Free Schools - What is all the fuss?

The Huntingdonshire Liberal Democrats had a go at the Liberal Democrat leadership and the Coalition over the Free Schools and Academies policies by winning a motion at conference. Cllr Downes - Leader of the Liberal Democrats on HDC and a former Headmaster, lead this assault with:

"Just as the supermarket drives the corner shop out of business, so it will be with schools."

Supermarkets didn't drive the corner shop out of existence. Customer choice drove closed corner shops. Customers chose to shop at supermarkets because of the wider variety of food items that were fresher, higher quality and cheaper. Those shops able to adapt and change to their customers needs stayed open and thrived. What Academies and Free Schools will allow is for parents to choose their school.



"When Tesco provides some new products to lure people away from their competitors, the unsold items in the failing shops can be returned to the wholesaler or sold off in a sale. But not so in schools. Pupils are human beings, not tins of beans. A school that withers and dies does so over a few years, perhaps covering the entire career of a pupil in that school,...".

To me what Cllr Downes is saying is failing schools should be kept open so more pupils can fail rather than allowing parents to move their kids out of the school. I thought the Liberal Democrats were supposed to be radical. Yet when it comes to the vested interests of the teaching profession obviously Liberal goes out the window and small c conservatism comes to the surface. 

Letters in the Hunts Post 03/03/10

My comments on some letters in this weeks Hunts Post.

Late night count irrelevant - Cllr Downes, leader of the Liberal Democrats on HDC, attacks our MP over his insistence of having an overnight count. Whilst Cllr Downes correctly points out the difference in Conservative policies, he is wrong over the 4 hours. The amendment is for the count to start within 4 hours not the completion of the count by 4 hours. I just feel this amendment has much to do with Djanogly getting back to his home in London.

They forgot us - Joy Winters carries on the politics of envy with a letter which says Huntingdon has forgotten about St Neots. Joy compares the out of town Cineworld in Huntingdon, which back in 1998 got planning permission, and HDC not giving away land in St Neots for a cinema. That is the problem. HDC is not a charity. Cineworld was built on a commercial basis. All HDC did was give planning permission. In the case of St Neots there is no reason why a cinema operator cannot build a cinema. The only reason why they don't is a cinema isn't commercially viable.

The politics of envy carries on with St Neots is the largest Town in Cambridgeshire. This is true. What is missed is the conurbation surrounding Huntingdon is far larger than St Neots.

Her head in the sand attitude continues with the privately run clinic. I do want a clinic to be in competition with all the other privately run clinics. GPs practises are actually private contractors within the NHS. Labour has been privatising the NHS since 1997. Where has Joy been?

Job cuts at HDC?

In an article in the News and Crier Cllr Reeve (UKIP) and Cllr Downes (Liberal Democrat) have a go at the financial competence of the ruling Conservative on Huntingdonshire DC. Looking at the financial summary in the graphic below this shows £6.1 million needs to be saved from the proposed plan of £27.5 million.

The article also points out there is £15.8 million in reserves. But the Conservatives are using this money to prop up the deficit budget. This is just throwing money away. When the money runs out deep cuts will have to be made.

So the HDC has £6.1 million to cut from its budget and hasn't identified where the savings are going to be made. The Conservatives are using the £15.8 million to prop up this budget. True, the Conservatives are going to use £1.2 million on invest to save schemes. Why didn't the Conservatives do this beforehand?


I largely agree with Cllr Downes. The problem is there is little alternative to cut services. The next Government will have massive financial problems. If the Conservatives are hoping for a miracle to sort out this mess it won't happen.

Whilst the Conservatives talk of protecting "front line services" I can find no definition of what these are. For instance Public Conveniences could be called "front line services" and are to close and jobs cut.

What is needed is a conversation between HDC and the public on the way forward over cuts. The trouble is what a council calls frontline services and what I call frontline services do differ. 

Faced with a £6.1 million cut from the budget job losses are inevitable. Otherwise we could end up with the bureaucratic utopia of loads of jobs and few services to provide to the public. The quicker the Conservatives actually get on with planning the reductions the better for all. This piecemeal approach of deficit budgets is doing no one any good other than the political fortunes of the Conservatives.