Now Government should help pensioners, says Theo

AN urgent income tax cut to help pensioners has been called for by West Somerset Parliamentary candidate Theo Butt Philip (pictured).
The Liberal Democrat candidate last week said pensioners’ lost income from interest on savings due to Bank of England rate cuts was a price worth paying for the greater good of the country.
Now, Mr Butt Philip, of Wells, wants the Government to help pensioners who will lose income on their savings as a result of the record-low interest rate.
He said: “While the Bank of England was right to cut interest rates for the sake of the economy as a whole, the Government must take action to help those who will lose out.
“Pensioners who supplement their State pensions with personal savings will be badly hit by the latest interest rate cut.
“The Chancellor should raise the income tax personal allowance so that those on low incomes pay no income tax at all.
“This, combined with abolishing the unfair council tax, would provide much needed relief for those who are suffering.”

Income cut for pensioners is price worth paying to save economy says Lib Dem candidate

PENSIONERS and others in West Somerset who had managed to put away money in savings would have to suffer a loss of income for the greater good of the country, the district’s Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate said today.
Theo Butt Philip (pictured) was speaking after yesterday’s Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee’s decision to cut interest rates to a record low of one per cent.
Mr Butt Philip, who lives in Wells, said: “The bank was right to cut interest rates.
“It is a desperate, but necessary, measure.
“The current economic situation is a very difficult one, and this cut will not help savers.
“However, for the sake of the economy as a whole, it is imperative that we get people spending again.
“The interest rate cut alone will not be enough to see us through these difficult times.
“The Government must do everything it can to increase the flow of credit.
“That means temporarily nationalising those banks which are already majority owned by the taxpayer and directing them to increase lending.
“Furthermore, the Government should bring forward investment in capital programmes and in projects to protect the environment.
“By building more social housing, insulating our current housing stock, and investing in railways, the Government could create jobs, stimulate the economy, and create assets which will be of real long-term value to the country.”

£60 on every Somerset council tax bill 'pays for Lib Dem borrowing'

HIGH-spending Somerset County Council was today criticised for locking itself into uncompetitive borrowing rates for years to come - just as the Bank of England cut rates to their lowest ever level.
The Liberal Democrat-run county has long-term high interest rates on more than £300 million which it has borrowed to fund its spending spree in recent years.
The average rate was about 4.3 per cent - which previously looked good, but not with a base rate now down to just one per cent.
Conservative group finance spokesman Councillor David Huxtable (pictured) said the council could now borrow at rates of less than one per cent.
Councillor Huxtable said: “We have been warning the Lib Dem administration about their huge borrowing and now it has come back to bite them.
“The difference in rates could mean the council paying up to £11 million over the odds this year alone.
“This would put an extra £60 on the council tax for every hard working family in Somerset.”
Somerset Conservative group leader Councillor Ken Maddock said: “The Lib Dems have slipped up big time here.
“They have trebled borrowing in the last six years. Who do they think they are - Gordon Brown?
“We need to act like a responsible council - not like a dodgy hedge fund.
“The Conservatives would reduce Somerset’s dependence on debt and borrow less.
“This is as important to a county council as it is to everybody’s personal finances.”

Theo blasts Government for refusing crisis loans to hard-up families

THE Government has been criticised for refusing crisis loans to thousands of people, many believed to be local to West Somerset.
It follows the discovery the Liberal Democrats that applications for the loans, aimed at low-income families and pensioners unable to obtain credit elsewhere, rose by more than a third last year to 117,760.
But in the Westcountry, 35,200 people had their application turned down by the Government last year.
The figures come at a time when the Government has been encouraging banks to increase lending.
Theo Butt Philip (pictured), Lib Dem Parliamentary Candidate for Bridgwater and West Somerset said: “People who apply for crisis loans are desperate and have nowhere else to turn, yet too often they get turned away when they need to get help.
“It is very worrying that with the recession hitting the South West hard, even more people will turn to the Government for help.
“Yet, the evidence for the past year is that more and more people will be turned away by Government-run JobCentre Plus.
“At a time when the Government is demanding that the banks lend more, here we have the Government itself doing the opposite.
“The Government has got to practice what it preaches to the banks and make more cash available to families through these loans.”

Conservatives call for county to freeze council tax bills

CONSERVATIVE councillors at County Hall are calling on the Liberal Democrat administration to freeze the county’s council tax.
The Lib Dems, who run Somerset County Council with support from Labour councillors, have doubled council tax bills in the past 10 years.
Now, the Conservative opposition group is lobbying for a freeze on council tax, against a background of the county council having received a record grant from Government in this financial year.
The county’s budget is due to be finalised next month, with council tax bills going out in early March.
Currently, a further 3.5 per cent rise is anticipated which would add £35 on to the average band D bill.
Conservative group leader Councillor Ken Maddock said: “People are hurting now, so they need help now.
“We are all having to tighten our belts and the council should be no exception.
“They cannot just go on pretending that the credit crunch never happened.
“They should freeze the council tax now.”

• Our photograph shows Councillor Ken Maddock with Conservative MEP candidate for the South West of England, Zehra Zaidi (left), and Somerton and Frome Conservative Parliamentary candidate Annunziata Rees-Mogg. Photo submitted.

New woman takes the helm for constituency's Lib Dems

FORMER Sedgemoor district councillor Marilyn Wallace (pictured) has taken over as chairman of Bridgwater and West Somerset constituency Liberal Democrats.
Mrs Wallace succeeds Janice Beasley, who lives in Cannington and who had been chairman for the past three years.
She was elected at the branch’s annual meeting of Bridgwater and West Somerset LibDems held in Nether Stowey.
Mrs Wallace, who lives in Chedzoy, said: “This will be an exciting and busy year as there will be both county council and European elections.
“We must also be prepared for a General Election when it comes.
“I am looking forward to working with our Parliamentary candidate Theo Butt Philip, our members, and supporters, and hope to encourage new people to join us in our social and campaigning events.”
Mr Butt Philip said: “Marilyn has been involved in the Lib Dems locally for many years as both an activist and a district councillor.
“Her experience will be invaluable.
“I would also like to pay tribute to Janice Beasley for the sterling work she has done as chairman for the last year.
“She has been a great source of strength and support to me and to the whole of the Bridgwater and West Somerset Liberal Democrats.”

County Hall spin doctors now costing council taxpayers £4 million

THE cost of spin doctoring by Somerset County Council in a bid to persuade the public how good a job it has been doing has almost doubled in a decade, according to a shock report by a local government watchdog.The Liberal Democrat-run authority is one of the highest spending councils in the country when it comes to its publicity budget.
The report compiled by the TaxPayers’ Alliance showed that in the same decade as the County Hall Lib Dems doubled council tax bills, they also increased their publicity spend by more than 96 per cent to a staggering £4.211 million.
Somerset’s huge publicity bill was one of the highest of any council in the country - in fact, only 10 other local authorities spent more, and they included large cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Bradford.
The survey covered the years from 1996-97, when Somerset spent £2,016 million on publicising itself, to 2006-07.
It also looked at what happened the following year, 2007-08, when Somerset spent slightly less with a total publicity cost of £3.957 million but was still well within the highest-spending 20 councils in the nation.
Councils are required by law to ‘keep a separate account of expenditure on publicity’, which is defined as ‘any communication, in whatever form, addressed to the public at large or to a section of the public’.
Despite this, West Somerset Council was unable to produce its spending on publicity in 1996-97 and claimed to have only spent £21,000 in 2006-07 and just £4,000 in 2007-08 while at the same time employing a public relations officer on a salary of more than £21,000.
Neighbouring Sedgemoor District Council was one of a minority of authorities which actually reduced its publicity expenditure from £500,000 a decade ago to £482,000 in 2006-07 and cut it further in 2007-08 to £422,000.
However, in Taunton Deane, the borough council increased its publicity spend by nearly four-and-a-half times in the 10 years to 2006-07 from £124,844 to £644,000, and spent another £664,000 in 2007-08.
Mid Devon District Council more than doubled its budget for publicity from £41,000 in 1996-97 to £103,000 in 2006-07 but failed to produce a total for 2007-08.
In North Devon, the district council could not say how much was spent in 1996-97 but revealed £306,000 went on publicity in 2006-07, a figure which increased by more than £40,000 in 12 months to £349,000 for 2007-08.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance obtained its figures from the annual accounts of the 450-plus local authorities in the UK.
It found overall councils had doubled their spending on publicity, creating a £430 million publicity machine, at the same time as doubling council tax.
The average council now spends almost £1 million a year of council taxpayers’ money on publicity for itself, compared to £429,887 in 1996-97.
TaxPayers’ Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: “It is incredibly disappointing that, despite the economic downturn and the loss of millions in Icelandic Banks, local authorities are still spending nearly half a billion pounds a year on publicity.
“While we salute the 218 councils who have cut spending on publicity, the 224 councils who have increased spending should hang their heads in shame.
“In the middle of a recession, councils need to cut back on propaganda and spin doctors and deliver savings to taxpayers.”
Local Government Association spokesman Nicholas Mann said: “To suggest that councils are employing armies of spin doctors and wasting money on publicity machines is absurd beyond belief.
“People need to know how to access the £100 billion worth of vital services that councils provide every year.
“Young mums need to know when they can take their kids to the swimming pool.
“Elderly people need to know the benefits they are eligible for to get the money to see them through the week.
“Drivers need to know when the roads are dangerously icy.
“Which part of this would the Taxpayers’ Alliance like to see cut?
“Lumped into advertising figures are statutory notices that councils by law have to advertise for, such as job adverts or site notices for planning applications.
“The amount makes up 0.0043 per cent of councils’ total spend.”

MP Lembit rallies West Somerset's Lib Dems

LIBERAL Democrats from across Somerset converged on the Phoenix Centre, Watchet, on Saturday to hear MP Lembit Opik speak at the Bridgwater and West Somerset constituency annual dinner.
Two former Parliamentary candidates for the constituency, Christina Baron (1979) and Ian Thorn (2001), also attended, as did current Lib Dem candidate Theo Butt Philip.
After a meal prepared by volunteers from the Phoenix Centre, the speakers were introduced by former county councilor Fay Ross-Ward, president of the constituency party.
Mr Opik, who is MP for Montgomeryshire, spoke on current political events in his trademark humorous manner.
He rallied local Lib Dem campaigners, reminding them that in 1997 the party came within 2,000 votes of winning the seat, and he believed that with hard work they could win at the next election.
Mr Butt Philip thanked Mr Opik and went on to rally local members for the coming county council and General Election campaigns.

• Our photograph shows Lembit Opik (left) with Theo Butt Philip outside the Phoenix Center. Photo submitted.

MP claims £55,000 more expenses than Prime Minister

LIBERAL Democrat MP Jeremy Browne was the most expensive of the Parliamentarians representing the Greater Exmoor area in the past financial year - claiming a staggering £55,000 more in expenses than the Prime Minister.
Mr Browne (pictured) cost taxpayers more than £200,000 during the 2006-07 year after claiming more in expenses than Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, his own party leader Sir Menzies Campbell, and even then-Deputy Prime Minister John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott.
On top of his £60,000-plus annual salary, Mr Browne was paid £143,176 in expenses, which included more than £22,000 for staying in London, more than £20,000 to run his office, and £87,000 for his staff.
The Taunton Deane MP put in expenses claims which fell only a few pounds short of the maximum possible he could receive for ‘staying away from home’ and for running his office, and he was actually just over the top limit for his staffing costs.
His Lib Dem colleague for North Devon, Nick Harvey, claimed a similarly staggering amount of expenses, totalling slightly more than Mr Browne at £144,687.
Meanwhile, West Somerset and Bridgwater Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger claimed £134,421 in expenses, while his Conservative colleague for Mid Devon, Angela Browning received £141,381.
By comparison, Mr Blair, who was then Prime Minister, received £87,342, Mr Prescott £115,013, Sir Menzies £123,617, Gordon Brown £134,586, and Tory party leader David Cameron £135,729.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance said MPs should be ‘ashamed of themselves’ for claiming so much in expenses.
Alliance chief executive Matthew Elliott said: “Families are struggling to pay higher tax bills while MPs are spending more and more of our money on themselves each year.”