Planting Trees

Since finishing for the Christmas break and with the help of lots of friends & family, I have been planting 600 trees and shrubs in a field close to home. Some of the trees have gone into an area containing an old hedgerow which needed thinning out and removing dead wood which was a bigger job than expected and then we placed a colour coded cane for each of the new trees. On the weekend before Christmas the gang joined us for the planting and the full 600 were in the ground by the end of Saturday. On Sunday we placed plastic mulch mats around the trees on the lower area which is susceptible to flooding and we have used wood chippings for those on higher ground. I'm looking forward to seeing the trees establish themselves and the planted areas develop over time and will include photos on the blog over the coming months.

Citizens Advice

I spent yesterday with volunteers at Rugby Citizens Advice Bureau. When I visited with Front Bencher, Chris Grayling I asked Manager David Gooding if I might learn more about the role of the CAB and see the work they do. So I sat in with a number of volunteer advisors and we met clients with a variety of problems including access to children; utility disconnection; relationships with former partners; housing; debt; faulty goods and preparation of a claim. Often the kind of issues that an MP comes across in his surgery and I know that the CAB here works closely with Jeremy Wright. In each case the advisors were able to quickly identify issues and through experience and a very helpful database provide clients with a useful way forward. I hadn’t realised how much training is required before being able to meet with people bringing in problems and I joined some trainees going through some written examples as we worked out together the advice that should be given. I found I was drawing mostly on my experiences as a Councillor, as a Business Owner and as a Dad!

Out with The Police

I spent Saturday evening out in Rugby Town Centre in order to better understand the issues the Police face at that time of day. I was met by an experienced Constable and accompanied him throughout his shift and saw many facets of policing. We made an early arrest which involved taking a young man into the Police Station where he was charged and this resulted in the need for completing the paperwork that goes with it; we sped off to one of the villages where there was a report of 20 people fighting in a pub car park; we visited the town's CCTV centre and saw the extensive coverage of the town centre; we joined other Officers at a disturbance outside a large town centre pub; and we toured around the town providing a visible presence and reporting several observations to the control centre as we did so. It was a bitterly cold evening and my impression was that this acted as a disincentive to people staying out and hanging around and perhaps led to a quieter night than might otherwise have been the case. The Officers dealt with flashpoints with discretion and no little humour, and it was pointed out to me how much people have to say when they are drunk. Generally the chat was good natured. Most people would expect me to comment that the form filling after the arrest was excessive, and I felt that was certainly the case. In my business, I tried to keep form filling and duplication to a minimum. I could see areas where this was happening with several pieces of information being recorded in many different places. There is clearly great scope for streamlining as more IT is introduced. I returned home freezing cold but with a good sense of the work our Police are doing to ensure the vast majority have a good time when they are out on a Saturday night.

Avon & Swift Result

The hard work paid off and Helen won the By-election convincingly with 57% of the votes cast and more than double the number of votes of the second placed candidate. Well done Helen!

Avon & Swift By election

Today is polling day and I have spent a fair amount of time our canvassing in the villages that make up Avon & swift ward with our candidate, Helen Walton. Helen has worked hard and been well received on the doorstep and I know she will make a very valuable contribution at Rugby Borough Council. But this has been one of the most unpleasant elections I have been involved in. There have been inaccuracies in the literature of one of our opponents and in addition false information has been given to local newspapers about Helen leading to The Warwickshire Telegraph printing an acceptance of an assurance by Helen yesterday and the Rugby Observer printing an apology to Helen today. Perhaps both have come too late to correct a wrong, being published on the day immediately prior to, and the day of the election, at a time of year when many will have voted by post. I do hope this won't set the tone for coming elections in Rugby. I wouldn't be in politics if I didn't enjoy a debate with people whose views are different from mine, and I will be very keen to put forward the Conservative case in public hustings when the time comes. At the same time I will call my opponents to task over their party's record or proposals. That is what an election campaign is for. What we have seen over the past few weeks in Avon & Swift has been a long way away from open and honest campaigning, and all decent people will hope that we don't see it's like again in Rugby.

Football Shirts update

More and more unwanted, grown out of & "old sponsor" football shirts are coming in to our office to be sent over to Rwanda. I now have a very generous offer to despatch the shirts over to people who will really appreciate them & expect to send the first consignment in the next couple of weeks. The project has caught the attention of the team running the blog page on the Conservative Party website and a report can be found here.

Back to the future

On Friday I attended a most untypical Conservative Association Branch event. More used to Cheese & Wine or Afternoon Tea, Hillmorton put on a superbly attended evening of 70's entertainment with a lively, fun band called The Grimleys who played tributes to the great names of the 70's - Marc Bolan, Ozzy Osbourne, Mott the Hoople et. al. It took me back! The 70's was a special decade for me as I sat my O and A levels, went to University, got my first job, bought my first car and met my wife then. It was also when I became first involved in politics in Rugby with the (then) Young Conservatives and at Reading University in the Student Union where I was elected as Building & Finance Officer (resigning before I took up my post). As I enjoyed the band, I thought of the many simiarities between then and now - unelected Labour Prime Minister; economic crisis; run on the pound; rising unemployment and need for the Conservatives to step in and clear up the mess!