The battle for Milton Keynes

Milton Keynes Council has a minority Lib Dem administration. They have 21 seats, the Conservatives 20 and Labour 10. It is a unitary authority and a third of the seats are up for election on May 6.

In terms of the General Election there are two constituencies. Milton Keynes North and Milton Keynes South. Confusingly in Milton Keynes North there is a sitting Conservative MP, Mark Lancaster, standing for reelection - but boundary changes make this a notionally Labour seat. It is our 36th target seat. Milton Keynes South is a Labour held seat and our seventh target. Despite doing well in the Council elections the Lib Dems came a distant third in both seats last time.

In the 11 relevant wards for Milton Keynes South we had six wards return Conservatives last time they voted, three returned Labour candidates and two Lib Dems. Good luck to the Conservative candidate for this constituency Iain Stewart.

For Milton Keynes North of the relevant 12 wards there are three won by the Conservatives last time but nine won by the Lib Dems. So while there swingometer shows Labour as the main enemy, the Council elections suggest it is the Lib Dems. A interesting one to watch. Good luck to Mark Lancaster, who serves in the TA. When it comes to seeing off the enemy - he will be familiar with the warning that it can come from more than one direction.

In the Town Hall the enemy forces work together. The Lib Dems have pushed up the Council Tax by 2% for this year. They secured with Labour support for their tax hiike, from means residents face a Band D Council Tax of £1,389. This high tax is combined with poor Audit Commission ratings as an inadequate one star Council.

The Conservative manifesto proposes a Council Tax freeze for two years. It says the Lib Lab Pact has delivered "bus lanes with no buses, bus stops wih no buses."

The manfesto adds:

Local Conservatives have continually highlighted inadequacies in the management of public funds and the wasteful spending of your money by the current Liberal Democrat administration.

The Audit Commission has reported that the current administration is not delivering “value for money”, and weaknesses have been demonstrated in capital spending, risk management, inventory, and project management. These weaknesses are costing millions of pounds of council-taxpayers’ money!

A recent example is Giles Brook School, where £3M was wasted on having to build the school twice (because the first time it was unsafe).

The Conservatives will introduce better controls to ensure your money is properly managed, and will deliver the efficiency improvements that most businesses achieve all the time, enabling them to produce better value products each year.