One of my first memories of Michael Jackson who died of a heart attack this evening…
Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger summed it up as follows:
“Today, the world has lost one of the most influential and iconic figures in the music industry. From his performances with the Jackson 5, to the premiere of the ‘moonwalk’ and ‘Thriller,’ Michael was a pop phenomenon who never stopped pushing the envelope of creativity. Though there were serious questions about his personal life, Michael was undoubtedly a great entertainer and his popularity spanned generations and the globe…”
The Reading Post have a video of Labour MP for Reading West, Martin Salter, hard at work during the election for the new speaker this afternoon, it’s a hard job but someone’s got to do it:
One of the different sides of being a Councillor is being invited to a wide variety of events throughout the year, this evening I’ve just come back from a very interesting and informative presentation by the Royal Air Force.
The presentation was an overview of the wide variety of work that the modern RAF undertake, be it from flying the state of the art Typhoon (Eurofighter) to the medical role in evacuating injured troops back to the UK and to the role of RAF reservists.
It certainly gave me a sense of the enormous debt of gratitude and pride that we owe our troops serving around the world. The only slight downside is that despite all Councillors being invited, nobody from Labour or the Liberals turned up, luckily some of my fellow Councillors and members of our local business community did turn up in force to make the evening a great success.
The Lib Dems and Labour seem to have given up across large swathes of Reading East, with no tellers or activity spotted at any polling stations in Caversham, Peppard, Mapledurham, Thames, Abbey and Park wards (possibly more, I didn’t visit every polling station). Probably not a surprise for Labour, however the Lib Dems have been making a lot in the local press recently about fighting and winning the General election in Reading East. I can only assume two things, they made a strategic error or they don’t have enough supporters to cover significant parts of the constituency. I even had a complaint while outside a polling station yesterday about lack of activity from anybody other than the Conservatives, they told me they were being given very little choice and would like other parties to at least give an impression they are interested, they even suggested that I should deliver a few of the other parties leaflets at the same time.
Obviously nationally Labour are being decimated up and down the country, but the big surprise is both Devon and Cornwall making a straight switch from the Lib Dems to the Conservatives. The Libs were expected to take a lot of Labour voters, but instead they have either switched to Conservative, stayed at home or voted for one of the minor parties. There are however a few up sides for the Lib Dems, scraping a win in a Woodley Town Council by-election and the Government collapsing so fast, thus deflecting press attention from the poor results nationally.
I wonder how they will spin this one?
Update: Nick Clegg has responded on Newsnight to the days results with some defected supporters in the background “it’s part of a complete transformation of city politics from Labour to the Liberal Democrats, in my view that’s a side of things to come”. What results has he been looking at?!?
Word also reaches me that there were no Lib Dems in Kentwood, Norcot, Tilehurst in Reading West, although there were Labour tellers in Norcot.
Today started off as usual, I walked down to Amersham Road to hold a ward surgery in the ReadiBus outside the Community Centre, fully expecting it be uneventful.
At about 11.45 the resident I was speaking to pointed out a large amount of smoke opposite in Ian Mikardo way, so I quickly hotfooted it around to see what was happening to be confronted by a fire beginning to take hold in a house. A quick call to 999 confirmed that many people had already called the fire brigade. I managed to establish that nobody was in the house, and that a young family and a baby were not inside. By this time a large group of people had gathered, so made a further 999 call to ask for police assistance in getting the crowds to a safe distance.
The first of many fire engines arrived within around five minutes of my call, and the police also arrived shortly afterwards. Sadly, despite their quick arrival, it was too late to save the house, which was now having windows smashing and the roof beginning to collapse.
The Evening Post have this afternoon reported this as suspected arson, so I would urge anybody who knows anything to call the Police non-emergency number on 0845 8 505 505 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
This evening I received the following email from David Cameron on MPs expenses:
Today was a busy day. Trust in politics has been eroded so much over the last week that I knew we needed to act fast to start setting things right. I began by meeting individual members of the Shadow Cabinet. We went through those claims that have caused concern, and they agreed to pay them back. There is a genuine desire to recognise and respond to the public anger.
Next I met the Shadow Cabinet as a whole and told them the immediate action I’m going to ask all my MPs to take. All expenses must be published online; you can’t ‘flip’ your second home to make more money; if you sell a home on which the taxpayer has been making mortgage interest payments, you have to pay Capital Gains Tax; and any claims on furniture, household goods, food - all those things we’ve read about - are banned.
After that I met the Executive of the 1922 Committee and then the whole of the Parliamentary Party. I went through the new rules in detail and told them about the key proposal for a Scrutiny Panel - including someone completely independent from the Party - to go over all excessive claims and see whether they need to be paid back. I had to be very clear about this: if they don’t co-operate with the Scrutiny Panel, they can’t continue to be Conservative MPs.
And it’s not just those in Parliament who need to understand this mission. It’s also those who aspire to be. Every single Conservative candidate has got to sign up to this new way of doing politics. They need to know that working in Parliament is a great privilege - one that must never be abused again.
All this is about being the change we seek. If we want responsibility in our society and thrift in our government, we’ve got to live by those values ourselves.
Other highlights included attending an event with John Redwood MP, attending Conservative Spring Forum to watch speeches by David Cameron, George Osbourne, Dan Hannan, a meal with Boris Johnson and watching WBC Councillor Paul Swaddle getting elected to the party board. I also attended Reading Beer and Cider Festival to hear the struggles of local pubs, the festival is on until Sunday so pop on down.
Today the Government announced new rules on the rights of Gurkhas to settle in this country. I’d been looking forward to this day, sadly I was shocked and bitterly disappointed by the Governments announcement that means that some 90% will not be able to settle.
Gurkhas have proudly fought for the rights of this country, most recently in the Falklands, Afghanistan and Iraq, and some have paid the ultimate price. We owe them an enormous debt of gratitude, and today’s decision was an insult to every Gurkha that has fought around the world.
There has been a cross party campaign in Reading, including a motion passed at Council which was attended by around 100 Gurkhas, to call on the Prime Minister to support the plight of Reading’s Gurkhas. It’s sad that Labour MP Martin Salter has appeared in so many press releases and photos over the past year, but was unable to convince his own Government that allowing them to settle was not only right decision, but a morally correct decision.
I was pleased to see the announcement from Shadow Immigration Minister Damian Green MP:
The Government is trying to evade the effects of a very clear court judgment. This is an insult to the Gurkhas. We have said all along that the Government should not try to challenge the courts and they would have done better to listen.
Update: You can sign the petition by clicking here.
Joanna Lumley sums it up very well in the video below:
