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Power without responsibility — the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages:  Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947) (featured right) immortalised this phrase in a spat with the media of his time with some help from his cousin, Rudyard Kipling.  It remains true today. 

The front page of today's Oxford Mail attacks the County Council - not distinguishing between the County Council and its Pension Fund - for investing in tobacco shares while promoting the virtues of not smoking.  There are a number of issues here and, in my view,  none of them reflect well on the Oxford Mail.

The County Council's Pension Fund is independent of the County Council and is charged with maximising the value of the fund to its members - present and past employees of the County Council and many other Oxfordshire public bodies.  Oh yes, and elected members, like me, who are members of the Fund.  Of course, the Oxford Mail is on a winner here.  It has five potential points of attack:

Abu Qatada: The BBC has apparently decreed that Abu Qatada should be described by BBC reporters as a "radical" and not as an "extremist".  I fear our country is losing the will to live. 

Abu Qatada seems to have become a mirror of the society we are in danger of becoming. He was born Omar Othman in Bethlehem in 1960.  He entered Britain on a forged United Arab Emirates passport in 1993 and was granted asylum the following year.  Since 2002, he has spent most of his time in detention because successive home secretaries, including Theresa May, have argued that he is “a very dangerous man”.  He is listed on the consolidated United Nations list of international terrorists under “Al-Qaeda Associates”.

Although British judges decided he could be deported to Jordan, they were overruled by European judges in Strasbourg. However, it is UK judges who are responsible for Qatada’s release from detention. During his consideration by our court system, Qatada has been assiduously represented by well known civil rights lawyers and I can't help asking how much his lawyers’ fees have cost the British taxpayer?

This man's family has apparently cost the taxpayer more than £500,000 in benefits while his sermons are required reading for terrorists. Qatada's wife is known as Ibtisan Saleh.  Of their five children, four are apparently entitled to receive UK benefits. Before his detention, Qatada received a range of benefits totalling about £50,000 a year. Apart from incapacity benefit for his bad back, there was a further £800 a week in child benefits, housing and council tax credits and income support. That’s £500,000 over a decade plus the lawyers’ fees that, I suspect, have been funded by the rest of us.

The family lived in an £800,000 four-bedroom semi in Acton, West London, before moving to Wembley during Qatada’s most recent enforced absence. The fact that he had £170,000 in cash on his initial arrest in February 2001 apparently had no bearing on these handouts.  In fact, his period in prison seems to have brought the occasional bonus, such as the £2,500 Qatada scooped when the European Court of Human Rights ruled a period of detention in Belmarsh unlawful and unfroze his assets.

The reasons why Qatada is called a “very dangerous man” are not hard to establish, even without the secret intelligence available to the special tribunals that licensed his detention. He was al-Qaeda’s chief source of spiritual incitement and legitimisation in Europe. In essence, he tailored Islam for terrorist purposes.

Prayers in Council:  I am stunned by Mr Justice Ouseley's ruling that Bideford Town Council acted illegally in holding prayers at the start of its meetings and I think it bodes ill for society.  We have an established Church of England in this country.  Our Queen is Head of the Anglican Church.  Prayers are said daily in the House of Commons and Lords before business commences.  The Speaker of the House of Commons has a Chaplain. The Anglican Church's archbishops and some of the bishops sit in the House of Lords. 

I am not a strongly religious person but I wonder where we are going when employers are under an obligation to allow their staff time off to turn in prayer towards Mecca regularly during their working day and to provide a prayer room for the purpose; where we are forbidden to discriminate on religious grounds but where we can apparently not articulate a religious view in prayers at the commencement of council proceedings.

God knows, we need a better sense of moral direction and belief in this country and the current attack on religion by the secularist societies that is growing does nothing to reinforce the need for a better and stronger moral lead in society.

I have suggested to  the Chairman of the Council (who is responsible for the running of Council Meetings) that we invite the Bishop of Oxford to attend the Annual Meeting of Council on 15 May to offer a prayer before the County Council commences.  

Here is a link to the BBC web site on this topic.

County Council Budget Set today The County Council meets today to set its revenue and capital budgets for 2012/13 and a medium term financial plan to 2016/17.  We propose a budget with a freeze in Council Tax for the second year running, thanks to a government grant of £7.1 million.  Our budget includes:

In summary, we continue to deliver Low taxes, real choice, value for money. 

I believe it is better to leave cash in people’s pockets to spend as they choose and not to empty their pockets with higher taxes and parking charges for the state to spend.  The state does not spend wisely or well.  We trust individuals to make spending decisions that are right for themselves, their families and their communities.  Here is a link to the County Council budget papers.

The Liberals are the official Opposition with 10 members; Labour have 9 members and the Greens have 2 members; there is one Independent.

The Liberals have put up a pathetic budget amendment that supports 90% of our budget with some tiny and pretty meaningless tinkerings to a few service areas. 

Labour have not put up a budget despite being the national party of opposition.  Like the harlot, they choose power without responsibility and will do their best to carp from the sidelines.  Amusingly, their resolution, put down for debate supported the County Council budget but this seems to have been an administrative error which they failed to spot despite having a sharp-eyed lawyer as deputy Labour Group leader!

Interestingly, the Greens have put up the most interesting opposition budget.  Given the failure of the local Labour Party to prove effective in opposition, the Green Party - effectively a one-man band - has put down a socialist budget that is red in tooth and claw.  They have declined the central government Council Tax freeze grant of £7.1 million and jacked up the Council Tax by 3.49% - the maximum possible without triggering a referendum.  This gives them £11 million pounds extra of our money to spend over four years and they propose pouring it into social care, advocacy and free home insulation for poor people in Oxfordshire.  Full marks for effort from their US lawyer leader, Larry ("the Lawyer") Sanders but nul points for economic and financial realism!