Tory knife plans would add penny on income tax

When Tory leader David Cameron recently said: "If you are carrying a knife and you are caught, you should expect to go to prison. Plain, simple, clear." - he was effectively launching a plan that would put a penny on the basic rate of income tax.

The Home Office’s 2006 Offending, Crime and Justice Survey reveal that 3% of 10 to 25 year olds admitted to carrying a knife in the past year, equivalent to 334,167 people.

To imprison them would cost £4.9 billion a year, equivalent to a penny on income tax. This is based on the annual price of keeping a prisoner behind bars, on top of the cost of building the 100,000 thousand additional prison places that would be needed to house them all.

The average sentence currently given to under 18s caught carrying a knife is 3.4 months. Based on this sentence, nearly 100,000 10 to 25 year olds would be behind bars at any one time. Housing these people alone would cost £3.8 billion.

The capital cost of building the 100,000 additional prison places (equivalent to 40 titan prisons) would mean an annual cost of £1.1 billion through having to pay interest on the debt caused by building the prisons.

These figures demonstrate just how little grip on reality David Cameron has. The Tories have been just as irresponsible in threatening prison as Labour has been in pledging hospital visits for offenders.

By promising to imprison everyone who carries a knife, David Cameron appears to want to double the prison population which is already at record levels and the highest in Europe.

These figures for knife-carrying also demonstrate the total failure of the Government to get a grip on the knife culture that exists in parts of this country.

Instead of chasing headlines, Labour and the Tories need to come down to earth and forge a consensus on what works, such as hot-spot policing, intelligence-led stop and search, and restorative justice.

The evidence shows the best way to cut crime is not by posturing on penalties but by increasing detection.

Tory Come Lately

Nigel Evans and the Conservatives have recently been making a great deal of noise about the need to compensate people who lose out as a result of Labour’s decision to double the 10p income tax starter rate.

But they refused to support a compensation package when one was proposed last year.

In June 2007, in the House of Commons, after the tax rise was first announced, the Liberal Democrats and a small group of Labour backbenchers proposed an amendment to the Government’s Finance Bill which would have made the Government compensate those people on low incomes who would end up paying more under Labour’s tax grab plans.

Where were the Conservatives? "We cannot support it," said Conservative spokesperson Theresa Villiers MP during the parliamentary debate. Only one Conservative MP voted for compensation, and he has since resigned from the party!

Nigel and the Conservatives only woke up to this issue and started making a fuss this year, after the changes came in, when they saw the press were interested in it. More than a year after the Liberal Democrats first raised the issue.

Lib Dems Challenge ID Cards

Ribble Valley Lib Dems have pledged to fight Labour plans for a national identity database and ID card scheme. Gordon Brown plans to push ahead with the scheme, despite an estimated cost of £6bn.

Local campaigner, Allan Knox, said, “The question we have to ask ourselves is ‘Do we trust this Government with our personal data?’After months of losing the private details of millions, I for one will not be trusting them with my personal information.”

Lib Dem plans to tackle Credit Crunch

Liberal Democrats have unveiled a plan to get the economy back on track and make sure that it can stand up to the buffeting the international markets and the credit crunch are giving it.

The plan is specifically designed to protect homeowners from bearing the brunt of the mistakes made by banks.

Main points in the plan are:

• Taking the banks by the scruff of their necks, not tugging at their sleeves. It is time the chancellor made it clear that taxpayers will not be made to bear the brunt of mistakes made by the banks.
• In return for money being pumped into the market and the guarantees being offered by the Bank of England, banks need to come clean about the full level of their losses.
• Lenders must stop anti-social repossession practices. While some high street banks already ensure that repossession is a genuine last resort, many sub-prime lenders repossess in a highly aggressive manner.
• The financial sector needs to accept that there can never again be a credit boom like this.
• Credit must be more tightly controlled in boom periods to help mitigate the effects of a slowdown.

Meanwhile Ribble Valley Lib Dem parliamentary spokesman, Allan Knox, accused the Tories of having no answers to the crisis.

He said: “All they can do is carp and criticise the government. Their only policy is to say the Stamp Duty threshold for first timebuyers should be raised to £250,000, yet when you look at the sums - it doesn’t add up.”

Tory MP backs Lib Dem Policies?

Ribble Valley residents will no doubt be intrigued to hear of the views of Nigel Evans MP on “green taxes”. In the House of the Commons debate on the Budget he said: “Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that any "green taxes" should be revenue-neutral?”

This intrigued me, so I looked up the Tory party website to find out what their policy on green issues is. Unfortunately there aren’t any.

However Nigel will be pleased to hear that there is one party that has fully costed proposals on green taxes that are revenue neutral.

The Liberal Democrats want to reverse the decline in green taxation under Labour, and use the revenue to cut income tax. They will cut income tax by 4p in the pound and increase taxes on carbon emissions and other resource usage that causes global warming. So the more you go green, the more money you save.

So if Nigel wants to support revenue neutral green taxes perhaps he should be in a party which has policies espousing them. I can always give him a membership card.

Hold the Tories to Account

Yesterday the Conservatives held a debate where they demanded an inquiry into the Iraq War.

Yet for the Tories to demand an inquiry into the Iraq war is like Ronnie Biggs wanting an inquiry into the Great Train Robbery.

It is flattering that the Conservatives at long last have come round to the Liberal Democrats long-held belief that there must be a full inquiry into the war as soon as possible. However, it would have greater strength if they admitted the key role they had in letting this catastrophic decision be made in the first place.

If David Cameron, William Hague and Nigel Evans want any legitimacy in this debate, the first thing they should do is say sorry for the way they propped up the Labour Party as it pushed us into an illegal war.

Tory Post Office U-Turn

I was surprised to read the in Clitheroe Advertiser of 28 Feb that Nigel Evans MP has become a supporter of the Post Office.

The reason for this is that under the last Conservative Government, which Mr Evans was a member of, and that David Cameron was a senior adviser to, 3,500 Post Offices were closed.

When the Labour Government announced the current wave of closures on 14th December 2006, the Conservatives had no solutions at all to solve the Post Office crisis.

Whilst they gave us warm words on the need to support Post Offices, there was no explanation as to how they would keep branches open.

Liberal Democrats on the other hand have a fully costed plan to save Post Offices from closure. This would keep Post Office Ltd in the public sector but split it away from the Royal Mail. It would also then raise £2 billion from the sale of a minority of shares in Royal Mail and invest this money in the Post Office network. This would mean new equipment and new services. The plan would also free the Post Office from Royal Mail controls that prevent branches doing business for other parcel delivery companies.

So before Mr Evans starts campaigning about Post Office closures, he should admit that he has pillar-box-red blood on his hands.

3 days left to save local Post Offices

The deadline for representations to the consultation on the proposed closure of Billington, Mellor and Newton Post Office is fast approaching. If you have not already done so, will you please write to or email the Post Office and object to the closure proposal. The maintenance of these facilities is vital to the future health and vitality of our villages

Individual letters will carry most weight, so every extra letter is vital. Your letter doesn’t have to be long. Please try to make it personal and express your own reasons – why for instance it would not be practical for you to use one of the alternative offices or how your local office gives such a good personal service and provides a focus for the community.

Your letter (which doesn’t need a stamp) should be sent to:
Richard Lunds
Network Development Manager
Post Office Limited
C/o National Consultation Team
FREEPOST CONSULTATION TEAM

or email to consultation@postoffice.co.uk

Action on Climate Change

Allan Knox says: “Ten years on, Britain is still paying the price for the environmental failures of the last Conservative Government.

“David Cameron rode his bike to work, but was followed by his big gas-guzzling car. Indeed, Friends of the Earth and the World Wildlife Fund, gave Tory green policies 0 out of 10.

“The Conservative MEP Caroline Jackson revealed the truth when she said, ‘I think from the point of view of the Conservative party, pursuing the green line it’s all talk and no action at the moment.’”