The Blog of Adrian Hollister

What on earth are the Tories thinking in Newbury? They want to build ring road! What completely insane thoughts went through their heads - "I know we are cutting costs, so lets spend more on roads." and one can only assume that housing, community services and other vital services provided by our council would have to be cut to venture down this project. You out of date fools: it's not your worship of the motor car that we should spend money on. I keep saying that the focus should be on the quality of life for our citizens and the sustainability of our community. Clearly only the Green's in West Berkshire offer this option as the Lib Dems have whimped out on their morals.

You can find more in the Newbury Today web site.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

I seem to have a feather pecking problem with the chickens. Looks like the solitary black rock is being picked on by the ex-bat chickens. Might have to either isolate the ex-bats or find another plan B as I don't like the look of a poor ole black rock with feathers missing on the back of her neck. I do wonder if the pecking behaviour is inherent for birds that have been brought up in small busy cages with little free space.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

Tory's and Lib Dems start bickering locally but agree nationally as reported in the Newbury Weekly News.

I am amazed at the bare faced cheek from the Newbury Liberal Democrats - they seem to forget that they are in power with the Tories. They chose to sell their objectives and morals so that they could go into power; and they did this knowing that they were joining with a party offering fundamentally different views on almost every issue. Now these differences are coming closer to the surface, local Liberal Democrat party members are being shamed into speaking out.

In the local election debates and hustings the Liberal Democrats agreed with the Green Parties assertions that "Nuclear weapons are a humanitarian, moral, legal and environmental disaster." but they could not agree on what to do with them. Their last review in April this year asserts "there are credible alternatives to the like-for-like replacement of Trident."(1) In the local hustings this seemed to vary some where between the Green Party's clearly anti-Trident stance and the Tory's clearly pro-Trident stance. In this I can only assume they hope to confuse voters enough that they wouldn't ask too many more questions on the subject (and Nuclear weapons only came up twice in our local hustings).

There is only one political party in our area that has had a consistent vision for AWE - the Green Party. During the hustings, at peoples front doors, on the radio and on numerous video interviews I have always stated that AWE is a facility with immense intellectual value - something that we should not throw away, reduce, or leave to rot over time. This vast pool of intellect could be used to push this country to the top levels of sustainability. Imaging if we did not need to rely upon imported gas, oil, coal or manufactured goods. We are an immensely creative society - we could easily invest in this

Mr Rendel mocks his political party and their coalition cuts as 'irresponsible', but it is you who is irresponsible Mr Rendel: It is irresponsible for Mr Rendel to want to see AWE whither on the vine - dead after the current generation; it is irresponsible for Mr Rendel to blame the Tories for actions in his coalition that don't make good press; but fundamentally, it is irresponsible for Mr Rendel to continue to support the Liberal Democrats when their centre left agenda was ripped up for a moment of power with the extreme right wing Tory hatchet mob.

Ultimately though, this issue will come to the people of West Berkshire to vote upon in the next local elections - Blue Tory, Yellow Tory, or a credible, honest and progressive Green Party.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

Animal Aid have exposed the abuse of animals in their before their slaughter. The Guardian has good coverage of the abuse and a rather sickening video. I've seen a lot of 'we must tighten up laws' on twitter around this issue, but the real thing we must do is tighten up our morals. These people should not be compelled in any way to want to do these things, and I'm certain consumers would not want a product with 'we treat animals with great cruelty' stamped on the box.

You can find the animal aid web site here: http://www.animalaid.org.uk

Posted by Adrian Hollister

If we ever needed evidence that the Conservative and Liberal Democrats agenda is aimed at saving only the super rich, the latest Condem announcements make it clear. Already squeezing the poor for as much as they can get away with (branded 'scroungers' or similar by the condems) the parties now set their sites at the middle class. Changes to universal benefits are in complete contrast to those proposed by the Green Party. They are also in complete contrast to the original policies of the Liberal Democrats. Their continued thirst for power at any cost still shocks me.

Clearly we have a new extreme right wing element in our politics. The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats represent this disturbing change. Whilst the Labour party is lost in it's strange middle ground, the Green Party does still offer an alternative. The Green Party seems to be the only large political party party in the UK offering a an alternative that doesn't discriminate against the poorest whilst bailing out the richest. Personally, I still can't see why we need to cut so many services... if the banks and the super rich were to pay back their debt to society I'm sure that our debts would decrease very quickly.

Posted by Adrian Hollister