Kamran Ghafoor
Conservative Party
Oldham West and Royton Constituency
Address
104 Werneth Hall Road
Oldham
OL8 4BD
Britain's fightback starts here
No matter which way you look at it our beloved country is in a mess.
You can blame it on any number of excuses, but the fact is in 1997 when Labour came to power the country was in a very strong position.
We had a country that was respected globally. That respect has been washed away and eroded with every subsequent election, to where we are now — rock bottom. Now the question is do we want to vote Labour back in for yet another disastrous five years and bury it completely or do we start with the fightback — change the Government and start to build a better future for our children and grandchildren.
I am a local family man, born and bred in Oldham. I started my education at Werneth Primary School and from there went on to St Augustine’s Roman Catholic High School. I continued my studies at Oldham Sixth Form College and then on to Salford University where I gained a 1st Class Degree and a Masters in Information Systems. I still live and work and have businesses in Oldham, with my roots firmly fixed in the town. I care about Oldham; it’s where I live, so I need to believe in a better Oldham. This is the main reason for my standing as your Conservative Parliamentary Candidate.
Why I am a Conservative — Britain needs change: few can doubt that. Our national finances are mired in massive debt. After looking at what the other parties have to offer I am convinced that a Conservative Government is the only way forward.
Thousands of Oldhamers are living with the misery of unemployment. Local communities are shattered by crime and abuse. People in the public services are trapped in a web of rules and regulations. People have lost faith that politics can fix our problems, or that politicians can lead us into a better future. There is a feeling of helplessness. Once again, there is a mood afoot that the decline of Britain is inevitable. But there is no law that says we must accept decline. We have the energy, the ideas and the ambition to get back on track. That includes everyone in Chadderton, Royton and Oldham. If we join together, if we act decisively, and move forward with optimism, we can start to fix the economic, social and political problems that threaten our town.
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Biography
Mr Ghafoor (31) is a businessman with a property and petrol station portfolio who was a Labour councillor in Werneth for a year in 2003. The 31-year-old is Oldham born and went to St Augustine’s RC School.
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But what is that change? Some promise solutions from on high — but real change comes from you, the people. So we, the Conservatives offer a new approach: a change not just from one set of politicians to another, but from one set of policies to another. From the idea that the role of the state is to direct society and centrally control public services, to the idea that the role of the state is to strengthen society and make public services serve the people who use them.
The Conservative Party voted for change by electing David Cameron. Since then, the Party has remoulded itself for the modern era, applying its deepest values and beliefs to the urgent problems of the hour. Even as it has done so, the problems confronting Britain have escalated, and escalated fast. So our ideas are ambitious and radical as well as modern. They match the scale of Britain’s problems, and are in tune with a world that is changing before our eyes. But our core values have not altered and our core beliefs remain consistent. We believe in responsibility: Government responsibility with public finances, personal responsibility for our actions, and social responsibility, enterprise and aspiration. We believe there is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same thing as the state.
Our basic principle is that power should be devolved from politicians to people, from the central to the local. Personal ambition should be set as high as is humanly possible, with no barriers put inits way by the state. Perhaps most importantly, we believe that we are all in this together.
Mending Britain’s broken society will be a central aim of the next Conservative Government.
That is why we in the Conservative Party have set ourselves an ambitious goal: to make Britain the most family-friendly country in Europe. That is why we back the NHS. That is why we will reform schools to raise standards and restore discipline. It is why we will get people off benefits and into work; reform policing, sentencing and prisons.
But we will not succeed in our goals, or in building a new economic model, unless we stop Government trying to direct everything from the centre. We will get nowhere with yet more top-down state control. So, after 13 years of Labour, we need radical political reform. We need to change the whole way this country is run.
As a Conservative, I trust people. I believe that if people are given more responsibility, they will behave more responsibly. If you decentralise power, you get better results and better value for money. So the plans set out by the Conservative Party represent an unprecedented redistribution of power and control from the central to the local, from politicians and the bureaucracy to individuals, families and neighbourhoods.
We will give people much more say over the things that affect their daily lives. It will make government, politics and public services much more open and transparent. And it will give the people who work in our public services much greater responsibility. But in return, they will have to answer to the people. All these measures will help restore trust in our broken political system.
This is a profoundly optimistic vision, but it is also an authentically Conservative vision: sound money, backing enterprise, trusting people. The challenge we are now embarked on is about applying this Conservative approach to the progressive challenges of our age: making opportunity more equal; fighting poverty and inequality; improving the environment and general well-being.
By voting Conservative, I ask you to join us for the next and most important stage of the journey: changing Oldham so we can offer a better life for all. Our plans are costed and fully funded. Some of our proposals — such as on school discipline — cost nothing, but require energy and leadership.
Others — like stopping Labour’s jobs tax — will require money, and we will make savings in other areas to pay for them. The debt crisis is the terrible legacy that Gordon Brown is bequeathing to our country. But fiscal responsibility needs a social conscience or it is not responsible at all: so we will not allow the poorest people in Britain to pay an unfair price for the mistakes of some of the richest.
Nor will we allow irresponsibility in the private sector to continue unchecked. We will bring law and order to our financial markets as a necessary step to restoring confidence. But the real prize for Britain is to create a new economic model, one founded on investment and savings not borrowing and debt. We will move from state action to social action, encouraging social responsibility in all its forms and across all the country — whether curbing incivility on our streets or supporting social enterprises with the power to transform neighbourhoods. We will set an annual limit on immigration and tighten up bogus student visas. Our aim is to reduce net immigration and introduce a tougher points based system.
A Conservative Government will:
1. Create a more balanced economy.
2. Get Britain working again.
3. Encourage new business.
4. Reform public services to deliver better value for money.
5. Create a safer banking system that serves the need of the economy.
6. Reduce the deficit.
7. Protect National Health Service.
8. Expand Sure Start nursery places.
9. Retain bus passes for the elderly.
10. Defend the winter fuel allowance.
11. Continue with the free TV licences for the over-75s.
12. Put policeman on the beat and cut red tape.
Oldham faces huge problems that demand radical change; and it cannot come soon enough. I am impatient to get on with this work. I am determined to make a difference.
Chance
I and the Conservative Party have the policies to make that difference. In this year for change your vote counts. Don’t waste it on the parties that cannot win. A vote for the Lib-Dems is a vote for five more years of Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. It is an honour to have a chance to serve the people of Oldham West and Royton. Being from Oldham I feel that I am more connected with the grass-root problems of Oldhamers. I am not standing for Parliament for personal gain. I have promised to give back my first year’s salary to local causes. If I am given the chance to represent you, you will see a more prosperous, a much safer and a better Oldham. And most importantly, I have faith that the people of Oldham will decide they need change and will vote Conservative on May 6.
