Tag: Westminster

Max Wilkinson is Cheltenham’s new champion!

Councillor Max Wilkinson has been elected by local Liberal Democrat members as their new parliamentary candidate.

Former Lib Dem MP Martin welcomed the news: “Max is a terrific local campaigner, a good friend and he works to get things done. Unlike the Conservative MP, he lived and worked in Cheltenham before becoming a parliamentary candidate here. He’s already working hard for local people as a member of the borough council. I have every confidence that with Max in the lead, we can close the slender gap between us and the Conservatives at the next General Election, whenever it comes.”

“Cheltenham badly needs a new voice for tolerance, internationalism and openness in Parliament, and the country badly needs an alternative to this shambolic, divided government which is going to drive us over the cliff-edge of a very hard Brexit. So that election can’t come soon enough.”

Personal statement

For reasons unconnected with politics, as one of my predecessors once said, I wrote yesterday to Cllr Paul McCloskey, chair of the local Liberal Democrats, to let him know that I have decided not to put my name forward in any forthcoming selection of a Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Cheltenham.

I do regret having to take this decision and I very much hope to return to frontline politics in the near future.  But I can’t commit to that right now.  We ran a tremendous campaign in Cheltenham earlier this year, bucking the national trend by increasing our vote significantly and making this one of the most winnable Liberal Democrat / Tory marginals in the whole country, so I understand why the local party will want to crack on with selecting a candidate as soon as possible.  But the timing isn’t right for me.

Luckily, the Liberal Democrats have many able campaigners locally and nationally who will be very interested in taking on this challenge.  I wish them every success and I hope to be able to give them my wholehearted backing.

For the record – since this question is often asked – Cheltenham remains home and I have no intention of going anywhere else.  I remain a trustee of three local charities and I will be continuing with all of those commitments and continuing to help Cheltenham Liberal Democrats as much as I can.

The Conservatives are making a tragic mess of our country and their inept handling of Brexit in particular threatens all our futures.  Jeremy Corbyn’s increasingly embarrassing personality cult and his 1970s policies provide no realistic alternative.  Here in Cheltenham, we continue to see Lib Dem victories in local elections.  So I see no reason why the Liberal Democrats should not go from strength to strength again, nationally and locally.  We have a new national leader in Vince Cable and we now need a new standard-bearer in Cheltenham too. But there is still everything to play for.

Thank you for your support in the 2017 General Election

Originally posted on Facebook, June 2017.

Well we didn’t quite do it. But we did buck the national trend to increase our vote share by 8 points, adding six thousand to the Lib Dem total and slicing the Tory majority from 6,500 to 2,500.

We suffered from a national campaign that struggled to break through despite excellent leadership from Tim Farron, the lack of a UKIP candidate locally sending pro-Brexit votes straight to the Tories, and an increased Labour vote swept along by the Corbyn surge which in Cheltenham ultimatelyhelped the Tories win as well. Sometimes the cards just fall the wrong way during a campaign.

But the fact that we came so close is a credit to everyone from all over Gloucestershire and further afield who volunteered, delivered, stuffed, donated, delivered, called, knocked on doors, tweeted, posted and generally worked their socks off for weeks. Thank you SO much.

And thanks as well to those who co-ordinated ward efforts, led canvassing, covered Cheltenham in Lib Dem diamonds, gave advice on policy and messaging, wrote copy, handled emails, managed the money, produced video, promoted the campaign on social media and fundraised. We would never have come so close without you too.

Its invidious to name anyone in particular but I have to name check our core campaign team: my agent Steve Jordan, Andy Williams’ political intelligence and hard work at the printing presses in Hewlett Road, our vital national link Dave Wood, Chris Twells on the outstanding literature and many people’s superstar of the campaign, Chris Ward, who read the data and directed the huge volunteer effort at the Bakery and across the town. You were a fantastic team and put together a strategy that should have won us the seat – and would have done if the national tide had just flowed a bit more strongly in our direction.

But Theresa May’s gamble in calling the election misfired so catastrophically for the Tory party that we may all be back here again before long. Overturning a 6,000+ majority always looked like a bit of a longshot. But your tremendous effort this time means that whenever the next election comes, we’ll start within spitting distance of victory.

Thank you

Martin

Martin Horwood
Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Cheltenham 2017

Budget fails Cheltenham

Philip Hammond’s first and last Spring Budget today has failed Cheltenham, say local Liberal Democrats.

‘This was the crunch moment for NHS funding and an opportunity to put right the looming financial crisis facing many Cheltenham schools as well’ said Martin Horwood, Cheltenham’s Lib Dem parliamentary candidate and former MP. ‘And on top of that he has hit our 6,800 strong army of self-employed workers with a bigger bill too.’

‘Gloucestershire Hospitals Trust (which runs Cheltenham General and Gloucestershire Royal) is in the red and going deeper into the red’ he said ‘and after the failure of the Fair Funding campaign headed by our own MP, we now know many local schools are heading that way too.’
‘The Chancellor could have sorted out both these problems today but he failed on both counts’.

‘The NHS got an extra £425m but that won’t even clear this year’s deficit of nearly a billion pounds. The NHS could have received a much bigger cash injection while all parties discussed a long-term solution to the funding of social care, acute hospitals and mental health in this country, as the Lib Dems in parliament have been calling for. We heard more for social care which is welcome but won’t get Cheltenham General off the critical list’

‘And the Chancellor announced money for new grammar and faith schools but nothing at all that will help secondary schools like Balcarras, Pate’s and Bournside and many local primary schools which are now facing the prospect of growing deficits and some very hard choices after the failure of the Fair Funding campaign. Far from correcting the historic underfunding of Gloucestershire schools, the government’s proposed new national funding formula is actually going to leave many existing local schools worse off and the Chancellor did nothing to help with this looming crisis today.’

‘To cap it all, he has hit the self-employed with a National Insurance hike as well, breaking a clear Conservative manifesto pledge. Cheltenham has a big self-employed population – over 6,800 people according to a recent survey and the Conservatives have told them that instead of sharing in the benefits of the economic growth they are helping to create, they basically have to cough up more.’

Schools funding ‘hoax’ condemned

Cheltenham’s Lib Dem parliamentary candidate and former MP Martin Horwood has condemned as a ‘hoax’ the government’s planned National Funding Formula (‘NFF’) which was supposed to deliver ‘Fair Funding’ for local schools and correct the historic underfunding of counties like Gloucestershire but is actually going to mean two Cheltenham secondary schools LOSING £161,000 a year between them and gives only a fractional increase in funding to a third.

The figures buried deep in a Department of Education spreadsheet reveal the following changes from the planned ‘NFF’ for Cheltenham schools.  The first year of the NFF limits losses to 1.5% in Year 1 but the table below shows the hit schools will take if the NFF is later implemented in full:

Baseline funding 2016/17 Funding under NFF Loss/gain % change Protected Yr1 funding under NFF Loss/gain % change
Pate’s £2,675,000 £2,614,000 -£61,000 -2.3% £2,636,000 -£39,000 -1.5%
Balcarras £4,499,000 £4,399,000 -£100,000 -2.2% £4,434,000 -£65,000 -1.4%
Bournside £6,174,000 £6,189,000 £15,000 0.2% £6,189,000 £15,000 0.2%
Pittville £3,135,000 £3,238,000 £103,000 3.3% £3,225,000 £90,000 2.9%
All Saints £4,147,000 £4,461,000 £314,000 7.6% £4,268,000 £121,000 2.9%

Source:Department for Education (http://www.gloucestershire.gov.uk/schoolsnet/article/122078/DfE-Announcements-on-a-national-funding-formula-for-schools, spreadsheet at https://consult.education.gov.uk/funding-policy-unit/schools-national-funding-formula2/supporting_documents/Impact%20of%20the%20proposed%20schools%20NFF_20161220.xlsm)

So Pate’s stands to lose at least £39,000 in Year 1 and then £61,00 a year if this formula is implemented in full.  Balcarras stands to lose £65,000 in Year 1 and then £100,00 each year if the formula is then implemented in full.  Bournside gains only a fractional 0.2% increase under the formula.

Martin said: “We fought a cross-party ‘Fair Funding’ campaign for years to correct the historic underfunding of Gloucestershire schools.  If the government presents this as the answer to that long campaign, then this is a complete hoax.  Two out of our five secondary schools are going to lose out even more – over a hundred thousand pounds a year between them even in the protected first year.  Our biggest school Bournside gets only a derisory 0.2% increase.  This doesn’t only do nothing to correct the longstanding unfairness in school funding for Gloucestershire, it’s actually going to make things worse for thousands of Cheltenham students.

Worse still, the deficits I warned about in the election campaign if Tory spending plans went ahead are still on the cards and this will do nothing to stop them.  Within two years, schools across Cheltenham are either going to be plunging into deficit like our NHS trusts or cutting back on classes and facilities.  The speed with which this Conservative government is unravelling the good financial mnanagement of the coalition years is breathtaking.”