The Lib Dem Conference is behind us. Labour’s is about to begin. And the Conservatives will be meeting in Manchester in just over a week. Parliament reassembles on 12 October after an absurdly long summer recess. The final session of this Parliament opens, with all the State flummery, on 18 November and, with a blip for Christmas, we are in the run up to the General Election (probably) on Thursday 6 May 2010.

Most commentators and pundits believe we are going to be slaughtered at the ballot box. We have lost a succession of elections and by elections: European, local government and parliamentary. As I write this (Friday 25 September) we are 17 points behind in the polls. Charles Clarke predicted this week that we would be “hammered”.

If this is indeed the case, then we have nothing left to lose. Instead of dancing around difficult issues we should tackle them, head on. We should, for example, set up a High Pay Commission and take immediate action to stop huge bonuses. We should tightly regulate the banks and other financial institutions.

The chair of the Financial Services Authority, Lord Adair Turner, said recently that the City of London had grown “beyond a socially acceptable size” accounting for too much of national output. Some of the banks’ activity, he said, is “socially useless”. He mused that we might consider a tax on financial transactions. Phew! Just imagine if a Labour Minister had said such a thing!

I got an e mail from a local businessman recently complaining that the Government was going to slap a new tax of 50p a month on everyone with a fixed line telephone to help pay for new high speed broadband across the country. My e mailer asked: “What planet are you living on? Are we not taxed sufficiently?” He went on: “Is this to help recover from the gross overspending by the Government?”

What a nerve! We are bailing out the banks and keeping the ATMs working and we are getting brick bats for doing so! Any accusing fingers should be pointed at the bankers who brought the entire global financial system to the point of collapse.

Despite this, the whole debate is shifting on to “cuts” and who can cut the deepest. Even the silly Nick Clegg was talking about “savage cuts”. We should be talking about regulating and policing the system to make sure this cannot happen again. It means cracking down on tax havens. We should be talking about bringing in a more progressive tax policy instead of running away from the issue in case it scares the voters. Our tax system is not fair. It should be made so.

We should drop unpopular legislation which has no mandate from the Labour Party and little support outside. The Postal Services Bill, part privatising the Royal Mail, should be thrown in the dustbin.

We should act out of principle rather than out of calculation. The Prime Minister responded to President Obama’s review of America’s so-called “nuclear posture” by offering to get rid of one of our four Trident submarines. Each one can deliver a nuclear payload equivalent to 128 Hiroshimas.

We should have taken a decision three years ago not to upgrade this colossally expensive white elephant. A new system will cost up to £76,000,000,000.

And we should set an exit strategy to get out of Afghanistan. No-one believes we should be there for ever. So let’s set a date. We should help the Afghans build a modern Afghanistan but they should accept responsibility for tackling corruption, lawlessness and religious extremism.

And we should expose the Liberal Democrats for their vacuity. Nick Clegg – who famously didn’t know how much the State pension was – talks of his approach as “ferocity with a purpose”. What complete drivel!

Their policy on tuition fees and the so-called mansions tax are as opaque as ever.

We wait to learn more about what the Conservatives will do. But we do know they will be listening to lobbyists.

The Times has revealed that Cameron’s Conservatives, bankrolled by tax exiles, are stuffed full of Parliamentary candidates straight from the lobbying industry. I shall have more to say on this shortly.

Locally, attention yet again has focussed on the health service with the news of dreadful errors in the breast screening service. 14 women with breast cancer were not diagnosed properly and were given the all clear. No-one seems to know what has happened to the consultant radiologist responsible and the hospital statement left many questions unanswered. I shall be meeting Hazel Harding, the new chair of the East Lancashire NHS Hospital Trust this week (29 September) to discuss the issue and I shall also be meeting the Acting Chief Executive, Diane Whittingham.

Mr friend, Peter Pike, and Ian Woolley, a former health authority chair, have called for an independent organisation such as the medical charity, the King’s Fund, to make an assessment of whether it is possible to deliver top quality health care in an area as big as East Lancashire, with a population of 500,000, with a single A&E department. I am backing their call for a review and shall be raising the issue with Hazel.

I note that Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Shadow Health Secretary, told the Lancashire Telegraph there is no reason why Burnley should not have its A&E back. We shall see.

Elsewhere, I have been out and about. Last week I had a useful meeting with the new Chief Executive of the Primary Care Trust, now renamed NHS East Lancashire. I am pressing for the new Colne Health Centre to be given the go ahead. Everyone has been totally exasperated by the endless consultations about consultations which have delayed the project. It’s not good enough. I want to see action.

I also had a very enjoyable evening at Nelson and Colne College to celebrate the opening of its new restaurant and bistro, Farringtons – named after John Farrington, the popular former deputy principal.

We had a mouth watering four course dinner with paired wines, cooked to perfection on the premises by young catering students, under the watchful eye of the Lancashire master chef, Nigel Howarth. Local suppliers provided the produce and spoke about their work in between courses.

It was a memorable evening and a tribute to the skills of the young people – both back and front of the house.

Friday 25 September 2009