Why I will never vote UKIP again

WELL, that’s that for another four years. I’ve already been told ‘don’t worry, you’ll obviously win in 2013’.
It has taken a couple of days to reflect on the disappointment of not being elected as a Somerset county councillor by just nine votes.
However, I am certainly not looking four years’ ahead, so those sorts of comments, well meaning, I know, do not do anything to lessen the disappointment.
What does help is to see that elsewhere in Somerset, one of my Conservative colleagues defeated a Liberal Democrat by only six votes, even closer than in my division.
I can understand how the beaten candidate must feel, and in some ways it helps to know that others are probably sharing the same emotions.
The only thing is, I cannot feel too sorry for him, because he was actively engaged in closing small schools such as those in Blagdon Hill and in Nynehead.
I recall attending a Lib Dem executive meeting where he justified the closure of Blagdon Hill School on the basis of the higher costs of educating pupils there, when compared to educating them in a bigger school.
He, along with the others on the executive at the time, showed a total disregard for the social value of rural small schools, so in the end he got what was coming to him.
I suppose up and down the county there will now be defeated candidates who will be thinking to themselves, if only I had done this or that ….
Yes, I’ve been thinking the same.
But when the election results are analysed, you can see that in fact more Conservatives voted than Lib Dems - it was just that they voted for the wrong party.
UKIP’s county council candidate took 332 votes and it was these votes - mostly, I believe, from Conservatives angry about the European Union increasingly dictating how we live our lives in Britain – which cost me victory.
So, there was not really much more I could have done, as to make a difference to the result it needed UKIP to concentrate on what they were created to do, which is to work to take the UK out of the European Union (note, not out of ‘Europe’).
Which leaves me feeling very bitter and twisted about UKIP.
UKIP were never going to get close to gaining even one seat on the county council, let alone taking it over. And even if they did, the county council would never be in a position to take Somerset out of the EU, let alone take the UK out.
It struck me as pure opportunistic politics, putting up county candidates because the elections were moved to be on the same day as the European Parliament elections and it would help to raise their profile.
I could understand it perhaps if they targeted divisions where they saw candidates who were pro-EU, but no, they were selfishly indiscriminate and through their actions individual UKIP candidates showed that they really do not care a jot about local politics.
As somebody who has often voted UKIP in the past because of my strong anti-EU beliefs, I can now state I will never vote UKIP again.
Many Conservatives (and quite a few Labour voters) I met on the doorstep during the campaign expressed their dislike of the EU and how they wanted David Cameron to take a tougher line on it rather than just promising a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty which we all know will be too late because Gordon Brown will have sealed our fate before he is finally kicked out of No 10.
I pointed out that I was passionately anti-EU, that I am a member of the cross-party Democracy Movement and have been for more than 10 years and that I have financially contributed to the DM and even marched through London with them and stood next to the widow and children of the late Sir James Goldsmith while listening to the late Peter Shore.
I suspect I’ve done more to promote the anti-EU cause than the majority of those who voted UKIP in the county elections last week.
The irony is that those Conservative voters are now represented at County Hall by a councillor from the most pro-European Union party.
Still, enough of the self-indulgent pity.
I really am extremely grateful to everybody who voted for me in the county council elections and to the many people who actively helped in the campaign, however small or large the assistance.
We really do have a great team working within the Conservative Party locally, and looking at the bigger picture, it is confirmation that my present sorrow will turn to joy next spring when Mark Formosa is elected as Conservative MP for Taunton Deane.
In the meantime, I wish Councillor Henley well in the coming four years as our county councillor and now that he won’t always have to do what he is told by his former Lib Dem executive bosses, I hope he will do his best for the people of the Blackdown and Wellington East division.
As to 2013, I’ll continue to work hard locally as the Taunton Deane councillor for the Blackdown ward and I’ll make my mind up about a county council campaign probably in 2012, if I can drag myself away from watching the London Olympics on the television.

'Ring and book' bus service coming to the Blackdowns

I AM delighted to learn that some of the gaps in bus services covering villages in Taunton Deane are going to be plugged thanks to an initiative led by my Conservative colleague Councillor John Meikle.
‘Demand responsive’ buses are being introduced and Blagdon Hill will be on one of the routes.
The route will also serve Staplehay and will link the two communities with Taunton.
The initiative has come out of a council task and finish group on sustainable transport which has been chaired by Councillor Meikle - whose, son, of course, is the Duncan Meikle who has helped to pioneer the new community hall plans for Pitminster parish.
A ‘demand responsive’ bus is one which runs on a regular route but which people can ring up and book a seat in advance if they live nearby and the bus will then detour and pick them up.
The proviso is that it will only be during certain times of the day, and also passengers have to be within a reasonable distance and the roads need to be wide enough for the bus to be able to reach them.
I am not quite sure how this is different from the Slinky Bus that Somerset County Council has been supporting, but I am sure it will be a welcome initiative.
At this stage, I am still waiting to be told just when the service will start, and who will be operating it.
The project is a partnership between Taunton Deane Borough Council and the county council.
The Deane council is putting £25,000 towards the set-up costs of scheme, which will run for three years.
Other communities which will benefit from the service include West Monkton, West Hatch, Hestercombe, and Curry Mallet.
Councillor Meikle told me: “We are beginning to infill the bus service gaps in Taunton Deane.
“This compliments a similar ‘ring and book’ magnificent voluntary community transport which Wiveliscombe have been running for some years covering 26 parish areas to the west of Taunton.
“All this positive thinking and action helps the quality of life for everybody.”
Councillor Ross Henley, who is the leader of the Deane council, told me: “I am very pleased to be able to implement the recommendation of this task and finish review.”

Free swimming 'con' attempt by the Lib Dems

HERE we go again. More untruths from the Lib Dem SatWav pioneers.
This time, they are peddling untruths in an effort to con votes out of people in Ruishton and Creech St Michael.
You may know that there is going to be a by-election in the ward on October 2, due to the death of one of my Conservative colleagues, Councillor Gwyneth Leighton.
Obviously, the Lib Dems have made themselves very unpopular locally with their callous decisions to close sports centre crèches, axe discounts for pensioners using leisure services, and demolish the only two proper pay-as-play public squash courts in the county town.
Decisions which, I am sure I do not need to remind you, they took in secret and without any consultation with the public or those who use our leisure services.
So, in a blatant bid to try to redeem themselves in the eyes of the public, their leader, ‘Reckless’ Ross Henley, has told the voters of Ruishton and Creech St Michael that ‘his’ council is going to give free swimming for everybody under-16 and everybody over-60 as from next year.
This crass claim has been shown by the council’s chief executive to be an untruth.
So, ‘Reckless’ Ross has been humiliatingly forced to put a retraction in their next leaflet telling people that in fact all the Lib Dems want to do is take up Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s previously-announced policy of free swimming for young people and the elderly as part of the UK’ build up to the London 2012 Olympics.
The Lib Dems have not yet even got as far as putting a proposal on the subject to the Deane council, where it will be properly debated before any decisions can be taken.
Of course, Conservatives support the idea of free swimming in principle.
But, unlike ‘Reckless’ Ross, we are not prepared to sign a blank cheque drawn on council taxpayers money.
As yet, nobody has any idea of the costs of meeting the free swimming promise, as we do not know how much take-up their would be, nor the impact on other paid-for swimming sessions, nor how much Gordon Brown is actually going to give us to help pay for it.
These are all things which ‘Reckless’ Ross should have been looking into before rushing headlong into print with false promises.
I hear that he is apparently blaming his agent for getting it wrong in the leaflet – funny that, as he was previously quoted as saying virtually the same thing in the Somerset County Gazette and Wellington Weekly News, and I am pretty sure his agent does not edit either of those publications.
Incidentally, it will not be ‘free’ swimming, it will be swimming that is paid for by people aged between 16 and 59 years.

Red phone boxes under threat from cost-cutting BT

BT has just announced it wants to remove the last remaining red telephone boxes in many of the Blackdown Hills communities.
Four call boxes would be lost from the Blackdown ward which I represent on Taunton Deane Borough Council, and many more in the wider area around Wellington, where I am campaigning to become the county councillor next year.
As a businessman and a homeowner who gave BT the boot many months ago because of its appalling customer service and billing incompetence, I perhaps ought to declare an interest here.
That said, I am absolutely appalled that BT has suggested these phone boxes should be removed.
In nearly every case, it will leave whole communities without any access at all to a public telephone.
When I challenged BT, they were not even able to tell me how much use is made of these call boxes because they said they did not keep proper records.
They tell us they want to close them because they are losing money, but BT has a public service obligation and I am demanding they honour that obligation.
I do not just want to see this closure programme stopped, I want to see BT restoring many of the call boxes they have already removed.
I believe every community should have at least one public call box which people can use in the event of an emergency.
BT claim that most people have a mobile phone, but my phone does not have a signal in many parts of the Blackdowns, and if my car broke down, for example, I would have to find the nearest phone box to call the AA.
I have pointed out to our Deane council leader, Ross Henley, that we have the ability to make it very difficult for BT to close the phone boxes.
As a council, we can formally object and take BT through a pretty lengthy appeals process where every proposed phone box closure would be examined very carefully.
There is no question in my mind that we should do everything possible to resist these iniquitous phone box closures.
BT is presently consulting on the proposed closures and I shall be putting the case as strongly as possible against this move.

• The photographs show (TOP) me outside the phone box in Ford Street, just outside Wellington, which is on BT’s closure list, (MIDDLE) the under-threat phone box in Blagdon Hill, and (BOTTOM) the cobwebs which show the Stapley phone box has not been used in a very long time.

George goes herding ducks down on the farm

NICK and Ruth Strange held a very successful open day at their Beech Hayes Farm yesterday, which allowed an opportunity for Julia and I to take our son George to see exactly where his bacon comes from.
Nick is Churchstanton's parish council chairman and Julia has been buying a meat box from the farm via the food co-operative which runs at the Rockwell Green Christian Centre.
So it was really interesting to have a look around and to show George the source of the meat he eats.
There was lots to see - and lots of other people went along as well, so I would guess Nick and Ruth must have been really pleased with the way it went.
George tried his hand at duck and geese herding - as you can see from the photo above - that is, until the geese started herding him instead!
We saw the Gloucester old spot pigs which they are well-known for, and the lambs, ducks, new-born chicks - some of which were hatching in front of George's eyes.
No, we didn't manage to do the quiz in full, despite cribbing one of the answers from another visitor.
I thought I knew my beech leaves from my ash leaves and so on, but when put to the test I failed miserably.
Ross Henley, our local county councillor, gave a nice speech to visitors about the importance of local produce and the need to support local producers.
Our only disappointment was not having more time to spend on the farm, as we were due to do a car boot sale in the afternoon as we continue to try to slim down the stack of bits and bobs in our attic.
As it turned out, the car boot sale did not do too well - or, at least, our bit of it didn't, as we only raised just about enough to put the Mazda through the car wash.