I
posed the question “Who do you serve?” to Jackie Doyle-Price in my open letter
to her that has been sent out to the local media in Thurrock and I am in a
state of excited anticipation to hear her answer (if I even get one). That said, I thought I’d look at her voting
record to see if I could ascertain an answer based on that so I swung on by www.theyworkforyou.com and, lo and
behold, the answer was staring me in the face but I’ll let you make up your own
mind by listing the information I found below.
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Social Issues
- Voted a mixture of for and against equal gay rights
- Voted very strongly against smoking bans
- Voted moderately for allowing marriage between two people of same sex
- Voted strongly for laws to promote equality and human rights
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Foreign Policy and Defence
- Voted strongly for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas
- Voted very strongly for replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapons system
- Voted moderately for more EU integration
- Voted a mixture of for and against a referendum on the UK's membership of the EU
- Voted very strongly against strengthening the Military Covenant
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Welfare and Benefits
- Voted very strongly for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax")
- Voted very strongly against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices
- Voted very strongly against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability
- Voted very strongly for making local councils responsible for helping those in financial need afford their council tax and reducing the amount spent on such support
- Voted very strongly for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits
- Voted strongly against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who have spent a long time unemployed
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Taxation and Employment
- Voted very strongly for raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax
- Voted very strongly for increasing the rate of VAT
- Voted very strongly for higher taxes on alcoholic drinks
- Voted very strongly for higher taxes on plane tickets
- Voted a mixture of for and against lower taxes on fuel for motor vehicles
- Voted very strongly against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000
- Voted very strongly for encouraging occupational pensions
- Voted very strongly for automatic enrolment in occupational pensions
- Voted strongly against a banker’s bonus tax
- Voted very strongly against an annual tax on the value of expensive homes (popularly known as a mansion tax)
- Voted very strongly for allowing employees to exchange some employment rights for shares in the company they work for
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Business and the Economy
- Voted strongly for reducing the rate of corporation tax
- Voted strongly for measures to reduce tax avoidance
- Voted a mixture of for and against stronger tax incentives for companies to invest in assets
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Health
- Voted very strongly against restricting the provision of services to private patients by the NHS
- Voted very strongly for reforming the NHS so GPs buy services on behalf of their patients
- Voted very strongly against smoking bans
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Education
- Voted very strongly for greater autonomy for schools
- Voted very strongly for raising England’s undergraduate tuition fee cap to £9,000 per year
- Voted very strongly for academy schools
- Voted very strongly for ending financial support for some 16-19 year olds in training and further education
- Voted very strongly for university tuition fees
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Constitutional Reform
- Voted very strongly for reducing central government funding of local government
- Voted very strongly for an equal number of electors per parliamentary constituency
- Voted strongly for fewer MPs in the House of Commons
- Voted moderately against a more proportional system for electing MPs
- Has never voted on a wholly elected House of Lords
- Voted very strongly for local councils keeping money raised from taxes on business premises in their areas
- Voted very strongly for greater restrictions on campaigning by third parties, such as charities, during elections
- Voted moderately for fixed periods between parliamentary elections
- Has never voted on removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords
- Voted strongly against transferring more powers to the Welsh Assembly
- Voted strongly against transferring more powers to the Scottish Parliament
- Voted moderately against more powers for local councils
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Home Affairs
- Voted strongly for the introduction of elected Police and Crime Commissioners
- Voted strongly for requiring the mass retention of information about communications
How Jackie Doyle-Price voted on Miscellaneous Topics
- Voted very strongly against greater regulation of gambling
- Voted a mixture of for and against measures to prevent climate change
- Voted very strongly against slowing the rise in rail fares
- Voted very strongly for selling England’s state owned forests
- Voted very strongly for capping civil service redundancy payments
- Voted very strongly for Labour's anti-terrorism laws
- Voted very strongly for the privatisation of Royal Mail
- Voted a mixture of for and against financial incentives for low carbon emission electricity generation methods
- Voted moderately against requiring pub companies to offer pub landlords rent-only leases
- Voted strongly for restricting the scope of legal aid
- Voted moderately for culling badgers to tackle bovine tuberculosis
- Voted very strongly for allowing national security sensitive evidence to be put before courts in secret sessions
- Voted moderately for a statutory register of lobbyists
- Voted very strongly for limits on success fees paid to lawyers in no-win no fee cases
- Voted very strongly against restrictions on fees charged to tenants by letting agents
- Voted strongly for the policies included in the 2010 Conservative - Liberal Democrat Coalition Agreement
The
above information makes for very interesting reading because the text I have
indicated in blue shows a distinct bias against the poor, disabled and
disadvantaged whilst the text indicated in red
shows a distinct bias towards the
rich and advantaged. As most of the area
Ms Doyle-Price represents tends towards the poor and disadvantaged group, this
seems to be a contradiction to her assertion that she truly represents her
constituents.
Ms Doyle-Price
did vote very strongly in favour of raising the threshold at which people start
to pay income tax but, as that benefits
the rich as much as the poor, that isn’t really anything to be said in her
favour.
It is quite funny to read that JD-P voted strongly
for laws to promote equality and human rights when a lot of the welfare
reforms and other legislation she has voted in favour of have done nothing but
reduce equality and human rights in all but the groups who can afford to pay
for those rights (the text in blue and/or green).
And, for a member of a party that is supposed to be
in favour of ‘small Government’ (the idea that Central Government remains
focussed on national matters whilst local council authorities take care of
local matters), her voting record seems to indicate that she wants more power for
Central Government as seen by the dark orange text which also includes the desire to
keep the Scottish and Welsh under the yolk of a full UK Government that has
little or no idea of the specific problems of those parts of the UK.
Of course, though
she wants all the power centralised in Central Government, the purple text shows that JD-P is happy
to thrust the responsibilities that should be held by that establishment on the
local authorities who don’t have the power to make their own determinations or
the adequate funding to undertake those responsibilities, thanks to her
party. Or, in the case of the NHS
(National Health Service), thrusting the responsibility onto GP Consortia (or
Clinical Commissioning Groups as they are more commonly known).
So, taking all this
information into account, the answer to the question I posed at the beginning
of this blog is as clear as day.
Jackie Doyle-Price
serves the rich at the expense of the poor, disabled and disadvantaged; she
serves Central Government at the expense of Local Government and, probably most
importantly of all, she serves herself at the expense of the people she is
supposed to represent.
No comments:
Post a Comment