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 | The Chairman's Diary |
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The Cambridge City Conservative Association has a wide-ranging programme of activity.
With this Blog and Nick Hillman's one too - you will have a very good opportunity to get to know about the work that the Conservatives are doing in our beautiful City.
Monday, 14 December, 2009
| The Chairman's Diary |
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What a weekend ! We have hit the ground running with Nick, our new PPC. The organisation of our work with him and plans for the short term are actioned. Yesterday evening our Christmas Mulled Wine and Mince Pies Party to welcome him was a great opportunity to introduce him to everyone. I can still smell the cinnamon from the wine ! Sorted out the info feedback to facilitate the move to a new all singing, all dancing computer system to make sure that we give our oppponents a run for their money ! Tried to raise more funds today. Tomorrow's a big day with our first team meeting with Nick. Time to finally close down screens and switch off the phone.
Tuesday, 20 October, 2009
 | Get on with the Student Finance Review |
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 The Conservatives have been calling for ministers to get on with the review into student finance.
The review should be on a cross-party basis, so we can end the uncertainty for universities and students. The model for this type of review is the Dearing Report. It made 93 recommendations concerning the funding, expansion, and maintenance of academic standards in 1997.
The idea that those who benefit from higher education should meet some of the cost of their degrees is a point which has been won in principle. However, we must ensure that those who could gain from university are not put off by the prospect of debt, and that they have a good chance of staying the full course to earn their degrees. There will be a lot of investigating, debating, and decision-making to be done. So the earlier start we make on it, the better. |
Sunday, 18 October, 2009
| Setting out the Conservative Stall |
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 Cambridge City Conservatives, supported by the University Assocation, were in the Market Square setting out the Tory stall for the next election. The country is crying out for change, if you want to help to bring it about, please contact us today!
Richard - 07 929 000 582 |
Friday, 16 October, 2009
| Lib Dem Councillors in Section 106 Circles |
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 The West/Central Area Committee meeting descended in to low farce. The committee, including three ‘Executive’ councillors, could not work out how money from developers – paid under ‘Section 106’ – was allocated in the city. This followed a question asking why most of the development was in Castle Ward but the S106 projects listed in the agenda were in Newnham.
As the independent member noted, “Councillors don’t understand the rules of the game”.
The Lib Dems have run Cambridge City Council for a long time now, there are no excuses.
Cambridge Deserves Better. |
Tuesday, 13 October, 2009
| A14 Campaign Backed by Business |
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The campaign to upgrade the A14 as fast as possible was backed by business today.
We have reached the point where 'upgrade the A14' is repeated as often in modern times as 'Carthago delenda est' by Cato the Elder in ancient times [though the improvements for the A14 would save lives, unlike Cato's destructive plea].
See http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_home/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=455575.
Friday, 09 October, 2009
| Party Conference Round-up |
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This week David Cameron set out bold plans to deal with the big problems the country faces.
The scale of the challenge is immense. For example, Gordon Brown is presiding over a crisis where the country will spend more money on the interest payments on our national debt than on schools. Today, for a single mother with two children, earning £150 a week, the withdrawal of benefits and the additional taxes mean that for every extra pound earned, she can keep just 4 pence. Four pennies in the pound is the Labour reward for self-improvement. Britain deserves better.
Conservatives will empower people to take charge of and improve their own lives with a transparent and accountable government.
We will trust the professionals. Schools, hospitals, universities and police will not be subject to the current arbitrary, responsibility-sapping, box-ticking nonsense from central government.
We will put liberty first, ending Labour’s ‘Big Brother’ government with its expensive databases, 42 days detention, and surveillance state.
Some choices ahead are difficult. For example, the plan to raise the pension age is not a popular one. But it will make it possible to increase the basic state pension in line with earnings, and not just for one year, but for every year. It is also accompanied by a plan to enable the elderly to be spared the forced sale of their homes to pay for care.
Cambridge voters will decide whether they want their voice to be heard and someone to take to the field for them, or if they want the city to be on the sidelines with a Lib Dem MP, marginalised at Westminster and ignored by the party's leadership over tuition fees.
The choice in 2010 is between David Cameron and Gordon Brown as prime minister.
Only a Conservative vote will secure a Cameron government, restore Cambridge’s voice on the national stage, and give Britain the change it deserves. |
Thursday, 08 October, 2009
| Pledge for 10,000 extra university places wins over The Independent |
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 Today's Independent reports that the move is smart on a number of counts. "Politically it is astute for the Tories to position themselves as the friends of higher education at a time when public spending cuts are threatened. Until now it is the Labour Party that has been portrayed as the universities' supporter. The announcement acknowledges the importance of higher education to the British economy and to getting young people off the dole and into work. Offering graduates an incentive to pay back loans is a clever way to raise the money to pay for the extra places. This gives people who might not normally vote Conservative a reason to do so."
If The Independent is ready for change, then the country really is. |
Wednesday, 07 October, 2009
| Cambridge University Moving On Up |
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 Today's news tells us that for global higher education: "Harvard is still top, while Cambridge moves up from third to second place. Oxford slips from fourth to fifth rank."
Good, but no ground for complacency.
This morning I raised the issue of the postgraduate sector at a meeting at the Party Conference. We need more British postgraduate students as they will provide the basis for our academic achievements in the future. We also need to make sure that the fiasco over student loans is not repeated next year, as this will affect the number of people entering or staying in higher education in the first place.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8295336.stm |
Sunday, 04 October, 2009
| Joining 'My Conservatives' |
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is just a click or two away... http://www.myconservatives.com/user/register
Friday, 02 October, 2009
| Irish Referendum Today |
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 As our cousins in the Irish Republic go to the polling stations to vote on the European treaty, it is worth reminding Cambridge voters that this is something our current Member of Parliament will not allow us to do. Every major party promised the British people a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty - the renamed EU Constitution - at the last General Election. Labour and the Lib Dems' efforts to deny the British people any say at all on it is a breach of trust with voters.
And now to answer the obvious question... if the Treaty is not yet in force at the time of the next General Election, and a Conservative Government is elected, we would suspend Britain's ratification and hold a referendum, recommending its rejection.
Cambridge residents were promised a say in 2005, they deserve one in 2009. |
Thursday, 01 October, 2009
| Cambridge Station: Meet the Managers Morning |
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 The local managerial team was on show at the railway station this morning. Timing their appearance to coincide with regular commuters was a good start. The openness to new ideas was also refreshing. For example, it was pointed out that the Lost Property office’s hours, opening from 8am, could be changed for an earlier start on some days enabling the morning commuters to collect things on their way in to work and not just at the end of the day.
There are also some major changes planned for the station. The CB1 Development is the best known, but the establishment of an ‘island’ for new platforms in the station and extra work at the Hitchin bottleneck [where the Cambridge line meet the East Coast Main Line] offer the prospect of improved services. |
| A14 Delayed Again… |
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This is entirely predictable and what we have come to expect from this government. So it is in the blog, not the news...
The plan to upgrade the A14 was announced by the Government in 2001, after delaying the studies when they came in to power, with a planned public start date of 2008. The Highways Agency pledged earlier this year that work would begin in 2010-11. Now, with construction not starting until 2012, it will be the winter of 2015-16 before work finishes.
Wednesday, 30 September, 2009
| Time to kick The Sun again? |
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The Sun, so long the bane of the earnest political comics of the 1980s – and I don’t mean the elected ones – lost its place as the number one Left-wing ‘hate’ paper to The Daily Mail in the mid-1990s.
But, with The Sun backing the Tory team, which target will the right-on crowd choose? I will listen to Radio 4 this weekend to find out…
Monday, 28 September, 2009
| Babysitting 'ban' is Bonkers |
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 Two police officers were told they were breaking the law by caring for each other's children.
More 'Big Brother' from Labour. The regulations were never intended to stop informal arrangements, and it's just further evidence of a Government which believes the state is better at bringing up children than parents. Once again, we need common sense not loopy laws.
See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8277378.stm |
| City Lib Dems in Open Space Spin |
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 Local Lib Dems are spinning how their party’s policies will give residents more say on open spaces.
However, the Lib Dem-run City Council is busy agreeing to garden grabbing and big developments without adequate open spaces today. The council’s planning policies are in a mess and, when they are not too busy axing trees or trying to impose huge changes to Jesus Green, people should be reminded that this is the Party that approved the grotesque Travelodge at the Cambridge Leisure Centre. |
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