Cllr. Gavin Ayling

Again I’ve lost the urge to write. We all know what we want: low taxes, genuine democracy, less central government interference in local government, freedom from the EU, secular government, non-socialist environmentalism, care for those in need, less government, fewer rewards for the lazy….

So what with my new job, new home and hopefully other good news shortly, there’s more on my mind than politics and none of it interesting enough to share with you. So I’ll return (probably tomorrow knowing me) but this message is just a warning that I may not be around much.

I’m now trying Safari (Apple’s browser) on my Vista PC and I have to say it’s surprisingly quick!

Here’s the link if you want to try it too: Apple Safari

Anyone who has known me for a long time will know that for all my criticism of the modern, socialist green movement, I have always been one who cares deeply about the environment. Before it was cool I used to chide friends who didn’t visit the recycling point (before doorstep collections) and I have always been amazed that you get free stuff by composting.

So, despite my criticism of the modern, socialist green movement, I bought an Electrisave recently and have enjoyed (perhaps too much) seeing what impact each device has on power consumption.

At the rate of 8.192 pence per kWh (kilowatt hour) a 100W lightbulb uses 0.6 pence per hour. A 20″ LCD TV and two 19″ LCD computer monitors don’t register any cost at all. A kettle uses a comparitively amazing amount (around 20 pence per hour) and an electric shower uses 38 pence per hour.

My PC (which is reasonably specced) uses a little less than a lightbulb and when it is on standby makes no impact on the meter at all. Fascinatingly, though, a 20″ CRT computer monitor registers a little less than a lightbulb on its own. And a 25″ CRT TV uses a little more than a lightbulb.

The most expensive things are kettles, electric showers and vacuum cleaners. But the most surprising thing of all was my Xbox 360. While that is running it costs between 1.8 pence and 2 pence per hour. When two PCs, an LCD TV, two LCD monitors, one CRT monitor, the fridge and double-height freezer, two cordless telephone base stations and two cordless telephone charger points as well as all the household’s standby lights and LCD clocks were running, the Xbox 360 doubled the amount of power being used!

So if you have an Xbox 360, and you care about your bills or wasting fossil fuels (or even CO₂ emissions if you’re an extremist) turn off your Xbox 360 when you’re not using it.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, a Wii doesn’t register even 1/10 of a penny while it is running.

The Electrisave is a sinch to install and works beautifully, I’d strongly recommend them to anyone who asked.

Two petitions I signed on the Number 10 website were responded to today. The responses can be found here:

• Better Off Out (of the EU)
• English Parliament

The respective websites for the campaigns are these:

• Better Off Out (of the EU)
• English Parliament

On Friday I started a new job. I won’t say much about my work, as I didn’t before because of the trouble people seem to get into when they blog about their place of work. Saying that, though, I’ve never felt there’s been much bad to say about my employer but hey ho.

Anyway, the reason I told you that is because it now means that rather than driving 15 minutes along the A27 I need to drive for nearer 1 hour 15 minutes including a stretch of the M25 — a round trip of around 90 miles. On Friday too, I started car sharing to reduce some of that burden, petrol etc. (note no spurious mention of the environment). And today was the first journey with only one of the sharers.

I am painfully aware that I can turn on speech/lecture mode very easily and I make serious efforts not to initiate or prolong political conversations. So it was reassuring today that the conversation on the way home was about things that I think ought to concern young, male 20-somethings:

• House prices
• The tax we pay for social sponges
• The war in Iraq vs. the lack of war in Zimbabwe
• The general wetting-down of England
• The worrying increase in religious belief

If the journey had lasted longer, I would expect it to move to the state of the BBC, how Channel 4 are so much better at programming, the worrying rise in uncontrolled internal movement in the EU.

And it turns out that us right-wingers are far more compassionate than the so-called lefty do-gooders. While we believe in Grammar schools which help people achieve regardless of social backgrounds, while we believe that social housing is a gift to the lazy and relatively scant help to the hard-working, while we believe that government money would be better spent (or not raised through taxes) on services that people need rather than on yet another campaign to stop people hurting themselves with alcohol (it’s their body for Christ’s sake), while we believe in free trade with poorer countries not spurious Fair Trade, and while we believe in helping those in genuine need (like the victims of 2005’s Tsunami)… While we believe those things, the left do not.

The Left believes that Fair Trade (helping a few farmers get a non-market driven — and still low — price for their product) is the answer to global poverty. It believes that we should give aid to Darfur rather than tanks to stop the genocide; It believes that the government should look after each individual even down to the nitty-gritty of their lives; And it believes that any different lifestyle that does not result in dreadlocks or prayer (or both) is to be stamped out by the state.

So when the UK Independence Party is laughed at by the BBC (and for obvious, and understandable, reasons), let’s remember that they are the ones who are against Social Housing being FORCED on developers (building on their own private land remember), they are the ones against high taxation and they are the ones who recognise genuine fairness.

When I joined the Conservatives in 1996, it was because I could see that their ideology was based in fairness, merit and (increasingly at the time, though completely thankfully now) genuine equal rights. I still believe that is what the membership believes in and, sadly, UKIP are completely ineffectual at every level, so I remain a Conservative.

But this is a call to those who believe in ideology and fairness: stop using politics as a method of achieving power, and start using it as a tool to convince people of your ideology and stand for election on principles.

Sam Harris is another in the growing number among us humans who believes that religion per se is dangerous. Listen to what he has to say:

If you agree, or even if you just know there’s no reason to believe in God, consider signing up (for free) as a Bright and spreading the 21st Century’s Enlightenment.

The last word on the whole debacle which has, I think, exposed Cameron as a wet, socialist, non-Conservative is made by Nadine Dorries MP.

Let her be promoted and her sense used to fight the advancing hordes of (wrong) socialists.

But for an alternative, the right wing would be deserting the Conservatives. The party has lost sight of its principles and what it stands for and I don’t believe I am alone in believing this. In fact, from ConservativeHome quoting the Daily Mail, this is what one learned commentator had to say:

“Mr Cameron has, so far, ridiculed the case for lower income tax, proposed higher taxes on air travel, denounced the Government’s modest health reforms as ‘frenetic’, suggested that hoodies need to be ‘loved’ (though not, now it seems, hugged), campaigned against public expenditure control, down-played the Atlantic Alliance and refused to back the overwhelming case for nuclear power. The party’s self-hatred is truly amazing. It has gone to such extraordinary lengths to express regret that it has even re-written history in the process.” - Robin Harris, former Downing Street advisor to Margaret Thatcher

Let’s start embracing right-wing thinking shall we?