Deer Right In The Centre Of Crawley

Last Tuesday evening at about 10.30pm, I was leaving the Town Hall after a meeting and was very surprised to see a Muntjac Deer right outside the carpark.

It trotted across Exchange Road and disappeared in the bushes on the roundabout that adjoins Exchange Road, Northgate Avenue, The Boulevard and College Road. A couple of minutes later it emerged and trotted up the pavement on College Road up towards the Memorial Gardens.

Although I have seen Fallow Deer in the woods in Tilgate and Furnace Green, I have never seen the much smaller Muntjac before. Like Fallow Deer, this critter is an introduced species from Asia which has spread throughout England. It originates from China and it's population is said to have exploded in recent years. If they are reaching our town centres, then this must certainly be the case. The next morning I saw a dead one on the Balcombe Road just south of Maidenbower. Given the distance, it was unlikely to be the same one but it was strange to see a live one, then another dead one elsewhere within 12 hours, having never seen one before.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of introduced species, it was certainly a pleasent surprise to see such a creature trotting along the pavement of our town centre of an evening.

Look Who's Back

It is my belief that there are two things that drive Gordon Brown. One is the pursuit of absolute power and control for himself at any cost (but not allowing the people to have their say and avoiding elections), and the other is trying to damage the Conservative party.

The second one of those is likely to be his motivation for his lobbying to foist Tony Blair on us as the first (UNELECTED!!) President of the European Union. There is a certain irony in this, given that Brown spent over a decade sulking because the more able Tony Blair kept him out of the top job. However, such is Brown's motivation to leave the next Conservative government a poison chalice, that as well as leaving the Country effectively bankrupt and manipulating his own recession so that the worst will come after May next year, he is also prepared to lobby for Blair in order to leave a European thorn in the side for his democratically elected successor.

Where do I start with the hypocrisy?

How about Tony Blair at the last General Election promising us a referendum on the European Constitution? (now called Lisbon Treaty) which is what is generating this Presidential role in the first place. We never had a vote on this although Ireland had TWO referendums because they didn't vote for the 'right' result first time around. Incredibly, that was the SECOND time the Irish voted twice in a European referendum having voted for the 'wrong' result first time around.

How about at the same time Tony Blair saying he would serve a full third term? which meant we wouldn't have had the unelected Gordon Brown foisted upon us. A dangerous precedent has been set there which the prospect of 'President Blair' confirms. Remember Brown didn't even face a challenge from within his own party for the top job, such was the intense pressure that he had applied to possible other contenders.

How about this all being done by the two people whose Labour party polled less votes at the last General Election in England than the Conservative party did? Blair had little moral mandate in England for government at the 2005 election, and Gordon Brown none whatsoever. Despite this, they have conspired again and again to force their will upon us and impose the other one on our Country with no democratic mandate.

This all leaves a very bitter taste in the mouth, where politicians can lie and mislead and seek to impose their will on the people without any democratically elected mandate whatsoever. Thankfully it is very likely the people will elect David Cameron as our Prime Minister next year and this awful cronyism will stop. We must however resist a 'President Blair' at every opportunity. If he were to be gifted that role, we must not recognise it until we the people have had a vote of the Lisbon Treaty and if we agree to that, a vote of the President and all the Commissioners.

The Worst Ever Recession Brought To You By The Worst Ever Prime Minister

Do you remember Gordon Brown saying...

"No more boom and bust"

"Only borrow to invest"

"Stability"

"Prudence"

"Britain is best placed to weather the Global economic crisis"

"Debt is low"

"The recession will be over by June"

"Saved the World"

Regarded by many as being the most cynically dishonest politician of modern times, Gordon Brown will be hoping that you will have forgotten all this.

Last night it was being touted that today's quarterly GDP figures would show a return to economic growth. I can picture it now, Gordon Brown would have been eagerly getting his speech ready for the media in order to tell us all how he had returned the Country to growth. As it happened, the figures showed the recession continuing and therefore in true Brown style whenever there is any bad news, the Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen.

The fact that France and Germany returned to economic growth some six months ago, makes the global recession argument that Gordon Brown has been using throughout, even less credible than it was before. We went in first and will come out last. Labour's recession will be felt for decades as they have bankrupted the Public Finances. It is only because the international markets are expecting a Conservative victory at the next general election, that has allowed Labour not to have to go cap-in-hand to the IMF to bail out the Country. If the markets thought Labour might win, then the credit will dry up and we become a basket case overnight.

Typically of Labour, it will be left to the next Conservative government to get Britain back on it's feet. This will involve very tough choices but we must never lose sight that tough choices are necessary because of what Gordon Brown and Labour have done. Amazingly here in Crawley, when we make the tough choices needed to serve our town as best as possible, it is the local Labour party who complain in the media, despite it being their party that causes the financial problems in the first place!

Make no mistake, this recession is the Gordon Brown recession and it is longer and deeper than any other British recession in modern history. That is his legacy from his ten years as Chancellor when he took us down a path of boom and bust, despite spending years telling us that he was ending exactly that. He has also indebted our children with over £1 trillion of debt to pay back through their lifetimes, and that will be Labour's lasting legacy of 13 years in power which will continue to hurt us all long after they are removed from office.

If you are under 40 like myself, you will probably have only remembered four Prime Ministers throughout your lifetime. They have been getting steadily worse with each one that passes. However, this one, James Gordon Brown, is by far the worst one we have suffered from and the long-term damage he is doing to our Country is bordering on the criminal.

A New Drought In Sussex?

I have a tendency to highlight issues here, before they become more widely publicised. This is potentially another issue which may start to gather momentum, if we don't have a sustained period of heavy rainfall soon. It has just started to rain outside, but whether this is the start of a prolonged wet spell, or just a night of rain, remains to be seen.

The graph is taken from Southern Water who publish rainfall figures and the reservoir levels of the ones that they manage. Currently the Bewl Water reservoir in Kent, which is the largest expanse of fresh water in South-East Engand, is only 48% full as of the 15th of October. There has been no real rain in the five days since. The environment section on their website is very informative.

http://www.southernwater.co.uk/

As you can see from the graph, six out of the last seven months have seen significantly below average rainfall. Only July has seen above average rainfall, but that is the month that sees the most evaporation and fast surface run-off from thunderstorms, so it is the least useful month for above average rainfall as far as managing water resources is concerned.

With 10 days to go in October, we have had less than half the average rainfall, and almost all of that fell in one day's very heavy rain, meaning that surface run-off would have been less beneficial for groundwater levels than say had it fallen over a wet three days.

There is often talk of flooding in the media but I believe we are on the verge of a drought unless we have a wetter than average winter. 70% of the water we use comes from groundwater and it is winter rainfall that the water companies depend on to replenish groundwater supplies.

At WSCC, we are very keen on conserving water resources (whether there is a drought on or not) and I remember us looking at this subject in a meeting of the Strategic Environmental Services Select Committee, some four years ago when we last had a drought. What pleases me is that WSCC is committed to being water wise, as well as other environmental issues such as seeking to reduce our CO2 emissions that contribution towards Climate Change. We are looking at WSCC and Climate Change (Our own emissions and leading and influencing others to limit theirs) in the morning at the SESS Committee. Given that we never seem to be too far away from droughts or floods locally, it is highly topical.

Crawley Liberal Democrats Surpass Labour

The picture is of the soundtrack to a very funny film which I have seen. Something else which has made me laugh is the election leaflets being put out by other parties here in Crawley.

A recent Labour leaflet in the Northgate Borough Council by-election has provided mild amusement with it's errors which I have already featured, but the Crawley Liberal Democrats have proven that what Labour can do well, the Lib Dems can do even better!

The following paragraph is an absolute beauty from the latest Liberal Democrat leaflet in Northgate, which is basically a cut and pasted rehashment of their first leaflet folded a different way (full of assertion and wild claims, but with no evidence or explanation).

"It's going to be a close fight between the Lib Dems in Northgate. Labour supporters are switching to the back Darren to keep the Tories out."

The first sentence is a classic Freudian slip given the reasons why this by-election is being held in the first place. The second sentence is particularly amusing as it is essentially a much larger error saying the exact opposite to what Labour said, where they originally made an error.

"Lib Dems are switching to Labour to keep the Tories Out"

Only the capital letter in the last word of that sentence is wrong, apart from the actual claim itself of course. However, Labour did have a much better effort in their same leaflet. Who can forget:

"In fact, the Northgate by-election is a really two horse race between Labour and Conservatives."

Despite this, Labour have been totally outshone by the Lib Dems. There is some hope for Labour as disappointingly from the Lib Dems, they do get the following paragraph grammatically correct in their leaflet, apart from the actual claim itself of course.

"Gordon Brown's Labour are out of the race in Northgate. Their supporters are switching to the Lib Dems"

With the Lib Dems getting a paragraph correct, Labour still have a fighting chance to win this comedy of errors contest. This is definitely a two horse race between Labour and the Lib Dems, and unless the Conservatives can write something that looks like Latin backwards, we will come a distant third.

On a slightly more serious note, this is what the three parties are saying locally in the Northgate by-election as to who it is between. Both Conservatives and Labour have used recent accurate evidence to support their claims, while the Liberal Democrats have used nothing but assertion.

Con say: Between Conservative and Labour

Lab say: Between Conservative and Labour

Lib say : Between Conservative and Lib Dem

When you look at it how I have laid it out, it becomes a little more obvious as to which parties it is likely to be between, and who the joker in the pack really is.

Crawley Black History Month Celebration

I am happy to admit I am rather boring, and going out for an evening's entertainment is something I rarely do. This is partly because I always seem to be busy and am never at a loose end for something to do.

However, I have to say that I really enjoyed the Black History Month celebration at the Hawth Theatre, here in Furnace Green this evening. I was very proud to represent Crawley Borough Council at this event, along with the Mayor and her Consort (Cllrs Brenda and Bob Burgess), and Cllr Lenny Walker who is the Cabinet Member for Leisure and Culture. Other guests from Crawley included Henry Smith as leader of West Sussex County Council, and Laura Moffatt the MP for Crawley.

Lenny gave an excellent speech from the stage, which featured about him being the only Black Councillor in Crawley and in the whole of West Sussex. He asked me just before the show started about if he was the only Black Councillor throughout the whole of West Sussex, to which I said I was fairly certain that he was. He quite rightly said to the audience that this needs to change, which it does, but he shares my view that what is known in the USA as affirmative action, is not the way to go. No discrimination, no barriers, and merit is the way to go.

Speaking of achievement through merit, and of the USA, the election of Barack Obama as the first Black US President featured heavily throughout the evening. Despite myself personally being more inclined towards the Republicans than the Democrats in US politics, I recognise and welcome the milestone that the election of President Obama has created, and the sense of hope and achievement, that many Black and disadvantaged people around the world now feel in that a Black person from humble beginnings can become the most powerful person in the World. As a Conservative, I particularly welcome someone from a very humble background breaking through all sorts of barriers in life, in order to achieve a great deal.

The special guest of honour at the event was Kezia Obama, who is the step-mother of President Obama. She is originally from Kenya but now lives here in the UK. I was very pleased to meet her and welcome her to Crawley, and she appeared to enjoy the event very much. The picture is of Mrs Obama and my colleague Henry Smith, enjoying the performance.

I have to confess that History is not my best subject, and that my knowledge of Black History could be much better. I am therefore going to take it upon myself to find out more. This is not out of any kind of political correctness nonsense, but because I believe that a full picture is always better than an incomplete picture, and that the contribution that all people make should be valued.

Labour Throw Their Toys Out Of The Pram

Like a petulant child who can't accept discipline, the Labour party have reacted very badly to the Sun's seeing sense of changing their allegiance to the Conservative party.

The sight of an left-wing union leader ripping up a copy of the Sun on stage at the Labour party conference, with fists in the air from the cheering mob assembled, gives an insight into the unpleasantness that lays below the surface. How would they behave towards people who say they are switching from Labour to Conservative? I am also hearing that nasty adverts, smearing the Sun, started appearing on Google today.

Labour deserve everything that is coming to them, and I think I will buy the Sun again today to show my support for their stance against Labour, as well as for the viciousness that Labour have attacked the Sun with, for having the courage to stand up to them.

Reading the Sun yesterday, having not read it for nearly 20 years was an interesting experience, but that deserves a posting all on it's own.