komadori’s green corner

Apparently, Councillor Glaholm has had a little dig at one of the ministers from the national red nest. Not quite the ‘grilling’ it was headlined as, but certainly stronger stuff than either of the local MPs have been heard to say.

Ms Kelly: We have a Government initiative to build more homes and £60,000 homes for first-time buyers will be available in Swindon.
Cllr Glaholm: She may have said affordable homes costing £60,000 were coming to Swindon, but I think that’s rubbish. Where are they? I can’t see any.

Either a piece of clever politicking, just before polling day, or a rather rash outburst. Difficult to tell.

With Swindon being one of the trial areas for internet and telephone voting, I have this evening cast my vote online in what is otherwise Thursday’s local election. Rather surprisingly, there still seemed to be an option for delivering a spoilt ballot paper, as one could select too many candidates which, the site warned, would result in none of the votes being counted… not that I tested this functionality, so I can’t say whether it would actually have allowed this.

Having tried it once, I’ll be returning to conventional voting in future years if possible. Voting at home just doesn’t have the same sense of occasion, doesn’t have the feel of ‘doing democracy’ that going to a polling station, standing in a wooden booth and putting a cross in a box with a blunt, short stumpy pencil does.

A recent comment from John Armitt, the incoming chairman of one of the Research Councils, has caught my attention.

It amazed me that for the simple job of keeping two bits of iron in place, there were seven different ways of doing it… if there is a task to be done, we have to decide what is the best way of doing it, and apply that nationally.

I guess from that he’ll have little patience with any of his minions trying to derail (ahem) the setting-up of a Shared Service Centre for the seven Research Councils.

The blue nest have finally popped something through my letterbox that tells me who their candidate is. Apparently she’s my ‘Only Local Choice’. If anything maybe too local. I’ve previously noted where the main candidates have located their nests. What’s not clear is whether the one local egg will stretch her wings much beyond the Broadgreen area. The Railway Village, Shrivenham Road, Westcott, and Rushy Platt areas are part of Central ward too.

Strange too, that, although in an area of Swindon that is graced with one of the blue nest’s In Touch websites, it’s the only one not to get a mention on their leaflet. Perhaps because it features the slightly less local Councillor Dickinson, who seems to have done a runner to West Swindon for re-election (where he’ll be even less local), and the none too local at all Councillor Darker.

The Bugle Coaching Inn in Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight does an excellent pie ’n’ pint. Highly recommended.

It’s so nice to see so much independent thought from the candidates across Swindon in the local elections. For example, from the red nest, from Highworth to central Swindon, via Abbey Meads and Haydon Wick, compare and contrast. Just one four-or-five line paragraph of biography, then identical political statements. Are the needs of central Swindon really the same as rural Highworth? The blue nest is not much better. From Western ward through Gorsehill & Pinehurst to Penhill, all three candidates claim

I am community minded and as a Councillor will always put local residents first and be a strong voice only excepting the very best for residents – no excuses…. I have the energy, enthusiasm and drive to be a first class Councillor.

An interesting choice of words. Candidates Watton, Gallavin and Tomlinson, all committed to not giving Swindon the best: ‘a strong voice only excepting the very best for residents’. Proof-reading, what an undervalued profession. ’Tis slightly refreshing to see that their central Swindon candidate thought of something different to say. How about the yellow nest? Wow, they each have something different to say… or nothing to say at all.

I’m not particularly interested in the arguments over weekly vs fortnightly non-recyclable rubbish collections, nor convinced either way on the arguments. However, I am worried about the sanity of one of our local councillors, if he actually said what he’s reported to have said.

Mr Wren said that new wheelie bins being rolled out across Swindon in September will be airtight so smells cannot escape and animals cannot get in.

Airtight? If no smells could escape, then as waste rots and decomposes, the gas that’s given off would have nowhere to go. The bins would build up a little bit of pressure. Leave them long enough and they might explode (and before anyone accuses me of being alarmist, we’re talking little ‘pop’ type explosions here, not big bangs). It would certainly make the dustmen’s job exciting.

The latest little glossy leaflet from the red nest fulfils komadori’s prediction for the election. In a strange reversal of political reality, it claims law-and-order to be the responsibility of the local council and waste and recycling collections to be the responsibility of national government. In a strange reversal of economic reality, it claims that ‘house conversions have continued unabated into unwanted flats’ yet of those same unwanted flats ‘The high rents have driven people into multiple-occupancy and overcrowding.’ Prices rising for an unwanted commodity…. Novel.
Most bizarre though are some of the implications about their candidate.

With over 26 years experience of community representation as a councillor I know when a community has been let down.

Would that be through personal experience of letting commun­ities down yourself? Perhaps the reason why you were unelected a few years ago?

Derique is a former Mayor with over 26 years experience as a Councillor in Swindon.
If the Tories were truly ‘In Touch’ why have they not sorted things out?

Err… and why didn’t you sort them out in your previous 26 years as a councillor, for much of which the red nest was in control?

As as a fine example of layout editing, in this glossy leaflet, below a photograph of a grimacing grinning Derique

They are happy to spend lots of your Council Tax money on glossy brochures full of cheesy smiling faces.

Someone take that pistol away quick, before they shoot themselves in the foot.

At least they’re telling me about their candidate, even if it’s not believable. So far communications from the red nest outnumber those from the blue nest four-to-one, and there hasn’t been a single chirp from the yellow nest yet.

A local school has just resumed serving school dinners after a gap of two years. Apparently they can afford to provide them themselves now but could not do so when the council provided the meals.

Haydonleigh Primary School shut its kitchen in 2005 because of the spiralling costs of buying in meals through the borough council.
But, with a grant from the Government’s Jamie Oliver Fund to provide better ingredients, equipment and training for school cooks, the school decided to bring in a kitchen manager and assistant of their own….
“The school couldn’t afford to keep the kitchen going with meals from the borough council”….
Although the price of meals has gone up, from £1.65 three years ago, to £1.90, Mrs Stevens feels the price reflects the better quality meals on offer and the improvements made to the kitchen.

So let’s be clear, the price has gone up by 7% per year (I make 2005 to 2007 a gap of two years, not three) and they are getting an extra subsidy, but providing the meals is affordable now whereas is wasn’t before. I hope these people aren’t teaching economics at this school.

Seems their grasp of nutrition is not wonderful either.

“I’m trying to make it with healthier brown flour, and there’s nothing really wrong with pizza if you can do that,” she said. “And I’ve hidden vegetables in the sauce.”

There’s only ‘nothing really wrong with pizza’ if you forget about the fat that the cheese contains. A school of organically grown fat children is on the way.

The TransWilts Express (Stagecoach appear not to do hyphens) is to get some new buses. Being an ‘express’, they’ll be luxury coaches then? Err… no. Double-decker buses actually. Route 49 may start off at a fair gallop from Swindon across the Marlborough Downs to Avebury (where Eric is no longer behind the shop counter to disorient tourists with his american accent), but then slows to a canter to take a detour to the well known citadel of Bishops Cannings before heading into Devizes. Then a trot through Seend Cleeve and Hilperton before reaching Trowbridge, a mere one hour and twenty three minutes and thirty miles after leaving Swindon. A stunning twenty miles per hour! More Trans-Wilts Trundle than TransWilts Express.

Still, with 147,780 passengers per year, there’ll be plenty of conversations you can listen in on to keep yourself entertained.