A Home At Last!

Anyone who has moved house in the last year will I hope sympathise and relate to my over long silence! They say it is one of the most stressful things to do - and that is before the battle with the various utilities, BT etc. Last time I moved it took three months before broadband was up and running - so a couple of weeks is pretty good! So much for the improvements in communication the hi-tec world has brought.

But no - while I have been silent I have not been inactive - as the Mid Devon Advertiser would have you believe. Unlike Richard Younger-Ross who can only raise such highly irrelevant issues as the Eurovision Song Contest in Westminster - and ask a completely inappropriate ecclesiastical question of Tony Blair at his final Question Time (which Blair tossed away as not worth an answer) - I have been fighting the case for housing - more of it and more family housing which is affordable, really affordable. Many of you will have seen me on the Sunday BBC Politics Show on the topic - where was Richard - or indeed any Liberal Democrat?

So what have I been doing, other than unpacking cardboard boxes in the wee small hours? Well I have been out meeting the local business community at a number of networking lunches - lots of frustration and lots to be done. Together we can take this useless bunch of Lib Dem councillors and shake them up - they have done precious little for the business community still less to attract business investment into Newton Abbot. Are they just going to stand aside while business rates go up? The market traders are unhappy - why have the councillors not listened to them?

And yes I celebrated my 50th birthday with more than 70 friends at Sampsons Farm in Preston, Kingsteignton - it was wonderful, despite the weather. Nigel and his very talented wife made us very welcome and we ate and drank only locally sourced wine, meat, fish and veg - and it tasted good! That is what I call a party. My family had a chance to meet my new found friends - and my friends to vet my family - they do say a good look at the mother will tell you volumes about the daughter!

Gordon is threatening an early election - really? Whatever else it has helped us all focus on the needs of a full blown campaign and to that end my campaign team have been planning the next few months activity very carefully. Social and fund raising events have been plentiful, particularly in Teignmouth and Dawlish - we are, as we must, building a war chest. Teignmouth has seen a revival of the Conservatives - and Richard has noticed and is worried. He has officially complained to the press for giving me too much press coverage! Richard, press coverage is about the quality of the press release and the relevance of the issue - not the number of trees culled for multiple press releases - too often consigned to the bin!

This is the season of carnivals, regattas, fetes and fun. This week's Dawlish Carnival has been much fun - last Saturday I presented the carnival queen with a posy - where was Richard? I was at the Rydon School Fete - where was Richard? I was at the Highweek fete - and was accosted by many Mile End residents concerned about proposed developments there - where was Richard? Last Wednesday I was at a meeting in Newton Abbot for the over 50s to look at the needs of the ever growing number of senior citizens and will be representing them at a county meeting next week...Richard would have been in Westminster - but doing what?

And what of the new Labour initiative to take the tax they believe you owe them directly from your bank account? Big brother has clearly arrived! I confess to being totally bemused as to how the country can give Gordon the 7% lead he has in the polls - this is a man who destroyed our pensions over night when he changed the ACT rules and who was right behind Blair in everything he did over the last ten years. Are memories that short? And what of inflation and the average mortgage? Are the Lib Dems - or UKIP for that matter the answer? While most know they are not the answer nationally, what about locally? What can UKIP do for the farmers without a mandate in Westminster - and what have the Lib Dems done locally, rather than just talked about doing? I look forward to Alan Connett's answer and to the inspectors finding on the Northern Option for building due out today.

Another week in politics!