Last Sunday’s Observer called into question the extent to which the Tories have shed their “nasty party” past; today this post sheds new light on allegations made against the Tories on Thurrock Council last year and also calls into question the  extent to which Cameron has managed to change his party.

In March 2009 Cllr Terry Hipsey, leader of the Tory group on Thurrock Council, made a shock defection to Labour, leaving the Tory group leaderless and bringing the two groups neck and neck: 23 Labour Councillors, 23 Conservative Councillors, 2 Independent and 1 BNP.  In order to maintain power the Tories were left relying on the support of the BNP councillor as the two Independents abstained from voting. Not a position that any party would want to find itself in.

It emerged that Cllr Hipsey made the decision to defect following an uncomfortable meeting in which he says certain members of the Tory group discussed the possibility of a loose ‘Tory-BNP electoral pact’ in the lead up to the May 2008 Local Elections. He says the suggested pact involved the Tories not standing candidates in certain wards that were marginal Labour-BNP seats in order to keep Labour out of power. Cllr Hipsey has a copy of the minutes from the meeting in which this unholy alliance was discussed and, though the Tory group have denied its existence, to this day the Tories have yet to provide alternative minutes.

Prior to this incident the Tories had installed the BNP councillor on the general services committee (the most powerful committee on the council) rather than one of the two Independent councillors. Although the Tories were obliged to appoint one of the three councillors who do not belong to either of the main two parties they could have given it to either of the two Independent Councillors. As well as handing a prime committee position to the BNP, the Tory Council made no obvious attempts to prevent the BNP from using a building owned by the council to launch their European Election campaign in May 2009.

Tory Stories caught up with Cllr Hipsey to find out whether he bought his allegations to the attention of CCHQ and what, if any, action was taken by the party at a national level to investigate the claims he had made.  Cllr Hipsey responded as follows:

“Eric Pickles sent an email round when we first got into power warning us that any cooperation with BNP would result in expulsion from the Conservative Party. When I heard about the proposed pact I reported the issue to the South Basildon and East Thurrock Conservative Association Chairperson. She passed my concerns up to Conservative Central Office via email and followed it up with a phone call.  I never heard anything back from Central Office.”

Change can be a powerful message, as we saw with Obama’s campaign, but it needs to be backed up with action.  What action did CCHQ take to investigate Cllr Hipsey’s claims and, if an investigation occurred, what were the findings?

Ipswich Borough Council are considering selling off one of the last municipally owned bus services. The reason that I linked to an agenda rather than a consultative document or public announcement is that this agenda is the only thing the council have published that is available to the public. All discussions are being carried out behind closed doors.

This is a decision that could seriously impact residents living in rural areas around Ipswich as Ipswich Buses Ltd run several rural routes; as the Commission for Rural Communities highlights, access to transport can be a contributing factor to rural disadvantage. With this in mind surely it would seem incumbent upon the council to take heed of Mr Cameron’s words and show some degree of transparency. The Leader of Ipswich Borough Council, Cllr Carnell, has been quoted as saying that the privatisation of Ipswich Buses would “improve services and fares for local people”. However it is worth noting that the favoured company is Go Ahead who also own Brighton and Hove buses who have increased prices by just under 12%.

The discussion surrounding the privatisation of Ipswich Buses Ltd was not even open to all of the council instead it took place in a meeting of the executive, made up exclusively of Tories and Lib Dems. One possible reason for this disregard for openness could be the public outcry that surrounded Plymouth City Council’s decision to sell off it’s municipally owned bus company.

Ipswich Borough Council is ushering in Cameron’s age of austerity, public services are being sold off but there is none of the promised transparency – only closed doors and private meetings.

Thanks to Cllr David Ellesmere and Cllr Alasdair Ross for their help with this post.

“It is our intention that following a contract award the partner will have the potential to provide any or all of the council’s services, provided that a robust business case, benchmarking and best value test is passed.

“These services will include, but are not limited to corporate and back office functions, environmental services, social care and school-related services.”

This advert was placed with no consultation with the staff or their trade unions and this has needlessly left a lot of employees in the dark and understandably nervous about the security of their jobs. As was pointed out by Unison at the time, there has been no business argument put forward to justify such a reckless wholesale of public services.

Lord Hanningfield recently stated that assessments for the viability of the private the provision of public services is “the same whether you are assessing potholes or care for the elderly”. When we put care for the elderly and potholes in the same category, it might be time to question whether there might be a touch of ideology involved in this proposed privatisation.

The only reason that has been given by Essex County Council for this yard sale of public goods has been the need to make savings of £300m and the desire to keep council tax as low as possible. There are two assumptions made here that expose the Tory ideology at work, the first is that there are no alternatives to cuts and the second is that the market ideology of profit is always appropriate.

Both of these assumptions are just that, assumptions. There are methods other than cuts that can be used to cut deficits (as has been shown in Compass publications) and as a resident in Essex pointed out:

“Ultimately a private company is concerned with making a service profitable, and that usually means bad news for communities who want services to be run as an investment in community, and not as an opportunity to make money.”

This ethos is highlighted in Unison’s Million Voices Campaign, a wonderful campaign that I would encourage everyone to sign up to.

There is a time and a place for profit driven market based ideas but must we presume that the market has all the answers?