Category: Politics

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Oh to be a Labour Minister…….

The Government seems to be in an even bigger mess at the moment than usual. What with Mr. Clarke, the Home Secretary, losing those ex prisoners that should have been deported, the Health Secretary, Miss Hewitt, is patronising everyone even more than usual by saying the NHS is actually in a really good way (try telling the 1000 people at my local hospital about to lose their jobs) and the Deputy PM, Mr. Prescott, caught with his trousers down!

Doesn't anyone resign these days when they've done something wrong?  I'm reminded about John Profumo, who died recently. He had an affair, lied about it, got caught, resigned and spent the rest of his life helping people less fortunate than himself! I just can't see this lot doing anythig of the sort!

The local elections should be interesting Laughing

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Elections are Coming

You can always tell when it's local election time, the local political parties suddenly wake up!

We had a leaflet through the door the other day from the Lib Dems. I think that it was the first time we've heard from them for a year! Now this is despite the fact that one of our councillors is a Lib Dem. The leaflet told us why we should not vote Labour, but wasn't very convincing on why we should vote Lib Dem.

Same with Labour. Our Borough Council is Labour controlled and what do we hear? Not a peep! We don't actually have a Labour Borough Councillor at the moment, but we do have a County Council one. So when do we hear from them? When it's election time of course! The only way of finding out what our County Councillor is up to is to read the local paper.

Now the local Conservatives have got it right. Despite what people may or may not think about them, in our area they communicate with the electorate. We get a newsletter 3 or 4 times a year and something through the letterbox when there is a single issue problem (phone masts!!!). This does at least give the impression that they are doing something for the area and not just sticking their heads above the parapet when they want something!

Oh, yes, there was a leaflet from UKIP a few weeks ago.

So who will I be voting for? Well let's say it most certainly won't be Labour.

Why, well a few reasons –

At Borough level

They voted to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to refurbish the Council Chamber when it wasn't really needed.

They have cancelled Newcastle Carnival due to cost. These are the same prats who spent nearly £1000 last year hiring 'Posh & Becks' lookalikes.

The council tax increase is 4.9% when inflation is about 2.5%. My pay increase this year is 3%.

The proposed emptying of the bins once every two weeks. Now we could probably manage, but a family of four?

At County Level

The County has no coherent transport policy. They couldn't even work together with Stoke City Council properly to save Etruria Station from closing last year. They need to look towards Nottinghamshire. They've managed to reopen railway lines (the Robin Hood line) and get trams.

The state of the roads!

The fact that Staffordshire gives one of the lowest amounts of money per pupil to its special schools in the country.

At National Level

The proposed loss of 1000 jobs at our local hospital. Loosing nearly 350 nursing staff will not improve productivity. Hospitals should not be treated as a business, they are there to care for people.

Derek Twigg the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, responsible for Transport, closed Etruria Station in September last year. I'm sure that had he been a local MP it would not have closed. He is the MP for the Runcorn and Widnes. Try closing a station there Mr. Twigg. Etruria was closed so that the local train company (Central Trains) didn't have to bother with it anymore after years of neglect and so that Virgin Trains could knock an extra 30 seconds off the journey to London!

Local people opposed a phone mast going up in our area, the Council's planning committee rejected the application and it was over ruled by the Deputy Prime Minister's department. And to make it worse, the told no one! Not the people who originally objected nor our local Councillors!

I suppose the most important thing about the elections is to vote. But people must think when they vote. Not just vote for the party they always have voted for and complain when they make a mess of things – think people!
 

Compete change of direction.
Over the weekend I started to sort out the backlog of about 2 years worth of photos. I guess there are about 1200 to sort and put away! I must point out that this includes 4 weddings (including mine), 1 honeymoon (mine), 2 stag dos (1 was mine), a couple of holidays and Crewe Works open day last year!
It was great looking at our wedding pictures. I didn't realise so many had been taken. Just as well really, as neither Carol or myself can remember much about the day – it went by so fast.

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Sunday Opening

Oh dear, according to my newspaper today, the government is bowing to pressure from the major retailers and is going to extend Sunday opening hours and let them open on Easter Sunday.

WHY???????
Is that extra day's opening going to make a huge difference to their profits? Is the fact that they can open for a few extra hours on a Sunday going to make that much difference? As it is now, most major shops are only closed on Christmas Day and Easter Sunday (although some are still closed on Boxing Day, but that's a diminishing trend).
Banks are now starting to open on Bank Hoilidays (the point of a bank holiday is that the banks are closed!) and HSBC in their wisdom decided to open their Telford branch on Easter Sunday. Give me strength. These companies say that they are bowing to customer demand and aiming to improve customer service. Cobblers! All they want, as usual, is to make more money. Once one company, for example, opens on Easter Sunday, the rest feel they have to follow suite as they can't 'miss out'. Trouble is, there is only a finite amount of money available. The other problem is that the more the shops open, the less time the staff get off. Whilst all the sad people are clamouring to go shopping on Boxing Day, most of the shop workers have managed to have a whole day off for Christmas. On the other hand the sad consumers with no lives who must shop till they drop, have got one to two weeks off work.
Get lives people!

How long will it be before the shops open on Christmas Day? I remember a few years ago when I worked at Asda Stafford, it was Christmas Eve and a woman came in at 17.45 when the store was closing at 18.00. She had a real go at one of the customer service managers, saying that she had just finished work and she had come in to do her Christmas shopping, there was no fresh food available and the store was closing in 15 minutes. She thought it was disgaceful. The customer service manager politley pointed out to her that she was still at work and she did her shopping some days ago. At the school where I work now, the term dates came out one day a couple of years ago. The Autumn Term finished quite late, a few days before Christmas, and some of the staff were whinging about how terrible it was that they only got a few days off before Christmas. I had to walk out of the room because I would have said something rude, as two years before I'd finished for my Christmas holidays at 18.00 on Christmas Eve and had a whole two days off!!

These people don't know how lucky they are (I must point out that I don't get full school holidays!). Just proves how selfish and stupid people are! So no to extra opening hours on Sundays and no to opening on Easter Sundays. Big companies, don't be so greedy and the general public, don't be so selfish and get lives!

p.s. Happy Easter!

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Honours

With all this talk in the press about cash for honours, it really annoys me that people can think that by giving oodles of money, directly or indirectly, to a political party, that they can get an honour. What, other than being rich, have they done to deserve it?

My Dad was awarded an MBE for services to the railway industry and for all of the work that he has done in the community. That’s over 25 years at work and a lot more than that for his church and Scout Group. We as a family were really proud when it was awarded to him. But to gain a higher award for giving some money, I don’t think so. When you’ve worked for 25 years for the benefit of your local community, and not blown your own trumpet, then you can be considered!