Five reasons why the Tories do not deserve to be re-elected

Despite having a very good local constituency MP in Pauline Latham, here's why I won't be voting for her party on Thursday.

1.  The Tories have fought a negative and uninspiring campaign characterised mainly by telling lies about Labour's tax plans, lies about Labour's 'relationship' with the Scottish National Party, and a complete lack of candour about their own plans to slash welfare benefits in the next Parliament. Apart from a brief period around their manifesto launch, when David Cameron brought his 'sunshine' agenda back out of cold storage, the party's campaign has focused almost exclusively on spreading fear rather than hope. Such an approach is unworthy of a major political party and does not deserve to succeed.

2.  David Cameron has failed to engage with the public at any level, turning the campaign into a series of carefully-managed photo-ops rather than the conversation with the voters it should have been. His disdainful treatment of the regional press - for instance keeping local journalists in a room while he toured a factory - has been well-documented on HoldtheFrontPage, but is symptomatic of a wider reluctance to engage, of which the scrapping of the morning press conferences and his refusal to debate Ed Miliband head to head are also part and parcel.  The British public deserve better than a Prime Minister who is seemingly afraid of the voters, afraid of legitimate questioning by the media and afraid of what an opponent he has repeatedly sought to denigrate as not up to the job might do him in a one-on-one encounter.

3.  The Tories cannot be trusted with the National Health Service. Having pledged not to introduce a top-down reorganisation of the NHS at the last election, they then passed the Health and Social Care Act 2012.  This provides a route-map towards a nightmarish future in which the NHS ceases to exist as an organisational entity, with health care commissioned by GPs from a panoply of mainly private providers.  Once the profit-motive becomes embedded in our health service, it will be impossible to maintain it as free at the point of delivery.  Private providers have shareholders to please and profit margins to meet, and this will inevitably get passed on to patients.

4.  George Osborne's management of the economy has led to an uneven recovery which has widened the divide between the haves and the have nots and kept wage levels depressed while the cost of living has increased. The economic statictics may tell a positive story for the Conservatives, but the experiences of people at the sharp end tell another and small business people, public sector workers and anyone living north of Watford Gap have seen very little evidence of recovery at all. For all the Chancellor's talk about creating a 'Northern Powerhouse,' the economic divide between the North and South of the UK has grown over the past five years, with potentially baleful repercussions for the unity of the British state.

5.  The Tories' reckless promise of an in-out referendum on European Union membership in 2017 will create two years of uncertainty in the business community which will further paralyse already sluggish economic growth in the UK.  The Europe question was decisively settled by a previous generation in 1975 and millions of British jobs and livelihoods now depend on EU membership.  The issue does not need to be reopened now just so Mr Cameron can appease his recalcitrant backbenchers or seek to win back a disaffected, xenophobic minority who have temporarily deserted his party for Nigel Farage and UKIP

Tomorrow, I give my five reasons why I'm backing a Labour/Lib Dem coalition as the best election outcome.

The Mid Derbyshire Hustings 2015

Five years ago I produced this blog post about the election hustings for the new Mid-Derbyshire constituency organised by Churches Together in Duffield.

Churches Together has since renamed itself the Duffield Christian Council and last night I took myself along to the follow-up event at Ecclesbourne School in the village to see how this year's candidates measured up.

On the stage were Pauline Latham, defending the seat for the Conservatives after five years as its MP, and the four opponents hoping to wrest it from her.

They were Nicola Heaton for Labour, Hilary Jones for the Lib Dems, Martin Fitzpatrick for UKIP and Sue McFarlane for the Greens.

As was the case five years ago, the result is probably a foregone conclusion. Pauline is going to win and, having been a hard-working and reasonably effective constituency MP since 2010, there will be many who say it's no less than she deserves.

She has been particularly effective on local planning issues, helping to reduce the number of homes planned for green belt land in Belper and opposing similar plans in Allestree, and this came through in her response to the first question, which concerned farming and planning.

Nevertheless I think even Pauline would confess to having been outshone by the Green Party candidate, Sue McFarlane from Belper, who on this and other issues spoke with the genuine passion of someone who clearly cares deeply about her local area.

I scored each candidate from 1-5 on their answers to each of the eight question plus their closing statements, and Sue emerged as the overwhelming winner with 38 points out of a possible 45.

The other candidates each had their moments.  Nicola, the youngest of them by about 20 years, showed great maturity in dealing with a question about defence after Pauline had attempted to claim that the SNP would block Labour from renewing Trident.

Nicola, who is a councillor in Nottingham, neatly skewered that one by pointing out that, with both Labour and the Tories in favour of renewal, there was "no need to involve the SNP" in the decision at all.

UKIP's Martin Fitzpatrick came over as eminently sensible and thankfully did not try to blame everything on either the EU or foreign immigrants

The Sheffield businessman also got the biggest applause when the candidates were asked what Private Members' Bill they might introduce, arguing that spending on the NHS and Defence should be taken out of the annual spending round and instead determined by agreed, cross-party 20-year plans.

Hilary Jones, the former leader of Derby City Council, was the only candidate who openly described herself as a Christian and who spoke of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which will almost certainly have won her a few votes from an audience largely composed of churchgoers.

But in truth, with only one rather vague question devoted to "Christian values," there was little opportunity for the candidates to display their credentials on faith-related issues.

Disappointingly, there were no questions about any of the specific issues that have greatly vexed evangelical/charismatic Christians over the course of the last Parliament, and when members of the audience attempted to raise some of those issues from the floor, they were slapped down by the organisers.

I'm not sure why the Duffield Christian Council appeared to be so afraid of allowing a more interactive debate, given that the event was only advertised through local churches.  Were they expecting Rentamob to turn up, or something?

As the Christian Institute points out in its excellent election briefing this has been a perplexing election for many Christians, mainly as a result of the redefinition of marriage by the current coalition and the loss of trust in politicians that this engendered.

Says the Institute: "The redefinition of marriage is plainly contrary to the Bible. But it was also introduced in a deceitful way. The political leaders hid their true intentions at the last election: for example, none of the three main parties at Westminster included same-sex marriage in their manifesto in 2010.

"So there has been a huge breach of trust. In 2010 the political parties knowingly sold Christians a false prospectus. Christians are perplexed by all of this."

In an election in which many Christians have felt disenfranchised, it was odd that the Duffield Christian Council, of all organisations, seemed equally reluctant to allow them to have their say.

Does Labour want regional devolution - or a truly national health service?

Pains me to say it, but Osborne has played a blinder over the £6bn Greater Manchester health funding deal and in so doing posed a real political dilemma for Labour.

Here's this week's Journal column.

http://www.thejournal.co.uk/opinion/paul-linford-george-osborne-seems-8737333