What exactly does our MP Mel Stride do other than hire himself out to Tory councillors who tip him off for endless photo opportunities? His website is no help as the last entry is 25th October when he notes that he enjoyed some bird watching at the RSPB’s Exe Estuary reserve.
Where is he while more than 350 redundancies have occurred in his constituency in the last few weeks and 200 hundred hungry people a week in Okehampton are having to depend on food donated by locals to build up a food bank?
This apalling idictment of government policies is happening on his doorstep while Mr Stride is publicly welcoming the Government's new welfare system as marking the beginning of a new era of 21st century welfare. Mr Stride is quoted as saying: "These reforms show that this government is on the side of people who want to get ahead….these measures will get people into work “
But Mr Stride seems to have decided to adopt a 19th century paternalistic approach to his constituents, He seeks to establish himself as the all round caring good egg who will without question attach himself to a local issue as long as it doesn’t dent his credentials as an ultra government loyalist and is totally uncontroversial.
In this way he is following in a grand Tory tradition, adopting the role of the local squire, who would invariably have been the figurehead for any local good cause. The loan of whose name and face would be a sure-fire seal of approval.
Perhaps Mr Stride feels that his photographic presence in local newspapers is reassuring, however together with his bland notes from Westminster and press releases that also appear in some sections of the local Devon press, his attitude to the electorate can only be described as condescending.
Where is Mr Stride when it comes to real issues that affect local people: cuts in frontline policing and bus subsidies; the Crediton link road, youth unemployment, the scrapping of the EMA, the cost of fuel, the removal of security for many council house tenants on benefits, the reduction in forces pensions and cuts in children’s and young people’s services, now unemployment and hunger at the heart of his constituency
Perhaps he doesn’t see any photo opportunities attached to these issues, however comfortably seated behind Cameron on the government benches, he is probably more concerned with a possible future call-up to a junior ministerial post.
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