Surrey CF

The Surrey CF Exec Endorsement for the election for National Chairman of Conservative Future is: BEN HOWLETT.

A breakdown of results is as follows;

RHUL – Francis Walker – BEN HOWLETT

USCS – Michael Vivona – BEN HOWLETT

Mole Valley – Alexandra Swann – BEN HOWLETT

Surrey Heath – Alexandria Jay Okanska – NO VOTE

Elmbridge – Rowan Cole – SIMON CAVALIER-JONES

Epsom – Alexander Clarke – NO VOTE

Spelthorne – Adam Shire – NO VOTE

Runnymede – Edward Davis – NO VOTE

Woking – Alex Celiseus – BEN HOWLETT

Guildford – Rowan Cole – SIMON CAVALIER-JONES

BEN HOWLETT: 4
SIMON CAVALIER-JONES: 2

Every member of any Surrey CF branch is in no way bound by this result, this is simply the result of who the branch executives back, and in turn the Surrey CF Exec.

One branch, one vote. Chairmans reserve their right to change who they back as they see fit. However, the Surrey Exec endorsement will not change.

Branch Chairman are prohibited from saying ‘[branch] CF’ backs ‘X’ without clearly stating ‘Executive’ or ‘Exec’ afterwards. E.g. Surrey CF does not back Ben Howlett. However, the Surrey CF Exec. does. Equally, Branch Chairman are entitled to say ‘I back..’ but not ‘we back…’. This is to ensure it is as democratic as possible.

Individual members will get to elect one of the nomiated candidates between 8th and 27th September (noon) to elect their favourite candidate. It is only the individual members that can elect, and branch backings are only a recommendation and do not elect the National Chairman.

Hope everyone is enjoying their summer, even if it is raining…

Josh.
Surrey CF, Acting Area-Chairman

Well, it seems a kerfuffle has brewed! And brewed strong it has.

As of yesterday, I am now the Area Chairman of Surrey Conservative Future. Now, on a few blogs here and there Surrey CF seems to be have mentioned regarding the futures of two National Chairman candidates of CF, Ben Howlett and Simon Cavalier-Jones.

I wish them the best of luck.

However, a dispute is awry!

I have had a private conversation with Ben about his concern that the ‘Surrey Exec’ has backed his opposite number, Simon.

I have been a busy bee, particularly in enjoying my rather rare holidays and have had little chance to check my ever-expanding Facebook inbox. I have not had the time to vote or to discuss who Surrey CF should vote for.

Rowan made the decision for Surrey CF to back Simon when the other Exec members voted for Simon. Rowan also believes Simon is the best candidate for the job.

I have said to Ben that I have had no vote on who should be the new National Chairman.  I have also had a conversation with Rowan about Simon and his credentials for being the new Chairman.

I said I have yet to be convinced about Simon or Ben.

I know Ben and have known Ben for a couple of years and we have mutual friends. I would not like to jeopardise these relationships by making some crass decision. However, I also have a good friendship with Rowan and the rest of the Surrey Exec, most who think we (Surrey) really should back Simon.  Rowan is, rightly, allowed to express his opinion that Simon should be the next National Chairman. Up until yesterday, Surrey CF backed Simon.

So I am torn. I know Ben, like Ben and have similar friends to Ben, and while I don’t know Simon, I like the sound of him and have good friends who also like Simon. Therefore I am making this decision.

I will abstain my personal vote for Simon or Ben.

I, in other circumstances, would have voted for Ben as I know him. Instead, because of the confusion between ‘who Surrey CF supports’ and the fact I like both candidates, I think it is right and the only fair decision to be made, that I do not side with either.

As for ‘who supports Surrey CF’, I will ask the local chairman of branches across Surrey who they think should be chairman and report back the majority view. That will be the candidate who Surrey CF supports.

I’ll keep you posted.

And that is that. Best of luck to the candidates.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to support my local pub.

Cheerio!

Our People Power manifesto, to be unveiled next week, will give local people the direct power to recall MPs found guilty of wrongdoing without having to wait for a General Election.

Conservatives will empower local people to cast a vote of no confidence in their elected representative and bring an end to the concept of the ‘safe seat’.

This proposal will make MPs directly answerable to their constituents over the whole of a Parliament – not just every five years.

How the Right to Recall process will work:

• The recall process will begin with the filing of a notice-of-intent-to-recall petition, to be signed by at least 100 constituents and submitted to the local returning officer
• Once registered, a recall petition can be circulated within the constituency, petitions for the recall of MPs must accumulate signatures equal to 10 per cent of the local electorate
• Any petition that crosses the signature threshold within 90 days would trigger a by-election

Shadow Leader of the House Sir George Young said:

“The last five years has been disastrous for Parliament and trust in politics has reached an all-time low. People want change and politicians must become more directly accountable for their actions.

“We have proposed a power of recall that will allow constituents to remove their MP mid-term without having to wait for a general election. Giving local people the power to cast a vote of no confidence in their elected representative will bring an end to the concept of the ’safe seat’ and make MPs directly answerable to their constituents over the whole of a Parliament, not just every five years.

“Recall will be triggered by a completely restructured Committee on Standards and Privileges that, for the first time in Parliament’s history, will contain non-parliamentary members – as I recommended to the Committee on Standards in Public Life last July.

“Our proposals will help to rebuild trust in Parliament and put more power where it belongs – in the hands of the people”.

Lets bare in mind that these business leader’s employ around one million people (the first 23 business leaders employ half a million people). Here what THEY have to say about the Government!

SIR – Between us we run some of Britain’s largest companies and employ over half a million people. We are responsible for ensuring that our businesses and our employees come through the recession in good shape.

The Government’s proposal to increase national insurance, placing an additional tax on jobs, comes at exactly the wrong time in the economic cycle. In a personal capacity, we welcome George Osborne’s plan to stop the proposed increase in national insurance by cutting Government waste. In the last two years, businesses across the country have cut their costs without undermining the service they provide to their customers. It is time for the Government to do the same.

Few would argue that the state cannot improve. In the last few years, the private sector has improved its productivity by around 20 per cent, while productivity in the public sector has fallen by three per cent. Savings can be made by removing the blizzard of irrelevant objectives, restrictive working practices, arcane procurement rules and Whitehall interference. Mr Osborne’s announcement marks the beginning of this debate. As taxpayers we would welcome more efficiency in government.

As businessmen we know that stopping the national insurance rise will protect jobs and support the recovery.

Cutting government waste won’t endanger the recovery – but putting up national insurance will.

Sir Anthony Bamford – Chairman, JCB

Bill Bolsover – Chief Executive, Aggregate Industries

Dominic Burke - Chief Executive, Jardine Lloyd Thompson

Ian Cheshire – Chief Executive, Kingfisher plc

Neil Clifford – Chief Executive, Kurt Geiger

Mick Davis – Chief Executive, Xstrata plc

Aidan Heavey – Chief Executive, Tullow Oil plc

Lord Harris of Peckham – Chairman and Chief Executive, Carpetright plc

Justin King – Chief Executive, J Sainsbury plc

Sir Christopher Gent – Chairman, GlaxoSmithKline plc

Ben Gordon – Chief Executive, Mothercare plc

Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou – Founder and Chairman, easyGroup

John Lovering – Chairman, Mitchells & Butlers plc

Graham Mackay – Chief Executive, SABMiller plc

Alistair McGeorge – Chief Executive, Matalan

Nicolas Moreau - Group Chief Executive, AXA UK

Stephen Murphy – Chief Executive, Virgin Group Ltd

Alan Parker – Chief Executive, Whitbread Plc

Sir Stuart Rose – Executive Chairman, Marks & Spencer plc

Paul Walsh – Chief Executive, Diageo Plc

Joseph Wan – Group Chief Executive, Harvey Nichols

Simon Wolfson – Chief Executive, Next plc

Zameer Choudrey – Chief Executive, Bestway Cash & Carry

The EXTRA THIRTY Business Leaders that have since signed the pledge;

Kirby Adams – Chief Executive, Corus

Surinder Arora – Chairman, Arora International Hotels

Stefan Barden – Chief Executive, Northern Foods

Robert Bensoussan - Executive Chairman, LK Bennett

Simon Blagden – Chairman, Fujitsu Telecommunications (Europe)

Tony Brown – Chief Executive, Beales

Chris Dawson – Founder and Managing Director, The Range

Sir John Egan – Ralph Findlay, Chief Executive, Marston’s plc

Stephen Goodyear – Chief Executive, Young & Co’s Brewery PLC

Anthony Habgood – Chairman, Reed Elsevier

Andy Harrison – Chief Executive, easyJet

Peter Harrison – Chief Executive, Furniture Village

Grant Hearn – Chief Executive, Travelodge

Peter Hindle – Chief Executive, Jewson

Neil Hornby – Chairman, Hornby plc and Umeco plc

Luke Johnson – Founder of Risk Capital Partners and Chairman of Royal Society of Arts

John King – Chief Executive, House of Fraser

Richard Kirk – Chief Executive, The Peacock Group

Simon Lockett – Chief Executive, Premier Oil Plc

Rick Medlock – CFO, Inmarsat Plc

Mike Norris – Chief Executive, Computacenter

Tony Pidgeley – Group Chairman, Berkeley Group Holdings Plc

Jamie Ritblat – Chief Executive, Delancey

Nick Robertson – Chief Executive, ASOS

Tim Steiner – Chief Executive, Ocado

Michael Turner – Chief Executive, Fuller, Smith & Turner Plc

Tom Wells – Chairman, Charles Wells Ltd and Muntons plc

Nick Wheeler – Founder, Charles Tyrwhitt

Bob Wigley – Chairman of Sovereign Reversions plc

Upcoming Events

• Saturday the 3rd at 9:40am: Surrey CF Action Day: Delivery in Guildford by Surrey CF

In 1904 a very forward looking Shoreditch Council (now part of the London Borough of Hackney) erected public baths and washhouses at Haggerston as they had identified a need for public health facilities for the poor of the area. It made a great contribution to the health and welfare of local residents and was hailed as an example of what forward thinking local authorities should be doing.

In 2000, despite local protests, Haggerston Pool was closed by the Labour Council due to the financial pressure from a diktat by John Prescott. Despite there being a real need for a swimming pool in the area, local people were powerless to prevent this misguided move. To pacify local campaigners the Labour Mayor of Hackney (under whose leadership the pool was closed) made vague promises four years ago that he would look into it. Four years on, that pool is still not open and is unlikely to open before the Olympics – which is an added shame given that Hackney is one of the five Olympic Boroughs.

What brought about this massive fall in the power of local authorities to meet the aspirations of its residents? Simple – a lack of people power and centralisation.

The arguments for centralising decision making always sound seductive. For example, the Government has set ludicrous compulsory targets for local authorities for housebuilding in order to rectify its poor record. These onerous targets have created resentment in rural areas by threatening valued green land, and in the cities has resulted in the proliferation of one and two bedroomed flats – the cheapest way to meet the Government’s targets.

The insulting arrogance of the Government is that they have resorted to compulsion because they believe they are the only ones that care! Any Councillor will be more than familiar with the impact of this Government’s housing shortage but are denied the power to meet their local need. A Conservative Government will give them that power so that the developments will be far more in tune with the environment and be more likely to have community consent.

But just decentralising power to the local authorities is not enough. With poor turnouts and party machines making some local authorities one-party states, what power do communities have when they find themselves up against an unresponsive Council?

Using the measures outlined in the innovative Control Shift green paper – which will be the basis of a Conservative Government’s empowerment programme – local residents will have the right to hold a referendum on local issues whether or not the Council approve.

So, the choice for people who value their community is simple: more diktats, targets and powerlessness under Labour, or reborn local communities that can make a positive difference to the areas they live in… and perhaps a few more swimming pools too.

Can we last another 5 years?

The General Election is fast approaching and for many of it will be the first substantial opportunity we have to return a Conservative Government on the 6th May. David Cameron and the Shadow Cabinet have the drive and determination as well as the policies and experience to raise this country out of the impending debt crisis and promote the interests of all the peoples of Britain. We cannot go on like this and the Conservative party have set out a raft of policies that will be introduced if we form the next Government. (Detail here)

Surrey is a True Blue county and I have no doubt that it will remain the same following the election. The Surrey Conservative MP’s and PPC’s standing in the election have consistently set the bar for how MP’s should behave, representing some of the parties best and brightest minds.

Your support now more than ever before is crucial to ensuring Conservative victory not just in Surrey but across the country. Clichéd it might be, but your country really does need you! Please keep an eye out for campaign events promoted through this group and join us in helping get rid of the current Government.

Surrey CF will be stepping up to challenge, will you?

Rowan Cole
Area Chairman for Surrey

If you would like to take a more active role in Surrey CF and the Conservative Party, please contact us at rcole@surrey.cfbranch.co.uk

You may have noticed that the website has changed a bit recently.

Well, the changes have stopped and finally we now have what you see now!

You can see what some of the Conservative policies are, who we are and what we’ve been doing, along with details about how to get involved on the site.

If you register as a member, we hope that you’ll debate our posts on this blog (both support and criticism is welcomed). From time to time we’ll focus on Conservative policy which we hope people will debate too.

We hope to open up politics, explaining to younger generations (and anyone else reading!) the policies of the Conservative Party and why, importantly, we think they’re the right thing.

This is not to say every single person within the Conservative Party, or Conservative Future for that matter, agrees with absolutely everything from Central HQ (European policy, for instance, is not just divisive in the Conservative Party but across the county too). We’re always open to suggestions from younger people as to how the country we live in can be updated to make the lives of British people improved.

The policies of the three main parties will affect your life at some point, so whatever your party leanings, we hope you get involved in some way (even over the internet) to have an input on the decisions that will affect you.

Hope you like the website!

Cheers,

Josh B.

The simple but effective idea of harnessing the power of mass collaboration has informed many of our plans for government. You can see that in our pledge to publish government data and spending online, so that tech-savvy citizens can mash up the data in useful ways to help make public services more transparent. And you can see that in our proposal to offer a prize for building an innovative government website.

But we don’t have to wait for the election to be given a chance to apply these principles.

Tomorrow is Budget day. Yes, it’s that time of year when the nation plays a giant game of hide and seek with the plans for our economy. Usually, it’s a case of hundreds of civil servants doing the hiding – and a handful of party researchers and journalists doing the seeking. This year, an election year, will be no different. It’s time to level the playing field.

So in the spirit of mass collaboration, we are going to crowdsource our response to the Budget and we need your help in doing just that. We will be publishing it online in an easy-to-read format (not like the enormous PDF documents so beloved of the Treasury) as soon as possible after its release, so if you check back tomorrow afternoon you will be able to start getting past the flashy headlines to dig through the small print.

Sadly, this will all too likely be a brazenly electioneering Budget with most of the painful elements hidden away far from sight so it is more important than ever for us to harness the talent, expertise and savvy of the Great British Public to shed some light on the 2010 Budget.

UPDATE – the site is now live at http://www.yourbudgetresponse.com

The natural and cultural assets of Arfon have not translated into economic success. Ten years of state control and public sector growth in Wales have stifled the voluntary sector and weakened the local economy.

It may have been a Conservative government that delivered the Welsh Language Act, the Welsh Language Board and S4C, Dinorwig Power Station, Ysbyty Gwynedd (Hospital) and more. But over the last decade Arfon has been forgotten by London and ignored by Cardiff.

So now the local PPC is leading a campaign “Adeiladu Arfon” (“building Arfon”). Tapping into a heritage of innovation and hard work, a green shoot has appeared in the voluntary sector: the Arfon Job Club.

How better to demonstrate that there is hope, than by doing something with nothing? No money. No public sector grant. Just a little goodwill, energy and vision.

The Arfon Job Club then, on one level, is about leadership. People are responding to this: One volunteer is Tilly. Now retired, she can share her skills in small business entrepreneurship.

On a personal level, the Job Club is about building confidence. This is a natural ‘human’ complement to the Job Centre Plus. One member, articulate and enthusiastic about his photography, was challenged to consider teaching. He had never considered it but the affirmation of discovering new potential produced a visible lift in his demeanour.

Finally, the club has drawn in and is mobilising the business community. The Deiniol Shopping Centre offered an office in their own management suite, and the local Subway is providing coffee and cookies.

Change is coming to Arfon. But from within, not the state. We have a saying: “Gwneud dim Dweud”, meaning “Doing not Talking”. Opening a Job Club is one way to show that we understand the problem and have an effective solution. It is saying loud and clear – Arfon is not forgotten.