The 180-degree turn

June 10, 2010 — simonashall

As a student at the University of Surrey just after Labour came to power, one of the few Labour policies that I supported was the introduction of tuition fees. I sent countless letters to the student newspaper in support  and – unsurprisingly – didn’t find much room for my view among the NUS establishment. My point then was that the fee structure as originally proposed exempted many of the less well-off students from paying the fees – but that the abolition of the maintenance grant as part of the tuition fee introduction hit poorer students far harder.

But the NUS didn’t listen to me and since then things have changed hugely, with the cost of a university education now unenviably massive. I cannot think that anyone would found a nation on the principle of leaving young graduates tens of thousands of pounds in debt as a price for their education and it’s utterly bonkers that we’ve got to the stage we have.

Even in 1998, it was obvious to me that there was a pretty simple problem here. The vast majority of young people educated to A-level now wish to attend university – yet the nation simply doesn’t have the funds to allow them to do this and support the swollen university corps needed to deal with the numbers. There are, it logically follows, only two ways to deal with this – to reduce the number of students at university or to increase the amount of money in the system.

Labour’s solution, typically, was to give students money from the future and postpone the resolution of the problem until some unspecified date. Today, David Willetts revealed that even this charade had now run its course and that resolution was now needed. There is no more money left to go in.

It would be great if everybody could have a university education but I have always believed that there are far too many students taking courses that don’t improve their life chances, too many students only at university for social reasons and too many who, even though committed and willing, don’t end up giving the nation back the value of their degrees. Conversely, the amount of money going into serious research in our universities is falling year-on-year. They have become places that cater for drinking and socialising first and research and academia second.

There’s nothing wrong with drinking and socialising - but not when it’s funded by the taxpayer. And if the Lib Dems are not prepared to U-turn and countenance further rises in tuition fees, we all need to do a U-turn and consider once again what the purpose of universities and their facilities is. I believe that there are much more imaginative and worthwhile ways that those facilities can be tied into higher learning without the need of three-year courses. I also think the nation needs to work out how many university places it can afford – and what it wants to use them for – and award that number, not have a show of hands who fancies a spot at uni and then try to squeeze them all in.

Higher education in this country isn’t working, similar to many of the young graduates it produces. It’s time that we had a cultural re-assessment of the role that universities play in our society and lives because the bare fact is that the good times of universal higher education are coming to an end. In future it must be a properly integrated resource available to the most able regardless of background, not a sellable commodity for anyone able to pay (or borrow).

PS I’m not exempting myself from this – I did an undergraduate degree in Music, which was very good and enjoyable. But was it necessary and could it be justified under current economic circumstances? Doubtful.

Posted in Economy, Education. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

Change that works for them

April 28, 2010 — simonashall

During the last few days, the Lib Dems have been playing a clever PR game by trying to link electoral reform – by which they mean proportional representation’s introduction as our voting system – with “new”, post-expenses, politics.

I’m not altogether against electoral reform. I think that the boundaries currently used for our first-past-the-post system are unfair and give Labour a huge advantage by handing them a built-in majority of about 90 seats, according to Electoral Calculus. I want to see those boundaries re-drawn and the number of seats re-calculated to make for a fairer local representative system – and that includes fairer to the Lib Dems as well.

You routinely hear commentators in the press and the BBC say that the FPTP system discriminates against the third party, as if they had done some research on it and drawn a scientific conclusion. That’s rubbish. All that conclusion is based upon is the realities and record of the system – there is no reason why the Liberal Democrats should have any more difficulty in winning constituencies than anyone else.

The reason it is biased against them is quite simple – they pretend to be a centre-right alternative to the Conservatives in London and the South and a hard-left alternative to old Labour in the north and Scotland. Their manifesto for 2010 cleverly leaves either possibility open. But it does mean that such a dual-personality party cannot hold a “core” vote sufficient for it to win constituencies in sufficient numbers to hold power in FPTP. If the Lib Dems decided what they wanted to be – rather than just pitching for whatever they think they can get away with – their vote in some areas would harden and in others soften. It’s their choice to be at a disadvantage in the system.

But they’re quite happy to overlook that. What they want to do is hold the country to ransom by demanding a referendum on proportional representation in return for offering stability in the event of no party receiving a majority. PR, of course, would not only allow them to hold the balance of power, it would help put pay to their biggest weakness – the idea that a vote for the Lib Dems is a “wasted vote”. It would also allow them to pretend to be “savage cutters” in the south and “tax the richers” in the north while scooping the maximum value from each deluded voter.

It’s not a bad strategy for them – but it should be ringing alarm bells with every single previous Conservative supporter who’s thinking of giving Clegg a chance because he came over well on telly. If you give him the chance he wants, he’ll go into coalition with Brown (or more likely Miliband). They’ll embark on a series of tax hikes and spending cuts not witnessed before in the post-war era. That’s not necessarily to their discredit because any government will have to do the same.

But if you decide after four years that you don’t like them, if Clegg turns out to be not quite what you thought (on Europe, immigration and law and order) and you think in 2014/5 that you’re going to give the Conservatives a chance after all – well, you won’t be able to. Because Lib/Lab will have changed the way things are done and neither the Conservative Party nor Labour would ever be able to govern on their own again. And guess who the beneficiaries of this gerrymandering will be? That’s right, the Lib Dems.

They may call themselves Liberal Democrats, but that doesn’t seem very liberal or democratic to me.

Posted in elections, lib dems. Tags: , , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Gene-ius!

April 3, 2010 — simonashall

This is the defining image of the 2010 election

One of the most interesting things about the totally inexplicable Labour poster is the way that the character of DCI Gene Hunt obviously means completely different things to different sectors of political opinion. I’ll say now that I don’t watch either Ashes to Ashes or Life on Mars (although that is based in the 1970s) but my understanding is that he represents everything good – and bad – about how policing used to be before the reforms of the 1990s.

I know him best from the Marks and Spencer ad where he ogles a female model in a harmless enough way – although this was enough to get some people worked up. That is clearly the side that Labour is aiming for – the corrupt, brutal and amoral character that Hunt is in Life on Mars. But what Labour has spectacularly failed to grasp is that the people who see him in that way are people who think like the London-centric, politically-correct Islington sushi set; and the vast majority of people have, as the Grauniad said – the Grauniad , for goodness’ sake – “taken to our hearts” the character of Gene Hunt. People in Britain like a loveable rogue.

Ironically, in the 1980s series Ashes to Ashes, Hunt is a different character – more professional, loyal and with a host of good qualities he lacked previously. Which begs the question of whether Jacob Quagliozzi, the poster’s designer – who was four or five years old when the 1980s ended - actually watches Ashes to Ashes either?

Whatever the reason, Labour has catastrophically misjudged the majority’s viewpoint. People might have reservations about some things that went on in the 1980s but I can remember a time when police were out on the streets rather than filling in forms. I also see that rates were dramatically less by percentage of income, petrol cost a quarter of what it does now and houses exchanged hands for something like the cost of building them rather than a four or five times premium. Everyone had a NHS dentist, doctors gave out appointments in the week they were requested and councils didn’t hand out fines for selling goldfish, or engage in social engineering.

You can see what Mr Quagliozzi had in mind – there are some things about the 1980s that weren’t so great. I just about remember the Miners’ Strike and while British de-industrialisation was necessary in the face of foreign competition, I will never support that the way some of our northern communities were treated. Thirty years on, dozens and dozens of towns across the north will never vote Tory because of the appaling way they were treated and there is some justice in that.

Those towns will “get” this poster (although it’s probably not appearing there). But they won’t vote Conservative anyway. For the majority of people, Gene Hunt is something entirely different and Labour have shown in splendid technicolor how they have become unable to engage with people who don’t think as they do. Up until this point, the Conservative posters have been rubbish. The airbrushed one of DC was limp and corporate and the Saatchis were brought on board to rescue a sorry situation. Luckily, Labour has gifted them the defining image and slogan of this election – Fire up the Quattro. It’s time for change.

Posted in David Cameron, Labour, elections, politics. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »

Rhetorical Questions

March 23, 2010 — simonashall

Firstly, it’s good to see that Ann-Marie Barker’s nomination as my Lib Dem opponent in Horsell West is now official (unlike her, I am happy to afford my opponent the courtesy of using her name!). Richard Sanderson has left big shoes for whoever replaces him to fill and I look forward to a good-tempered if hard-fought final six weeks.

I’m also glad to note that she’s been reading my blog judging by her comments on Community Question Time and I’m delighted to discover that she’s in agreement with me over developing and expanding the Community Question Time into something more meaningful:

The funny thing is a local Conservative [that's me by the way - Simon!] is now suggesting that a quarterly or twice yearly event that moves around the borough would be a good idea. It’s a great idea and one that was put in place under the theme ‘Tune In’ through a local Liberal Democrat initiative.

Let’s make one thing clear – Tune In was never given a budget to do anything. So its travelling around the borough raising residents’ expectations of what might be achieved was a particular exercise in futility and one that as a journalist and then a press officer at a participating local authority I looked upon on in amazement. The only thing that Tune In was able to do was shift money from one budget heading to another and push some things further up the work programme.

The idea that “working in partnership” is the answer to everything needs to be challenged. Partnership working can be a useful tool in some regards but having six different organisations trying to make decisions together is seldom successful. Very rarely do they truly gel as one “partnership” and the individual interests – usually budgetary – almost always prevail. What you need is the right balance between operational matters that are best worked on together with the support of the community and those that really should be left to one organisation and its professionals to deal with.

My idea of a Community Question Time separates the democratic elements of community dialogue and council accountability from the bureaucratic rhetoric of partnerships and any false expectations of delivery. The views of residents should be constantly expressed at every level by members and every single year, voters have the chance to show their feelings at the ballot box. They are entitled to ask the questions in public that will give them the information they need to inform their vote. I believe that few are interested in how well various slices of local government are working together or not – so long as the outcomes are there.

I agree with Ann-Marie that Tune In was meant to be much more but I believe the only way to achieve it is by little steps. The idea of Question Time standing alone is meant to be that first step - it is distinctly not trying to emulate the flawed Tune In model.

Posted in Community, Horsell West campaign, Woking Borough Council. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Don’t Mansion It

November 30, 2009 — admin
The nation's favourite bean-counter - pity his idealogy isn't as good as his maths

The nation's favourite bean-counter - pity his idealogy isn't as good as his maths

I wouldn’t like to buy a mansion from the Liberal Democrats because they only seem to price them in increments of £1million. Back in conference season, just after Nick Clegg promised “savage cuts” to assauge the thirst of the Orange Book brigade, the nation’s favourite economist Vince Cable stepped forward with a plan to surcharge people with homes worth more than £1million 0.5% of the value above the £1m threshold.

Unfortunately, the Liberals forgot that, somehow, they hold seats in places likes Winchester, Lewes, Oxford West and Abingdon, Richmond and Kingston. Many of the MPs in those areas, almost all of whom face a serious Conservative challenge at the next election, came forward to say that they didn’t like the policy much. Today, Nick Clegg made appearances on a number of popular news outlets announcing a re-think. Otherwise known as an admission that the policy was a silly idea.

Instead, they are going to charge people with homes worth more than £2million a whole 1% in tax above the £2m threshold. I can’t think of many people in Woking with houses worth that much, although I know there are a very few. This copious nonsense of a policy will affect just 70,000 households in the UK and raise just £1.7billion a year. Not only is this a paltry sum compared with the £175bn the government will borrow over the next two years but Mr Clegg is not even proposing to use this money to pay off the debt.

Instead it is part of a muddled package to increase the income tax allowance to £10,000 taking four million people out of income tax - but also giving £700 to every taxpayer, including the super-earners, each year. To counteract this, he wants to reduce the tax relief on pensions for higher earners. Fine. If you want higher taxes for the rich, you can try – but you’ll always end up paying more to get the money from them than you’ll recover in tax, which is why the 50% tax band is nothing more than classist posturing. The best way to raise the tax take is to solve our economic problems, get business booming and increase people’s incomes. When they earn more money, they pay more tax.

So not for the first time, the Lib Dems have a credibility gap on tax. I understand they want the rich to pay proportionally more tax. Yes, so do I. But the way to do that is not to single out the rich, or even “super-rich” for special treatment because wealth has its own way of avoiding penalty. You have to engage the economy, make everyone richer and give the rich a reason to stay in the country - a favourable business and earning environment – to contribute a fair share. I don’t think that 50% is too high a figure – but doing it as Labour have done will not produce anything.

Nor this shambles of a Lib Dem policy on mansions. Nick Clegg says that the changearound is not a U-turn and that the policy does “exactly what it says on the tin“. To me, the tin appears to be saying that the Lib Dems have very little idea how to get the government’s revenues flowing again.

Posted in Economy, Tax, lib dems. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

If only they’d learn again

November 18, 2009 — admin

 

Balls - politics comes before opportunity in education

Balls - politics comes before opportunity in education

For goodness’ sake – Ed Balls is at it again. I spent yesterday writing about Labour’s total misunderstanding over how resources fit into strategy and how all too often they have become the strategy.

Judging by today’s lead story in the Telegraph - can’t think where they got it from – he’s been chasing headlines again with the second plank of Labour’s confusing non-strategy, legislation. When there’s no strategy and resorces fail, Labour’s next instinct is to legislate. But without a strategy and resources, they usually end up legislating the unenforceable or ineffable.

A legal right to a good education is a total nonsense. It is impossible to legislate adequately for, to enforce and shows an alarming lack of faith in the comprehensive system to be necessary in the first place. On the other hand, a moral right to a good education is part of every government’s contract with its people. But to confuse the two is ludicrous and could be disastrous.

I can imagine left-wing organisations being formed to sue a Conservative government five years’ hence on the basis of this bill. A decent and effective education system available to all and free at the point of use is a vital cog in society and the supreme aspiration of any administration. But it’s impossible to eliminate altogether individual shortcomings and this silly piece of idiocy from Balls is a dangerous and malicious blight on the future education system, which may become less effective through fear of litigation.

The man is patently unfit to occupy such a great office of state and his department unfit for purpose if it believes this to be beneficial to young people. Shameful, shameful, shameful. And it still doesn’t address issues of underachievement in education.

Posted in Education, politics. Tags: , , , , , . No Comments »

Blair Wish Project

October 26, 2009 — admin
Putin in reverse - former PM wants to be your President

Putin in reverse - former PM wants to be your President

Things really are hotting up in Europe. Firstly, we’ve got the “will he, won’t he?” saga about the European constitution with the Czech president Vaclav Klaus – rapidly becoming a hero of Eurosceptics – trying to hold out on the Lisbon Treaty as long as possible. I can’t find it now but I read this morning in one of the papers that he was trying to get a ruling in a Czech court that the treaty had to go to a referendum in the Czech republic – this is probably the only tactic that would be able to hold up the process until May next year.

I’m not holding my breath that the legal system of any of the member states would give a judgement against the EU. I think it is likely that the treaty will have to be signed by the end of the year; certainly that is the line being spun by Klaus’s inner circle to the press. Such a line clearly relieves the political pressure on him. But at the same time, some signals from Conservative bigwigs suggest everything is not as it seems. We shall see.

David Miliband is not among the doubters, as he made his pitch for the EU Foreign Secretary post today. But the most worrying thing about this whole business is the idea of Tony Blair as the President of Europe. As far as I’m concerned, the whole concept of a European President is a totally obnoxious and febrile one for the very reason that someone like Blair was always going to end up holding it.

The centre-right have a majority in the European parliament, yet the European Commission is stuffed full of socialists and the only real contenders for President are left of centre as well. That’s the EU for you - made by socialists, for socialists regardless of what the voters of Europe think. We elect 650-odd troughers to go and sit in a bi-local theatre of buffoonery also known as the European Parliament while the people who make the decisions remain from the same political class and persuasion that dreamed up the silly European sophistry to start with.

The idea of Blair sitting on top of them all as a “reward” for his achievements is poetic. Remind me again about his achievements – the failure to reform welfare, the failure to reform the NHS, badly botched constitutional tinkering, opening our borders to immigration without provision of proper infrastructure, cash for honours, a PR disaster in Kosovo and two illegal wars in the Middle East. More importantly, he failed to persuade Britain to go into the Euro and by the end of his tenure – where politics was changed for the worse – event the British people had had enough of him.

Like PM, all you need is a few years on the lecture circuit and all is forgiven in British politics. Sometimes, like in the case of Sir John Major, who was badly let down by his greedy and complacent parliamentary party, that it a good thing. But Blair’s failures were all his own and the result of a hubris that badly let down large sections of this country.

For goodness’ sake, let’s not give him the opportunity to do the same to the whole of Europe.

Posted in Europe, Labour. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »

The thinnest of motions

October 16, 2009 — admin
The Ypod, part of Cllr Well's "poor" youth service provision

The Ypod, part of Cllr Well's "poor" youth service provision

I don’t think there’s anyone who’s going to argue that ensuring good youth provision across Woking isn’t important. It is clearly in everyone’s interest that outside of schools hours there should be enough capacity to cater for any young people who want to become involved in structured activities.

But the executive took a very dim view of Cllr Olly Wells’s motion last night, which seemed to be about a different borough to the one I live in and as Cllr Beryl Hunwicks said, employed a scattergun approach to addressing the issues surrounding youth provision. His first sentence demonstrated again his mastery of the misplaced assumption:

“[The] poor level of youth service provision in the borough”

When asked to justify this sweeping statement, Cllr Wells told the executive he “was not aware that he was here to be cross-examined on the felicity of my opinions“, indicating that these statements, which he wants to form the basis of council policy, were clearly just that. He went on to note:

“The increasing lack of anti-social behaviour seen in our communities”

This flies in the face of the evidence gathered by our neighbourhood policing teams, who report that they are very pleased with the decline in instances of anti-social behaviour. This has been achieved by their integration into communities and engagement with young people at risk of offending. There will, obviously, always be incidents but let’s not confuse that with a rise in incidents. The third assumption we had in the motion was:

“The lack of structured activities for young people in the evening outside of uniformed services and church groups”

What a kick in the teeth for people who run groups after school for young people. At Horsell Village Hall, we have the Karen Clarke Theatre Company, which provides activity for many girls throughout the week. As portfolio holder Cllr David Bittleston pointed out, there are more than 100 groups from sporting to social for young people to get involved with if they so wish. Either Cllr Wells hasn’t done even the faintest bit of research on this – or he’s chosen to ignore the overwhelming evidence. Which is surprising given that he seems eager in other circumstances to take credit for one such organisation in his ward, the Knaphill Youth Cafe.

I can understand his wish to see youth provision improved – particularly for those who are in the “hard to reach” category. But his mistake is to believe that recreational youth provision within clubs etc is the same thing as specialised outreach work to engage with young people who are vulnerable or likely to make poor life choices unless engaged by the youth system. They are completely different things – I agree with him that the latter requires proper discussion and investment - whereas like the executive, I take exception to his comments on the former.

Interestingly, Cllr Wells’s suggested solution is a very similar one to his idea over public transport - he wants Woking and Surrey County Council to run the youth service jointly. Never mind the fact that the council tax collected to run the youth service goes to the county council – we in Woking should have to pick up the bill as well!

Typical Liberal Democrat policy - a thin motion funded by thin air.

Posted in Community, Woking Borough Council, county council. Tags: , , , , , , . No Comments »

Two reasons for Labour shame

September 29, 2009 — simonashall

Two things came out of the Labour conference that real made me angry. I can put up with Labour ministers banging on about how Gordon Brown saved the world and how the Tories are planning to throw pensioners into the sea etc etc but the sight of ex-terrorists being allowed to return to the scene of one of their most infamous atrocities on an official ticket, to be able to mingle with Cabinet ministers and turn up to parties sponsored by the Grauniad really makes me doubt the character of the people responsible. We all know who I’m talking about; his name doesn’t get mentioned on this blog.

What the IRA did to the Grand last time they visited

What the IRA did to the Grand last time they visited

I don’t need to go into the details of the Brighton bomb, which happened 25 years ago next month. Suffice it to say that I refuse to believe that it never occurred to the Labour Party what an inappropriate situation this was. It’s just the small, petty, spiteful and vindictive actions of a party that has lost its self-respect. No doubt next year they’ll be heading down to Eastbourne to hold the Labour conference outside the former home of Ian Gow. I don’t agree with Norman Tebbit about much but I certainly understand why he is not happy. Strangely, the BBC reports this only in its Northern Ireland coverage rather than the main conference section.

The second thing that made me mad was Gordon Brown‘s proposal for 16 and 17-year old single mothers to be housed together in shared accommodation rather than single flats. I can imagine the utter furore if a Conservative government had come forward with similar proposals. This is the politics of victimhood – of Labour saying to people “You’ll never amount to much but if you stick with us, we’ll protect you from the Conservatives who want to cut you loose in society.” Wrong.

The way to tackle teenage pregnancy is break the cycle of poverty and lack of opportunity that teaches young girls the only way to get on in life is to have babies because with those come houses and income through benefits. Young people need teachers who can instill self-worth in them, social workers who have the power to tackle parents who don’t give a damn and clear and distinct paths of opportunity to make their lives better before they bring babies into the world to share them.

It would also help if teachers didn’t hand out contraceptives to girls barely old enough to write their own names and if our culture wasn’t so wholly dominated by images of sex and peer pressure to engage in it. There are other enjoyable pursuits in life for young people – but if sex is all they know, it’s inevitable that it will become a preoccupation. It is up to government to enable the alternatives. It makes me mad that Labour has no intention to do this while telling everyone it cares about young mothers. It is not interested in single mothers – only their votes – and bunging them all together in block accommodation is a ghastly piece of ignorant and exploitative legislation that has no place whatsoever in Parliament.

I hope DC refers to this in Manchester. The Conservatives should be able to do a lot better.

Posted in Education, Labour, news, politics. Tags: , , , , , , , , , . No Comments »

The blog of Olly Wells

September 25, 2009 — simonashall

I did promise that I wouldn’t be blogging on individual Lib Dems unless they blogged on individual Conservatives or executive decisions in a new spirit of shared common purpose. So imagine my delight when Olly Wells mentioned my name in his latest offering on the parking charges in Woking.

Despite my lack of imagination, I felt the best thing to do was to leave a comment for him underneath. So now I’ve exhausted my mind for this afternoon, I’m off to lie down.

Update 26/9: To his credit, Olly Wells allowed my comment to stand and replied to it but I’m not even slightly convinced. For those who don’t wish to read  it on his website, here it is in full:

Thank you for your comments. To answer your questions I am in favour of reducing parking prices and charging hours to ensure parking in Woking is competitively priced to ensure as many people as possible are able to visit Woking. This will be good for local businesses. I favour reducing the number of cars on the road by increasing the amount of public transport available, making it easier for local people to come to Woking town centre. I would spend the profit from parking (reduced by reduced charging) on improved sustainable public transport. I do not accept that the council’s present flawed financial model is the best or only model available. I believe that this model can be changed to improve revenue and reduce costs. Your next likely comment might be to ask me to tell you how. For this I suggest you vote Liberal Democrat at the next local election, after reading our literature of course. The Liberal Democrats propose real change and real change will not come from simply looking to make small changes within the current boundaries such as reducing staffing levels or increasing council tax. The boundaries need to be changed, this will require our imagination and innovation.

So Cllr Wells is in favour of reducing the car parking charges and times that are charged for. Result – more cars in the car parks and on the roads and good news for business. He’s also in favour of reducing the number of cars on the road through better public transport. Result – fewer people using the car parks and impaired revenue from them. Alongside this, his idea is to spend the “profit” from the car parks on the public transport and that Woking Borough Council should run this transport system (or at least fund it). Result – a great big hole in the budget.

So we have more cars in the car parks and fewer. We have income to boost public transport generated by users that we are trying to drive away. And we have the council’s accounts being meaninglessly broken down so we can state for political purposes than one section makes a “profit“. What about all the other sections of the council that make a “loss”? How does he think that corporate management and member services are paid for?

Cllr Wells avoided answering my question about how you re-organise the council’s accounts to make this work. Instead he told me to read Lib Dem literature (sorry, I’m reading the new Dan Brown book at the moment, at least that’s partially based on fact and it’s a good deal more interesting) and vote Lib Dem in 2010 to find out.

If the Lib Dems have a plan to revolutionise Woking Borough Council, why didn’t they deploy it in 2006/7 when they were in control, instead of ducking the difficult decisions that had to be made by the Conservatives in 2007/8 and are still ongoing? Isn’t this the party that criticises DC for not stating his policies? And I’m supposed to believe that if I vote Lib Dem next year, they’ve got a cunning plan that will allow endless investment in services that are supposed to be provided at other tiers of government?

The only other option is borrowing. And that’s a subject that I’ll be returning to before long.

In the meantime, Cllr Wells may think I’m stunted in this area but I recognise the difference between imagination and fantasy. I’ve also asked enough questions of politicians in my time to know a question dodge when I see one.

Posted in Other blogs, Woking Borough Council, lib dems. Tags: , , , . No Comments »
« Older posts «
»