South West Ambulance

Next week I have a meeting with South West Ambulance service to discuss their latest initiatives and the local implementation of their national campaigns such as ‘Know Your Blood Pressure’.

I will be able to raise any issues I wish to discuss so if there is something any of you would like me to bring up at the meeting please email me on lskevington@gmail.com.

County Council Response to Ice Query

As some will have noticed I have been actively pursuing the County Council over their failure to properly grit roads in Yeovil throughout our recent cold spell. My main concern has been that the town was left covered in ice, local businesses were hit hard and lost money and the disabled and elderly were left to suffer.

The Yeovil Express article is here and the Western Gazette coverage can be found here.

I have received a response today from the Environment Directorate at Somerset County Council which I will be following up. It was a rather lengthy response so here are the main points.

The email said that the council strategy only covered gritting for:

• Strategic and County routes
• Freight routes
• Emergency location links
• Adjoining counties links
• Major settlement links
• Links to rural schools

It should, in my opinion, have included bus routes and took into consideration the location of sheltered housing.

The email indicated that east ward as well as other areas of Yeovil were completely ignored. They admit that there was very little gritting in Yeovil at all. They cite cost as one of the main reasons behind this.

I felt one area which was specifically neglected was east ward. As a result of my questioning they have promised to review my request that east ward be gritted in the future. My point was that the ward has a large degree of sheltered housing and as bus routes were reduced these people were left stranded for weeks on end; unable to even get to the local shops.

The council will be reviewing their salting network and as part of that review are going to look further at my request. However I have also got in touch with the scrutiny committee at the council and made the case directly to them.

I have also forwarded the email to the local newspapers so they can shame the council into action.

Kevin ‘Liability’ Davis

Our Conservative PPC, Kevin Davis, believes he can win in Yeovil and defeat a Lib Dem majority of 8000. This is despite having never lived in Yeovil. But regardless, he wants to be its next MP!

Kevin Davis says that he really does intend to move, one day, to Yeovil. He made some vague promise to moving here a few years ago but he never bothered to actually do it.  And with an election about 15 weeks away he still lives in London.

It’s not unfair to wonder if he ever intends to move at all! And when the election is over, just like all the other Yeovil Tory candidates who came before him, he will be gone and we will never hear from him again.

Kevin Davis is trying his luck in Yeovil after his own Tory colleagues in his home town of Kingston branded him a liability after losing control of the local council and his own council seat. His intentions to run as Kingston PPC dashed by his own people, Kevin perfectly demonstrates on his own blog how he has the utmost dedication to my home town of Yeovil!

Perhaps his mind is elsewhere?

Update: Unfortunately my Conservative opponent has now took his blog down and doesn’t want you to see how much he values Yeovil as you can see below.

Labour Representation Committee Support

This week the Labour Representation Committee published the list of candidates it is supporting in the general election. I am exceedingly proud to be among the fine candidates who have their backing. I have absolute enormous respect for MP’s such as John McDonnell, Michael Meacher, Jeremy Corbyn and others who have managed to stay true to the cause.

I receive their support on the basis that if elected to parliament I would serve as a member of the Socialist Campaign Group. I would proudly do so. And also that if an MP at the time I would have supported John McDonnell as leader of the Labour Party.

For the full list, see here.

In Support of Gordon Brown

As so many people in the last few hours, including the local media,  have asked me about the attempt to remove Gordon Brown I have sent out a statement. I will post it below for anyone interested:

Today none of us in the Labour Party were expecting to hear of a renewed attempt to remove Gordon Brown. These are the actions of a disgruntled minority within the party and shouldn’t be taken to be representative of the party as a whole.

  

We know that an attempt to topple our leader so close to a general election is a foolish move. At such a crucial time to focus on an internal leadership issue is clearly incorrect. This is why in the immediate hours following the news it soon become clear that activists, candidates, MP’s and ministers have no appetite for a leadership change and are throwing their support behind the Prime Minister.

 

We know that the British people are not interested in internal fighting; they are concerned about us getting out of recession, tackling unemployment and in restoring our economy to growth. As a parliamentary candidate, I support Gordon Brown. I believe he has taken the correct measures to safeguard the jobs, homes and savings of the British people despite those in other parties who wished to let the recession take its course.

 

As a party united we intend to continue with Gordon Brown as our leader. And we will continue to make the necessary yet tough choices for the country and the hard working majority.The Labour Party, both in Yeovil and nationally, stands united in support of Gordon Brown.　

 

Gordon Brown is the best man to take us into the election and the best person to see us through the recession.

Inheritance Tax

Letter to Western Gazette: Candidates DO Support Hunt Ban

Dear Sir,

In your recent article entitled ‘Hunts Sense Day is Theirs As Election Year Dawns’ Fiona Vigar of the Cattistock Hunt claimed that Labour Party candidates support the repeal of the Hunting Act 2004. I would like to take the opportunity to both assure her and the readers of the Western Gazette that Labour Party candidates do not support the repeal of the ban on hunting.

As a party we are very clear on this issue – we support the ban and will fight to keep it. That is why last week we launched our Back the Ban campaign at www.backtheban.com. As far as me and my colleagues are concerned any move to repeal the ban would be out of line with public opinion as 80% of people when polled have said they support the ban.

However the same can’t be said for candidates in the Conservative Party; a majority of which support getting rid of the ban. One of whom is Kevin Davis, Yeovil’s Conservative Party candidate. I find it very hard to believe that during a recession David Cameron and the Conservatives would make it a priority to remove the hunting ban. In pursuing a plan to remove the ban they are placing more importance on killing animals than on getting Britain working again.

However we should not be surprised as this is a Conservative Party concerned with acting in the interests of a minority. Where we take decisive action on the economy to save jobs and homes, they make it a priority to pursue the removal of the hunting ban, to raise the inheritance tax threshold to benefit the wealthy all the while they propose cuts in tax credits and try to get rid of our minimum wage. Unlike Labour, they represent the few and not the hard working majority.

Regards,

Lee Skevington
Labour Parliamentary Candidate

Sign up to Back the Ban

For anyone who has not yet done so, be sure to go to www.backtheban.com and sign up to support the hunting ban.

If given the chance the Conservative Party will repeal it. If we want to keep the Hunting Act 2004 the Labour Party needs people to sign up to protect it.

More Soft Power, Please

After the failed Christmas day plane bombing Barack Obama has renewed his commitment to the war on terror and to hunting down terrorists wherever they may be. It has been suggested that the United States just doesn’t get it. I agree.

 

They keep fighting but people keep trying to kill them. Has it crossed their minds that the two might by chance be connected? Is it beyond their ability to comprehend that the exclusive use of hard power has thus far completely failed in its attempts to win the war on terror?

 

Not only has the use of hard power (by which I mean military force and/or economic coercion) failed to win this war but it has also managed to alienate past allies and led to a significant lapse in their soft power. This being their ability to get what they want by appearing attractive. This is their policy, culture and values – things such as liberty, freedom, equality and democracy. It doesn’t matter that it is but a smoke screen behind which reality lurks, it is the perception of these things which counts when it comes to soft power.

 

And as a result of its war on terrorism its ability to influence and achieve its objectives by being appealing to the outside world has been all but destroyed. The world believed that the election of Barack Obama would repair that damage but perhaps that was incorrect.

 

Perhaps the international community has been premature in awarding him the nobel peace prize. Though this was undoubtedly a case of the international community using its own soft power to attempt to influence American foreign policy. Perhaps the critics will end up correct in their early assesment that Barack Obama will have no choice but to become George Bush 2.0.

 

 

What Obama needs to realise is what  everyone else (specifically the likes of Joseph Nye and John Mearsheimer) have already realised – that you can’t bomb for peace. The solution must now be to use the instruments of soft power to appeal to the mainstream non-violent Muslim majority and to dry up the support for the Islamic extremists. And while hard power will have its place it should be in a place less prominent.

If Obama and his administration can’t see that it is their own foreign policy which is causing a whole generation of Muslims to be radicalised, in defence of their homeland against an occupying imperialist power, then it is true that they just don’t get it. Do they really believe that they can invade other countries, exert their imperialist hard power and not suffer the consequences of such a policy? Of course young Muslims are going to take up arms against them.

The Obama administration could learn much by looking to the Cold War and drawing parallels between that and the war on terror. It wasn’t nuclear weapons or guns which brought an end to the Soviet Union – it was soft power. While the military hardware had a role to play the Berlin Wall ultimately came down because those in East Germany and the Soviet Satellite States looked to the United States and seen capitalism, freedom, liberty and democracy and they decided that was what they wanted too. The wall came down because western liberal democracy was appealing. And our values must again be appealing to the Muslim mainstream if the war on terror is to be won.

Obama is wrong if he thinks he can do a Bush and smash the enemy into submission with military hardware. Again, looking at the Cold War, at a record high was the number of cultural exchanges, broadcasting and development assistance and in doing so they won over hearts and minds.

However we should not be suprised; just as all other Presidents Barack Obama too believes in the exceptionalism of the United States and that this exceptionalism gives him an entitlement to act with unilateralist preponderance. Without a doubt, Obama agrees with those over at the Project for the New American Century who ask if not America then who will confront rogue states and terrorists? They conclude that their excessive defence spending alone makes them capable of completing the job. Like George Bush, Barack Obama has continued with a neo-conservative foreign policy in that they must maintain their pre-eminence in the world, thwart rival powers and shape the global security system in a way which suits them and them alone.

Perhaps, like George Bush so too will Barack Obama prove to lack contextual intelligence in pursuing the correct foreign policy to the precise foreign policy challenge. What is certain is that we do not need to continue a foreign policy which is about exporting fear rather than hope and optimism. If Obama continues with sending more and more troops into Afghanistan and using hard power he will continue to fan the flames of extremism.

What is now needed is a complete turn around in foreign policy, sooner rather than later. And he would be smart to reconcile himself with the use of soft power.

Why did Labour ban hunting?

Why did we ban hunting? Take a look at these videos from the League Against Cruel Sports and you’ll see EXACTLY why we did it: