The Hove & Portslade Constituency News

Summer/Autumn 2008

Conservative Parliamentary

Candidate, Mike Weatherley.

A very warm welcome to this edition of The Hove & Portslade Constituency News. In this issue you will get a flavour of the issues I have been taking up on your behalf. There is also the opportunity to tell me what matters to you. Please do take a few minutes to complete the enclosed questionnaire. Or go on line to complete. Your views and opinions are extremely important to me.

www.mikeweatherley.org.uk

Gordon Brown’s Follies!The myth that Gordon Brown was ever a good Chancellor has been exposed. He sold our Gold reserves when the price was at a low, encouraged spending based on credit on the back of an unsustainable house price boom, over-borrowed (we now have higher levels of Government borrowing than any other country except Egypt, Hungary and Pakistan), and increased bureaucracy to record levels. And taxed you heavily -over 150 new ‘stealth taxes’, followed by £2.7 billion in extra borrowing to U-Turn on the 10p Tax Rate. Borrowing we will have to repay later with more taxes. Gordon Brown is a disaster!

Recent Election Results

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is very pleasing to see that David Cameron and the Conservatives are winning the battle of ideas and people are turning to us as a result of our positive policies, giving the Conservatives spectacular election results in Crewe, London, Henley and Haltemprice and Howden. Conservatives are setting the political pace.

And locally, the new Conservative administration has kept the rise in Council tax below inflation for the first time in 10 years.

I very much hope you will be supporting me to become your MP at the next General election. A Conservative MP to work with your Conservative Council.

Out and about with Mike WeatherleySnapshots of Hove & Portslade’s Prospective MP

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King Alfred Communal Bins Policing

Post Office Closures Cleaner Streets National Issues Argus Letters

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Above: With Councillor Carol Theobold at North Portslade Summer Fete. Right: With Councillors Dawn Barnett and David Patrick at Olive Road, Hangleton and Knoll and Below: With Councillors Garry Peltzer-Dunn and Ted Kemble at Wish Ward Green Flag Presentation.

Above: With Councillor Steve

Harmer-Strange in South Portslade. Right: In Grand

Avenue with Andrew Wealls and

Councillors Averil Older and Jan Young and Below: On Hove

sea-front with Councillors Brian

Oxley and Denise Cobb and PCSOs Nick

Packham and Jez Rouse

Above: With Mrs Patel and Councillors Older and Young at Church Road Post Office and Below: With Councillors Oxley and Cobb in Poets’ Corner, Above Right with Jo Heard and Roz Rawcliffe in Norflok Sq. and Below Right: Discussing sea-front buses with Councillors Oxley and Cobb

Above: At Churchill House with Ann, Sheila, Ron, June, Connie, Joyce, Tony and Rene. Left: With Councillor Vanessa Brown at Hove Park Playground opening and First Below With Richard Balfe, former MEP in Goldsmid and Second Below: Presenting Winner’s Trophy at Coral Greyhound Stadium in Stanford Ward.

Mike Weatherley. Working for a safer Hove & PortsladeIn e-mails, letters and surveys you tell me that crime-and the fear of crime-is your ‘number one issue’. This is hardly surprising with Labour letting out criminals early due to their poor prison building planning (over 26,000 prisoners have been released early, allegedly committing over 450 new offences). Tragically, the headlines that we see daily on gun and knife crime are now all too familiar and the under funding of the Police (not forgetting that Labour rejected the independent review of Police pay and refused to agree the recommended start dates) is a disgrace.

Our Police force is the envy of the world, doing a job most of us would find impossible. And locally, our officers are winning in many areas. It is time to cut red tape and empower our officers.

A Conservative Government will;

· Abolish the ‘stop and account’ form to save an estimated 900,000 police hours per year, freeing up officers, putting them back on the street

· Make carrying a knife without good reason a crime punishable by prison

· Ensure we have enough prison places so that sentences imposed by Courts are actually those served by convicted criminals, ending Labour’s early release scheme

· Increase the number of rehabilitation places for offenders and drug addicts. We know drug addicts often only turn to crime as a result of their addiction and help with the addiction itself is proven to be a more effective way of reducing crime than prison alone.

Top with Nick Packham and Jez Rouse (Portslade PCSOs) , middle, with Councillor Jan Young and PCSOs Graham Older and William Alderton and bottom, with PCSOs Sarah Erdman, Kelly Manifield and Kayleigh Pierce

Pensioner Poverty: Labour’s Shameful FailureMost weekends during the last year, we have been out listening to your concerns. The spiralling cost of food, energy and mortgages are worrying a great many of you.

In particular, I am increasingly concerned by the poverty experienced by many of our senior citizens.

The hardship experienced by our older population is exacerbated by rising food and fuel prices, often the two things on which most of their income is spent. It has been calculated that the true rate of inflation suffered by pensioners could be as high as 9% currently.

The number of pensioners currently living in poverty amounts to a staggering 2.1 million people. That is a disgrace and shows this Labour government has not delivered on their promises.

Worse, the poorest 25% of pensioners saw their incomes rise only 1% last year. Well below almost any measure of inflation.

Gordon Brown’s answer is to continue to raid our pension funds, destroy incentives to save by means testing benefits and creating such a complicated benefits system that billions of pounds of credits go unclaimed.....by people who are in desperate need.

Labour policies have taken us in the wrong direction.

Chris Grayling, Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions;

‘Conservatives want to restore trust to the Pensions system in this country and give security and dignity to all people in old age. Help us fix the mess Gordon Brown has created in our pensions system’

Getting in touch andstaying in touch!At the next General Election, whenever that might be, I hope to have the privilege and the responsibility of representing all of Hove & Portslade residents.

I have made a firm commitment to listen to your views, to work in your interests and to stay in touch with you. The process of listening began over two years ago when I was selected to contest this constituency, it continues today and will continue in future. I have therefore attached a survey to this news letter, which I would be grateful if you would return to me. It comes with a FREEPOST envelope, to make it easier for you to drop your responses into a nearby post box- no stamp required.

Your views are important to me. Please complete the survey-and thank you for your time and trouble to do this.

You can also get in touch by writing to me at;

Mike Weatherley Prospective Member of Parliament Hove and Portslade Conservative Association 66a Boundary Road Hove BN3 5TD

Telephone;

(01273) 411844

E-Mail;

mike@mikeweatherley.org.uk

Web;

www.mikeweatherley.org.uk

We are also in the process of developing a Web based information service, so you can keep up to date with my campaigns, survey responses and concerns. If you’d like to know more, please be sure to complete your E-mail address when you fill out the survey.

Or log on to;

www.mikeweatherley.org.uk

Promoted and published by Heather Newberry-Martin on behalf of Mike Weatherley of 66a Boundary Road, Hove, BN3 3TD Printed by N M Productions, 24 North Road, Brighton, BN1 6SP

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