Plymouth Tories: Cutting jobs and benefits but keeping the jollies

By Luke Pollard / @lukepollard

You would have thought that in the same week as the Emergency Budget announced cut after cut the Tories would have tried all they can to minimise the chances of anyone blowing it for them with an example of needless excess or squandering scarce public resources, wouln’t you?

Tory MPs may have been on best behaviour this week but no one told the Leader of Plymouth’s Tory Council. Cllr Vivien Pengelly thought it was perfectly acceptable to spend £5,700 of Council money on a trip for her to watch a couple of football games in South Africa. Nominally to support Plymouth’s role within England’s World Cup bid, if we are to believe her protests – Plymouth’s whole World Cup Bid will be derailed if she had not flown to South Africa to represent Plymouth at the finals.

Like many in Plymouth, I’m a supporter of our bid to be a host city as part of England’s bid to host the World Cup in 2018 but the success of our bid will not be based on the presence of council leaders at football matches but by the quality of our bid. Did taxpayers get value for money for Cllr Pengelly going to watch England v Algeria I wonder? I wonder if there is a cost benefit analysis done for the trip?

In tough economic times when cuts are being made and the poorest in society are being asked to receive less and work longer for less the sight of a Council Leader being so casual with public money should rightly be regarded with disgust. Far from supporting Plymouth’s role in England’s World Cup bid her cavalier use of public funds has done real damage to the city’s reputation and yet again reminds people in Plymouth what the Tories are really like.

A bit of number crunching suggests that if the Tories had spent the same amount of money they shelled out for this jolly on sporting activities for young people in Plymouth they would have been able to pay for: 81 football pitches for five-a-side teams; 2,850 young people to give bowls a go for an hour or 1,425 young people to hire a squash court. And that’s all assuming they don’t have a discount card for local residents and then we’d be able to afford a few 20ps for the changing room lockers too! Or perhaps they could have paid for some of the children and pensioners they’ve just snatched Labour’s free swimming away from to go for a swim. Put simply, this jolly is not only bad political judgement – it highlights that money that should be being spent on local sport is not.

If it were not for the investigative reporting of Plymouth’s local paper the story would not have even come to light. Cllr Vivienne Pengelly herself admitted she wanted to keep it private so that her home was not burgled when she was larging it up in South Africa at the tax payers’ expense.

There is someone who is a far better ambassador for Plymouth’s World Cup bid: New Zealand’s Rory Fallon plays for our local team, Plymouth Argyle, when not on international duty. Cllr Pengelly didn’t go to support him though.

If Labour is to win back the Council in Plymouth and retake the Parliamentary seat lost at the last election we need not only to highlight Tory failings like this. We also need to make a credible case for how money is better spent by investing in grassroots sports clubs not flying across the world to watch footy at the taxpayers’ expense. Perhaps someone would like to ask David Cameron what he thinks about Cllr Pengelly’s trip?

Before benefits are cut jollies for council leaders should be cut – that shouldn’t be a party political statement – it is common sense. It is disappointing that Plymouth’s Tories haven’t worked that out. This weekend Plymouth Labour will be campaigning across Plymouth highlighting the impact of the budget and the example set by the Tory Council Leader. Come join us.