Chris Whiteside's Blog

Opinion polls are a useful tool, but they are not perfect. In 1992 they got the result wrong: in 1997 and 2001 they predicted that Labour's percentage lead in votes would be much larger than it actually was. Pollsters in the US have similar problems. (Remember when we all went to bed under the impression that Kerry was winning and woke up to find that Dubya had the last laugh.) All the pollsters are trying to correct for the bias which understated Conservative (and Lib/Dem) support in the last three elections; they are using different methods to do this, and that's one of the reasons different polls are all over the place. We will only find out whether any of them have got it more or less right on election night. I very much doubt that those polls suggesting a Labour landslide of the same order as 1997 and 2001 can be right. For one thing, in those two years Tony Blair was still popular and most people accepted his self-evaluation as a "pretty straight kind of guy". I...

During the planning for the election campaign I was told that we could expect three Conservative font bench visits to the Copeland constituency, and asked who we would like and where in the constituency we should take them. Top of the list in my reply was for a Shadow health spokesman to visit West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven, and I was delighted when the Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, took up this request and came to WCH on Friday. It was an interesting and useful visit, and I am grateful both to Andrew for coming to support our local hospital and to the management and staff who took time to meet us and show us round. One of the key Conservative policies in this election is cleaner hospitals to reduce the threat of MRSA and other hospital acquired infections. West Cumberland has one of the better records in this area, and is one of the hospitals where the number of hospital acquired infections is falling: as we went round we saw some of the policies we hop...

A gap in posts for a week due to technical difficulties - the site was down for maintenance when I tried to post. Normal service will now be resumed. Time and again the same issues which people are most concerned about in West Cumbria keep coming up on the doorstep. Some are national issues which do not directly affect us here in Copeland. But there are a four particular issues which especially affect the lives of the people I meet or have the potential to do so. These four main issues are my top priorities for Copeland, and they are 1) JOBS West Cumbria has lost large numbers of jobs in recent years, and we are likely to lose many more due to changes in the nuclear industry. It has been estimated that 17,000 jobs, including those which may be hit by "knock on" effects following from decommissioning, are dependent on Sellafield and Drigg. And even if there is a new generation of nuclear plants including one in West Cumbria, which I strongly support, it is unlikely that there ...

Going straight from being a senior councillor to being a parliamentary candidate has given me one insight into why this country has such a centralised political system - the attitude of national pressure groups, lobbies, and charities. To be fair to them, they behave in the way they do partly because we have developed such a centralised political culture. But while everyone talks the language of localism, far too many people are practicising the politics of centralism - perhaps without even realising it. Between 2001 and 2004 I was the Portfolio holder for Planning and Conservation in the cabinet of a council dealing with a very heavy load of planning applications. And one of my motivations for standing for election to the House of Commons is to try to get central government off the backs of local government, because over those three years I become fed up to the back teeth with blinkered, incompetent micromanagement and interference from London. So it was an eye-opener on standing down...

I believe this country needs a balanced energy policy, which should make full use of nuclear power, renewable energy, and reducing waste of energy from all sources. I was very pleased when Tim Yeo promised that if the Conservatives win the election, a decision will be made on whether to commission a new generation of nuclear power stations within a year of the election. If Britain is to continue have a nuclear industry, we do need a decision in the near future, or we will have abandoned nuclear power by default. And for areas like West Cumbria the uncertainty is very damaging. I would like to see one of those new power stations at Sellafield. Obviously we have to take account of the limitations of the existing national grid and what can economically be done to improve it. I am advised that it would be difficult to upgrade the grid sufficiently to deliver the output from a 1000 MW reactor such as the AP1000, but many people connected with the industry consider that it would be economic...

Have been canvassing in Millom and Gosforth today: have also canvassed this week in Whitehaven, Seascale, Egremont, and Ravenglass. As always happens, the reception was better in some streets than others, but overall I am reasonably pleased. We have lost very few of those who had indicated that they would vote Conservative last time. Every day we find some more people who voted Labour in the past but will be voting Conservative this time. And I keep finding people right across the political spectrum who have had enough of Tony Blair. This is the seventh general election campaign in which I have been actively involved - I started in 1979 at the age of 18 - and it is the only election in all that time in which the number of negative comments I have heard on the doorstep about the Labour leader have greatly outnumbered those made about the Conservative leader. That even applies in 1983 when I had to take on the chin more criticisms of Margaret Thatcher than were made about Michael Foot - ...

For weeks the Labour party has been accusing the Conservatives of planning to slash spending on public services. One version of their scare story has misrepresented Conservative proposals to reduce administration and bureaucracy as a cut in front-line services. The Prime Minister even appeared to suggest that the Conservatives might sack every policeman and teacher in the country. (In fact we have no plans to cut front-line services.) The other version of the scare story compares projected spending by Labour or Conservative governments five years into the future; both parties are planning to spend more on public services but the Conservative proposals for a smaller increase is described by Labour as "a cut". (Confusingly the amount under discussion in both stories is £35 billion.) But today the Labour party has suggested exactly the opposite - instead of destroying the public services by spending less than Labour they are now accusing us of planning to spend £15 billion a ...

The situation on postal votes becomes more and more alarming. There are plenty of people who really need them - I took a postal vote application form to a rural area today for someone who had a good reason why she would not be able to get to the polling station. But we have to protect the integrity of the poll, and it is clear from the Birmingham judgement that the present system does not. Today it is alleged in a Sunday newspaper that a committee of ministers considered the problem, initially wanted to legislate to increase the security of postal votes, but then took no action after being advised that the proposed measures, including those supported by the Electoral Commission and the police, would reduce takeup of votes among groups which were believed to favour Labour. There need to be some hard questions asked about these allegations. If they are true then the ministers involved should be impeached.

I have campaigned in Millom, Haverigg and Gilgarran this weekend. Quite pleased with the results. Almost all those who had previously been canvassed as Conservative still are, and a chunk of those who had previously been against or doubtful now say they will vote Conservative. I am still meeting a significant proportion of voters who say they have not made their minds up. Some of those will be Labour supporters who are too polite to tell me they are not going to vote for me. So will many of those who say things like "Yes, I'll consider it" or "Yes, I'll be there." However, I have been canvassing for twenty six years and you do develop a sense for when people really are still thinking about it and when they're just being polite. If someone says to me something specific like "I'll be voting Conservative this time" or "Yes, I'll vote for you", then nine times out of ten they really will. If someone says they are not voting for me...

Because of the pope's funeral it was agreed not to carry out intrusive campaigning such as canvassing today, but we were advised that it is acceptable to deliver leaflets so I and my team have been doing that. While out delivering leaflets I had a call from Radio Cumbria. Apparently the tourist board, presumably as a joke, are running an advertising campaign advising people to come on holiday in Cumbria as an "election free zone." Well, there certainly are elections here and they are being fiercely contested. Anyone who comes here expecting not to see election posters is likely to be disappointed. People complain when they think politicians are being less than truthful in their campaigning. In the real world anyone campaigning to win an election is bound to present the facts in the way most favourable to their own case, but the voters and are perfectly entitled to expect political candidates not to make false statements. In my opinion that expectation has already been dis...

On a vist to Cumbria the Conservative shadow Environment Secretary, Tim Yeo, has made some very helpful comments about the future of the nuclear industry. He promised that that a Conservative government would make a decision about a new generation of nuclear power plants within a year being elected. One of the worst problems for West Cumbria has been uncertaintly about the future so this promise was very welcome. I was also very pleased to hear the positive tone of Tim's comments about the nuclear industry. "It's for the nuclear industry to show that it can be cost competitive" he said. "If it can, and can show that understandable concerns about waste can be met, then nuclear power has a role to play. It already produces a fifth of our energy and has the advantage of not producing carbon dioxide emissions." This was the most positive statement yet made about the future of the nuclear industry by the relevant parliamentary spokesman of either of the two mai...

I have been out and about in Whitehaven today, while teams of my supporters have been delivering leaflets in a number of areas including Millom. First indications from my first election canvassing session today confirms the impression from our local surveys over the past few months that the Conservative vote is reasonably firm and the Labour vote rather less so. A lot of voters are very concerned about the rundown of local industry, the management of local health services, and the economic future of West Cumbria. Many Copeland residents say they have not yet decided how to vote. I think the election here in Copeland is likely to be very close indeed.

It is eight months since I was selected to fight the Copeland seat but it seems like years. And the unofficial pre-campaign has run on so long that it must seem to most members of the public that we have already been fighting an election campaign for months. But today at last the "phoney war" came to an end as the PM finally went to Buckingham Palace to request a dissolution of parliament. And we finally know officially what everyone involved in politics has been convinced of for some time - the general election will be on 5th May. The news coincided with a clutch of opinion polls, one showing the Conservatives five points ahead and the others showing reduced Labour leads, which suggest that the election is not a foregone conclusion. I think there is everything to play for. Anyone who spends time on the doorstep knows that many voters are fed up with politicians of all parties, large numbers say they have yet to decide how to vote, and that the Labour vote in particular is qu...

Like all political candidates I have suspended political campaigning yesterday and today as a mark of respect for Pope John Paul II. I was still at school when he was elected, following his predecessor's tragic death after just a month in office. He was a towering presence for nearly three decades and a man who will be remembered as one of the strongest popes in history. I did not agree with all of his views - on some issues he made me look like a soggy liberal, while on other issues, despite his reputation as an arch-conservative, he could be quite left-wing. But whether you agreed with him or not, you had to respect his integrity. Despite the trappings of power there was something about Pope John Paul which held to the simplicity, modesty, and sincerity which I associate with the early church and with Jesus himself. I myself am an anglican, my wife is a catholic, although we both think of ourselves as Christians. I was pleased that yesterday's service at my local anglican chu...

I become more and more convinced that the damage they are doing to the country's pension provision is on its own sufficient grounds why Britain absolutely cannot afford the re-election of the Labour government. It is bad enough that in his first budget Gordon Brown made pension funds liable to Advanced Corporation Tax, a form of double taxation which effectively takes £ 5 billion a year from pension funds. This was the first and worst "stealth tax" - Mr Brown hoped that people would not realise that a change to something with a remote-sounding name like "Advanced Corporation Tax" meant that their pensions were being taken away. Then Mr Brown introduced an atrociously complicated "pensions credit" system which destroys incentives to save because anyone who does invest for their future loses 40 pence of pensions credit for each pound of income he or she provides. Surprise surprise - as incentives to save have been destroyed by Gordon Brown, the level of ...

Well, I managed it. Of the twelve times I have now completed the Swimathon, today was the hardest, because I have been out of action for the past two weeks with a nasty chest infection, and have not 100% recovered. I had decided beforehand that if I found myself in real difficulty I would abandon the swim rather than risk making myself ill. The pool at the Cockermouth swimming centre is 25 metres long, so to complete the 5000 metres challenge I had to swim 200 lengths. In the past when in better shape I have swum the full 5,000 using front crawl, and completed it in under an hour and a half. However, I knew that would not be possible this year and I would need to conserve my strength to finish at all. So I mainly used breast stroke, mixing in one length of front crawl with nine lengths of breast stroke so as to use a different set of muscles. It took me two hours, which is the longest time it has ever taken me, but I'm quite pleased just to have finished. Sponsorship money from the...

This weekend I have been canvassing in the Holmrook area. I was not surprised to find strong opposition to the idea of De-Trunking the A595. This road is the only effective way to reach a large area of Cumbria. It is the only road access to an important national facility - the Nuclear Waster repository at Drigg. It is the main route from a large part of Copeland to the most accessible District General Hospital, currently at Whitehaven. (That argument will be even stronger if the hospital is moved.) The relevant Health And Safety authorities have also advised that we need evacuation routes to both North and South from Sellafield. The only possible evacuation route to the South is the A595. In my view, and that of every local resident with whom I have discussed it, the arguments to keep trunk status for this road and indeed improve it are overwhelming. I will be attending the Public Inquiru next month with local County Councillor Sue Brown to make this point.

Does anyone reading this have a view of the quality of School Meals in Cumbria ? I have followed with interest the debate touched off by Jamie Oliver on the subject of school meals. The Secretary of State for education seems very defensive on the subject. The meals served to my children in both the nurseries in Cumbria which they have attended - attached to schools in Gosforth and Whitehaven - seem to be both tasty and nutritious. However, a member of my family with three school age children in another part of Cumbria reports that her fellow parents are very concerned about the quality and type of food. I would be very interested to know about the experience of other parents in Cumbria, especially in Copeland. Please feel free to make a "comment" or send me an email at chris@chris4copeland.com

I shall be taking part in the Butlins Swimathon this Easter for the twelfth consecutive year. Unfortunately there is no participating swimming pool in the Copeland Constituency, and the Bricket Wood pool where I have taken part in the past is currently closed for repairs. Instead I have applied to take part in the session at the nearest participating pool, which is Cockermouth. Swimathon is the largest charity swimming event in Britain: there are a number of possible challenges but the headline event, which I managed to complete for the past 11 years and am attempting again, is to swim 5,000 metres in one session. 70% of the money raised by the Swimathon this year will go to the Children's charity NCH, the remainder will go to the Swimathon foundation which makes grants to local good causes. If anyone would like to sponsor me, please drop me an email at Charityswim@chris4copeland.com

To Carlisle on Wednesday to hand in the Hospital Services petition. An initial count suggested we have about 1,000 signatures in total on our petition, which reads as follows: "We, the undersigned, call on the North Cumbria Acute Servies Health Trust and the Primary Care Trusts to retain District General Hospital Services on a site within the Borough of Copeland. These must include and ITU with Accident and Emergency, and shoud also include as many other hospital services as can safely and effectively be provided." (There were two slight variations on the wording - for example, before the Trusts made clear that there is no proposal to close Millom Community Hospital we also had a line supporting the retention of that hospital. But neither ) I am still waiting for one or two colleagues to return the forms on which they have been collecting signatures, and will forward these when I get them. I handed the main body of the petition, with 715 signatures, to Nigel Woodcock on Wedne...

Copeland's council tax has now been set for the coming year and - surprise surprise - residents face yet another above-inflation increase. The largest element of the council tax goes to fund the county council and the biggest single reason why it was above inflation is a less-than generous grant settlement from Central Government. Council tax rises have been particularly painful for the elderly and those on fixed incomes. I an very glad to be able to support the policy of using some of our £4 billion of tax cuts funded by savings in government administration to halve the council tax bills of pensioner households.

Back to the subject of local hospitals. The consultation on the future of local acute hospital services in West Cumbria (and the rest of North Cumbria) closes at the end of this month. If you are a North Cumbria resident and have views about our hospitals which you have not sent in to the NHS trust, I strongly recommend that you let them know what you think. If you're reading this you must have email and internet access, so I suggest that you email the trusts on consultation@ncumbria.nhs.uk before 28th February 2005.

The BBC in the North East and Cumbria are looking at battleground constituencies for each party in the run up to the General Election. They are expecting to do a short piece on Copeland on the politics show this coming Sunday lunchtime (12.30 BBC One in the North) I was interviewed yesterday and then filmed talking to local voters in a pub in Whitehaven. Compared to our canvass returns - which are encouraging - the people in the pub were too small a sample to be meaningful in statistical terms, but some of the views expressed were interesting. There were one or two who said they would vote Conservative, most of the rest were floating voters. There was considerable distrust for politicians of all parties, but especially for New Labour. The main concerns raised were jobs, housing, the need to improve road and rail transport links, and education. Crime, drugs, immigration and Europe were also brought up, and the war in Iraq is still an issue for many people. I certainly enjoyed the evenin...

The Highways Agency, a quango accountable to the government's transport department, wants to de-trunk the A595 and A5092, which means that responsiblity for these roads would be transferred to the County Council and that they would be moved to a lower status in the road hierarchy. This proposal reminds me of Dorothy Parker's review of a bad book. Her comment was that it should "not be lightly tossed aside, but should be hurled with great force." If we're going to protect jobs and businesses in West Cumbria we need better transport links, not worse ones. The money available to Cumbria County council to maintain these roads if they were de-trunked and handed over to the council would probably be about half what is currently spent. And it is also likely that less money would also be provided to improveme the roads. The A595 is the only major road serving a large chunk of Cumbria, including the town of Millom, a large number of villages including Seascale, Beckermet, ...

I was delighted to see a good crowd at Whitehaven Civic Hall for the hospitals public meeting. I suspect there were probably about three hundred people present. The meeting was organised by the local NHS Trusts as part of their review of acute hospital services in the North Cumbria NHS area (which includes West Cumbria.) Some interesting announcements by the Trust - it was confirmed that although it is more likely that they will want to build a new hospital on a new site in West Cumbria they have not ruled out the possibility of refurbishing the existing site. One particularly interesting quote from the Chief Executive of the Acute Services NHS Trust, Marie Burnham, was that if Downing Street had their way there would only be one district general hospital for North Cumbria. She also said that there had been no capital investment in the West Cumberland for ten years up until about 18 months ago - referring to the money spent since then as being due to better financial management. The ev...

The public meeting to discuss the future of local hospitals in North and West Cumbria is to be held at Whitehaven Civic Hall at 7pm tomorrow (Tuesday 15th February 2005) Anyone who cares about the local health service should be there if at all possible. See previous post for more details.

Anyone in West Cumbria who might ever need to use the local health services in this part of the world and is able to do so should try to attend the Public Meeting in Whitehaven Civic Hall at 7pm on Tuesday 15th February. The NHS trusts covering North and West Cumbria are carrying out a consultation on the future of local acute hospital services. Their proposals include the closure of the West Cumberland hospital in Whitehaven and its replacement by a new hospital somewhere in West Cumbria on a site to be determined. The Trusts propose that the new hostpital will provide emergency services with ITU (Intensive Therapy Unit), Maternity and children's services. It is planned to "move post-acute patients to community healthcare settings" and "make specialist rehabilitation services more community based." What is not clear is where the new hospital will be, how many beds it will have, or what level of Accident & Emergency and ITU will be provided. I believe it is ...