The International Monetary Fund has given strong backing to the Coalition Government’s approach to sorting out the economic mess we inherited.
Some very difficult decisions still have to be made to reign in the £158 billion the country is currently spending over and above the income we are generating. An announcement on how we are going to do this will be made on 20 October.
There is still time to influence that announcement and I would urge readers to visit http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/spend_index.htm and have their say.
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I hope the weather is going to be fine for the reopening of Rock Walk tomorrow. It’s taken a long time and I am sure visitors and locals alike will be delighted at what they see. But then for over £3 million of council tax-payers money it ought to look good.
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New Labour Leader Ed Miliband received the support of only 19 of the 69 Torbay Labour Party members who voted, so I don’t suppose he will be rushing down to the Bay to thank a local party that gave over two-thirds of its first preference votes to his opponents – most of them to his brother.
The fact that fewer votes were cast in Torbay than in any other Labour Constituency Party in England won’t help either in attracting the attention of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition to focus on the particular problems we face.
Having embraced AV as the system for electing their leader, surely now they should apply the basic principle that a one member, one vote, secret ballot, is the only way to ensure the wishes of the membership, rather than the Unions, are reflected in the result.
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In the last round of Post Office closures 46 were threatened across Devon and only two, both in Torquay, were saved.
I’m really pleased to have got an assurance out of the Government that the Post Office is not for sale, and there will be no further programme of closures.
Sadly, Royal Mail is a different business, with different challenges. We have got to take action to save the universal postal service for the future. What we don’t want is a service where it costs more to post a letter in the westcountry than in our major cities, simply because it costs more to collect and deliver. The principle of a universal postal rate wherever you live is what we must protect.
The Royal Mail is in a dire financial position and not taking action would represent a much greater risk for the taxpayer. We want to ensure a sustainable future for the company, a fair deal for the taxpayers, and a role for employees in the company. Ideally this would be within a not-for-profit arrangement, but one doesn’t yet appear to be on the table.
Labour ducked taking a decision and now we may have to sell off more of the postal service to protect jobs and pensions than would otherwise have been the case.
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Next surgeries:
Friday, 8th October, 4pm to 5.30pm, St Martin’s Church Hall, Barton Hill Road, Torquay.
Saturday, 16th October, 9.30 am to 11.00am, the new Paignton Library, Great Western Road, Paignton.
No appointment necessary.
Advice line 200036. www.adriansanders.org or email: [email protected]
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