Letter from Parliament - Jim Dobbin MP

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Jim Dobbin MP

This economic crisis began before the last General Election. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling had been forecasting this repeatedly and were pushing for a global solution and a united front from every country against the financial markets and speculators and at home they acted decisively to save the UK banking system. At the time David Cameron, Nick Clegg and George Osborne were blaming everything on the Labour government. Now we desperately need leaders with intellectual economic understanding in place to lead a recovery. We don’t have them. There is no Plan B to stimulate growth and you cannot have a recovery without growth.

People are beginning to feel the impact of the coalition’s austerity plan. Contracts that should have provided jobs in this country are being given to other countries. Chancellor George Osborne seems oblivious to the effects the cuts are having on individuals and families in the UK.

I am hearing from constituents who are losing disability benefits who are quite clearly genuine claimants. The assessment panels who make these decisions are either inexperienced or under pressure from the Coalition government to achieve given targets as quickly as possible. These victims will increase as the Government continue to undermine the welfare state. The great Liberal Social Reformer William Beveridge would turn in this grave if he saw what present day Liberals are doing to his blueprint for our welfare state.

Local charity and voluntary groups are closing as their funding is cut. These local volunteers are the true Big Society but no organisation delivering services to the public will be spared the coalition knife. This large community sector of volunteers numbers around 7 million in clubs and societies and 17.1 million involved in formal volunteering. Co-operatives and mutuals along with housing associations and hospices depend on Government funding and local authority grants to deliver much of our public service. As these disappear, the profit motive and market forces will enter this system and the money will be directed to the private sector and the costs to the individual receiving them will rise sharply. This can only destroy the collective social endeavour that local communities are now involved in. This is a new entrepreneurial vandalism that will further expand the gap between rich and poor areas in the

I attended the Middleton Festival organised by Middleton Township, Middleton Round Table and supported by the Rotary Club. It was a beautiful day and the Middleton people turned out to enjoy the many stalls and events. They all did a superb job.

Councillor Alan McCarthy Chair of Heywood Township opened the new addition to Heywood Cemetery on 31 July. This piece of land should provide burial space for the next 20 years or so.

On 2 August I was present at a session on “Policing Today”, a consultative public meeting in Rochdale Town Hall. The Chief Constable Peter Fahy and Authority Chair Councillor Paul Murphy explained their policies and budgeting problems and took questions. I understand that nationally 31,000 police staff jobs will be slashed, 16,000 will be frontline police officers and the rest will be police support officers. These are worrying statistics.

In the evening I enjoyed a charity show at St Vincent’s organised by the talented Jimmy Cricket and his lovely wife May in aid of the Somalia famine. As usual Jimmy provided some hilarious moments with good clean humour and lots of music, songs and laughter. Thanks Jimmy.