Dear Ben,
Thank you for your letter dated 10 Mar 2008 and enclosed copy of Hazel Ball’s letter dated 5th March. The information was indeed helpful as it reveals Council thinking about tennis provision in the City, and is a massive stride forward from “I have no comments to make”.
I apologise for not responding sooner, but we have had family from New Zealand making a rare visit to the UK for the last two or three months, and have given them top priority while they were here.
To avoid one lengthy email, I hope to send you three shorter ones over the next few days. This one is to flag up major political issues and principles, the second to comment on Hazel’s letter, and the third to bring to your attention factors of the consequences of government actions which will seriously damage our local community.
Please consider the following points:
• Until our ‘constructive eviction’ from the Summerway site, I was making a major
contribution to the community by effectively managing the Summerway Junior LTC, subject
always to the wishes of the Club Management Committee. This was my primary commitment
in terms of time. When ECC’s failure to support the Club deprived me of my voluntary
job, my conscience and integrity oblige me to devote my energies to the challenge
the City Council has presented. Given the choice, I would prefer to be working with
the children and families at the Club rather than trying to make an impression on
seemingly self-
• Without a base to work from, our brilliant tennis coach, who regularly coached groups of children weekly without charge, is likewise out of a job. Furthermore, the community has been deprived of many excellent role models previously involved with the Club.
• I have been collecting Summerway Watchers for over a year now, and hundreds receive our emails. This is a well informed subgroup of the largely ‘silent majority’ of perceptive, caring, decent folk. I listen to everything they have to say. This is giving me a deep insight into the way people are thinking, and considerable assurance that I am doing the right thing by being willing to speak out.
• The City Council has made a great error of judgement if it thinks I am a lone voice crying in the wilderness. The reaction of a recent new Watcher to my first mention of the City Council was, “Don’t speak to me about Exeter City Council. They make me angry. They’re bullies”. I was then treated to yet another example which shows we are almost certainly in the mainstream of public opinion.
• Abolition of the 10p tax band spoke volumes about the Government’s attitude towards the less affluent and influential in society. The same disregard for the poorer members of the community is constantly being shown by local government, which concentrates on pandering to those with money while destroying community. Of course the economy is a very important political consideration, but our quality of life is probably even more dependent on those around us – the communities in which we live.
• Jenny and I have recently learned that our local Post Office is scheduled for closure. This will have a serious adverse impact on our lives, as on many in the local community, and I hope to make this clear in my third email.
Ben, both national and local government seems bent on making the lives of ordinary people a misery, chiefly through political correctness and allowing rampant ‘health & safety’ to create a sterile and oppressive environment. In our personal case, we are a fairly low income family, with our resources being spent almost entirely on essentials rather than leisure and luxuries. My last holiday was a week’s honeymoon in 1965, for example. I hate to see Labour making itself unelectable, but the constant trend towards George Orwell’s ‘1984’ scenario and the inability to recognise the needs of community is having this effect. People are surely more important than money, and that must say something about the balance between community and the economy.
Whatever administration is in power, it will have my support provided that it is just and cares for the people. Please exert whatever influence you have to reverse the trend towards the damage and destruction of community.
Yours sincerely,
Jim.
Emails to MP (1 of 3) -
This series of three emails was sent to Ben Bradshaw MP in response to the letter he had received from Hazel Ball about tennis provision in Exeter. The first was sent 27th May 2008.