Opinion: Why I enjoy making a difference

What I do enjoy is making a difference both in my ward and in holding the current administration to account – 22 years is a long time with no change of ownership.

The Conservative group that formed the administration in 2000 would scarcely recognise the Peterborough we live in today. Yet it has taken all this time for the same colour of administration to listen and engage with external advisers, a new Chief Executive, and a new section 151 officer (Finance Director to you and me) to start to engage with those of us in opposition that it really is time to change. It has been something of a pleasure to be a part of that.

Let me give you an example. Last week our MP, Paul Bristow, made an excruciatingly bad video, along with the leader of the city council, Wayne Fitzgerald to tell us how he had fought to get Peterborough £48M to redevelop the outdated eyesore that is our “Station Quarter”.

So far, so good, you might think. Enter stage left one of those dummy cheques beloved of charities marking significant donations for the press. One, small snag. The cheque bore the name, not of a charity or other worthy cause, but that of the Conservative party.

That’s right. Our MP and leader of the council made a video leading us to believe that the Conservative party was giving us the money from its own pocket. What’s worse is that they used the council’s social media accounts to promote their party. This is poor form and as I understand it in contravention of the Local Government Act 1982.

This is almost as ‘careless’ as one our many chancellors last year, Nadim Zahawi, the man responsible for the, er, collection of our taxes (you can’t make it up, can you?) failing to pay a tax bill and ending up paying a ‘penalty’ amounting to Five. Million. Pounds. Yep, more than 10% our MP was striving to get for our city in ‘one fell swoop’.

Whoops, sorry. Perhaps it was the government that awarded the money. And we can afford the handout now our two-week chancellor paid up.

Our MP’s response? I’m a Conservative MP, the Conservative party made the grant and you lot should be damn grateful! In fact, I will tote my cheque around with me whilst I go on a pub crawl around Werrington which struck me as the equivalent of a naughty student nicking a bollard after a few beers, but that’s our MP for you.

Maybe he has overlooked that his government has cut funding to this city to the tune of £43M each year incrementally since 2010. Maybe we should overlook his single-handed backing of the wrong horse in last year’s Conservative leadership races on each occasion which perhaps explains why he remains a backbencher, warned by the serjeant at arms in the House of Commons for shouting over the leader of the opposition. All a little unseemly but that is, sadly, what we have come to expect.

Returning to why I love politics is seeing grants awarded to our city to improve the rather run down appearance of our ‘station quarter’. Despite what many think, the last year has seen an improvement in the city’s once dire finances as all the political parties have worked together to achieve financial sustainability. But make no mistake. We needed to do it as the current administration, 22 years on, was running on empty which leads me to believe this euphoric, if somewhat misleading triumphalist video, posted on the PCC website and quickly removed, is the death rattle of an administration and an MP that is out of ideas and running out of time. Never has it been more apparent that, locally and nationally, it’s time for change.