The Return of The Big Beast

Tory Leadership Blog

Ken Clarke needs to answer some questions for me if this is a serious challenge:

Where has he been since 1997 (apart from tobacco board meetings)? Should our next Leader have not been fighting for us through the past eight years and not just pop up whenever the Leadership comes up for grabs?
What is he offering the country?
When he says he no longer loves the Euro what are his views about the rest of the European monolith?
Does he really believe that a number of the Lib Dems should have been Conservative MP's and not Lib Dems? They might appear Tory to get elected but they sure ain't Tory when they win!!

Still a long time to go but at least someone has at least declared they are a candidate instead of all the shadow boxing we have had till now.

Been away

I have been on holiday the past few days.

I needed a break and the children needed one too. We went to a great cottage in Herefordshire, just outside Ledbury, plenty of swimming and lots of peace. Best advantage was there was no mobile signal!!

Hampton Court Fair

I cycled over to the Hampton Court this morning with the children.

They were running a fantastic country fair. For many years there has been a travelling funfair on the grounds over Bank Holiday weekends. This year an inspired group of local people decided to start a country fair and I have to say it was a vast improvement.

A COUNTRY AFFAIR

The mess our roads are in

Had a number of residents complain to me last night about the standard of resurfacing of the roads. In some places the roads are resurfaced perfectly, in others they have made an appalling mess; blocked gullies, tarmac coming up within weeks, lowered kerbs that allows the rainwater to flow onto the pavements, ridges in the road that mean motorcycles have some difficulty staying upright.

It is bad enough I suppose that we have still have the number of roads that are sub standard. From what I can see this is likely to continue, despite the investment that is currently being made.

Still the Lib Council had their chance to do something about this recently:

Borrow £3m and have a choice on who you can spend it on: Beverley School (complete mess), Tolworth Girl’s Schools (6th Form falling down), roads or even use the interest on the loan to reverse their catastrophic decision to charge the elderly and disabled massively more for their domiciliary care and hurt them more by means testing them.

Bad smell update

Have now, finally, got some sense from Thames Water.

It appears the Berrylands (Hogsmill) treatment works have got a faulty "gas flare system" They are now undertaking repairs which they expect to have completed by the 26th August.

By September Berrylands will be fragrant again.

Does not stop me having a meeting with them to try and discuss what further can be done to limit smells from the place.

Funny smell in Berrylands

When you live in Berrylands you put up with a certain degree of bad smell from the sewage farm near the railway. Depends where the wind blows usually.

However of recent days it has ben very strong and regular. In fact we have had a number of residents mention it when we have been out knocking on doors. The rumour is that some piece of expensive equipment has broken down and is not working properly. I have been in contact with Thames Water to set up a meeting to discuss what other improvements we might be able to make.

If any regular readers of this site have any news on the subject I would be happy to hear from them.

Unions at it again

Click here to go to The Times article

Since labour came to power in 1997 the Unions have kept a somewhat low profile. The Trade Unions were the most dangerous and damaging element of British society in the seventies. Their actions in striking for workers rights and higher pay often led to further unemployment as the nation became uncompetitive and unreliable due to the lightening strikes and violent pickets.

I thought that had changed but with the British Airways/Gate Gourmet farago we have seen a return to the nad old days many of us thought would never happen and that legislation prevented.

I note from this article that there is confirmation that the industrial action was illegal, both at gate Gourmet and at BA and that frankly the whole lot of them could be sacked. However in a period of high employment, such as we have now, where are the new employees going to come from?

I saw an amusing letter in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. It was a short and open letter asking the BA workers to go back to work because the Government has a number of deportations of "hate clerics" to make!!

New York releases 9/11 documents

Click here to go to the BBC website article

I am not sure that any of us will ever forget 9/11 but these tapes do cast a new light on the horror of what happened.

Inherent in the request for them to be released is a critiscism of the way the emergency services performed that day in new York. I am not sure how you can critiscise or prepare for such an event. Still there will always be those who seek someone to blame.

Tebbit rules himself out of the leadership context - at last someone has!!

Other than providing jobs for politicians, what is the Conservative Party for?:

This is a very good piece by Norman Tebbit. Not quite what I expected from him and I do not necessarily agree with all that he has said in relation to policy.

But although he disparages thse who feel we need to move to the centre ground to fight Labour he does make an interesting point in this paragraph:

"It would be a radical programme. It would take time to bear fruit. But that was true of the Thatcher government, on whose achievements our present prosperity is built. Now our problems are social, and in the organisation of public services. They need to be addressed with equal radicalism."

I suppose the point he makes is that the Conservative Party that has dominated politics for as long as it has needs to create new ground not move to inhabit the old territory. In part this is because citizens change and will come to reject the lurch to the left that the Lib Dems provide but will be searching for new alternatives, not just a better management of the existing alternatives.

An interesting view point. Will check out what Conservative home has to say on this subject as there is usually some lively debate over there!!

Pundit defends Cook funeral jibe

I think he was right to say it.

Personally I think that Robin Cook was a disastrous Foreign Secretary whose "ethical foreign policy" was just pure cant. However, he was the first Labour Foreign Secretary for 18 years and Blair's first in office. He also stood by Blair for a full term as Foreign Secretary. You wonder what history would say had Cook been Foreign Secretary when Blair proposed taking us to war?
For Blair not to go to the funeral was outrageous, he should have given time. For someone whose judgement has often been his saving grace he got it wrong here. But as the racing critic said, Blair does not care about public opinion any more because he is never again going to stand for election. In the right circumstances does that not make him dangerous?

I agree that whether the time to say these things was the funeral is debatable but I applaud the fact the McCririck said them. I do qualify this by saying that clearly he is a Tory and I hope that was not why he said it.

As he said, if Thatcher could go to Heath's funeral.........

Another river death in Kingston upon Thames

This is terribly bad news, yet another death along the river at Kingston. I have received an email from a friend of the family who asks that the Council think about the fact that there are no railings along the riverside.

Clearly I would be the last to suggest that we should close up the river frontage with ironmongery but it is clear that after the accidents we have had over the past years that we need to consider what precautions we should take. If not railings then why not wooden platforms at the river level so that if you fall you fall onto those and not the river, we have these at some points.

As it happens I took an opportunity to walk along the frontage from Charter Quay to John lewis, passing the area where this young man was found. The one area that raised most concern for me was that outside the Bishop out of Residence pub the pathway funnels down to an area that I would say is very narrow and not safe. I had children with me and I felt uncomfortable.

I have written to the Chairman of the Neighbourhood Committee that covers that area and asked that they review our policy on the river front before we have another accident.

Time for the Conservative party to move on

It looks as if the move of our party headquarters is finally coming to fruition. The opportunity to get some modern offices, maybe with a shopfront, has got to be appealing. The fact is the present buidling is pretty crummy and has no presence to make people realise we are in the Borough at all. It is also badly located if we expect people to come and join us in the weekly stuffing, folding etc. Still the passing of history will be sad but that is progress!!

So let's hope we will find a new premises, located at the heart of the constituency, very soon.

Davis attacks UK multiculturalism

BBC NEWS Politics Davis attacks UK multiculturalism

No not me - wrong Davis!

However I agree with him.

I agreed with Trevor Phillip (chairman of the Campaign for Racial Equality) when he said the same thing. I also agree that we have spent far too much time celebrating diversity when I believe there is a strong argument for us to celebrate what we share in common, not what is different between us. This goes for all ethnic and cultural groupings; Welsh, Islamic, Scottish, Cornish or even those from London. Let's discuss and share the things that bind us together, not the things that make us seperate. But this must be balanced with a realism that we do live in the United Kingdom whose legal, moral and political structures we must all adhere to and share regardless from whatever part of the world you might originate.

I still believe the marked difference between us and France on this issue is one we should heed. If you live in France you are French and you abide by the laws and structures of that country. There are those of other beliefs but exceptions are not made in French law to provide for them. That is not a multi cultural approach and maybe we need to now reconsider how we handle this difficult issue.

If the bombings of 7/7 have done anything they have at least started a debate which would normally have been smothered by cries of "Racism".