Letter from Parliament - Jim Dobbin MP

Want to buy this photo?

Jim Dobbin MP

Every week seems to bring fresh announcements attacking every facet of the public services including local government, NHS, police, education and the voluntary sector. In all of these areas the Tory-led Coalition are trying to make public sector workers the scapegoats for the economic deficit. While public sector workers face a pay freeze, bankers bailed out by the tax payer are receiving millions in record bonuses. The bankers who are primarily responsible for creating the deficit still owe billions to the taxpayer and the Lib Dem Tory government say nothing. This is a government shrouded in privilege. Cameron, Osborne and Clegg are attacking public services which they do not use and for which they have no mandate to attack.

There are probably two generations who do not remember the Thatcher years. In villages, towns and cities across the whole country, young people are now being politicised as they feel the effects of the cuts and communities are reacting as services disappear. The anger is growing as these draconian policies hit local people. I make it clear to our local NHS workers that I am against the Lansley proposals to break up the Health Service by giving fund commissioning to consortia. This will lead to the destruction of the NHS as we know it. None of this was in the Coalition parties manifestos and should be resisted by all Health Service employees. Our increasing elderly population will suffer, waiting lists will rise, operations are already being cancelled and we will soon see what post code lotteries really mean in terms of access to health care. There will be an uneven level of service across the country as GPs fund their own priorities and fail to fund specific health issues like knee and hip operations.

When Labour left office in 2010 we had record numbers of police officers, an increase of nearly 17,000 Police and 16,000 Community officers from 1997.

Now we hear there are around 1700 to go in Greater Manchester. The Lib Dem Tory government are cutting police funding by 20 per cent. So much for Law and Order.

Simon Danczuk MP and I continue to put the case for retaining the Magistrates Court in Rochdale in a meeting we had with Police Minister Jonathan Djanogly.

As a new member of the Council of Europe, I spent a few days in Strasbourg. During the visit, a colleague from John Prescott’s office was contacted by President Obama’s office seeking to contact Gordon Brown to check the economic statistics of his speech for the State of the Nation Address. Is it not interesting that as the economic situation in the UK deteriorates the economic performance in the USA improves? I wonder why?

I met Rochdale Law Centre staff who were worried about cuts to the Legal Aid and local funding and I promised to put pressure on the government.

A young constituent Michael Lillis from Norden, who graduated recently, spent some time in my office in London last month to see how Parliament functions. He is leaving the UK soon to go travelling and walking in South America. I send him my best wishes and hope he enjoys his expedition.

The sale of our forests to their millionaire friends by the Coalition government will be covered in my next letter.

It has caused outrage across the country.