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Published and promoted by Thomas Puddy for John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU
Happy St George’s day. England awakes.
Just the day for a Manifesto for England. Which party or parties do you think will produce one?
The emphasis in this election on the issues of Scotland should make us ask what is on offer for England, on this day of all days.
The media decided to give the SNP star billing in the tv debates. The Scottish voters have decided to propel the SNP to new highs in the polls, making them of more interest to the commentators. The main parties left unfinished business from the last Parliament, to transfer new major powers to the Scottish Parliament from Westminster.
Only the Conservative party saw this also meant we have now to tackle the problem of England. Labour and the Lib Dems have contented themselves with saying they will look into it in the next Parliament. Their lack of enthusiasm for the task comes through in their limp and feeble proposals, and in their belief that somehow a bit more devolution to Councils can answer the problem. It most certainly cannot.
The minimum England needs is the same rights to settle matters for our country that Scotland will achieve through the new devolution Act planned for the first year of the new Parliament. In some cases it will be England, Wales and Northern Ireland deciding things, in other cases just England, depending on the degree of devolution elsewhere.
Today I repeat my campaign for EVEN – English votes for English needs. If Scotland decides her own Income Tax, so must England. If Scotland decides her own local government settlement – within the bloc totals – so must England settle hers. If Scotland can legislate for herself without England, then so should England be able to legislate for herself.
The UK is a country which believes in fairness. Today of all days we should seek fairness for England.
Hidden in the long Liberal Democrat Manifesto are some higher and new taxes for many who own property or have saved and invested in shares and bonds.
Most people know they want to impose a “High Value Property levy” with bands with progressively higher tax rates. They say it will start off at £2 million, but if they ever got it going they would be tempted to bring the starting point down.
Few people know they want to impose a Land Value Tax on all property. They wish to order the Land Registry to register every piece of land in the country quickly so they could get on with a new tax on it. They have not explained how much they want to raise, but have said it will raise more than business rates which of course only apply to commercial premises anyway.
They state they want to increase the take from Capital Gains Tax. They wanted a higher rate in the last Parliament.
They wish to cut dividend tax relief.
They want a general anti avoidance rule, without saying which current legal ways of paying less tax they would wish to ban.
To pay for all the other things in their Manifesto they would need to get a lot of money from property owners and savers. Beware.
Published and promoted by Thomas Puddy for John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU
There is a deafening silence in the Lib Dem and Labour manifestos about the need for a new relationship with the emerging political and monetary union on the continent. It is surpassed by their arrogance in seeking to deny us an In/Out referendum on whether we want to stay in the EU. They apparently know best. They shout at us that we must stay in, without ever examining the options for a new relationship based on trade and co-operation outside the federal treaties. They appear not to understand the dangers of our present course, accepting more and more rules, laws and invoices needed for a political and monetary union to which we do not fully belong.
We need to ask why do these parties and people think they are right this time, when they have been so wrong in the past? Many of them who now just assert we have to stay in come what may, urged us to join the Exchange Rate Mechanism. I remember how they disagreed with me and the few of us who opposed it, how they briefed against us and claimed we did not understand the stability and growth that membership of the ERM would bring. Instead, as we forecast, it brought us boom and bust. First it brought us too much credit and money, then it brought a sterling crisis leading to our forced exit. It gave us a nasty recession based on interest rates which were far too high for UK needs, as the authorities slavishly tried to follow the European model.
Learning nothing from this bitter experience, many of these same people then urged us to enter the Euro. I and others fought a more successful battle to stop that. Had we been in the Euro in 2008 I suspect the banking crash would have forced a UK exit, as I doubt Germany and others would have wanted to stand behind our weakened large banks in the way the Bank of England and UK government did.
Now these same parties assert we have to stay in the EU to be able to trade with them. Why? Doesn’t the rest of the world trade happily with the EU without joining? Hasn’t the German government already said it would need a free trade agreement with the UK if we left, as Germany sells us so much more than we sell to Germany?
It is high time these luminaries of the left who are in love with our current EU membership had to answer some tougher questions. Why do they accept dear energy, a central EU policy? It means less industry and fewer jobs in manufacturing, it means more fuel poverty. Why do they put up with it?
Why do they put up with the economic policies of the Euro and the wider EU, which generate unacceptably high levels of unemployment in many Euro countries?
Why do they accept the EU policy of controlling government deficits to a maximum of 3% of GDP per annum, when at home they are always urging larger deficits?
Why do they endorse policies which entail massive cuts in public spending in countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, whilst resisting any cut at home?
We need a new relationship. It needs to be one that gives us more freedom to govern ourselves, and allows the Euro area to complete its union without the UK slowing it down or making it more difficult. If one cannot be negotiated, then the British people need the opportunity to vote out of what we have at the moment, as it is far from ideal. Whatever the negotiation brings, the people should decide. Labour, Liberal Democrats and SNP are united in wanting to deny the British people the choice. If they do not trust the people, why should the people trust them?
This year according to the Treasury figures every man, woman and child on average will pay £9,700 in tax. That means many of you reading this will pay more than £9,700, as children do not of course pay tax. People on low incomes or benefits rightly pay less.
The government will spend £11,600 on average on every man, woman and child in the country. The elderly and the children will receive rather more of this spending than people of working age, as the bills for pensions, education and health are three of the biggest.
The gap between what is spent and what is collected in tax will mainly be borrowed, though the government does have some non tax income which helps.
On Conservative plans reported in the last Budget book from the Treasury by 2019-20 the amount spent per person will be above £12,400 on average for every man, woman and child in the country. That’s an increase of 7% compared to this year, which could buy us more public service if inflation stays low.
In that year the Treasury forecasts tax revenues of £11,600 for every man, woman and child on average. This large increase of almost £2000 or over 20% does not require any tax rate rises. It comes about from economic growth. As more people get jobs so they pay more income tax. As people have more money to spend, so they pay more VAT.
This forecast higher level of tax receipts means the deficit is eliminated. The state would not then need to borrow, as the tax revenues and other income pay for the spending.
Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP all want to put up taxes and they want to borrow more. The more they borrow , the more tax they will in due course have to impose to pay the interest on the borrowings and then to repay them. They want to tax higher earners more, and want to impose additional taxes on some people’s homes.
Published and promoted by Thomas Puddy for John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU
One of the oddest things about some Green Party interviewees is their apparent disinterest in the impact of more and more development of homes and commercial space on our environment. They seem unwilling to discuss the issue of growth in population, though growth in population is one of the main drivers of more carbon dioxide output,more use of the planet’s resources, more factory output of kinds they often do not like.
For an individual country like the UK accepting tough targets for carbon reduction are made much worse if the country is experiencing a strong flow of migrants into it. The international targets are not adjusted to take account of more people. If an individual country wants to hit the targets a tough migration policy would be a good help.
For the many voters who love the English countryside, better control of migration would be very helpful. We do need to build many homes if we continue to invite in so many additional people. Environmentally it makes little sense to build many new homes on greenfields in England in order to leave an equivalent number of homes empty on the continent as people leave their own country and come to live here. It means more natural resources and energy are needed to build the homes here, and adds to the misery in the country losing the people with empty homes disfiguring urban environments and reducing incomes in those communities.
You would have thought true greens would wish to help in the task of creating more jobs and wealth in continental countries, so we have to use fewer greenfields for new building. If only. Part of the left’s problem is they will never criticise the EU/Euromodel, or criticise the dear energy policies which destroy jobs and keep people in fuel poverty. They just want to criticise England and complain that it is all our fault.
Dear Elector,
This election should be about you. It is about how you feel and what you want for your future and for your family. This General Election is particularly important for you, as it will make big decisions about what sort of country we live in in the next five years, and whether your future will be secure.
If elected again as your MP I will be there to put your views and worries to government. I will speak up for the Wokingham constituency. I will work with Wokingham and West Berkshire Councils to improve the local environment and services.
We need to strive to improve our public services, concentrating the money on those that matter most. We should use the best modern means to deliver great service at an affordable cost. I want people to be free to make more of their own decisions, leaving us all with more of our earnings and savings to spend. It makes little sense to take too much money off us, only to have to give it back again to help our families. Government should be there when we need help but should not seek to control and direct too many features of our lives. Conservatives offer higher tax thresholds for the 20% and the 40% tax rate, and no new tax on your home.
A Conservative government will continue to put excellence and ambition into our schools, allowing good schools more freedom to develop as they wish, and encouraging professional teachers. It will appoint more GPs and extend the hours and range of services on offer from the GP service. It will improve rail and road transport to make it easier to get to work, school and the shops. I will work with government, the local Council and NHS to ensure Wokingham gets its fair share of money and improvement.
We need to complete the long repair of our damaged economy. No country can run up unlimited debts, as Greece and others are finding out. Borrowing too much is not caring or kind, as it leads to drastic cuts in what matters, higher taxes and a poorer country. The banks are almost mended after the ruinous crisis of 2008, when Labour’s regulatory system failed badly. Under their control the banks lurched from offering too much credit and lending to providing too little. We suffered a big crash with high unemployment. The large number of new jobs now being created shows we are getting something right, as President Obama remarked. We need to carry on with steady progress in cutting our new debts and growing our jobs and prosperity.
We also need to repair our constitution and our democracy. Many people feel let down by modern politics. There is plenty of sound and fury, but is there enough consideration of what is best? Is there honest good government where and when we need it? I have sought to be a daily voice in Parliament and on my website setting out more of the facts and the underlying problems, urging government to mend what is broken and protect what works. Today we need to offer justice to England. As Scotland gains many more powers of self government, so we need to let England make more of her own decisions. If Scotland is to decide her own Income Tax rate, Scottish MPs at Westminster should not also get a vote on England’s Income Tax rate.
Most of us want to trade with the rest of Europe, be friends with other EU countries, and do things together where it makes sense for us and them. The UK has rightly decided not to join the rest of the EU in the Euro. We have no wish to gradually sign up to the full political union they will need to back their currency. If you share the same money as other places, you need to send money from the rich to the poorer parts of the zone, you need to stand behind all the banks of the zone, and need to make transfers of cash to Councils in need, to people on benefits and governments with large debts. The UK does not wish to be involved in such an expensive and difficult project. We need to define a good relationship with the emerging political and currency union on the continent which allows us to trade and do things together, but leaves us free to control our own welfare system, our own borders, our own criminal justice and other important matters that define us as a democratic nation.
I hope you like the ambitious programme we have for a better and stronger UK. I want you and your family to have access to great schools and good jobs, for you to keep more of what you earn, and to live in a civilised country where we can afford to help those in need and pain. To do so we have to continue with repairing our damaged economy and banks. We need to be prudent but not mean with our government expenditures. We need to believe in ourselves and our country. Tax cuts for all and home ownership for the many is better than the Lib Dem and Labour threats of higher income taxes, new taxes on some family homes and their mean spirit against business and enterprise that can deliver us more better paid jobs.
Published and promoted by Thomas Puddy for John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU
Yesterday David Cameron told us that a Conservative government will sell more of the Lloyds Bank shares which the taxpayer currently owns. It is good news that Lloyds is now a stronger bank, capable of providing good service , helping to finance a recovery, and making profits and dividend for taxpayers.
I welcome the fact that taxpayers will get all our money back and some profit on the transaction. The state should not be owning banks, and we need the money to offset some of the extra borrowing the government is still doing each year.
Individuals wanting to buy a quantity of shares between £250 and £10,000 worth will be entitled to a discount of 5%. Discounts are not unusual when large share transactions like this one are undertaken. I welcome the way the discount will go to the smaller shareholder buyers.
Turning the banks round was an important part of getting the recovery going. The crash of the banks thanks to the destructive monetary and regulatory policy followed by the Labour government in 2005-9 was the cause of so much pain. It is great to see economic strength returning.
Published and promoted by Thomas Puddy for John Redwood, both at 3o Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU
The spate of deaths by drowning this spring has been harrowing. More must be done to prevent the problem arising, and more to rescue those where a disaster does occur . The policing,patrolling and life saving where needed has to be done by those EU countries and North African countries with ports nearest to the problem, as they have the vessels able to deploy quickly.
The countries and authorities who could do most to stop this problem are the North African states whose ports the ships leave. The ships should be properly checked for seaworthiness and to prevent overloading before departures.
There is a common EU asylum policy. Broadly the policy has to be applied at the first EU country an asylum seeker reaches. They should be permitted entry if they are fleeing persecution and in need of asylum, but not if they are economic migrants. The EU’s borders are as good- or as weak- as the weakest link in them in all the member states. That is one reason why many in the UK would rather have complete national control of our borders, and make our own judgements about asylum without EU law.
The EU itself has been asked to help Italy, currently facing a large part of the present problem.The Italian authorities, assisted by the EU, need to do more to track down the criminals who take people’s money to risk them in unsafe boats. This vile trade which has led to so many deaths needs a strong police response, and may well need co-operation between EU member states and the countries allowing the people to travel in these dangerous boats. All member states who are part of the common border need to discuss the EU contribution to the policy costs.
The EU needs to stress there is a fair and safer way for people to be assessed for asylum status, than trying to turn up on unsuitable vessels.
Yesterday on the doorsteps I was asked several times what are the Conservatives offering pensioners?
Let me remind those who are retired or nearing retirement of what the Conservatives are offering:
1. Uprate the State pension by the best of 2.5%, inflation or earnings. The last government introduced this triple lock, and the Conservatives will continue with this Coalition policy if elected to government. Recently the 2.5% guarantee has been useful, as there is currently no inflation on the CPI measure, and earnings growth has been below 2.5% on average.
2. Offer freedom from income tax for standard rate payers for the first 1000 pounds of savings income.
3. Offer Pensioner savings bonds, with a 2.8% interest rate for a one year bond, and a 4% interest rate for a 3 year bond to boost income on savings at a time of low interest rates.
4. Continue with the winter fuel allowance, tv licence concessions and travel assistance for pensioners. Labour wish to limit some of these schemes by income of pensioner.
The aim is that pensioners should also share in economic success, and not see their pension rise by less than those in work see their wages rise.
Published and promoted by Thomas Puddy for John Redwood, both at 30 Rose Street Wokingham RG40 1XU