Tracey Crouch MP, a "Hopeless" "Serial Rebel"?

I try not to be partisan (no really...) I'm a liberal and a fan of good democracy, representation and the like but maintaining a healthy dislike for misrepresentation of the truth and bold face lying.

I find it difficult when MPs like Tracey are about. It is a veritable fly in the ointment. I don't sit around at home waiting for MPs to screw up so I can criticise them or link them tenuously to some cock up. Nor am I a PPC with a party agenda or axe to grind.

However, every now and then it is good for an opposition party member to point out to the electorate that they're being sold short by their representative or their views are being ignored in Parliament such as where is Reh? Or Helen Grant ignoring constituents (post to come soon) but with Tracey... I struggle to find anything.

Oh there are broad party issues that Tracey and I would disagree on. I'm more pro-Europe and believe to my very core in Lords reform for example. If we did agree on everything though I'd be a Conservative or she'd be a LibDem (Tracey, if you're reading this and decide you really do agree with Nick just let me know & I'll put in a good word for you. ;-) )

Seriously though, other than these broad party beliefs, which ultimately you need to respect someone's politics whether you agree with them or not, I can't fault her.

Someone said to me almost two years ago;

You'll never see Tracey Crouch in Medway, not until 2015. Her power base is in Aylesford and the valley.

This piqued my interest and I thought that here was one to watch, the people of Chatham would not be represented and there would be plenty of scope for stories.

Tracey has proved her critics wrong - even pacing Chatham high street the day after the first sign of a riot during last year's London riots. She could have stayed bottled up in Aylesford where there has been no fighting since the days of Hengist and Horsa's invasion but nope she was on the front line. She has a high media footprint as well with plenty of visits to places, local businesses, schools, youth groups, sports teams, Chatham town FC home matches - even speaking to Save the NHS protesters as well as really worthy causes such as the GetCamin campaign.

Even more scary than having to deal with a civil disturbance is defying the Government whips which she did when representing Chatham's mesothelioma sufferers recently when she voted against the Legal aid bill. Although recently billed as a "Serial Rebel" in a speech at Labour Party conference a cursory glance at her profile on theyworkforyou shows this isn't the case. Voting in Government is never easy despite what politicos and opposition supporters may suggest. There are times when a national strategy that offers to improve things will be hard for your constiteunts, budget cuts fit into this but what do you do? Things are very rarely cut and dry. Cllr Osborne (the Labour PPC for 2015 in C & A) accused Tracey of when it comes to crucial votes she just abstains. in the Messenger's letter page but what else can you do when torn between the Nation and the constiteunt? This is of cource not applicable in clearly objectionable cases such as the Rail fare rise to RPI+3 (in which Tracey secured a meeting with the secretary of state on behalf of us beleaguered commuters) or indeed the dreaded Boris island which she, and others have fought against openly against party big hitters like Boris Johnson and George Osborne - hardly looking after her own advancement at the cost of her Constiteunts!

Lets also take a case study of the bus routes with in Kent. The simple fact of the matter is that KCC and Medway Council cannot afford to keep up with the subsidy for bus transport within their areas and, taking a leaf out of the last Labour Government's book, passed the rise in fairs to those that used the service and freed up money for other worthy causes. Makes sense.
Then there is looking at how to be more cost effective and that means axing services that aren't used heavily or at all. Again makes sense.
However, it takes a good elected representative to listen to complaints and protests and mediate between the bus company (Arriva) and users groups which is what has happened in the case of the 155 bus route from the Medway towns through to Aylesford.

In her recent column for the Medway Messenger Tracey even shows she isn't a mindless party robot or not open to debate and has indeed listened to constituents, animal rights groups and thought about the issue before voting, something that I fear is beyond a lot of politicos who only see in black and white. It takes a brave person to stand up and admit they we're wrong on an issue and that they have reflected on their choice and arrived at a different conclusion.

I'd love to be able to tell you that this Tory MP was, as accused at the Labour Conference, indeed Hopeless or to ratify my colleagues prediction that she would not be seen in Medway before 2015, but it is simply not the case. Tracey works hard for her constituents and in a world where many politicos see politics and Government as Black and White (or Red and Bluw) you'll find Tracey deep in the grey area and the only thing I can fault her on is that she isn't my MP and that the people of Chatham and Aylesford are lucky to have her.

If anything, the only thing I can find Hopeless about the whole thing is the attempts of the opposition to pin her with Incompetant or hopeless tag - if they want to win the 2015 election in Chatham and Aylesford they're going to need to do A LOT better.

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Ed Miliband just doesn't get it

So, Ed Miliband has told the public that he went to one of those hubs of poverty and human deprivation. A state school. Logically it follows that he is one of us and understands what it is like to be poor.

OK fair enough, compared to the Etonian and Westminster schools that Dave and Nick went to, where privilege and wealth is the norm but does that mean he knows what it is like.

I went to a state school and I didn't notice the financial situations of my friends. I was too busy doing my school work, chatting and immersing myself in a Galaxy far far away. though I don't know how many of my friends or indeed the others who paid that much real attention to other people's circumstances at that age.

Further to that, just being surrounded by people who can't afford to do things, who may not have the newest mobile, or this seasons Spurs shirt, whose parents have just been made redundant doesn't mean you can identify with them.

I work at the Imperial War Museum, I've spent a couple of years patrolling the lower ground floor and World War One, read accounts from soldiers and histories of the western front - by the same logic I can identify with a soldier on the Western front? I'd be able to look him in the eye and say;

It's alright mate, I understand what you're going through

Balderdash.

You can't understand what it is like to be working class without being working class. If you still have money to fall back on and a well off family that can support you its not the same. Its not until you add up the bills and realise you can't afford food for the rest of the week and its another week of pasta for dinner, or the panic because your rent is due in two days and you're rapidly closing to that line.  Not to be able to afford a birthday present for one of your best friends, to be forced into war time rationing just to make ends meet! (thankfully I'm now well out of that situation but a decade ago things were that bad.) To spend each working day toiling to get bugger all for it after taxes, railway fares rising, council taxes rising, nursery prices going up and my wages? 1%.

I spend a lot of time worrying about how I'm going to afford to send my kids to university should they get to that point, or just as importantly how am I going to support my wife and I in our old age as and if we can afford to retire with our pensions?  I've been poor, I've been unemployed for three months, I've had a bill so large that I simply couldn't pay it and We've worked hard to keep our little family in the black and above the water line but there are many who cannot.

Just because Ed "my family are quite well off but I'm still like you guys" Miliband went to a state school he now he knows and can empathise with my life?

My response is blunt and simple: Don't patronise me sunshine, come walk a mile in the shoes of those who are truly worse off and then you can say you can empathise.

Harman damages any future Lib-Lab coalitions.

 Now I've never been a fan of Harriet Harman, but I have kept my thoughts to myself until the "rodentgate." As a redhead, I found her comments about Danny Alexander exceptionally offensive and  and ill thought out and now I barely hide my contempt so apologies if this is a bit slanted however her comments today are also as ill thought out.

With the future of British politics looking a little shaky and a general consensus that Coalitions and hung parliaments might become more regular the third largest party hold the key to a safe majority and at the moment that's the Lib Dems. It would make sense that, if you were to criticise the Lib Dems and their part in the Coalition you should not attack the core values such as Individual Liberty right?

Cue Harriet Harman... In her speech today she began by attacking the Conservatives and their policies and taking the moral high ground by pointing out the Tories like people with money and saying that for them Downton Abby was a "Fly on the wall documentary." - Very constructive.

Then she moved to those who do the "Dirty work" of the Coalition - The Lib Dems. It's their fault that local communities cannot have CCTV and that the DNA databases were destroyed!

Well yes, it is. Its as if she still doesn't get it. The DNA database was wrong, the government compiling of personal information of anyone's, including the Innocent, is an invasion of personal liberty. Its my DNA, my private information, why the hell should the Government have that information if I don't want them to. When I apply for a Passport I supply information in return for a document that will allow me to travel but my DNA?

As for CCTV, it is not necessarily a crime prevention as images can be grainy or be pointing in completely the wrong direction. It also means that free citizens are having their movements monitored by authorities, other than the Police. Why should everyone's movements be monitored for the sake of a possibility of a wrong doing? Should the innocent suffer with the guilty?

Anyway, if you agree or disagree, the point is Liberals don't and fought damn hard to get rid of Labour's oppressive measures and now Harriet is lamenting their loss?

Then she moved on to attack the Lib Dem theory that we act as a brake to the Conservative led Coalition. Ok, we're not perfect, Tuition fees was something that couldn't be avoided and the new system of repayment is a lot fairer and protects students who cannot get top paying jobs from paying back on smaller wages. Lets face it, and be honest, how many students have come out of Uni and ended up earning £30,000 straight of the bat? How many have earned around £20k or less and ended up paying back loan?

She also levels the NHS - something our activists voted to delay and get the parliamentary party to listen and think again, Police cuts - which are not government led but done by local Chief Constables, VAT - which we can't have that much of an impact over. What she has forgotten is that if we weren't in Government at all then things would be different, we've got around 70% of our manifesto through to the benefit of people everywhere and some of these would not have been passed by the Conservatives alone such as lifting people out of Income tax, Voting referendum, I could go on.

I'm not saying we're perfect in government and I have got plenty of problems with the Coalition but with power and Government we will make mistakes and errors of judgement, as Labour did when it first came into power in 1924 i.e the Zinoviev letter... However it is a learning curve. Needless to say, she has damaged prospects of the parties working together in the future if New New Labour drum into their party a dislike for the Lib Dems or even spend the next four years telling the electorate how awful we are and then have to go back on themselves if they ever need a Coalition.

Yes the Lib Dems were evil but now... they're urm, they're really nice evil?

The last thing, and this made me raise an eyebrow, was that according to Harriet;

As we look to the year ahead, as more people suffer from the Tories, as fewer people trust the Lib Dems, the political map is changing and Labour's activists are mobilising.

Changing? Anyone would think Labour weren't in for 13 years and that the Coalition is a result of a yearning for change. It sounds like she is believing her own hype and it made me think of Hitler telling Feldmarschall Von Griem of the thousands of Luftwaffe jets now available and the Wehrmacht mobilising to throw the Allies out of Germany in April 1945.