I received the Conservative leaflet today – well, to be precise I found it on the pavement while out delivering my own! Unfortunately it’s the only place I get to see their leaflets because they don’t deliver to our house (booo!)

Am I alone in thinking that they don’t seem to be interested in local issues? The leaflet covers some vague generalities – but very little about West Lancs or Ormskirk in particular. Having seen leaflets from Up Holland and Burscough it looks like they have the same front and middle across Lancashire and the only thing that differentiates them is the back page.

I scoured the pen portrait on the back page for some mention of the fact that their candidate lives in Parbold, but couldn’t find anything. I suppose they don’t want to print that.

However, it was good to see that they acknowledge that he has, in fact, been an Ormskirk Councillor for nine years – certainly not the “new voice for Ormskirk” which they claimed last month!

And yet, for someone who has been a councillor representing Ormskirk for nine years, the leaflet doesn’t contain a single practical thing he’s done. Instead it lists the various “portfolios” that he held at the Council, and doesn’t even say what he did when holding those portfolios. It also doesn’t say that he was shifted “sideways” (that’s me being generous!) out of the ruling cabinet and into overview and scrutiny last year.

While he’s been holding all these important council jobs the Conservatives have (amongst other things):

• refused to give pensioners free rail passes – despite the Government giving the Council money that could implement this;
• turned down government money which would have paid for free swimming for under 18’s (in Wigan, for example, they’ve brought in free swimming for all);
• let parks and playgrounds (like the one in Halsall Lane) become derelict;
• failed to collect so-called “section 106” money from developers including one sum of over £125,000 from developments in Skelmersdale;
• closed cash offices in Ormskirk and Skelmersdale, and as a result rent arrears have soared;

One thing the Tories have done is demolish four houses at a cost of over £600,000 so that a new town hall could be built – which I understand might not even be built!

Their leaflet is scattered with the usual tosh about Conservative councils costing less – which frankly doesn’t mean anything. For every survey or bit of research that shows one side, there’s another bit of research that shows the exact opposite. We usually use the “Labour councils cost on average £160 per year less”. These claims are unimportant – actions, as they say, speak louder than words, and in West Lancs we’ve seen money wasted and some actually lost while on the other hand they’ve claimed that there isn’t enough available to implement basic services that our neighbouring Councils are able to provide.

Their candidate has been at the centre of these discussions – making the decisions when he was on the cabinet and refusing to question them when he was chair of scrutiny.

Obviously I don’t expect them to print this in their leaflets, but I’m astonished that they don’t print _anything_ about what he’s done. I’ve lived in Ormskirk for three years and I don’t know what he’s done for the town. Could it be that in the nine years as a councillor he’s done nothing at all???