David Cameron has an adjournment debate next Wednesday, in Westminster Hall, on "Flooding in Witney". Very unusual for a senior opposition frontbencher, let alone the Leader of the Opposition, to ask for such a debate. I suspect it's because he got so much stick for going off to Rwanda to paint walls last summer, instead of staying in his constituency to help flood victims. So he wants to show he does really care after all (and clear the way for a return trip to Rwanda this summer, which I gather is on the cards).
I'm PPS-ing in a DFID debate immediately beforehand, so might stay on to watch; if today's Defra questions are anything to go by, Phil Woolas will be replying on behalf of the Government, and I suspect it could be quite good fun!
5 comments:
Never mind David Cameron, look at these fantastic local election results! Brilliant! The worst for labour for 40 years....
Enough is enough, lets finally be done with this awful awful government! Roll on 2010, but lets hope Gordon is pushed long before then.
What a fantastic day!
Cameron shows how he cares... see how the electorate cares
The Sun says you lose your seat on a 9% swing.
Never mind cycle paths, you should have blogged against the 10% tax band cut
You do realise of course that voter preferences tend to be quite different in a general election? Just look at what happened after the last local elections.
Although if it said so in the Sun...then it MUST be right.
If you look at my "Gordon at the PLP" post, and my comment on the "A Transport Anorak Writes" post, I talk about the 10p tax band. It's also on my main website, and I've responded at some length to constituents who have written to me about it.
I intend to publish something more detailed on my main website soon, but I want to get the facts and figures right, as it's hugely complex, and I don't want to mislead people. For example, there was a letter from a pensioner in the Evening Post this week, complaining about the extra tax they would be paying due to the abolition of the 10p band - but the writer was over 65, and won't be paying any more - pensioners' tax free personal allowances have been significantly increased, so what would have been taxed at 10% will now not be taxed at all - the letter writer was working on the assumption what had been taxed at 10% would now be taxed at 20% (or possibly 22% as the fact we've actually cut taxes for most people on relatively modest incomes has been completely overlooked).
Given the complexity of the issue, I don't think it's blog material. As you may have gathered, most of my posts are either dashed out in a hurry during a ten minute gap between meetings, or while on hold to do a radio interview, or waiting for an imminent vote - or in the early hours of the morning when I should have gone to bed hours ago. I couldn't do the issue justice under those circumstances.
If/when I get round to writing something for the main website (there's the Bank Holiday weekend gone!) I will reproduce it on here and you can comment to your heart's content.
gazzerukuk I remember your Tories in power only too well.
In 1980 I started secondary school, by 1982 we had no textbooks that were not falling apart, our classrooms leaked, many of us had families that faced years of unemployment because there were NO jobs. There was no child support of the kind that is now taken for granted, there was no budget for training and technical investment, we had puny rates of growth and whole communities went to the wall.
If you think for one moment that we are going to let Cameron and his right wing friends walk into Downing St then think again.
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