Cllr Iain Lindley's Diary

I’ve had an e-mail from Derek Simpson, the joint General Secretary of the trade union UNITE. It looks like a generic e-mail to all Parliamentary candidates.

UNITE have been in the headlines a lot lately. They are bankrolling the Labour Party, having donated over £11 million to Labour over the last three years. In return, the benefits to UNITE range from placing a key union operative inside 10 Downing Street to taking effective control of many cash-strapped Constituency Labour Parties and installing Unite activists and officials as prospective Parliamentary candidates. You can read more about that here.

UNITE are also responsible for the current industrial action that is trying to cripple a flagship British business in British Airways, as well as causing chaos for hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers.

One would expect, then, that a blanket mail-out to candidates would involve key questions on the economy, on jobs, on working conditions and on industrial relations. Nope. It seems the key issue for Derek Simpson and his Union baron chums is… Cuba.

Relations with Cuba are an important issue, but given the current economic climate, doesn’t this just show the warped sense of priorities that the Labour Party and their Union puppetmasters have? The UNITE leadership is persuing a warped political agenda rather than representing the interests of their members and the working people of Britain. No wonder their members are deserting them.

As the Labour Party make increasingly desperate attempts to cling to power, it’s sad to see that they have resorted to trying to scare some of the more vulnerable members of our society into voting for them. One of the groups targeted by Labour’s campaign of fear is pensioners. Today, David Cameron unveiled a Conservative pledge to pensioners. It sets out clearly the promises that we want to make to pensioners.

David Cameron’s Conservative pledge to pensioners

The Government I lead will make sure that older and retired people are treated with dignity and given the quality of life they deserve. This is my pledge to support pensioners.

My Government will:

• Increase the value of the basic state pension for all pensioners and help to stop the spread of the means test by linking pensions to earnings. You won’t get a repeat of Labour’s mean 75p rise with us.
• Freeze council tax for the next two years, in partnership with your council.
• Make it worthwhile to save for a personal pension and get rid of the rules that force people to get a compulsory annuity.
• Help people protect their home rather than have to sell it to pay for care.
• Take all family homes worth less than £1 million out of inheritance tax.
• Increase spending on the NHS every year, which is our number one priority.
• Cut paperwork so we get more police out on the beat fighting crime.

Our opponents are trying to scare older people by telling deliberate lies about our plans. So here is a personal promise, from me, about the things we will protect.

• I will protect your Winter Fuel Payment.
• I will protect your free bus pass and your free TV licence.
• I will protect the pension credit.

These vital benefits will not be cut under the Conservatives. You have my word on it.

If he wins the election, Gordon Brown wants to introduce a number of measures which will hit pensioners. A Conservative Government will not penalise pensioners, as Labour are planning to do:

• We will NOT introduce a ‘death tax’ of up to £50,000.
• We will NOT cut attendance allowance and disability allowance for the over 65s.

We can afford to make these pledges because we have found the money from other areas, like cutting government waste and bringing forward the date at which the state pension age will rise to 66.

On budget day, let’s not forget that Gordon Brown has built up an £857.5 million debt; tens of thousands of pounds for every man, woman and child in the country. We can’t go on like this.