Philip Dunne MP: Now is the last chance for ex-pats to register to vote for change

Philip Dunne is MP for Ludlow, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party's International Office and the Parliamentary Chairman of Conservatives Abroad.

The countdown is closing fast on Gordon Brown's options as to when to take the short trip along The Mall to ask Her Majesty to dissolve Parliament and allow the British public to have their say on his failed and discredited government.

But it isn’t just voters living in the UK who will soon get the opportunity to vote for change. Millions of British citizens living overseas are also entitled to vote. And they should. For all the reasons ConservativeHome readers know so well.

Gordon Brown’s Government has brought Britain to her knees. But his policies have affected British citizens living overseas as well as people living in the UK.

Pensioners living abroad have seen their income reduced with the dramatic devaluation of the Pound combined with current low interest rates on sterling savings. The value of their occupational pensions from British schemes has been slashed following Gordon Brown’s £100m raid on pension funds.

British expats, whether working or retired, now pay more tax, pay more for healthcare when returning to the UK, and pay higher fees to send their children to university in the UK.

Crucial decisions are made in Westminster each year affecting UK citizens and their families wherever they live: on pensions, on tax, on healthcare, on education – even on voting rights. It is a scandal that this Government sends our soldiers into conflict overseas, yet has made it harder for them to vote while on active service,

Philip Dunne MP: Retail crime is not victimless and we must make a more explicit commitment to make community-led retail crime reduction a priority

Philip Dunne is MP for Ludlow and chaired the party's Retail Crime Commission, which reported yesterday. He will be discussing the issues raised here at a the British Retail Consortium-sponsored fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester at 10am on Monday 5th October.

For all Labour’s tough talk on tackling crime and the causes of crime, there is mounting evidence that after 12 years of Government rhetoric, high streets and local neighbourhood shopping areas are suffering record levels of theft. As if this wasn’t bad enough, violent theft is also rising – up 11% in the last year for which statistics are available.

Theft from retailers also provides one of the principal sources of funding for drug abuse. Britain now ranks third worst out of 28 industrialised countries in the prevalence of serious drug use amongst adults as well as 15-16 year olds. The drugs menace accounts for many of the social ills afflicting young people, their families and their communities.

All of this has a debilitating impact on local communities. People become fearful of visiting their local shops where the threat of anti-social behaviour in and around retail premises and violence and abuse can become routinely accepted by shop staff, who often have to suffer the added perception of crime in retail premises as victimless.

But retail crime is not 'victimless'. Shop staff and their customers should not be subject to intimidation and violence. Retail businesses suffer, reducing profitability and forcing up costs to consumers. Repeated anti-social behaviour directed towards shops can force closure, depriving a community of retail convenience and reducing the quality of life for residents. This has the greatest impact on the most vulnerable, particularly elderly or young families.

Labour’s response has been pitiful. Retail crime has been downgraded in importance by the Government in its latest Policing Green Paper and is not even included within the existing monitoring or performance regime for police forces. Meanwhile fixed penalty tickets issued by Police Forces for shop theft have increased by 14% in the last year. Yet these sanctions are routinely abused with many offenders, especially serial offenders, refusing to pay their fixed penalties.

Philip Dunne MP: There's nothing invincible about Vince

Philip Dunne is MP for Ludlow, winning the seat from the Liberal Democrats in May 2005.  In this Platform article he examines the reputation of Vince Cable MP, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman.

For a politician to become a national treasure can be a mixed blessing. It must be nice to think you are held in higher esteem than the average politician. But – as President Obama is discovering – it is impossible to maintain universal popularity once you have real responsibility. So affording national treasure status may turn out to be an act of passive aggression: the public like you on a personal level, but have decided it is time for you to shuffle off the main stage. This is a comparatively civilised form of enforced retirement.        

Just occasionally, though, a figure in public life can touch a nerve. They can become a national treasure yet still be considered a player. This allows them to enjoy that most precious of positions: being taken seriously and given lots of media attention without being troubled by inelegant probing questions or normal scrutiny. The Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesman Vince Cable finds himself in this enviable situation.

Indeed Dr Cable – who has recently published a book entitled The Storm: The World Economic Crisis & What it Means – is now treated by much of the media as an impartial commentator and sage, rather than as a fallible and partisan politician. Good for him; not so good for democracy.

It is not hard to see how this has happened. Dr Cable has an avuncular and plausible manner and has shown a deft touch in the House of Commons, famously saying Gordon Brown had morphed from Stalin into Mr Bean. He was a professional economist, which doubtless boosts his credibility as the economy takes centre stage – even though our experience of Cabinet ministers with economics degrees has not been an invariably happy one.