#Eastleigh

We’ve got a lot to catch upon so the posts for the next few days won’t be in chronological order but in order of what I believe to be more important.

So let’s talk about Eastleigh. You know the results and we lost fairly badly really. Some of this is midterm blues. If this was a general election, from polling done by Lord Ashcroft, we would probably have won because a lot of Lib Dem voters would have gone Labour and some UKIP support would have gone to us. Obviously local issues played a big part in Eastleigh helped especially by the Liberal Democrats absolute rule over the constituency’s council.

But significantly 43% of UKIP supporters would vote the same again if this were a general election, which is far too high. Lots of UKIP is derived from immigration. Something connected, but weirdly seen as different considering the number of European immigrants, from issues surrounding the EU. The Government is working on that however. As was announced probably too late yesterday, immigration to the UK has gone down by 1/3.

In my opinion there is a greater issue at work and it’s the obvious one which the Government has yet to do anything on. It’s the economy. Is there really any difference between us and the last Labour Government? Sure we are in coalition with the Liberals but that’s no excuse. In departments like education and local government we have gone very far with policies the Lib Dems on any day would disagree with.

But David Cameron is presiding over tax increases, except for those with the lowest incomes. We have a cut corporation tax and income tax will go down this year but isn’t this offset by increases in VAT and capital gains tax, for example. Essentially there have been no tax cuts to get the economy going, it could be argued, that there is a net increase in taxation. We need to get the economy going with tax cuts for all.

Last year our debt increased. This year our deficit will increase. We have cut virtually all parts of government and yet despite the pain that this has caused we’re blowing the money saved elsewhere. Where do you think HS2 is coming from? The Chancellor is spending all the money from the cuts in desperation on state funded projects to get some growth in the economy. This is making everything worse really. In 2015 are we really going to have a reduced deficit?

The public have rightly perceived that on the economy we are going nowhere. What matters is jobs and household incomes increasing and we get that through businesses growing. There are of course other factors but the real truth is on economics we’re no better than Labour. This is the ‘liberalness’ problem David Cameron faces and the real reason why voters are being turned away from the Tories. We’re relying on left wing economics. 

Liberal Democrats, Lying Here

In Eastleigh the Liberal Democrats have been trying to tell the electorate mis-truths about the Botley/Boorley Green housing development. It’s in their nature after all to be so conservative with the facts. Don’t forget the Liberals have a good history on tuition fees and now with Lord Rennard. Mr Clegg has now, despite the opposite being said earlier, come out and said he knew about he knew about his peer’s roaming hands.

The people of Eastleigh are quite rightly worried about the housing development of 1400 houses. This has been debated to the cows come home everywhere else so I won’t write about whether they should build it or not. However there has been a lot of Liberal spin and lies over the issue. The biggest mis-truth currently being told by Lib Dem activists on the doorsteps is that it is not the Liberal Democrat District Council who decided to build the houses. Actually planning, and thus building homes, are dealt with at a District Council level, which in Eastleigh is controlled by the Lib Dems, who have every seat. Indeed the candidate for the Liberals is a district councillor and thus partially responsible for the development. The Liberals however have tried to spin the issue and say that they are ‘protecting the green gaps between our towns and villages’. This is clearly not the truth if you are building on the countryside.

And on that point of protecting the countryside are the liberals good at it in general? It would seem not. Lib Dems are big wind power fans and want them built in greater numbers. Chris Huhne, being the Secretary of State on that matter, loved them. But as most people who have to live with them notice, in Fenland there are seemingly several thousand, they aren't exactly appealing in rolling fields. Also there is a lot of environmental damage done by the 1,000 tonnes of concrete underneath each one of them in order to stop the windmill from falling over.

We saw such Liberal care for the environment ourselves when in Eastleigh.

Liberal Democrtas, Littering Here. Don't mention that this is waste too.

So people of Eastleigh don’t listen to the lies. Vote Conservative, Vote for Maria Hutchings.

Out and About in Eastleigh

Yesterday #thingselliottsays went to Eastleigh for the by-election. From Nottingham it was about a 3 hour journey there and back by car (I thank James Poland very much for his driving) and a bit by train.

When we got there the amount of campaigning was amazing. The opposition was out in full force as I saw NUKIP, Lib Dems, the Independent and the National Health party out campaigning. notably Labour were too busy getting photos with Harriet Harperson to do much. The Tories had a very busy and great campaign with lots of literature and a huge amount of people helping with 27 MPs, 3 MEPs and 512 other activists on the campaign trail. When Maria campaigned in 2010 she had only 7 helpers and she almost won. The campaign was exceptionally well organised with bundles ready for activists to take and teams doing all sorts of data calculations as well as phoning.

Bundles ready to go out to all the areas of Eastleigh. I suspect they all went and that a new bunch will  be distributed today.

As a group we also met several leading members of the Tories. There was a fleeting sight from Adam Afriyie who was collecting bundles to go out into the streets of Eastleigh. We also met Sarah Newton MP, the deputy Chairman of our party, who was very pleased to know that we had come from Nottingham to help. We also talked to Micahel Fabricant, whose twitter account is in my opinion the best of any MPs because of all the ‘lad’ like comments he makes. And he was on top form when he met us saying the amount of photos he had been in this week meant that he was "now potentially a photo tart".  

Us with Sarah Newton MP who wants activists to be as dedicated as those from the ones from Lancashire who came recently to help win the by-election.

Michael Fabricant and Boris Johnson have never been seen in the same room together. Funny that. 

We also met Maria Hutchings and had a good conversation with her. She has been working very hard over the past few weeks making sure that the Conservative message is spread across the constituency. Maria wants to stress the importance of the government’s immigration cap and curving of benefits for migrants coming over from Eastern Europe. Important too is the EU referendum the country will get after 2015 if the Conservatives are elected, by voting for her we will be one step closer to achieving this. She wants to tell the Conservative residents of Eastleigh too that a vote for UKIP is a vote for the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dem candidate is a Europhile who does not support an EU referendum, he also wants an amnesty for illegal immigrants in the UK. If he is elected we are one step back from solving the big issues of immigration and Europe, only Maria can stop that in Eastleigh.

Us with Maria. If we win here this will be the first time a government takes a seat in a by-election since Thatcher at the time of the Falklands.

Maria is a very sound Candidate, even the opposition think so comparing her to the Iron Lady herself.

The Eastleigh campaign is very good and well worth going. It is seriously very close. the recent poll today has the Tories 5 points ahead but one a few days ago had the Lib Dems 7 points up. These are however in the margin of error it is likely to be equal or 1% either way. So if you’re a Tory get down to Eastleigh so we can secure a win, every activist matters!