Whats in store for 2007?

Well in the first instance locally we are pleased to announce that LORD TEBBIT (Pictured) will be the guest of honour at a spring Dinner we are holding to raise funds. The dinner, on March 17th, will be open to all and I am looking forward to hearing Norman speak again; he is funny, lively and very wise. His charicature 'tough guy' image is not at all accurate - he is in fact an exceptionally gentle and considerate man who shortened his political career to care for his wife Margaret who was disabled in the Brighton bombing; we are privileged to have him.

Then in MAY we have the LOCAL ELECTIONS for the council. All 36 seats are up for grabs and the Conservatives hope to make enough gains to win control of the council chamber from the Lib Dems who hold the balance of power at the moment; and have been using it to stop mayor Nick Bye from getting on with the job he was elected to do. I am confident we will both gain control and then deliver a better, more responsive and more focused council designed to give residents a cleaner, safer and more prosperous Torbay.

Later in the year TONY BLAIR will step down and most people still think that Gordon Brwon will succeed him (although I am still not so certain). If it is Gordon I expect a dazzling blaze of new initiatives designed to take the press focus off his 'personality' and on to his 'agenda'. I also expect a complete clear-out of the cabinet and in effect we will end 2007 with a new Government - one that we haven't had the chance to vote for.

Will there be a 'snap' election in 2007? No chance.

Well, politics is an uncertain game, so I am not going to predict anything else; except that I expect the Conservatives to end 2007 even further ahead in the polls than we are today.

The BBC report more Lib Dem defections

The gentleman pictured above is Richard Porter, who fought Camberwell and Peckham for the Lib Dems at the last General Election and who has joined the Conservative Party over the Christmas break; along with colleagues John Barstow, who stood at Tonbridge and Malling, and Tariq Mahmood, a physician who contested Uxbridge.

The BBC reprt says:

"Mr Porter is a gay rights campaigner who wrote the Liberal Democrat manifesto for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the 2005 general election.

He described Lib Dem leader Menzies Campbell as a "has-been" who had put the party "in reverse gear".

He said his personal beliefs were no longer best represented by the Lib Dems, but by the Conservatives.

John Barstow, a union steward, said his former party were "bland, formulaic and out of touch with real life".

Earlier this year three other Liberal Democrat general election candidates defected to the Tories.

They were Adrian Childs in West Suffolk; Jeff Clarke, in Wirral West; and Rene Kinsett in Swansea West, plus the former Labour candidate for Horsham, Rehman Chishti. "

People have heard the talk, they have listened to David Cameron promise to make our party more inclusive and adopt a 21st century political agenda but I recognise that people need to see more than words. Herre we have yet more proof that change is real, and permanent.

The Conservative Party are serious about broadening our appeal and reaching out to a far wider section of the community for our support. The fact that so many senior political activists from our opponents- people who were right at the front line of the last General Election- have seen enough to give us this vote of confidence is very good news indeed.

Is yet another round of in-fighting coming?

This mornings Communicate Research poll for the Independent newspaper has the Lib Dems down on just 14% and follows the YouGov poll that was in the Sunday Times at the weekend and had the Lib Dems at 15%.

With all the usual caveats about opinion polls a pattern has emerged. In December all of the main polling organisations showed figures representing a significant and sustained fall in support.

This is against their showing at the last GE with Kennedy still at the helm of over 22% - a quarter of Lib Dems appear to have deserted the party since Ming Campbell took over as leader.

What might provoke another round of jostling in the Parliamentary Lib Dem party is the bald fact that at this level of support as many as half the Lib Dem MP's currently in Westminster could be at risk of losing their seats (and, of course, their livlihoods), indeed according to Martin Baxters 'Electoral calculus' website such a result would leave the Lib Dems back where they were in the 1970's -down to just a rump of half a dozen MP's.

While no-one in Westminster belives the result likely to be that bad, there is nothing more potent to brew serious dissent in a political party than the prospect of losing.

I expect it to be a long cold winter for Menzies Campbell; and a bad result nationally for the Lib Dems in next Mays local elections could see a fresh challenge for his job.

I am sorry for the lack of updates but due to technical problems I have not been able to access the blog recently.

Alls well today though.

Sorry for the lack of updates, due to technical difficulties I have been offline for nearly a fortnight.

What do we do about street Prostitution?

One of the interesting and possibly positive side effects from the horror story in Ipswich is the dialogue and debate about the legal status of prostitutes.

The soft underbelly of Britain today is occasionally exposed to public gaze and this case is one such time when ordinary members of the public have to face the reality that -even in a secondary town like Ipswich- there can be hundreds of girls out on the streets in danger every week.

Why do they do it? What makes perfectly sensible people risk their lives to make their living in this way? Risking not just violent abuse but sexual diseases, arrest and imprisonment, and complete social exclusion?

In a word, hard drugs.

Estimates vary, but around 70% of prostitutes are thought to be drug addicts and most of those are the street girls who face the biggest danger.

Should we legalise prostitution? Well I do believe those who argue that the current legislation works against those most vulnerable by outlawing brothels and forcing more girls to streetwalk but otherwise I am not convinced that their legal status is the problem.

The issue, like so many others today, comes back to drug addiction.

Unless and until we can bring ourselves to accept that blanket prohibition simply acts an an incentive for criminality - addicts push hard drugs to others to finance their habit in a kind of pyramid selling scheme- we can never begin to tackle the problem properly.

Sure, a massive increase in rehab schemes as we propose will help, but will it solve the problem?- I don't think so.

The truth: Families are vital

I am relieved and pleased that Iain Duncan-Smith has put the question of the status of the family at centre stage in our review of social policy.

Bluntly the results of detailed social research constantly tells us that family breakdown and/or absentee fatherhood is linked to a whole range of damaging social problems ranging from attention deficit disorder, social exclusion, educational under-achievement, unemployment, obesity, drug abuse, crime and anti social behavior.

Left to it's own devices the breakdown of the family unit threatens the cohesion of society.

While it is not the job of Government to decree how people should choose to live their lives policymakers do have to recognise the impact of their decisions on social behaviour. As a result of years of neglect for the status of marriage it is hardly surprising that fewer people are choosing to marry; and even less surprising that fewer and fewer people are seeing the benefits of having children within a stable married relationship if the law offers extra benefits to those who don't.

Mr Duncan Smith says that marriage has been undermined by the tax and benefits system under the current Labour government; well he is partly right - we didn't do that much to support marriage ourselves when we last had the chance; so it's a cross party issue that has been a problem for a long time.

He says that the current report is about finding out what the problems are and what has gone wrong - not to lecture people to get married - but to help couples, married and unmarried, to stabilise their relationships.

I agree. We could start by promising a tax regime that recognises the status of families and introduce a transferable married allowance.

We should also have another look at the way the law works with regard to separated parent and their relationships with their children.

I still think ithere are many absentee dads who get off their responsibilities too easily whilst others -who do want to be involved in their childrens upbringing - often find themselves banned by law from having any involvement save paying maintenance.