Snow!/Policing dilemmas/A National Care Service/Kimberley surgeries

21 February 2010

Hi all -

More snow! Please be careful on the roads. Here is the current weather warning:
http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/homenews/Severe-weather-warning-snow/article-1852433-detail/article.html

Life's been pretty hectic recently and likely to become more so shortly so I've been exceptionally busy: apologies for the pause in updates. I thought it might be interesting for many of you to summarise where things stand in the debate on care for the elderly and people with disabilities.

Before getting to that:

1. Two quotes - one political, one on policing

One is from the series that I'm offering you with one eye to the impending election:

“I tended to vote LibDem by general policy, but became disillusioned
by Party Politics as they seemed so similar from a distance. So I’m
choosing to vote for the candidate and not the party, and I respect
Nick Palmer’s views, integrity and accessibility.” Daniel Williams, Beeston

The other is not about me or indeed directly about politics but I thought would be of interest as it contrasts with the impression that many people have. The author is on my email list and is happy to be quoted, but as a serving local officer he's not allowed to give his name:

"I have 26 years' service in the police and until the last few years it was taken as a given that crime rises year on year. We were told this was due to higher levels of materialism and that's ' just the way it is'. I have never known crime to fall at all, let alone at current levels. I find it astonishing. It really is falling. It must be connected with better and closer multi-agency partnership working, neighbourhood policing and better more proactive targeting of recidivist offenders by the GOM (General Offender Management) teams. With a specific team of people having direct ownership and responsibility for problems in their area then it is all approached in a much more thorough and professional manner."

That's good to hear and I wanted to pass it on to balance some of the paranoia which the press likes to feed. There is a political aspect too: the Conservatives are including PCSOs in their targets for spending reductions, and if they were phased out that would kill off the current neighbourhood policing teams (stretched as they already are).

However, to balance that, there are still problems and I wanted to ask for comments:

2. Policing dilemmas

I also know of a local officer who's recently expressed frustration to me. He says that although there has been some reduction in paperwork, the paperwork involved in arresting someone is very substantial and there is a direct trade-off with the willingness to arrest people for minor offences. If you're patrolling an area and see someone committing minor public order offences, do you arrest them (with all the ensuring hassle of booking them, which effectively means abandoning the rest of your patrol) or do you simply tell them not to do it again? But if that's all you do, doesn't it demoralise the public who reported the offence?

His solution is more fixed penalty notices: if you are persistently noisy in a public place, or indulging in minor vandalism, or generally being a nuisance, he'd like to be able to issue a notice of a fine on the spot and then get on with his patrol (he would be entitled to ask for identification, so that the fine can be pursued if not paid). As with a speeding ticket, you could choose to pay up or contest it in court.

But the courts have expressed unease about the spread of these since, like speeding tickets, they essentially fine the alleged offender without a 'proper trial': they are concerned that the police may interpret "being a nuisance" too widely. This too is a trade-off, and I think there's a case for minor fines being issued without the full process of courts, unless the person being given the 'ticket' chooses to contest it.

There's a possible compromise: the Government is working to issue officers with handheld mini-computers which would enable arrests to be made on the street without going back to the station for paperwork - this is being trialed in parts of Notts. While this should save time, it's clearly still going to be more time-consuming than just giving averbal warning so the dilemma doesn't go away.

What do you think? Also, like other Notts MPs, I've been consulted by the Inspectorate of Constabulary team who are currently reviewing the force. There seem to be significant issues to the north of the county, where cooperation between the police and local authorities apparently hasn't been working well. More generally, they're concerned about the police leaving victims in the dark about what's happening (if anything) to their cases. I've heard this sporadically too: people saying they would accept it if they were told that there was no prospect of finding the perpetrator, but frustrated not to get feedback one way or the other. Is there anything else you'd like me to raise with HMIC?

3. Kimberley surgery

As many of you will be aware, the Primary Care Trust is consulting on what to do following the decision by Dr Sandhu to retire on March 31. Their preferred option is to add more resources to the other practices in the area (e.g. the Hama surgery on the main road) and ask patients to move to those: they argue that multi-Gp practices work better in providing continuity of care and shared professional expertise and specialisation.

This is outweighed for many patients by their familiarity with the team at the Regent Street centre and the preference for having a choice of locations within the town. I've been surveying opinion with Cllr Richard Robinson through leaflets and our email list and this is the very of the overwhelming majority, so I'll be arguing for continuing the Regent Street practice with a new GP, ideally working closely with other practices to help address any concern about single GP practices. There are two meetings to discuss this: on the 23rd, the PCT and Town Council has arranged a meeting in the Parish Hall, and on the 26th, the PCT chairman will be attending a meeting at the Baptist Church. I have to be in Westminster on Tuesday but will be at the Friday meeting to press the case for Regent Street.

4. A National Care Service?

It's a pity that the current debate on this is happening so close to the election, since that's disrupted what was a constructive dialogue between the parties and charities. The issue is this:

* As we live longer, more and more of us who might previously have died in our 60s need a degree of care, ranging from someone coming round to our homes to give a hand to full residential care in a secure environment. Dementia and Alzheimer's disease are both becoming more common, since they mainly arise when you've lived long enough for brain cells to deteriorate - as we're living longer, there's more chance of that happening.

* A few years ago, charges for NHS nursing care were abolished (eliminating an anomaly that you could be treated free in hospital but were charged when you left) but there are charges for home care (which the County Council is raising) and very substantial charges for care in nursing homes.

* If you have savings over £23,000, the charges will be taken from them. If you no longer have a partner living in your home, it can be sold to pay the cost. Many people find this intensely tragic: having to sell their family home both feels to some like a failure and like a door closing on their previous lives.

It's clear that care costs money and the current system is already extremely stretched. Notts is actually better than most: you can get some home support if you are seen as being at 'moderate risk', whereas nearly everywhere else in the country you have to be at 'high risk'. But there's a shortage of people willing to do this demanding work at what are not high wages. It's one of the areas where we skimp as a society (and then grumble about immigrants being brought in to fill the gaps).

This calls for a serious new approach and a lot of thinking is going on. The ultimate ambition which Gordon Brown has set out is a National Care Service, to provide a systematic care system to balance the NHS's health system. Potentially, this would be a magnificent achievement: just as the postwar Attlee government is primarily remembered for setting up the NHS, I'd be very proud to be part of a Parliament that established a National Care Service. But it clearly needs a substantial new funding stream. For a general discussion, see here:

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/

Where would the money come from? Depending where you live and how healthy you are, the cost of care during your lifetime will range from zero to £50,000. There have been several proposals, none of them very popular: The Conservatives have suggested a voluntary tax of £8,000, to be paid at age 65 and on condition you were then still healthy: this would cover £20,000 of care if you need it. Labour has suggested that there could be a £20,000 charge on your estate after you die, in return for both care in your own home and in care hones during your lifetime; an alternative Labour proposal has been for a 10% charge on your estate. See

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/funding-options/

for a specific discussion of these issues. It’s possible to caricature this debate (the Conservatives have had posters with a tombstone entitled “Gordon Brown’s Death Tax”) but the reality is that either we carry on with the current system (essentially no cover but pay up if you need care) or we have some sort of model to recover the costs of a decent service. Opinion polls show that most people like the idea of a new system but reject the alternatives for funding it suggested so far by majorities of about 60-40.

As always, feedback welcome. I have to say that in this period I’m really exceptionally overloaded, so I’d be grateful if you don’t need a personal reply, but I’m very interested in the issue and will read all feedback carefully.

5. Bramcote bus victory

Some good news for everyone who has been frustrated for years by the refusal of Trent/Barton to stop at several places in Bramcote during school-leaving times (due to unruly behaviour by kids some years ago). Details are here:

http://tinyurl.com/yl7rblt

Lots of us have been pressing for this over the years, but probably the most credit should go to the local LibDem councillor, Stan Heptinstall, who persisted when most of us had given up on ever getting the bus company to think again.

6. Coming events

Transition Nottingham www.transitionnotti ngham.org. uk have invited the clinical psychologist, author and broadcaster Oliver James is giving a talk and leading a discussion on the topic 'After Affluenza - a positive response to the credit crunch' at the Quaker Meeting House in Nottingham on Thursday March 4th at 7.30pm. Entry £3.

Best wishes

Nick

How should we tackle dementia?/debates/expenses

7 February 2010

Hi all -

First, many thanks to everyone who respond to my request for help in the coming election - I'm not sure what I expected, but nothing like the nearly 100 offers that I've received. I'm very touched and it will help make my campaign much more effective. (We still have scope for more if you'd like to join the effort!)

1. How should we tackle dementia?

Mainly, this time, I wanted to offer you a link to what I think is in some ways the most useful speech I've made in Parliament since I was first elected - it's about public policy for dementia services, and although it was prompted by the controversy over Bramwell you'll find it's almost entirely non-partisan. I've been getting constructive comments from colleagues on both sides ever since - you'll see that the Chamber is nearly empty, but as usual a lot of MPs were watching on the monitors from their offices while they worked (the best way to get through correspondence wihle keeping up with whaat's being said).

A word of warning: it's *nothing* like the cut and thrust of PMQs! It's long, it's delivered without rhetorical flourishes and there aren't many jokes. There are various interventions from MPs of other parties, and they're non-partisan too.

If you're not interested in dementia, you'll be bored. If you are, though, it's a serious analysis. It's the other side of Parliament that you never see, because the media thinks you only want the snarls and jeers. But it's this sort of debate, more than PMQs, that actually moves the policy agenda forward. I hope you'll find it interesting. Click on "Watch" after the link below to see it. (If you don't have time to watch it or you're not able to use sound on your computer, you can skim the text on the same page.)

http://tinyurl.com/y8llr3o

2. Upcoming debates

I'm speaking at the Beeston and District Civic Society on this Friday February 12 at 730, in Beeston Library (Foster Avenue): see

http://beestoncivicsociety.org.uk/

On Saturday February 13 I'll be tkaing part in the discussion on the tree clearances at Toton Sidings (4pm at the Greenwood Centre).

On Saturday February 27 I'm on an all-party panel debate oorganised by Amnesty at St Barnabas Hall, Derbu Road - probably 730 as well, but I've not had detials yet.

3. Expenses

In case you've not looked it up, the Legg Report which finds that more than half of MPs should make repayments simply says of me, "Dr Palmer has no issues". In fairness, many of the repayments required of other MPs are for very small sums (in one case 30 pence!) and these are clearly accounting errors, like the apparently duplicate software claim which I discovered and reported myself. The number of outrageous claims is a lot less.

I'd like to add that I personally think that MPs accused of deliberate false accounting should be liable to court trial like anyone else. The MPs and the peer concerned have a right to raise any arguments that they wish, and I won't express any opinion on the cases, but I think a fair trial in which all the evidence is heard is the only satisfactory outcome.

However, a measure of humility by all the party leaders who presided over abuses in their own ranks (and in some cases themselves have used the "second home" allowance to finance a very large country house) would be better than any attempt to score off each other. To give relative credit where it's due, the least bad record has been the LibDems. The average repayment per MP is:

Conservatives £2330.68
Labour £1279.13
Liberal Democrats £681.67
Others (SNP, Plaid etc.) £940.88

Unpleasant and lengthy though the process has been, now that we've seen over £1 million of repayments, numerous resignations and a number of prosecutions (with possibly more to come), I hope that people will accept that the issue was tackled seriously once the full horrors came to light.

Best wishes

Nick

County Council, Toton Sidings, Notts Police

19 January 2010

Hi all -

I'm away at a conference for three days, so this is just a quick update on issues discussed recently to keep you posted. Apologies to those of you who are awaiting a reply on any issue - I should catch up at the weekend.

1. Meeting with the County Council

The meeting with Cllr Cutts and her Conservative colleagues on the County Council took place on Friday. By tacit consent we avoided partisan exchanges and had a professional discussion.

My impression, for what it's worth, is that the Council was open to argument on the transport schemes, after I and other MPs pointed out the very limited savings involved in cutting off the support and the amount of volunteer effort that would be lost. I also said that the service (taking elderly people to shops and medical facilities) would probably turn up elsewhere in the system as a need that the Council would have to pay professionals to do, either as a transport service or by taking people into care. The councillors suggested that if medical transport was involved then the PCT should be asked to chip in, which seems to me a very reasonable suggestion.

They seemed less flexible on care homes. They didn't dispute that the effect could be a dispersal of the expertise on Alzheimers and dementia in Bramwell, or that it could lead to a levelling down to the statutory minimum standard, but they still seemed pretty determined. I asked them to at least look at the care homes individually rather than make an ideological policy decision to sell them all, regardless of their individual costs and benefits.

They seemed unwilling to reconsider the closure of the Stapleford recycling centre, arguing that better centres were within easy reach and that the current centre was ageing and would need investment to bring up to standard.

On gritting, we pressed them to review the experience of recent weeks and consider suggestions to avoid another period where the residential areas become prisoners in their homes. They said that the County had had stocks of grit well above the national recommended level, but agreed that a review would make sense.

We'll know by February 3 whether the other arguments helped - that's when they will reach final Cabinet recommendations.

2. Toton Sidings

Many thanks for all the supporting messages flooding in for my effort to get the owners to open a dialogue. There have been several developments:

a) I've identified the owners, who are a couple living in Harpenden, and made indirect contact through their solicitors, asking for an urgent meeting.

b) I reported the tree-felling to the Forestry Commission, who have sent two inspectors to look at the site: I understand that they have reported to their supervisors that the rules do appear to have been broken. I'm investigating what remedial action the Commission can require - I gather they are not toothless. Ideally I should like to see a requirement to replant!

c) I understand that the owners primarily had in mind to recover their investment by removal of the ballast, and had no particular views on how to use the land after that. If that's the case, the need for a meeting is all the more, since they clearly aren't familiar with the local implications.

I'll report back further as matters develop, and will be inviting councillors as well if a meeting can be achieved.

3. Chief Constable meeting

Most Notts MPs met Julia Hodson, the Chief Constable, this morning, to discuss policing throughout the County. She said that crime was very markedly down in the City (minus 27% in a few years) and in our area (Broxtowe+Gedling+ Rushcliffe) . She credited Ruth Hyde (the non-party chief executive of Broxtowe Council) for very effective coordination of the three councils in working with the police. She said cooperation with local authorities was not as good everywhere, and in general the picture was less good in the north of the County (Ashfield and Mansfield), and in those areas crime, although still falling, was falling less than in similar areas elsewhere. Accordingly, she was deploying back-office staff into the north of the county, including some highly-trained officers from the murder squad in the city, since the murder rate had fallen so heavily there: these would tackle the 'hard cases' outside the city.

I raised concerns about the thin cover of the popular neighbourhood policing schemes, with some officers covering two wards and delays in replacements when any left. She said it's now policy to bring former PCSOs who have trained to full officer level back to the area they were policing, so the area gets the benefit of someone who's been on the beat in the same streets.

I hope this update is helpful - it's written in a hurry between meetings so please forgive any typos, but I wanted to keep you in the picture.

Best regards

Nick

Urgent info on gritting of roads in Notts/what is happening re housing?

06 January 2010

Hi all,

Sorry to write so soon again, but this is a quick update, mainly about the snow and gritting, on which I've got a detailed briefing in point 2. First a brief PS to the last update.

1. Bramwell PS
In my last email I forgot to give a link to my petition to ask the county to reconsider its position on Bramwell care home. If you would like to support this and haven't yet had the chance, please go here

http://www.broxtowelabour.org/

and follow the link "Sign Petition" on the left-hand side. Thanks! Conversely, if you disagree with me and think that Bramwell should be sold off, I suggest writing directly to the council leader, Kay Cutts at County Hall, West Bridgford, Nottingham NG2 7QP – I'm sure she'll appreciate your support. Or you can tell me and I'll truthfully pass it on when I meet her to press the issue next week.

2. What's happening about salting the roads?
As I've had many enquiries from constituents about what the county council is doing about the icy roads, I've obtained a briefing this morning from them which I'm inserting in full below. I've interceded on behalf of constituents whose roads were particularly icy, with some success in getting them added to the gritting rota, but in view of what this says it looks as though further additions will be difficult and if anything they will scale back what they're already doing. I gather they are currently down to 24 hours' salt/grit supply. I don't think they were doing most side-roads even before the stocks started to run down – the fleet of lorries and drivers (who are working very long hours) is also a limiting factor. I'd suggest stocking up with enough tinned/frozen food for a bit longer than usual to be on the safe side, just in case.

By contrast the reports that we might run out of gas were just a scare story. I'm familiar with the issue from when I was PPS to the Energy Minister. Basically the system is that if demand increases then the National Grid bids for more gas through the continental pipelines and also asks heavy users to rein in (the heavy users get a discount in return for doing this on occasion). The system has been established for years, works well and my current information is that there is no cause for alarm on that front. The Government previously built up LNG (liquid natural gas) facilities as a backup for this sort of situation and this provides a further buffer.

Here's the County statement:
Our salt stock before Christmas was well up and nearly twice the recommended minimum stock, but the continuous severe weather conditions have meant that we have used up a lot of our stockpile and are having to be extremely careful in conserving what remains. This means concentrating on keeping our priority salting routes open and treated, these including all A and B category roads and in total being about 35% of the total road length in the County.

We have had more salt scheduled for delivery since before Christmas, but due to the very poor weather in the north and in Scotland the available salt has had to go there and we are only just beginning to get some more salt delivered, in smaller quantities than we would wish. You will know that this severe winter weather is scheduled to continue for up to a further two weeks and therefore we cannot at the moment change our present policy of prudence in salt use - should we lose the main salting routes then all highway activity and emergency access will be threatened.

There is national debate and concern regarding salt supply and we are talking to other Local Authorities both locally and nationally, but all are in the same position with only two suppliers of salt one in Whitby and one in Runcorn. Both Leicestershire and Derbyshire are following our course of action, and we are jointly seeking to source salt from other suppliers but this means it coming from abroad via ship with a long lead time.

We have taken delivery of quantities of small size sharp grit, and are sending teams out to spread this on icy footways and roads to provide a measure of grip and help as much as we can.

3. What's happening about housing development?

All the councils in the area (of every political persuasion) have prepared a draft document on where housing might be built between now and 2026. As you know, I've campaigned against a number of sites, though I know from my surgeries that there's significant unmet need for affordable local housing, so I'm not opposed to everything. Broxtowe has deferred consideration of the proposals and there won't be any final decisions till there has been a public consultation period, i.e. later this year. However, you may like to know what's been outlined in our area.

Briefly:

• The need for housing over the next 16 years in Broxtowe, as estimated by demographers in the light of current longevity, people moving out from the city, etc., is 5700, or about 350 homes a year. Some of that has already been approved or is under construction, and the councils have decided not to allocate the full amount for the moment, since the projections are uncertain (e.g. a sharp decline in new immigration due to the new Australian-style points system and the return to Poland of many previous arrivals may reduce demand in the city, indirectly reducing the spread to Broxtowe).

• The plan is to have about half of this in the area adjoining the city and half spread around the rest of the borough.

• It's proposed to build 550 homes on brownfield Boots and Severn Trent land in Beeston, at the north end of Rylands. In principle I think this makes sense, since it's land that will otherwise fall into disuse, it's brownfield, there are shops and transport nearby, and it won't do any harm to Beeston to have some more people supporting the local shops. I am concerned about access and will be pressing for this to be from the north (Boots) side, not via Trent Road.

• Other areas where possible development is foreseen are 480 homes north of Stapleford (which must mean field Farm etc.) and 1000 west of Bardills, including Toton Sidings. I have serious concerns about both of these, especially because of the impact on local roads and infrastructure (e.g. school capacity).

• It's also proposed to look at small developments throughout Greater Nottingham, but these haven't been specified and the idea is to look at local proposals as they come up.
The next stage is that when and if all the councils approve the report, it will go out to an extended public consultation. As always, I'll keep you posted on when that happens so that you can submit your views, and I'll organise further local meetings to discuss controversial sites and organise opposition where the proposals are unacceptable.

I hope this is helpful.

Best wishes

Nick

Should we protect Bramwell care home? What should we pledge on the economy?

04 January 2010

Hi all –

Happy New Year! I'm back at work a few days early, since the converted windmill sounded less attractive when we learned that it was (a) surrounded by now and (b) had had a power failure.

I'd like say some more about the local issue of Bramwell care home, and then return to the subject of the national economy, where it seems to me that nearly everyone is still pussy-footing around: I've got some fairly blunt comments.

First, in election year, another kind endorsement (from the former non-party leader of Kimberley Town Council, Colin Epton):

"When we wife and I were diagnosed as having swine flu, there was nobody who could collect the Tamiflu for us. My wife contacted your office to complain about the way distribution had been set up. We were both feeling pretty wretched and wondered how we were going to manage. Not only did you get back to us promptly, you offered to collect the prescription personally and bring it to us. It is good to know, in this day and age, that there are still MPs who care about the welfare of their constituents and will go out of their way to help them. You can most definitely count on our votes."

I remember the incident well, mainly because the people at the Tamiflu centre fell about laughing when they saw I was wearing gloves for handling the paperwork from Colin – they didn't quite say, "What a wuss!" but you could see them thinking it. I'd not twigged that the phone call was from Colin's wife and envisaged a very elderly couple, but anyway I'm glad to help when I can.

On to policy matters.

1. Bramwell Care Home

Despite the controversy that's raging over this, not everyone knows what it is, so first a short briefing. It's one the best care homes in the country (rated Excellent in the most recent inspection, last April) specialising in looking after people with relative severe physical disabilities or dementia, on a residential or day-care basis. There are separate wings for the various types of situation. If you'd like to know more you can find it here

http://www.any-care.co.uk/care-homes/118686-Bramwell/index.htm

If you'd like to read the detailed assessment of what the place is like, see

http://tinyurl.com/ycsdfh4

Note that the inspectors had no suggestions whatever for how it might be further improved, which is really very unusual in any sort of audit. What is unusual about the home is that they've developed real expertise in looking after people with various kinds of relatively severe conditions.

The controversy is because the County Council wants to sell it off to a private buyer (together with every other care home in the County). I've criticised this and have more than 1000 signatures from constituents opposing it. So that you hear both sides of the argument, let me put the County's case. They say:

(a) The County needs to save money. By selling the homes, the County can raise capital, which will help balance the books.
(b) Running care homes is not really a core council responsibility. Most care homes are private anyway, so why not let the private sector cover all of them?
(c) They will make it a condition of sale that patients cannot be forced to go to other homes for least three years, and staff cannot be sacked for the same period.

My case for opposing the sale is this:

(a) Having an excellent local facility for dementia and Alzheimer's is a very important local asset. Councils aren't only there to collect rubbish; they are also supposed to provide good local infrastructure. If the home is sold and subsequently closed, the concentrated expertise will be lost.
(b) The home doesn't make a profit at the moment, so it's obvious that any private buyer will want to raise fees, lower standards or (most likely in my opinion) merge it into a private home elsewhere with free capacity, and sell the land for housing development. It's absolutely prime development land for housing, at the end of a small estate off a main road with green fields behind, and the buyer could make millions out that; I can't see anyone wanting to buy it for any other purpose.
(c) The three-year guarantee is virtually worthless. If you got a letter saying that you could be assured that you wouldn't be evicted from your home within three years, wouldn't you conclude that after three years you could expect exactly that?
(d) The one-off proceeds of a sale wouldn't address the County's long-term finances: once it's gone, it's gone. If the County is so keen to save money, why have they just advertised a £71,000/year post for a new communications director to put across the County's message? Wouldn't it be better to improve the policies that improve the communications?

I am seeing the head of Notts County Council on Friday week and will be pressing the case.

Oddly, to my mind, my opponent has leapt into the fray on the other side of this issue. You can normally find her blog here:

http://www.broxtoweconservatives.com/anna_blog.html

As you'll see, she hasn't commented in her blog or email on anything at all since April (during the same period I've sent you 28 separate updates on local and national issues – see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BroxtoweInfo/messages ), but on Christmas Eve she sent out an email passionately defending the Conservative Council's position and describing criticism from me and others as "scare-mongering" and "irresponsible nonsense"; she stresses the point about the three-year guarantee. The message seems to have been put up on the site on Boxing Day but is no longer there (if you click on it you get a blank page), so she may have had second thoughts. When I think the Government or Labour councillors have got something wrong, I say so (the Labour Group on Broxtowe Council formally censured me for being critical over Green Belt housing development plans). I don't think most people nowadays want to have their representatives cling to the party line in every situation.

2. The national economy

I've said earlier that I wasn't every impressed by the national debate on the economy, and if anything it seems to me to have got more childish. Labour has promised to halve the deficit in the next few years, but has only identified one third of the measures needed for that, the largest part being the end of the VAT reduction (this week) and the rise in National Insurance (in 2011). Some earlier spending pledges seem to have quietly evaporated (e.g. the free laptops that were planned for primary schoolchildren) .
Meanwhile, the Conservatives have claimed to be fiercely determined to reduce the deficit, but have only identified one tenth of the measures needed – and now they've started announcing major spending increases, such as a new high-speed rail network. They've also said they'll switch NHS spending more to deprived areas: does this mean more spending overall (I thought they said we'd overspent?), or actual cuts in NHS spending in less deprived areas (like Broxtowe)? They've also said they'll press ahead with cutting inheritance tax for estates over £700,000, aim to abolish the top rate of income tax and `try' to cancel the NI rise
What's happened, I think, is that focus groups have advised that people don't like hearing about cuts that affect them and they want to hear some cheerful messages. But the technical term for this sort of thing is (excuse my language) "bollocks". It's simply not going to happen. I have in front of me an Evening Post cutting from May 28 a week before the County election. It says "Kay Cutts, Conservative group leader, said, "If we win on June 4, I will make funding available immediately so work can start on access to the IKEA retail park." We're now seven months on. Has it happened? Of course not.
For what it's worth, I'm a PhD in mathematics and a former member of the Treasury Select Committee, and I don't want to go along with this nebulous stuff. I think voters generally like to hear realities, since if you're truthful about the nasty bits you're more readily believed about the better bits. The position as I see it is this:

(a) The recession so far

Contrary to some accounts, I think it could have been much worse. The predictions of unemployment soaring towards to 4 million have proved wrong (see The Times on this: http://tinyurl.com/ydeewuz ), no banks have been allowed to fail, only two major companies have gone (Woolworths and MFI) and the fear of a huge wave of home repossessions has failed to materialise. The housing market turned last year at the point that I predicted at the time. There are painful cutbacks in several places (e.g. the ex-Beeston Ericsson jobs that moved to Coventry now look like being lost altogether, unless the last-minute efforts that I and others are making help), but we appear to be past the worst without severe structural damage.
It's an Opposition myth that we were especially indebted before the crisis (see http://tinyurl.com/44q6bu for Channel 4's analysis just before it set in), but it's also a Government myth that we were `best placed to handle the recession'. With a large financial sector and a big mortgage market we were actually more at risk than most. A third myth is that we've had a worse recession than e.g. Germany – Germany's recession was much sharper than ours, though they've recovered marginally earlier. The reality is that the world economy moves in step together, and collectively the world's governments haven't done a bad job – certainly much better than their counterparts in the 1930s.

(b) What happens next

There are two issues: how quickly to balance public spending, and how to do it. On the first, there's a difference of 12 months: Labour favours cutting the deficit starting in 2011, by which time we expect the economy to be recovering sharply. The Conservatives favour cutting it at once. Since tax revenue rises when the economy recovers, it's important for debt reduction not to push us back into recession, and I'm with the Government on that one.
On the second issue, both sides are nebulous at best, but there are clear differences in direction. Labour has said it will protect health, schools, neighbourhood policing and foreign aid, but by implication will cut more in other areas, with some proposals already emerging (e.g. the cuts in funding for some university courses and the conversion of one of the aircraft carriers into a much cheaper troop-carrier) . The Conservatives have allowed persistent rumours of a VAT rise to 20% and various spending reductions, including means-testing of the Winter Allowance and the pensioner bus pass: they are committed to protecting health and foreign aid, but not schools and local policing, and the PCSOs who deliver much of the local presence seem likely to be scrapped. Labour will limit new public pay settlements to 1%; the Conservatives will have a one-year freeze.
My own view is that we need to stop making new spending commitments, and look again at the ones we've already got. There are all kinds of desirable things to do, but right now is not the moment. I've taken my own medicine on this – I'm in favour of not renewing Trident (which I voted for in healthier times), halting the ID card project (which I voted for) and freezing all new motorway projects. I previously pressed for electrification of the Midland Mainline – I've scaled that back to saying that we should be next on the list when it becomes affordable. I'm consistently declining to support new projects, even those I really like.

I hope this is helpful. I'm sorry if it sounds too austere, but I think we need a balanced approach – neither carrying on as though there wasn't a problem, nor destroying all the progress we've made in public services (e.g. 98% of people are now getting hospitals treatment within 18 weeks of first GP appointment, against up to 2 years in the past). We've not done badly in a very difficult period so far, but we need to see it through in a balanced and responsible way. By being more frank than the national leaders, I'm hoping to play my part in promoting an adult debate, both here and in Parliament, and I think I serve you better that way than if I just rattle off slogans and highlight the good bits.

As always, feedback welcome, but NNTR (no need to reply) appreciated if you don't need a personal answer – life is hectic! By the way, I promised a plug for a local church group who are deeply involved in the climate change issue – see http://tinyurl.com/yh5kt3f for more!

Best wishes

Nick

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