Museum Society

SHEPTON MALLET
MUSEUM SOCIETY
Public Meeting
“Do we want a Museum for Shepton?”
Mendip District Council Chamber
Monday 4th February 2013
7.00 – 9.00pm

Vacancies

The Town council have two casual vacancies for the Shepton west ward of the Town Council.

Councillors Cook and Dunscombe have resigned.

If anyone wishes a byelection they have 14 days to submit 10 Shepton west electors to call such an election.

I would like to pay tribute to Will Dunscombe, he has resigned for personal reasons, I will not raise them here.

It is fair to say Wills time as a Town Councillor has not been easy. The investigation that resulted from complaints made by the majority of the Conservative group, undoubtedly left there mark on him. The independent investigation found that Will Dunscombe did not break the Code of Conduct, the only thing the investigation did was waste thousands of pounds of tax payers money.

Will Dunscombe was the driving force in shaping the Town Council policy in regard to the skate park, I think it is fair to say without his input there would not be a skate park or BMX track.

When Shepton had a youth centre, Will was the councils key supporter of youth work, he supported the Town Council spending money on youth, but never received majority support.

I believe Will offered an unique view on those sections of the community that does not engage  in civil society, the cases he fought around poor housing, this never gets headlines, but this makes a difference to peoples lives.

The Council will be a poorer without this experience, Councils needs a mixture of experience, a cross section of the community, the need for empathy for those in need.

Sadly the vast majority of Shepton Mallet Town Councillors could not see beyond Wills direct way of speaking, but in a sense, we all are concerned with our High Street, the Skate park is now Council Policy, Will was a powerful advocate for these issues and he will be a loss.

Knowing Will thou if something upsets him, he will be back.

In truth I knew Sue Cook less well.

But I know she gave the Council her time and the community should be grateful for that.

 

New Year - Same Old, Same old

The Shepton Mallet Town Council held the first meeting of 2013 last evening. The Council elected a new Chairman, with Terry Marsh being elected, the new vice Chairman is Bente Height, she was elected unopposed.

The Council also set the budget for 2013/14, the Council will not increase the Council Tax rate for the Parish of Shepton Mallet.

Essentially the Shepton Mallet Town Councils budget is unsustainable, the only way it is sustainable is for deliberate underspending, this causes money to be unused and goes into reserves, this is then used the following year, this little game has been going on for years.

Last evening, the choice was between putting up the Council Tax up by 67p a year or freezing the level.

In terms of aspiration there was no difference between those who supported a 67p increase and those who wanted not to put up the tax.

The two main aspirations are to fund the Neighbourhood plan and the Skate Park contribution, the Collett park maintenance and other grounds are covered and the cost of running the Council with a few grants to the likes of the CAB, CCTV etc.

In June 2011, I wrote a corporate plan, this outlined the need for a communication and public engagement strategy, this was accepted. The thinking was that the Council needed a mechanism to develop it's budget making process, for public and partners to develop policy to make Shepton better. Sadly the Council has never developed the idea.

Last evening a pretty drab and uninspiring budget was presented, the choice was whether you raised tax by 67p a year and raise £2000 or use the reserves.

I supported a nil increase in tax.

Last year the Council increased the budget for grounds by £4000, this equated to a 3% increase, I supported this as this was an increase in service, no such increase in service was proposed this year, so I could not offer my support for an increase. 

I do think the Town Council budget is something of the twilight zone, I am sure the Conservative Group was surprised by my support for a nil increase, but until the Council develop a budget making process that engages with the community and responds to their agenda, raising tax for the sake of it in the cold isolation of the Council chamber will not get my support.

This year I engaged with the Community over the hospital and the civic hall. The community were encouraged by this, the Council has to learn to become inclusive, in their budget making.

I simply refuse to increase tax for it to end up in reserves.

Those councillors who want to increase tax, needed to articulated the need for the increase, they needed to articulated what new service would be delivered. Times are very hard, the justification of any increase in tax has to be made, I took the view the ruling mind set of the Council is to underspend its budgets to subsidies  the coming year council tax, and those who wanted an increase the council tax the increase was so small it would make no difference to service.

At a time when the Conservative and Lib Dem government, supported by our MP Tessa Munt are effectively cutting in real terms in work benefits, that 67p may be needed more by the tax payer than our rather moribund council.

A Reality Check

I saw an interesting piece on the news last weekend, after the Tory MP criticised the Olympic opening ceremony.

It was reported Downing Street was unhappy with the Cannock Chase MPs outburst as they were concerned about the Tory brand being retoxicified.

Today it is being reported that Michael Gove and Jeremy Hunt had sympathy with the Cannock Chase MPs views.

It is becoming every so clear that, this Conservative government is a government for the Conservative funders, the corporate class and the super rich.

Neoliberals claim that we are best served by maximising market freedom and minimising the role of the state. The free market, left to its own devices, will deliver efficiency, choice and prosperity.

It is the Conservatives devotion to neoliberalism that causes this denial of reality in the economy.

The Conservatives funders use campaign finance, networking and lobbying, big business recruits this government to champion their interests, you can see this squalid reality at work in Cameron's speech last week. "We have listened to what business wants and we are delivering on it. Business said, 'We want competitive tax rates,' so we are creating the most competitive corporate tax regime in the G20 and the lowest rates of Corporation tax in the G7 …".

In the NHS we have seen the calamitous Health and Social Care Act, this leaves our beloved Health Service at the alter of the insurance companies that finance the Tory party, like the PFI schemes allowing profit out of health. The Conservatives promised no top down reorganisation of the NHS at the election of 2010, they knew if they did, they would be seen as the same old Tories, TOXIC.

Now we see Adrian Beecroft, the venture capitalist and friend of the Conservative party, writing a report that would like to wipe away workers rights, this to benefit the corporate class, by the way this report is not evidence based, merely the musing of a venture capitalist. again same old Tories. TOXIC

When this government has cut benefits to the working poor, in terms of housing benefits, working tax credits and soon Council tax benefits, they will also restrict access to justice for poorer people and at the same time giving tax cuts to the super rich, these are the choices.

The Conservatives supporting their funders, at what point will they wake up, austerity is killing the goose, real lasting damage is being done to our economy and peoples lives, Conservatives are largely clueless in how to rebuild a shattered economy, because they are wedded to neoliberal thinking, they cannot comprehend that their political ethos are the problem, this is why the conservative brand is TOXIC.

Does it smell like coffee, Mr Osbourne?

Today, it is really time that this chancellor and this government recognise that their economic strategy has failed, the economy is smaller today than when they came to office in 2010 with their grubby little coalition agreement.

It was predicted this week that the British economy would return to growth, yet the economy has shrunk by a eye watering 0.7%.

George Osborne's ill-judged plan has turned Britain's recovery under the previous labour government into a flatlining economy and now a deep and deepening recession. UK output is 4.5% lower than it was when the economy peaked in early 2008.

Conservative Britain is the worst performing country in the G8 group of industrialised countries, apart from Italy.

The Labour Party warned that Austerity alone would not repair the economy, it is clear George Osbourne, the part time chancellor, has utterly destroyed confidence of consumers and investors a like.

If you destroy confidence, you raise tax and you cut public spending and reduce public investment, then you cannot be surprised if the economy crashes.

To quote the Deputy Prime Minister before the 2010 General Election the Lib Dem's agreed with LABOUR that severe cuts to our vital public services would damage economic growth, in Nick Clegg’s own words to Reuters "My eight-year-old (son) ought to be able to work this out -- you shouldn't start slamming on the brakes when the economy is barely growing. "If you do that you create more joblessness, you create heavier costs on the state, the deficit goes up even further and the pain with dealing with it is even greater. So it is completely irrational."

But of course, as sir Alan Budd said after the 2010 General election the economy would grow more strongly than Mr Darling gloomily forecast. Something is going badly right.

Unemployment, he said, will be almost 200,000 lower than had been feared. Economic growth will not be quite as strong but the tax revenues – which are far more important – will come in much higher than forecast 

The so-called structural deficit (the amount of overspend that will not be eliminated by an economic recovery) is a little bigger than had been estimated. But crucially, Mr Osborne's election goal – to abolish "the bulk" of the structural deficit by 2014 – would have been easily achieved had Mr Darling remained in place. No more taxes need to be raised, or budgets cut, to honour this Tory manifesto pledge."

British house prices, which have recovered faster than anywhere in the world and should grow by 10 per cent both this year and next."The British economy is doing remarkably well. Manufacturing is bouncing back.

So he concludes that as he doesn't need to make savage cuts to sort out the deficit.

Compare and contrast, under Labour a recovery, under the Conservatives double dip recession, with the Lib Dem's verbally agreeing with labour and the same time voting with the conservatives.
 
The lib Dem's have betrayed voters on the economy, on tax on education and Tuition fees and EMA on the NHS, on the ballot paper next time around read the betrayal party.  

One eyed governments

An interesting story circulating in today's media is the global super-rich elite had at least $21 trillion (£13tn) hidden in secret tax havens by the end of 2010, according to a major study.

Now whether the tax evasion is this large is open to debate, but what is clear the super rich are industriously using professional enablers in private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries to avoid their moral responsibilities.

It will be undoubtedly true that many British tax payers will be involved in this activity of tax evasion.

Whilst the cuts in public spending, cut to the tax credits and benefits, whilst tax increases has faced many, some of the super rich has cocked a snoot at the millions who are suffering.

Yet we have a coalition government that is for the millionaires not for the millions.

This government chooses the soft options, taking housing benefit from the single under 35 year olds, taking tax credits away from low income families and we are seeing vital services vanishing.

This coalition Conservative government rhetoric is about demonising the poor, yet it was bankers, hedge fund managers and investment bankers who did their very best to bring the world economy to it's knees with casino capitalism.

The real issue for the economy is the loss of tax revenues, the morality of casino capitalism, is narcissistic, they believe themselves so important the millions has to bow down to them, they believe they are untouchable.

They think themselves beyond progressive taxation, beyond regulation of the markets, they will leave us all, because they think themselves so valuable. 30 years on, and that bubble has burst.

Making money on leverage debt is a mirage, a dream built on sand.

Money invested in production to create wealth for the millions not the millionaires create real wealth, the dreadful outsourcing and race to the bottom is a self serving prophecy.

Do we have politicians who will engage with this agenda, shaping an industrial/growth strategy, or will the Conservatives continue to be the mouth piece for their funders in the City of London, the investment bankers, the hedge fund managers and the insurance giants.

These vested interests are the ones that are supporting the millionaires against the millions, with this in mind the Conservatives will be unable to tackle this dangerous self interested lobby.

A Self serving prophecy

So Mr Osbourne, Austerity is working (sic).

Today we have discovered that it is likely the government will have to borrow an additional £20 billion, this financial year.

A rise in government spending to cope with higher social security bills, combined with a fall in tax receipts, has left the Treasury scrabbling to meet its borrowing target for the end of the year.

The International Monetary Fund has also warned the government that it risks permanently damaging economic output unless it spends more on infrastructure projects and delays welfare cuts to boost confidence and private consumption.


Mr Osborne now has a very difficult choice, he can either scrap the national debt target, which would be a political embarrassment, or he can impose greater cuts and tax rises in an attempt to get back on track. If Mr Osbourne is consistent and believes that his targets need to be hit, further cuts would almost certainly further weaken an economy suffering its second recession in three years.

The UK is back in recession after the economy shrank by 0.4% in the final quarter of 2011 and by 0.3% in the first three months of this year.


On Monday, the IMF lowered its growth forecasts for the UK to 0.2% in 2012 and 1.4% in 2013. In the spring, it had forecast growth of 0.8% this year and 2% next year, every economic organisations have over estimated the level of growth within our economy, but like all monetarists cannot accept their medicine is in part the cause of the lack of growth.

This is the problem for this government, economic activity is likely to fall short of what it forecast earlier this year, and this is likely to see the deficit rising higher both from extra spending but also from a lack of tax receipts, so in effect this is Austerity policy is a self serving prophecy.

The government needs to invest in infrastructure and develop an industrial strategy as a foundation for future growth, as Einstein said doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results, well that's insanity.

Mr Osbourne, time for a holiday? Call an Election and you can have a permanent one, before you cause more misery.