Only one more year to go!

1.36.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 10th Apr 2009

Mike Swallow (left) thanks Mike Cox for his help and support as the Tories forced the Swallows Gym Centre to close.

Increasingly people have been asking me: "how long will it be until the next local elections?" Not supporters, but ordinary residents fed up with the attitude of the local Conservative run council.

As the years have gone by the arrogance of the Conservative Cabinet has grown. Readers may have noticed I seem to have got into a spot of bother recently. The local Conservative dominated standards committee decided that I breached the Councillors code of conduct by allegedly calling all the Conservatives "corrupt". I didn't. As it happens I called the system of democracy that elected them "corrupt".

That hasn't stopped them pursuing their vendetta presumably trying to silence me at the cost of over £10,000 of public money. The committee concluded however that "No further action should be taken". Some Conservatives are said to be furious. Actually I don't blame them. Its perverse, which is one of the reasons I am appealing the decision.

This saga however is minor compared to some of the suffering that has occurred in the 3 years since the electoral system handed ultimate power in Hillingdon to a small cabal in the Conservative group. Since then they have:

1. Increased their personal take home pay by around 40%.

2. Closed down the young people's outdoor centre in Wales.

3. Withdrawn grants from the Race Equality Council, the Law Centre and even Children's Uniforms

4. Closed down the Swallows Gymnastics centre of excellence

5. Spent £400k on a new logo

6. Lost £20m of Hillingdon's tax payers' money in Iceland

7. Been castigated for the shoddy treatment of asylum seeking children

8. Have reduced eligibility criteria on benefits for handicapped children and the elderly

9. Forced through reactionary changes in the Council's constitution limiting the rights of the opposition to speak

10. Introduced new higher grades of directors with large bonuses and pensions to do the job they get paid to do.

11. Decimated a lot of good quality middle ranking officers who wanted to get on and do a good job.

12. Failed to drag themselves off the bottom of the league table of London Councils. We now rank with Haringey as a 2 star authority.

I could go on. There are lots of other small individual examples of where this Conservative Council have corrupted the name of democracy, squandered the assets of the borough and threatened the livelihood of many residents and traders. If this is not worth fighting for, nothing is.

Please join me as we approach 2010 in what will be a fight to restore Hillingdon's democracy, rebuild Hillingdon reputation and release the energy of local people to care for their neighbours and their environment.

Mike Cox

Councillor for Ruislip Manor

Leader of the Hillingdon Lib Dem group

Parliamentary spokesman for Uxbridge and South Ruislip

"Working all year round"