Political

What a great village hall in Speen. We had a small jumble sale today to raise funds for the Green Party - made a nice amount of money and met some really great people too. So from Adrian Hollister: Thanks to all those that donated items for the jumble sale, those that can along to help and those that turned up. Hope to do another one in a month or so and see you all again!

As Tory policy starts to fall apart under scrutiny it's looking more and more like a hung parliament. It's easy to see why people are questioning the Conservative policies who's headlines seem to be to make the top 2% much richer and the rest of us have to pay the countries debt off. Not a great set of policies by any stretch of the imagination. I also can't help thinking if the latest Gordon personality bashing has been inspired by Tory spin doctors - doesn't sound like something New Labour would actually release at this time - their spin machine is just far too professional; but the reports of concessions the Conservatives have offered the Murdock news empire may explain their entry into print.

So now we just wait for the official release of an election date and see how things pan out. Adrian Hollister said "Let's hope it's possible to change the political system during the next parliament - from confrontational to co-operative; from unfair voting systems to a fair one."

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

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 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.

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.

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."

The Jumble sale raised £143 pounds for Green Party funds. Not bad for two hours work! Thanks mostly to Pam for organising the sale and to both Pam and Adrian's families for helping out. Let's see if we can run another one before Christmas

Just a quick reminder that there is a Jumble Sales this Saturday (19th Sept 09) at 10am onwards to raise funds for West Berks Green Party. Come along and see if you can grab yourself a bargain!