Cllr. Gavin Ayling

So, I’ve neglected you since March 16th? How time flies.

So here’s an extraordinarily brief bit on each of the things I’ve missed:

On May 1st there are local elections here in Adur. If you’re in Buckingham Ward, vote for Debbie Kennard. If you’re elsewhere in Adur or if you’re in Worthing, vote Conservative. And if you’re in another District, Borough, Unitary, Parish, County etc. then check out your local candidate and assuming they’re not insane (hey, I don’t know that their selection processes are perfect) vote for the Conservative one.

Ken Livingstone has five children… Who cares? And even if you do care, don’t read his responses because they’re far too clever. No, instead, ignore the story and vote Johnson anyway.

Car trouble has forced me to use public transport. Sort out the prices will you (whoever you may be) please?

A trip to London, and a savvy companion caused me to invest in an Oyster card. Say what you like about civil liberties (only applicable if they become compulsory in my humble opinion), but they’re fantastic. They just need to work on the rest of the public transport infrastructure and you may find people giving up on their cars (not likely given the infrequency of services to and from some locations).

Embyro Bill

Discussions about the so-called embryo bill set some dangerous precedents. Religions have no reason so claim the right to direct people’s ethics and MPs voting on religious grounds scares the bejesus out of me. If I don’t agree with the Catholic Church’s take on ethics (you know, the one where condoms are evil even if they protect African women from their promiscuous husband’s HIV) I am presumably forced to vote along religious lines. In some future where Islamic votes reach a critical point, will people start to find that Islam in the UK is politicised? Is this not the very thing we are fighting in Afghanistan and which Turkey’s constitution protects against?

MPs who wish to violate the whip because of religious reasons should be sacked from their party before the vote’s even taken place. Religious zealots who would put the country on the path to politicised religion in the House of Commons should not be welcome in mainstream parties.

That said, the gradual emergence of primaries in British politics may be the thing we look back upon as the reaon Britain didn’t fall into the politicised religion trap.