Merry Christmas Card to all my Readers

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

Many Thanks for visiting, reading and interacting on this blog.

I leave you with this link where you can send Political Christmas cards to your friends from Martin Rowsons of the Guardian here.

I leave you with my Christmas card too you all from this site, hope you like it.

SNP Tactical Voting Gives More Reason for Tory PR Support

Snptacticalvoting is living up to its name with this post on Anti Tory Tactical Voting. The idea behind it is that if there are no Tories in Scotland then it would “Arguably offer up an ideal platform for the SNP to advance its arguments that Scotland should govern itself”. I agree with Jeff of Snptacticalvoting that it would.

But this does brings up a different question. Why do the Tories still not support Proportional Representation?

I don’t know if it’s because I have always lived in Tory territory in the south and now in Bracknell Berkshire. But it feels as if tactical voting is mostly directed against the Conservatives then the other parties. Tactical voting exists because we have the First Past the Post System. Under a proportional representation voting system there would be no need for it.

The Tories need a massive swing to win the next general election of an extra 117 seats. As shown in the table on the left using the swing-o-meter found at http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/. This example would result in a hung parliament (obviously this does not allow for all the local issues and variation which will be part of this election.).

If I were a Tory then I would see this as being very unfair and I would support Proportional Representation like Single Transferable Vote.

A good explanation of which is provided here by the Electoral Office for Northern Ireland were STV is used for local council and Assembly elections.

#Kerryout Could Keep Kerry McCarthy In

Is this a sign of things to come from the blogosphere As we all take part in an election battle are we the bloggers about to become a bit nasty.

I’m no fan of Kerry McCarthy MP, I follower her on Twitter and I'm quite unimpressed with what I read from her Twitter account. I don't think she is cut out to be an MP myself, but that’s just an opinion. I am also aware that she has had the famous 2nd bed expense claim. However I think this campaign is nasty and demonstrates how nasty the election could get on the blogosphere.

There has already been plenty of blogs written stating that this campaign is nasty (for example here on the Conservative Blog and here on the Norfolk Blogger) so I won't go into one on this blog as it’s been covered. However I just wondered how influential bloggers believe they are when trying to win seats.

Kerry McCarthy majority is 8,621 at the moment the top bloggers stats for November 09 are 241,208 unique visitors for Iain dale and 305,624 for Guido Fawkes. As a rough calculation that's split by 646 MP's is 473 for Guido Fawkes readers per consistency (Guido I must add has not covered the #Kerryout campaign. I’m just using the higher stats.). Now assuming all the blog readers were persuaded, then their still be falling too short of the line (of course this is rough as there’s many missing stats. like the actual majority now after boundary changes and some people would have already change their votes and the number of pro Kerry out blog readers adding up.).

I understand that all votes count but this won’t impact much on the ground. Of course the funds raised will help (although there is a limit of £12k that a party can spend on an election campaign).

It is possible that if a local blog tired this campaign it could have a higher effect if they have more local readers.

I guess the idea would be for the press to report this campaign, maybe locally to gain more supporters for #Kerryout. But could this be where it could all go wrong. The British people actually could react badly to a campaign like this if they are not given really good reasons as to why Kerry should go. They may even defend Kerry as the sense of fair play could enter the voter’s thoughts and they may get defensive. So if I was one of the bloggers who are supporting this campaign (like Tory Bear here) I think I would now end it and slowly walk away. This could be used against the Tory candidate. If that happened it would be quite unfair to the Adeela Shafi, who never asked for this campaign to begin with, but Adeela may pay the price of negative campaigning herself.

We will wait and see.

Local Blog - Gritting and the Snow

What the hell happened today Bracknell Forest Borough Council. Im sure the council will claim that the roads were gritted. However the roads in Bracknell, Crowthorne, Sandhurst have been covered in ice for a few days now and many roads do not appear to of been gritted.

So why does it appear that they have not been gritted. I have asked a number of local people and nobody appears to of seen any gritting other than the town centre. Today I did see a gritting vehicle stuck in the same traffic I was in.

Now I understand that this did take the council by surprise but I do wonder why nothing was done between the two large snow events we recently had in Berkshire. I also hear that there has been the same problem in Reading, Basingstoke and Wokingham as well as surrounding areas.

All this after the British public was told that there is enough grit for our roads. If so then please please do use it.

I was glad to see that people did come together to help, the Keith Centre was offering coffee and the use of its toilets and people were pushing each others cars up hill's. Plus the local police were very helpful. Thank you people of Bracknell, next time lets hope the council does better.

UPDATE: The council have been gritting many more roads and paths today. These roads were not gritted the first time round. This time if we have some more snow then atleast it won't fall ontop of a current layer of snow and ice.

A Call to the World On Climate Change

Dear Fellow Citizens of Bracknell and the World,

What on earth is my granddaughter and her children and their children, and all of our descendants like them all over the world, going to use in the future for energy instead of fossil fuels - oil, gas & coal?

We take these currently absolutely essential energy sources so much for granted. Energy that we need to enjoy everything, watch everything, drive everything, dig up everything, cut down everything, move everything, grow everything, catch everything, make everything, cook everything, heat everything, etc etc etc. ad infinitum!

PLEASE WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!

EVEN IF CLIMATE CHANGE, MAN MADE OR OTHERWISE, HAD NEVER EVER BEEN MENTIONED, EVEN IF IT IS A HUGE CON. TRICK - QUITE POSSIBLY (IF NOT PROBABLY!) BECAUSE IT IS THE ONLY WAY OUR POLITICIANS AND WORLD LEADERS NOW THINK THEY CAN GAIN PEACEFULL GLOBAL COOPERATION FOR ACTION WITHOUT STARTING WWIII OVER ENERGY - AND ALL OTHER RAPIDLY DWINDLING NATURAL RESOURCES.................

WE STILL HAVE A HUGE INDIVIDUAL, NATIONAL AND GLOBAL ENERGY SUPPLY PROBLEM TO SOLVE!!!!

POSTPONING ACTION TO REPLACE FOSSIL FUELS AS THE UNIVERSAL GLOBAL ENERGY SOURCE FOR USE BY THE REMAINING AND POSSIBLY IF NOT PROBABLY VERY LIMITED NUMBER OF FUTURE HUMANS THIS PLANET CAN SUPPORT WILL ONLY MAKE IT HARDER AND HARDER TO SOLVE IT, EVERY DAY THAT WE DELAY!!

IF WE ARE NOT VERY CAREFUL. THERE SIMPLY WONT BE ENOUGH OF THESE REMAINING FOSSIL FUEL ENERGY SOURCES LEFT TO BUILD ALL THE REPLACEMENT GREEN ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE THAT WE NEED BEFORE WE RUN OUT OF THEM!

WE WILL HAVE SQUANDERED THEM ALL. ENJOYING THE CURRENT PLEASURES AND LIFESTYLES THAT WE ONLY HAVE BECAUSE OF FOSSIL FUELS.
.
And - I AM SHOUTING!!!

Now, will you all please listen?

It is my firm belief that a great many politicians and world leaders, and their citizens too, are at last waking up to the fact that we humans who are alive right now quite justifiably blame them and their predecessors for not acting in our best interests in the past and the present.

Clearly strong action to replace fossil fuels should have started decades ago.

Blaming man-made climate change as the need for action now just lets them off the hook considerably!

Remember, they were/are our leaders. They were/are supposed to be looking after their citizens best interests at all times!

It is all fine and dandy having a growing economy for a while.........
But, after a boom comes a bust, always.
Being rich for a while only to end up poor on a dying planet without enough energy to live decent lives later on in the future is hardly leadership or an intelligent solution - is it?

All of these politicians and world leaders must have known that the OIL, GAS & COAL would not last forever. I mean, we all know that - don’t we?

Surely they must have worked this out for themselves at some time - mustn’t they?

If they didn’t know that much, they were/are either just plain stupid and therefore, they were never ever properly qualified enough to be a politician or a world leader, either that or they must think that some supernatural being replenishes the supplies every night while we are asleep, perhaps?

Same difference?

It seems to me that this has been a case of the blind leading the blind for far too long!!! But some of us blind people can see things quite clearly – NOW! No longer can we let these blind politicians and so-called leaders lead us citizens into future disaster.

Please believe me!

Please will you at least listen to those politicians and leaders who now call for firm action against Man-Made Climate Change?

Maybe this is the wrong label for the right action.

So what??????

If we can get the right internationally agreed global agreement at Copenhagen, it will have the same effect as rationing Oil, Gas and Coal consumption all over the world - without starting WWIII over energy!
At least I do sincerely hope that it will..........!
Sadly, with a mere whisper of hope left now (unless you and they at the conference all wake up to reality too!) - I rest my case for "man-made climate change action"!

Yours most sincerely,

Billbloggs

Post on behalf o Billbloggs by Dazmando

Bracknell General Election Odds

Ladbrokes have released there odds for the Bracknell Constituency General Election they are;

Conservatives 1/100
Liberal Democrats 50/1
Labour 50/1
UKIP 100/1

I think its worth a flutter.

Of course your MP may of been chosen already by a few hundred people at the Bracknell Open Primary/Caucus. The words Safe and Seat come to mind.

Other odds can be viewed here

Does The Tory Party Have Its Own Green House Effect

I think the recent Climate Gate email debacle and the prominence of columnist in a number of papers who have written about their climate change scepticism as well as the growing belief that 'this is a left wing' conspiracy about control and taxation could be building problems for the Tory party. This problem I believe could become as big for them as say the EU issue.

As I read a while ago Mark Reckons blog 'Are Tory bloggers out of step with membership on the environment?' I think this scepticism is shown up in the bloggers and indeed top Tory blogger Iain Dale while not claiming to be a sceptic has posted a number of articles 'Trust Us' Say Climate Change Scientists and Is the Climate Change Consensus Fracturing? And Indy Tries to Split Tories Over Climate Change as he believes the debate is not over. It certainly does not appear to be.

Also some Tories(Oliver Letwin and Iain Duncan Smith, sit on the advisory body) appear to be supporting the dossier issued by the European Foundation which can be viewed on the Thoughts Of A Conservative Christian blog here which gives 100 reasons why climate change is not man made. This was raised today by Jackie Smith and was not answered by William Hague (I have to add that this was a low jab at the Tories and after all its supposed to be Prime Ministers Questions).

On BBC Five Live today David Cameron said, "The way I would argue with the climate change sceptics is say look. If someone said to you that there is a 75 percent chance of your house burning down, even though 25 percent is quite a big number wouldn’t you take out some insurance, wouldn’t you take steps to try and stop it from happening? So even if your sceptical, even if you don’t think there a 100 percent certainty, isn’t it right to take some steps to protect against what could be calamitous for our planet for our children and as its moving quite fast for us as well”. So it’s very clear where David Cameron is on this subject.

I’m not discussing the merits of climate change here. I just wondered if these discussions have caused more Conservative members to become more sceptical. If so then given the Tory Party leadership are firmly behind they’re being man made climate change. Does this mean that this issue could also become a dividing line with in the Party?

Just by way of a note I noticed this 50 reasons why global warming isn't natural on the Short Sharp Science (New Scientist Blog), thanks to a Tweet from AdrianWindisch of the Green Party.

Local Blog: The Look In Café Could Close‏

Bracknell Forest Council is proposing to cut the £60,000 annual funding for the The Look In Café in the town centre.

The Look In Café is used by Elderly people many of whom can’t afford the prices of the coffee shops in town. It is also used to hold meeting of the Alzheimer’s Society who have drop-in sessions at the café. If a cut was to be made it is believed that the council would conduct a Consultation exercise.

This will be discussed at the todays executive council meeting.

I hope a way can be found to save this Café as it is an important service for Bracknell Senior Citizens. Perhaps by reducing the spend on consultants?