The morning after the night before

George Best has died. Rather like the events surrounding the death of the Princess of Wales I must admit to not understanding the upswelling of emotion. I have never been a great football fan but have recognised the fascination of an iconic figure whose fame drives them off the rails to alcohol. In fact George did a fair amount of his later drinking in Surbiton pubs, especially the Victoria, from which I think he had been banned.

There is a very good history on George Best in Wikipedia.

George Best himself was keen to ensure that we all saw what drink had done to him, as a warning. The Mirror printed pictures, at his request.

What an irony that one of the Britain’s greatest sportsman should die from the illness of alcoholism the morning after the first night of the Government’s new 24 hour drinking laws.

Fleet street heavyweights declare for Cameron

ePolitix.com - Fleet street heavyweights declare for Cameron

It looks now that the outcome of the leadership debate is clear. What a contest it has been and what good it has done for the Conservatives.

The Telegraph has run a rather curious article that this might well lead to a Con-Lib coalition in a future Government. Complete tosh of course; why would the Conservatives need the Lib Dems?

Whatever else, this coupled with the rising polls indicating that Labour's popularity is waning and ours is rising will send out good signs for us both nationally and locally as we move towards the local elections next May and the future General Election.

Brown calls for two per cent pay restraint

We have run out of flu jabs (Government incompetenece), We have now seen the threat of fuel restrictions (Government lack of preperation), we are told Council Tax might go up 10% next year (Government overspending with no results) and now we are told that public sector works are going to have their pay rises capped (Government confrontation).

Isn't this how the winter of discontent started in 1978/9?

Extended pub hours

ePolitix.com - Extended pub hours

Well, we are off. From Midnight the laws will change to allow pubs to open on time.

I actually agree with the principle of reforming the alcohol laws. I utterly oppose the way this Government has completely messed up the proposals. They have given the power over licencing to local councils but then not allowed them enough powers to represent the people who elect them. It is utterly mad that I cannot object to an application in the area for which I am elected. My views count for nothing. Nor do the views count of those who are affected by a licence application, only those whose properties abut the licenced premises.

Even where the Council do have powers Council like Kingston have done nowhere near enough to set up a policy framework to protect residents.

This weeks letter in the Surrey Comet lays out the concerns very well. (It has not bee published on the web yet but as soon as it is I will set up the link!!)

Cameron V Brown

There is part of me that could quite begin to feel sorry for Gordon Brown.

For eight years he has been robbing blind those who have not retired through abusing the pension system. He has also been stealing money from those who have retired by punative council tax rises. All this just to pay for the huge rises in public spending demanded by his pal next door, none of which has produced the improvements in public services we should be seeing.

Why did he do it? Because he was told that if he did he would land the top job. He has kept quiet in public, bided his time and waited, every now and then asking when and then going off in another long sulk.

And then...just when he thinks Blair is on the ropes and has started to lose the plot, as well as parliamentary votes, what happens?

The Conservatives look destined to elect a younger fresher face to politics. A real challenger to Labour and one which will cause real problems for both them and that other party of the left, the Lib Dems. On top of that the Governor of the Bank of England starts telling everyone that the economy is going pear shaped and Brown is to blame.

What will be the outcome of a Cameron V Brown fight? Will it make Brown older and less telegenic than he is now? Might even Charlie Kennedy start to look old?

Lib Dems want to tax rich bears?

BBC NEWS Politics Lib Dems abandon high tax policy

He has lost the plot! It must be something to do with Charles Kennedy and the Lib Dems being ignored for the past six months by a media much more interested in the rejuvenation of the Conservatives.

Charles Kennedy now seems to want to argue that whilst the Lib Dems are not going to change their tax policies from the last election (higher taxes) he now wants the public to understand them as fairer taxes. He then completely lost me with a reference to Goldilocks and bears eating porridge as some metaphore for Lib Dem tax policy.

He seems to think that current taxes are not high and that it merely needs richer people to pay more so that poorer people can pay less. Surely that is just left wing redistribution?

Me thinks Charlie should pop home and get himself in front of the TV with a bottle of whiskey and try and dream of some more bizarre activities involving bears!!

Treatment works revisited

I paid a visit to the water treatment (sewage) works and was given a tour of the plant and how it works. Not necessarily the best place to spend your time but still it was instructive. You will pleased to know I did not take any photos.

It appears the treatment plant is actually very new. In fact much of the plant was only commissioned in the late nineties. Whilst the essence of how the plant works might not have changed the equipment and the technology clearly has.

It seems to me there are three potential areas where the odours could occur. The first is when the sewage enters the plant into a huge open well. I had always believed that the works were local but in fact they now cover an area that seems to spread from Worcester Park through New Malden, Surbiton and Kingston; a huge area to collect from.

The second "smelly" bit appears to be where air is pumped into the sewage whilst it is in beds. This clearly puts odour into the air. This part of the plant is also very close to where AFC Wimbledon/Kingstonian are based. It could well account for the odour problems along the Kingston Road - Hawks Road area which do appear somewhat more continuous than those in Berrylands.

The final area appears to be the sludge. When the water has been squeezed out the remaining sludge is sent to farms for manure. (don't ask, it surprised me as well!) Before being sent to the farmer it is stored in large open beds that run along the rear of the rail tracks, not far from the station. Most of the time this probably does not smell but when they come to load this onto lorries, for shipment to farms in the Spring and Summer, stirring it up may well cause a problem. Clearly when this happens those living in Surbiton Hill Park and surrounding areas in Berrylands may get a problem.

So what could Thames Water do about it? Well they admit that they could prevent it. It would be possible to cover those areas that present these problems and they would need to install very large air purification plants to cleanse the air inside the cover, although it would be very expensive. They even reminded me that some plants have tried an aerosol technique to clean up the air but this had limited results.

However, they cannot just invest where they might want to. Despite being a privatised company they can only invest in areas of their operations where the Water regulator agrees. The priorities set by the water regulator for the next five years are to invest billions in upgrading the water delivery infrastructure (pipes, drains etc.). As you are probably aware the system of pipes in some places date back to Victorian times and have huge leakage problems. Thames Water anticipate that 30% of their clean water leaks out of their pipes. Pipes are priorities for now, not water treatment plants.

So it looks as if the next stop is the water regulator! Wish me luck?

However, I have asked that Thames Water consider what they might do to improve relationships with the people living close by. They have agreed to have a look at what they can do to keep residents up to date with issues. This would have been particularly helpful over the Summer when they had the major break downs that caused such problems. They also know the areas of Kingston that are most directly affected by odours. I shall keep up a dialogue with them on this aspect.

The New Party

I hope you like this site as much as I do.

The New Party have quite a good website. If you go to their principles page I think you will see there is little that the Conservative Party can disagree with. The irony is that they say they are so successful because the other parties keep stealing their policies.

Even as a small party they are against PR, which is not a bad thing. They are also running a stop the spin campaign.

Have fun reading!

Are the Police tainted by the Terrorist Bill?

Should Senior Police officers have been lobbying MP's? The Police are public servants, in no way different to the armed forces, fire service or even civil servants.

Had Senior officers in the armed services not wanted to go to war in Iraq would it have been acceptable for them to lobby the MP's? Should civil servants who disagree with, or agree with, a Government Policy lobby MP's to get them to vote for the policy?

In my view the answer is clearly "No".

The Police must be neutral if they are to deal with the issues of justice and the arrest of citizens. Working and lobbying for a policy they agree with, and the Government is backing, should not have happened.

Could this be the beginning of the end of Blair?

ePolitix.com - Ministers defeated on 90 day vote

This reminds me of the latter days of the Major Government, in fact I think it was probaby more than just the 'latter'.

One cannot help thinking that this time it is an important moment. The Conservatives on the rise again is going to focus the minds of some Labour backbenchers. However, putting that aside this was a very interesting issue for two reasons. Firstly it is a very important issue that a Govenment would want to increase six fold the powers of the Police to hold suspects without charge. It would be a fundamental change to the civil liberties of all in this country to move to such a position.

But the other interesting issue is how much the Labour party has lost control of their party. This is a very large majority and was certainly not close enought to warrant a first class airfare for the Chancellor and the Foreign Secretary to return to London to vote. They clearly did not believe it would be so far away and not at all close. That must be worrying for them.

I think this signals the start of some interesting times in the House of Commons and the rise again of Parliamentary power. Just wait till Blair starts trying to reform public services.

The Queen's Oil

Apart from this being the first anniversary of George W Bush winning the White House for a second term this is also the 30th anniversary of the day that the Queen turned on the flow of oil in a vast extravaganza in Aberdeen. Wilson was PM and talked of a nation that generated its own wealth instead of relying on others.

Whatever the discussion about whether our crude oil is any good or not it is interesting that oil alone is the sole remaining natural resource (despite gas which we are starting to lose) for power.

We have renewable energies but as yet their impact on power generation is still at an early stage.

In fact I thought oil was on the decline but I gather there have been two major finds over the last few years; Buzzard oilfield (400m barrels) and the Brenda oilfield (150m Barrels).

This blog today is not the place to think more about the Nuclear energy but I did find it fascinating that yesterday a leading environmental (green) scientist, James Lovelock, came out and claimed that maybe Nuclear is a worthwhile environmental method of energy production if it leads to a reduction in carbon emissions in power generation. You need to go to the Today programme website to hear it - broadcast 3.11.05 or go to the link above to see an earlier publication he has written. The world is changing and I think we are beginning to change with it.

Lib Dem funding row will not go away

It looks as if the fudning row over a very large election donation to the Liberal Democrat party is set to continue.

The Times

Donor could face five years for fraud

Funnier Money

I could have sympathy for them but considering how much mud they throw when they see it happening to another party my sympathy somewhat wains.