Sandy 4 St Albans

Well “the mission” is complete, troops out by next May.  What an appalling disaster the whole Iraq fiasco of Mr Blair and Mr Brown has been- and lets not forget that the Conservatives were right up there as cheerleaders.

Far too little credit has been given to Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell for standing up against the war.  It was certainly not a populist decision.  When they took it, the great majority of the UK population supported going to war with Iraq.  The last leader of a major political party to break ranks and come out against a military conflict was Hugh Gaitskell over Suez - it was a thoroughly principled stance but the British public did not like the apparent disloyalty to our boys and it helped break the Labour Party for a generation.

So it took great courage on the part of Charles and Ming to go against the political flow - and I believe that they performed an absolutely invaluable service for UK parliamentary democracy as a result. [Read more →]

“Pillar Box Red” used to be something everyone understood. The pillar boxes of my youth gleamed in their scarlet livery, just like the telephone boxes and the buses.  This year’s  CPRE Christmas Book “Icons of England” with special foreword by Bill Bryson even has a pillar box as its front cover illustration.

But in St Albans it seems utterly random whether they are properly painted or just left to rust in a streaked and faded puce.  With our cracked and broken streets and pavements courtesy of Herts County Council, it just adds to the sense of neglect of the official realm.

I was talking about this with the Review newspaper, they wanted to follow up and I gave them a quote and this picture of the box in Hillside Road which they published on their website.  Holding a brush seemed more interesting than the standard candidate pointing position!  I could equally have given them a picture of the boxes in High Oaks, Vesta Avenue, or Hill End Lane near the Spar shop - and there are many more. [Read more →]

Fabulous Christmas lunch in Colney Heath - turkey and all the trimmings followed by Christmas pud.  All put on for local pensioners and subsidised by the parish council.  And then singing from Year 4 of Colney Heath JMI School as the icing on the cake.

Colney Heath has always struck me as community-spirited in the best sense - and today’s event at St Mark’s Parish Centre was a happy and jolly affair. [Read more →]

Much has been written about David Cameron’s attack on government borrowing plans.

It is described as “a fork in the road”.  There is supposed to be a great divergence in policy between Labour and Conservative parties.

So the media described the Pre-Budget Report and its messy aftermath as a defining moment.  It was indeed a defining moment, but the divergence has been in political competence and political bravery, with Liberal Democrat Vince Cable standing head and shoulders above all other politicians. [Read more →]

It was on the (very wet) grass actually - outside St Albans Abbey.

It was my 12 year old daughter Dora who persuaded me that my birthday was no excuse for not joining her at the annual Sleep-Out in aid of local homeless charities.  It is the third year I have done this and it was not an obvious choice for a birthday celebration.  Indeed my son Tom asked before we set off if when I was 5 years old I had ever imagined I would grow up to sleeping in the open without a roof 50 years later…

The cause - Open Door St Albans - is an excellent one.  I just wish it hadn’t started to rain at about 10 pm - in spite of best efforts, the sleeping bags got a bit wet and then the later dry but cold wind made it fairly bracing.  My smile at the end of the night was slightly forced!
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In the current economic climate, the set of bills announced in yesterday’s Queen’s Speech come across as an irrelevance.

The Government wasted the opportunity to help people in last week’s Pre-Budget Report and now with the Queen’s Speech they’ve wasted it again. [Read more →]

It is increasingly clear that Michael Martin is one of the least impressive speakers of modern times.  His abject feebleness in the Damian Green affair and then his disgraceful attempt to pin all the blame on his subordinates are only the latest manifestations of his unsuitability for the role.

He should never have been chosen by an overly “tribal” Labour majority and a fat lot of good it has done them or for the reputation of the House of Commons. [Read more →]

Our boiler came to a grinding halt last Friday.  We still had hot water with the immersion but heating the house became a major challenge.  I was brought up before central heating and can remember the frost not melting off the inside of my bedroom window in the winter of 1963.  But the kitchen was always vaguely warm with an ancient coke boiler, a fire was always lit in the living room at about 4 pm and there was a paraffin stove at the bottom of the stairs “to take the edge off”.

On really cold nights, we would change into pyjamas and dressing gown in the kitchen and then sprint to  our lino-floored bedrooms with hot water bottles - it sure was tough in those days. [Read more →]

I don’t know Damian Green well but we used to have occasional very civilised lunches together and I always think of him as being one of the human faces of the Conservative Party.

So his arrest and the ransacking of his Commons and constituency offices by the police came as a great shock.  Of course his frontbench immigration portfolio is one of the touchiest areas of current political debate.  The government and the Home Secretary have been embarrassed by some of the revelations. [Read more →]

I completed the half marathon today - but walking rather than running. Even with the best footwear I have never been convinced of the wisdom for bones and joints of road running.

Walking was anyway a lovely way to do it - starting at 8 am before it got too hot and with the leisure to enjoy some spectacular views.

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