Last week, Jeremy Corbyn announced that a future Labour Government would pay 16 and 17 year-olds a £10 hourly minimum wage. A decade ago, when youth unemployment had soared under the last Labour Government, such a proposal would have been rightly criticised by everyone as stopping young people getting into work. Now, a decade later and with youth unemployment having halved under the Conservatives, such a proposal may be seen as eye-catching by those too young to remember the economic damage that Labour always do when in government. This ‘policy’ is of course a cynical bribe (with non-existent money) to get a few more votes and has no sound basis in economics whatsoever. As well as obviously hiking up youth unemployment, it seriously risks the viability of much sought-after apprenticeships. The numbers are just made up as they go along.

On behalf of all of our candidates in last week’s whole council election, I would like to say a huge thank to everyone who voted Conservative in Crawley. We achieved a fantastic set of Crawley results, which were all the more remarkable when nationally our party had its worst set of local election results since 1995.

On Thursday of this week, Crawley Borough Council has a whole Council election of all 36 seats following a boundary review. This creates a big opportunity for change and my colleagues and I are offering a positive alternative to the current Labour Administration at the town hall, which I believe is being taken over by the far-left and extremist Momentum organisation. Our manifesto leaflet that sets out our policies should have been delivered to every household and is easily available to view on our Crawley Conservatives website.

Next week, Crawley Borough Council has a one-off whole Council election to elect all 36 Councillors. This opportunity will significantly shape the Council for several years. We have had a positive campaign and have set out in our local manifesto how we will improve the running of our local Council for the benefit of Crawley. For example, it is only Conservatives who are committed to improving Crawley’s residential neighbourhood parking.

Local government services in Crawley are provided under what is known as ‘two-tier’ with two councils, namely West Sussex County Council and Crawley Borough Council. The broader and larger services such as education, adult social care, fire & rescue, children’s services and highways & transport are provided by the County Council. This equates to roughly 80% of our local government services, hence most of our council tax. Local services such as housing, street cleaning and refuse collections are provided by Crawley Borough Council.

The ever-increasing release of CO2 into the atmosphere is very concerning and needs tackling urgently, because the best available science to us predicts very serious and irreversible consequences for our planet through climate change.

One of the key differences between the Labour and Conservative parties is that Labour like to make people dependent on the state while the Conservatives like to free people from state dependency. The former is about control over people’s lives and the latter about liberation.

The Crawley Messenger promoting a positive Conservative agenda for Crawley and the Borough Council Elections on Thursday 2nd May.

The biggest issue by far at the moment that local people are raising with me is Brexit. This week on Friday 29th March was supposed to be the day we left the EU and entered the transition phase. The antics of Westminster MPs have delayed this until April or May, but there is a risk of a longer delay and with that comes even more uncertainty for our economy.

This coming Saturday will be High Street Saturday, which is a new campaign day that aims to celebrate our town centres and high streets. As part of the day, people are encouraged to pledge to shop locally, share photos and messages online using #HighStreetSaturday, and to encourage local councils like Crawley to make good use of the Future High Street Fund. This is a fund that is provided by the Government to help make high streets and town centres fit for the future.