More A606 Closures in Rutland

There are more road closures on A606 this month, this time between Hambleton junction as you leave Oakham and Barnsdale Hill as approach Stamford. This closure is to allow for essential resurfacing work to take place which will take 3 weeks to complete according to Rutland County Council.
 

The road will be closed from 10th November until 28th November 2014 and will not reopen at weekends. A diversion will be in place, which will see local traffic routed via the C8324 Barnsdale Avenue and B668 for the duration of the closure (as shown in the map above). 

Due to weight restrictions on some of the smaller roads in the county, heavy goods vehicles will be diverted via the C8326 Manton to Edith Weston road and A6003 (as shown in the map above).

The closure also will effect buses using the road and people using the number 9 service between Oakham, Stamford and Peterborough should expect some delay in there journey, although at the time of writing it is not clear to the extent of this delay from the information provided by the council. Note there could be a knock on affect to the number 19 service between Oakham and Nottingham because of the why the two service work together.  

This is the second major closure of the A606 this month. Currently the road is closed just north of Langham for similar road works and will remain closed until this coming weekend. 

Christmas comes early at Tescos

It amazes me how every year that Tescos in Oakham starts Christmas before they have even put the fireworks away. This year the run up started today and the Christmas tree appeared at the entrance to the store and hanging signs in the store itself.

Guess it was a good bet they would start the Christmas festivities soon, after all they started selling tins of Christmas chocolates and Terry's chocolate oranges back in early October. Every year they seem to sneak in the Christmas stuff earlier and earlier hope people will be tempted to buy.

Next the shops will be playing wall to wall Christmas music and the poor sales staff will have to endure the looped tapes over and over again, until soon they are so fed up with Christmas they can't wait for it to be over, and some customers will feel the same way soon.

Personally I just wish they would let us get at least through fireworks night before they start on Christmas. In fact mid November would be a better time, with just about 5 weeks to go before the main event. To me, the more the shops extend the run up to Christmas the more they spoil the time of year. 

Lucy turns 7

It has been a long long time since I saw my little princess, Lucy. Far far too long to be without her charming smile, beautiful blue eyes and her massive big hugs. I love her and always will. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her.

Today is her birthday and she turned seven this year. Every time I get to Halloween I remember the  events that lead up to her birth and that moment I pushed my little girl into the sunlight streaming though the hospital window. It is a time I will never forget. I miss her terribly and just hope that one day I will be able to see her again. 

If you ever read this Lucy, just let me say I hope you had a wonderful day and remember that Daddy loves and always will. I will never forget the time we had together and the smiles and the fun. God bless you little princess.

Subway to open in Oakham

It been announced that Oakham is just about to get it's own Subway franchise to add to all the coffee shops, sandwich shops and restaurants we already have in the High Street. Soon the only place you will be able to buy anything but a lunchtime solution will be the charity shops in the town. Question is how long before they start selling tea, coffee and cake like help the aged in Melton.

Rutland is currently one of the few places in the country that you won't find a McDonald's or a KFC, but after the announcement of a Subway franchise one wonders how long before they both open a restaurant in Oakham. My guess is by the end of 2016 we will have both in the town. 

The sad thing is franchises take money out of the local economy while locally run sandwich and coffee shops do more to support it, and it be those local shops that suffer. In terms of jobs the coffee and sandwich produce on only low paid and unskilled work, normally undertaken by young workers.

One has to wonder how many coffee shops and sandwich shops the local economy can support in Rutland before we see a new type of death in the High Street. These type of operations require a high throughput of customers to make a profit, and if you can't get the footfall then these businesses will close.

Halloween

Halloween goes back to the time when the Celts parts of the UK and parts of Northern France. Back then November 1 was their New Year's Day. They believed that the night before the New Year, 31st October, was a time when the living and the dead came together.

The Celtic new year was eventually taken over by the Christian church and they named it All Saints Day or All Hallows. This was a special holy day to honour the saints and other people who died for their religion. The night before All Hallows was called Hallows Eve. Later the name was changed to Halloween.

Many people of that time also believed that the spirits of the dead would visit the earth on Halloween and that the evil spirits would cause problems or hurt them. So it became a tradition that on the night Halloween people would dress up with costumes that looked like ghosts or other evil creatures. They thought if they dressed like that, the spirits would think they were also dead and not harm them.

Originally the people in Europe would carry lanterns made from turnips, however the influence of America reaches far and now in the United Kingdom we use pumpkins. These we carve and by putting candles inside them we create lanterns. The other idea that has come over from America is trick and treating, turning something that was once serious into something that is fun. 

Popular Posts

Given all that has been going on the last month with the Aldi Store planning application I thought it might be good to look at the most popular posts this month as provided by Blogger itself, all be it one day short of the end of the month. Now I take such things as the stats provided by Blogger with a large pinch of salt, as the detail in the stats is very lacking.

Blogger basically only gives you the number of page views for individual pages and a web browser and operating system percentages over the lifetime of the blog, however it does allow you to look at the top ten posts for a month and these, this month, were:

1. Aldi Plans for Oakham get Approval
2. Police investigate Rutland County Council
3. Politics is a dirty word in Rutland 
4. Social Media Campaign to get Aldi to Oakham 
5. Aldi Plans to be Torpedoed Tomorrow 
6. Rutland County Council Election Results 
7. Not to late to have your say - Aldi Oakhm 
8. NHS Management tell staff have "No to Mugs" 
9. Harrington School gets the go ahead
10. Lucy turns Four

Given the local interest and the lack of reporting in the local press and the immediacy of the internet, the interest in the local politics comes without little surprise that the Aldi planning application comes up high on the list. The only one that did come as a surprise is the last one, Lucy turns Four, which dates back to an event that is nearly three years. Since the start of the year appeared in the top ten posts of all time and it would be interesting to find out why.

Other posts that seem to get a lot of readers are those to do with politics in general and the posts looking at the posts made this month, especially the post about the UKIP MEP and the massage parlour. Seems everyone likes aa bit of scandal.

A606 closed next week

According to the Rutland Council website the the A606 will be shut from its junction with Whissendine Road, just outside Langham, to the Leicestershire county boundary, between Sunday, 2nd November, and Friday, 7th November, next week.

It will reopen for the weekend on Saturday 8th November, but two-way traffic lights will be in place on Monday, November 10 to allow the central reflectors to be put in place.

While the road is close for repairs a diversion will be put into place that takes traffic via the A6003, A47 and B6047 from just outside Oakham to Melton (see map). 

I'm sure, although details have yet to be released, that there will be local diversions in place, but HGV drivers should be aware that all the non classified roads in Rutland have weight limits on them and so they should only use the indicated diversion. 

People taking the main diversion shown in the map should allow at least 20 minutes if not longer for their journey.

Strange Diversions

There have been some strange bus diversion of late due the new policy of closing complete sections of roads to do resurfacing rather to introduce traffic lights and keeping a single carriageway open. This has been causing a number of problems for the local bus drivers especially down some of the country roads that are no more than a single track without passing places.

The problem for the bus drivers is that the average bus on number 19 route, between Oakham and Nottingham is over 40 foot long and weighs in at over 5 tons. It can't get round corners like a family car and has a non-existent turning circle, so getting it to turn in some of the junctions on some of the single track roads is impossible. 

With the coming road closure for maintenance work in Whissendine the number 19 bus is being sent on 5 mile plus diversion down single track roads. This is just at the point where it is highly probably it will meet another number 19 bus coming in the opposite direction. The last time Rutland Country Council did something similar that is exactly what happened and both buses struggled to get past each other on a single track road. 

I'm not sure who plans the diversion routes but they should try driving these routes in a bus before they put them in place. Then may be they would realise what they are asking the bus drivers to do on some of the country roads we have in Rutland. 

Finally a failing of Rutland County Council is to produce and publicise details of the routes in advance. There is little on there website and there is no maps of the diversions. This needs sorting and the diversions need to be published well in advance.

It is going to be a interesting trip for the next few days, with the drivers having to drive at speed to make up  for the time lost in the 5 mile diversion, I just hope they don't meet another number 19 along the way coming in the opposite direction.

Success or Otherwise?

With the pulling out of British Forces in Afghanistan many questions will be ask about if the 13 years of conflict has been, as David Cameron claims, a "Success" or something else. What will be needed, if the campaign is to be looked at properly, is some kind of independent review body which comes up with a number of measure that can be used to evaluate the success of the conflict. This will give us an understand of the approach we took and if it was the right one. Of course the real measure of success will be one that the historians come up with in say a hundred years time, when most of the official documents will be available to them and not locked behind closed doors.

The back ground to the conflict stems from the 9/11 attack on the twin towers. US President George W Bush demanded the Taliban hand over any leaders of al-Qaeda and the Taliban did not immediately comply but called for talks, but President Bush said there would be "no negotiations" and he ordered US Forces to attacked the Taliban controlled country on October 7th 2001. The reason we went into Afghanistan was to support US forces as part of a US-led coalition which toppled the ruling Taliban, which we did. Then we remained there for the past 13 years with the final camp in Helmand province lowering the Union jack for the last time today.

Estimates of the cost of the war to the UK economy vary according to what site you read with estimates of £19bn from the BBC while other national papers suggest the cost is twice that amount, with even the MOD admitting £25bn had been spent in the first 12 years. No real figure will ever probably exist but even using the conservative figure of around £19bn that represents nearly £1.5bn per year since the war started and we joined forces with the US back in 2001 on some American pipe dream. That is enough save to have save the Air Fleet arm and RAF Harrier fleet, a couple of Aircraft Carriers and countless front line jobs, if we had cut our losses and withdrawn sooner or had never gone to war in the first place.

In the 13 years the British Forces lost some 453 troops, with the some 2,600 troops being wounded and requiring long term care. Further to this it is estimated that there will be in excess of 5,000 troops that suffer some kind of psychological injury and will require care. Given some 140,000 troops served over the 13 year period of the war the number of deaths and causalities seems relatively low compared to other conflicts, however given the nature of the war you could ask if going into the region to back the US was the right move back in 2001.

Some experts claim that Helmand is no more stable now than when thousands of British troops were deployed there in 2006. Opium production that fell under the Taliban, is increasing, fuelling corruption and the coffers of warlords. In fact if you look through the history of the region any military action in the region has never been successful and the country has gone back to being the way it was before the action took place. Of course it hoped that the installation of a democratic government will change the region, however this will soon become corrupt and some popular uprising will occur that topples it and replaces it with some kind totalitarian rule. It is also believed by many ordinary British soldiers that idea of that the Afghan armed forces can secure the province is little short of ridiculous.

In the short term others argue there has been an improvement in the country with girls going to school and increasing access to college education. Western values and ideals have been instilled in some of the population and there has been investment infrastructure projects, although some claim a lot has been spent on  development consultant fees rather than those Afghans who need it most. What the country will need is a strong government and leader, if it can find one has yet to be seen. At the moment it is likely that a new war will break out between the drug barons and the government and with arms supplied by the international arms companies in abundance it will be a bloody war. And of course the Taliban will still be there undefeated fighting in the hills and carrying out hit and run raids on the cities.

We were told this was a war to stop al-Qaeda after the attack of the twin towers in 2001 who US believed had planned that attack from Afghanistan, who it claims was operating freely under the Taliban regime. This was achieved and al-Qaeda was driven out of the country, but only to set up training camps elsewhere and we now have a new set or radical Islamic organisations threatening the world. The action over the last 13 years hasn't made the world a safer place, in fact it is more dangerous now and there is no reasons why al-Qaeda won't return to train in Afghanistan, again paid for by the drug barons who want to protect there crops.

The US lead action hasn't changed a thing, in fact military action is probably the wrong approach altogether and it would have been better use the intelligence services to identify and take out al-Qaeda rather than invading a country were nobody has ever won a war. In fact not a single al-Qaida operative or 'international terrorist' who could conceivably have threatened the United Kingdom is recorded as having been killed Helmand province.

So why were we there so long and will it all be worth it in 15 years time, are the questions I keep asking myself? I hope so, for I have a lot respect of the armed forces in the UK, but do question the leadership of those forces by our political leaders and if we made the right move in the first place. I feel that maybe we stayed to long and risked the lives of British forces. We also spent too much on a war that could never be won.

We aren't the military nation we were back in 2001 and the armed forces have decimated my Conservative spending cuts. In fact the Conservative government have done more damage to our military capability than the Taliban could ever have done.

Mother of all tax cuts

Little toff boy Georgie Osborn was having a bad day, the people fed up with cuts and the hardship of zero percent pay rises take to the streets demanding cuts to taxes to make sure they have the money to feed their families. Soon he though Prime Minister David posh boy Cameron would get cross with him and send to visit the chief whip for a right old public school boy thrashing!

Mindful that within the next twelve months there is going to be an election and realising that their polices haven't done all they promised the little toff boy Georgie Osborn listened to the people, well one person, Boris buffon Johnson.

Taking his advice, he came up with a cunning plan that would save the Government and get them a second term in office. Carefully, after writing his plan down, he put it in his red box and left number 11 and went off to announce his plan to his party.

The faithful were mainly grateful and his leader, David "posh boy" Cameron would have been interested if it wasn't for the lady in the little conservative blue number and long legs encased in sheer nylon stockings. 

His cunning plan was tax cut that would benefit millions of people throughout the land and bring a smile to their faces as the Sunday Newspapers hit the mat, well for those that can afford newspapers at least. 

When the people heard the news there were mass celebrations in cities and towns across the nation, for at last after years of suffering the people were going to be better off. Little tofff boy George Osborn was the hero of the nation.

Even the Prime Minister, David "posh boy" Cameron was quids in and a happy man who could smile at last after years of frowning and started telling the world how his party had given something back to its people. They knew they couldn't lose an election now.

And then he awoke from his dream, to find the world was still as grey as it had been the day before and when he looked into his red box all he found was that he had cut the price of a driving licence. What a silly little toff boy he had been thinking such a move could ever been seen a real tax cut that the people would welcome.  

Maybe the money they are giving back can hire an extra causality doctor or two.

Rutland Times improves local politics reporting

Having a look at the Rutland Times on-line this morning it was nice to see an improvement in their reporting of political events in the country. As I mentioned earlier in the month it look like politics was a dirty word in Rutland given what actually gets published in the local press.
 

So a big well done to the Rutland Times for taking local politics a bit more seriously than you have done of late. Just too things to do now and that is put more of the letters they receive on line and so investigative journalism would be good on what really going at Rutland County Council. Clearly with the council threatening to take three of it councillors to court and talk of police investigations over planning, something is going on one way or another.

More Retro Gaming - Tomb Raider Chronicles

With the half holidays coming up for many, if they haven't already started then it time to find something to keep the little and big ones assumed on those rainy and windy autumn days.

One thing you can  do that doesn't cost the world is either dig out some of those old games you haven't played in ages or take a trip to town and have a look around the local charity shops for old computer games, which normally cost about a pound depending on the shop you go to. A modern machine will be able to play a five year old game with ease at more than reasonable graphics settings and decent frame rates.

One game I dug up from my collection  was Tomb Raider Chronicles which was the fifth game in the Tomb Raider series, which started back on the original Play Station and the PC. The story starts with the funeral of Laura Croft, the lead character in the series, who was lost and presumed dead at the end of Tomb Raider The Last Revelation, commonly known as Tomb Raider 4, and takes you though a number adventures based on the memories of some of her friends that attended the funeral. 

It was a game I remember playing when it first playing shortly after the game first came out in 2000 and it sold 1.5 million copies on all platforms which made it the second most successful game in the series, and it one of the best of the early games. The game play and story line are wonderful, although the graphics are a long way off what we expect today. Still it is well worth playing and even comes with a level editor so you can make up your own levels.

It is one of many classic games out there that are just waiting to be rediscovered and played again. A great way to amuse yourself for little or no money and if you get the games from charity shops you are giving to others too.

Microsoft drops the Nokia Band name

Seems after having the Nokia phone business for round a year Microsoft has ditched the Nokia name and all that goes with it for their own band name on the smart phones the company makes. This will of course include the windows logo that it believes will help push up sales. Time will see if Microsoft are right or not, but Microsoft is not as highly prised brand as the company thinks it is.

Like most people I owned and have fond memories of the early Nokia phones. They were phones that you could rely on to get a signal and last the test of time. They almost felt indestructible compared to a phone of today. In face the Nokia 3410 was as a common as the Apple iPhones are today, that all the kids have on the school bus in the morning. The difference is that not one 3410 had a designer broken designer screens like a third of the iPhones I see today. it is just a shame that modern phones aren't so tough as those of the past. 

The Nokia name will live on on the entry level phones that Microsoft subsidiary produces, but for how long is anyone's guess at this time. My opinion is that the found memories that the Nokia name s has for many people means that Microsoft have had to let it die a slow death before finally phasing it out and killing off the name altogether. My prediction is that in fives years time the Nokia name will be no more.

Child poverty set to Rise

According to a report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission the chances of the of the Government of halving the number of children in child poverty by 2020 is at most remote without a radical changes are made to government polices. In fact "independent experts expect child poverty to increase significantly over the next few years" among the unemployed and low paid families as well as those struggling to by a houses. 

Figures indicate that 1.4 million children are now in "relative poverty" due to the effects of rising rents and mortgage costs since the Conservative government came to power in 2010. According to the report the United kingdom risks becoming a "permanently divided" society unless "radical new approaches" are taken by the next government, however as we know if the Conservatives get into power things will just get worse with a freeze in benefits which will hit any family, working or unemployed, on low income, forcing more children poverty.

Two measures of poverty are used in the United Kingdom. The first is relative poverty which is based whether a child's family income is less than 60% of median earnings, and the other is absolute poverty which is defined as the lack of sufficient resources with which to keep body and soul together. According to the figures in the report the number of children in absolute poverty has risen by 300,000 between 2010-11 and 2012-13. This in my opinion is disgraceful in one of the richest nations in the world.

David 'posh boy' Cameron's official spokesman "It is through greater employment opportunities for the households in which children grow up that we can best address this issue." To be honest I wonder if many Conservatives have really seen child poverty or tried have to live year on year wondering what they are going to eat at the end of the month when the money runs out with a week to go to payday or the benefits are due, because it not just employment opportunities that are need it, it is money.

I find it interesting that when issues like this come up, it is like the Prime Minister and his government seem to turn it into a issue of employment like it is just the unemployed that suffer. When the reality it is working people too. The fact is the Government already have one leaver they could apply to increase the wages of the low paid and that is the minimum wage in the United kingdom, but instead they plan to freeze benefits to those on low incomes working or not and give tax breaks to the rich.

The report proposes that the UK government give the Office for Budget Responsibility "a new role to report on the poverty and social mobility impacts of budgets", as well as advocating that "all political parties come forward with a clear set of plans before the election next year for what they will cut and how they will avoid negative impacts on social mobility and child poverty". Which to me seems a sound move in the right direction when we should be ridding our nation of this shame.

A number of charities have commented on the report.  Chief executive of the Children's Society, Matthew Reed, said that a failure to end child poverty by 2020 would be a "national disgrace" while Barnardo's Javed Khan said: "It's shocking that poverty looms for a record number of children by 2020, no matter how hard their families work. Surely now it's time for the UK Government to change its 'slash-and-burn' approach to welfare reform.". To be honest I agree and we need to do something now before it is too late for hundreds of thousands if not millions of Children in the United kingdom.

NHS Management tell staff have "No to Mugs"

It has come to the attention of the national press that Leicester Royal Infirmary, Glenfield General Hospital and Leicester General Hospital have decided to ban their staff from drinking hot drinks, such as tea and coffee in public parts of the Hospital. A move Zuffar Haq, a health campaigner said was “a ridiculous and Draconian measure.”

It would appear that an e-mail was sent by Michelle Scowen, who is matron for clinical support and imaging, who said the the ban on hot drinks followed complaints from patients and employees. Apparently the drinking of hot drinks in front of the public at reception desks gives the impression to staff and the public that clinic staff are not working as hard as they might be. It would seem that drinking hot drinks makes the public more frustrated and inflamed by long waiting times during clinics and for appointments. The management of the hospital trust think that by drinking hot drinks in front of the public is compromising on their high standards.

Although I can see the point the management are trying to make, I think they might be going a bit to far with no gain to the patients waiting in the queues for appointments clients. In fact they could be making things worse and the waiting times longer. While staff are at the desk they are still working, if the desk is empty and they are having a coffee break then they are clearly not working. In the interests of productivity it is better to let the staff continue to drink their hot drinks and carry on working.

I'm sure the management and the staff behind the scenes will still be drinking their drinks at the desk and that just makes this rule unfair. It is hard work working in the front line of the NHS and the fact that staff don't take coffee breaks and work with a mug in their hand shows how dedicated they actually are.

The Consertives v Public Sector

If you work in the public sector in the United kingdom rather than being seen as doing something worth while for society you are singled out by the Nasty Conservative party as some kind of plage that needs to be purged from this fine country. As we know teachers, social workers, nurses, doctors, dustmen, street cleaners, carers etc. working in the public sector with their Union agreed pay scales are made out to be some kind overpaid socialist disease. Over the years successive Conservative governments and Conservative run councils have either made cuts to public services or contracted out services to the private sector where the Unions have less hold, and re-employed the same staff for less money.

Since the Nasty Party came to power there has been a public pay freeze across the public sector that came to an end this year when Government announced that the workers in the sector would be allowed a token one percent rise. Hardly something that will really be noticeable give the cut in real terms of peoples wages.

People in the public sector now live in fear of losing there jobs, in the first three years of government the Nasty party have controlled, over 600,000 people have lost there jobs and their is speculation in 2013, that a further 400,000 people will lose their jobs before 2015. Public services have been cut to the bone and the pain is not over yet with predictions of another slow down coming our way and promises of tax cuts if the Conservatives get voted in for a second term at the next general election in May 2015, more jobs will have to go and more services lost.

It is not surprising that workers have been concerned about cuts in living standards due to years of pay freezes and cuts to pension schemes for a number of years, when you think that the rate of inflation between 2009 and 2014, and including this years pay rise, has resulted in these group of people having their spending power reduced by 15.23%. 

This means that someone earning £15,000 in 2009 would have expected with pay increases which are in line inflation to be earning £17,458 today, however the freeze and the one percent pay rise this year mean they are now earning just £15,150. That is effectively a reduction of £2,304 in the wages that they might have expected without the pay freeze. This sort of saving multiplied across the whole of the public sector has saved the government billions and billions of pounds.

Earlier in the week nurses and midwives staged their first strike in over thirty years by nurses and the first ever by midwives since they formed a professional body in 1881.Such is the level of feeling that they have been treated badly by the current Conservative Government. They took this action because Nasty Party rejected an across-the-board one percent pay increase that was recommended by an independent pay review body, which was made worse by the fact that the Members of Parliament have been awarded a pay rise of some 10% by their professional body. This the MP's have accepted, plus an additional one percent they are due in April. It seems there is one rule for some public servants while the mainstream public workers have to suffer.

Today thousands of people march for better wages as unions demonstrate across Britain under the slogan "Britain needs a pay rise" to bring awareness to the drop in living that many in the public sector have had to deal with over recent years, together with those in the failing industries and retail in the private sector.  He is the story of one of them that was on the BBC news website today:

Mick Bowman a 56 year old mental health social worker told his story, he hasn't had a pay rise for four years, so with the cost of living rising that's a very substantial pay cut. Over those four years his workload has increased and his job has become more stressful as a result. To get by he relies at the end of every month on his credit card to by food and hasn't had a holiday in three years. Like many on the match he is angry and believes it is time to invest more in the public sector to get people in to a position where they spend more and pay more taxes to the government.

As we run up to the election this is going to be a battle that goes on and on between the uncaring Nasty Party, who have cut services to the old, the disabled and the vulnerable, and the Trade Unions will go on and on. 

It about time this government told the truth and dropped the lie about about being the compassionate Conservatives, for there nothing compassionate about the fact they are going to now start freezing benefits affecting millions of working people in the UK if they are return to office after the elections in may next year. They care about one thing power and money and their friends in high places.

Rutland County Council Election Results

Today the results of the two Rutland County Council by-elections where announced for the wards of South West Oakham and Whissendine. These were called after sad death of the Independent councillor Brian Montgomery for the ward of Whissendine and mysterious resignation without reason by Conservative Joanna Figgs for the ward South West Oakham.

The elections took place yesterday and as usual for local elections in Rutland the turnout was low, as you would expect in Rutland, with only 24.82% of the electorate voting in South West Oakham and a slightly better turnout of 34.67% of the electorate voting in Whissendine. The results of the polls are as follows:

Results for the ward of South West Oakham 

Names of Candidates......................................	Votes recorded
Benjanin Callaghan - Independent	177
Richard Clifton - Conservative Party	240
Richard Swift - Liberal Democrat Party	43
Rejected Ballot Papers	1

Results for the ward of Whissendine

Names of Candidates......................................	Votes recorded
Samuel Asplin - Liberal Democrat Party	192
Jonathan Baker - Conservative Party	179
Rejected Ballot Papers	0

Richard Clifton retained the ward of South West Oakham for the Conservative Party while Samuel Asplin took the ward of Whissendine from Independents for the Liberal Democrat Party. This wouldn't have effected the balance of power in Rutland County Council except for the resignation of Chris Parsons from the Conservative Party who is going to carry on representing his ward for Ryhall and Casterton as an Independent. The change in make up in the council from the 2011 election to today after the by election are as follows:

	May 2011	Oct 2014	change
Conservative Party	16	15	-1
Independents	8	6	-2
Labour Party	0	0	0
Liberal Democrat Party	2	2	0
UK Independence Party..	0	3	+3

Currently the Conservative Party have an overall majority of four on Rutland County Council, if they all turn up to vote, as recently there have been a number of Conservative Councillors off sick. 

It is sad to see such a small turn out at the polls in Rutland yet again, especially after seeing the people so motivated over the Aldi application. Through lack of political debate in the press, lack of choice with no Labour party candidates bothering to come forward  to stand in the wards and the main parties falling to talk about local issues that effect people of the wards it seems that interest in party politics is dead. What has replaced it is issue politics where people are motivated by single issues that effect their lives, hence all the interest in Aldi's planning application. Maybe it is time for a new approach to local politics in the United Kingdom.

The Ipcress File

Always nice to be able to take some time out from work to watch a film and that is the position that I find myself in for a pleasant change. The film I have chosen is rather old but I always feel that doesn't matter too much if the film is good and this one is good. It Len Deightons, "The Ipcress File" a spy thriller of the best kind, from 1965.

The film starts with a the kidnapping of a scientist and the death of his secret service bodyguard who gets replaced by the lead character Harry Palmer a former sergeant with a criminal past who starts to investigate the case of the missing scientists. Harry Palmer has a natural contempt for authority and  is surprised to be selected for such a mission and believes he has been chosen because he is expendable. So starts a story that sees our hero becoming not only a target of the kidnappers but the CIA too. The question being can he solve the mystery of the Ipcress file.

Don't want to go into much detial but it is a wonderful film made in the time of the cold war and the classic bond films and a fine example of this type of British Film. Although it might seem at times a little dated it is a reflection of the time it was made. Personally I looking forward to watching it again.

Lord Nasty Freud of the Nasty Party

Lord Nasty Freud recently suggested that people with mental disabilities could be paid as little as £2 an hour at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham last month. That amounts to £4.50 less than the minimum wage of £6.50. Working on that level of pay a person would have an equivalent salary of £3900 per year for a 37.5 hour working week, which equates to a weekly wage of £75.

Lord Nasty Freud of the Nasty Party was, if you remember, the architect of the Bedroom Tax that has meant that many poor people, both unemployed and working, who unable to downsize to a smaller house and who have a spare bedroom are effectively being taxed to the tune of £15 per week. This tax has also affected the disabled and those with serious illnesses who need an extra room for medical equipment or whose houses have been especially adapted to their needs which just happen to have an extra bedroom.

Lord Nasty Freud is in charge of benefit reform for the David Cameron's Nasty party and comments like this need to be taken seriously, given his track record on the Bedroom tax and the Conservatives plans to cut benefits and introduce tax cuts for the rich. Clearly this was something he was or has thought about. You got go around even in a fringe meeting at a political conference saying such things and getting away from it.

Lord Nasty Freud has always taken a dim view of the disabled and those Out of work. His vision of welfare reform would see the removal of welfare benefits paid purely on the basis of need and the introduction of measures force people with disablities to enter employment or be subject to sanctions resulting in loss of benefits

His reforms to the Work Capability Assessments, which were introduced in 2013, for disabled welfare claimants were described by Professor Peter Beresford OBE, at Brunel University, as "reminiscent of the medical tribunals that returned shell shocked and badly wounded soldiers to duty in the first world war or the 'KV-machine', the medical commission the Nazis used in the second world war to reclassify wounded soilders as fit for the Eastern front'".

I guess it won't come as too much of a shock to know that Lord Nasty Freud was once an Investment Banker. While in the city he was, as Alexander Preston of the Spectator put it, a "key players in several of the most embarrassing and badly managed deals in investment banking history. So I guess it was only natural for him to join the Conservative party, be given a peerage a few months later and then become shadow minister for welfare in the House of Lords, and then being given the same job in government when the Conservatives came to power.

Today's revelation about what he said about the disabled surfaced at Prime Minsters questions time when it was raised as a question by labour leader Ed Miliband. The Prime Minster, David Cameron replied by saying of Lord Nasty Freud's remarks “Those are not the views of the government, they are not the views of anyone in the government. The minimum wage is paid to everybody, disabled people included.”. Later Ed Miliband retorted “In the dog days of this government the Conservative party is going back to its worst instincts – unfunded tax cuts, hitting the poorest hardest, now undermining the minimum wage. The nasty party is back.”

Shortly after Lord Nasty Freud was forced to issue an apology about the remarks he made and adding  “I was foolish to accept the premise of the question. To be clear, all disabled people should be paid at least the minimum wage, without exception, and I accept it is offensive to suggest anything else." But of course we all know what he is thinking now and no apology is ever going to change that fact.

Aldi Plans for Oakham get Approval

So many people turned up at today's planning meeting at Rutland County Council that it had to be moved to the Towns museum. It was there that between 200 and 250 members of the public watched proceedings as the Development Control and Licensing Committee debated and finally approved planning permission for a new Aldi store to be built off the Oakham ring road near to the new BP petrol station. 

Even since Adli came to show the plans to the people of Oakham last year there has been massive support for the project, however the project seemed set to be doomed when Andrew Waskett-Burt, Planning Officer of Rutland County Council, recommended that Rutland County Council reject the plans based on the fact the land had already be designated as employment land rather than land for retail developments.

What happened next seemed remarkable for a small county town where politics seems almost a dirty word, where the public are use to Rutland County Council what they please without much regard for public opinion. The people of the county started to get organised and were highly vocal about the issue in both the local press and on-line. By Tuesday morning over 1000 people had signed one of two online petitions supporting the opening of the store, while others had posted messages on support on the Rutland County Council planing web site and there was even a Facebook page supporting the store with over 100 people saying they were coming to tonight's meeting.

Given the report Planning Officer of Rutland County Council it really did look like the whole project was doomed. The report was so negative about the proposal and seemed to dismiss the hundreds of letters and emails of support that had been sent to the council. Next came the the fear that the adoption of the Sites Allocations Development Plan the night before, at the disrupted full council meeting, could have seen the whole thing rejected even before it was discussed. It looked at one point it was dead in the water.

Thankfully that did not happen and the people of Rutland and their mass support for the store coming to the town was too great not to be taken into consideration. Development Control and Licensing Committee had little choice but to approve the plans. Which was probably a good thing with so many people in the museum to see the outcome of the vote. 

I can imagine if they had turned it down their would have been a lot unhappy and just meters away from the council members and their bouncers. Then there would have been the public backlash from rejection of the plans from the majority of the towns people and the people in the nearby villages who come polling day next year at the local elections would have remember the events of the night and voted the council out office for sure.

The vote on the night saw 10 of the 11 councillors on Development Control and Licensing Committee voting for the plan to build the store, while the remaining one abstained. This ends a ten year battle for Aldi who have been trying to get a store in to the town.

Soon we will have quality discount food store in the town to compete with the existing two supermarkets and the proposed supermarket on the site of the old college. This will be especially good news to those on low incomes in the town who find the existing supermarkets a great strain on their finances. Having shopped in Aldi in Grantham at times they are in for somewhat of a treat, their cooked meats are excellent, as are their premium sausages and their clone of fruit corner yogurt are to die for. Well done to everyone that supported the store coming to Oakham. We won and Rutland County Council listened for once.

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Update 15th October - You can read a account of the meeting by Martin Brookes on his blog: Martin Brookes Oakham Rutland 
Update 15th October - You can read the Rutland Times account of the meeting on their website: Rutland Times

Police investigate Rutland County Council

The voting on the Site Allocations and Policies Development Plan document was disrupted when a number of councillors walked out the full meeting of Rutland Country Council after allegations of planning fraud according to Martine Brookes who posted after the meeting on his blog, where you can read a more detailed account.

It appears that two UKIP Councillors have reported Rutland Council to the Police over the agreements and sales made between the Rutland County Council, Bellway Homes and Tresham College. Currently the Police are investigating the allegations which the Rutland County Council strongly deny claiming they have been fabricated by the UKIP Councillors.

The Apprentice 2014

The Apprentice 2014 starts tomorrow on BBC1 at 9pm after being delayed because of the World Cup. To get us going we have two back to back shows, one tonight and another tomorrow night. Hopefully that is enough to wet our appetite and get us into the series and its spin off show with the wonderful and funny Dora O'Brian. 

The start of the show has be heralded by a great and funny trailer on the BBC website that uses the Bond Gold Finger theme, which depicts Sir Alan Sugars finger as the gold finger of doom. It a clever and assuming way of introducing a show, that often shows us what is wrong with business in the UK and what is good, and we can see that in the meet the candidates video also available on the BBC Website, which is a another amusing look at the show. Of course a more serious introduction can also be found on the BBC Website, after all business is not all fun, you just have to ask the former bankrupt Sir Alan Sugar about that.

The show is now in its tenth series and most of them have made fascinating viewing from start to finish. This year we start out with 20 candidates for the prize of £250,000 to be invested in a business idea of there choice and to work in partnership with Sir Alan Sugar. Along the way 18 of them will fall fowl of the pointing finger and the words "Your Fired". By the last show in the series only 2 will remain to fight it out for the ultimate prize. Some of the candidates always seem like buffoons who would be better employed as road sweepers than high fliers in the business world, but that is all part of watching the show. 

I'm looking forward to the start of the new series especially after having to wait for the whole of the summer. I just hope it is all worth the wait, which I'm sure it will be, once it gets underway tomorrow.

UK Independence Party Targetting Everyone

UKIP leader Nigel Farage has said his party is "targeting everybody" well it seems that someone in the party is trying hardER than anyone else to include "everyone" in his campaigning and that is Roger Helmer. He has been going places that normal MP'S would dare be seen to go to get votes.

It seems according to The Sun and a number of other newspapers, Roger Helmer was photographed visiting the Victoria House massage parlour in Lutterworth, on Friday. Clearly after the win for UKIP in Clacton-on-Sea he decided to see if he could harden support for the party.

Victoria House has by it's own account been driving men wild since 1999, and that is confirmed by some of the reviews on the web. Now I can't include all the details, far to raunchy, but one starts "XXX is sex on legs. Great slim figure with nicely sized responsive breasts. From the way she looks at you and touches during the massage you know is going to be special" and goes on to describe a complete service with an explosive ending.

According to Roger Helmer he works "extremely hard and when I do occasionally have time off I enjoy a massage." and “I hope my constituents will agree people are entitled to enjoy their leisure as they please.”

Speaking to the Leicester Mercury, where you can read the full story, he said “What I do in my own time is of no concern to anyone but myself, especially not The Sun." Before saying “I’ve always said people are welcome to ask me anything about my political life and political views, but my private life should be my own and is of no concern to anyone but me." 

The question is the UK Independence Party are going to do about his odd canvassing methods? After all other MP's have been removed from office for less and then stood down as MP at the first opportunity.