The Political Advent Calender

Just in case you missed it, here are the entries for Matt Chorley's brilliant political advent calender, I hope you enjoy it, have a very Happy Christmas and I'll be back with my review of the year next week.

Day 1 Disaster at the Treasury Christmas lunch. The goose is cooked but the tax credits are still frozen

Day 2 Shoplifting row in the garden centre. Chris Huhne denies asking someone else to take the poinsettia

Day 3 Hokey-cokey falls into disarray in Nuttal household after David demands an in/out referendum

Day 4 Chocolate Grant Shapps says Mary & Joseph are squatting in stable. Moved to flat on other side of Bethlehem

Day 5 Disappointment in the Thurlbeck household when Santa insists he wasn't shown the "For Neville" email

Day 6 Cameron defends independence of No 10 carol service before launching into rendition of Jingle Bell Pottinger

Day 7 Mrs Lansley is so disappointed with her police drama box set that Andrew is forced to pause The Bill

Day 8 David Miliband unmoved by MI6 Choir's version of Silent Night but critics say it's an extraordinary rendition

Day 9 Lembit Opik dressed as a snow-covered Big Ben. Not the whole tower. Just the bell end!

Day 10 Disappointment as Molly and Arthur Letwin discover their letters to Santa in a bin

Day 11  Nick Clegg is privately seething, angry and furious that Cameron has organised the Secret Santa without him

Day 12  After realising he's misspelt his name in all his Christmas cards, Vince Cable insists he won't re-sign

Day 13 After No 10 Christmas lobby drinks last night, Clegg is astonished at 4am to find Cameron used the Vimto

Day 14 After his wife's reality TV escapades, John Bercow has signed up to spend Christmas living in a doll's house

Day 15 Steve Hilton, the PM’s guru. The only man happy to get just socks at Christmas

Day 16 Clegg uses his best French to tell Fillon he has 2 brothers, likes cats & invites him to "jouer au pingpong"

Day 17 Tom Watson tells Santa: “You're the first mafia boss who doesn't know he's running a Christmas enterprise”

Day 18 DEFRA staff keep tripping over baubles & tinsel on the floor in reception after Caroline Spelman sold their tree

Day 19 Mike Hancock pulling a cracker. How does he do it? Dirty dog.

Day 20 Sepp Blatter tells Mary & Joseph to ignore Herod's threat to slaughter son of God, by shaking hands

Day 21 Joni Mitchell comes out against government's planning reforms, saying Paradise has enough parking lots

Day 22 The Home Office Panto is cancelled after Theresa May makes a gang dispersal order against the Seven Dwarves

Day 23 Cameron apologises for cutting too much red tape after Santa's trousers fall down

Day 24 Commons nativity falls foul of Trades Descriptions Act when the Three Wise Men are played by Dave, Ed & Nick

The New Sheriff Rides Into Town

2012 will be a tough year for sure, even the PM reckons it will be tougher than 2011 and just about everyone I know is preparing themselves for the worst. One thing on the horizon that has not had an awful lot of publicity so far is the fact that in 11 months time we will be going to the polls to elect our "chief of police", or Sheriff as they call them in America, ours will have the catchy title of Police and Crime Commissioner PCC for short.

At the moment, the strategic direction of the police force and its overall budget, including the bit we all pay through our council tax bill, is set by an organisation called the Police Authority, a body which I have just recently started to serve on. Currently the Avon and Somerset Police Authority is made up of elected members from the councils within the police district (Somerset, North Somerset, BANES, Bristol and South Gloucestershire) with the addition of independent members to make up the committee.

As of November 2012 this body will disappear and it will be replaced by one person, the elected PCC, this elected individual will set the priorities of the force, he or she will decide on the budget, including the amount we will all pay, and will have the power to appoint or fire the Chief Constable. With that amount of responsibility, you would have thought it would be vital to have someone of considerable knowledge and experience in place to ensure that these important decisions are taken in a responsible manner, however it seems like we might be in for a celeb bun fight in a number of force areas if the recent rumour mill is anything to go by.

In addition to a number of washed up ex Labour ministers who seem to want to get in on the action, it is rumoured that Tony Robinson, Labour luvvie and actor, may be throwing his hat into the ring in Avon and Somerset, Carol Vorderman, Celeb and Maths whizz is also reported to be interested and Katie Price AKA Jordan is apparently going to stand in Hampshire.

Now I'm sure this trio, and any others in the background, have plenty of redeeming features, but in control of our police force?

Just what is Katie Price going to bring to the table? Perhaps she is going to paint all the police cars shocking pink and introduce new regulations for the control of Door Staff at Clubs and Pubs otherwise known as "bouncers", Tony Robinson is bound to have a few ideas to put forward for the police plan, most of them a cunning as a fox with a degree in cunning from the university of cunning, and Carol V shouldn't have too much trouble with the half a billion pound budget!! But seriously, this is a huge job, and it will require an individual with remarkable qualities to carry it out, surely it is far too important to be put in the hands of celebrities with no experience at all?

Well we will soon know, over the next 6 months or so, the selections from the various political parties will start their campaigns, alongside I'm sure a number of very able independent candidates, I only hope the public use their common sense and vote in someone who can do the job, rather than someone who has been famous on TV for five minutes.

The Cameron Bounce is confirmed

Over the weekend I blogged about David Cameron's use of the Veto at the Euro summit last week, and how I thought that he had done exactly the right thing for both the government and the country, I also spoke about how the chattering classes, especially auntie BBC, had started to have palpitations at the thought that we might take a couple of steps backwards from Europe, there were claims that this would be a "disaster darling", that we would be sidelined, that no-one in Europe would love us anymore (not that they did in the first place), and how this was going to be terribly bad for all of us.

In my view that lot is utter nonsense, Europe needs our billions in subsidy and our buying power (we buy a lot more from Europe that they do from us) an awful lot more than we need them, and Cameron needs to stick to his guns and make sure we get a deal on our terms.

It now seems that the great British public also loves Cameron's bulldog spirit, the four opinion polls that have been carried out since last Thursday's summit show that the Conservatives have either moved level with Labour or in two cases show a 2% lead for the Tories.

If these polls were translated into a general election it would mean that Labour would have lost 600,000 voters in less than a week, while the Conservatives have gained just over two million, and Europe has become the third most important issue in the minds of the public.

In addition the old three headed Lib Dem snake has reared its heads all over again, on Friday last week the Cleggmeister announced he had agreed the stance that Cameron was to take, and that he was happy with the outcome, by Sunday after getting stick from his Europhile colleagues he was deeply disappointed in the outcome and it would be "bad for Britain", then last night he was giving his MP's a three line whip to get them to vote with the government on a motion that congratulated the PM on his mission, and confirmed the UK's position on the matter! His MP's promptly ignored him and abstained from the vote!!!

Is it any wonder the Lib Dems are in disarray when they take three different positions on one subject in four days?

PMQ's later on should be interesting to say the least!

Didn't He do Well!!!!

I first met David Cameron shortly after he had become leader of the party, he was doing the "plastic chicken" circuit of all the party constituencies and he came to a lunch at the Bath & West showground. I have to say that I was impressed by his performance that day, although I did have doubts about his leftish policies. I discussed my fears with one of his aides that day and I expressed my view that I had doubts as to whether he would be strong enough as Prime Minister to take tough decisions. His aide said "don't you worry about David, he might seem smooth and polished on the outside, but I tell you he is capable of being a bastard if he needs to be"!

The memories of that discussion have stayed with me, and now after years of wondering whether Cameron had the cojones to be PM, and more recently wondering whether he had been infected with Europhile tendencies thanks to his close relationship with Nick Clegg, it now appears that he certainly has got the balls for the job after all and as Sir Brucie might say "Didn't he do well".

I and many other Eurosceptics have been arguing for years that we need to take a step or two backwards from Europe, I certainly don't want to live in a Euro Federal state with Germany and France holding the whip hand over our economy, I don't want the European Human Rights Commission hamstringing our police and courts and I certainly don't want our borders open to whoever may want to come here. This recent decision may only be a small step down the road to getting our country back, but it is a significant step as it's the first time since Margaret Thatcher that any politician from these shores has stood up for our interests in Europe and said No, Non, Nein to their demands.

I watched Clegg on the Andrew Marr show this morning squirming and wriggling his way through what was obviously a very painful interview. The full reality of what it is like to be in government with the big boys, having to take tough decisions that you may not like is clearly having a detrimental effect on the man. He looked shattered and defeated, the flack he is getting from his own Europhile MP's must be piling up on him, my guess is that he will not be able to go on much longer.

Vince Cable once vaunted as the all seeing and knowing sage of economics has been exposed as merely a semi-useful elderly rambling malcontent, he has done less than nothing as the business minister, his budget has been savaged and he has been left impotent, if he were to throw his toys out of the pram and resign, who would notice?

The odious Huhne spends more time trying to fend off speeding allegations than he does doing his job, in many respects thank goodness for that, otherwise we might have even more useless wind turbines cluttering up the landscape and costing us more £billions every year and then catching on fire.

With the hapless Milliband always on the wrong side of every argument, ably (!!!!!) supported by Balls forcing him down the wrong track, perhaps the time is approaching for Cameron to ditch the Lib Dems completely, go to the country while his personal stock is on the rise, and then go back into No10 with a proper Conservative government instead of the mishmash we have now?

The Gospel according to Twitter

Michael Gove announced this week that every school in the country is to get a copy of the latest version of the King James Bible, with a forward written by the man himself. This was immediately pounced upon by the chattering classes and dubbed "Goves Bible", the "Bible according to Gove" or "The book of Gove".

The twitterati then got to work suggesting what the bible may contain, and in addition what the bible according to Labour and the bible according to the Lib Dems might look like as well, here are a few of my personal favourite tweets over the last couple of days.

Labour Bible

• God also instructed Noah to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, Harriett Harman insisted that they be selecting from an all female shortlist.
• Opening their treasures, they presented to Him gifts of frankincense and myrrh, as all the gold had been sold by Gordon Brown
• And it came to pass that Gordon was cast out of heaven for leaving his microphone on and referring to God as a "bigoted woman"
• And the prophet Gordon went into a biblical rage and lobbeth his mobile telephone at prophet Alistair's bonce...
• And Saint Gordon of Kirkcaldy did decree that boometh and busteth would no longer hang as a spectre over our fair land.
• And on the 5th day God demanded a gold plated pension and a pay rise. This was not given so he went on strike
• In the beginning was a surplus. And it was a good surplus. And Brown said "let there be debt." And there was debt
• And thus the Holy Trinity was formed, the Labour party, the BBC and the Guardian
• And Ed looked upon the world and said this is a good company and that is a bad company. Blessed is the name of the Ed.

and from the Lib Dem Bible

• Blessed are the sandal-wearers.
• And so conference did put the sandwich choices to a preferential vote, for the constitution did require this should be so.
• The Tories beguiled me and I did vote for £9000 tuition fees, even though I'd promised I wouldn't.
•  In the beginning, there was Ming, and he'd already been around a bit.
• And thus forevermore they were proclaimed "the don't knows".
• In the beginning the earth was without form and void, and it was all the Lib Dems fault.
• And the lost tribes were dispersed and vanished behind a burning bush.

Labour in hock to their paymasters.

With public sector strikes due to occur this week, the Labour party is in its normal state of turmoil and inaction. MP after MP have been hitting the airwaves this weekend but what have they been saying?

Not once have I heard any sort of condemnation of these strikes that will hit the people that they are so called supposed to be representing harder than anyone else, and why is this happening, simple really, they can't condemn this reckless action because the unions bankroll the party to the tune of 89% of their total income, and if the unions pull the plug the whole sorry lot would have to find a job and work for a living.

Then to pour more pressure on the hapless Milliband and his useless crew, we have seen this week a Freedom of Information request report regarding full time trade union officials working in the public sector.

There are a small army of teachers, nurses, and council workers that are paid to do a job, but in fact all they do is carry out full time union activities. In effect we have government paid officials being paid to agitate against the government, how crazy is that?

The FOI request shows that there are now at least 2,840 of these non-workers, who instead of being paid to teach or nurse, or regulate the paperclips, are funded to do trade union activity, on office time, in the office. Guido Fawkes the political blogger puts the suggested total bill to the taxpayer of £113m down as a conservative estimate. Several government departments did not respond to the FOI request, so it is inevitable that the actual figure is considerably higher

These individuals are using free office space, heat, light, IT etc etc that should be charged to the union at commercial rates which also bumps up the final bill considerably. In addition to this bill, we the taxpayer, are also paying for another individual to do the job that these full time union workers are failing to do because of their union activities, you really couldn't make it up.

If union members want people to work for them on their behalf, then they should fund them through their union subs, the taxpayer should have no part in it at all. In effect all that is happening is the taxpayer via the government are directly funding the Labour party, this has got to stop.

Skewered lIve on BBC Radio

If you want a good laugh, listen to one of the Liberal Democrats finest, Cllr Danny Unwin, Mayor of Wells, being interviewed live on BBC Somerset this morning about car park charges. The clip starts at 1:47:20 and lasts 4 minutes or so, I laughed so much I nearly choked on my meusli. I don't need to add anything. Here is the link. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00lc074/BBC_Somerset_Breakfast_08_11_2011/

Parking matters

As portfolio holder for Regulatory services at Mendip, one of my more challenging responsibilities is to oversee the car parking regime across the district.

Car park charges are like any other taxes and things like the bubonic plague and botulism, in other words, not universally popular. However as a council we have a duty to provide sufficient and well managed car parks that are properly maintained and controlled to ensure that the most valuable shopper’s and visitors spaces see a good turnover of clients, and that the long term parking for residents and workers are available and affordable.

Car park charges across Mendip with the exception of Clarks village in Street, have not been increased generally for the last 3 and a half years, the Clarks village car parks were reviewed earlier this year, we have a contractual obligation to review charges when requested by our partners, these new changes do not impact on those changes that have already been introduced. 

The RPI Index for inflation since the last across the board price increase in July 2008 was minus1.4% in 2009, 4.6% in 2010 and 5.6% in 2011, If we were to have increased parking charges in line with inflation since the last review, we would be looking at an increase of 8.8% now, instead of the 7.5% agreed last night, far from being an inflation busting increase as screamed by the headlines in the Journal last week, still why let the facts get in the way of a good headline eh! In fact why don’t we compare our car park charges with the Journal’s price rises? The journal has been increased in price three times in recent years by 5p every time, giving them an average increase of 9.5% each time, and they have the cheek to call us inflation busters!

The 7.5% is NOT rounded up to the nearest 10p, again as quoted in the press, it is rounded to the nearest 10p which means in effect that many of our cheaper short term stop and shop charges will not alter at all, all of our 50p and 60p rates remain unchanged, I hope the press will find some space to rectify their errors under a nice big headline in this week’s edition.  

In addition to inflation, we have seen a 2.5% increase in the VAT rate introduced on January 1^st, that we as a council have to pay on all our car park charges. This will cost the council £50k in the next financial year. We have also seen this year a hike in the Non Domestic Rates that are levied on our car parks. All businesses have seen similar increases, this is not something that we as a District Council have any control over and have to pay them exactly the same as everyone else. This increase in NDR will cost the council £67k in the next financial year. If we do not increase charges to meet these increases, we will have to cut spending elsewhere to balance the books. I know balancing the books is a concept that is pretty alien to the Liberal Democrats, but we as a Conservative group always start with that as a pre-requisite.

There is no point in denying that car parking revenue is a significant portion of the councils overall funding, currently car parks contribute some £2.48 million to the overall budget, which equates to around £1.3 Million nett of VAT when the costs have been taken out. These revised charges will increase the overall revenue by around £100k gross, however when you take the increase in VAT and NDR into consideration you will see that this increase does not even cover those items, leave alone the inflationary pressure. This also has to be considered against a backdrop of a 28% cut in government grant over 4 years, a 11% cut in the next financial year and a freeze in the council tax, there are very few areas where we will see any increase in revenue at all, and ever increasing calls on our budget.

I fully understand that there will be many who will have issues with the changes that we have made, however these proposals were agreed by a cross party working group of councillors. After the elections in May, we contacted the leader of the opposition to ask for nominees to the Car Park Working Party, for weeks we had no reply whatsoever, when they did respond the nominated people then cried off for various reasons causing meetings to be postponed, and when finally the group did meet, Councillor Cottle (Lib Dem) sent apologies and arranged for Councillor Brunsdon to attend as a substitute, but we heard nothing and no substitute from either Councillor Unwin (Lib Dem) representing Wells or Councillor Hooton (Lib Dem) from Frome, all of the Conservative nominees attended.

I received numerous communications from Frome complaining that their interests were not represented on the working group, I have told them who that person should have been, and to contact him directly with any complaints that they may have.

We received representations from Frome Chamber of Commerce, Vision for Frome and Councillor Godman also from Frome requesting among other things that the implementation date of the increase to be postponed until after Christmas. We listened to those proposals and as a result we decided to delay the implementation of the changes until February 1^st  2012, after the New Year sales period has ended.

The free Christmas parking that we have given in other years is extended to 2pm every day for the two weeks up until the festive season, and we have extended the free parking for the whole of New Years day so that no-one will have to worry about driving with even the possibility of having excess alcohol still in their system if they leave their car in the town centre overnight.

On other matters, the group decided that our permit prices would rise at the same rate as the other charges, rounded to the nearest pound, but our very generous discount scheme that is heavily subsidised by the council would remain in place, meaning that our most regular users would still be able to park at very preferential rates.

We discussed whether or not to introduce charges for disabled parking. Most of our local districts do charge for disabled parking, and the group felt that we should carry out consultations as to whether we should follow suit. We will consult widely with disabled groups and carry out an impact assessment before any changes are finalised. In any event our ticket machines are not suitable to be used by disabled users in their current state, and the areas around the ticket machines will also require adaption. We will have to assess the cost of carrying out these changes alongside the consultation and impact assessment.

It has been acknowledged that many of our regular users, especially many town centre workers, use car parks as a matter of habit, rather than seeking to find the best available rates, as a result, we will be introducing signage in some of our short stay car parks, that are primarily designed for use by shoppers and visitors, that there is long stay parking available elsewhere in the town at a vastly reduced price. This we hope will have the impact of saving our town centre workers money, whilst at the same time making more valuable stop and shop spaces available.

There will be a minor change to the parking regime in Shepton Mallet’s Great Ostry car park. As a result of representations that we received from local traders and the comprehensive Urban Design study carried out by the Townscape Heritage Initiative, it has been decided to amend the existing small “free parking“ area where currently shoppers can get free parking for an hour, but can then buy a ticket to extend the stay beyond that period, to a regime where it will be free for one hour, but with a maximum one hour stay. This will have the effect of providing a greater turnover of spaces for the most valuable stop and shop users, without these spaces being blocked up by paying clients over an extended period.

Vision for Frome have asked us to take a “leap of faith” and are saying that if we reduce parking charges we will encourage more visitors and therefore increase income overall. It is an interesting concept, but I am not a man of faith and take decisions on logic, however, if Vision for Frome with the Chamber of Commerce and perhaps the Town Council want to produce a plan that underwrites any losses we suffer, then I'm sure we will give it careful consideration.

In addition to the changes in the car park regime, the cabinet also voted to join the county wide Civil Parking Enforcement scheme last night. This means that as from the middle of next year, civil traffic wardens will be empowered to enforce on-street as well as off street parking. The police have told us that they will be withdrawing from on-street parking enforcement, they have other priorities, it will be for the county scheme to take over this task.

The actual on-street free parking areas will remain as before, however they will be routinely patrolled to ensure that they are not abused by long term parking blocking up valuable stop and shop spaces.

Perhaps the most interesting point of all occurred on BBC Radio Somerset this morning. I was interviewed at about 7:45am regarding the charges, the facts are as I've recounted them here, either car park charges go up, or cuts will have to be made elsewhere to cover the £117k increase in tax we have to pay. We have a stark choice, either the users of car parks pay, or we all pay through higher taxes or poorer services.

Now the Lib Dems are not well known for sound financial management, so when the afore mentioned Danny Unwin from Wells, who failed to attend the working party remember, was interviewed later on, he was speaking on "behalf of Mendip Liberal Democrats". When asked how he would cover the £117k increase in tax, he stumbled, blustered and didn't answer the question, when finally pushed for an answer he said that we should introduce charges for on-street parking to cover the shortfall!!

If charging for on-street parking that is currently free is not an increase in parking charges I'll eat my hat!!!

The Nuclear Option

Today (Monday) should see the application for a new Nuclear Power station at Hinkley point submitted. If approved, Hinkley C will be built on the site where the old Hinkley A Magnox reactor and Hinkley B the Advanced Gas Cooled Reactor, are currently located.

As part of my new "Community Safety" brief at Mendip, I was invited to attend one of the regular Hinkley Site Stakeholder meetings in Bridgwater last week. Although this is the first one that I have attended, they have been held regularly for many years, with representatives from all of the local councils, District Councils and County County present, along with activists from the various "anti-nuclear" groups such as Greenpeace and Stop Hinkley.

The meeting was very informative with much discussion about the excellent safety record of the plant, and what to expect over the coming weeks and months. Perhaps the most interesting contribution related to a review of site safety in the light of the Japanese earthquake and Tsunami that devastated large areas of North Eastern Japan including the Fukishima Nuclear power plant.

Although there are similarities between Fukishima and Hinkley, I think the differences are perhaps the most important subject. Firstly Fukishima is a Pressurised Water Reactor, relying on water to cool the reactor core, Hinkley as a Gas cooled reactor uses Nitrogen to cool the reactor. The main cause of the problems in Japan were directly related to the fact that the site was swamped by the Tsunami, coming over a 7 metre high sea wall, killing the pumps that circulated the water by severing the connection with the grid.

Hinkley has 12 metre high sea defences, more than enough for even the most severe Tsunami that could reasonably be expected, it also has its own power station that can run its back up systems if the grid fails, and can produce its own Nitrogen to cool the reactors. EDF are also installing massive gas tanks that can flood the containment building with Nitrogen if all else fails, in other words, they are protected against pretty much any eventuality.

What is also interesting when you look back at the hype surrounding the "disaster" at Fukishima, is that the latest published figures show that there were only 2 fatalities at the power plant, one killed by a falling crane during the earthquake, and one worker who died of a heart attack, 2 other workers are still missing, presumably swept away by the Tsunami. There have been around 30 other minor injuries and exposures to radiation that have required hospital treatment, although none required lengthy stays. Although each death is a tragedy for the family concerned, you would have thought by the media coverage that thousands had been killed by the "meltdown", when in comparison tens of thousands were killed by the Tsunami that got significantly less coverage.

The anti-nuclear brigade often quote the thousands or millions that die every year as a result of radiation exposure, however the latest figures from the United Nations Scientific Committee of the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) show that the Chernobyl disaster actually killed 57 people as a direct result of the explosion and fire, and in the 30+ years since, there has been an increase of just about 6000 in extra cases of thyroid cancer in the 5 million people living in the contaminated area around the plant, all other cancer rates are broadly similar to unaffected areas. Thyroid cancer is eminently treatable with a 90+% success rate, meaning that so far there have only been 15 deaths directly attributable to radiation exposure. That gives us a total of 72 deaths in 30 years as a result of the accident, again a tragedy for the relatives of each victim, but compare that if you will with the thousands that die every year in coal mines, or working on gas and oil rigs to provide the alternative sources of energy.

More people are killed in this country every year falling by off a ladder doing DIY, sometimes we need to get a sense of proportion.

Opportunity Missed

After the May elections this year, and the dust settled allowing the new batch of councillors to settle in to their new roles, Stuart Brown, CEO of Mendip District Council offered each and every member the opportunity of a "walk about" around the ward, to look at issues first hand and to discuss with the newly elected councillors their vision for the future.

During my walkabout with Mr Brown, I took him around our town centre and highlighted some of the problems we face, and discussed a number of potential ways that we could look at to move the town forward, these we are still working on, however at the same time I spoke at length about the poor relationship between Shepton Mallet Town Council and Mendip District Council and discussed some methods that could be employed to improve matters. Mr Brown agreed during those discussions to attend a Town Council meeting at the earliest opportunity, which after finding a suitable date occurred this week on Tuesday evening. In addition to Stuart Brown, Harvey Siggs, leader of Mendip Council and Cabinet member at County, three elected District Councillors, plus myself as District and County Councillor for the town, the Town Council had direct access to the most important decision makers in the District.

So did the council make the best use of this huge opportunity? In my view absolutely not. Yes there were a few discussions about joint working on various projects and discussions on how the District Council can help to make some of the Town Council's aspirations a reality, but the huge disappointment was there was absolutely no discussion about the future of the town, the Local Development framework and the Local Plan, the most important subjects for the future of the town were barely mentioned. Several members were merely interested in trying to score points on pretty trivial matters, that could be dealt with by officers at a much lower level, but there was very little that warranted the intervention or the influence of the Chief Executive or the Leader or the Council.

I can but hope that this is the start of improved relations between the two local authorities, I know that Mendip wishes a more harmonious existence, there are a great many challenges ahead, the the development of our town foremost among those challenges, I just hope that some of the members of the Town Council grow up, start acting like adults, and put in the work that is required to make Shepton's future secure. I have to say I didn't see much evidence of that on Tuesday evening.

Break out the thermals, Ice Age on the way!

The party conference season has come and gone, the normal stage managed theatricals dispensed with for another year, and what did we learn?

Well "cat gate" highlighted the lunacy of the Human Rights Act for all to see, Ken Clarke highlighted his liberal credentials, (nothing new there), Ed Balls proved that he should not be allowed within a light year of the economy ever again, and Ed Milliband demonstrated what a completely useless leader he actually is. Apart from that it was all too predictable and pretty dull if I'm honest.

Perhaps the most interesting speech of the month was made by George Osborne, or as I call him my mate George. He made what I thought was a very measured speech about the state of the World, and especially Europe's economy, there is no doubt we are living through a potential catastrophe, I just hope our leaders understand the problems and can take the measures to guide us all through.

In his speech, he made what was perhaps a most fundamental point, which has gone largely un-reported in the press so far. He said that from now on the UK would row back on the commitment to cut CO2 emissions by 80% of 1990 levels by 2050, and by 20% by 2020 and would from now on only reduce emissions in line with the European average.

Since the Kyoto protocol and the subsequent Climate Change Act was passed by parliament in 2008, the climate change zealots have driven the agenda and forced the government to introduce measures such as charging companies for every tonne of carbon they produce. This carbon floor scheme added to other measures, has the effect of putting £404 billion on the cost of producing power, which is over £750 on the annual energy bill of every household in the country for the next 40 years.

It has led to the proliferation of wind turbines that blight our landscape and achieve nothing in the reduction of CO2. It takes over 20 years of operation at 25% efficiency to pay back the CO2 generated in the manufacture and servicing of these monsters, and though we are told the lifespan will be 25 years, I am hearing that most will be worn out long before then, and all that to produce power at three times the cost of a conventional power station. Guess who pays the bill for these acts of folly, WE ALL DO!

We are told that all new coal and gas power stations must be fitted with carbon capture technology so that the nasty CO2 can be trapped and then buried in the ground for thousands of years, the only problem is that carbon capture hasn't been proven yet, and it's predicted that it will never achieve the targets set for it!

As is usually the case, when new rules are made, this country jumps through hoops to make sure they are obeyed, no matter the consequences, while all the huge polluters of the world have done nothing. The USA, China, India etc haven't even signed up to the protocol, leave alone done anything to reduce emissions, and why, because they know it is economic suicide to do so.

In Europe they are still discussing the way forward towards a 2050 target, again no agreement so far, very little implementation of penalties for carbon producers, so all we have achieved so far is to put all of our major industries, such as pharmaceuticals and chemicals at a huge disadvantage with the rest of the world, no wonder so many are looking at re-locating in a more business friendly environment.

Then today, I read in the Sunday Times, that the Met office is now predicting that far from us all frying under increasingly hot conditions as global warming takes us on the road to Armageddon, we are in fact heading towards a mini ice age!

No doubt the climate change zealots will say that the ice age will be all our fault too, but as we have had many mini and maxi ice ages during the earth's history, and will no doubt have many more in the future, I think finally we may be finally moving into a world where we will not be dominated by the doom and gloom merchants.

This planet will eventually run out of oil and gas, so it makes sense to make the very best use of what we have, I'm also sure that technology will come up with novel solutions to the power supply issues as we go forward. Whether it is Hydrogen powered cars, or Cold Fusion power stations, science and technology will find the solution.

A geologist from Shell told me about 6 years ago that if you add up all the oil that we have used from the beginning of the industrial revolution to the present time, it will make up less than 10% of the total oil that is left in the ground, so far we have only extracted the easy stuff, from now on it will get harder and more expensive, and at 30 dollars a barrel it would never happen, however at 100 dollars plus per barrel it certainly will.

In the meantime perhaps we can stop driving up energy bills un-necessarily and perhaps we can stop driving high energy consuming companies such as the North Wales aluminium smelter that has just re-located to South Africa taking hundreds of jobs with them, because of the cost of the carbon floor scheme

You never know, producing a bit more CO2 might even stave off the worst effects of the ice age that is coming?

Greek Lunacy

It appears the Greeks have been taking economic lessons from Ed Balls, he of "the only way to cut the deficit is to borrow more" school of economics.

I read today that the Greek government, in debt up to their eyebrows and beyond, with a supposed austerity drive being fought at every step by the disgruntled public, have ordered no less than 400 battle tanks from the USA to supplement their armed forces!

Now these tanks aren't any old cheap rubbish, they are M1 Abrams , top of the range jobs at a cool £1.3 billion for the job lot. In addition they have also ordered various armoured personnel carriers and artillery pieces taking the total to just over £2 billion.

In times of plenty it is wise for government's to update and expand their defence capability, however when you are likely to default on your debts to the tune of £2.4 billion, why on earth would you be spending another £2 billion on arms when there is not a war on?

Perhaps they intend manning the barricades when the worlds banks come knocking on the door for the money that they owe!!

I think this one has to go in the "you couldn't make it up pile".

Quitting the Euro - By Daniel Hannan - The Corner - National Review Online

Everyone should read this. Dan Hannan nearly always makes sense, this time he hits the nail firmly on the head.

Quitting the Euro - By Daniel Hannan - The Corner - National Review Online

Boundary Review: Massive changes for Somerset

The long awaited report from the Boundary Commission has been published today, I should be fishing in the Channel Islands and unable to comment, but Hurricane Katya has forced us to postpone for 24 hrs and so there is no escape!!!!

However, the afore mentioned report has thrown up quite a few changes to the local Parliamentary Constituencies, so I thought I would just comment on the proposals so far. As part of the coalition agreement to hold a referendum on the voting process earlier this year, leading to the resounding No vote against the Lib Dem Alternative Vote proposal, the government pledged to reduce the number of MP's in Parliament to 600 from the current 650 and at the same time even up the sizes of each constituency in terms of voter numbers.

The last Labour government had successfully gerrymandered the constituencies to the point where they had a 6% benefit in their favour, in other words, the Conservatives would have to get at least 6% more of the popular vote, just to remain level with Labour in terms of seats!!!
The new proposals eliminate this inbuilt bias in favour of Labour, and means that all seats, except those on the Isle of Wight, have an electorate in the 73,000 to 77,000 range. Previously some Labour strongholds only had 40,000 voters and some Conservative seats had over 100,000, hardly fair I think you would agree.

So what does this mean locally? Well overall, the number of seats in this immediate region remains the same at 10, the South West as a whole loses 2 seats. However the boundaries of the seats have changed radically.

The new "North East Somerset" seat includes Shepton Mallet, Frome, Midsomer Norton, Radstock and Paulton, which is in effect part of the old Wells seat, part of the Somerton and Frome seat, both in Mendip, and part of Jacob Rees Mogg's seat in Bath and North East Somerset (BANES).

The rest of the old Somerton and Frome seat is now in a new "Wincanton and Glastonbury" seat, which includes Somerton and Ilminster. Finally the old Wells seat has changed radically, losing both Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury/Street and gaining parts of North Somerset to compensate.

Further afield Taunton Deane loses many of its surrounding villages and is proposed to be renamed Taunton, Bridgwater will be amalgamated with parts of West Somerset, leaving very little as it was.

These proposals are now subject to a 12 week consultation process, however, with the amount of work that has gone into this review, I would suspect and changes to boundaries will be fairly minor, though changes to Constituency names more likely. It will be interesting to see how our local MP's act over the coming months, if the complexion of the new seat doesn't look favourable, you will see a number trying to jump ship elsewhere.

Right that’s my lot until next week, The sign on the door says “Gone Fishin’ “and this time I mean it.

More woes for Labour.

Things have been far from well with Her Majesty’s Opposition for many years, lack of leadership, wrong leaders elected, thieving MP’s sent to prison, a new scandal gets added to the increasing list almost daily. Then there is the political positioning, having taken a gigantic lurch to the left with the appointment of Brown, followed by the hapless Milliband, they find themselves on the wrong side of just about every argument from the Economy, to Human Rights, to Education and this week Policing and Sentencing. The shadow Foreign Secretary managed to jump onto the wrong side of the Libiyan bandwagon and Milliband has the less than enviable ability to jump in with both feet on the wrong side on just about every occasion.

Then just when the Labour party thought it couldn’t get much worse, the former Chancellor and traitor, Alistair Darling, comes up with the obligatory book charting his time as puppet to Brown. The explosive revelations that Gordon Brown was a psychopathic bully and control freak won’t come as any surprise, but the internecine warfare going on within the party is now exposed for the rest of the world to see.

All the way through the financial crash, that was made much worse by the already profligate spending put in place by Brown when he was Chancellor under Blair, the Labour government were more interested in fighting each other than they were in trying to sort out the problems of the country.

There was absolutely no trust between PM and chancellor, to the extent that Brown’s chief bully boy’s wife was sent to the treasury to keep an eye on Darling, what a state of affairs. Smug thug Ed Balls, chief deficit denier, and his pernicious wife Yvette Cooper, spent most of their time scheming and plotting to oust Darling as chancellor, only to find that levering Balls into the position would have been so unpopular within the Labour ranks, it would have toppled the already mortally wounded Brown.

So they were left in a position where the Chancellor was too weak to introduce the measures that were desperately needed and a Prime Minister too weak to sack his chancellor, what a sorry state of affairs!!

The truth of the disastrous Labour years is beginning to emerge a piece at a time, Blair describing dealing with Brown as “like having a tooth extracted without anaesthetic”, the decision to make Brown PM was not taken because he was the best man for the job, but instead because he plotted and schemed against anyone that may have stood against him, with Balls foremost in the scheming stakes.

Then after choosing the wrong brother as leader, and an innumerate as Chancellor, we get Balls back at the helm once again, pulling the strings and getting his own way.

And what a tour de force he has been, in the few short months that he has been shadow Chancellor, Labour have reversed every policy that they had proposed to try to deal with the huge deficit that they left behind.  The last Darling plan was for the deficit to be halved over the lifetime of the parliament, the coalition plan is more ambitious than that; however the difference between the two plans is fairly marginal. For every £8 of savings promoted by the coalition, the former Labour plan would have saved £7, however now, Labour have no plan whatsoever to deal with the huge debt mountain that the country is struggling under, in the last week, the final proposed saving of 12% in the police has been dropped.

So Balls continues his “too far too fast “mantra about the coalition deficit reduction plan, without any sort of plan at all to deal with it. His course of no action would mean that this country would lose its credit rating, borrowing would be more expensive, and we would rapidly find ourselves in the same position as Greece and Portugal having to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout. The man has no shame and no ideas.

So where are we with the current Labour party, its donors have deserted it in droves, it is more or less bankrupt and only survives because the Unions pump money into it so that they can hold the strings of their puppet MP’s, they have no policies worth repeating, and the internecine warfare continues.  They now face a cap on donations, which if implemented by Parliament, will limit how much any Union can bribe their MP’s with. Each individual union member will have to donate separately, and we will easily see just how small their support is when that comes through.

Just to cap things off, we hear that former MP and Blair babe Jaqui Smith, possibly the worst Home Secretary in history, whose husband put porn films on her expenses, is not satisfied with fleecing the taxpayer to the tune of £116,000 by claiming that her sisters spare bedroom was her “main residence” so she could claim for all the expenses for her actual home in Redditch, has been found to have invited convicted felons into her home, whilst serving prison sentences, to carry out some light re-decoration, free of charge of course!

Perhaps they watched some of her husband's porn collection while they were there!

A Wake Up Call for Us All

 There can't have been many people who were not as shocked as I was when viewing the sheer lawlessness displayed on the streets of our major cities during the last week. We often hear about young tearaways up to no good, we even get some of it around here at times, but the scale of the violence and looting carried out by children and young adults was of a whole new order.

The inquests to what happened have already started, and I'm pretty sure they will be followed up with an enquiry or two from the select committees, or even a public enquiry, but despite all of that perhaps some good will come of all the destruction if the silent majority in this country finally wake up and take action against the soft liberal policies that have led to this situation developing.

The obvious problem with the whole situation is lack of discipline, starting in the home, continued at school, perpetuated by the police, far too many young people are reared with little or no discipline in their lives. They can act with impunity, no sanctions are imposed at home, teachers are completely toothless, and our justice system spends far too much time worrying about the poor little darlings who commit crime, and singularly forgets the victims of crime, it's high time we woke up and smelt the coffee!

One of the first significant steps that we must take is to repeal the odious Human Rights Act from our legislation, and replace it with a bill of rights that enshrines our liberty, without imposing ridiculous restrictions on our courts. It must be for our parliament to design laws that meet with public support, and it must be our judges that decide whether convicted terrorists or illegal immigrants can be deported back to their country of origin, it must not be unelected judges in Europe to decide on those matters.

The last Labour government spent 12 years ploughing millions of pounds into sink estates, single mothers, drug addicts and gang members. The benefits system became so illogical that many are better off to be out of work and claiming benefits than actually working, people claiming benefits, can often live a lifestyle that many working people can only dream of, this can't be right.

We rapidly need to get back to a situation where young people respect their elders and authority. The ridiculous situation where teachers have to operate a "no touch" policy through fear of prosecution has to be scrapped, parents must be able to discipline their children without immediate investigation by "Childline" and Social Services. I'm not talking about a return to corporal punishment or beating children, but young people must learn where the boundaries are, and those boundaries have to be policed.

More importantly, parents need to learn to set an example for their children to follow, to have a strong work ethic and to reinforce what is right and what is wrong. In addition the police need to be freed from the political correctness that hamstrings their actions, they must be able to robustly police our streets without cries of police brutality every time some rioter or looter gets his skull cracked with a truncheon. We all need to support our police, and to back them to the hilt when they are protecting us and our property.

I am not calling for us to return to a bygone age, but we must pull back from this cuddly fluffy politically correct nonsense that pervades our society, the weak liberal experiment of the past 12 years has spectacularly failed, Blair, Brown and Milliband need to be held to account for their abject neglect of the silent majority.

It was their policies that created 2.5 million jobs that immediately went to foreign nationals coming into this country. This influx of cheap labour not only forced many of our un-skilled and semi-skilled workers onto the dole queues, it exacerbated the shortage of affordable housing and increased social tensions in many communities.

The riots of last weekend may have happened now, but they were created by 12 years of Labour mismanagement and social experimentation.

The things they wish they hadn't said!!

 There are times in your life when things you have said in the past come back to haunt you. With the continuing turmoil in the markets across the globe, and the potential meltdown of the Euro, I thought it might be interesting to look at what some of our illustrious leaders have said in the past.

• "The reality of the euro has exposed the absurdity of many anti-European scares while increasing the public thirst for information. Public opinion is already changing as people can see the success of the new currency on the mainland." (Ken Clarke, 2002)

• "The euro, despite gloomy predictions from anti-Europeans, has proved to be a success. We cannot afford to be isolated from our biggest and closest trading partner any longer." (Charles Kennedy, 2002)

• "If we get rid of sterling and adopt the euro, we will also get rid of sterling crises and sterling overvaluations. This will give us a real control over our economic environment." (Chris Huhne, 2004)

• "The euro has done more to enforce budgetary discipline in the rest of Europe than any number of exhortations from the IMF or the OECD." (Nick Clegg, 2002)

• "If we stay out, the price we will pay in lost investment and jobs would be incalculable." (Peter Mandelson, 2002)

Isn't it comforting that our leaders past and present have got their fingers firmly on the pulse?

My thanks once again to Dan Hannan for his inspiration this week.

Beware of bearing gifts to the Greek's

It been an interesting week one way or another, we've seen the Murdoch's up in front of the Commons Select Committee along with their former editor Rebeka Brooks to answer questions about phone hacking, why does this whole episode smack of chickens coming home to roost?

For the past three years or so the press have been constantly kicking the ball into an empty net regarding the MP's expenses, only now for most of them to be hoist on their own petard and finding themselves investigated by Knacker of the Yard, (mind you old Knacker himself is in the frame too). In my personal view, the press pretty much deserve everything that is about to be done to them, perhaps after it is all over we will have responsible politicians that make the right decisions on behalf of us all, and a press corp that reports on the things that matter instead of tittle tattle and what goes on behind closed doors between consenting adults?

Well I can hope I suppose!!

But while all this has been going on, and dear old auntie BBC has been getting her 40 deniers in a twist, there have been much more important issues raising their heads just across the channel.

I've been writing for months now about the catastrophe that is likely to befall the Eurozone. The BBC and its leftie cronies have more or less ignored what has been going on, after all its much more fun to kick the Murdoch press to death. But in the meantime, the Greek tragedy has continued, with the EU finally deciding to back yet another bail out for a country who has a debt the equivalent of just shy of twice everything it produces. The most recent estimate is that the figure is 180% of GDP, in terms that most of us can understand it means that if you add up the entire output of a country, manufacturing, service industry, banking, investments etc etc, you get a figure known as the Gross Domestic Product or GDP. In better times debt levels of perhaps 30-40% of GDP were thought to be manageable. At the end of the Conservative Government in 1997 our debt was falling rapidly heading for 25%. Gordon Brown through his profligate spending forced ours up to very nearly 50% of GDP and his legacy will mean that our debt will continue to rise to about 70% of GDP before falling back over the next 5 years or so.

Greece has a debt of 180% of GDP, basically it is bankrupt, kaput, finished, but the EU commissars who still dream of a united Federal Europe can't or won't see it collapse, instead it will continue to pump money into the stricken economy in a vain attempt to prevent the great Euro experiment from collapsing in a heap.

I listened intently to Daniel Hannan MEP and eurosceptic on radio five live this week, his analysis mirrors my own, the Europe experiment is over. The stricken countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and now Italy must be allowed to free themselves from a currency dominated by France and Germany, his solution, and quite a novel one at that, is that Germany and France should leave the Euro and revert back to the Deutchmark and the Franc (or to a separate common currency) while the other poorer countries are allowed to devalue the Euro, cut interest rates and kick start their economies.

The current situation is rather like having a ship with a massive hole below the waterline, no matter how fast you bail it out, you are fighting a losing battle. Another analogy I heard today was this "When King Phillip of Spain died his devoted and slightly mad wife refused to accept the situation and slept next to the decaying corpse for three whole years, take heed Greece!!!"

However, on the bright side, it appears that my mate George has managed to keep us out of the latest debacle, and if the Eurozone collapses, it will give Cameron all the ammunition he needs to re-negotiate our relationship with Europe, and once again return to the "Common Market" which after all was what we voted to join, and extricate us from this European federal experiment which has so spectacularly failed.

We can once again take control of our borders, our laws, our taxation, our spending and our way of life, without the constant interference of unelected bureaucrats from across the water.

One for the old guys.

This last weekend saw the annual Open Golf Championship played out over the magnificent links at Royal St. Georges Golf Club, Sandwich, Kent.

As is usually the case, the great British weather played a huge part in proceedings with all four seasons coming and going within a few minutes, at one time on Sunday huge raindrops like goose eggs pelted down, followed a few seconds later by bright sunshine, the only consistent factor was the 20-30 mph winds that blew across the course all week.

To emerge as the Champion Golfer of the year in conditions such as those takes a rare talent, fortitude, a cool head, and a fair slice of luck. Darren Clarke has all the talent in the world, keeps a cool head under pressure, is perhaps more resilient than any other player on the tour, and admitted that he had his fair slice of luck too. Starting early on Thursday and late on Friday he managed to avoid the worst of the rain, although his 69 on Saturday in pretty dire conditions must have been the round of his life, then yesterday when it all could have fallen apart he played superbly, under the most enormous pressure to claim the Old Claret Jug.

Darren Clarke is a great guy, he has been through an awful lot in his life, his form has deserted him for years on end and he more or less took five years out of his career in the prime of his life to help his wife, in vain as it turned out, to fight breast cancer. He deserves every bit of the adulation that will come his way over the next weeks and months.

But what is really special in my view was the manner of his victory, he doesn’t use the course as his own personal spittoon like the un-missed Tiger Woods, he doesn’t complain about the weather like his young Irish protégé Rory Mcilroy, he doesn’t look like the world will cave in when he misses a putt like the eternally grumpy Sergio Garcia, he plays with a smile on his lips, and a twinkle in his eye, just like the late great Seve Ballesteros who lost his own fight with cancer a few months ago.

Darren like most of us Sunday golfers likes a glass of Red or a pint of Guinness, he knows his way around a menu, his parties are legendary. He generally avoids the gym like the plague, and is well known for having a quiet puff whilst stood on the tee sharing an off colour joke with his playing partners. I have not heard one person offer any form of criticism of Darren Clarke as a golfer or as a human being. The spokesman for the R&A said yesterday that golf is a game of skill and strategy, it is not always the strongest or fittest that come out on top.

So the much vaunted challenge from the world’s top ranked players failed to materialise, Luke Donald and Lee Westwood failed to make the cut, Mcilroy just made it but finished well back in the pack, Kaymer similarly never put in a meaningful blow on Sunday. It was left to the old guys Clarke, Mickelson, and Bjorn to show the flat stomachs how to play when the going gets tough; the only young pretender to show was Dustin Johnson from the USA who briefly threatened before succumbing to the treacherous par 5 14^th.

So Darren Clarke will show the world how to be a champion with humility and good grace, I predict that he will show the world how to celebrate as well, he is supposed to be playing in the Irish Open on Thursday next week, he said today that he’ll play if he sobers up in time, that’s my sort of golfer!!

Look out we're back

Well here it is! After a short summer recess, Shepton in Blue is back and better than ever (well I guess you'll be the judge of that).

What to write about now I'm back? Red Ed and his inability to lead Labour out of the wilderness, Nick Clegg and the rapidly disappearing Lib Dems, phone hacking and the demise of the Screws of the World, the Accommodation review at MDC or the crisis in the Euro mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!

I think I'll start with the Euro crisis, I wrote some months ago about Alistair Darling running off to Brussels and signing us up to the European stability package, with George Osborne warning him not to do it, well after weeks of denials from Darling, Milliband, Balls et al, the truth finally came out last week when a freedom of information request revealed that Osborne had indeed demanded that Darling did not sign us up to long term financial commitments after Labour had lost the election but before the new government was in place. Darling completely ignored this and committed us to £billions of support for the beleaguered Euro even though we are not part of the wretched single currency.

Cameron has now negotiated us out of that deal, but that won't happen until 2015 and by then we will have stumped up many billions of pounds in financial aid, I said at the time that Darling should hold his head in shame, he ought to be up in front the beak with all his fellow expenses fiddlers, treason wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration.

It now appears that Portugal may well go the same way a Ireland and Greece, with Spain not far behind, and thanks to Darling and his cronies we are now mixed up in the whole sorry mess. If that isn't enough, we then get Balls and Milliband sounding like a stuck record with their "too deep and too fast" mantra regarding the cuts, this sorry pair backed up by their leftie friends in the BBC, force this diet of negativity down everyone's throats at every opportunity, the new BBC chairman Chris Patten has already said as much and intends to change it. The last thing this country needs is constant negative carping by the discredited Nu Labour luvvies, a diet comprehensively swallowed by our local left wing apologist Chris Inchley.

 The fact is that the coalition government have succeeded in preventing this country going down the Swanee alongside Ireland and Greece, the economy is growing and being re-balanced with jobs being created in the private sector at a greater rate than they are being lost in the public sector, I'd rather the whole lot just said thank you for getting us out of the mire and then shut up for ever.

When two world's collide

As a businessman and local councillor I have to be scrupulous to keep business and political matters entirely separate. The penalties for nest feathering are very severe, it is therefore essential that the public is fully aware what your interests are, and that you declare them when necessary.

Having said all that, I now find myself in a position where my professional expertise and my role as a Conservative councillor have met neatly in the middle.

Philip Hammond, Secretary of State for Transport and Cabinet Minister, recently announced that he intended to carry out a review into the MOT testing regime, and to come forward with recommendations regarding its future. The previous government did a similar exercise some five years ago and decided to leave well alone, "if it's not broken, don't try to fix it", however that was before the financial crash, and the need for every government department to save money where possible.

I have read numerous pieces in the last few weeks, written by people with little or no knowledge of the MOT scheme that insinuate that the current scheme is "Gold Plated" and out of step with the rest of Europe, that vehicles are now more reliable and do not need to be tested as often, and that reducing the incidence of testing will somehow save money for the motorist and the country as a whole.

I have to say, most of that is complete rubbish.

We have more experience of testing vehicles than the rest of Europe put together, we started back in the early 1960's and have continued ever since. Most of the other countries in Europe have based their testing regime on our experience, however some 20 years ago the European Commission, in a bid to get testing systems introduced into every country in the EU, allowed new members to introduce a halfway scheme, where vehicles where first tested at 4 years old, and then every other year after that, what is known as a 4-2-2 schedule, the theory was that our 3-1-1 schedule was too onerous as a first step, but all members should strive to get there eventually.

Now 20 years later, it appears that we may have our standards dragged down to European levels rather than the rest of Europe reaching ours. The implications of this change are too awful to contemplate, it will probably lead to the closure of many rural garages that rely on their MOT trade to exist, it is estimated that some 40,000 mechanics will lose their jobs as a result. Countries that have 4-2-2 at the moment have an accident rate for killed and serious injury accidents, (KSI) attributed to mechanical defects of around 7%, our KSI is about 3%, changing to 4-2-2 in this country will almost certainly lead to an extra 350+ road deaths every year.

The insurance industry have already said that premiums are sure to rise as a result of increased accident risk if the change is implemented, this will completely wipe out any savings the motorist will get from the £25 per year reduction in MOT fees paid and on top of all that all evidence points to the fact that even though vehicles are more reliable there is no evidence at all that they are any safer or that the components on a modern car last longer than in the past. In fact tyres, brakes and suspension components do not last as long now as they did even 10 years ago and failure rates are still going up!!

So I find myself on both sides of the argument at the same time, only on this occasion no one has yet to convince me that a change to 4-2-2 will be for the better in any measure, my representations to the government review team will certainly make that point.