Opinion, Watford Observer, 12 January 2025: Watford MP challenged over trust in Labour government | Watford Observer
Let me start by wishing everyone a Happy New Year. Despite all the challenges we face, I hope 2025 is a good one for you and your family.
The new Labour government aren’t making things any easier though. Many local residents will feel betrayed over the abolition of the winter fuel allowance for most pensioners and the new tax increases through National Insurance rises. Labour didn’t mention either plan before the general election.
It is the same story with Watford General. Labour promised before the election that this Conservative plan for redeveloping our hospital was safe with them and then immediately threw the whole project into doubt once elected.
Can Labour be trusted? It is a case for our new MP to answer.
And we now face more threats. On top of the refusal to agree to a national inquiry into grooming gangs, this week sees a Labour attack on school academies with a new law being tabled in parliament.
Academies - there are several in Watford - have been a major education success in raising standards and creating new opportunities for our children but Labour’s new plan will undermine all that good work.
The new government seems hellbent on an ideological return to a 1970s era of a state-controlled education system dominated by failing comprehensive schools, like the sort I went to in Bushey.
Meanwhile the growth they forecast has failed to materialise and the economy is on the brink of recession. Public finances are weak as unions demand ever greater pay increases and interest rates for government borrowing shoot upwards because of a lack of confidence.
I hope for the best for 2025 but sadly fear for the worst.
Stephen Woodard
Chairman, Watford Conservatives