Welwyn Hatfield Liberal Democrats

STOP PRESS - LIVERPOOL CONFERENCE - BLOG FROM OUR PPC, Paul Zukowskyj

"I'm at the conference, and as I write this I've just finished attending two

candidates' briefings, the first from Vince Cable, discussing taxation and

the second from Chris Huhne discussing home office issues.

"Vince had some interesting things to say on taxation. He explained just how

much better off the poorest in our society would be under a Lib Dem

government. The richest currently pay the least tax and the poorest pay the

most. Our policies make taxation fair. Households would have to have an

income of more than 75,000 a year to be worse off under our proposals

compared to the current situation, and those earning less that 30,000 would

be hugely better off. We can afford this because the proposals raise the

same amount of money as our current tax system, it's just that more comes

from those more able to afford it and less comes from the poorest in our

society.

"Chris had a lot to say on crime and justice. British policing and the

criminal justice system are just not joined up and the system is overloaded

with admin tasks and bureaucracy. The Lib Dem proposals would change all

that and our emphasis would be much more on stopping crime happening and

improving detection rates. Labour's approach to add more crimes to the list

of offences simply doesn't work if there's no-one to catch the criminals!

Locking people up isn't effective if they never get caught in the first

place! Our policies are designed to improve detection rates and reduce

re-offending, so stopping crime happening in the first place, a much better

approach than ineffective knee-jerk reactions.

"The afternoon sessions included a briefing on environment and energy from

Steve Webb, our shadow environment and energy spokesman. The session was

very enlightening, particularly about the Nuclear Energy options, where he

described the governments decision to pursue new nuclear plants as 'a

red-herring and a white elephant'. The coming energy gap, where our

capacity to generate falls below the demand, will happen before new nuclear

will be even close to ready. Other sources will be needed to plug the gap,

so when the plants come on line, the need for more energy will not be

there, meaning they're white elephants. It's increasingly clear nuclear

energy isn't the right answer.

"Steve then discussed how our policies to encourage renewable energy would

make a real difference, without bequeathing a massive radioactive legacy to

our children. More offshore wind farms, investment in developing tidal and

wave energy and research into biofuels for road transport would kick-start

the switch to renewables that would mean the UK being carbon neutral by

2050.

"Steve was also scathing of the government's commitments to reducing our

national carbon footprint. The 60% target is widely recognised as being too

low, with all major environmental organisations agreeing it should be a

minimum of 80%. The Conservatives simply don't know what to think on the

environment and their slogan 'vote blue, go green' relates more to how ill

we'll all be when we realise just how superficial their policies really are

if they ever get into power......

"The evening fringe also held an interesting session on post office

closures. The current 'phased' reduction of 2,500 follows a loss of 4,000

under new labour since they came to power, after Tories closed 3,500.

The other two parties have undervalued the social and community cohesion

that a local post office supplies, showing that their words on 'building

communities' really are just words. We find out in late May which specific

post offices are under threat in our area, and have just six weeks of

'consultation' in which the communities affected have to respond. If a

serious campaign is mounted for a particular post office to remain open,

they'll just close another in the same area, meaning whatever you do the

service will be cut.

"All this damage to local communities is to save just 45 million pounds. The

board of the royal mail last year received bonuses worth a total of 4.7

million, so if they gave it up they could save 220 post offices from

closure.....

"The Lib Dem plans to split Post Office Counters from the Royal Mail will

mean that local post offices are much more commercially viable. This is

because they would be able to act as sites for other couriers, like Fedex

and TNT, as well as providing the other services they currently provide.

Our policy would ensure the viability of many of the post offices scheduled

for closure or that have already closed, demonstrating once again that

we're the party with local communities at heart.

"The day finished with a meal at a local restaurant, with lots of chat about

policies and strategy, as well as families and friends.

"This morning starts with a visit to the exhibition and a chat with some of

the stall-holders, which includes a stand run by a council in the South

West, where the Lib Dems in control are working with Ford to supply

ethanol-fuelled cars for council staff. These are already on the road with

others planned, meaning the carbon footprint for the council has already

started to fall significantly. Why isn't our Tory council looking at this?

"I'm looking forward to Nick Clegg's speech at 11:40, Look out for the

highlights later!"

• Paul