Basingstoke LibDem prospective parliamentary candidate
Richard Whelan is selected as the prospective LibDem Parliamentary candidate for Basingstoke.
28 Feb 2024
Local News
Defence: Quantity has a Quality of its Own.
The primary duty of the government is to ensure the safety of its citizens. The flip side of this coin is the state has a monopoly of force. To achieve these objectives the state must have adequate armed forces, police and security services.
20 Feb 2024
NHS Waiting Lists
We all vaguely remember Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's pledges in January 2023 to cut NHS waiting lists. One year on this has not happened and nationally the waiting lists have continued to rise. In local terms they have remained relatively static.
29 Jan 2024
Hampshire Schools Cut
Education is one of the building blocks of our society. It is key to offering our young people opportunities in life. Yet as a school governor, I am annoyed that the Conservative government consistently continues to cut our budgets’ whilst wasting billion
29 Jan 2024
NHS Waiting Lists.
We all vaguely remember Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's pledges in January 2023 to cut NHS waiting lists. One year on this has not happened and nationally the waiting lists have continued to rise. In local terms they have remained relatively static.
29 Jan 2024
Road Flooding.
We have just experienced severe rainfall which resulted in a lot of localised flooding. Much of this flooding is on our roads over recent years and feels worse than it has ever been
11 Jan 2024
2025 Local Elections
Recent local election results should come as no surprise. Most citizens would tell you that “Britain is not working” and it certainly is not working for them as they struggle with the cost of living crisis and failing services.
Recent local election results should come as no surprise. Most citizens would tell you that “Britain is not working” and it certainly is not working for them as they struggle with the cost of living crisis and failing services. Amidst the uncertainty caused by the incompetence of our two major political parties, long the pillars of our political establishment, as citizens we have lost hope in a better tomorrow.
Whilst Conservative mismanagement of the economy and its destruction of services did us all no favours, Labour has failed to fulfil its election promises. Badly. From winter fuel payments to job taxes and destroying family farms through ill judge inheritance tax changes, we have seen it all.
Furthermore, we have recently suffered from a stitch up in the cancellation of the elections in Hampshire. This was proposed by the Conservative County Council and adopted with speed by the Labour government. All in the interests of efficiency as we move to Local Government Reorganisation. This has led to a major democratic deficit, and we have a Conservative administration which in all probability would have been voted out of office. If you run a business £200,000,000 in the red and not delivering on its contracts, then you would go to the wall. In the case of Hampshire County Council, it is clear that turkeys do not vote for Christmas.
This also raises problems for Local Government Reorganisation where the primary local driver, Hampshire, has no democratic mandate. It also appears to be driven by narrow self-interest rather than the public interest which we deserve. How do we move forward? Rather than adopting a justified “plague on all your houses”, voters should look at the values and competence of the candidates and parties. Clearly Labour and the Conservatives are not the answer.
Councillor Luigi Gregori
Lib Dem Parliamentary Spokesperson NW Hants