I suppose like me you are tired to death of the ‘Neverendum’ and may be inclined to disconnect the TV and every other communication device within earshot, recycle the paper and go to sleep in a darkened room.

The campaign has shown our politics at its worst. 1975 was nothing like this, nor was any General Election I can remember, going all the way back to 1964. However, one thing I have ended up more convinced about than I ever expected to be is that we simply must not take what Cameron and the Remainers want us to believe is the safe, easy option and vote to stay in this dysfunctional ‘Union’ or bury our head in the pillows and just abstain.

If you ever want to have a real choice over who governs us and how – something we took for granted in those earlier General Elections – then you must go out and VOTE LEAVE TODAY.

In 1975 I campaigned for YES to stay in. To stay in what? I’m not going to say that I thought it was just a free trade area and no more because it wasn’t. It had political overtones even then. But the world of 1975 was entirely different to today. One quarter of Germany, all of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Romania were behind the Iron Curtain and controlled by the Soviets, who had sent tanks to crush reformers in Prague as recently as 1968. Yugoslavia (who??) and Albania had Communist dictatorships. Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia were still part of the Soviet Union. Spain and Portugal were just on the verge of ending Fascist dictatorships that had held power there since the 1930s.

The European Community we had joined had within it France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg plus Denmark, Eire and ourselves. Norway should have joined but decided not to. Essentially we were the democratic, free market states of Northern Europe and also (except for Eire) members of NATO. Closer economic and cultural co-operation between ourselves and our like-minded neighbours made sense. Besides which the UK was in serious economic trouble with strikes and serious inflation and the other members seemed to be doing better economically than we were. Truly some ‘visionaries’ might have nursed ambitions to recreate the Roman Empire – some sort of European superstate – but that seemed unlikely ever to happen and in no-one’s interest that it should. By being in, we, with our ties with the Commonwealth and the USA, believed we were in a position to stop it anyway.

Since then the Nine, as we were in 1975, have grown to 28. The Iron Curtain has gone and most of the states that were formerly behind it have been allowed by Brussels to join the EU (as it became through the treaties of Maastricht and Lisbon and they have changed the whole character of that body simply by being allowed to join it. Brussels has pretended that each of them has changed its policies and laws since the days of its Communist past sufficiently to rank it alongside the Western countries that never had a Communist (or a Fascist) past in the first place. The basis for this is territorial aggrandisement pure and simple and as fast as possible so as to advance the cause of the Superstate which is no longer just a pipe dream but which they are desperate to create as soon as possible.

This attitude is no more clearly revealed than it was over the Euro, created not as a common currency, as many commentators inaccurately call it, but as a single currency. Effectively this has meant replacing the lira, peseta and drachma with the Deutsche Mark under a different name and assuming that the economic policies that made Germany’s currency the strongest in Europe could be applied (irrespective of the wishes of their citizens) in all the states of the Union. We and the Danes have opted out, thank the Lord, but we have, nevertheless, had to pay out millions to shore up the Euro and save it from collapse. Meanwhile the peoples of Southern Europe are paying a heavy price in terms of unemployment for this nightmare experiment and we are rewarded for our abstinence from the Euro by massive migration and the consequent strain on all our social and other services and the pricing of young people out of the housing market.And can we be sure that we can indefinitely stay IN the EU but OUT of the Euro?

The EU is headed down a path we and most of the citizens of other member states never asked for or agreed to. The Remainers have made no case at all why we should continue along this path with them. David Cameron has shown that the people who actually run the EU are not prepared to countenance any change of tack, believing that we don’t really care. All Cameron and Osborne have done is to try to scare us with horror stories about leaving, in a campaign which has crossed the borders of hysteria and mendacity more than once. I wish they’d shown more wisdom and restraint and soon enough I think they will wish so too.

We owe it to ourselves and our children and we owe it to all the people in Europe who are suffering to take our future into our own hands and serve notice that we will no longer let the bureaucrats of Brussels take us for granted.

FOR ALL OUR SAKES VOTE ‘LEAVE’.

I’ve been so quiet for so long many of you must have wondered if I’d shuffled off this mortal coil. Well, I haven’t. I’ve been very busy and finding it hard to keep abreast of all that goes on locally. The news has often been pretty dismal too. However this has just arrived in my In tray and I thought I’d share it with you – together with my best wishes and promises to use this site again from time to time.

 

A Better Deal for Kingston

Unprecedented new government settlement for Kingston

Following the announcement in December of the adverse grant settlement for Kingston, strong lobbying from the Council, its Leader and Members of Parliament  has led to a revised deal for Kingston and our announcement of a reversal of the planned Council Tax increase.

The new settlement, revealed on Monday by Communities Secretary Greg Clark, will provide a transitional grant in 2016/17 and 2017/18 to Kingston, one of the worst affected Councils from the Government’s new grant distribution methodology.

As a consequence of this transition grant of £1.305m in 2016/17 and £1.288min 2017/18, Kingston Council is reversing its proposal to raise Council Tax by 1.99%. This will reduce the originally proposed Band D Council Tax bill by £27.44 in 2016/17.

The Council will still proceed with implementing the Government’s 2% ‘Social Care precept’, to assist in funding older and vulnerable people’s care. With planned reductions in the GLA charge to Kingston residents the overall Band D tax increase will be £8.58 in 2016/17 or 0.51%.

In a speech to the House of Commons, Kingston was highlighted by the Communities Secretary as one of the councils who have argued strongly for this transitional fund.

Mr Clark also confirmed there would be a review of the needs assessment formula for local government, a significant policy development for Kingston with nearly 30% of its population over 50 and suffering from a funding formula which is significantly out of date.

 

As Kingston seeks to rely less on government grants, the Council will continue to lobby on behalf of residents to bring forward a pilot to retain business rates, something the Council has been lobbying for since Autumn 2014.

Councillor Kevin Davis, the Leader of the Council at the Royal Borough of Kingston said:

“This is a significant victory for the Borough. We have made our case loudly and clearly to central Government and they have listened and acted. This is the first time anyone can remember that the local Government settlement has been changed. This unprecedented announcement is the result of a coordinated approach between the Royal Borough of Kingston, local MPs and other outer London councils talking to government with a united voice.

“We have been very clear with residents that the only reason we were increasing Council Tax above the Government’s Social Care levy was because of the grant settlement. Now Government has corrected this, it is only right that we pass on the benefits of our lobbying to our residents.

“There are still financial  challenges for Kingston in the years ahead with a significant revenue gap in the estimates for 2018/19 and beyond. We still believe we can best weather those years by being independent from Government grant. The Government announced last Autumn that it was adopting nationally, from 2020, the Business Rates devolution we had proposed and we are therefore pushing hard for government to bring forward a business rates pilot.

“As if our success on grant changes were not enough, we are also pleased that Government has recognised the long-term ill effects of the years since Kingston was labelled a ‘leafy Borough’ and our grant methodology was used to disadvantage us. This Government has recognised the unfairness of this and has called for a review of the needs assessment that will finally recognise the changing nature of Kingston and our ageing population.”