The national picture feels like the beginning of the end, says North Dorset Lib Dems’ Mike Chapman, but there’s need to watch the new Investment Zone

After all the flourish and noisy braying in past weeks from the Government benches about ‘real Conservative policy’ … it all looks a bit less professional today. There are two fundamental concerns here: does this package deliver growth or does it merely deliver division? Then, does this package presage a confident, capable government for the next two years? I do try to be positive, but look, it is desperately simple: those earning the least keep less because personal allowances are frozen. And the mood music says that benefits will be pared back. Otherwise, as individuals or businesses, we are back to where we were a few months ago, except that … interest rates are rising, impacting mortgages; the weak pound and higher cost of imports are stoking inflation; and energy bills will still be going up.
I cannot see how these measures in these circumstances deliver an incentive to spend and/or invest – the drivers of growth.
The huge cost has been loaded onto the nation’s credit card in a budget lacking the other side of the equation but it was the insouciance, the devil-may-care attitude as much as the fiscal irresponsibility that spooked the markets. Added to this, we have the continuing and spreading industrial unrest and anxiety about budgets in every other area of public expenditure. Great start? It feels more like the beginning of the end.

Confrontation politics
Closer to home, we have Dorset Council looking to turn parts of the county into an Investment Zone, with all the regulatory relaxation that implies.
To suggest that some of the motivation might be to help dig themselves out of the hole they are in with the Local Plan might be unkind. We shall all need to watch, though, how the Zone idea develops; especially when seen in conjunction with the mooted relaxation of the planning system. With Dorset and Somerset both involved, there must also be a danger of a race to the bottom as each competes to attract bigger business investment.
Our democracy, so deeply attached to its polarities and its confrontational ways, struggles to find consensus of the kind many of the more successful nations seem to manage. Risky shifts in policy, ignoring the experts, have rarely served us well. Consensus may be hard to achieve but it is the soundest basis for public policy.

Stur’s Nexus
Enough philosophy. Back to our local world. There are exciting prospects for Sturminster Newton’s ‘Nexus’ business incubator project, whose launch happens on the evening of 10th October upstairs in The Emporium. It brings together many parts of the community, including local business organisations, philanthropists and volunteers, to create a mentoring environment for start-ups and fledgling businesses. Backed up by seasoned professional advice and support, including the potential for investment, it looks to be an excellent example of what can be achieved by working together toward a highest common denominator.
Three words that trump any race to the bottom, methinks.

Infighting and infantile economics set the table for a fairly disastrous first course from our new prime minister, says Labour’s Pat Osborne

Few can deny that it was a disastrous first Conservative Party Conference for Liz Truss. Her tax cut U-turn has been a total humiliation for the new prime minister and her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, prompting an infighting free-for-all amongst the Tories, reminiscent of the bunfight scene from Bugsy Malone.
But it’s hard to find any amusement in a political pie-in-the-face when it’s rooted in a collective blunder that will continue to do so much damage to those who can least afford it.
According to the Resolution Foundation, despite scrapping the abolition of the 45p tax rate, the measures announced in the now-infamous ‘mini-budget’ will deliberately widen the inequality gap further. The richest five per cent will gain an average of £3,500 next year, while the poorest 20 per cent of households will gain around £90. In fact, the richest five per cent still stand to gain more than the poorest half of the income distribution combined, with any real term benefit for most of us being swallowed up by the spiralling cost of living crisis made worse by rocketing interest rates driven by the Government’s economic incompetence.

GCSE Economics
While Truss and Kwarteng’s £18 billion corporation tax cut remains standing, the Chancellor has announced £18 billion in cuts to our already creaking public services.
Meanwhile, our schools and our hospitals require intensive care themselves, after 12 years of Tory austerity – and the hard-working people who work in them (and whom we clapped during lockdown) desperately deserve a pay rise, not another real term pay cut.
But as most of us are finding it more and more difficult to make ends meet, Liz Truss’s instinct is to stand firmly by a mini-budget which is designed to line the pockets of the rich and wealthy, and has all the substance of a GCSE economics assignment copied from the Chuckle Brothers on the bus to school.

The squirrel in your back garden really can benefit from where you choose to spend your weekly shop, says North Dorset Green Party’s Ken Huggins

Two years ago we enjoyed our best hazelnut harvest ever, with hundreds of nuts to enjoy through Christmas. Last year was very different, with just a handful left. The culprit appeared this summer; a squirrel digging furiously in the garden and every now and then emerging triumphantly with a hazelnut. I was a bit miffed.
But we need to share our harvest with other creatures and I appreciated the hazelnut saplings that sprang up where the squirrel had missed some of its buried treasure.
This summer’s harvest is looking very different, though. In the heat and drought our hazelnut tree lost half its leaves mid summer, and then the nuts began to drop. They were empty. Nothing for us, or the squirrel.
On the nearby Alners Gorse butterfly reserve the wild blackberries are small and dry, the sloes are tiny, and the elderberries are almost non existent. Slim pickings for those who like to forage treats from nature’s bounty, but we can buy food elsewhere. Some wildlife will undoubtedly fail to survive this winter for lack of food.
The UK is rated as one of the most nature-deprived countries in the world, largely due to intensive industrialised farming. Since 1950 we have lost 118,000 miles of hedgerow habitat, and 97% of wildflower meadows. Unsustainable use of artificial fertilizers & pesticides is destroying our soils, polluting our waters, and crashing the insect populations that pollinate our crops. Of course, these devastating environmental costs are never included in the price of the supermarket’s cheap food.
We as consumers are not powerless. What we choose to buy – and not to buy – makes a real difference. We can choose to eat more seasonal and less highly processed food. And, those who can, to support organic producers whenever possible.
Do spare a thought for the wildlife that will inevitably struggle during this post-drought winter. Put food out for the birds, and perhaps let some of your garden grow wild to provide a habitat for the insects and other creatures that life depends on. Perhaps join the River of Flowers project and grow pollinator friendly wildflowers, or join groups working to restore our wildlife. You have the power!

There’ll not be a general election until 2024 – but that doesn’t mean the fight for practical, pragmatic politics ends, argues Simon Hoare MP

The Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes tells us: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” As the hand of autumn firmly settles over our landscape, we are more than aware of the ending of one season and a passing to the next.
And so, perhaps, we might be seeing this on our political landscape too. I fought my first Parliamentary election in 1997. Not a great year for the Tory party and an election that heralded 13 years of Labour Government. Slowly the Tory Party, in the words of the song, got itself up, dusted itself off and started all over again. We should expect a General Election in 2024; I know that many want that to be earlier. I can understand their argument but I do not share it. With all of the recent turmoil and sadness, COVID, Ukraine, the death of The Queen, interest rates and inflation, I really do not believe that it would be in the interests of the UK to take six weeks for a General Election campaign.

Side with commonsense
I am firmly of the view that most people want the Government to focus – and focus on solving today’s problems in a practical and pragmatic way. I will work tirelessly, as I have done since first elected, to ensure that the interests of North Dorset are taken into account when policy evolves. I want to make sure that Government is doing all it can to help and support people locally. In so doing, I appreciate that sometimes puts me out of step with Government – but I have usually found that the commonsense side of the argument, that I am inclined to be on, usually wins through in the end. Let me give you some recent examples.
I have made clear, both publicly and privately, that I will not support a resurrection of fracking. I will continue with this campaign and hope that Government listens. Fracking is bad news for Dorset’s environment. I hope Government listens to the public mood.

Likewise, I could not fathom any economic, social or political merit in removing the 45p income tax band. The Government listened to many voices making the same point and has changed direction. I welcome that.
I have also made clear that I believe that benefits across the board should rise with the rate of inflation this year. You cannot build a successful economy by making the lives of some of the most vulnerable in society more difficult.
It is the dragon of inflation that must be slayed, not our pledge to protect the vulnerable of our country.
During the summer I made clear that helping households with fuel bills was not a ‘handout’ but a vital measure of support due to unforeseen and arguably unforeseeable events. I therefore welcome the package of measures that the Government has announced for both domestic and business customers. I continue to advocate for a Windfall Tax (as, incidentally, does Shell).

As a Conservative I of course welcome competitive and realistic levels of tax (both personal and corporate). Reducing the tax burden is important and is a noble enterprise, but it should only be delivered when it is affordable. I remain distinctly uncomfortable with the strategy of borrowing to fund tax cuts, and wait to see what the Office for Budget Responsibility has to say on that matter before the Treasury proceeds. I remain implacably opposed to delivering tax cuts funded by reducing investment in vital public services that the vast vast majority of our fellow citizens use, be it local government, health or education.
High quality public services produce results which play a key role in levelling up. Being poorly educated, feeling unsafe or being unhealthy does not economy contributors make.
So, whatever the season, I shall continue, to the best of my abilities, to advocate for North Dorset in the ‘corridors of power’.
To try to secure the best deal I can for you.
I share Churchill’s old view (not one shared by any party’s Whips’ Office) that it’s constituency, country then party that should dictate and shape an MP’s action.
Simon Hoare MP