Simon Danczuk MP

Fighting for Rochdale, Littleborough and Milnrow

Letter from Westminster, 21st August 2010

They say a week is a long time in politics and it certainly is in Rochdale. Last weekend I was able to enjoy a fantastic Feel Good Festival, which gave me every reason to think our town centre could be turning a corner. But less than a week later I received the devastating news that the Wheatsheaf shopping centre had been placed into receivership.

As a businessman my journey into Parliament taught me that confidence is the currency of trade. Business relies on belief and optimism and that’s why our Council’s laggardly response to the economic downturn was so damaging to the town’s confidence. At a time when we should be doing everything to promote civic pride and offer support to traders, our council sat back and claimed everything would be sorted by 2020!

What kind of message does that send out? That the Lib Dems were not interested in dealing with problems now and expected everyone to wait 10-years for them to deliver promises of a better town centre. In all my years in politics I’ve never seen a more foolish and out-of-touch strategy.

The global financial crisis has changed how we do politics in this country. Tight spending is going to require a more innovative approach to public services. That’s why there’s currently a lot of political interest in public sector workers taking more control over delivering services. I wholly support this approach, but was disappointed to see the Coalition’s first wave of public sector mutuals almost exclusively focus on the South of England.

Here in Rochdale we’ve already seen ex-council workers form a co-operative called Sunshine Care to deliver adult care services. As the home of the Co-operative movement Rochdale should be recognised by this Government as an area where public sector workers are ideally placed to run services.

Unfortunately, the only problem with our Prime Minister’s claim that he wants to see public services deliver ‘more for less’ is that what he really means is delivering ‘less for less’. I am worried that his ‘fend for yourselves’ philosophy will hurt Rochdale and am especially concerned that, despite ruling it out before the Election, David Cameron is now looking at making cuts to the winter fuel allowance for pensioners.

One of the highlights of my summer has been the excellent form of Milnrow Cricket Club. I was delighted to see them beat Unsworth to win the JW Lees Wood Cup recently and I hope their great run continues.