|
Visit News Page for Annunziata's latest Press Releases and our Out and About Page for reports of Association activities.
Read Annunziata’s summary of issues facing Somerton and Frome on our Policies and People Page --
*******************************
Labour’s Post Office cuts will hurt the vulnerable hardest
Annunziata campaigns in Wincanton to save local post
offices |
 |
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Somerton & Frome has frequently spoken out against the Government plans to close 2,500 Post Offices across the country. 4,000 have already been shut since 1999.
In Somerton & Frome, this could potentially mean the closure of a further 7 Post Offices, from the current level of 43.
Annunziata said:
"Post Offices are the lifeblood of Somerton & Frome’s communities. But their future is now under real threat. These cuts will hit the vulnerable and the elderly the hardest. Labour Ministers need to recognise that if the local Post Office closes, often the last shop in the vicinity closes as well, and a van for a couple of hours a week is no replacement for a Post Office open full time.
***********************************
Bad news Budget: £110 extra in taxes on families across Somerset
Annunziata Rees-Mogg gives her analysis of Government’s tax and spending plans
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Somerton and Frome, this week delivered her verdict on the Budget which sets out the Government’s plans for taxes and public spending. Annunziata highlighted a series of areas where local residents across Somerset will lose out:
- Clobbering responsible drinkers: Instead of targeting irresponsible binge drinkers, responsible drinkers are being hit with inflation-busting increases in alcohol duties, raising £1.5 billion in extra taxes over the next three years. This is yet another blow for responsible drinkers. Our local pubs are already struggling, with three pubs shutting in Bruton for example, in under a year.
- Little help for pensioners: The Winter Fuel Allowance has been increased for the first time in five years. But the increase is only a one-off for this year. Meanwhile, the burden of council tax bills is set to rise by another £1.2 billion this year, with council tax rises coming on top of hikes in previous years.
- Harder to get onto the housing ladder: This Budget fails to address the growing burden of stamp duty on first-time buyers - half of whom now pay stamp duty. More family homes will be paying 3 and 4 per cent stamp duty, as the thresholds are unchanged. A Conservative government would abolish stamp duty for first time buyers on purchases up to £250,000, saving them up to £1,931 on an average priced semi-detached property in Somerset.
- Higher income tax and National Insurance for many: Tax changes on National Insurance and income tax announced in the last Budget are still to come into effect. Independent experts have calculated that 3.5 million families will be worse off as a result.
- Drivers face new stealth taxes: The Government is to fund new technology to impose controversial ‘spy-in-the-sky’ national road pricing taxes. Meanwhile, family cars face extra taxes of £735 million a year, but the tax cuts on small cars are only worth £15 million a year.
Annunziata said:
“The cost of living is rising fast, but Gordon Brown’s Government has added to it with a barrage of new stealth taxes. This is a bad news Budget that adds £110 a year to the tax bill for families across Somerset.
“Any extra taxes on alcohol or cars should be offset by tax cuts elsewhere, but Labour has just used them as an excuse to raise more money for Gordon Brown’s coffers. Taxes and borrowing are up because the Government failed to use the good years to prepare for the bad years.”
**********************************************************
|
Together we can make Gordon Brown listen
At the last General Election, Gordon Brown promised us a referendum on the EU Constitution but now he is breaking that promise.
|
 |
He claims we don't need one because the new document is called a "Treaty" rather than a "Constitution". But it doesn't really matter what people call it. The fact is that the new Treaty is basically the same as the Constitution and it means giving away more powers to the EU.
It would create a new EU president and lead to the loss of at least 60 of our national vetoes. It gives the EU the power to make treaties and introduces a new ratchet clause that would make it easier for the EU to taken on even more powers in the future.
Just before becoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown said "the manifesto is what we put to the public. We've got to honour that manifesto. That is an issue of trust for me with the electorate." That manifesto included the promise of a referendum and it is up to all of us to make sure that he honours that pledge.
The campaign for a referendum is supported by people from all parties - in fact more than eight out of ten of Labours own voters want a referendum.
If you would like to play your part in making sure that Gordon Brown keeps his promise, then I hope you will offer your support to the cross-party "I want a referendum" campaign by signing their online petition at www.iwantareferendum.com
Better still, send this email to five people you know, and ask your friends and colleagues to sign up. Together we can make Gordon Brown listen.
David Cameron MP
*******************************************
Your chance to get involved in shaping our election manifesto!
David Cameron has invited all Association Members, Councillors, Candidates, to contribute to policy debates, and to invite friends, neighbours, colleagues, members of community groups and local residents to join in and have their say.
Anyone and everyone who wants to participate in policy debates will be able to sign up, either to discuss the Policy Review as a whole or those aspects of policy that particularly interest them, by visiting the "Stand Up, Speak Up" website at http://standupspeakup.conservatives.com/
This is an unprecedented debate on national policy.. You could invite friends round to your home; hold a meeting with neighbours in the local pub or invite all local residents to a meeting in your community hall.
The "Stand up, Speak up" website includes invitation cards to meetings for you to download; posters to advertise your meetings and guidance on how best to organise meetings and how to report the results. This is a great opportunity for every Conservative Party member to show that we are genuinely interested in everyone's views and get engaged with local communities.
This is an exciting time in our Party's history. We have a real prospect of forming the next Government and of changing our country for the better. With your involvement at a local level, over the next few months we will conduct the biggest and most wide-ranging grass roots policy debate Britain has ever seen, leading to increased participation and support for the Conservatives from all parts of the country.
Annunziata Rees- Mogg
- Parliamentary Spokeswoman for Somerton and Frome Conservatives
Annunziata was selected to be our Parliamentary Spokeswoman at a packed open meeting in the Caryford Hall, Thursday 12th October. She gained an overwhelming majority in the first ballot cast by Members and registered voters. She was then unanimously endorsed in the concluding Membership vote.
|
|
Annunziata Rees-Mogg has been a journalist for the past eight years and is currently a leader writer for the Daily Telegraph. Previously she was deputy editor of MoneyWeek and editor of the European Journal, the UK’s leading eurosceptic magazine.
Before being selected for her local seat of Somerton & Frome, she had been an active Conservative Party member for over 20 years. She fought the last general election in Aberavon, South Wales, where she increased the Conservative vote by 34%. Annunziata was also a ward chairman in London for the 2002 local election campaign where, although it was a marginal ward, three Conservative Councillors were successfully elected.
In 2003, in her spare time, she set up Trust the People, a campaign for a referendum on the European Constitution aimed at those too young to have voted in the Common Market referendum in 1975. Annunziata is highly concernrd that Prime Minister Brown is determined to impose a revised EU Constitution on the people of Somerton without the Referendum promised in Labour's 2005 Election Manifesto. She was brought up in Somerset and London and lives at her family home in Mells, Nr. Frome. She has a long standing interest in cultivating indigenous trees.
|
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Passing thought…..
In his 2005 Budget, Prime Minister (then Chancellor) Gordon Brown boasted that inflation was "the lowest for 40 years"
- Have you looked at your Gas, Electricity and Council Tax bills recently?
Things people say….
"All I have as an MP is a degree of influence but no opportunity to make things happen." David Heath MP
(The House Magazine, No. 1197, Vol. 32, London: Dod’s Parliamentary Communications Limited, 4th December 2006, p. 36.)
|
Annunziata campaigns in Wincanton to save local post offices
|
 |
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Somerton & Frome has frequently spoken out against the Government plans to close 2,500 Post Offices across the country. 4,000 have already been shut since 1999.
In Somerton & Frome, this could potentially mean the closure of a further 7 Post Offices, from the current level of 43.
Annunziata said: "Post Offices are the lifeblood of Somerton & Frome’s communities. But their future is now under real threat. These cuts will hit the vulnerable and the elderly the hardest. Labour Ministers need to recognise that if the local Post Office closes, often the last shop in the vicinity closes as well, and a van for a couple of hours a week is no replacement for a Post Office open full time.
National News from Conservatives.com
 
| 
