Elections 5th May – The fightback begins

After two weeks pounding the mean and not so mean streets of Aylesbury where District & Town Council elections take place tomorrow the fear of cutbacks to services people value is palpable, the fear voters have for their ability to earn a living and for their children’s potential being realised is obvious. For since WWII every British Government has at least held out the promise that life will be better for the next generation and their children. However this Tory led coalition is holding out no such stall – Headed up by a slick marketing man they are applying the Hershey Bar technique. We are going to give it a shiny new wrapper, make it smaller and charge you more for less. This of course applies to the new ConDem army of the disposed, workers and pensioners who actually pay tax not non-Doms or Tory Tax exiles or the powerful lobbies funded by offshore companies.

For the truth is that this strange Coalition running the UK has rewritten the rule book. Forget Election manifestos and promises – the coalition of the Conservative Party which didn’t win the election and the Lib Dems who most definitely lost the election has a totally new agenda from the one their supporters voted for, the Conservatives have abandoned conservatism and the Lib-Dems have abandoned liberalism while their leaders lead them on a mongrel course of untried, untested and unproven radical policies which nobody voted for at breakneck speed – frequently falling over themselves in the process.





In the elections tomorrow voters are urged to show Cameron and Clegg that they can't carry on with policies which have no public backing. Labour today released a document detailing the divisive policies which the Tories and Lib Dems are pursuing without a mandate: No mandate for NHS reorganisation; No mandate for police cuts; No mandate for VAT rise; No mandate for their squeeze on middle-income families; No mandate for abolishing EMAs and Future Jobs Fund or trebling tuition fees. Last year the Tories fell short of a majority in the General Election, unable to command the support of the British people for their right-wing agenda. Since then, rather than proposing reform that commands consensus, David Cameron's Tory-led Government has attempted to force through right-wing policies for which they have no mandate.



I’ve heard from so many people on the doorsteps who are deeply concerned about what this government’s plans will mean for them and for their families. People are worried - about the future of local services like schools and sure start, about how much damage the government’s ‘reforms’ will do to our NHS, about how they’ll make ends meet in retirement if they have to wait longer for their state pension. And they’re worried about what this government will mean for the next generation: £9,000 university fees, the EMA scrapped and 1 in 5 young people out of work.

Let’s send a message to the Con-Dem government that we deserve better than this:

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/sendamessage

Tomorrow, voters across much of the country go to the polls to elect the people who will run their local councils and, in Wales and Scotland, the Assembly and the Parliament. Every vote for Labour tomorrow is a vote against this Tory-led government’s unfair cuts.



As Cameron, Clegg and Osborne cut from Westminster; it is those people in local councils and in the Scottish and Welsh governments who will have to pick up the pieces as their budgets are slashed. Already we’ve seen local services squeezed as local decision-makers are forced to pass on the cuts handed down from the Tories in Westminster.



By voting Labour, you can help to make sure local councillors and the Scottish and Welsh governments do everything they can to limit the damage done by these vicious Tory cuts. By voting Labour, you can help send a message to this Tory-led government that their cruel cuts are wrong, and there is a better, fairer way. Help us send this government a message, by emailing your friends and family to let them know why you think it’s important to vote Labour tomorrow.



See also;

http://www.aylesburylabour.org.uk

http://www.facebook.com/aylesburylabourparty

http://twitter.com/#!/aylesburylabour

Elections 5th May – The fightback begins

After two weeks pounding the mean and not so mean streets of Aylesbury where District & Town Council elections take place tomorrow the fear of cutbacks to services people value is palpable, the fear voters have for their ability to earn a living and for their children’s potential being realised is obvious. For since WWII every British Government has at least held out the promise that life will be better for the next generation and their children. However this Tory led coalition is holding out no such stall – Headed up by a slick marketing man they are applying the Hershey Bar technique. We are going to give it a shiny new wrapper, make it smaller and charge you more for less. This of course applies to the new ConDem army of the disposed, workers and pensioners who actually pay tax not non-Doms or Tory Tax exiles or the powerful lobbies funded by offshore companies.

For the truth is that this strange Coalition running the UK has rewritten the rule book. Forget Election manifestos and promises – the coalition of the Conservative Party which didn’t win the election and the Lib Dems who most definitely lost the election has a totally new agenda from the one their supporters voted for, the Conservatives have abandoned conservatism and the Lib-Dems have abandoned liberalism while their leaders lead them on a mongrel course of untried, untested and unproven radical policies which nobody voted for at breakneck speed – frequently falling over themselves in the process.





In the elections tomorrow voters are urged to show Cameron and Clegg that they can't carry on with policies which have no public backing. Labour today released a document detailing the divisive policies which the Tories and Lib Dems are pursuing without a mandate: No mandate for NHS reorganisation; No mandate for police cuts; No mandate for VAT rise; No mandate for their squeeze on middle-income families; No mandate for abolishing EMAs and Future Jobs Fund or trebling tuition fees. Last year the Tories fell short of a majority in the General Election, unable to command the support of the British people for their right-wing agenda. Since then, rather than proposing reform that commands consensus, David Cameron's Tory-led Government has attempted to force through right-wing policies for which they have no mandate.



I’ve heard from so many people on the doorsteps who are deeply concerned about what this government’s plans will mean for them and for their families. People are worried - about the future of local services like schools and sure start, about how much damage the government’s ‘reforms’ will do to our NHS, about how they’ll make ends meet in retirement if they have to wait longer for their state pension. And they’re worried about what this government will mean for the next generation: £9,000 university fees, the EMA scrapped and 1 in 5 young people out of work.

Let’s send a message to the Con-Dem government that we deserve better than this:

http://www.unionstogether.org.uk/sendamessage

Tomorrow, voters across much of the country go to the polls to elect the people who will run their local councils and, in Wales and Scotland, the Assembly and the Parliament. Every vote for Labour tomorrow is a vote against this Tory-led government’s unfair cuts.



As Cameron, Clegg and Osborne cut from Westminster; it is those people in local councils and in the Scottish and Welsh governments who will have to pick up the pieces as their budgets are slashed. Already we’ve seen local services squeezed as local decision-makers are forced to pass on the cuts handed down from the Tories in Westminster.



By voting Labour, you can help to make sure local councillors and the Scottish and Welsh governments do everything they can to limit the damage done by these vicious Tory cuts. By voting Labour, you can help send a message to this Tory-led government that their cruel cuts are wrong, and there is a better, fairer way. Help us send this government a message, by emailing your friends and family to let them know why you think it’s important to vote Labour tomorrow.



See also;

http://www.aylesburylabour.org.uk

http://www.facebook.com/aylesburylabourparty

http://twitter.com/#!/aylesburylabour

St. George’s Day in Aylesbury

St. George in person in Aylesbury!

The 23rd of April is St. George’s Day, the feast of the Patron St. of England. This of course would have been a great surprise to St. George who, being a Minor Asian, never knew the place existed. What is clear is that Richard the Lionheart, a French Plantagenet, who actually spoke English badly and spent less than six months in England as King endorsed St. George as Patron Saint because the Crusaders identified with his being martyred in land which they held as part of The Kingdom of Jerusalem and then of Acre in the 13th Century. George's reputation grew with the returning crusaders. A miracle appearance, when it was claimed that he appeared to lead crusaders into battle, is recorded in stone over the south door of a church at Fordington in Dorset. This still exists and is the earliest known church in England to be dedicated to Saint George. The Council of Oxford in 1222 named 23rd April as Saint George's Day.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/03/for-st-george-and-england.html



So today in Aylesbury our out of touch Town Council organises St George’s Day events to demonstrate its irrelevance and its increasingly urgent need to justify its own existence. Afterwards to recover a gentle stroll to our wonderful (they only overspent by £18,000 a seat!) new Waterside Theatre and then to the adjoining canal basin which is the terminus of the Aylesbury Branch of the Grand Union Canal.






WARNING; Scenes of Morris Dancing in Kingsbury Square

Laugh if you may but Aylesbury, the County Town of Buckinghamshire, is not unknown to the stars of stage and screen. Part of Clockwork Orange was filmed in our concrete underpasses, Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh lived nearby at Notely Abbey, David Jason lives by Coombe Hill and Sir John Gielgud lived in the South Pavilion, Grendon Underwood House, now Tony & Cherie Blair’s country house. Many made their way to the Prime Minister’s country house at Chequers 2 miles from our modest cottage and Burton, Taylor and many famous luvvies used to wine and dine at the Bell in Aston Clinton when it was a rather top restaurant. And then there was an actor who began his acting career in Aylesbury more than 60 years ago.






The shape and use of materials in the Waterside Theatre is designed to echo the wooded rolling Chiltern Hills with their limestone underlay


Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury


Ronnie Barker's statue

A bronze statue of the late comedy legend Ronnie Barker was unveiled last September at the opening of the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury. The Porridge and Two Ronnie’s star, who died five years ago, was born in Bedford and Aylesbury Vale District Council commissioned sculptor Martin Jennings to design the statue as part of its Waterside development project. It now takes pride of place in the new public space in Exchange Street. The statue was officially unveiled by Mr Barker's widow, Joy.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/09/ronnie-barker-in-aylesbury.html

The Aylesbury arm runs in a beeline from Marsworth Junction, on the Grand Union Canal which connects Birmingham to London, ending up in the town basin, the home of the Aylesbury Canal Society. From Marsworth Junction to Aylesbury Basin is around six and a quarter miles and sixteen locks, the Marsworth seven and Aylesbury nine. The canal arm took just three years to build after over fifteen years of 'planning'. The canal takes most of its water from the Grand Union through Marsworth Junction - Aylesbury Canal Locks 1 and 2, the only staircase locks on the southern Grand Union Canal system.
















Aylesbury Canalside

Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. In the 2001 census the Aylesbury Urban Area, which includes Bierton, Fairford Leys, Stoke Mandeville and Watermead, had a population of 69,021, which included 56,392 for the Aylesbury civil parish. This is expected to be over 90,000 after the 2011 census.
The town's population has doubled since the 1960s due to new housing developments, including many London overspill housing estates, built to ease pressure on the capital, and to move people from crowded inner city slums to more favourable locations. Indeed Aylesbury, to a greater extent than many English market towns, saw substantial areas of its own heart demolished in the 1950s/1960s as 16th-18th century houses (many in good repair) were pulled down to make way for commercial developments.



Traditionally the town was a commercial centre with a market dating back to the Saxon period. This is because it was established on the main Akeman Street which became an established trade route linking London to the southwest. In 1180 a gaol was established in the town (it is still there though has moved locations two or three times) which only really happened in main towns across the country.






Market Square, Aylesbury

By the late 19th century the printers and bookbinders, Hazell, Watson and Viney and the Nestlé dairy were the two main employers in the town, employing more than half the total population. Today the town is still a major commercial centre and the market still meets on the cobbles of the old Market Square four days a week. Nestle and Hazell, Watson and Viney have both gone, as has the US Automotive parts producer TRW, who left the town in 2006. Although three major industrial centres make sure the town has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.


Britain's most unlikely Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beconsfield


Sir John Hampden, the local MP whose refusal to pay the Ship Tax to Charles I led to the English Civil War

Stoke Mandeville was also the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games, which first took place in 1948 and are now known as the World Wheelchair and Amputee Games. The Games, which were held eight times at Stoke Mandeville, were the inspiration for the Paralympic Games, also called The Stoke Mandeville Games, which were organised in Rome in 1960. The wheelchair aspects of the 1984 Paralympics were also held in the village. The London 2012 Summer Paralympics mascot, Mandeville, is named after the village, based on the games once held there. Stoke Mandeville Stadium was developed alongside the hospital and is the National Centre for Disability Sport in the United Kingdom, enhancing the hospital as a world centre for paraplegics and spinal injuries.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/paralympic-games.html

As well as the convenient and much improving shopping, educational, medical, entertainment and employment opportunities of Aylesbury what most people appreciate here is the position at the centre of the fertile Vale of Aylesbury just the far side of the Chiltern Hills from London. Buckinghamshire is one of the loveliest of the Home Counties - some say the loveliest - and its Chiltern Hills and beechwoods, beautiful River Thames and the rolling acres of Aylesbury Vale make it a place for visitors to enjoy. Country walks run between picturesque villages with a host of welcoming pubs.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/chiltern-spring.html

The Chilterns lie only a few miles north-west of London and yet they are an unspoilt area of rolling chalk hills, magnificent beechwoods, quiet valleys and charming brick and flint villages. A wonderful mosaic of woods, fields, hedges, sunken lanes and clear streams.







So that is the attraction of Aylesbury, a sizable town with facilities which make it convenient set in lovely Buckinghamshire countryside within 50 minutes commute of London and with good travel connections to the rest of the UK and to London’s airports.


The Chiltern Hills

St. George’s Day in Aylesbury

St. George in person in Aylesbury!

The 23rd of April is St. George’s Day, the feast of the Patron St. of England. This of course would have been a great surprise to St. George who, being a Minor Asian, never knew the place existed. What is clear is that Richard the Lionheart, a French Plantagenet, who actually spoke English badly and spent less than six months in England as King endorsed St. George as Patron Saint because the Crusaders identified with his being martyred in land which they held as part of The Kingdom of Jerusalem and then of Acre in the 13th Century. George's reputation grew with the returning crusaders. A miracle appearance, when it was claimed that he appeared to lead crusaders into battle, is recorded in stone over the south door of a church at Fordington in Dorset. This still exists and is the earliest known church in England to be dedicated to Saint George. The Council of Oxford in 1222 named 23rd April as Saint George's Day.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/03/for-st-george-and-england.html



So today in Aylesbury our out of touch Town Council organises St George’s Day events to demonstrate its irrelevance and its increasingly urgent need to justify its own existence. Afterwards to recover a gentle stroll to our wonderful (they only overspent by £18,000 a seat!) new Waterside Theatre and then to the adjoining canal basin which is the terminus of the Aylesbury Branch of the Grand Union Canal.






WARNING; Scenes of Morris Dancing in Kingsbury Square

Laugh if you may but Aylesbury, the County Town of Buckinghamshire, is not unknown to the stars of stage and screen. Part of Clockwork Orange was filmed in our concrete underpasses, Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh lived nearby at Notely Abbey, David Jason lives by Coombe Hill and Sir John Gielgud lived in the South Pavilion, Grendon Underwood House, now Tony & Cherie Blair’s country house. Many made their way to the Prime Minister’s country house at Chequers 2 miles from our modest cottage and Burton, Taylor and many famous luvvies used to wine and dine at the Bell in Aston Clinton when it was a rather top restaurant. And then there was an actor who began his acting career in Aylesbury more than 60 years ago.






The shape and use of materials in the Waterside Theatre is designed to echo the wooded rolling Chiltern Hills with their limestone underlay


Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury


Ronnie Barker's statue

A bronze statue of the late comedy legend Ronnie Barker was unveiled last September at the opening of the Waterside Theatre in Aylesbury. The Porridge and Two Ronnie’s star, who died five years ago, was born in Bedford and Aylesbury Vale District Council commissioned sculptor Martin Jennings to design the statue as part of its Waterside development project. It now takes pride of place in the new public space in Exchange Street. The statue was officially unveiled by Mr Barker's widow, Joy.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/09/ronnie-barker-in-aylesbury.html

The Aylesbury arm runs in a beeline from Marsworth Junction, on the Grand Union Canal which connects Birmingham to London, ending up in the town basin, the home of the Aylesbury Canal Society. From Marsworth Junction to Aylesbury Basin is around six and a quarter miles and sixteen locks, the Marsworth seven and Aylesbury nine. The canal arm took just three years to build after over fifteen years of 'planning'. The canal takes most of its water from the Grand Union through Marsworth Junction - Aylesbury Canal Locks 1 and 2, the only staircase locks on the southern Grand Union Canal system.
















Aylesbury Canalside

Aylesbury is the county town of Buckinghamshire in South East England. In the 2001 census the Aylesbury Urban Area, which includes Bierton, Fairford Leys, Stoke Mandeville and Watermead, had a population of 69,021, which included 56,392 for the Aylesbury civil parish. This is expected to be over 90,000 after the 2011 census.
The town's population has doubled since the 1960s due to new housing developments, including many London overspill housing estates, built to ease pressure on the capital, and to move people from crowded inner city slums to more favourable locations. Indeed Aylesbury, to a greater extent than many English market towns, saw substantial areas of its own heart demolished in the 1950s/1960s as 16th-18th century houses (many in good repair) were pulled down to make way for commercial developments.



Traditionally the town was a commercial centre with a market dating back to the Saxon period. This is because it was established on the main Akeman Street which became an established trade route linking London to the southwest. In 1180 a gaol was established in the town (it is still there though has moved locations two or three times) which only really happened in main towns across the country.






Market Square, Aylesbury

By the late 19th century the printers and bookbinders, Hazell, Watson and Viney and the Nestlé dairy were the two main employers in the town, employing more than half the total population. Today the town is still a major commercial centre and the market still meets on the cobbles of the old Market Square four days a week. Nestle and Hazell, Watson and Viney have both gone, as has the US Automotive parts producer TRW, who left the town in 2006. Although three major industrial centres make sure the town has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.


Britain's most unlikely Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beconsfield


Sir John Hampden, the local MP whose refusal to pay the Ship Tax to Charles I led to the English Civil War

Stoke Mandeville was also the location of the Stoke Mandeville Games, which first took place in 1948 and are now known as the World Wheelchair and Amputee Games. The Games, which were held eight times at Stoke Mandeville, were the inspiration for the Paralympic Games, also called The Stoke Mandeville Games, which were organised in Rome in 1960. The wheelchair aspects of the 1984 Paralympics were also held in the village. The London 2012 Summer Paralympics mascot, Mandeville, is named after the village, based on the games once held there. Stoke Mandeville Stadium was developed alongside the hospital and is the National Centre for Disability Sport in the United Kingdom, enhancing the hospital as a world centre for paraplegics and spinal injuries.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/paralympic-games.html

As well as the convenient and much improving shopping, educational, medical, entertainment and employment opportunities of Aylesbury what most people appreciate here is the position at the centre of the fertile Vale of Aylesbury just the far side of the Chiltern Hills from London. Buckinghamshire is one of the loveliest of the Home Counties - some say the loveliest - and its Chiltern Hills and beechwoods, beautiful River Thames and the rolling acres of Aylesbury Vale make it a place for visitors to enjoy. Country walks run between picturesque villages with a host of welcoming pubs.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/04/chiltern-spring.html

The Chilterns lie only a few miles north-west of London and yet they are an unspoilt area of rolling chalk hills, magnificent beechwoods, quiet valleys and charming brick and flint villages. A wonderful mosaic of woods, fields, hedges, sunken lanes and clear streams.







So that is the attraction of Aylesbury, a sizable town with facilities which make it convenient set in lovely Buckinghamshire countryside within 50 minutes commute of London and with good travel connections to the rest of the UK and to London’s airports.


The Chiltern Hills