Medway News Column

13 June 2008 

So David Cameron decided to visit Gillingham last week, launching his ‘new’ volunteering policy, against the backdrop of the highly successful Sunlight Centre. 

A very courageous decision bearing in mind the Tories past games with the Sunlight Centre.  

Don’t get me wrong, I am delighted that the Leader of the Opposition visited the Sunlight Centre since it shows what can be achieved with the right Government supporting policies and the hard work and dedication of committed local people. 

It has been the Labour Government that has taken the volunteering and not-for-profit sector seriously, creating the Office of the Third Sector, introducing Train to Gain to help upskill volunteers, launching the Social Enterprise Programme and doubling funding for the sector. 

With the Government’s Social Enterprise Programme and hard work and commitment locally, the Sunlight Trust has proved an exemplar of our policies; paving the way for the Trust to win commercial catering contracts at the new Rainham Health Centre and indeed the catering requirements of Tory run Medway Council! 

Also Sunlight Chief Executive, Peter Holbrook, is one of the 25 Social Enterprise Ambassadors working with the Third Sector Minister, Phil Hope MP. 

So Mr.Cameron has followed many significant visitors that I have welcomed to the Centre including The Prime Minister, the then Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, now Leader of the Commons, Harriet Harman and Minister for Police, Tony McNulty – to name but a few! So Cameron plays follows my Labour leader. 

But any thought you might have entertained that this was the “caring” Tories are dispelled when you recall that it was Cameron’s very own Tory political leaders at Medway Council who cynically used and manipulated the very same Centre to pull a cheap political stunt against the users and volunteers promising £50,000 that was never there in the first place and a promise they knew they could never keep. 

What do they say – “a leopard never changes its spots!”