Campaign Report (From Croydon Guardian)

Campaign Report

12:46pm Thursday 6th December 2007

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Having argued it was time for pensioners to make their presence felt in my first blog entry it must be time for a campaign report to show that I have at least been making some effort to make my own contribution.
The broadcasting of a large part of my Remembrance Day blog entry by Pam Rhodes in the ‘Hearts and Hymns’ programme on Premier Radio gave me great satisfaction.

Servicemen who did make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of their country, but have received virtually no recognition, did receive some that day.

On the broadcasting front the BBC received my admonishment when their early day broadcasts suddenly started to say the teacher just home from Sudan had been found guilty of “blasphemy”.

An unjustified and at best thoughtless use of the word. The word disappeared from later news bulletins so I am sure I was not the only person to take offence.

Another success was to query, through the Staines edition of the local Guardian just where our rubbish bins should be left after they have been emptied.

Lo and behold after the last visit they were all left tidily on the inside of the pavement, on our street at least, leaving a clear path through instead of the earlier visit obstacle course. I hope they keep up the good work.

My Guardian letter not getting a response from the council I have posed it directly to the council. No reply yet forthcoming despite a follow up after leaving it for twice the seven working days in which the council’s Customer Care Charter promises a reply.

Newspaper reports continue to show the mess that has resulted from central government buck-passing the ‘recycling’ issue onto individual councils who are mis-managing it with their usual level of competence.

A senior policeman speeds exceeds a 60 miles per hour speed limit by a not insubstantial amount and only gets a six weeks driving ban. A young mother leaves her bin in an alley-way, where it has been left for the last seven years, and she ends up with a fine of £360.

Something is not right in our legislative system. One cannot call it a justice system. At least we no longer hang innocent men we just keep them locked up for years in jail.

Wheelie bins litter the Spelthorne landscape, many in front gardens, even on newly approved developments, and some on main pavements. But as many pavements are already obstructed by overgrowing vegetation, of many years standing, I cannot see the council here taking any over officious action.

Would it not be a good idea if citizens could fine their local council, when the council fails to do its duty?

Examples of council mismanagement are seen at every turn hereabouts. A cross-roads, the scene of a spate of accidents recently reported in our local Guardian has still not had the almost totally worn away road markings and signs repainted weeks after the incidents.

Yet the highway contractors are sent forth to the area to replace damaged roadside pedestrian barriers that have needed replacing for many months, if not years. Then they do not do the whole job. They leave with two panels still in need of replacement.

Sunbury Cross is belatedly getting a new CCTV camera on a new pole. Why they should need a new one, complete with a new pole, so soon after the last one was installed we will never be told. Pity they did not think to position it in a different place or on a higher pole. As it is now Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Clock Tower will block part of its field of view.

A part, of course, where those it is probably there to monitor normally gather. Shades of a “Gas Man Cometh” saga perchance?

In recent weeks I have for the first time tried to raise issues with PACE, “The Parliamentry Assembly for the Council of Europe”, part of the European ‘gravy train’, and with the EU itself. Both look like providing their own blog entries in the fullness of time.

A week or so ago, having festered for months over Prime Minister’s Question Time I sent messages to the PM and the other two major party leaders. The first time ever I have done such a thing. Thought I had got through to them last week. No condolences to the relatives of servicemen killed in action. Luckily we had no casualties in the preceding week. The penny has still not dropped with them. This week’s Prime Ministers Question Time was what has now degenerated into ‘bear pit’ or worse. Starts with that nonsense about the PM’s engagements.
Then the galloping expression of condolences to the servicemen killed in the preceding week, to be parroted, as insincerely, later by the other party leaders. Then straight into the usual pathetic childish parliamentary squabbling.

What must the relatives of the servicemen named think?

What must the relatives of the servicemen killed in the many weeks when Parliament is not sitting think?

What must the servicemen and the relatives of the servicemen who have been injured for life think?

Not the time or place to express condolences.

An unwanted legacy left by the last PM.

A practice whose inappropriateness not one of our nearly 650 MP’s has the wit to realise and stop.

There are simple lessons about how to behave, that my widowed mother and grandmother taught me, that the ‘son of the manse’, and ‘an Eton Schoolboy’ and 'the others' were clearly never taught.

Listen on Wednesdays and see if you do not agree with me.

Will have to try to get through to them again.