News RSS Feed Send your news, pictures & videos


Watford MP Claire Ward slammed by Equitable Life campaigners


Watford MP Claire Ward has been accused of “betraying” the thousands of constituents fighting for compensation after losing their pension funds.

Ms Ward agreed last month to sign up to an all party group of MPs supporting former investors in Equitable Life, many of whom saw their retirement plans ruined when the company came close to collapse in 2000.

However, angry campaigners have now accused her of reneging on her earlier promises and “deceiving” the estimated 9,000 victims in her constituency.

Stuart Pole, chairman of Equitable Members Action Group (EMAG) in Hertfordshire and Middlesex, said the Labour MP reneged on the pledge at the end of March, when she voted against House of Commons motion that, its Conservative and Liberal Democrat backers claimed, would have brought full compensation a step closer.

Mr Pole, of Radlett, said: “We deeply regret Ms Ward's behaviour in this matter also now includes deceiving Watford constituents by undertaking to support them and then betraying them.”

Mr Pole also expressed frustration at Ms Ward’s lack of cooperation with the group on individual cases.

Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate Sal Brinton, whose party supports full compensation, added: “This motion would have been a major step forward. I am disappointed and outraged at her failure to support 9,000 constituents.”

A spokesman for Ms Ward, however, dismissed the claims as “absolutely ridiculous and wrong,” adding that she was now dealing directly with constituents affected by the case – constituents whose details she could not discuss with a third party for reasons of confidentiality. Ms Ward would, he added, continue her support for victims to the best of her ability. More than one million Equitable Life policy holders have lost money. A Parliamentary ombudsman ruled in 2008 that the crisis occurred as a result of regulatory failings and told the government to apologise and pay full compensation.

Ministers, however, have only proposed ex gratia payments to those “disproportionately affected” – a process that avoids the acceptance of blame and raises, EMAG claims, the possibility of means testing.

Labour’s chief secretary to the treasury Liam Byrne, however, said in February that such a course of action was “neither desirable nor administratively feasible”.

EMAG is demanding full compensation.

Comments(5)

Johnjones59 says...
1:50pm Thu 15 Apr 10

She reneged & betrayed virtually all her constituents throughout her term (s), god willing it will end on May 6th

ReadyTeddy says...
5:29pm Thu 15 Apr 10

She sure will be booted out on the 6th May :-)

three rivers man says...
6:49am Fri 16 Apr 10

Directions to Parliament Square for Claire Ward.
Junction 5 M1, ten minutes to staples corner, pick up Claremont road, cross over Cricklewood Lane and continue as the crow flys to Mill Lane, turn left towards West End Lane, turn right and head towards Abbey Road and then Lisson Grove, cross Marylebone Road and drive the full length of Seymour Place, then turn left and then turn right into Great Cumberland Place to Marble Arch, drive down Park Lane to Hyde Park Corner, take second exit, Constitution Hill, comply QVM, turn left into Bird Cage Walk, forward into Great George Street to Parliament Square.
Time outside of the rush hour, approx 45 mins.
A little birdie tells me Claire Ward new the way and how long it took all the time, but decided she could make a killing buying a second home close to Parliament Square at the taxpayers expense and wasn't interested in being a commuter like Mr and Mrs average.
Goodriddance Claire.

Tudor247 says...
9:47pm Fri 16 Apr 10

I've just been reading how helpful Claire Ward has been locally in a newspaper Labour activists have put through my door. How come they missed out printing this story written about here?

three rivers man says...
10:14pm Wed 28 Apr 10

Rochdale under pressure: How the Home Office was warned Gillan Duffy's town is at risk of race riotsBy Neil Sears-daily mail
Last updated at 5:48 PM on 28th April 2010
Comments (0) Add to My Stories
When grandmother Gillian Duffy suggested immigration was a problem in Rochdale, she was swiftly dismissed as a 'bigot' by Gordon Brown.
But the Prime Minister was betraying not only his real feelings about the worries of millions of Britons, but also his ignorance of what has been going on in the northern town - which provides an acute case study of issues afflicting the whole nation.
For ethnic populations in Rochdale, ten miles north of Manchester, have been rising so fast that the Home Office has been warned it is at risk of race riots, and the council has had to draw up a special housing plan for minorities.
The Falinge area of Rochdale which had the highest number of benefit claimants in Britain
Government research last year showed more than a quarter of primary school pupils in Rochdale spoke English as a foreign language - and named one school. Heybrook Primary, where every single one of the 453 pupils spoke English as a second language.
More...Gordon goes back to grovel in person to life-long Labour voter he called a 'bigot' for complaining about immigration

Large scale immigration to the town began in the post-war years, when thousands of Asians arrived to work in dozens of cotton mills.
Gillian Duffy was called a 'bigoted woman' by Gordon Brown when she quizzed him about immigration in Rochdale
The mills have now gone, but the Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims who came to work in them have remained, along with their children and grandchildren.
And census figures have shown that while the white population is actually falling by 2.3 per cent a decade, thanks to high birth rates the Asian population is doubling every 20 years. One church has reacted by offering services in Urdu and Punjabi.
Statistics produced in 2006 counted 16,000 people of Pakistani-origin in Rochdale, one in twelve of the population, along with 3,100 Bangladeshis, and another 8,000 non-whites.
On top of that there were another 5,000 eastern Europeans and other non-British whites.
Yet even in the four years since those figures were produced, the ethnic minority numbers have grown rapidly.
For the opening of European Union borders has led to ever larger numbers of Poles and other eastern Europeans coming to take up low-paid jobs in the town.

The Daily Mail found that numerous Poles were working in a Woolworths depot in Rochdale, while sleeping up to 13-at-a-time in cramped terrace houses.
Rochdale Borough Council recently produced a special 'Black and Minority Ethnic' housing strategy for the town 'in recognition of the increasing ethnic diversity in Rochdale' and the minorities' 'level of housing need'.
In addition to the Asians established locally for decades, the document goes on, there are 'newer and emerging ethnic minority groups' making up the 'refugee and asylum seeker communities for Africa, Afghanistan, Iraq and other countries', as well as eastern Europeans, mainly Poles.
The council document notes: 'In 2007, Rochdale borough had a black and minority ethnic population of 12 per cent, which is projected to increase to 20 per cent by 2021.'
Boarded up shops in Rochdale's main shopping strip last year
Three years ago it was reported that taxpayers were funding the refurbishment of 500 homes a year for asylum seekers in Rochdale - at a cost of £3,000 a time, with fittings including, freezers, microwaves and even ash trays.
Even before extra strain was placed on resources by the arrival of east Europeans and asylum seekers, recently released Home Office papers showed that in 2001 Rochdale was highlighted as potential race riot 'hot-spot' following violent anarchy in nearby Oldham.
And race relations in the town caused problems for Labour in the last General Election too, when it was claimed a raid on 25 suspected illegal immigrants on a council estate inundated by Africans had been postponed to avoid embarrassing Tony Blair.


Read more: http://www.dailymail
.co.uk/news/election
/article-1269581/War
ning-Gillan-Duffys-h
ome-town-Rochdale-ri
sk-race-riots.html#i
xzz0mQepjB00


Most popular






Watford Observer on Twitter Watford Observer on Facebook

Local Information

Enter your postcode, town or place name

House prices »   Schools »   Crime »   Hospitals »

Local Businesses