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.”