"Professionals or Amateur, who do you want in charge?"

As someone who has stood for election I have some advice to the candidates standing for Mayor.

Running for office is a balance between being attractive enough to win while not making impossible promises.

Reading through the manifestos delivered this week I was struck by the fact that most of the candidates seem blissfully unaware of this.

Half the candidates are promising to reduce car park charges, keep the streets clean and lower taxes, without specifying where they will find the money from. The manifestos are littered with promises of spending on business support, tourism, social housing and maritime events yet not one candidate is saying ‘oh, and by the way, your council tax will have to skyrocket to pay for it all…’

A third of the candidates are offering ‘zero tolerance’ policing - which is not even within the Mayors power.

Just one candidate (Conservative Nick Bye) has raised the education issue – which is easily the most important part of the new Mayors responsibilities accounting for over half the council’s budget.

The reason we are cynical about politicians is we think they promise anything to get elected and then let us down.

Let’s be honest - the Lib Dems aren’t intentionally running Torbay badly. Their problem is that they also made reckless promises in order to get elected (£100 off your council tax, remember?). How they made political hay when our administration was criticised by the Audit Commission, -too late- they found out for themselves that pleasing Mr Prescott’s office involved shutting toilets and closing schools to fund posts like an ‘ethnic diversity officer’.

To find solutions to the Bays problems means developing policies that can survive not just the Councillors, council officers, and the Trade Unions, but also Government auditors, Health and Safety, The EU Commission, John Prescott’s office and all the other New Labour ‘stakeholders’ that apparently have a right to interfere in our local affairs.

It’s going to take a very experienced political operator indeed to make the changes that they promise actually happen.

Most candidates seem to be saying ‘vote for me, I’m not a politician’ which is about as reassuring as discovering that the surgeon about to undertake your heart surgery is an unemployed gas meter man.

If I am flying on a plane, especially during a Typhoon, I want a qualified pilot in the cockpit, - don’t you?

TORY LEADERSHIP 3: Who Am I Backing?

First rule of politics: never publicly back anyone for leaderhip in case they don't win; unless they are offering you something in return.

Since when did I ever obey the political rulebook?

So for anyone who is interested here is my current ranking (i.e. my preferred choices) of the party runners and riders:

1) David Cameron, because I think he is a breath fo fresh air and also precisely because he hasn't been in Parliament for yonks I think he would make afresh choice and a clear break with the past.
2) David Davis, because he has an almost unbroken track record of success in politics, firstly as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee in the 97-01 parliament, he was an excellent Party Chairman in 01-03 and since then ahs excelled himself as shadown foreign sec.
3) Liam Fox, because he has a brilliant 'bedside manner' because he was a first class chairman of the party, because he has premier league brainpower, and lastly because he is good on TV.
4) Er, I'm struggling a bit now. Theresa May would be good - she is moderate, articulate, female, intellegent and wily, but I think she would be outclassed by Blair/Brown.
5) Ken Clark, well I'd learn to live with him as leader, I expect. I agree that he would give us an immediate fillip in the polls and would stand up well to Brown, and I back most of his politics except on Europe where I am directly opposed to his kind of 'muddle along for the time-being' view of the EU.
6) Andrew Lansley. Nice bloke, and down to earth. I'd have a spring in my step if he won but I really don't have a clue what he'd be like as a leader.
7) Tim Yeo. See 6.
8) Rifkind. I put him last because he is bettered in almost every way by one or more of the other candidates.

Noticeably I am, in common with nearly every Tory member I know, not basing the decision on their political beliefs as we have been prone to do in the last few leadership elections, because I think the (vast majority) Party has come to a kind of Euro-sceptic, but socially inclusive 'one-nation' consensus on the best way forward. I think the 'drift to the right' during the last fortnight of the general Election campaign that coincided with a drift downwards of three points in our poll ratings was the final proof that it's good, new, centre policies we need if we are to win.

As I have already said, all the leaderhip contenders are saying so, in one form or another, so I am not going to be too fussed whatever the outcome as long as they all stick to their guns.

So who gets to be mayor of Torbay?

After the Conservatives decided last night to elect former mayor and existing councillor Nick Bye as our candidate many people are asking : will we be beaten by one of the grwoing number of independent candidates?

Could Sammy the Seagull steal the show?

Much has been made in the press, mainly through the Herald Express letters page, that voters want a 'non-political' person to win the mayoral contest. But why? Why do they say they want someone with no political experience to become Torbay's No 1 politician?

Would you, for instance want a 'non pilot' to be commanding the 747 you are due to fly on? Would you want to be operated on by someone 'not connected with the medical profession'?

So why doe people apparently seem so keen on a political freshman for Mayor?

The given reason is that the public have becme disillusioned with party politicians, somehow the Tories are to blame 'as well' because we had a three years stunt in 2000-2003 and therefore we are 'equally' culpable. This is unfair and incorrect. When we were in there was a real effort made to at least keep the streets clean, keep the flowerbeds full and keep the Bay's schools open and successful.

Just because the Lib dems have made such a mess of things why should so many letter writers blame 'all politicians' for the state of Torbay? During the 1970's and 1980's the bay was run exclusively by the Conservatives, and there was nowhere near the level of discontent and frustration with the council then. Sure, some poor planning decisions were made but by-and-large the only reason the Tories lost power was nothing to do with local issues, it was all about the poll tax and a very unpopular national Tory party losing out to a very vocal and politically active local Lib Dem party.

The fact is the minute anyone becomes elected to run Torbay they will have to become a politician in very short order. 'No political experience' will quickly equate to 'not a snowball in hells chance of changing anything' when the successful candidate finds themself facing a wall of opposition from the Lib Dems and council officers to any serious changes he or she wants to make.

If we end up with an ineffectual or powerless mayor we will be worse off than ever. The only choice will, in the end, boil down to between having a Conservative mayor who can command at least enough votes in the council to stop the Lib dems opposing what he wants, or a Lib dem mayor who can bulldose anything he wants through the chamber.

And that means the only way to change Torbay for the better on October 20th will be to vote for my colleague Nick Bye.

Leadership Contest - 2.

Sat and watched Newsnight last night with rising frustration. Of course Ken Clarke is picked by most people - he is the most familiar. Follow that line of thought and Ford would still be making the model T.

They ramble on about left wing and right wing contenders taking no account of the fact that modern politics is so much more complex. The old battleground of Left vs Right has long been blurred to obscurity.

But an interesting fact is being missed by all the main politcial commentators.

All of the expected candidates are echoing a step-change in our thinking that has already occurred. They are all campaigning -in one form or another- on the platform which we can call "Compassionate Conservativism".

There has been a quiet revolution amongst Conservatives who now accept that we are not just the Party that celebrates enterprise and economic success but also that we have obligations to the most vulnerable members of society.

Most Tories now accept the fact that a 'good society' is not just about creating wealth; tax cuts and free markets, it's about creating a successful civic community. This means finding answers to many of today's social problems such as youth crime, the breakdown of families, poor educational achievement, inter-cultural and religious tensions and above all the so-called 'dependancy culture' - as Governments have done more and more, individuals have had to do less and less and the result has been a massive loss of personal responsibility.

We believe that many of the solutions to these problems will not be found by ever more Government initiatives and new laws but by empowering the institutions of civil society: family, local community (including local councils, schools etc.), church and charity, which we believe have been progressively eroded by the State.

We want to restore a sense of civic duty and pride create a more 'neighbourly society’ in Britain, so that we can tackle our problems together and not just by leaving it to 'them' ('Them' being the Police, Social Services or indeed, the Government).

Often evolutionary change is only visible in retrospect. I think that the Conservative Party has already changed, we have found a new ethos and a new destiny.

All we need to do is choose the leader who can convey it best.

Tory Leadership Trials go on and on; and on, and on.

The third Party leadership contest in four years grinds on and on with less and less sign of any consensus. As happened last time, the time before and the time before that the Left wing of the party is unable to mount a unified challenge - because of ego.

".... if he (Clarke) gets it (the leadership) your party is finished..." says an anonymous commentator on a previous thread.

My own views are well known on this issue. Much as I want us to clearly move to the middle ground, an area to which Mr Clarke amply fills, I don't want Ken Clarke as leader for the Conservative Party.

Why not? Well, for one thing he was on the bridge of the good ship Tory Party, fighting with the other officers and crew for control of the wheel when we so spectacularily ran aground in the early 1990's. Why on earth we would want to reward anyone from that era (and I include the Redwoods, Rifkinds, Willets and any others left over from that dark period) by putting them in charge is beyond me. How would Marks and Spencers shareholders react if the board responsible for their disasterous fall from grace in the late 1990's were still there, still in charge and still arguing about who shoule be CEO?

The country have told us again and again that they don't want this generation of politicians in charge - even Michael Howard himself concedes that his association with the past was one of the biggest reasons why we didn't do better on May 5th.

So that is one good reason to choose someone else.

'But he is so popular' say his supporters, but they mistake 'celebrity' status with popularity. Yes Ken is the 'most famous' Tory on the media circuit and by and large the media love him. But that warm glow will last, oh, five minutes or so if he does win the leadership, and then what?

Then we have yet another 'temporary' leader -only this one without the support of the majority of the members- allowing his shadow cabinet colleagues to carry on blatantly jostling for accession in 2009 or 2010.

We have a leader who will undo almost all of the progress we have made in separating the Europe issue from the left/right arguement.We have been close to proving that Center-Right politics does not have to include being pro-European; but under Ken Clarke it would be.

We have a Parliamentary party who, by choosing someone who will be nearly 70 at the next election, are virtually admitting defeat already (because if we were serious about winning, Kens health and age would be a huge issue in the election- a Prime Minister in his 70's in this day and age?... you've got to be kidding!).

And lastly, we would be admitting that all those under 35 year old voters who have never voted Conservative (who we desperately need ) are written-off as a generation, because I haven't yet met anyone under 40 who can relate to Ken Clarke in any way whatsoever.

Just because he has thrown his large hat in the ring does not mean Ken Clarke will win; in fact I am certain that he wont. But it does mean that the Left will be split and that will allow a right winger success again.

No wonder David Davis has a warm glow about him at the moment.

I had the following letter published in the Herald express on Saturday and I have had such a big (and rapid) response I'm publishing it here for comments as well:

"I was shocked by the item in the Herald Express last week the proposed expansion of Torbay to 160,000 citizens planned for us by an unelected guano based in Taunton.

There were three points among the many gems in her report that people in Torbay should be worried about in particular:

1)It was revealed in the article that Torbay is already providing the bulk of the South West's 'affordable housing' stock and we are already building far more 'social housing' units than we need to.

This is a policy that really needs to be challenged - are we building to provide affordable housing for local people as we have been promised? No, (as evidenced by the sad letter you printed a few weeks ago by a Brixham family who have been waiting for help from our authority for 13 years).

Are we providing 'social housing' to accommodate increasing numbers of 'economically inactive citizens' (in other words, benefit claimants) from other parts of the UK? -Yes.

Is that what local residents thought they were getting when the Lib Dems promised to fix the supposed 'problem' of young people moving away from the area (as they always have and, affordable housing or not, they always will)? - No way.

We should look to provide decent housing (and not one-room bedsits as originally proposed in Torre) for those families from the area who are in genuine need of help as a matter of priority; but we should limit the provision of subsidised housing units so that it matches only local needs.

2)Of all the areas in the region it is Torbay that has been singled out for 'high' growth while neighbouring districts are let off with the 'low' growth option - Why us?.
Why should Torbay be singled out to build 500 homes annually when Newton Abbot, with better connections and far more space available is only going to have to provide 200?

It is a completely false premise for the authority to link the word 'regeneration' with squashing hundreds of new homes into what little space the borough has left. Successful towns expand because of a growing economy, you don't create economic regeneration by simply building thousands of low cost homes whether the area has jobs or not.

Far from creating new wealth such over development will only speed Torbay towards unpleasant urbanisation and decay of the environment leading to a yet greater degeneration of the local economy.

3) These 'strategic plans' -once agreed- become binding on all future council planning committees even if control of the council changes hands. One of the reasons the council were so keen to stuff hundreds of tiny flats on the Torre site was because of 'obligations' under the existing 'structure plan' agreed by the Lib Dems a few years ago - forcing today's councillors to make decisions irrespective of current residents needs and wishes.

We must wake up to the dangers represented in this structure plan right now and say 'enough is enough'.

We have done our fair share. No more over-development, no more 'strategic housing plans' made for us by John Prescott and no more exporting other cities social problems to Torbay.

This is our town. It's about time we took a stand and told these unelected 'we know best' officials what they can do with their urban dreamscape."

It's a shock to discover that Torbay Council owes around £60 million. Add in another £40 million for their pension shortfall and you can see why some of us talk of financial 'black holes' in our councils accounts.

Even if you don't take into consideration the Private Finance Initiative Westlands School (where the council have basically 'leased' a school back from the developer until 2027) the council are up to their ears in debt.

Put that in perspective. Even if you allow for the fact that Torbay Council owns land and buildings worth about £180m their asset to debt ratio is about the same as a bankrupt third-world country.

Torbay Council has been running financial deficits in recent years - spending slightly more than it raises by grants and taxes, - drawing on cash reserves - so it's 'net income' is nil; and it's debt burden is growing.

How are they ever going to repay their debts? - Unlike an indebted business you can't just sell off loads of assets or downsize operations to pay down your debt - aside from the fact that there are legal restraints - remember at least half the councils operations relate to local education- the fact is most of their 'assets' are virtually unsaleable.

In previous times councils, like Governments, relied on inflation to pay their debts for them. But in the new low inflation world we now occupy this trick doesn't work anymore and debts will need to be paid back.

So you can see how tempting it is to look for excuses to 'release' some of your assets periodically and use the cash to try and cut the debt mountain.

Which leads me to the proposed closure of Upton St James school.

The main school buildings belong to the church and this fact was used as 'proof' from the council that this closure was not about selling the buildings but down to a genuine fall in demand.

But it transpires that this is not the whole truth. Half the school is on council property and if the school closes the council will have some very valuable 'spare' land in a prime residential location.

One wonders if the council officers weren't just a tiny bit influenced by that fact.....