Paul Johnston

I can't believe how long it is since I last wrote here. The muse seems to have deserted me in the last couple of months.

I have decided to migrate my blog elsewhere. The new blog address is www.pauljohnston.wordpress.com. This link will take you there. The content will be similar to the content here and I shall also transfer most of the links.

A very uninspiring list! Once more people are given gongs for being famous actors (McKellen yet again!) or TV personalities (Parkinson) - when all they have done, essentially, is their 'job' - and they have already been paid extremely handsomely for doing it. The day can't be far off when a knighthood or something is awarded to the vastly overpaid - at our expense - J. Ross.

Surely these 'honours' should be reserved for people who have genuinely contributed to the welfare of mankind and whose contribution has not been recognised in other ways........... 

To all readers I wish a very happy and healthy 2008.

My 2008 has got off to a roaring start with seasonal phone calls about abuse of Council-leased property in my ward. To give you a flavour here's an extract:-

Dog kennel door hanging off

Kennel still has dogs mess on floor

Empty dog food tins( a lot of them )at the bottom of the garden

Rubbish out of shed on garden and has been there some time

Transit roof rack and expensive wheels with new tyres on them

Chemical drums but do not know what of

Orange cylinder under window

Smashed glass under other window

Tenants are believed not to be in full residency as the children are not living there

There are old trainers by the front door

Tenant has been seen climbing in through the side window.

Shoukld be enough to keep me busy for a bit!

Nick Clegg has been elected leader of the Lib Dems.........sort of! A majority of 511 is scarcely a ringing endorsement even from the party's own activists. And the turnout was low too. The Lib Dems reckon to have 70-75,000 members. The vote this time after weeks of campaigning, was a derisory 41,000 of those - an abstention rate of about 43%. So Clegg has the support of about 28.5% of the activists; almost exactly the same proportion as those who seem to have thought him a 'calamity' a few weeks ago and, more significantly, 15% fewer than those who voted with their feet for 'neither of the above'.

No wonder Vince Cable came out to announce the result with the face of someone announcing a tragedy rather than a triumph. And no wonder he found it necessary to waffle on at length about anything else under the sun before summoning the courage to actually announce the result.

You might like to read this by Gilligan in the ES. It should make your blood boil. Remember Livingstone and his buddies are a charge on OUR Council Tax - and he pays this Advisor £117,000 a year of our money.

Readers struggling to pay their Council Tax may rightly feel aggrieved. I do.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23425661-details/Ken%27s+aide+and+lost+millions/article.do

Welcome to the Lib Dem MEP who has today joined the Tory Party. His friends will be sure of a warm welcome. There's one or two Lib Dems in Kingston who might well feel at home with us...........

Read all about it here http://uk.news.yahoo.com/pressass/20071126/tuk-lib-dem-mep-defects-to-tory-party-6323e80_3.html 

These pictures are of accidents on Ewell Road in Surbiton in the first half of 2007. The walls are those of gardens in Iris Close. The junction is that with Kingsdowne Road. The accidents occurred to cars travelling northbound from Tolworth towards Kingston. There is a very slight bend to the right yet one car has come off the road in broad daylight with sufficient force to demolish a garden wall and another has turned itself completely over - also in broad daylight - having hit a lamppost. Fortunately I do not believe anyone was killed in these accidents, though it isn't very long since the former chairman of Surbiton Coservative Club was fatally injured when crossing Ewell Road at night just a few yards from the scene of both these accidents.

According to figures reported in the Surrey Comet Ewell Road has become the worst road in Kingston for accidents. It is difficult to say why, though one theory is that some drivers accelerate on approach to avoid being held up by the array of traffic lights put at the Kingsdowne Road junction some years ago to make it safer.

Whatever.....I have taken the issue up with Kingston Traffic Engineers several times since February and they have promised to take it up with Transport for London. I hope they have done so. However I fear that this issue may be too small for such a mighty organisation to take notice of. City Hall is so far away and has so much else on its mind. This 'remote control' is just one aspect of the system introduced by Blair to appease the hankerers after the good old days of County Hall and the GLC.

Saw poor old Ming in the House of Commons the other day. Seemed to be a shadow of his former self. He must now feel a bit like Charles Kennedy did a couple of years ago. I wonder what his Chief of Staff Ed Davey thinks about it all.

I thought Vince Cable was making a fair fist of his stand-in role, but was very disappointed that he saw fit to indulge in childish gesture politics over the banquet in honour of the King of Saudi Arabia. Apart from anything else it showed an inclination to put personal pique before the national interest - and very scant respect for the Queen, who had invited him. Ming, one feels, woukld have been more adult about it. Twickenham electors please note. 

As for the runners I am a little surprised at the narrowness of the field. I expected Simon Hughes to keep his head down after the last time and I didn't expect Mr. Oaten to resurface - one hears so little of him these days. The 'Bring Back Charlie' movement never had much of a chance but I did think David Laws of Yeovil might fancy his chances. He'll probably regret not putting his hat in the ring eventually - or is he worried about the challenge he faces from Kevin Davis?? Nick Clegg? Hmm....bit of a Tory by all accounts - that's probably how he won the former Tory seat of Hallam. Some of the Lib Dem blogs suggest a groundswell of support for Chris Huhne.......very courageous, considering the tiny swing to Conservative needed to take Eastleigh.

 If only Susan Kramer had stood............

The latest Surrey Comet reveals:

"Expenses racked up by MPs last year have been revealed by the House of Commons.

They claimed a total of £87.6million, up five per cent on the previous 12 months.

Kingston's pair of Lib Dem MPs notched up a bill of £262,583 between them.

Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton, claimed £126,983 while Susan Kramer, MP for Richmond Park, claimed £117,837."

These expenses refer to running offices in constituencies (such as the one in Berrylands) and 'communicating with electors' and secretarial assistance and are allowable to all sitting members under arrangements voted in under this Labour government. Lord Ashcroft, a Conservative peer and donor, discussed the implications of this munificent regime in the Daily Telegraph a couple of weeks ago. He pointed out that such generous taxpayer funding inevitably allows sitting MPs to appear very active on the constituents' behalf and places candidates seeking to replace them at the next General Election at an unfair disadvantage as they must either raise their own money or rely on the fundraising efforts of party volunteers to be in any position to compete. How many coffee mornings or raffles would one have to hold to raise £127,000 do you think?

Lord Ashcroft has set up a fund to help aspiring Conservative candidates in target seats to compete more effectively. It is open to to other parties to do the same. Ashcroft's scheme is under attack from some Labour MPs including, it would seem, the Leader of the House.

Am in Lancashire for a few days visiting family.

Yesterday I went to see my oldest living relative, my cousin who is 86. She served in the Land Army during WW2 and has worked all her life. Now she lives in a sheltered bungalow in Carnforth. She is as cheerful as she has ever been but is in need of daily care to help with the routine tasks of life which she can no longer perform unaided. She has a wonderful carer, whom I met yesterday.

It has brought home to me - if it needed bringing home - just how important domiciliary care can be to a person rendered physically disabled by age and a long working life. It should be a matter of pride to all of us to take the best care we possibly can of the elderly who need it. We really do need to think very hard before cheerfully - or tearfully - cutting such services either now or in the future.