Hebden Bridge Times coverage

We could not have got this far without the hard work of Hebden Royd councillors and officers, Calderdale Councillors and a specific mention for Cllr. Robin Dixon. This is what politics is really about – getting things done.

One final push to get this street brought up to the standard it deserves.

Can we do it? – YES, WE CAN

The biggest and most annoying fallout of the MPs expenses saga is the continuous assault by the media on all politicians at all levels.

In the last ten days, not a day has gone by when I haven’t heard somebody, either in passing or in the media, saying: “politicians are just in it for themselves” or similar comments.

Being a town councillor on Hebden Royd Town Council, this attitude annoys me.

HR Town Councillors do not get any allowances or expenses and all travel/childcare etc. has to come out of our own pockets. The only exception is the mayor who has an allowance to cover the cost of being in ten places at the same time.

I spend many hours a week doing voluntary work either as a charity trustee, school governor,  general volunteer or as a town councillor.

It is only for being a councillor that I have my motives questioned.

Every MP who has fiddled the expenses system needs to think long and hard about the damage that they have done to UK politics as a whole.

The only cure to the current parliamentary malaise is to call a general election and let the electorate purge those MPs who they think have been fiddling the books.

</rant>