Political

The new road layout at the Parkway in Newbury has caught out many drivers. David Betts spoke to the Newbury Weekly news saying "some people just drive about with their eyes shut". He admitted that some people had been fined multiple times. Not really fair looking at this as a cash cow, it's greedy and arrogant. We should give the cash back and perhaps issue a 'smug tax' on councillors gloating like this to make up the difference. At the very least David Betts should issue an apology and consider moving to a more suitable role.

I call on West Berks to do the right thing: Give the cash back, issue warnings (always best to educate people before punishing them) and never look on fines as income - they are a penalty and not a tax.

Fines like this should be put into a community fund and distributed in a way that helps to fix the causes of the fines and protect our communities.

Adrian Hollister
West Berkshire Green Party

Posted by Adrian Hollister

Dear Sir George,

I write in reference to the recent timing out of the Daylight Saving Bill. It seems a disappointing state of affairs when a significant minority can destroy democracy in action. 140 MPs turned up to vote in favour of the Daylight Saving Bill and only 16 voted against, but those against talked for so long that the bill ran out of it's allocated time. To use administrative process to block the bills progress seems petty and anti-democratic.

Clearly there is a substantial process and administrative problem with the way bills are handled in parliament; something I do hope that you are working to resolve. But, given the cross party support, support from a large number of organisation and support from the general public, I do hope that you can urgently find additional government time to look at the Daylight Savings Bill (there are strong precedents for giving Private Members Bills more government time when needed).

Yours sincerely,

Adrian Hollister

cc Richard Benyon MP


This message was sent in support of 10:10’s Lighter Later campaign and the Daylight Saving Bill. http://www.lighterlater.org

Posted by Adrian Hollister

It's only eight days to go to have your say on the Incinerator plans at Chieveley. The Green Party and I are in complete objection to such plans. So I urge all those with an opinion on the subject to get onto the West Berkshire web site and register their opinion now!

You can find the online planning site in West Berkshire here. You will need to register, but you can see other public comments and you will get a letter in the post to confirm your opinion.

There is also a web site http://www.wbagi.org that can give you a little more detail from local residents and some details from Grundon here.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

It's interesting to think that the UK could be subsidising nuclear power unlawfully. This stance raises awareness of the problem of nuclear power - there are a lot of hidden costs. It's not just the building of a plant (with all it's concrete etc), the running, or the decommissioning; its a combination of all three. We will leave a radioactive legacy for generations. Not just a few years, not even in your life time or that of your kids and grandchildren.

For all that time, we will have to actively manage the power stations and radioactive waste:
-We have to keep it secure and protected from terrorism or threats from other states. It's interesting that in London Under Attack: The Report of the Greater London Area War Risk Study, the nuclear power stations and stock piles are targeted because of the devastation they would cause to most of the country.
-We have to keep in cool and contained.
-We have to protect it from our environment. Storms, rain, earthquakes, land slips, etc. Anything can damage our storage systems and nothing is as immune as you think (re: Fukushima).
-We have to protect our environment from it. I'm not too keen on drinking contaminated water or eating foods contaminated by radioactive particles.

All of this costs money - a lot of money - and we have to pay for that and so do our future generations.

If we included these additional costs, would Nuclear power ever be seen as viable?

Posted by Adrian Hollister

Private Eye have uncovered a further massive Tax dodge from Vodafone.

"£6bn… and then some
The latest major tax avoidance ruse slipped under the public radar because Vodafone stopped setting aside money in its accounts for its offshore disputes in 2006. But the agreement with HMRC, which the company said covers “all outstanding [controlled foreign companies] issues from 2001”, must have cleared the scheme (Vodafone would only say it was “confidential”), letting the company off well over £2bn plus whatever it can funnel through the set-up in future and making the Eye’s initial £6bn estimate of the cost of the dodgy deal look conservative.

The revelation also seems to contradict Hartnett’s repeated assertions that nothing less than the full force of the tax law was applied to the company, since this scheme is if anything more squarely caught by the UK’s tax laws than the Mannesmann arrangement and on its own would have brought in more than £2bn. More troubling questions, then, for the NAO and retired Judge Park."

So, Newbury based Vodafone have yet again swindled us all out of cash. Swindled, because we as a country could have used that money for investment in services, debt payment, or even reducing the tax bill for the poorest. But no, the money goes to shareholders, a good deal of which won't even be in the country. Shame on you Vodafone.

Posted by Adrian Hollister

The Tory and Lib Dem government has that it plans to make it easier for head teachers in England to sack under performing staff. According to the press release it is due to go ahead from September 2012. Seems to me to be another blame culture thing - point the finger and not fix the problem. I wonder if head teachers and governors will be under the same pressure? It would be interesting if we could have a public review of head's and governors, especially around here in the Downlands of West Berkshire.

Posted by Adrian Hollister