned to support Post Offices in their own constituencies, but then "done a runner" when they had a chance to make a real difference.

Every parent has the right to a good school for their children - and every child has the right to a great education. We will raise the standards of the worst-performing schools so they can catch up with the best. And we will make our state education system excellent for all, reversing the trend whereby children from disadvantaged backgrounds have fallen further and further behind.

We will achieve this through the following commitments:

- Ensuring schools teach all academic subjects by ability. Children learn more effectively when taught with pupils of a similar ability. It means they can learn according to their particular aptitude, so that the brightest children can be stretched and those who are struggling given extra support.

- Strengthen teachers’ powers to instill discipline. Classrooms in which students are disruptive are environments in which no-one can learn. The balance in the classroom has to shift back in favour of the teacher - and head teachers have to have the ultimate right to exclude pupils without having their decisions overturned by an appeals panel.

- Greater emphasis on synthetic phonics. We will ensure more teachers are trained to use the effective synthetic phonics approach to teaching children to read.

- Increasing the number of good school places within the state system. We will remove the obstacles which prevent new schools being established.

- Expanding the existing school building programme. We will fund 200,000 school places in new Academies in deprived areas.

 42% of NHS Trusts providing maternity services had to turn away women in labour last year because they were full.

New statistics reveal that nearly one in ten Trusts had to close more than ten times, with the Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Trust shutting its doors 39 times in 2007 alone.

Andrew Lansley said the figures showed maternity services are already "overstretched", making a mockery of Labour's plans to close maternity units.

The Shadow Health Secretary attacked Labour's plans to cut smaller, local maternity services and concentrate them in big units:

"Women don't want to have to travel miles to give birth. And they certainly don't want to have to travel even further because they're turned away by the hospital of their choice."

 Harlow Council

Conservative Group

Council leaders faced prolonged attack on their financial competence at last Thursday’s Policy and Resources committee when they revealed a £1.7M overspend and raid on reserves.  Councillors from all sides questioned how such a huge hole in the accounts was only spotted three quarters of the way through the year.

Councillor Simon Carter led the attack for the Conservatives by suggesting that the Labour-led administration must have been looking for a good week to bury bad news, let alone a good day.  “Tuesday saw the stormy meeting over the swimming pool closure, Wednesday the inquest into the overspend at the Playhouse and now these revelations over the Council’s finances.”  He also asked whether the bad news had been kept hidden until after the release of the CPA assessment.

The previous Council Leader, Councillor Brooks, raised a series of critical questions over monitoring of the budget by officers and councillors, suggesting that his ‘golden financial legacy’ had been wasted.  He also suggested that there was major discontent amongst the Labour group about the situation and leadership of Councillor Durcan. Although Councillor Brooks originally intended to substitute for Councillor Folan, The Labour Leader was soon on the ‘phone to demand Councillor Folan’s attendance, which prevented Councillor Brook’s voting.

The ploy worked, for, although Councillor Folan said nothing during the debate, he duly voted with his leader.

Joint Council Leader Chris Millington (LibDem) declared that he “was not happy” and let the cat out of the bag about next years’ council tax by referring to “a lot of cuts next year” commenting that he and Councillor Durcan were, “Parting ways on this”.

Conservative Group Leader Councillor Andrew Johnson laid in with questions about how realistic some of the “savings” were.  £205,000 was to be saved from ‘unfilled vacancies’ even though the target on this for this year had not been achieved, along with another £200,000 of ‘unidentified savings’ to be achieved within three months.  He asked the leaders whether these could be achieved without cutting front line services.  Another element of the savings was a raid on the Insurance Fund of £400,000, but even that figure was suspect, as it was still awaiting verification by the insurance advisers.

Despite the range of cuts proposed, at least £1.1M would need to be taken from reserves to balance the books, leaving the Council perilously close to breaching the minimum figure required by the Audit Commission.

Councillor Carter concluded, “The financial incompetence revealed tonight has undone all the hard work of the past three years in improving the council’s CPA grade.” He told the leaders they needed to, “Get a grip”.

ENDS

At Prime Minister's Questions on Wednesday, David Cameron asked whether Mr. Brown was "cut out for the job" after a series of recent disasters.

The controversy over dodgy donations comes on the back of the collapse of Northern Rock and the loss of 25 million people's personal details, and David said this latest issue raised serious questions about Mr. Brown's integrity and competence.

He described the explanation offered by Mr. Brown as one that "beggars belief", and said he simply could not believe that the Prime Minister did not know about the donations.

He also questioned why Jon Mendelsohn, Labour's chief fundraiser, had not yet been fired, despite knowing about the illegal donations for over a month.

David Cameron wrote to Gordon Brown on Friday to urge him to reconsider his decision to make the Defence Secretary a part-time post.

In the light of comments from five former military chiefs criticising the Prime Minister's decision, David wrote:

"At a time when our Forces are engaged in two highly dangerous missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for the Defence Secretary to be able to concentrate full-time on his role is surely a matter of plain common sense."

And David stressed to Gordon Brown the need to appoint someone who could devote his total attention to the role, "unencumbered by other responsibilities within Government."

The Prime Minister has made Des Browne, the current Defence Secretary, Scottish secretary as well.

Reacting to the news that 25 million benefit records have been lost, George Osborne said the security and safety of "every family in the land" had been compromised.

Reacting to the news that 25 million child benefit records have been lost, George Osborne said the security and safety of "every family in the land" had been compromised.

The Shadow Chancellor questioned how the Government had allowed this to happen:

"Let us be clear about the scale of this catastrophic mistake - the names, the addresses and the dates of birth of every child in the country are sitting on two computers discs that are lost in the post. The bank account details and national insurance numbers of 10 million parents, guardians and carers have gone missing."

George described the crisis as the "final blow" to the ID card scheme, as it showed the Government "simply cannot be trusted with people's information."

And he told Chancellor Darling to "get a grip and deliver a basic level of competence."

David Cameron has 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', our 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

These plans for school reform are part of our broader agenda to give people more opportunity and power over their lives - and this Green Paper is the first in a series of such consultation documents.