I’ve sent another letter to the Wisbech Standard.
In last weeks edition council leader Jill Tuck had a ‘puff’ peice in the letters page which finished by asking for more ideas from the readership to help with the credit crunch.
So I sent in this:-
Sir,
Council leader Jill Tuck has asked for ideas to deal with the currant situation that Fenlanders find themselves in.
Firstly, she should refrain from taxing people more than necessary. She points out that she will force people to fund £250,000 a year of voluntary sector activity that she approves of. This is wrong, stop taxing people so heavily and they will be better placed to decide what charities they themselves would like to support.
Secondly, it’s not just the credit crunch that frightens people but the pervasive CCTV surveillance state with council snoopers prying into peoples private lives. Cllr Tuck should give a guarantee that whilst she remains leader, that the council will not use anti-terrorist legislation to spy on the contents of peoples waste bins or check where they live.
Two suggestions that will make peoples lives better, but I bet Cllr Tuck does neither, thus proving that she is a nasty authoritarian.
I do hope they publish and she responds.
Update They did indeed publish it in full.
>>Two suggestions that will make peoples lives better, but I bet Cllr Tuck does neither, thus proving that she is a nasty authoritarian.<<
Nonsense. It does not ‘prove’ any such thing. You weaken your arguments with all this pointless mud-slinging. Jill Tuck is neither ‘nasty’ nor ‘authoritarian’. Meet her some time and you’ll quickly see that.
Perhaps you think the Council Leader is the fairy godmother? She actually isn’t. Jill Tuck doesn’t get to reverse the countries slow decline into CCTV-Central with a wave of her magic wand. The situation is the result of many social factors and governmental factors which need to be addressed first. You’re a smart guy, so I’m sure you know that.
If you are serious about being a councillor then get out there are TALK to some people. The most common thing you are going to hear in and around Wisbech (well, second-most-common after ‘I’ve got a pothole’) will be “can we have a speed camera on our road?” When you tell those people how opposed you are to such things you aren’t going to gain very much support.
The public have become so used to cameras everywhere it is starting to seem “normal” to them, and indeed many think of it as the obvious way to tackle crime. This is mostly because of Labour’s failures to properly man and fund the police.
Now I’m with you actually – I don’t like CCTV either. Many Conservatives don’t like the rise of the surveillance state. But we can’t seriously do anything about it without addressing those other pertinent factors first. Which means we can’t do more than gesture politics in this area until we win a general election. People need to see properly funded law and order (a Conservative specialty) to feel safe and secure again and only then will the acceptance of CCTV be something we can actually challenge.
When that time comes, hopefully soon, I’ll be challenging it right alongside you – but with a blue rosette on!
In regards to taxation: you’re on a hiding to nowhere. Conservatives are the party of small government and low taxation. The fact that we are constrained by cuts and directives from a wannabe-socialist government is something we are looking forward to putting right. But offering some funding support to the Citizens Advice Bureau at a time when people are losing jobs and houses thanks to Gordon Brown’s mismanagement is absolutely correct in my humble opinion.
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