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I wonder just how valuable these leaflets are. I have just received my first Conservative leaflet, more like a small book. Presumably this is hot off the press but it contains items which seem out of date and also uninformed.
The back page states: "The Big Issue: People say the only thing to change in the last 13 years is that Labour are selling off our port and closing down Dover's hospital.......If things stay the same, all we will get is Labour's polyclinic in the car park. And our port will be sold off to the French, or whoever."
I was under the impression that the polyclinic in the car park was a dead duck many moons ago, having been sunk by the Environment Agency saying that it was forbidden to build on a supposed flood plain.
I think that Labour will indubitably sell off the port if they get in, despite Gwyn being adamantly and unwaveringly opposed to such a measure. I am also positive that the Conservatives will do so, since privatisation is their stock in trade. Saying that they will review the matter after the election appears to be pure electioneering as the review will simply conclude that privatisation will go ahead. In the meantime, they will hope that Charlie will get elected on the basis of saying that he is opposed to privatisation since it would appear that this reflects the wishes of the majority of Dovorians.
I think that Charlie would make a good M.P. but he has a mountain to climb in convincing Dovorians that he is not a closet privateer. He is an advisor to the Conservative hierarchy and has advocated privatisation of the Royal Mail, et al. The one item he has not advocated for privatisation is the Port of Dover where, surprise, surprise, he happens to be standing for election as M.P. He will be uncomfortably aware that the last person who tried that was Paul Watkins at the last election and the electorate comprehensively rejected the idea.
To say "And our port will be sold off to the French, or whoever" is unfortunately either pure electioneering hypocrisy or demonstrative of a complete lack of awareness of recent history. It can be lumped in the same category as Barry's oft repeated mantra that Labour will conduct a fire sale of the port. The last Conservative government conducted the fire sale of all time when they sold off all the railway ports, together with the Sealink ferry fleet, for a derisory pittance when they privatised the railways.
This stemmed purely from political ideology, the Major government desperately wanted to sell off the railways before they were booted out of office and to make it impossible for Labour to renationalise them, as they were saying that they would do. In consequence, they were prepared to sell off the nation's assets for anything they could get. As a result, the whole lot went for next to nothing to Sea Containers, based in Bermuda and owned by American shareholders.
This was a direct transfer of wealth from the British taxpayer to American investors. My mother's generation suffered over a decade of austerity in the post war years to pay for the railways to be nationalised and added to the family silver, a measure that was essential to repair all the damage and wear and tear of WW2 and beyond the resources of the private railway companies. All thrown away at the stroke of a pen. The ultimate example of how our two party political system has consistently let our country down.
A news item last night brings the question of foreign ownership into immediate focus. The French own the Port of Newhaven, one of the ports sold off by the Conservative administration to Sea Containers, the rest of which the latter then sold on at immense profit. Newhaven is a special case as nobody wanted it and the French bought it reluctantly from Sea Containers as the Seine Maritime council own the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry service which they wish to maintain to attract tourists. The French council have spent a fortune subsiding the service and the beach in Newhaven was closed off to the locals years ago as they could not afford the extra sums necessary to maintain safe access. They are now having one of their periodic tiffs where Newhaven council are asking for their beach to be reopened and the French are having a hissy fit and threatening to go and play somewhere else.
Charlie's brochure is entitled "It's time for change." When I first heard that this would be the Conservative slogan characterising their election campaign, I could not believe my ears, having just had a year of this slogan from the Barack Obama presidential campaign. As a party criticised for having slick PR skills and concomittantly short on substance, could they not have thought up something a little less hackneyed? Now that Nick Clegg has turned the tables and used the Change slogan to point out that yes, the country does need change, and it is a change away from the weary duopoly of Labour and Conservative following one another into power election after election, I would have thought that it would be a good idea for the Tories to softpedal on this slogan.
All in all, this brochure seems to be an own goal in several respects and should do the other candidates no harm whatsoever.