The Men Of Kent.

As a life long republican I have very little interest in thr proceedings coming up on friday, As far as one can tell the happy couple are a decent pair and on a personal basis I hope they have a long and happy marraige, something that seems tohave  be denied to a good few of the close reletives of the bridegroom.  Sadly, they are caught up in a clearly political circus designed to divert the sheep from the reality that they are about to be slaughtered by death by a thousand cuts.

Unkije some of the middle class 'webel' ekement in the village I shall not be showing my displeasure at the proceedings by clearing off and sitting on the beach at Exmouthj, neither shall I be attending some guillotine party as Gyillotine parties are so 1789>  I shall instead be drinking a pint in memory of Wat Tyler and the men of Kwnt who, in the reign of King Richard the second, rose against their oppressive feudal landlords in what became known as The Peasents Revolt.  Tyler and his followers who included the preist, John Ball who wrote the words 'When Adam delve and Eve span, who was then a gentleman'.marched on London believing that the King would give them justice.  The King however, having a better grasp of where his interests kay then did Tyler and his comrades had Tyler and the rest of the leaders of the revolt put to the sword

The motto of that story is to be found in a line in The Bible, a book ahat is always good for a quotation or two.

 'Put not thy trtust in Peinces'.;

Happy Easter.

I hope you all have a bhappy easter Go steadt on the chocolate eggs amf take care with the Barbeqeues.

Anti Cuts Demo.

Beloeving, as we do, that working and niddle class families should not be bearing the brunt of cots caused by paying off debts largely incurred by rge greed of the bankers and the stupioity of the politicians who bent over backwards to bail them out, I shall be supporting the Demonstration called by Exeter Anti Cuts Alliance.  The march will begin at 11.00am on bank holiday monday may 2nd.at the Belmont Pleasure Ground.

A Proposal

Yrsyerday was St Georges Day and beyond the Bombadier promotion at the Lamb Inn you wouldnt have seen much sign of anyone celebrating ir.  Later this week there will be a party in the Rec to velebrate a certain wedding that seems to be the centre of much  currently. I propose that the event being planned for this friday be made an annual event held on the closest saturday to St Georges Day. This could be a celebration of English culture that would appeal to all whether royalist or republican.

AV.

Its the referendum on the proposed change to our system of voting in elections from first past the post to the alternative vote  system. I am not going to get into the workings of AV which have been well enough covered elsewhere but would only observe that the central problem of current British politics is the domination of political life by three parties who increasingly differ little in policy terms but rely for electoral sucess on projecting themselves as more competant managers oof the economy and society than their opponents. Looking at the studies of AV that have been conducted and the way that the system works in Australia it hardly seems to me that we are going to see an increase in representation for parties such as the Greens, UKIP or any party that emerges to the left of Labour, What we almost certainly would see would be the LibDems being permanently entrenched in government creating a form of one party state.

Personally, I prefer full proportional representation as practised in The Irish Republic which in the recent general election there brought a much wider range of voices into The Dail (parliament).  Alternatively, the list system, as used in elections for the scottish parliament also has allowed a wider range of representation.  Given that these alternatives are not on offer I see little point in moving from the current system of Dirst Past The Post.

Pass It On

A useful yip was passed to me the other day regarding those wishing to use a bus pass into Exeter before 9.30am.  Get the 8.50am bus from the quare  paying a 95p single to Thorverton.  When at Thorverton use your bus pass into Exeter. The reason you can do this is because consessions from Thorverton still start at 9.00am..

Paee It On

Asnefore, The blog will be only too pleased to publicise upcoming events. We may also post occasional guest posts on matters of local interest so if you have any contrinutiobs contact the blog

Vote Jenny Roach

One local candidate is standing for election in the forthcoming elections to Mid Devon District Council. Our former District Councillor, Jenny Roach, has decided to stand again for her former position.

Whilst not endorsing The Liberal Party of which Jenny is a member, this blog takes the view that by her experience and involvement in campaigns for improvements to health and social services Jenny is the best person currently available to represent the interests of Silverton on Mid Devon District Council.

Vote Jenny Roach on May 5th.

Big Society ?.

The news that only four nominations have been recieved for the forthcoming parish council electyions does not seem to auger well for the success of the Prime Ministers much trumpeted Bif Society project.  If a large, and fairly prosperous, local community like Silverton can hardly assemblw a quorum for its local representitive body then what hope can there be for greater democratic participation in the poorer areas of the big cities.

For yeard the reputation of nodies like the parish council has declined as there powerlessness in nearlt every area of public life has become more apparent.  Until councils like Silverton are given powers and finance equilrlant to their counterparts on the continent  its obvious that people of talent and ability will feel ever less desire to stand for election.

An additional reason why people are reluctant to stans for councils may wrll ne also because they are having to spend so much time and energy trying to earn enough to pay the mortgage, keep up with the rises in inflation and to show the boss that they are worth retaining come the next round of rationalisations. Alarm Clock Britain is not going to promote the Big Society.

Best Wishes.

Best wishes for a speery recovery to Maxine Edwards folloeing injeries recieved in the recent car accident.

Accidents Will Happen

I am not usually a persin prone to accidents. I have never broken a bone in my life and even managed to get through the ice and snow nightmare at christmas with only a minor slip>  At the weekend however, I managed to have two accidents within the space of twenty four hours.

Early on sunday morning I woke up and realised that I had left the kitchen light on and went to get out of bed not realising how near to the edge I was. Falling out of bed I bashed my ribs on the bedside cabinet causing a painful bruise. On sunday evening I slipped on the stairs and fell causing painful bruising to the base of my spine which is now having the effect of making it uncomfortable to walk uphill.

So, if any one sees me proceeding rather stiffly about the village they will know why and I deny entirely that it was all down to one to many pints of Ferrymans in The Lamb.

Hacked Off.

It seems that the News Of Rhe World has started owning up to the hacking of the mailboxes of public figures and no doubt there is much more to this story yet to emerge>  From what can be gathered it would seem that other newspapers beyond the Murdoch empire were for many a long year involved in similar dubious practices and it is to be hoped that those involved in phone hacking for other media outlets will also be put under the spotlight of their peers.

The British press hassome record of good work in the feild of investigative journalism down the years from the work of the Sunday Times Insight team in the 1960s to the role of the Daily Telegraph in exposing the  MPs expenses scandal in more recent times and genuine investigative  work carried out to expose wrongding in the public interest often requires unorthodox methods.  Its not possible to cite public interest when you are hacking  phone mailboxes merely to satisfy the manufactured public appetite for celebrity gossip.

Having seen the destructive power of the press at work in some of the events that lead up to the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial I hope that those currently being offered a payoff by the News Of The Woeld will reject such offers and persue the matter through thre courts to find out where the trail of responsibility leads.  Perhaps a full exposure of the phone hacking scandal will perhaps put some of the media back to persuing genuine investigative journalism rather then the easy way of filling their pages by building celebrities up to bring them down by any method available. 

Sweeping Up.

Congratulations to Olive and Max on their wins in the Lamb Inn Grand Nayional Sweepstake.  The luck of the Irish strikes again.

Sign Of The Times.

I smelt the first distinctive udue of the first Barbeqeue of the srason drifting across Wyndham Road last night. With a decent  weekend forecast the Barbies will be out, the tinnies drunk, the shorts will be dragged out of the back of the wardrobe and the english will be playing at being Australians again.  It was never like this back in the day. I blame global warming.

Gimme Shelter.

I think that this issue was covered on Silvertonia but in the current economic climate its worth pointing out again, that even without the ongoing cuts, Silverton is unique amongst the local villages in not having warden controlled accommodation for elderly and disabled people. Thorverton, with half the population of Silverton gas long had warden controllrd housing as has Bradninch which has a similar sized population to ourselves.

Whilst it can be argued that many of the most  vunerable in our society have alarm systewms they are no subsitute for a friendly daily check by a warden who can often spot problems before they reach the emergancy stage.  It also has to be pointed out thst little of what housing that we have which wasriginally intended for elderly people has been specifically retained for them or adapted or updated.  There has been no programme of general refurbishment for the four bungalows in King Street since they were built in the early 1950s.

We face the coming savage round of cuts to local government expenditure from a very low base in comparison to many other parts of England let alone my old stomping ground in the west of scotland. It is to be hoped that in the coming period our local representetives will spend a good deal less time in ego clashes and on nitpicking over planning applications and more on defending and prioritising basic services.

Up The Creek

Readers of The Daily Mail may have seen a recent story about a former submariner who keeps a Russian subnarine parked on the Medwat.  The story was the work of my nephew, Micheal Carroll who works for one of the news agencies.  As The story was published on April 1st I suspected that the story might be one of the annual April fool stories that the press run annually but Micheal assures me that this is not the case and the story is indeed genuine.

Micheal seems to be cornering the market in stories about the fate of obsolete military equipment having also written about the bloke who sold a Harrier jump jet on Ebat and the breaking up of the aircraft carrier Invincible.

So if you want some publicity for that nuclear bunker at the bottom of the garden or the Cheiftain tank in the garage hes the man to contact.

Can They Spare A Copper ?.

I heard on the radio recently, that a police force, Wiltshire I think, were considering sending plain clothes police into certain pubs to evesdrop on conversations in order to prevent crime before it happens and if such a tactic proved successful it could be extended to other areas.

Leaving aside the fact that such tactics sound like something out of the handbook of the Stasi in the late and unlamented, by most, east Germany I would think that when in a somewhat dodgy boozer, all you wouyld have to do would be to look out for the couple in the corner who spent two hours to drink half an orange juice without speaking directly to each other whilst occasionally muttering into their wristwatches. Probably all they would discover was that target A was a fervent supporter of Man U while target B backed Chelsea.

Meanwhile, of course, the real business would be going on outside in the smoking area where the Uld Bill would be banned from going for health and safety reasons..

Bus Blues

Stagecoach have now terminated consessionary fareson the 55B route between 9/00am and 9.30am fhus ensuring that the additional Exeter-Tiverton bus brought in at the beginning of the year will be even less used along with the previously existing buses. All in the name of cuts to subsidies to public transport I assume. So yet again our overpriced and thouroughly unreliable bus service takes a hit.

Local Elections.

Om the  May 5th there will ne elections to Mid Devob District Council. Given that a new couyncil is likely to be put in a position where it is likely to be under pressure to implement some ofthe most draconian cuts to council services seen in modern times it is to be hoped that we might have a councillor elecyed genuinely committed to defending our local services rather then some party hack associated with the ConDem coalition.

Willy Nilly.

I onderstand that the Cornish brewery, Skinners, are to produce a brew for the forthcoming royal weddibg to be called Kate loves Willy..

Ooh Matron,

restart,.

So, its back to thje Blog,  Wyndham Road Rage will be the sucessor to Silvertonia.  When I moved back here last year I had no intentions of blogging again but there have been so many requests to get going again I  have finally relented.  WRR will conyinue the Silvertonia tradition of covering events in Silverton and beyond from my particular perspective but I suspect may well turn out to be a little more hard edged and controversial thewn what has gone before.

Morning All.

Welcome to Wyndham Road Rage. Son of Silvertonia. Full entries begin soon.