District Councillor for Kidlington East, County Councillor for Kidlington South, Parish Councillor for Kidlington, Yarnton and Gosford & Water Eaton Parliamentary Candidate for the Bicester & Woodstock Constituency. Promoted by Karl Kwiatkowski on behalf of Ian Middleton both at Flat 3, 69 West Street, Banbury OX16 3HB
I’ve just spent a couple of days in the gorgeous village of Stonesfield researching the state of the river Evenlode which was recently given the unenviable title of the most polluted river in England.
And it’s hardly surprising given that in the past few years the amount of sewage being pumped in to the river has risen from 8000 hours per year to 12000 hours. The river itself is not insubstantial, being deep enough in some areas to swim in, although these days you’d be brave to risk it given the level of E coli and other nasties lurking in its once crystal clear depths.
I spoke to brilliant local councillor Genny Early about the history of the river that she’s lived near for the past 30 years and the tale was not a happy one. Where once you could look out from the local footbridge at fish swimming amongst the river weeds and watch local dogs play happily in the waters, we now have a soupy grey clag, virtually devoid of life and reputedly toxic to everyone including our canine companions.
The cause is toxic dumping from up to 9 different local sewage works, given effective carte blanche by the Conservative government to use this river, and others in the area, as an open sewer to enable companies like Thames Water to pay out record dividends to investors whilst doing next to nothing to fix inadequate infrastructure.
This is the starkest example of how privatisation has failed us all with greedy and cynical corporations grabbing every opportunity to make obscene amounts of money by (in this case) quite literally shitting on local communities.
I made a video with Genny showing just how bad things have got in this area, in sickening contrast to the beautiful local landscape. You can watch it by clicking here.
We simply can’t allow this situation to continue and only the Greens have the real solution to take privatised utilities back into public control where they belong. Water is quite literally an essential for life on this planet. If we’ve reached the point where that is simply a commodity to be bartered between corporations on the open market we really have reached the bottom of a very murky barrel.
Greens would take water and other essential public utilities and services back into public control as the only way to deal with this obscene failure of duty to keep our waterways and rivers clean and accessible for wildlife and recreation. Other parties are suggesting half way houses of fines and extra taxation. None of that will work in an industry that simply doesn’t care any more.
We need radical solutions to these unprecedented outcomes and only the Green Party has a vision bold enough to deliver those.
I’ve been involved in retail for as long as I can remember. From my first proper job as a Saturday boy in a menswear store in Lewisham through my days as a market trader in Camden Lock and Greenwich to being co-founder of a national high street chain that started with a small store in Oxford selling silver jewellery. and grew into a national chain trading in 6 of country’s major retail locations, including London’s prestigious Covent Garden.
In that time I saw almost as many ups as I did downs. I’ve half jokingly said that I spent 20 years building the business and then another 10 trying extricating it from the failing high street. Like so many other retailers who entered the high street during the boom years in the early 1990s, I fell foul of the simultaneous boom in commercial property development. So many new malls were opened in the 90s and early 2000s it was difficult to keep up and I opened stores in some of the most iconic examples such as the New Bullring in Birmingham and Bluewater in Kent.
The other boom at the time was in business rates, which along with rents skyrocketed through that period as institutional landlords, mostly backed by large pension funds, cashed in on the retail bubble ploughing millions into new shiny malls based on the emerging US model. It was great while it lasted and we all became caught up in the heady days of seemingly limitless opportunities. But we soon discovered there were limits.
The Financial crash in 2008 gave us all a pretty sharp reality check and things soon started to become far less buoyant and rents that had been agreed on the back of rude profit margins started to look far less tenable as turnovers started to fall.
I’ve been fighting for a fairer deal for High Street retail for over 15 years
There soon followed a series of frantic rounds of renegotiation with landlords who themselves were facing the prospect of huge hole in their new developments as retailers started to fall over with alarming regularity. In many cases we were able to come to mutual agreements to keep us trading at the shopping malls looking full, but the one thing that couldn’t be re-negotiated were business rates. Set as they were, by the central valuation office, and administered by local authorities, they were completely devoid of any chance of concession unless you had an understanding council. In my experience their understanding was rather limited, and after 5 years as a local councillor myself I now understand more about why that was.
So we were all caught in a perfect storm that only a few managed to emerge from. My business was one of the luckier ones as I managed to negotiate deals that gave us breathing space. But I could see the writing on the wall and it was telling me to get out of the high street and decamp to the internet where so many of our competitors were lurking. Thereby hangs another very long story.
But suffice to say I have an intimate understanding of the plight of the high street, in fact much more intimate than I would prefer. For that reason one of my personal priorities as a fresh faced new MP would be to push for a new system of business rates or local high street taxation. Other things like rent controls and use classes would also be high on the agenda, but none of this will be an easy fix for an industry in the doldrums after so many years in decline. But I know from my own experience that smaller independents are both the lifeblood of local high streets whilst also being the most vulnerable.
In terms of the dreaded business rates, I think I could take elements from the land tax approach of the Green party and add in some aspect of a local purchase tax as seen in the USA. Such a tax would be far more progressive and have more respect for the ability of businesses to pay such an additional tax. That would give a far greater connection between the local community, local authorities and the retailers themselves. If all retailers did well then they would all reap the benefits.
Speaking to local councillors and retailers about business rates reform
I don’t really have the answer to full business rates reform, but I’ve been campaigning for a better system for over 10 years. I would advocate a situation where we involved existing high street retailers in the process of finding a solution. There have been past attempts at doing this, but very few, if any, involved small independent retailers. I think that was a mistake.
The Labour Party have boldly announced that they would scrap the current business rates system, but they haven’t said what they would replace it with. I’ve been here before many times, and both Labour and the Tories have frequently promised reform but never delivered on that. One of the biggest reason is that business rates are a virtually guaranteed income for government bringing in over £13bn a year. Even if the premises are empty, the landlord cops for the bill so it’s a win-win for Westminster. So any new system is likely to be just as iniquitous and damaging, especially to smaller operators.
I think there is a way of developing a system of local high street taxation that could benefit all sides of the equation, including the consumer. Just scrapping the business rates system with no plan for what would replace it is not a solution, yet its the current proposal from the part that is most likely to form the next government in a few weeks. If I was in Westminster I’d hope to be able to provide a far better insight into the problems on the high street and how to engage with the people who face those problems every day.
I’d like to see genuine consultation with high street stakeholders, including landlords and local councils, about the best way forwards. As a long term retailer, having moved from being a small business, through a larger expansion and back to being a ‘born again independent’, I’d like to be involved in that process. But I guess it remains to be seen what the outcome is on July 4th.
I’ve just published a video I made during a recent visit to Bicester with some thoughts on how we can work towards a better system of high street business taxation and help to repair our broken high streets and you can watch that by clicking here.
If you’re a retailer or just someone who enjoys browsing physical shops, I’d suggest you vote for someone like me who has the experience to make that a viable possibility again. Retail is at the heart of every village, town and city and needs political support to make it vibrant again. Many politicians claim to have the answer but few of them have been on the inside of the industry. I think that needs to change. I’d like to change it.
So in the words of Dolly Parton – Here I come again!
No sooner had we got past the District Council elections than we were thrown into a General Election that I and most other pundits had assumed would be held in October or even November.
Theories as to why we’ve been dragged into the whole merry-go-round again at this premature juncture range from speculation about the likely state of the economy and the reduction in inflation, which no political party can realistically take credit for (although the Tories are trying), to the idea that Rishi and his Tory mates needed to get their CVs in for some cushy consultancy gigs before the end of the year.
The other likely reason of course is that there was a chance that a vote of no confidence could be called in Mr Sunak and he wanted to leave the political sphere (as he is likely to do) on the high of being the actual PM, if only in terms of his name badge.
Whatever the reason, here we are having been given only a short 6 weeks to make our case to the electorate, which for parties like the Greens, without the financial and operational reserves of some of the other parties is something of a tall order. But we’re used to tall orders. In the face of what seems like a deliberate policy of starving us of media attention in favour of far more ratings grabbing pint-swilling politico-celebs like Nigel Farage, we’re still garnering support from credible commentators and respected political analysts for both our economic and social justice proposals.
Former Citibank financial trader Gary Stevenson and host of the You Tube Channel Gary’s Economics has analysed the Green Party manifesto and classified it as the most credible and honest in real terms. In a recent video he confirmed that he would be voting Green because we are the only party to be offering a radical and workable alternative to the proposals from every other party.
Trade Unionist and former General Secretary of the Labour Party Jennie Formby has also announced on Twitter that she would be voting Green in this election along with numerous other high profile political and cultural leaders such as George Monbiot. It’s also reported that more and more young people are turning to the Greens as a real alternative to the ping-pong politics of the past 50 years.
As a moderate Green myself I’ve always seen the Greens as a true alternative vote, neither left or right. The Green Party officially rejects the traditional left–right political spectrum, describing it as “something of an anachronism” and that perfectly fits with my view on the world.
I’m standing as the Parliamentary Candidate for Bicester and Woodstock mainly because it’s my home constituency and the place I’ve made my home for 32 years. But above all that, it’s a place I’ve seen change drastically in that time with even more drastic changes in the pipeline. From the massive development plans in and around Kidlington, Yarnton, Begbroke and Bicester with large areas of greenbelt being decimated by ill-conceived local plans to proposals to armour plate 3500 acres of green fields and farmland for hugely unpopular solar farm project in the west. I’m concerned about what these things will do to the place I’ve called home for nearly half my life.
There’s obviously going to be a lot more to say on this election in the remaining 2 weeks, much of which I’ve not said so far due to dealing with my new responsibilities on Cherwell District Council after being appointed to the executive on the same night that the General Election was announced (great timing Rishi!). But I’ll be breaking my silence over the next 2 weeks.
In the meantime, doors are being knocked, leaflets are being delivered and pollsters are polling. There’s been a huge amount of speculation about who can win in this constituency and I’m not going to add to that with my own obviously biased opinions. But with a newly drawn boundary, every voter has the historic opportunity to vote in a brand new Westminster constituency for the first time where we could all buck the trends and help me and the Greens to show that any prediction in an unknown and untested area could be drastically inaccurate.
Can I win? Who knows? Am I serious about my candidacy? Absolutely! But then as anyone who knows me and knows my work as a local councillor and activist would tell you, I never do things by half measures. We all know that the Tories are finished, at least for the immediate future. We don’t need to vote tactically on a local basis in this election because after 14 years of chaos the country has finally woken up and are about to consign the current administration to the political skip.
That gives every voter in this area new opportunities and new possibilities. You can vote with your heart and for what you believe in. If that’s a better future for you and your family, a fully funded NHSand social care system, public utilities returned to responsible public control (particular water and energy), a better standard of living for all, raising millions out of poverty and protecting climate and nature, voting Green really is the only alternative. Even if I don’t win the seat, a vote for me that would contribute to a large swing to the Greens nationally will strengthen our hand in influencing national politics for the better. It will also put money into the party coffers through Short Money to help us continue the fight for a better, fairer, greener world for you and you family and their families to come.
I’ll do my best over the next couple of weeks to make my case for your precious vote in this election and I hope you will seriously consider giving me that vote on July 4th. You should shortly be receiving leaflets from me explaining my priorities. You can also browse this website which is being updated with local issues that I think will be important in the upcoming election. I will also be adding new topics in the next few days. If you want hear me speak in the meantime, I was interviewed by Byline Times recently and was able to cover many topics that I think will be important to voters in this election. You can see that here.
There are also a number of hustings that you can attend to ask questions of me and the other candidates. These are :
7.30pm – 24th June – Kidlington Methodist Church (forum on poverty) 7.30pm – 25th June – St. Mary Magdelene Church, Park St, Woodstock 7pm – 26th June – St Edburg Church Bicester 6.30pm – 1st July – CPRE Country side and Environment hustings at Yarnton Village Hall
I look forward to seeing as many people at those events as possible. If anyone would like to extend other invitations I am more than happy to come along. If any other events come up I will post them here and on my social media channels.
Remember – this is the election where YOU get to vote FOR what YOU believe in, rather than AGAINST what you don’t.
You could also contribute to my joint fundraiser to help me and my 2 fellow North and West Oxfordshire candidates reach more voters in this campaign. Click here to go to our Crowdfunder page
If you’d like a poster for your window or a signboard for your garden click here to let us know and we’ll do the rest
Ian Middleton 