David Cameron will be travelling to Reading West to conduct a special health version of one of his town hall style meetings on 8th January.
Unusually for politicians there are no scripts and no planted questions or planted audience members, and David Cameron usually makes the point that he takes the questions one at a time, rather than the usual politician trick of taking three at a time and not answering a difficult one.
The meetings are open to anyone of any political persuasion, although seats will obviously be constrained to the size of the venue, for information on booking visit the Cameron Direct page on the Reading West Conservatives website. If you are unable to attend, or want to watch previous ones they are available here.
And just to prove there are no planted questions, take a look at this one:
Last week the BBC quietly launched a new service called Democracy Live. It includes live and archived feeds from Parliament, the Lords, Select Committees, European Parliament and many more, as well as the ability to look up your local MP and MEP.
I had a demonstration of the site at Conservative Spring Forum earlier this year and was very impressed. At first glance it looks like just a set of video feeds amalgamating what is going on in various political locations. However the power is in it’s voice-to-text search engine, enabling you to search for what was spoken rather than having to sit through hours of video to find the bit you want.
Reading Buses are experimenting with cut priced fares on the Number 27 which runs from Amersham Road to Reading Station. The fares will be reduced from £1.70 to £1.00 between Monday 2nd November through to January 24th 2010.
This Saturday - 31st Oct - I will be holding my monthly ward surgery with my fellow Caversham Councillors in the Readibus in Montague Street (layby opposite the school) from 10am - 12 noon.
If you’ve got any problems then feel free to pop on down and we will do our best to help you out. If you can’t make it then feel free to hit the contact button at the top of this page.
After yesterdays post on dodgy bar charts, it’s time to look into one of the articles of the lovely Lib Dem leaflet.
The most ridiculous is this one:
Shocking, what nasty Tories. One slight problem the vast majority of the article is factually incorrect. Extremely worrying since there have been Lib Dem Councillors at every meeting involving this.
Lets look into two of the claims:
“… Reading Conservatives withdrew their support from a community campaign and instead backed Labour plans to hand the site over to a tall hotel development by the Thames” - False. Labour recommended to Cabinet the hotel option, however this decision was “called in” by Conservatives forcing Labour to rethink it’s plans. (See this article in the Reading Post for more details)
“Labour have backed the hotel plans throughout”. No they haven’t - thanks to the Conservative call in Labour did a u-turn at a later Cabinet meeting and now back the community option. (See this article in the Reading Post for more details).
The Liberal Democrats have yet to learn that people respond to positive articles about what they would do if they were to get into power, rather than pointless attacks against Conservatives and Labour.
Reading Buses is conducting a consultation on proposed changes to routes that they intend to implement on January 11th 2010. The routes in Caversham that have changes are number 22, 24 and 27. You only have until the 4th November to send feedback and can find out more information on the Reading Buses website by clicking here.
This lovely Liberal Democrat bar chart has been doing the rounds in Caversham (and no doubt in the rest of Reading and Wokingham as well). It quite clearly tells us that the Liberal Democrats are in with a chance being economical with the truth.
A couple of questions come out of this chart:
The bar chart quite clearly says 40%, 29%, 21%, so why is it that the Lib Dem bar appears to be completely out of proportion with the Conservative and Labour ones?
Why are they using 2007 local election results? I can understand not using the 2009 European election results as the Libs scraped in with 4th place just beating UKIP and being squeezed significantly by the Conservatives in wards where they have Councillors. But we did have local elections in 2008 did we not, or is my memory deceiving me?
It all reminds me of this bar chart (based on on a selected house in Reading, not my own!):
Update: The Lib Dems have now admitted the bar chart was a “cartoon representation”. So that’s alright then, I wonder if they’ll admit the articles are also a “cartoon representation”.
The police have launched a new national website, http://maps.police.uk, that enables you to look up crime statistics. Caversham Ward can be found under ‘Caversham Lower’ and can be compared to other areas of Reading or beyond.
The maps shows the Caversham Lower area shows we are average on all crime types compared to the Thames Valley region, but above the England and Wales average on robbery and burglary.
You can also click on ‘Find out more’ to see who are local policing team are as well as details of where you can meet them if you have any concerns.
Many of you will have noticed the tennis courts in Christchurch Meadows have been closed for a few weeks for refurbishment. The good news is they have now reopened and are free of charge during the winter months (October to April).
Today I received this update from the Council:
The tennis courts have been completely overlaid with a new tarmac surface and then painted in green (light green outer area and dark green playing area with white lines). In addition, 37 linear metres of damaged chainlink fencing alongside the footpath has been replaced with a new green PVC coated chainlink fence of the same height. A new gate and path has also been installed along this section of fencing to allow access to people in wheelchairs. The remaining chainlink has been improved and sections of straining wires repaired/replaced where appropriate. New tennis posts, sockets and nets have also been included as part of this project.
David Cameron will be travelling to Reading West to conduct a special health version of one of his town hall style meetings on 8th January.
