Adrian Hollister

How the Tories have changed. They have embraced elements Blairism and decided marketing is better than real policy; sound bites are more important that real decisions; and honesty is allowed to be embellished to sell the Tory message. A lot of the Sunday rags and online web sites have made great fun mocking the Tory need to airbrush Cameron's picture to make him look - well who knows - perhaps more human? less like a dodgy car salesman? less like an Etonian toff?

My favourite site out there has to be 'Airbrushed for change' by http://mydavidcameron.com where there are a multitudes of mockup's of the latest Tory posters. Perhaps my favourite is entitled 'This is going to hurt. Don't worry your not going to feel a thing.' or 'My chums from school and I are going to absolutely, thoroughly, bloody-well sort the country out.'

Either way it's good for a laugh at the latest tory sham sales campaign - aimed to make you all think that it's in your interest to vote tory.

What is going on in David Cameron's head? After deciding to cut services heavily to save money (whilst of course giving tax benefits to the top 3,000 estate owners etc) - he has now decided that because that sales message was not going down too well with real people he would back track and change his mind. The Tory sales campaign is just so transparently inept it yet again shows how sleezy and cheap british politics have become. It's time for a change in our electoral system and it's time to end the existing 'old boys club' and 'ya boo' politics that we are suffering from in this country. The country has grown up why can't the political system?

I like a comment left on the Guardian's web site from zinoviev: "Dave knows that you can't fool all the people all the time. He's not attempting that. He's just going to fool everyone until May."

West Berkshire Council bought a number of snow plough attachments for tractors quite some time ago. They now lie rotting in farmers yards unused. Unused because the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the council decided not to pay or insure farmers to clear their local roads. Walking through the villages of Chaddleworth, Britghtwalton and Lekhampstead today not one single road has been cleared - either salted or snow ploughed. Why don't the council re-instate the use of these local snow ploughs and help share out the work with our local gritters?

Adrian Hollister
Green Party Parliamentary Candidate for West Berkshire

A happy new year to everyone. I've a twitter blog going now as well, so anyone interesting in following me can find me with the following:

twitter: adrianhollister

I've been out and about walking the dogs all over the place during this cold snap and up here on Berkshire's north downs the Ridgeway and other ancient tracks offer great walks. The salting of the roads have been excellent even up here where our single track roads are often missed leaving some of our community with a much more difficult journey. There were a few notable exceptions with some roads deep in a very skiddy snow and ice combination. The locals avoided these roads and used the ones salted, but others (and I've seen some rather daft speeding delivery drivers skidding into the bank and a few of the 'beemer' set thinking they are invulnerable) have been crashing into banks, cars, walls etc.

It does seem that because of this other set of drivers that we consume so much salt. In order to attempt to stop the looney drivers from crashing we have to liberally salt every road. This consumes a lot of salt - not the most environmentally friendly product out there; a lot of our cash buying and spreading it; and diverts salt from path ways and cycle paths - where it could be better used.

With the continued cold snap and likely requirement for more and more salt to keep our roads open and free - I can't help wondering if we have enough salt stored and available to us. I also wonder if simulated cold weather and skid driving should be part of the driving test - and perhaps even a mandatory top up test for professional drivers and optional education for the rest of us (with insurance discounts?).

It's cold out there tonight. My thermometer shows -1 at 1am, so I'm guessing it's going to get colder up here throughout the night. We seem to be a bit of an odd microcosm up here on the downs in north Berkshire. Nestled around the ancient Ridgeway on high, wind swept chall hill's we seem to largely have a climate of our own. A mile down the road and you can drive off the downs and end up with completely different weather.

The grass tonight though is crunchy under foot and the roads are quite slippery. The dog's of course love the weather, bounding about and eating anything frosty, smelly or both.

It's interesting tonight as at the time of writing there is no wind up here. Something that seems quite unusual, but something that also shows what much of the country must have been like in the early 20th century - at least in terms of heating. We are mostly solid fuel up here and as you walk around the smell of coal and wood burning is heavy in the air. Without the wind blowing it away our houses and of course all of us live in this smog.

We are of course just a very small village, so the pollution we must have endured in the towns or cities must have been appalling. We have come so far from these days, but of course we have just replaced one fossil fuel (local coal and wood) with gas and oil that may have been transported half way around the world. It's true that you don't get the smell and visible smog of smoke and that the heating appliances are on the whole much more efficient; but is their net CO2 increase really that much better when transport and storage are taken into account?

I am happy that my mostly coal and about one fifth 20% wood burn on my multi-fuel stove adds about the same net new co2 as a good gas boiler. I am happy that my sources for my coal and wood are only within the UK with the wood coming no more than a few miles.

So does Adrian Hollister recommend that we all move back to wood and coal? No. But we do need to invest heavily in industry areas that support sustainable heating sources. The use of heat pumps (ground or air source); the use of biomass; and the use of community heating systems would vastly improve our co2 emissions in this country. What are we waiting for?

It was good to see support for The Wave event in London by both the Green Party and Lib Dems in West Berkshire. Amazingly absent were the tories and labour (as usual). The march was great fun with a thankfully discrete police presence. I only saw one point of aggravation in front of the US embassy, but it's amazing how a simple smile with a word of advise from a police officer diffused the situation. My only complaint from the day is perhaps the commercialisation of the event - it was clearly a co-op branded event. I don't mind the sponsorship or the company in question, but to see heaps and heaps of their banners was just a bit ott.

I can only hope that this march will help demonstrate the support for action on environmental issues.

Event Aid: Could you do something amazing in 2010?

It was a warm weekend in May, the weather was kind as 40 people started their challenge event and climbed into the minibuses. These were 40 people, some who had never met before, who were about to take on a very challenging task. Yes they were about to attempt to climb the 3 highest mountains in the UK. That's one in Wales, then one in England and finally one in Scotland. They only had 24 hours to complete this feat, but amazingly through hardwork, teamwork and determination they all JUST did it.

This was a team of people raising money for their favourite charity. So far this team alone have raised nearly £30,000.

The 3 Peaks challenge is one of the hardest but most rewarding challenge events you can take part it and during 2009, over 100 people took part in the challenge to support local Oxfordshire charities. Teams came from Helen & Douglas House, Sobell House Hospice, Age Concern, SpecialEffect and Rosy to name a few.

If you would like to get a team together or maybe do it on your own and join in with another team, then please get in contact. Maybe get a group of friends together, your family or mates from work.

You will be fully supported with training walks, guides, insurance and full support from the Event Aid team.

If the 3 Peaks is not for you, maybe running a marathon in Rome? Maybe a Karting endurance event? maybe one of the many challenge walks we organise for local Oxfordshire charities may be your thing! Whatever you do in 2010, do something amazing for your local community and join in a challenge event.

Contact Teresa@eventaid.org or see our website www.eventaid.org

I can empathise with the frustration demonstrated by the striking Royal Mail postal workers. For too long the Conservatives and now New Labour have tried to introduce business competition to our national assets as an excuse to improve efficiency or introduce innovation. Royal Mail was caught up in this and had stifling competition rules imposed upon it. These rules were designed to disable Royal Mail's ability to fairly compete and have forced the business to contract.

I struggle to find an example where this competitive business model has actually benefited us directly. In many cases it is clear to see that the lining of shareholders pockets or directors bonus' takes precedence over the citizens of this country. The water companies have demonstrated this over and over again by skimping on investment. Banks have also demonstrated that the concept of competition in a market place can easily lead to corrupting and destabilising greed and inefficiency.

It is time the government recognised that the selling off of our national services to introduce competition is flawed and unworkable. It is time for the government to remove the competitive disadvantages imposed on Royal Mail. With these shackles off and with a positive Royal Mail management, there would be no need for our postal workers to be in dispute - for their jobs would be safe and their compensation and conditions could reflect those of any healthy business.

So I wish the postal workers the best. They are part of a great public service that could so easily be an exemplar for the rest of government.

I would like to think that there is a bit of a race going on here. A race to see who can be the greenest, the most efficient and the ones with the most vision. Councils, towns and authorities are included. Who will be the first to host a commercial renewable energy system to compliment to supplement a good deal of local power consumption. Oxford City spoke about this a while ago now, but I've not seen any progress to date (early days); and at the beginning of the year Bristol City also announced their intention to do something.

All of this is being championed by Friends of the Earth with their Get Serious About CO2 campaign.

There are all quite large scale systems with large budgets and large expectations. I wonder if there are a number of much smaller opportunities that should be explored first - several smaller microgeneration systems would help local people and businesses understand how it could be achieved. Sustainable Newbury discussed some excellent ideas about using the weirs in Newbury to add less than 10KW to the grid each. Not much you may think, but it's local generation (and not subject to the 40% or so loss experienced across the national grid) and would be an excellent exemplar not just for the local area but to much of the south.

What a great day at the think green act green day at Thatchams Discovery Centre. Great bacon butties too - thanks to Catherine at Royal Berkshire pork. We took over 100 new signatures for our support renewable campaign and gave out over 200 wind mills to kids. Met some great like minded people there too.

Free event at Thatcham's Nature Discovery Centre will feature activities, displays and ideas on being green - from the Newbury Today web site.

Article follows:

AN environmental event organised by West Berkshire Council will be held tomorrow (Saturday). The event, called Think Green, Act Green, will be held at the Nature Discovery Centre in Thatcham and will include activities, demonstrations, and ideas on show to help local people think about saving the environment. Activities will include pedal powered generators, fuel efficient transport, puppet shows, face painting, wildlife displays, live music, and lots of local foods on display and refreshments for sale.
Waitrose, Volvo, Hill View Farm produce, 'WRAP' composting activities, and Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust are just some of the featured names taking part in the event. West Berkshire executive councillor Graham Pask (Con, Bucklebury), said: "Green issues are now firmly in the spotlight, and this is a great chance to get some ideas on how to help make a difference."

The event is being held from 11am until 4.30pm, all are welcome and entrance is free.

End.

I voted in the Trident Replacement Referendum Gordon Brown didn’t want me to have; you can too! Please go to http://bit.ly/g4W48

The Greens won 68 seats in the German federal election, a gain of 17 seats. They secured 10.7% of the vote nationally. One commentator said: "the Green party remains strikingly resilient."