Wise Counsel / Council

Last night I spent a very pleasant hour or so in the company of Councillors Saxon Spence CBE and Richard Westlake MBE. These two local Labour "Grandees" met me at Buckerell Lodge, just up the road from Devon County Hall where they had spent a busy day in briefings and meetings. 

Their shared history of service to the people of Exeter is both humbling and formidable. Saxon was first elected to the City Council in 1972, and to the County Council in 1974. Richard, a relative newcomer, was first elected to the County Council in 1985. 65 years of shared service between them! 

One of the best things about Labour membership is the sense of being part of a movement - a shared history and heritage, and a profound feeling of continuity. Listening to Saxon and Richard talk over generations of local council administrations, describe the pendulous swings of the fortunes of the major parties gave me a context for the campaign I shall be fighting. We discussed the nature of voting in rural areas - why the rural working class have never seemed to embrace Labour in the same way the urban working class do, and Saxon explained the often strong history of the Liberal movement in the South West, linked as it was to the spread of Methodism. 

What we all agreed on was the current devastating impact of Tory policy nationally and locally on Devon, and Exeter in particular. Devon County Council will be facing deep cuts again next fiscal year, and services will inevitably be impacted. More services are likely to be outsourced, and we share deep reservations about whether - when the chips are down - private for-profit providers will ever put people first in the same way that our public servants do. Exeter has around 40% of employment dependent on the Public Sector. Deepening cuts nationally and locally are bound to see more Exeter families losing their incomes, and it is clear that the local private sector - battling hard against banks that won't lend and customers that are too nervous for their own futures to spend - are not creating new jobs fast enough. Some areas of Pinhoe have 25% of homes reliant on claiming benefits - with a disproportionate amount of women affected.

Labour nationally is now starting to win the argument that the Tory / Lib Dem austerity measures are not working. They are crippling services and communities, strangling any hope of economic growth, and the deficit that they previously tried to blame Labour for (rather than global economic turbulence that we are still seeing) continues to grow. The Tories themselves are concerned that they are haemorrhaging support from women voters because they have been most hard-hit by government policies. (Maybe not surprising when only 4 of the 29 MPs present in Cabinet meetings are women!)

So, against a backdrop of national and international financial crisis, the battle to protect local services and communities is fought in the council chambers of the Civic Centre and County Hall. I am so proud to be shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Saxon and Richard, veteran campaigners who have been trusted again and again by Exeter's residents to fight on their behalf for a better, fairer community in our City. 

I am grateful for the time they spent with me last night, and grateful for their support, advice and wisdom. And Richard, I am equally grateful for the pint of Guinness. :-)