We are fighting the growing problem of ‘south east prices but south west prices, says Mike Chapman, north Dorset chair of the Liberal Democrats

In a rousing speech, Vikki Slade, three-time parliamentary candidate, told the AGM that a strong Liberal Democrat showing in Dorset Council and national elections was important. Core Liberal Democrat values are vital in the fight against the increasingly immoderate trend in politics today. She urged people to stand as candidates at local, unitary and parliamentary levels.

Aid for low income families

Mike Chapman, newly-elected north Dorset chair, outlined the activities of the past year. NDLD has run projects such as the Community Fridge in Sturminster Newton, bought by Lib Dems and managed and stocked twice a week in a campaign to reduce food waste. There has been a focus on climate change practicalities through a workshop and tree planting. The team manned a stand at the Gillingham and Shaftesbury Show, reminding people of the strength and capability of the Lib Dem presence. The local party has a growing social media presence (ndorsetlibdems) and campaigning on the streets has started again. Much valuable experience has also been gained by supporting campaigns in surrounding counties.
Mike thanked the executive team and the hundreds of members across the constituency for their efforts through the year, thanking everyone who has turned out, delivered leaflets, planted trees, got food for the Fridge or said a kind word on Facebook.

’Do better, or depart’

In 2022 we have a number of key themes: the UK’s graceless response to the migration crisis; the levelling up agenda that needs to acknowledge the real and growing problem in Dorset of ‘south-east prices but south-west wages’; providing a positive future perspective for farming, nurturing small businesses as the lifeblood of rural communities; ensuring Local Plans truly reflect local needs and are not a top-down, remote, bureaucratic imposition. Liberal Democrats’ positive approach and local initiatives on these issues is the way to challenge those presently in power to do better or depart.

Mike Chapman, north Dorset chair of the Liberal Democrats

Ken Huggins, local councillor and member of the Green Party, examines Dorset Council’s Climate Action Plan in the wake of COP26

The COP26 conference brought some modest advances, including formal recognition that human activities have caused around 1.1oC of global warming to date – but we are still very far from doing what is now needed. Even with such an apparently small increase in average global temperature, the serious far-reaching consequences are ever more apparent. Deadly heatwaves, fires, droughts and floods etc are a staple of the news. Even in Dorset we’ve had increasing floods recently, and the UK has just experienced the warmest New Year’s Day on record. Extreme weather events are nothing new, but it is the increasing severity and regularity of such events that tells us unwelcome change is happening. The alarm bell is ringing. It is still not too late to slow down and eventually reverse this over-heating, but it requires bold and rapid action by governments, business, local councils and, whenever possible, the public.

A plan for action

Dorset Council (DC) recently published its Climate Action Plan, available on the DC website here. Sadly, the Plan is too tentative in its timetable and too weak in many areas. The four Green Party councillors on DC will seek every opportunity to win over other Party’s councillors to the necessity of upgrading its ambition.
There is opposition to wind and solar farms, but these are an essential part of achieving the decarbonisation required of our present unsustainable way of life. Since the Government scrapped the zero carbon building regs in 2015 over a million new homes have been built that should have had solar panels in their roof. That’s a lot of roof space that could now be generating renewable energy.

Global heating is a global issue, and what happens here in the UK has consequences for the poorest people in countries most vulnerable to drought, floods and rising sea levels. The countries least responsible for climate change are the ones experiencing the worst effects. So far.

Ken Huggins, Parish Councillor Hazelbury Bryan

More people choosing between public health advice or putting food on the table and a few quid on the key, says Labour’s Pat Osborne

Like many others, the Covid crisis currently dominates my thoughts. Having contracted the virus at work, I was one of the many people celebrating a different kind of Christmas. Double- jabbed and boosted, symptoms where thankfully very mild in my case, but we’re currently seeing infection numbers ballooning and bracing ourselves for impacts of this on the NHS.

In North Dorset, the planned temporary closure of Minor Injury Units in Blandford and Sherborne from January promises to protect the NHS.

But as the recent problems with access to GP services in Blandford demonstrated, people living in isolated rural areas are considerably more vulnerable when part of our NHS infrastructure is removed, even temporarily.
Although undoubtedly intensified by the current public health crisis, a social media post from five years ago popped up in my timeline last week to remind me that a ‘winter crisis’ in the NHS was not a new phenomenon. It has been happening with increasing intensity since the Government introduced its programme of austerity in 2010.

Tory hypocrisy

Nevertheless, we are where we are, and despite Westminster’s ‘do as I say, not as I do,’ hypocrisy (which does untold damage) it’s important that we continue to look out for each other. For the foreseeable future, this means wearing masks, washing hands, taking tests, and getting jabs.
But we must also be patient with one another. Government support for small businesses and those on Universal Credit has ‘dried up,’ despite the exorbitant cost of gas and electric and the rising cost of living. We can therefore expect more and more working people to be faced with a difficult decision between following the public health advice to the letter or putting food on the table and a few quid on the key.

Cllr Pat Osborne Labour’s former Parliamentary Candidate for North Dorset

There are few simple solutions to the problems that face our communites, which is why we must not rush into simplistic ‘populist’ policies, argues Simon Hoare MP

May I begin by wishing you a belated, but sincere, Happy New Year. Let us hope that it will be a calmer year for all of us.

The Opinion Polls are moving and perhaps, one could argue, that the normal rules of politics are returning?

Governments, certainly those nearly 12 years in office, rarely win by-elections and they certainly do not lead in the polls. I can remember Labour being 20-25% ahead in the polls in the 1990s and the then SDP scoring around 50% in the early 1980s. But while interesting, they make no difference to the job in hand, i.e., for the government of the day to get on with governing and delivering.

Balancing issues is key

I have been reflecting on the events that have dominated my close to seven years as your MP: the 2016 the EU referendum; 2017, my second general election; 2019, my third general election.

In between we have had confidence votes in Theresa May, the Corbyn years and two leadership elections. I am now serving under my third Prime Minister. It is indeed a curse to live in interesting times.
Most of us, I believe, crave calm seas where we can take stock, set a course and make headway. to focus on what we used to call the ‘bread-and-butter’ issues of politics.

The delivery of Brexit was always going to command a significant proportion of governance bandwidth. When we overlay the high and continuing demands of a global public health pandemic with the cross-government needs it has created, I would urge a degree of sober reflection on the performance of the Government in those bread-and-butter areas of public policy.
The impact of both events mentioned above on the public finances have yet to be fully assessed but they will be there, and they will shape how we move forward.
Our public services and infrastructure require investment and I support that. Of course, the drive for efficiencies will continue but those are not infinite seams to mine. We will need to continue to invest in order to secure a prosperity dividend of sustainable economic growth.

We’ll hold our nerve!

While we are all worried about inflationary impacts on living costs, we do our own and future generations no good if we are side-lined away from a net zero goal. Fuel costs stabilise when we can, at scale, generate sustainable power at home, rather than importing price-fluctuating foreign power sources.

On this issue the Government must hold its nerve and it’s why I’ve signed up to my colleague Chris Skidmore’s group on this. (in a tweet last week, Chris Skidmore, the Tory MP for Kingswood near Bristol, said that he had “decided to set up the Net Zero Support Group to demonstrate and maintain Conservative support for net zero carbon emissions and policies needed to deliver this” – Ed).

As I said in a recent Tweet, ‘I love my children and home planet more than anything and will do all I can for them’.

So, as we saunter through 2022 we need to keep cool heads and clear visions. Common sense, and serious and sober Tory pragmatism must command the centre ground of British politics. The tantalising siren voices of easy solutions to complex problems, the chorus of the populist stating all is black or white with the didactic certainty of a Jesuit Inquisitor, are not the answers. They never have been. They never will be.

by Simon Hoare MP