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At last we have someone who understands our concerns
First of all can I offer my heartiest congratulations to Rosie Duffield on her stunning victory in Canterbury last week.
At last we have an MP who understands our concerns, who has lived a life not unlike our own, and who will be able to represent the broad majority of her constituents in Parliament.
You can’t say that about Julian Brazier: a person about as remote from ordinary voters lives as it is possible to imagine.
I’ve had a few run ins with him over the years: most notably during our campaign to keep the Royal Mail delivery office open in Whitstable.
About 30 postal workers lobbied him after work. He listened politely, nodding energetically at all our points, and then hot-footed it directly to Royal Mail management and sided with them instead.
That says all you need to know about Julian Brazier. On the side of management and against the workers. On the side of profit and against public services. On the side of a remote and distant decision making process and against local people’s needs.
It was the same during the campaign to keep our Crown Post Office. Sir Julian sided with Post Office Ltd, saying “I have no problem with the Post Office moving into another store as part of a franchise.”
Had it been up to him, and the Post Office been moved into Budgens as was planned, there would not now be a Post Office in the centre of Whitstable, and no prospect of there ever being one in the future.
He was always quick to see a photo opportunity, and slow to give any real, practical help. Thus it was he turned up at the CHEK march against the downgrading of services at the Kent and Canterbury Hospital on June 3rd, while voting consistently with the government on legislation designed to undermine the Health Service.
Finally there is the little matter of his annual courtesy visit to the delivery office every Christmas. People used to run from their desks to hide, so patronising and out of touch was he.
At least this year it will be Rosie Duffield paying us a visit, a much more salubrious prospect.
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From The Whitstable Gazette, 15/06/2017
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