The Right Honourable Lord Strathclyde, Conservative Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords, was a recent visitor to Wyre Forest. As part of a regional tour, Thomas Strathclyde was a guest of the Wyre Forest Conservative Association for lunch at Brockencote Hall, Chaddesley Corbett.
During his visit, Lord Strathclyde updated local Conservative campaigners on the role the Conservative Party in the House of Lords is playing to protect West Mercia Police Force from proposed unpopular mergers. As a result of lobbying both by Conservative MPs and Parliamentary Spokesmen, as well as by police forces including West Mercia, the Conservative Party in the House of Lords has introduced amendments to relevant bills that will require Parliament to debate the proposed mergers - something the current Government is blocking in yet another example of the decline of democracy.
The Conservative pressure has had some results. New Home Secretary John Reid, who famously declared the Home Office was 'unfit for purpose' after his own Government had been running it for 9 years, has now put the proposed mergers on the back burner until the autumn, when he will revisit the issue.
Mark Garnier, Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman for Wyre Forest said: "This is yet another perfect example of how a major political party can work together to achieve results - even in opposition. I alone cannot stop the Government from destroying the West Mercia police force. But as a team in Wyre Forest we collected nearly three thousand signatures against the merger. That petition then helped our MPs in Worcestershire put the case more strongly, and they in turn are working with all Conservative MPs in the West Mercia region to block this lunatic proposal. And now we have Conservatives in the House of Lords rallying behind our cause."
Tragically, the case for keeping police forces local has never been stronger in Wyre Forest. Lord Strathclyde's visit comes just days after Wyre Forest suffered not one, but two murders. Mark Garnier continued: "These murders demonstrate how we must keep our local police force. Imagine what would happen if our top rated local officers were dragged away to other areas of the proposed West Midlands region to fight higher levels of crime elsewhere. The only way to keep crime under control is to flood the streets with officers. If all our officers are in Wolverhampton, we will see a rise in local crime in Wyre Forest. I am not going to let that happen without a mighty fight."