Shrewsbury Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate

I want a change of government, I want to change our politicians, I want a change the way we run our country. I am prepared to work for that change and to be part of that change. If you want to be part of it too and if  you are interested in what the Liberal Democrats have to offer, then please read on.

Dr Charles West, the Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate for Shrewsbury, has warmly welcomed today’s opening of new affordable housing in Sundorne.

Dr West said: “Severnside Housing Association should be congratulated on obtaining funds to delver this development, but the lack of affordable housing in Shrewsbury remains a disgrace. There are up to 8,000 households currently on the Shropshire Council waiting list. These new affordable homes in Sundorne are a good start, but we need to do much more. Shropshire would need 1,585 affordable homes every year to meet the needs of young families and the homeless.

“The Tory-controlled Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council sold its stock of council houses for £65 million, promised an extra five hundred affordable homes and then failed to deliver. Residents have been let down by the old Tory-controlled Borough Council, will a Tory government do any better?

“At the same time, Liberal Democrats in South Shropshire were leading the way in building affordable homes. Not only did they agree planning for more affordable homes than the rest of the county put together they also started the award winning project at Rocks Green in Ludlow: a project that was opposed by the Tories and which later won Sustainable large social housing project of the year.”

Liberal Democrat housing spokesman, Sarah Tether, has set out plans for a £1.4bn empty homes fund to bring a quarter of a million empty homes back into use and create much-needed jobs in the construction industry.”

Dr Charles West said: “It is appalling that housing costs are making the elderly more isolated and keeping families apart.

“Allowing thousands of houses across the country to sit empty is nothing short of a scandal.  The cost of bringing these homes back into use is just a fraction of the cost of building, yet the Government is sitting idly by while they fall into disrepair.”

“These plans are a clear example of Liberal Democrat practical policies: creating jobs and providing more family homes.”

http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/story.aspx?storycode=6507066

Local GP, Dr Charles West commenting on today’s verdict on the death of David Gray said,

“The NHS needs to learn some lessons from this, and learn them fast. Quality care cannot be done on the cheap, and the government’s obsession with chasing competition from private firms is putting cost before patient care.

“The out of hours care service that killed David Gray, and was also involved in the death of nine month old Taylor Smith had some key features that should have rung the alarm bells.

• It is private company brought in by the Local Primary Care Trust (PCT) to provide out of hours care.
• It had been criticised by local GPs over mistakes in prescribing diamorphine in the weeks prior to the death of David Gray.
• It was know to be facing financial pressure.
• It employed fewer doctors than most out of hours services, sometimes as few as 2 doctors to cover 600,000 patients.
• It recruited doctors from outside the area. Dr Urbani who gave the overdose of painkiller to David Gray flew in from Germany, was not familiar with British General Practice and had poor command of the English language.

“In addition both the coroner in this case and the NHS Care Quality Commission criticised the supervision of this company by the PCT.

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The Liberal Democrats have announced a major funding commitment to boost education in Shropshire.

Nick Clegg has this week set out the Liberal Democrat manifesto commitment for a Pupil Premium that would invest around £9.5m of extra cash in Shropshire schools, raising the funding for disadvantaged pupils to private school levels.

The money will be invested through the Pupil Premium pledge, part of a £2.5bn manifesto spending commitment.

Dr Charles West, PPC for Shrewsbury and Atcham, said:

“It’s nothing short of a scandal that children in Shropshire continue to lose out under Labour.

"We have already seen Shropshire’s Tory Council threatening school closures. With the budgets proposed by a possible future conservative government we would see even more cuts in education.

“Under our plans, Shropshire schools would get a further £9.5m which they could use to cut class sizes and provide more individual support.”

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg said:

“With this unfairness in funding it’s no surprise there is such a gap in achievement between children from the poorest backgrounds and those families who are better off.

“Only when we get education funding back on track will be able to give all our children the fair start they deserve.”

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It may be that your readers do not fully understand the risks posed by Shrewsbury’s Darzi clinic (also described as a Polyclinic, a drop-in surgery or a GP-led Health Centre).

Shropshire’s Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel agreed unanimously: Conservative and Labour, Liberal Democrat and Independent all agreed that this was not the best way to help the people of Shropshire. The Health Overview and Scrutiny Panel had a responsibility to consider both the quality and the value for money provided in healthcare to the people of Shropshire. The Polyclinic model was devised by Lord Darzi a surgeon who was given a peerage by the Labour Government and asked to look at the Health Service. He looked at services in London and came up with a proposal that every Primary Care Trust (PCT) including our own in Shropshire has been obliged to implement. The PCT has been very cagey about costs but it is rumoured that this clinic is costing £10million. It is likely that it costs about three times to see a patient in this clinic as in normal General Practice. At this time twenty Practices around Shropshire, including some in Shrewsbury were in a queue waiting for cash to improve their practices. The committee felt that the Polyclinic or Darzi clinic was not the best model for Shropshire and wrote to the Secretary of State for Health to say so. The reply suggested that the Local PCT had some choice, but over successive meetings it was made clear to us that there was no freedom of choice for the PCT and the clinic went ahead.

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Local Health Campaigner, Dr Charles West, today condemned the practice of senior politicians taking money from business interests.

Dr West said, “We heard yesterday that the problem of money buying influence has got even worse. Tory Shadow Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley, it seems has taken £21,000 from the Chairman of Care UK. Care UK are a large provider of privatised services to the NHS. They run 12 privatised GP surgeries and over 200 services for older people.

Dr West continued “For years it has been the practice of ex-ministers to take lucrative consultancies with private companies. Patricia Hewitt, previous Labour Secretary of State for Health, has worked for Accenture who made a lot of money out of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) schemes. She is a special consultant to Boots, the chain of chemists, a special adviser to Cinven, the private equity company who own the BUPA hospitals and the senior independent director at BT Group who have also had lucrative contracts with the NHS. When Alan Milburn, another Labour Secretary of State for Health, left Office he took a consultancy with Bridgepoint Capital who has interests in Scanning services in the NHS and other companies offering private services to the NHS. Simon Stevens, who was Tony Blair’s special adviser in Health, is now Executive Vice President UnitedHealth Group a company that has taken over the running of an increasing number of General Practices in the UK, often against the wishes of local people.

“It is no surprise that both Labour and Tory policies for the NHS include offering more and more contracts to private companies when there is so much money to be made. Privatisation in the NHS started with the Tories and has got worse with Labour. Shropshire County Primary Care Trust has awarded NHS contracts for private companies to provide X-rays, scans and GP services. Unless the British people wake up soon there will be little left except a whole bunch of private companies, smiling shareholders and corrupt politicians.”

Background – see below

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The Liberal Democrats have announced they will fight the General Election on four key principles, designed to make Britain a fairer place.

PPC for Shrewsbury, Dr Charles West, has today set out his campaign priorities: fair taxes; a fair start for every child; fair, clean and local politics and a fair, green economy with jobs that last.

Dr Charles West said:

“People in Shrewsbury have been let down by their politicians and are rightly frustrated. I am going into the election with a clear direction and a manifesto that is short, direct and to the point.

“We will introduce fairer taxes by closing loopholes for the richest, introducing a tax on mansions and tax cuts of £700 for everyone else.

“Fairness also demands fair access to high quality healthcare. I shall campaign for the preservation of a full range of services at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital and for an improvement in Community Health Services.

“If your child is at school in the Shrewsbury area, we can promise investment to help reduce class sizes and develop one-to-one tuition.

“We would also give you the right to sack your MP. The Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to real change of our political system, flushing out big money and corrupt donors and reducing the number of MPs by 150.

“And we will rebuild the economy in every part of Britain in a way that promotes green technology and creates lasting jobs. We will put an end to casino banking, bring back competition and support local entrepreneurs to make sure Shrewsbury businesses can find the money they need to grow.

“The coming months are a crucial time for politics and I will be using them to focus on these four priorities and delivering real change for Shrewsbury.”

In his speech this morning (MON), Leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg said:

“David Cameron and Gordon Brown are playing the politics of the airbrush and the focus group.
“One doesn’t know what he believes. The other doesn’t know what to do with the power he clings to so desperately.

“I believe the country wants something different. The Liberal Democrats are different. We offer credibility where it’s needed. And hope for our common future.”

Editor,

How amazing that Mr Kawczynski is begging votes from the Liberal Democrats – he must be feeling vulnerable.  

I note that first David Cameron, and then Gordon Brown have been keen to tell us all how close their policies were to those of the Liberal Democrats. From where I sit it seems rather that Labour and Conservative policies are very much the same and the Liberal Democrats are the party with something different to offer.

Both of them voted to invade Iraq, they both were in favour of deregulating the banks, they are both in favour of privatisation and fragmentation of the NHS. If the voters cannot make up their minds between the old red/blue flip-flop they might wish to try the party that is genuinely different. The party that would abolish Council tax, that would raise the starting point for income tax to £10,000, that would invest in childcare in training and in green employment opportunities, and the party that predicted the economic catastrophe that would come from two decades of a bubble based on debt.

In Shrewsbury that would also mean voting for a local family doctor who has spent a lifetime (well, most of a lifetime) attending to the needs of local people and who is determined to campaign for the NHS in Shrewsbury.

I am sure the residents of Shrewsbury will see through this desperate attempt by Mr Kawczynski to snap up votes.   It is clear that this time round the number of LibDem MPs will matter more than ever and the party would have considerable clout in the likely event of a hung parliament.

Editor,

I welcome some of Daniel Kawczynski’s message on alcohol.(Star letters 31 Dec.) It is good to see that he does not follow Andrew Lansley, the Tory Health spokesman, who denies that alcohol consumption is price sensitive. There is good evidence that increasing the price of alcoholic drinks does reduce both consumption and the damage caused by alcohol. Unfortunately, politicians are reluctant to upset their voters, so Mr Kawczynski is content to criticise young people, who probably won’t vote for him, but is silent on the damage caused by binge drinking more widely. Much as we might like to pretend that this is a problem limited only to alcopop drinkers, that is simply not the case.

As a doctor working in casualty, I have seen the damage caused by alcohol through accidents. As a GP I have seen the damage done to peoples lives, and relationships. Today we have heard that Britain’s rising alcohol addiction could cripple the NHS. When I recently spent a night out with our local police virtually all their work was related to alcohol.

Both Patricia Hewitt for the Labour Party and George Osborne for the Conservatives want to increase tax on alcopops. The British Medical Association has a wider set of proposals, which amongst other things set a minimum price per unit for all alcoholic drinks. This policy would not increase revenue for the government: it is not a tax. Nor would it affect most normal drinkers, but it would raise the price of the cheapest forms of alcohol. It would help pubs and restaurants whose prices are already higher than these minimum prices and reduce the tendency for binge drinking and drinking on the streets, which is largely fuelled by cheap alcohol from supermarkets. This policy is promoted by Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats.

Yours,

Dr Charles West

Parliamentary Candidate: Shrewsbury and Atcham Liberal Democrats

3 Bellstone,  Shrewsbury  SY1 1HU

tel:   07775 800744

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8433935.stm

Editor,

The letter from Marc Dubois in tonight’s Star makes a marked contrast with that from our MP of two weeks ago. How sad and how inappropriate that our MP should encourage narrow minded and selfish behaviour at this time of year. Mr Kawczynski tells us that he believes that Charity begins at home. Perhaps he would do well to look at the origins of this saying. It was first attributed to Terence, the Roman satirist and comedian who wrote in Latin, of course, and whose character said in effect “I put myself first”. The phrase was used in English by another satirist and writer of comedies Richard Brinsley Sheridan. In his play ‘The School for Scandal’ Sheridan ridicules a rich and selfish character, Joseph Surface, who believes that ‘charity begins at home’: begins and ends at home. Sheridan’s character is found out, and shown up for what he is.

At this time of difficult economic conditions we need politicians who show leadership, not politicians who pander to peoples fears and narrow prejudice.

Yours,

Dr Charles West

Parliamentary Candidate: Shrewsbury and Atcham Liberal Democrats

3 Bellstone,

Shrewsbury

SY1 1HU

tel:   07775 800744

Dr Charles West, Local Liberal Democrat campaigner today condemned government proposals to cut university funding by more than £500m.

Dr West, said:

“This is yet another blow to University education. Students will now be faced with less choice, lower standards and fewer teaching hours.

Dr West continued:

“Students from Shrewsbury are already facing a triple blow. They have high and increasing travel costs in getting to university, student loans have been paid late and now there is a real possibility that top-up fees will go up while choice and standards will go down.

Peter Mandelson has already been laying the groundwork for a massive hike in tuition fees that will leave students with tens of thousands of pounds of debt and deter those from poorer backgrounds from studying at university at all. This week David Blanchflower has suggested that students should pay fees of up to £30,000.

“Only the Liberal Democrats are prepared to stand up for students from all backgrounds. That’s why we’ve pledged to scrap tuition fees and fight any plans to raise them.”

Local Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate, Dr Charles West has signed a National Union of Students (NUS) pledge to voters ahead of the forthcoming General Election that if elected, he will oppose any increase in fees in the next Parliament, and put pressure on the Government to introduce a fairer alternative to variable top-up fees.

Labour and Tories both keep quiet on costs

Dr West added:

"This feels like a conspiracy between Labour and the Tories to avoid saying what their plans are for student fees until after the election. When Peter Mandelson announced the review of Student tuition fees he said that the review would not report until after the general election.

“As we get to the end of this tired Labour Government ministers are putting off as many difficult decisions as they can, and it seems that the Tories are no more keen to be open about their plans. Students deserve to know what the different parties propose. The Liberal Democrats want to scrap tuition fees and will fight any attempt to raise the cap."

Shropshire student Danny Sweeny said:

“Reducing or scrapping tuition fees would be beneficial to everybody as some potential students are put off university by the fear of debt, which means a less skilled population in the long run and damages the economy. Another big issue particularly for students that have to travel far to university, as most do from Shropshire, is the cost of train fares.  There can be times at which students are wondering if they can afford to eat. This issue needs to be addressed urgently.”

NUS President Wes Streeting said:

"The vast majority of the general public are against higher fees, and although this review has been set up to report after the general election, voters deserve to know where their prospective MP stands on this highly emotive issue.

"I am delighted that Charles West has stood up for students and young people in Shrewsbury by signing this pledge.   He has demonstrated his determination to give every young person in Shrewsbury a fair chance to go to university.”

A recent YouGov poll commissioned by pressure group Compass revealed that only 12% of the public think the review should even consider increasing fees, while a majority believes that it should look at alternatives to fees.

Background.

• 1998 annual tuition fees were introduced for students. £1,175.
• In 2006 the fees became variable subject to a maximum of £3,000.
• For the year 2009-2010 Students from England have to pay up to £3,225 if they go to a university in England or Wales. They pay £1,775 if they go to a university in Scotland.
• Scottish students attending a university in Scotland pay no tuition fees.
• Welsh students attending a university in Wales pay a reduced fee of £1,285.
• June 2009 Vice Chancellors call for an increase in student top-up fees. Various figures have been suggested from £5,000 to £8,000
• November Lord Mandelson announced a review of Student tuition charges. The review will be chaired by Lord John Browne, and will not report until after the next general election.
• 7^th December Lord Browne’s review panel called for evidence and announced that hearings will be heard in public.
• 27^th December economist Danny Blanchflower calls for student fees to rise to as much as £30,000 per year.