Phil Taylor

A conversation last night whilst out canvassing last night collided with an article in the Evening Standard today to create one of those moments of clarity that we are all hapless serfs kept in menial servitude by our government.

Last night I talked to a nice lady who was worried about schooling her young children. Her next door neighbour’s child had failed to get into the excellent primary school where I am a governor last September in spite of living around the corner. Now she and her husband were thinking of moving to find better schools although he had grown up in Ealing.

In today’s Evening Standard they reported on a Woolwich survey into the cost of moving. On average it costs £13,000 in London. By far the biggest part of this cost is stamp duty which Gordon Brown has ramped up excruciatingly to clobber the middle classes since Labour has been in power.

So our nice lady in Northfield not only has to persuade her husband to move out of his “manor” to be sure of good schools but they have to pay through the nose for the privilege.

David Cameron is treating voters with more respect than the Labour party. He launched the Conservatives’ Vote blue, Go green document today which shows how well Conservative local authorities have done in the environmental area and how much more they want to do in the future. Read for yourself how Conservative councils have the highest recycling rates and the cleanest streets.

The three Conservative candidates had a busy weekend canvassing in Northfield. The response on the doorstep has been very positive with very few people able to endorse the record of the current Labour council. Many people who would not consider themselves to be natural Conservatives have promised us their votes this weekend. People really don’t want the Tram and the deplorable state of the local environment and the high rate of council tax are big beefs.

A common misconception on the doorstep is that it is a safe Labour ward. The Parliamentary constituency is a safe Labour seat. Overall control of the council is a huge mountain to climb with Labour currently having 48 out of 69 seats. Northfield ward though is easily winnable by the Conservatives. Go look at the results of the last local election on the council’s website.

Labour had 39% of the vote whilst the Conservatives were on 34%. The Labour councillors who won last time only had around 1,200 votes each as opposed to the Conservative candidates who got around 1,100 votes. The Greens and LibDems were nowhere, getting around 600 votes each.

I was delivering leaflets this lunchtime to six roads adjacent to Northfield tube station (Blondin, Niagra, Bramley, Wellington, Julien and York). These are nice roads to live in. Near the tube, near parks, near shops. The council really lets them down though. They all have the same early 20th century street lamps. They all have the same broken pavements and unmaintained roads. There is lots of grafitti and dumped rubbish. The two nearby green spaces, Blondin and Bramley, have tarmac paths rather than flagged paths and the railings are either unpainted or are ugly chain link fencing.

The only bits of public infrastructure that are new are the controlled parking zone signs (these make the council money) and the expensive signs at the entrance to the green spaces identifying them as being run by Ealing council (the council advertising itself).

If the Conservatives are elected they will put £1.8 million straight into the environment immediately by reducing wasteful, unnecessary programmes such as Around Ealing. We will then add another £1.5 million a year to the environment budget. This will mean a £7.8 million uplift in spending on the environment over the next four year council term office. We would expect these roads to look a lot smarter under the Conservatives.

The Conservatives have been doing some research into the LibDems’ policy of local income tax to replace the council tax. They calculate that a typical working family living in London would face an additional bill of £1,446 a year.

According to Conservative research, Liberal Democrat councils in London already charge £221 a year more on Band D council tax bills than Conservative councils, and £53 a year more than Labour councils.

I think we can assume that we will not be seeing the LibDems majoring on local income tax in their leaflets over the next few weeks!

I got a letter today from Darra Singh, the unelected Chief Executive of Ealing Council. Of course I was not the only one. He was writing to all councillors and candidates. He was wanting to get in our diaries, assuming we are elected on May 4th.

On May 6th he wants 3 hours to take our photos, get our details on the pay roll and sort out whatever electronic toys we might need. He is then proposing to take up 6 evenings over the next two weeks on briefing the new councillors on the council’s services and internal organisation.

In the event I am elected I don’t want to devote this much time to being told what to think by the council’s officers. I want to spend as much time as possible working out how we are going to implement our programme and telling the officers what is expected from them.

Or have I got this whole election thing back to front?

The London Communications Agency, a PR agency specialising in London based clients, has got together with Tony Travers of LSE to produce a set of predictions for the outcome of the local elections in London. For Ealing they predict:

“Lab is likely to hold Ealing though they will be squeezed by David Cameron’s impact and more responsive local Cons.”

As one of the “more responsive local Cons” I think we will do more than squeeze given Labour’s poor record of achievement in the last couple of years. I don’t think LCA and Tony Travers are fully au fait with the Audit Commission fiasco, the paying off of our last Chief Executive, the Response programme and the 2nd biggest rise in council tax across all London to name just a few.