New Tory MP for Bridgwater Sir Ashley Fox, who narrowly won the Parliamentary election this year, is under pressure to justify his victory and, with some overworked PR people, is making sure he’s seen to be commenting on just about everything. In a flurry of recent press releases he’s called on the Government to improve school safety standards, demanding ‘swift action on unsafe school buildings’, further demanded that the Government ‘fix’ the ‘broken’ Special Educational Needs system, and called on the Government to make ‘efficiency savings’ in the welfare system whilst at the same time making sure he opposed the winter fuel reforms. Thing is, you’d have thought it was the Labour Party that had been in Government for the past 24 years not his own Tory one. We asked Bridgwater Labour members what they made of their new replacement Tory MP service.
Tory Black Holes
Bridgwater Town Councils Economy spokesman Cllr Mick Lerry (Victoria) said “Interesting to see that Ashley Fox MP is taking an interest in the last Conservative Government’s disastrous decisions to use a company that went bust, to build Haygrove school and the lack of investment for Local Authorities to provide special additional needs education. Somehow the local MP believes that both these events have only happened since the Labour Government was elected in May. The building of Haygrove School happened under Michael Gove’s watch who is no longer an MP, and when the Labour Secretary of State for Education visits Bridgwater to witness what happened, this will be seen as another financial legacy, to that of the black hole in the budget. At least the local MP will be highlighting the waste of public funding, similar to the lack of investment of the last Conservative controlled Somerset Council. The question to the Labour Prime Minister should have said: ” Could the Secretary of State for Education visit Bridgwater to see the how the last Government wasted public money on building Haygrove School and discover the disruption that happed to children’s education?”
14 Years of Failures
Mayor of Bridgwater Cllr Jacqui Solomon (Eastover) added “New MP demands rapid solution from new Labour government on SEND funding Haygrove School appalling building failure. Both of these occurred under Tory administration and neither were addressed by the previous government. Obviously it will take time to put right the failures of the last 14 years of maladministration, underfunding and poor practice of private building firms.Hopefully these issues will be resolved quickly and our children will have safe places to learn and the specialist teachers they need.”
Fixing Tory Breakages
Town Council’s Amenities Chair Cllr Tim Mander (Westover) said “So Sir Ashley Fox demands the recently Labour Government fix the SEND system well the first question to ask is who broke it? As the parent of a severely disabled child, I can confirm that as a parent you face 2 lifetime battles the first involves caring for your child on a day-to-day basis arranging and organising consultants/doctors/hospital appointments plus medication etc. The second battle is with the authorities, which being an advocate for your child involves, this covers education; child services then the transition to adult services fighting for respite care and every other support service that makes everyday life slightly more bearable. The lesson to learn from this is that the more services are cut by central government the harder life for those in greatest need gets. So 14 years of Tory austerity has decimated services that many users had taken for granted. Mr Fox needs to show some humility and self refection on the disastrous Tory years of government before issuing his demands. “
Invitation to work ‘together’
Leader of Labour controlled Bridgwater Town Council Cllr Brian Smedley (Westover) said “Well, it’s difficult to see what Ashley Fox’s role will be here so it looks like he’s planning to blame all the failings of the Tory government of the last 14 years on the Labour government of barely 14 weeks. So far he’s spent his time attacking the Labour Town Council and reporting me to Labour HQ for a piece of satire which was laughed out of court. His role will be to attack Labour in Government and in Bridgwater and the Lib Dems at county in order to try to rebuild the Tory foothold in Somerset, which was pretty much wiped out at the last election. He truly is the last Tory standing. In fact I’m quite nostalgic for the days of Ian Lidell-Grainger because at least he respected the work of the Town Council and was always supportive, despite being politically opposed. That said, if Sir Ashley Fox is being genuine and wants to now work with the Town Council in our agenda to take back control of our own destiny, regain the powers we lost in 1974 and build back a community from the ashes of the Tory years then we’d of course be open to work with him. I will write to him immediately and offer this, even though he hasn’t made any effort to contact me or any other member of the Labour Town Council. Still, we lives in hope and dies in despair.”
Great article and yes he’s definitely confused. Voting for welfare cuts one minute then challenging the winter fuel payment restrictions. I am not comfortable however with the initial focus on these payments being reduced as folk on the cusp of Pension Credit will suffer.
I’m just glad the conservatives realised they were so bad they left!
Well I’m still waiting for him, Fox, to insist that the Treasury restores to the Enviroment Agency the necessary funding to make sure the Parrett is dredged and other water courses maintained to make sure that there is not a repeat of the 2014 floods. last year busgets for these were cut by 40%, This year the budget has been cut to 50% of last year, all tory decisions. Bridgwater is a risk.
Working together. You’re getting it :)