This week was D-DAY. Although you may not have noticed. On ‘actual’ D-Day, my Grandad, Sid Wright, landed a tank on actual Sword Beach and lost an actual finger in the process. It never grew back. My Grans brothers (the Cardiss Brothers, hitherto a less than popular Leeds based vaudeville act, who had also , as twins, fought each other in the finals of the pre-war Yorkshire area Fish-Supper-Weight boxing championships) signed up together for World War 2 to fight fascism and had died together at Tobruk in the African deserts. And my dad (no relation) had been on the aircraft carriers on the arctic convoys keeping  the Red Army supplied with tanks, guns and mittens, in order to maintain the heroic Eastern Front that had been pushing back Hitler in grimmer than grim fighting for the previous 3 years while Britain stood alone. With only Russia, America, China and the Commonwealth for allies. So when it came to my turn to drive a tank into battle and face down our countries enemies I woke up and thankfully remembered I wasn’t even in the army.

I wasn’t in the army because I didn’t have to be. After D-Day, that generation of all our families had fought and defeated Fascism and united a continent that had been at war with itself for 2000 years, give or take a millennium. We now have a small professional army of people who actually want to be in it and are trained to be good at it. Yes for nearly 50 years they stood nose to nose in the centre of Europe facing down the Warsaw Pact countries, but never a shot was fired. And after 1989 they all gave up that cold war and joined us in our united and peaceful Europe that everyone’s fathers and grandfathers, mothers and aunties, had all fought for. So that their children and their children’s children didn’t have to go through the same thing ever again. Continue reading “D Day. Where They Fought them on the Beaches – So that we didn’t have to.”

What did the Europeans ever do for us? Well, they brought us Proportional Representation for one thing. And PR means you can vote for who you want and it means there’s no such thing as ‘Tactical Voting’. Lib Dems -who are trying desperately to claw back the 1 seat they lost in South West England are at it again trying to convince people that to stop Brexit you have to vote ‘tactically’ and implying (well, in fact saying) that this means voting for them. They are wrong of course. The PR system we have means you aren’t voting to stop  Brexit, UKIP or the Tories (although the last lot are doing a pretty good job of stopping themselves) you’re voting for who you WANT to be in power in Europe when all the votes are in next Monday. I will be voting LABOUR.

Continue reading “How Do I Vote? Well, if it’s an ‘Election’-VOTE LABOUR”

As the smoke lifts from the battlefield and the carnage reveals itself , our thoughts turn to those that fell, those that survived, why it all happened in the first place and how we can avoid it all happening again. Thus it is in war and thus it was in the local elections. The bravest fell and the requiem bell rang mournfully loud and clear. But did it? There were 707 spoilt ballot papers across Sedgemoor. 23 of them in Westover. But actually I had a majority of 224 so why should I care about the 23 . But I do and so it’s worth looking into. Why did 23 people out of  4072 feel they were sending a message by spoiling their ballot paper and why did the 1704 people, who did go out to vote in Westover (and were the ones who chose their councillors) realise that spoiling your paper was as pointless as it was failing to understand the fragile democracy that we have and that generations had fought for. I bet the people that spoilt their ballot papers when Hitler got voted in back in 1933 were kicking themselves shortly afterwards. When they weren’t being kicked by the Gestapo that is..

Continue reading “The Spoils of War”

Labour’s National Executive Committee are quite right to remind people that the local elections this Thursday are nothing to do with Brexit. Here at Bridgwater Town Council or there at Woolavington Parish Council or down stream at the People’s Republic of Otterhampton, none of us can deliver either Brexit OR a ‘Second Referendum’ no matter how many political leaflets people rip up in front of us. British democracy is alive and well and living in a ballot box near you this Thursday and if people decide not to turn up to vote because ‘there’s no democracy anymore’ then well, someone else will be deciding for them who runs their local council. Because even if just one person turns up to vote then someone gets in. I mean, it’s not Brussels that empties your bins -even though it might feel like it on occasion.

Continue reading “This is a LOCAL Election for LOCAL People”

Last month Bridgwater Town Council passed a motion urging action on climate change. At the time, Deputy Leader and Environment Spokesperson Cllr Kathy Pearce (Westover) said ‘this must not sit gathering dust on a shelf’. So this months ‘Town Diary’ has been handed over to Kathy to explain what that means in real terms.

Kathy writes:Nationally Labour is demanding a reduction of global carbon emissions by 45% from the 2010 levels by 2030, reducing to “net zero” before 2050.

Internationally, Greta Thunberg, a 16 year old Swedish student, has led the global call for a mass rollout of renewable and low carbon energy and transport, environmental protections, reversing species decline and developing plans to move towards a zero waste economy. Continue reading “Climate Change Emergency – What we can do locally”