Adventure before Dementia
As many of you will be aware, I am a recovering politician who is liable to the occasional relapse. One such relapse has occurred recently, and as a result I am now standing for County Councillor in Kings Heath in Northampton, as a Green Councillor. So here we go again, adventure before dementia.
There are so many things wrong with the present County Council, that I couldn't resist having a crack.
I have already appointed a new campaign manager, Captain Francis, who is already getting things moving for me. Francis has a great deal of managing experience, and is really on the ball.
One of the first things I would be campaigning for is to get the lights switched back on again. This is something that affects everyone in the community, whether they live in the town or country.
Something else that needs attention is the way the big supermarket companies are relentlessly moving into small shopping areas and housting small shopkeepers. This is happening in towns and even large villages, where long-established shops have had to close against unfair competition. Once established as the only shop in the area, these mini-supermarkets can begin to raise their prices, and there is nobody left to compete with them. Talking of supermarkets, I am a bit notorious for being escorted out of them locally, usually for trying to photograph their rubbishy 'fresh' produce with my camera or mobile phone. I usually post the pictures on Twitter, where I have quite a following: https://twitter.com/eamonnfitzy and photos here: https://twitter.com/eamonnfitzy/media/grid
Bus Station Loser
To give them their due, the local Conservative Borough Council have tried to clean and jolly up the Town Centre a bit, and giving us a reduction in rent has helped many struggling market traders. But in moving the bus station they have gone a bridge too far. It will be too small, it will cause chaos, and it will lose them the next borough election, just as surely as wrecking the Market lost the Lib-Dems the election last time. When you make big changes like this, where everyone can see it and experience it, you have to look very carefully at what you are doing before you start, and proceed accordingly. Politicians rarely do this; they get carried away with an overpowering sense of their own standing and importance, and fail to see what is obvious to almost everyone else in the community. We are back to the Emporer's New Clothes, I suppose.
War Monster
I see the war monster Blair has been raising his ugly head recently, letting it be known that he would be available if the New Labour Party wanted to take him on in order to completely fubar their chances in the next election. At a price, no doubt. They are hardly a dynamic outfit as it is, and they have precious little chance of winning after the blunders of their last term in office, so to pay Blair to take them down further would be the depths of stupidity. Hasn't Blair done well as a middle-east Peace Envoy? Not a war to be seen out there now, is there? What a chancer the man is. If he was a vegetable I would rate him about the same as some of Tesco's brussells sprouts I have seen; traces of green fading into sickly yellow, and rotten around the edges...
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter, I generally tweet every day or so, sometimes more if the mood takes me: https://twitter.com/eamonnfitzy
To read all about the local Green Party, and why I joined them, see here: http://northants.greenparty.org.uk/news/fitzy-goes-green.html