Adrian Hollister

I've used Phone Coop for my standard phone line for ages now, it's a great service and if I need anything I can talk to a real person who is genuinely interested in helping.  Their broadband options though are just not up to my high broadband consumption and where we live, there are no real options other than BT or another provider running over the BT network.  So BT was my default option as their network does a good job at higher bandwidth uses, like iPlayer, Youtube and the other things my kids go through in their free time.  I switched from BT residential broadband to BT business broadband as I started working more from home and the wifes book-keeping business took off.   BT have generally been ok, most things just work and I rarely need to speak to them to get problems fixed.

Moving home apparently was a thing too far for BT Business.  They did move my broadband service and when I arrived in the new home there was a new BT Hub and details emailed.  Smooth going so far.  But why would a BT business customer need a residential hub and hang on, what's this - a new contract?  So a quick phone call to some anonymous BT retail helpline number (on all my new paperwork) left me confused and not really understanding what changed and what went wrong.  So working on the assumption that some serious misunderstanding had occurred I redialled the BT business line from the original contract and explained my situation.

To my great surprise the person on the phone listened to me, summarised my problem back to me and told me they would call around the various BT departments and get back to me within a hour.  Oh yea, I thought, I've heard this all before.  So I put the phone down and started to recap and document what had gone on so far.  After about 10 mins the phone rang again - it was BT.  The same chap who I spoke too a few minutes before.  He not only accepted responsibility for the problem, but he had fixed it too.  Sorting out what must have been a myriad of departments within BT and fixing any new/old contract issues to boot.  So, it will take 5 days to switch us back to BT Business Broadband - so perhaps this blog entry is premature, but so far I cannot fault BT Business Broadband - if only the residential service was as efficient.

Adrian Hollister

Why should MP's get to vote on political party funding?

I know for sure that I personally support the change to level funding - it would open democracy in our country and it would certainly help political parties with limited budgets (such as the Green Party).  How much money you have should not influence your ability to get elected.  The US system is the worst case I can think of and we are moving towards it.  It's not democratic, it's just a plain worship of mamon.  Here in Newbury we are a US style system - you either vote Tory or their pet party the Lib Dems - at least that's what they want you to think and with the budgets they wield they can afford to buy the marketing to let the messages stick.

It is also so easy to see that donation money could be used to influence the actions our elected MP's take.  There is, for example, no discrimination of where that money comes from home, abroad, extremists, faith groups, companies alike.  Would you be happy for your MP to vote on stem cell research if you know their party was funded in any by businesses in that line of work?  or allow them to vote on banking regulation when assisted by researchers or others from the banking industry?  It's just so open to accusations of corruption that it stinks.

The only fair way, and the only way to ensure that corruption of any form is ruled out from our electoral system is to ensure that each party has the same budget to spend and ideally as little as possible. 

I wonder how Richard Benyon will vote here in West Berkshire?  For level political systems or to keep one that is open to accusations of corruption, waist and power hungry greed.

If you agree that things need to change, you need to vote for your local Green Party candidate - the only political party offering real ethical change.  Adrian Hollister