National Campaign in Rugby

It's pretty clear that the General Election date will be 6 May and locally we have been planning for that date for some time. The national campaign is also gearing up and we have benefitted from the party nationally taking billboard poster sites with two in sucession along Corporation St. The theme is demonstrating how many people will be first time Conservative voters and the policies that attract them which is consistent with what people are saying to our team out on the doorsteps.

Male Teachers in Primaries

I am interested in the BBC news item here that, as a consequence of the recession, there has been a 50% rise in applications by men to become primary school teachers. I beleive that men in primary schools are important role models for boys, where a significant proportion are now being brought up by their mothers alone. I hope larger numbers of men in the classroom will help provide a better balance to our youngsters in their formative years.

Today's economic news

When last weekend I was involved in a discussion on the BBC Politics Show West Midlands and spoke about the economic difficulties the country faces, I was accused by my Labour opponent of "talking Britain down". Today the Times covers here the country's January borrowing of £4 billion at a time when records have always shown a surplus, and the Government itself budgeted for a positive £2.8 billion. In addition BBC News reports here about the biggest fall in retail sales between two months, December and January, for a year and a half. The survey that we are doing this month on the doorsteps and on the phone demonstrates that there are still some people who don't fully appreciate the severity of the problems we face, but the majority know that things will have to change. I was astonished that there was a tiny amount of growth recorded in quarter 3 of last year, as all of the evidence seemed to show a continunig decline. It is only recognising reality to suggest that the first quarter of this year will be bad. No organisation, whether a household, business or country can carry on with a mismatch between income and expenditure as big and long as we have experienced without serious consequences. The task facing an incoming Government is increasing all the time. The sooner we make a start the better.

Actual records or a survey?

Chris Grayling Shadow Home Secretary today said that he will continue to judge crime statistics on police records rather than an opinion survey. There is a disagreement between the Government and the Conservatives over which set of crime figures to use. Labour prefer the British Crime Survey - which shows a fall in crime - but which is based on an opinion survey rather than real records and fails to take account of hundreds of thousands of offences including murder, manslaughter, crimes against commercial premises and crimes against under-16s. We have consistently argued in favour of using recorded crime figures as collated by the police in police stations. When it comes to decisions making in Business or in Government and given a choice between a survey and recorded data, I know which I would rather rely on.

Teaching Cooking

My daughter, who is in Year 7, has been given at school a recipe book to bring home which complements her cookery lessons. Nothing wrong with that, but it contains a foreward by Rt Hon Ed Balls MP including his photo, without anywhere referring to his position in Government, and containing the quote ".....with millions of pounds invested in building and revamping teaching kitchens in schools etc". Is this a reasonable teaching aid or the political targeting of pupils at an early age and their parents? Should the Minister's photo and comments appear in such a document? Should his remarks triumph the Government's expenditure in this area? Is it what we should expect from a politician such as Ed Balls? Or am I being too sensitive?

Better Teaching

I was pleased to see an emphasis on improving teaching standards within the draft education manifesto the Conservatives launched to today. Attracting the best quaility graduates into the teaching profesion by raising the status of teachers is the right thing to do but it's also important to remember that just because someone is good at a subject or skill they will make a good teacher. Most people will remember from their schooldays who the best teachers were and they weren't always the ones with the best degrees. Passing on enthusiasm for a subject and an ability to understand people is often just as important. This can often be seen in sport where the best players don't make the best coaches or managers, and where good managers often weren't the best players. Alex Ferguson of Manchester United is perhaps the best example of the latter. In my own career I worked for someone who was great as at getting the business in, but lousy at handling people and so I moved to an organisation where my line manger was by no means the best salesman I met, but always had time for, and a knack of getting the best out of people. As we work to improve the opportunities for our young people in our education system it will be increasingly important to look out for this skill and ensure that those who have it are motivated to join the teaching profession.

Developing Sure Start

Last year I visited the Sure Start centre in Brownsover and saw the work they do in supporting parents with young children. As a parent myself I know that nothing prepares you for having children of your own, how life changes completely and how difficult the early years are, particularly when other children come along. The support that pre school children centres provide is invaluable, particularly as in many cases support which in the past might have been provided by the family, often isn't available. Labour said we would axe them and they were wrong. I was pleased when David Cameron earlier this week announced the Conservative's commitment to Sure Start but with a renewed emphasis on intervention to help the most disadvantaged familes and the opportunity for independent organisations to run them. There is more about David's speech (where interestingly he was accompanied by Labour MP Frank Field) here.

Return my DNA

I had an interesting conversation at the week-end about the retention of DNA on a national database by the police as an aid to sloving crime. It was put to me that more crimes would be solved if the police retain DNA of people who are arrested but are subsequently not charged in addition to those who are found guilty. My sense of freedom of the individual led me to disagree. I believe that there is no right for the state to hold such data on people who are innocent of any crime. It seems that the benefits to the police of such data are in any event over stated with todays Telegraph having an article here about the statement from a senior police officer that DNA solves just one in 150 crimes. Following Damian Green MP's high profile arrest last he campaigned successfully for his own DNA to be released. The Conservatives have now taken up this issue as a campaign which you can support here.

Only G20 country still in recession

The Times carries a report here that the UK remains the country still in recession despite Alistair Darling's contention that our economy would be back in growth by the end of the year. So much for us being better prepared to weather the storm. The economy has shrunk by 6% since the recession began in Quarter 2 of 2008. One of the commentors draws attention to the fact that the public sector has not (yet) reduced in size and so therefore the decline in the private sector has been significantly greater. It is sometimes easy to forget that it is the weath created by the private sector which provides the resources for the public sector to provide the services we all need. So it is vital that we get the incentives in place to encourage that sector to thrive once again,and generate income. Increasing National Insurance contributions by both employers and staff (as set out in the pre budget report) wont help with that and is a step in the wrong direction.

Vetting & Barring Scheme

A couple of months ago our regular monthly survey was on the Governments Vetting and Barring scheme where we asked local residents their views about the proposals for adults to be vetted before they give lifts to childrens friends or visit a school. A large majority felt that this would be reversing the presumption of innocence and many felt that volunteers would simply stop helping out. It was clear that while we must ensure the safety of our children at all times much of what was proposed was going too far. Now it seems that Ed Balls, Children's Secretary agrees. The Times reports here that he has promised a U turn. I used to be chairman of a local Twinning Association and we arranged for many youngsters over the years to get a taste of family life in France and improve their language skills as well as forming friendships that for many have lasted. I am pleased that these visit will remain as private arrangements and that registration won't be necessary.

Scam Mail

As a candidate I get to learn about issues about which I had previously little knowledge. I recently met a family where an elderly reliative has become a victim of scam mail. Prior to the meeting I had no idea of the extent or seriousness of this where often vulnerable people are tricked into sending off money through the post. The sums involved can amount to tens of thousands of pounds. There is a really useful website at www.thinkjessica.com which gives details of how the scams work, instances of how people have been affected and some useful advice on how to avoid them and support those who have been drawn in. We hear a great deal about internet scams but less about those through the post. Most of us enjoy receiving post and here criminals are preying often on the elderly who live alone and look forward to the contact through letters delivered by the postman.

More Government Waste

So Gordon Brown has found a further £3 billion of savings to add to the £9 billion already identified, according to The Times here. Who authorised this expenditure in the first place? Stable doors and horses?

Defence matters

On Thursday evening I attended a social event where the guest speaker was Liam Fox, Shadow Secretary of State for Defence. At a time when rightly our concentration is on our troops on active sevice in Afghanistan, Liam reminded us about the threats and challeges in other parts of the world. Liam has been in his current role for four years and has built up great knowledge of defence matters which contrasts with his Ministerial opposite who is the most recent in a long line. I enjoyed meeting up again with Liam who I found to be an excellent Party Chairman when I was a candidate in the 2005 General Election.

Preparing for Government

The General Election counter shows less than 200 days to the election. The polls are largely in our favour with a good prospect of a Conservative victory and so many people are considering the process of handover between Governments. In the past 30 years there has only been one such handover which took place in 1997 after the Labour victory that year. Prior to that the last change from Labour to Conservative was in 1979 so there isn't a great deal of experience in the process. A further complication is that a new Prime Minister takes office the day the election result is announced which contrasts with the position in the US where a new President has a two month handover. Much of the process and preparation is covered in a report by The Institute of Government "Transitions: Preparing for Changes of Government" which is available here.

Voters switching from Labour

Today's Times has an interesting story here about Labour's cash shortage & that they are concentrating their activity in the run up to the election on seats where their majority is more than 3,000. No mention of Rugby where the notional Labour majority is arounf 2,500 according to Rallings & Thresher, but the article does go on to identify the 4 groups that are most likely to switch from Labour as being:

• Thirtysomething homemakers who voted Labour in 1997 but are burdened with debt as they start a family — they may turn to the Conservatives;
• low-skilled, largely unemployed households who will either not vote or turn to far-right parties;
• those in former manufacturing communities who no longer have strong union and Labour Party ties — they are also vulnerable to extremist lobbying;
• people approaching retirement in some of the nicer council estates who exercised the right to buy — they may also turn to the Conservatives.

From the time I have spent on the doorsteps across the constituency over the past three years I would say that is pretty accurate and would add to it a small but significant group of young voters from Labour families who will take the trouble to vote, voting Conservative for the first time they vote.

Creating New Apprenticeships

I have just returned from a presentation in Birmingham where George Osborne and David Willets were talking to student and members of the local business community about the economy in general and our plans to increase the number of new apprenticeships for young people. David spoke about the difficulty that apprentices face if they loose their job before their training is complete, how this would be completely unacceptable in any other area of education. Well informed and questions were posed about tuition fees, climate change, support for manufacturing, overseas aid, the effect of uncertainty in the postal service on business, the extent of tax avoidance and Govenment cuts to the College building programme. What was interesting was that most questions were posed on the basis that we will be in power after May and it fell to George to remind people that our assumption remains an "if" rather than a "when".

Even more spending?

The story to catch my eye in today's papers is here in the Sunday Times concerning Browns plans to increase spending in the run up to the election. Apparently this is not an attempt to bribe the electorate with jam today, but an even bigger stimulus to try to pull the country out of recession. It is as if the massive current deficit is not signifiant, nor that the the debt and interest payments we will be passing on to future generations don't matter. People sometimes say on the doorsteps that there is little difference between the parties. On the economy there will be bigger differences than for many years with according to the article Treasury officials fearing that increased spending will upset financial markets making it harder to service the national debt. The game is up - people know we can't carry on as we are and living beyond our means.

Tougher Scrutiny for Home Loans

When I was running my business, from time to time I would receive a letter from a Building Society advising that a member of staff was applying for a mortgage. The letter would ask for confirmation of employment details such as job title and how long employed. Up until about 10 years ago the letter would ask for confirmation of salary but about then that question stopped. This was because many mortgages were now "self-certified" where the lender relied on the borrowers statement alone about income, which is of course related to ability to pay. It was no surprise to me that this change accompanied the fastest rate of growth in house prices the country has ever seen. In hindsight this was an example of the reckless lending that led to the financial problems just over a year ago and of the lack of control of the FSA in regulating the mortgage market. So I was pleased to read todays announcement of plans for borrowers to once again face a mortgage affordability test and self certification mortages will be banned. Some times appropriate regulation can be the right course since soaring house prices are in no-ones interest in the long term. Read more here.

Porkie Pies

One of the many stands in the Conference, this one offering a product "endorsed" by Gordon Brown!

Conference Day 2

Speeches from George Osbourne & Ken Clarke.