Medieval Bridgwater was a walled town with 4 gates. The South Gate (by Blake chip shop) was the main gate, The North Gate (end of Angel Crescent) was the Tradesman’s entrance, the East Gate (by Cobblestones) was the one a fairground elephant got stuck under and the West Gate-next to Bar Brunel-was the Party gate. And that’s the one we’re going to look at today!

Continue reading “Bridgwater’s West End -What Next?”

Sam Smith is not a politician. He’s not a timewaster, he’s not dishonest and he’s not negative. He’s also not a diplomat. The first words he said to me involved describing the world’s best football team, Leeds United, in the most unsavory terms.  He’s also a straight talker. Which is what you need for the job he’s suddenly found himself in. And he might just be the man that Bridgwater South needs to get for it what it deserves. Sam says all his life stuff was being provided for his community yet nobody was ever asked whether they wanted it or not. Or what they wanted instead. Now they have the chance to.

Pride in Place is Government money which, if handled properly, could change all that. Money for projects that the community wants in the first place and projects that will be sustainable and last. The money is there and the back up is there. What the project needed was a charismatic figure to convince the people that this time they are being asked what they want first. And they’ll get it. But they need to get behind it. I interviewed Sam and for sure he’s the man for the job. Continue reading “Sam Smith : Game Changer”

Sometimes I have a lost weekend. Say I’ve had a particularly long and stressful planning committee arguing over and over again the case against HMOs, or maybe the caterers have provided the wrong kind of vol au vent at the Campaign against Poverty Buffet Lunch. You just have to get away for a bit and recharge your motors. Someone writes down a place and hands it to me in an envelope and I just go there. This week I went to Rye in Sussex. Rye is a charming little hilltop town overlooking Camber Sands, that popular film location where they not only filmed Dunkirk but also Carry on Follow That Camel. In Rye there’s no High street left, mainly cafes and antique shops blend in with the still preserved historical remains. But this adds to the charm. You should use your history. You too can be a tourist destination. All it takes is to convince people that you are one. I’m not at this stage advocating the rebuilding of Bridgwater Castle.

Nigel Farage has had a lost month. It culminated last Thursday in the totally unnecessary Clacton by election costing £250,000 to the taxpayers in the misguided hope that the voters of Clacton re-electing him against a dustbin would somehow mean he didn’t have to face an enquiry into his dodgy finances. It doesn’t. He still has to. Explain that £5m Nige. Go on. Continue reading “Every where’s Historic….we just don’t know it yet”

I was floating in the Tyrrhenian sea pivoting on a sandcastle wedged under my head contemplating the futility of immortality and the meaninglessness of time. The waves on this beach must have come and gone and gone and come since life on earth began. Round about the last time Leeds won a major trophy. After an hour I opened my eyes and 3 italians were staring down at me looking concerned “E morto? Che cosa? Is he dead? Oh, is he dead”. Leaping to my feet to reassure them I failed to realise that after an hour laying in drifting sand most of it will accumulate in your trunks. They fell to my knees clearing the beach quicker than the landing at Anzio by the Gordon Highlanders. I tried to run across the sand but it was so hot it burnt my feet. I tried to get to the tarmac road..but the tarmac was so hot the soles of my feet almost glued me to the boardwalk turning me into one of those permanently fossilised Pompeii statues that turn out to actually be people….

Continue reading “The Unbearable Lightness of Brian”

The Daleks are a fictitious race of intergalactic robots. In Bridgewater Place in Leeds there’s a giant building overlooking Holbeck Moor called ‘The Dalek’. The Daleks are a highly xenophobic neo-fascist regime who seek to destroy all non-Dalek life in the universe. I don’t think I’m struggling for metaphors here… Fascists sadly aren’t fictitious. In 1936 Leeds anti fascists assembled here to kick Oswald Moseley and his British Union of Fascists out of Leeds. A week later the more well-known Battle of Cable Street happened when Moseley tried to march through the predominantly Jewish communities of that part of East London. They were met by anti-fascists who outnumbered them and the tradition of standing up against fascism became embedded in our culture. Socialists, radicals, liberals, trades unionists, migrant communities, the working class all knew and know that unity is strength, and fascism is division and destruction. In many cases ‘extermination’.

Continue reading “Far Right or Not Far Right. Is that the Question?”