There's an old saying: 'He who pays the piper calls the tune'

3rd March 2010     

The Conservatives have been putting out some pretty fancy literature just lately.  Expensively produced glossy booklets (with very little meaningful content but lots of colour photos) and claims to be involved in just about everything.      

Of course it’s easy to go and stand near good things for a photo and give the impression that you have had something to do with them!  But it doesn’t follow that you are in fact anything to do with them at all.  It’s good psychology – the stuff of soap powder advertising.     

This is what the Labour Party’s General Secretary Ray Collins said:   

 For ten years, William Hague, Michael Howard and David Cameron have each concealed the truth about his status. By his own admission, Lord Ashcroft has given millions to the Conservatives and may be the largest single donor of all time. His company, Bearwood Corporate Services, is at the centre of a major investigation by the Electoral Commission.  

In 1999, when Conservative leader at the time William Hague first recommended Lord Ashcroft for a Peerage, he was rejected. It was only in 2000, after he promised to return to live in Britain and pay tax here, that the House of Lords allowed him to become a member.     

But it has now been alleged that it was a promise he never kept. His company, Bearwood Corporate Services, is at the centre of the major investigation by the Electoral Commission that Ray Collins refers to above.     

When Seacombe readers see the Tory glossy leaflets being peddled around the ward (by the defector Denis Knowles who crossed to join the Tories but will not resign for the Seacombe People to decide his future in a by-election) they may wonder why Labour doesn’t throw similarly huge amounts of money at glossy leaflets.   For us the answer is very simple indeed.  We  haven’t that sort of money.      

• Labour represents ordinary people who work hard and live here  – not in offshore tax havens. 
• The Tory party has always represented the interests of bankers and stock exchange gamblers – and those people who for many years have invested the enormous profits made for them by British workers not in modernising British factories, so that they could compete effectively, but in overseas industry in countries where profits are high because wages are low.   There is no patriotism in capital.
• With fourteen millionaires in his Shadow Cabinet where will Cameron’s loyalties be? 

We don’t know how Wallasey Tories pay for their glossy leaflets and booklets - but its a sure thing Seacombe Ward Labour Party has no large benefactors from offshore tax havens or anywhere else.  Nor, in case the Tories indulge in a bit of misleading propaganda, do we have large dollops of trade union money in Seacombe ward.  All of our leaflets are produced with the cash raised by our own members and supporters.      

But we believe the words on the  paper we use are far more representative of Seacombe People’s interests than bin loads of glossy Tory propaganda.     

Adrian and John take a break from leafleting and door knocking to enjoy an excellent lunch at the Seacombe Community Centre

Far from it!  We were there for our own lunches – and jolly good value for money they are too. 

Aimed primarily, but not exclusively, at the retired people of the locality, the Luncheon Club is a great service to the community.   Wirral’s Social Services Department does a grand job by maintaining this extremely valuable service. Long may it continue.

The Community Centre is, however, eligible to be transferred to the community.  A few weeks ago we attended a meeting with officers of the Council to begin to talk about it with the existing staff and volunteers.  Our officers were delighted to discover that the existing team have kept the building in excellent order, doing almost all of the redecoration themselves and keeping it in tip top condition.  The Team have also kept right on top of all necessary fire and safety and other regulations to the extent that the professional officers went away most favourably impressed.

There had been problems with one of the boilers – making it all but impossible for the children’s activities to continue.  That was discussed at our meeting after which Adrian took it up with Council Officers.  We can report that it has been fixed.

What relationship does the Council have with the Community Centre?

The Council has always sought to maintain a good relationship with the Centre, not least by nominating a Councillor to assist and support the volunteers’ management group as their direct link to the Town Hall. 

For many years we understand that link was Cllr Denis Knowles. (Knowles is the defector who was elected with a large Labour majority - but when he fell out with Labour  he crossed the floor of the Council Chamber and squeezed in among the Tories. That was at about 6.30pm on a day when, at lunch time, we understand he had signed Labour’s loyalty pledge.) 

When we asked how well that link had worked, with Cllr Knowles as the Council’s nominee to the Community Centre,  one of the Community Centre’s regular volunteers said:

‘Well he did call in  just before Christmas, with the lady from Liscard.’  Nobody we spoke to could recall anything beyond that.

Cllr John Salter has replaced Denis Knowles.  John promises to provide full support and Adrian, who held his surgeries at the Centre for many years, will also give full support at this critical time for he Centre’s future.