Quote of the day 19th May 2014
"Cabinet Minutes should reflect the lies which were actually told at the time, not the lies people wished they had told afterwards."
(Norman Tebbit)
(Norman Tebbit)
Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria
Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Comments
Oh, how true that is, you know in the last general election, I voted for m conservative member (sorry i forget his name now :) ) any way said member did not win, but he did get my precious vote.
But why? well the main thing was they stood on a promise to end the deficit of the country, not only that but to leave office with a surplus.
This was to be done by a few tax rises but mainly by cuts, and we have not seen cuts, public spending has risen not fallen, the debt balloons ever larger every day, and the end draws closer.
They keep on saying how they have cut the deficit by 1/3, isnt that great. Its like a man who used to spend £300 per week more than he earned would turn to his lender and say "but i now only spend £200 a week more than i earn" you see you can trust me.
Now the economy is beginning to recover, but its not because of this, its inspite of it. And though the fact "this is so much better than it would have been" is somewhat true, its not great really. its like a builder who wants to miss every thrid brick from your wall, you get a better builder who now only misses every 5th brick, is that really better? you could say it is, but come on its hardly great.
it really does look that way to me, take my pet hate fuel duty, the governemt constantly bleat on about the fact its 13p cheaper than under labour plans, but its still the highest level in the EU! now i dont care who raised it so high, the fact is the current government have had 4 years to significantly cut it and did not.
the last government introduced serious pensions problems, the current government have had 4 years to reverse it and have not
They always answer with "we were left the worst ecomomy ever.....blah blah blah" and that is true, so the answer is to stop spending it and whoopy doo, we have a surplus.
First of all, thanks for your support in 2010.
Second, you are absolutely right that we need to cut the defecit a lot further - in fact, eliminate it.
Third, that is precisely why we cannot yet go as far as I would like in cutting, not just cancelling increases in, fuel duty. But if another couple of thousamd people in Copeland had shared your good judgement inthe polling booth I would be there arguing for such cuts in duty.
And finally, you are absolutely right about what the last government did to pensions: the present government has been trying to find affordable ways to reerse the damage.
Earlier in the parliament there was the "triple lock" to protect the state pension.
In this years' budget there were major reforms giving people more freedom to spend their own savings which should start the process of repairing and reversing Brown's pension disaster and giving people a real incentive to save, by ensuring that those who do the right thing be saving are rewarded for it.
I am still incredibly angry about what Brown did to pensions and am convinced that we do need to go further and cancel his £6 billion a year raid on pensions, which I presume is what you are referring to. If a couple of thousand of the voters in Jedi Jamie's pile had gone the way you did, that's what I would be arguing for.