Services are not as good as they should be, particularly in call centre response times and housing repairs, including damp and mould. Residents are entitled to expect better.
Linking our vast regeneration programme to growth for all our residents remains crucial if we are to provide the jobs, education and skills for the future.
Assembly members, council leaders, and MPs have noted the strength of feeling in their inboxes and on the doorstep. The issue stands out amidst a general climate of apathy.
The Conservative platform must promise the core Conservative voter a return to competent government, and promise the progressive voter, strategic future-looking policy innovation.
Elections must be seen to be free and fair; one step is to ensure that fraud is reduced to the minimum.
Despite living, working and paying taxes in the UK, close to 1.5 million residents are shut out from the local democratic process because they were born abroad in non-EU and non-Commonwealth countries.
Despite our unpopularity in the opinion polls, our residents understand the value of supporting good hard-working Conservatives in order to protect a low taxing, weekly bin emptying Council.
Too often the process ends up keeping the incumbents happy, but we risk losing elections due to a lack of rigour.
We are very fortunate in my ward to be up against far left Corbynista types, so full of hatred for any Conservative, it’s hard to describe. Ed Balls once said that politicians should have goldilocks skin – not too thick and not too thin.
If only we could have a big sign sent to MPs every April: “It’s not about you this month – think and support your local elected members”.
It is a challenging time but we must support each other and we must communicate the value we bring to the communities we serve.
We are very proud of the outcomes achieved over the last four years, which have been recognised at a national level with a number of awards.
With 16 years of opposition experience on the Council, I have some idea of how to hold an administration to account and I will continue to do this over this council term.
Denying the South East what it needs to grow and prosper with the misguided intention of being ‘fair’ to the rest of the country is detrimental to all in the end.
I am so proud of the developments we have seen in the last week. It is proof that the Prime Minister is a man who will deliver for the nation.