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February Newsletter
Keeping you up to date with my latest activities in Stourbridge. The latest campaigns, letters to the press and events in and around Stourbridge.
Dear Supporter
This government have presided over an unprecedented explosion in public spending from which our older population have seen precious little benefit. Forced to sell their homes to fund residential care, suffering the indignity of mixed sex wards, malnourished in hospital and for some the wipe out of pensions they have paid in to over many years.
So older people must have been encouraged to hear Gordon Brown herald a new dawn of “free personal care at home for all who need it” at last year’s Labour Party conference. Although anyone with half an eye on the catastrophic public finances might just have thought at the time that it was too good to be true. And so it has proved.
The “Personal Care at Home Bill” is unravelling as fast as you read this note. Originally the government were planning to fund it by cutting the disability living allowance and the attendance allowance. Anybody helping to care for elderly relatives knows how crucial these two non means tested benefits are. Opposition from the Conservative Party and disability organisations forced the government to backtrack.
So now the cracks are starting to appear. The government say that providing care at home to those in severe need will cost about £100.00 per week. More like £200.00 per week according to Age UK and the Association of Adult Social Care Directors. And the money is now going to come from existing budgets, which in the area of adult social care are already overstretched I can tell you.
In a bid to fund not enough care to those in severe need I predict an even greater rush away from providing care at home to those in moderate or lesser need. Quite apart from the hardship this will cause many older people, it will also result in people having to stay in hospital longer because budgets for homecare are going to be squeezed so tight. Thus making our current hospital bed shortage even worse.
Such are the consequences of Gordon Brown’s cynical electioneering to stay in power at any price.
Campaigning
- The snow set our delivery and canvassing schedule back a bit but we did recover with a fabulous Action Day supported by Philip Dunne MP and a record number of supporters, thank you so much to everyone who turned out.
 We finished distribution of our newspaper and we have produced a new report on highlights from the last three years campaigning. Read report
- Canvassing has been very encouraging; we have been door to door and on the telephone.
 My cousins, Daniel and Jo Bausor held an excellent fundraising party in their converted Pub with guest speaker Theresa May MP
Out and about
- I enjoyed visits and time spent with children and students this month getting round King Edward’s College, Stourbridge College, Redhill, and Cradley Primary School:
- At King Ed’s the history and politics students hosted a Q&A session. The audience was very well informed but at this age none of them have first hand knowledge of what a Conservative Government would be like so were genuinely interested to get an accurate impression from me about where we are heading.
- Cradley Primary School is a gem. Just 250 children so not too big, such a shame that this government’s overwhelming bureaucracy and rigid controls are sapping the energy and motivation of the wonderful staff I met there. Read more
- Redhill are firmly established as the leading middle school in the town and are now targeting GCSE pass rates of over 70%, including, unusually these days, a foreign language.
- Stourbridge College, their expansion plans for a new site in Brierley Hill are back as a realistic prospect.
- On the health side I visited Russells Hall Hospital and the Corbett Centre. The maternity unit at Russells Hall is an excellent facility but under huge pressure from the rising birth rate and the increasing number of difficult births. Like so many new hospitals around the country our hospital struggles to cope with demand as the new units have fewer beds than the hospitals they replaced.
 I have focussed on business and employment recently. Almost one hundred local companies have responded to our survey and I visited Arbil Ltd in Lye who also have offices in Cradley Heath and Coventry. Read more
 I visited Stourbridge Rifle Range which hosts a number of different shooting clubs in and around the constituency members of which are concerned about the future of their sport in the face of very tough regulations that appear to go beyond the sensible safety measures that you would expect such clubs to be bound by. Read more
- We are receiving more and more reports of anti-social behaviour causing people to be intimidated and sometimes frightened to leave their homes. In one instance a single mother has been driven out of her home by yobs who think they are above the law. So I have met with the Police and the local Housing Office to try to get some progress in several cases. Read more
- I visited Age UK’s national office for a briefing on pensions, age discrimination and care at home ahead of the launch of Age UK’s election manifesto for older people. Read more
Everyone enjoyed the Dudley South annual dinner with guest speaker Eric Pickles, it was a pleasure to be at such an event with no responsibility for any part of it. I just enjoyed the evening with almost a hundred others from across Dudley. Congratulations to everyone involved in the organisation.
Media
- I wrote an article about issues facing older people and the Conservative Party’s approach for the Stourbridge News
- The Stourbridge News also covered my campaigning on crime and antisocial behaviour. Stourbridge News
Feedback
Please forward this campaign update on to any fellow Conservatives in our area who you think would be interested. If there is any further information you would like, or if there is something you would like to let me know about, please do get in touch.
If you would like to help the campaign in Stourbridge then please do contact me: margot@stourbridgeconservatives.com. We are always grateful for support.
Best wishes
Margot
www.margotjames.com
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