Letter to Voters

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