Official Charlton Conservative Page

From now on most of my Charlton Tory news and activities will be commuted to the official Charlton Conservatives page.

I'll be keeping the official page up-to-date so as to keep in-touch with Charlton ward residents.

This blogger blog will be updated from time-to-time with non-local-political stuff...

A Tale Of Two Harmans

On the 8th of February 2010, Harriet Harman, in reference to the three Labour MPs accused of fiddling their accounts, said:

"The criminal law applies to MPs just the same as it does to everyone else."

On the 3rd of July 2009, only half a year ago, the same Harriet Harman was driving whilst using her mobile phone and became involved in a car accident. When a witness approached her, the law-abiding MP Harriet wound down the window of her car and cawed:

"I'm Harriet Harman - you know where you can get hold of me."

Harman's hypocrisy is spectacular. On the 3rd of July 2009, Harman broke two laws (driving using a mobile phone and driving away from the scene of an accident without exchanging insurance details) and considered herself to be so important as to be above the law - the very law that she now insists that MPs do not seek to override with "parliamentary privilege" - by fleeing the scene of her illegalities.

Harman was forced into this hypocritical, self-contradictory uttering because she had to act to pre-empt her own leader's ponderous inability to discipline three Labour MPs the moment that news of their fudging of their accounts came into common currency.

Gordon Brown had been outmanoeuvred by David Cameron who argued that the three MPs in question (Jim Devine, David Chaytor and Elliot Morley) should not be permitted to claim parliamentary privilege (part of the 1689 Bill of Rights) to exonerate themselves. Harman stepped in to compensate her leader's ponderousness and save him from Cameron's attack by asserting that Labour's tricky trio will not be above the law.

In doing so, she has announced herself, even more so than usual, a glib liar - for evidence only a mere seven months old ("I'm Harriet Harman...") proves that Harman's attitude is that Labour MPs can pick-and-choose if the law applies to them.

An Appeal For St. Lukes Church

St. Lukes church in Charlton has started a £500,000 appeal to raise funds to perform major restoration works.

The church is special for many reasons. Built in 1630, it is the most authentically village-y part of Charlton village and forms, along with the drinking fountain and the Jacobean mansion, Charlton House, an island of yesteryear preserved.

Not only that but the church possesses a unique record for, inhumed within its vaults, is the body of Spencer Perceval, the only British prime-minister to have been assassinated (to-date).

The appeal has been reported in the Mercury and in the Newsshopper, so I hope knowledge of this appeal isn't endowed in too few people, but it is a wonderful church building that deserves, by its architecture and its history, the repair it needs.

This Boots Is Made For Walking

Hopefully Internet users looking for a Boots in Charlton don't take Google Maps as Gospel. Oddly, on Google Maps, the Greenwich Industrial Estate Boots (in Peninsula ward) has been transplanted onto the quiet residential street Park Drive, near the cemetery...

I'm Not Dreaming of a Bottle-Green Christmas

This last time it snowed - February 2009 - Greenwich Council saw fit to grit the roads with pieces of broken glass. It is easy forget Labour's old stupidities - local and national - because they are quickly replaced with new stupidities and the human memory, being decidedly finite, has a limited capacity for them.

Which is why this oddly seasonally apt snowfall is a good reminder of ten months ago when residents of Greenwich had to navigate bottle-green pathways very gingerly lest they tripped and were injured by the broken bits of bottle.

Not only that, but bicycle tires got punctured and linos were ruined where glass was transported, from out-doors to in-, between the tread of footwear.

Not only that, but bits of broken bottles do not melt snow where as good old salt does. You can not but wonder why the Labour Council thought broken glass to be equal or superior to salt in the first place.