Liberal Democrat Leadership candidate visits Rochdale Online

Date published: 10/02/2006

Liberal Democrat Leadership candidate Chris Huhne paid a visit to Rochdale Online's office on Friday 10 February during a flying visit to Rochdale to drum up support for his leadership campaign amongst local Liberal Democrats. We put a number of relevant questions to Chris: 

• Why do you think you should lead the Liberal Democrats, what have you got that the other leadership candidates haven’t?

"I have been intimately involved with the domestic policy agenda for the party, which is where elections are won and lost, health, education and the economy, the bread and butter issues, its on those that we will fight our ground against Gordon Brown and against David Cameron next time.

"The other thing I think I can bring is a sharp focus on policy that will enable us to challenge the other parties when they claim to be advocating the same as sort of things as us. So on the environment, for example, where David Cameron says he is very keen on the environment, the reality is he hasn't actually put forward any ideas for dealing with how we change our behaviour and stop global warming and make the planet sustainable for our children and our grandchildren.

So having a hard edge that says this is not only what we believe but we are prepared to go the course and actually advocate the measures necessary to make it happen is a very important part of what I think the Liberal Democrats need to do - as we did in the 1990's with public spending and taxation." 

• How do you respond to suggestions that you do not have enough parliamentary  experience? 

"You get experience in all walks of life. You can't argue that we need parliamentarians who have got a background and a hinterland outside of parliament and then we they get in say sorry you haven't got enough parliamentary experience. I've had 19 years in journalism, I know how to put across a complex message simply; that's a very important political skill. I've run teams both in Fleet Street - 48 journalists - and I've built up a business from scratch, creating the largest team of economists in the City in the private sector in five years. So I know to motivate people, I know how to get a team working -  we are a very talented team at Westminster.

"I also have experience in the European Parliament working with other parties while retaining our distinctive identity as Liberal Democrats, and getting what we care about onto the statute book, and that's experience that none of the other candidates have got."

• If you were elected leader what policies would you pursue to help deprived towns such as Rochdale? 

"The key thing I think we need to do for towns like Rochdale, and right across the UK, is to make sure that anyone in the community on low pay is taken out of tax altogether.  I think it's crazy that we should say to anyone on the minimum wage on the one hand that's the minimum you should get and then turn around on the other and take away money in taxation. I think we need to make much more of an effort to get the low paid out of tax altogether, and we need to be very clear that we are in favour of fair taxation. That means those who have the broadest shoulders should pay a little bit more. That's something which the Liberal Democrats have been proud to advocate in the past and we should go on doing so.

"How will we raise the money to do that?

"I am suggesting that we increase taxes on those activities that undermine the future of the planet, particularly greenhouse gases and global warming, and we would raise money from those taxes and put them into lower income taxes: the key thing there is a tax switch, not an overall increase in taxation; actually keeping the tax burden overall at the same level, but switching it from people onto bad activities." 

• Do you support Paul Rowen’s campaigns to bring Metrolink to Rochdale and to keep essential services at Rochdale Infirmary? 

"I'm against the cut in services, and signed the petition today to save Rochdale infirmary's A & E and maternity wards. It is daft to think that people will have to go to Oldham to A & E if they have a life-threatening condition.

"I think Metrolink is a classic example of the sort of public infrastructure that we should be investing in and if local councils have access to some of the increased wealth that comes about from investing in the transport infrastructure, when property prices go up and rental values go up, then I think you'll see that councils are much more willing, and much more able to invest, because they'll be able to capture a lot of the increased wealth and income that flows from those sort of investments.

"One of the main reasons why that's not happening in this country is because if you look at the way the tax system is structured most of the gain from those sort of investments actually goes to private business and is not captured by the public commonwealth in any shape or form by the local authority or by central government. If we can capture that through the increase in rental values and increasing land values then actually councils will be much better able to invest in projects like the Metrolink."

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Whilst at the Rochdale Online office Chris also joined the Rochdale Online Message Board in order to personally answer questions posted by members of the local community.

Message board member, John Butterworth, commented: "I'm impressed that a politician should take time out to answer concerns online."

To see Chris' answers go to:

http://www.rochdaleonline.co.uk/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3479