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Michael
Howard has launched the party's 2005 general election campaign with
a rousing rallycall to the country to abandon the failed policies of
Tony Blair's Labour Party and turn to the Conservatives to give the
nation a fresh start.
But
has he said anything about tackling council corruption?
Not
as far as we know. Should he not be promising voters that he
will put a halt to the extraordinary waste of ratepayers money
brought on by corrupt planning officers. We estimate this
waste to be in the order of £10 million per council. That
adds up to a tidy sum. Enough to bail out just about every
other shortage in public funding.
Michael
Howard MP
Why
do you think politicians need to resort to stealth taxes?
Take
Road Tax. This tax was introduced to pay for road building,
yet only about 5% actually goes to build roads. The rest is
diverted to support other high spend areas, such as protecting
crooked planning officers.
We
need honest taxes for honest purposes? We need an efficient
government and an efficient local government. We do not need
dishonest local officials milking the system for their own
purposes. Building empires. We need affordable housing,
decent schools, and sensibly priced services. At the moment
council tax is crippling most folk. Not to mention the fact is
is a grossly unfair tax aimed only at people who are sitting
targets.
Can
the Conservatives under Michael Howard, deliver the above?
We
doubt it. The Conservatives have not tackled white collar
crime at local council level before. true they commissioned
Lord Nolan to look into the situation. But as soon as the
awful truth emerged via a recommendation for new criminal statute to
tackle malicious use of public funds and personal vendettas, they
hastily put the brakes on. Cowards.
Nelson
Kruschandl says : "It's Time for Change"
Neither
the Conservatives or New Labour have tackled white collar crime at
local council level. Both of these parties allow local
council's to run riot with your money - allow council officers to
deceive councillors and torture the public by refusing to answer
reasonable questions, the threatening citizens with legal action,
where these same planning officers know developments are permitted,
and is some cases harassing members of the public to bankruptcy, at
huge expense to the ratepayer - See Staffordshire
County Council and Brian Goodacre
as prime examples. The major political parties are simply
Chicken.
Then
as soon as the Human Rights Act looked set to give the common man a
chance, they changed the rules regarding Legal Aid funding, making
it almost impossible to obtain representation and justice.
Speaking before the Prime Minister travelled from Downing Street to
Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament, Mr Howard
put his party on the front foot with a promise to "do the best
for Britain" with an action programme that would reward the
hardworking law abiding majority, while delivering improved school
discipline, cleaner hospitals, more police on the streets and
controlled immigration.
Kicking off the party campaign in the courtyard of a central London
hotel, he declared: "The choice before the voters on May 5 is
very clear: they can either reward Mr Blair for eight years of
broken promises and vote for another five years of talk; or they can
vote Conservative, to support a party that's taken a stand and is
committed to action on the issues that matter to hard working
Britons."
Insisting that the Labour government has "lost the plot",
Mr Howard accused Tony Blair of taking honest hardworking people for
granted, and failing to recognise how worried NHS patients are about
hospital infections, how pensions are fearful of rising crime, and
how parents fear that their children cannot learn in class because
of the lack of proper school discipline.
Denouncing the way Labour has frittered away huge tax incomes with
little improvement in public services, Mr Howard offered a
"better way" which would help those who "do the right
thing and play by the rules".
He said the Conservative timetable for action would build a
brighter, better future for the country, with more value for money
and lower taxes, with discipline restored to schools, with hospital
matrons given the power to close wards infected with MRSA; with
reduced crime, and an extra 5000 more police officers on the streets
each year backed by tougher sentences for burglars and drug dealers;
and controlled immigration with an annual limit on the number of
people who can settle in Britain.
He declared: "Some people say I shouldn't talk about difficult
issues like the abuse of our asylum system and those travellers who
stick two fingers up to the law. But we cannot make Britain a better
place if we sweep difficult issues under the carpet. Everyone knows
you won't fix a problem if you aren't even prepared to discuss
it."
Mr Howard said he was not prepared to appease special interest
groups, and wanted all Britons to play by the same rules.
Buoyed up by improving opinion poll surveys and a party brimming
with confidence and enthusiasm, Mr Howard said that while the Prime
Minister was already secretly grinning about the prospect of his
third victory, there was no reason why the country had to deliver
Labour a third term in Downing Street.
And in a clear message to the electorate he embarked on a vigorous
four week nationwide campaign declaring: "If you're thinking
what we're thinking, it's time for urgent action on the things that
really matter: reward for hardworking Britons; school discipline;
cleaner hospitals; more police; and controlled immigration. So I say
again, the choice before voters on May the fifth is very clear. They
can either reward Mr. Blair for eight years of broken promises and
vote for another five years of talk. Or they can vote Conservative,
to support a party that's taken a stand and is committed to action
on the issues that matter to hard working Britons."
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