Behind the small state plans, the bigger picture is of Tory councils that are failing their residents

By Melanie Smallman

After David Cameron’s speech last week, the verdict from many commentators was that he had outlined a clear vision of what he wanted to do but hadn’t explained how it would happen.

Convenient, perhaps – after all, who wants to be shown the butcher’s cleaver while tucking into a nice juicy steak? But not quite right. Because the Tories are already in power across large swathes of the UK. Eric Pickles says “Conservative Councils will demonstrate how we will run the country”. So what path are Cameron’s councils laying for his steep climb to the summit? And what do they really tell us about the Conservative view ahead?

A central theme of Cameron’s speech was how his Conservatives will reward those who take responsibility for themselves and look after those who can’t. So how do Cameron’s Councils reward those who take responsibility for themselves? Well, it’s perhaps best put by the Conservative leader of Wandsworth Council Edward Lister:

“We will look to increase charges as far as possible beyond inflation so that consumers of the services are bearing the full cost without any hidden subsidy from the taxpayer.”

Tory colleagues have leapt upon these words of wisdom and are introducing new charges right, left and centre, hiking them sky high. In Coventry, since the Tory takeover, elderly and disabled residents are charged 40% more for services such as home care and meals on wheels; in Wolverhampton, Cameron’s Conservatives have doubled charges for meals on wheels; and in Hammersmith and Fulham, where there are new charges for social care and elderly residents now pay an extra £547 a year for meals on wheels.

So, with Cameron’s ‘Ryan Air’ Councils, if you’ve taken responsibility for yourself and have any cash in the bank, you get asked to pay at least twice. And if you don’t pay, then you don’t get. It might not be your idea of being rewarded, but that’s how Cameron’s Councils see it.

And Cameron claims that it’s now down to the Conservatives to fight for the poorest, explaining that “if you really cannot work, we’ll look after you.” Well you’d better hope that it’s not the Tories who decide whether or not ‘really cannot work’ because you might find the bar raised callously high.

Take Hammersmith and Fulham again. Since the Tories came to power, it’s been so hard to qualify for free home care that many disabled residents have to pay for help to wash and go to the toilet. Disabled people in this flagship Tory borough are so outraged at the heartlessness of Cameron’s Conservatives that they took them to the high court recently. And while the judges ruled that these was no law stopping the council from introducing these heartless charges, they also pointed out that there was no law compelling them to charge either. One of the judges, Lord Justice Smedley, expressed concerns over the council’s actions, saying that:

“The object of this exercise was the sacrifice of free home care on the altar of a council tax reduction for which there was no legal requirement. This may surprise many local people who were not told that the cut to their Council tax bills would, in part, be paid for by disabled people.”

That’s how Cameron’s Councils look after those who really cannot work.

And on the family – the thing that is “most important” to David Cameron – he believes that “a stable, loving home is the most precious thing a child can have”. Yet earlier this year Conservative-run Southampton Council tried to axe three family Centres – the very places where the “emotional support, particularly in those fraught early years before children go to school” comes from for many vulnerable families.

And that stable, loving home should be the preserve of those who can afford to buy it, according to one of Cameron’s key housing advisers. Councillor Stephen Greenhalge, head of Cameron’s ‘Conservative Councils Innovation Unit’, recently outlined his proposals for the future of affordable housing in a pamphlet for right-wing think tank ‘Localis’. Greenhalge writes:

“to continue building and publicly investing in the social rent template which provides tenancies for life…makes no sense…in almost all cases, we would expect the intial term of the AST [the new Tory-style tenancy] to be 6 months as is standard in the private rental market.”

And this isn’t just hyperbole – Greenhalge is now drawing up plans to turf 3,500 families out of their homes in Hammersmith and Fulham, to make way for richer folk.

On the subject of housing, Cameron goes on to ask “Why aren’t we building homes with enough room for a family to sit around a table and actually eat a meal together?” He needn’t look any further than his own Caroline Spellman. Because back in the summer she wrote to all Tory councils urging them to delay building any new housing – a move that the House Builders Federation slammed in the FT last month, saying that “the letter would lead to a haiatus in planning for housing that could only exacerbate the supply crisis we already face.” There’s your answer then, Dave.

Finally, perhaps on safer ground, Cameron reminds us that the Conservatives believe in the benefit of regular sport in schools – it’s what posh kids get when their parents pay for their education, apparently. Why can’t children in state schools get the same, he asks? Presumably because Cameron’s Councils “do not in principle favour ‘free this and that’, such as swimming, or transport or school meals or computers or whatever it is” according to Tory leader of Southampton Council, Alec Samuels.

Which must by why more than 60 Tory councils actually handed money back to the Labour Government, rather than offer free swimming for young people.

So, we don’t need to make the steep climb to the summit to see what Cameron’s vision of Britain is – we just need to take a gentle stroll to the Town Hall. From there we can see a future where middle-income families are hit because they need good local services but are made to pay twice; where low-income households are abandoned by heartless policies designed to help the wealthy few; and of decisions driven by dogma rather than the interests of local people.

This is the real Tory agenda for Government. Or, as George Osborne put it himself just a few weeks ago, “Conservative Whitehall will have much to learn from Conservative town halls”.