Chris Whiteside's Blog

D.V. I am due to take part in a radio debate on health tomorrow morning (Friday) for BBC Radio Cumbria, with the Lib/Dem seat being taken by Tim Farron and the Labour seat by Tony Cuningham. The debate is due to be broadcast live shortly after 8.00 am.

On BBC1 this evening viewers watched the final debate between the three party leaders: in Crossthwaite Parish Rooms in Keswick we had the last local debate between candidates in Copeland. I have watched the Angus Reid website here , which has results coming in live, and the the initial response on who won the debate is at this moment showing as David Cameron first with 37% Nick Clegg second with 30% Gordon Brown last with 23% While I have been writing this post the David Cameron percentage score has gone up from a starting point of 36% to 37%, while Nick Clegg's number has varied between 31% and 30% while the Gordon Brown number has varied between 23% and 22%. Meanwhile in Keswick, five of the six candidates attended for at least some of a debate organised by Christians together in Keswick. The hall was packed with every seat taken and people standing at the back. We were all pleased to see that there was such strong interest being taken in the debate. Jamie Reed, the Labour candid...

On the day David Cameron looks forward to the final leaders’ election debate, we are unveiling plans to help children suffering with cancer get access to the drugs they need. Around 1,500 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK, and the disease claims about 300 children’s lives. But children and young people can be particularly affected by problems accessing drugs for rarer cancers. A Conservative government will create a £200 million a year Cancer Drugs Fund – paid for from the savings the NHS will make because of our plans to stop Labour’s tax on jobs – and change the way that cancer drugs are commissioned, to make sure all the cancer drugs children need are available on the NHS. There is a clear choice at this election: Labour, and their jobs tax that will take £200 million out of the NHS budget; or the Conservatives, who will stop the jobs tax and use the savings in the NHS budget to create a Cancer Drugs Fund.

In accordance with the policy of the Conservative party to promote greater openness and transparency, I have completed a candidate declaration of interests form. This follows the guidelines laid down by the party in April 2010 which in turn conform to the advice from the Ministry of Justice. My declaration reads as follows NAME OF CANDIDATE: Christopher Whiteside CONSTITUENCY: Copeland A. Other Paid Jobs I am currently employed by BT Operate, a division of British Telecommunications PLC, as a manager. If elected I would not intend to continue with paid employment with BT while also serving as an MP. I am currently also a member of Copeland Borough Council. If elected I would continue to serve in this office for the remaining year of my council term, but would not seek re-election to the council when my present term expires in May 2011. If elected, I do not intend to take on any further additional employment beyond my work as an MP. B. The holding of positions of responsibility in so...

I was campaigning today in Whitehaven and Keswick, and also had a very constructive meeting with the Keswick Flooding Action group, who had a number of points they were keen to take up with candidates. There has been some effective cross-party working to take action on the floods but it is extremely important that the pressure for reform is maintained and remains a priority after the election.

Hat tip to Iain Dale for drawing my attention to this article in The Times by Stephen Pollard, who up to now has been a Labour voter since he turned 18, but who next week will vote Tory for the first time in his life.

Only David Cameron and the Conservatives have the energy, leadership and values to get the economy working for everyone. We need to reward hard work, get Britain making things again, deliver value for money in government and sort out the banks. We want the banks to work for the people, instead of the people bailing out the banks. And we need to learn the lessons from the financial crisis. Within weeks of the election, a Conservative government will launch the most radical overhaul for a generation in the way that banks are regulated and policed, in order to support the economy and protect consumers. We will: * get credit flowing to businesses with large scale government guarantees, building on our proposals for a National Loan Guarantee Scheme; * sweep away Gordon Brown’s failed system of regulation and put the Bank of England back in charge of controlling the overall level of debt in the economy; * introduce a new levy on the banks; * push for international agreement to separate t...

We were campaigning today in Thornthwaite and Cleator. Another beautiful day for it. Reception continues to be mostly friendly.

Earlier this week, David Cameron and Michael Gove spoke at a rally of parents in Kirklees. These parents are frustrated at the quality of education on offer for their children are demanding change – change which is being blocked by the Labour-led council and Ed Balls in Westminster. David and Michael spoke about the choice facing parents at this election: If you want to carry on with nearly 400,000 children a year suspended for violence and disruption, vote for Gordon Brown. If you are content with millions more children leaving primary school unable to read and add up properly, and leaving school without English and Maths GCSE, vote for Brown. If you want to keep good schools rationed by house price and income, vote for Brown. If you want politicians to have more power over schools instead of teachers running schools, vote for Brown. But if you want to change course, vote Conservative: We will give teachers the powers they need to keep order. We will give heads the power to pay good ...

After campaigning this morning and afternoon in glorious weather, I attended a debate at St Bees School to which all candidates had been invited: VI formers from a number of other schools in the area had also been invited and several of the other schools were indeed represented. The candidates who attended were: Myself (Conservative) Jamie Reed (Labour) Frank Hollowell (Lib/Dem) Jill Perry (Green) Our hosts were at pains to say that the UKIP and BNP candidates had also been invited, but neither attended. On the measure of turning up (and I recognise that one candidate was ill yesterday) this makes the score Conservative, Lib/Dem, Green: 3/3 Labour: 2/3 UKIP: 1/3 BNP: 0/3.

A hundred and foty nine people attended the second debate between the parliamentary candidates for Copeland in St Andrew's Church, Mirehouse this evening. All six candidates were invited. Three attended: Myself (Conservative) Frank Hollowell (Lib/Dem) Jill Perry (Green) We were told at the meeting that Labour's Jamie Reed had to send apologies at the last minute having fallen ill. Edward Caley-Knowles (UKIP) had hoped to attend but did not appear. The British National Party did not attend either. This is the second debate in a week to which they were invited and failed to attend, which is surprising from a party that has spent the last three years complaining bitterly that everyone else excludes them.

Offensive and obscene graffiti was spray-painted on Saturday night on the Conservative 8 by 4 posters at Holmrook. We will again be reporting this to the police. A £200 reward, payable on the conviction of the culprits, has been offered by Copeland Conservatives for information provided to the police and leading to the successful prosecution of anyone defacing or damaging Conservative election posters.

"... they first make mad." according to the old saying. I was out today campaigning - I have had people out today from Calderbridge to Keswick, from St Bees to Bransty - so I missed the moment with the Labour party and the Elvis impersonator. But a sense can be gained of what it was like from Political Betting, here . Desperate does not begin to describe it ...

I have been told by two different people that Border TV made an unforgivable error this evening. Apparently their item on the Workington constituency described that seat as including Keswick. For this election, of course, Keswick, along with the Crummock, Dalton, and Derwent Valley wards, move from Workington constituency into Copeland constituency. We have quite enough confusion about this already without the TV giving out wrong information. If anyone reading this lives in Keswick, and is confused about which constituency you are in, I do not blame you, but please note: * If you have had election literature from one or more of the Workington candidates, (as I know some people have,) please ignore it, they have got it wrong, Keswick is now part of the Copeland constituency. * If you heard on the Television that Keswick is still part of Workington constituency, please ignore it, they have got it wrong, Keswick is now part of the Copeland constituency * Keswick residents (and those of...

There are decent people and, sadly, scoundrels in all political parties. Andrew Gilligan has argued in the Daily Telegraph, the Lib/Dems simply cannot be allowed to claim that they represent a "new politics" above dirty tactics: all too many in that party are masters at it. As he writes, "On the ground, their campaigning is consistently more unscrupulous and poisonous than the other parties’. "And you don’t have to take my word for it – a lot of their election literature is now captured for posterity online ." He then lists some of the smears organised by the national Lib/Dem machine during parliamentary by-elections, and concludes, "Nobody is saying, by the way, that the other two parties don’t sometimes stoop to the same level – remember the “toff” attacks by Labour in the Crewe and Nantwich byelection? – but they do it less often. And only the Lib Dems present themselves as uniquely clean and virtuous. The truth, in fact, is that they are – at best – a...

As we enter the final fortnight of the campaign, today I and my team have 1) Paid a visit to Egremont Market 2) Attended a community event in Seascale 3) Taken part in a live webcast for the Cumbrian Newspaper Group at the Whitehaven News offices 4) Visited Seascale Surgery to discuss the issues facing dispensing practices 5) Taken a quick tour of mid and south Copeland while arranging to have our mid-campaign newspaper delivered.

I was asked on the Whitehaven News webcast today whether I thought that today, St George's Day should be a Bank Holiday. I replied that I do, but replacing one of the existing bank holidays with little cultural or historical justification: I would like to see more celebration of our English identity but in the present economic climate we should be careful about awarding ourselves an increase in the number of holidays we take.

There are so many good policy reasons not to vote Lib/Dem that there is absolutely no need for those of us in other parties or in parts of the media who don't agree with them to go after Nick Clegg personally. Instead of the torrent of personal attacks against Nick Clegg this morning I would have preferred to see it pointed out that * The Lib/Dem plan to increase the tax threshold to £10,000 sounds wonderful but is completely unaffordable * All the parties would have a major challenge on their hands to find the savings from waste and bureaucracy they have set out, but the Lib/Dem plans would be far and away the most impossible to achieve * Their policy of scrapping the pound and joining the Euro would harm this country's economy and is totally against what most British people want. Of course, in Copeland the national Lib/Dems also want to shut down the industry which employes a quarter of our working population. I had been wondering whether any political party had a hand in ...

I support justice for the people who lost money as a result of the Equitable Life fiasco. The policyholders of Equitable Life have been disgracefully treated by this Labour Government. If more than thirty thousand people had died waiting for justice in any other situation there would be rioting on the streets. Yet Gordon Brown’s government has been happy to kick the issue of Equitable Life into the long grass. Conservatives welcomed the Ombudsman’s recommendations as soon as they were published. However, the Labour Government, rather than following our lead, took six months to make a formal response and even then decided to ignore most of her findings. It has taken a judicial review to get the Government to finally accept responsibility. Labour Ministers then kicked the issue into the long grass by appointing a retired judge, who won’t report until after the General Election. Gordon Brown has failed Equitable policyholders and sought at every stage of the process to block, frustrate an...

Attended the first of three public debates in Copeland to which all six parliamentary candidates were invited. This took place under the auspices of the FSB in the United Reform Church in Whitehaven and was chaired by the Reverend John Bannister. Five candidates took part in the debate: Myself (Conservative) Jamie Reed (Labour) Frank Hollowell (Liberal Democrat) Edward Caley-Knowles (UKIP) Jill Perry (Green) The BNP candidate was invited but did not attend.

The general election is a fortnight today. Still everything to play for. The Conservatives are launching our "Armed Forces Manifesto" today Labour have let down those who wear the uniform with such pride. Our Forces sacrifice and risk so much to do their duty by us. The least we can do in return is to do our duty by them. That is why we are today launching our Armed Forces Manifesto, which outlines how we will repair the Military Covenant and rebuild the bonds between the Forces and the people. We will: * Give the Armed Forces clear leadership – we’ll hold a Strategic Defence and Security Review to make sure resources match commitments. In the meantime, we’ll protect the defence budget for 2010/11. * Equip our Armed Forces properly – we’ll reform procurement so our Forces get the equipment they need when they need it, at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer. * Support our servicemen and women – we’ll double the operational allowance, improve rest and recuperation leave and ...

Very successful coffee morning in Buttermere this morning: in the afternoon and evening we had two teams out delivering and canvassing, and between us we were active in Hensingham, Braithwaite, Lorton, and Keswick.

We had two good sessions cleaning up litter at both Gosforth (above) and Hillcrest yesterday. As Stephen said in a post on the last thread, some of what we found was shocking, but we left the car park area in Gosforth very clean, and made a big dent in the amount of rubbish around the play area/park in Hillcrest. I am quite certain that this was a worthwhile exercise, which the quantity of glass alone that we removed, never mind anything else, would have justified. If you leave large quantities of bottles and broken glass in a play area, sooner or later a child will be hurt. There were four sites which we looked at for yesterday's action day: two in Whitehaven, one each in Millom and Gosforth. We talked to Copeland council about the proposed litter picks in advance. The council decided that what we were doing was political and refused to provide the litter-picking sticks etc that they usually make available for exercises like this (we made other arrangements) and then they sent the...

Today throughout Britain Conservative candidates are making a change to normal campaigning and instead doing something positive for the community. This won't be something we have taken up just for the campaign: it is something we have been doing in each constituency on a regular basis to support the community. Here in Copeland, where Conservatives have regularly organised and taken part in clear-up and litter pick activities, we have organised two litter picks. One will be in Gosforth, meeting at the Village car park at 10 am this morning The second will be in Hillcrest, Whitehaven: meet at the play area at The Crest at 6.00 pm.

A report from the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) has given a damning verdict on Gordon Brown’s economic mistakes which left Britain with one of the biggest deficits in the developed world, and gave us the longest and deepest recession since the war. As The Sun put it, "GORDON Brown has saddled Britain with more debt than all major countries except Iceland and Ireland." The IFS also say that "The UK public finances have under-performed relative to comparable countries. "The UK is forecast to experience the highest borrowing in 2010 and the fifth largest increase between 2007 and 2010 of 26 industrial countries. "Only Ireland and Iceland are projected to see a larger increase in debt over this period, with the UK sliding from its mid-table position in the international public debt league." IFS deputy director Carl Emmerson said: "Labour reduced borrowing between 1997 and 2007, but most other countries did more. "If the Government ha...

For obvious reasons, I have not seen any sign of a swing to the Liberal Democrats: if they were to win every seat in England except one, this would be the one. In the constituency where I live, work, and am campaigning, nearly a quarter of the working population are directly employed by an industry which it is Liberal Democrat policy to close down. (And many more people work in businesses for which the nuclear industry or its' employees are a major part of the customer base.) In fairness, Frank Hollowell, the Lib/Dem candidate in Copeland, does not support his party's anti-nuclear policy. But as he wants Nick Clegg to be in a position of power, and "Calamity Clegg" is on record as saying that the thousands of Cumbrians who his policies would throw out of work (probably about 17,000) could find something else to do, Frank is unlikely even to finish in the first three. Consequently the recent Lib/Dem surge in the opinion polls has passed most of Copeland by - they may p...

After spending the morning with my campaign team in the centre of Whitehaven, I have just completed the Swimathon at Copeland Pool in Hensingham this lunchtime to raise money for Marie Curie cancer care. I swam 5,000 metres (200 lengths of the pool) in one hour and 55 minutes. Anyone who would like to sponsor me and support Marie Curie cancer care, whether you share my politics or not, can still do so here.

This is the most important election for a generation. Not just for those who can vote but for future generations too. We face an economy mired in debt which we have to get moving. A society with too much breakdown which we need to transform. Our political system in a mess, which we need to clean up - and cut the costs. The big question, the real question is who can get the job done. Gordon Brown can’t do it. He’s had 13 years and made things worse. He’s sinking – and clinging to the Lib Dems as his life-raft. But a hung parliament won't get the job done. It would be dominated by haggling, not decision making. The best way - the only way to get the job done is to have a decisive Conservative victory.

I will be taking part in the Swimathon tomorrow to raise money for Marie Curie cancer care. I plan to swim 5,000 metres at Copeland pool during the session which starts at noon tomorrow. Anyone who would like to sponsor me and support Marie Curie cancer care can still do so here.

Nominations have not even closed yet and we have already had several instances of four different criminal offences committed by people hostile to my campaign. Two of these criminal offences took the form of hostile posts to this blog. All fall within the catetory of actions which people should not need to know are illegal to realise that they are unethical and should not take place. Going onto someone else's land without permission to vandalise a poster is a criminal act (trespass and criminal damage). We have reported a number of instances of this to Whitehaven Police. Under the Representation of the Peoples Act 1983 it can also be a criminal offence to make false statements about a candidate in an election. In 2007 a Labour councillor was fined £1,000 with £3,000 costs, and automatically removed from office, when she was convicted of spreading the false accusation that her Lib/Dem opponent was a paedophile. It is also a criminal offence to make statements which purport to come fr...