Letter to Gazette - 14th Oct 2009

The Editor
East Kent Gazette/Sheppey Gazette (via email)

Dear Madam

In his letter to this week’s East Kent Gazette our local Labour MP, Derek Wyatt, questions once again my assertion that the Sure Start programme will be safe under a Conservative Government.

Mr Wyatt has spent the past two years peddling the lie that David Cameron will abolish Sure Start. He has perpetuated this myth not because he cares about those who are being helped by Sure Start, but in the hope that enough people will believe him to save the Labour Party from defeat at the next General Election.

Quite honestly I am disgusted that he continues to play on the fears and worries of some the most weak and vulnerable in our society simply to pursue his own political agenda. Whatever happened to the caring Labour Party?

In his speech to last week’s Conservative Conference David Cameron admitted that not everything Labour had introduced was bad, for instance, he said that if elected a Tory government would keep devolution, the minimum wage and civil partnerships.

Wouldn’t it be nice if Mr Wyatt, and his New Labour colleagues, had the good grace to admit that not all Conservative intentions are bad?

On the subject of Sure Start David Cameron said, and I quote:

“Now I don’t live in some fantasy land where every family is happily married with 2.4 kids. Nor am I going to stand here and pretend that family life is always easy.

“But by recognising marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system and abolishing the couple penalty in the benefits system, we’ll help make it that little bit easier.

“But it’s not just about money. It’s also about emotional support, particularly in those fraught early years before children go to school. Labour understood this and we should acknowledge that.

“That’s why Sure Start will stay, and we’ll improve it. We will keep flexible working, and extend it. And we will not just keep but transform something that was there long before Sure Start began – health visitors.”

That couldn’t be a clearer commitment from David Cameron. Why cannot Mr Wyatt accept that the Modern Conservative Party cares just as much about the poor and vulnerable as did the Old Labour Party?

Yours sincerely

Gordon Henderson