A Leadership Coup At Crawley Council?

Two weeks ago in my ever popular Crawley Observer column which is below the picture, I wrote about the economy and the importance of getting that right so that we can fund public services for the long term. Speaking of the Crawley Observer columns, has Cllr Peter Lamb been secretly replaced as Leader of the Council by Cllr Chris Oxlade? I ask this as for several weeks now, Cllr Lamb's Leaders column has been written by Cllr Oxlade.

I offer further evidence for this potential secret leadership coup, as there has been a published change of Cabinet responsibilities at the Council. The (former?) Leader has officially taken over part of Cllr Chris Oxlade's Community Engagement portfolio, by becoming the Council's representative on the Sussex Police and Crime Panel.

I could be on to something here or Labour could just be cynically  promoting their Parliamentary candidate by giving him maximum publicity in his Councillor role. However, whenever one of my group tries to ask a question at Full Council about the blurred  boundaries of the Crawley Labour Parliamentary Candidate being promoted by the Council in his Councillor or his DJ business role, the Labour Mayor always rules the question out of order.       

"Another senior business leader has warned about the economic risks of Labour winning the general election. The Chief Executive of Boots is quoted as saying that Ed Miliband’s plan for power was not helpful for business and would be “a catastrophe” for Britain. It was very telling that in response, rather than address the issues raised, the Labour Party launched a co-ordinated social media smearing campaign against Boots’ Chief Executive.

I place great emphasis on the economy because it underpins everything government and councils do and everything we would like to do. While not being unduly influenced, we do need to listen to businesses that are the wealth creators and politicians need to create the right conditions for business to thrive. Ultimately, a successful economy provides the funding for all the public services we rely on.

No politician should be trusted to deliver on protecting our public services if they are unable to deliver the right economic conditions that provide the money to fund them. Labour is claiming they can fund public services and eliminate the deficit by clobbering the rich. On the face of it, this may sound attractive as the majority of us are not very wealthy so we are led to believe that most of us wouldn’t be affected. However, Labour are taking us all for mugs by trying to appeal to the worst instincts in people, that being the politics of envy.

History has shown that taxes that punish success and encourage wealthy people to move their money abroad and invest elsewhere, has a damaging effect on our economy. As has been evident since Labour crashed the economy in 2008, when the economy suffers we all suffer. In reality higher taxes does not raise more revenue. What it does do is create a downward spiral where thresholds at which taxes are paid have to be lowered meaning the majority of us end up paying more tax in order to stop government revenues falling. Be very wary of politicians claiming they will clobber the rich saying that it won’t adversely affect you, because eventually it always does."