Murphy's letter from Edinburgh

 

Sheer Arrogance

The Government in power has just held its annual conference, and it seems to have left a lot of confusion as to who the next leader will be after the next general election.  We have been told that Gordon Brown the Chancellor will be the next prime minister of this country.

Well I've got some news for you.  It's up to the people of this country to decide who the next prime minister will be.  Too say that Gordon Brown will be the next prime minister is sheer arrogance on the Labour parties part.  First Tony Blair would need to stand down as prime minister, it would then be up to the party members to decide if he should be the leader of the party.

The whole thing smacks of the old boys network at work here, and when it comes to the election, a lot could have changed by then as the electorate become disenchanted at the way this government is running this county.  They should remember the old saying 'that a day in politics is a long time'.  And because we have just had an general election, there is a long time to go before the next general election.  So a lot could happen between now and then.

The Labour party needs to concentrate on domestic issues because this is where the dissent is going to come from with electorate by the time the next general election comes.  A lot will have changed by then.  You can kid the people on some of the time, but you can't kid them on all the time.

I would rather see a system in Britain where any prime minister from any party only serves two four year terms, and not this add hock system where a prime minister states how long they are going to stay.  We see enough of dictators all over the world holding onto power, and I am not comparing our government to these types of regimes.  But for politics remain healthy, there has to be a change of leader after a given time for it remain that way.

I suppose when you are on a role like the Labour party are just now, they want too hold on to power so that they can rub it in all the other political parties faces.  Margaret Thatcher tried that too and it all ended in tears for her when John Major took over.  She became over confident and she thought she was fireproof which was her biggest mistake.

With pensions in disarray, the dentist service and parts of the health service in crises and many other issues needing urgent attention in this country, the government has to start working on these issues as well as foreign policy.

The jailing of old age pensioners in this country is doing nothing for the governments reputation in this country.  Pensioners who have worked all their lives and paid in to a system expect to get something out of the system at the end of their working careers, but successive governments have decided that they are a low priority and they are becoming the underclass of this country which to me is a total disgrace.

If you are unaware of what I on am about here, I shall explain it to you.  Pensioners are up in arms about the council tax rises.  Everyone who is a householder pays the council tax no matter what your income is.

A pensioner of 73 was jailed on Monday for refusing to pay her council tax to protest against her bill rising by more than the rate of inflation.  she appeared before the court over the bill of 53 pounds and 71 pence she owed the city council. In June she was warned that she would be sent to prison for seven days unless she paid up.

As she arrived at court on Monday carrying a bag packed for a jail stay, the defiant pensioner insisted she would not pay the full increase which she has described as "daylight robbery".  The pensioner who said she could afford to pay the bill, argues that rises in state pensions have not kept pace with the increases in council tax, meaning that pensioners' quality of life is being eroded every year.

She stated,  "if we pay it now, if they keep on increasing the taxes we won't eventually be able to afford to pay the bills, and then we'll have no existence at all, no quality of life.  We'll just have to sit at our homes doing nothing."

Last week the pensioner visited a fellow council tax rebel aged 71 who was jailed in a high security prison earlier this month for refusing to pay his bill in full.

In Scotland where the law is different from that in England, the old age pensioner would not have been given the jail.  The Sheriff Officers would have removed goods from her house and sold them off at auction to cover the debt.

Pensions have not kept up with the cost of living, and pensioners are finding their pensions diminishing at an alarming rate putting a lot of them in financial turmoil.  Some have refused to pay the full increase in council tax bills and some have decided to only pay what the government has given them as an inflationary rise in their pensions.

Pensioners in this country have only been paid an inflationary rise of about 1% or 2% over a number of years while everything else has gone up in price.  Energy has gone up in price twice this year with highest fuel company increasing gas and electricity in their last increase by 18%.

With the average pensioner just getting about a hundred pound a week no one in this government has asked how they are supposed to pay these rises on such low incomes. That added with the council tax and other inflationary rises pensioners are becoming poor and desperate.

If Britain is too be judged on how it treats its young, elderly and disabled, then our government fails miserably.  And it always has.  Government after government have ignored these groups for far too long, and it may well be their undoing as they ignore these parts of our domestic issues.

It's now time to have a proper debate on pensioners and poverty which no government has tackled or debated properly, and that just can't go on without there being consequences for the government in power.

Written by Andrew Murphy 27 September 2005

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