….and ain’t that the truth! We don’t need a European survey to inform us that our quality of life is getting worse by the day. Price rises,  working long hours for so little recompense - which in turn generates huge debt, rise in crime and the perception of crime, all add to feelings of resentment and dissatisfaction.

Commenting on today’s [Wednesday] U-Switch survey which finds that the UK is bottom in a European quality of life survey, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said:

“It is depressing but unsurprising that while so many families struggle to make ends meet, we have one of the lowest qualities of life in Europe.”

Is it time for a change of direction? Turn to the left of this column and see how to join the LibDems….or call me. I can help.

….moves a step closer; the following story from LD website tells the story -

A Bill to give former Gurkhas indefinite leave to remain in Britain moved a step closer to becoming law after it received cross-party support in the House of Lords today.

The Immigration (Discharged Gurkhas) Bill, introduced by Liberal Democrat Defence Spokesperson Lord (John) Lee, received its Second Reading today.

Commenting, Lord Lee said:

“Former Gurkhas, all of whom have laid their lives on the line for this country, deserve the right to live here in Britain after the end of their service.

“The backing this Bill received today from across the House means that we have moved one step closer to giving them that right.

“The Government must now recognise that there is support for the Gurkhas across the country and get behind the campaign to let them stay.”

…microchips on waste bins…whatever next?

Some UK local authorities are piloting a scheme whereby microchips are placed in waste bins to weigh the amount of rubbish thrown away. This is so that householders can be charged for the amount of rubbish they throw away. Now we learn that there are glitches in the workings of the ‘chips’ resulting in householders paying over the odds for the removal of their rubbish. This is in addition to the Council Tax, which I thought was supposed to include the cost of waste disposal.

Well, I don’t know about you, but I only throw away in my green household waste bin anything that I can’t recycle, such as cat litter, fire ashes, non-recyclable plastics, food waste which I can’t compost and newspapers that I have used to wrap cat litter. I have a box in my outhouse with glass bottles in it, another with old clothes.

Where will it end? Don’t you just occasionally wish for a return to the days when our bin men carried a metal dustbin on his shoulder, right from the backyard to the wagon on the street? We now have larger bins which we still manage to fill; green, blue and brown ones. Upon whose shoulders do we place the blame for all this waste?  Is it the consumer? The manufacturer? The shop? What do you say when asked ‘do you need a bag for that?’

Try saying ‘No thanks, I have brought a bag with me’. See the look of shock on their faces!! It’s worth it!

….a nuclear waste site next door? Mmmmm, thought not!

According to a story in the Telegraph, councils are to be offered jobs and other “bribes” to accept nuclear waste.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, urged councils and other groups to provide an “essential service to the nation” by offering sites to bury a share of Britain’s stockpile of radioactive material. Mr Benn said communities could expect jobs and “other benefits” in return for taking on a burial site. ‘Essential service to the nation’? I don’t think so!

So far as I’m concerned, there is NOTHING on God’s Earth that I need so desperately that it would encourage me to accept a nuclear landfill site in my backyard - I trust that the Independents at MDC will be of a similar mind!

The Liberal Democrats site has a really good (and Free!) screensaver telling the whole truth about the disposal of nuclear waste. Check it out, by clicking on the Liberal Democrat site, then click on Environment….you will be able to download the screensaver from there.

…..It may be surprising to those of us campaigning against the ID scheme but large numbers of the public are still not aware that there is an ID scheme at all. Even those that are aware may be confused after various false alarms in the media that have led them to believe that the scheme has been dropped. We need to raise awareness and ensure that people know that this illiberal scheme is very much going ahead.

There are lots of things you can do to tell others about the ID scheme and fight the introduction of this insidious infringement of our civil liberties and the first is to sign the pledge, accessed by clicking on the ‘button’ at the right of screen.

There is also a scheme by www.no2id.net, which will supply you with stickers and other literature.

……..Supermarkets are falling behind local high street retailers and markets in reducing packaging waste, a survey has found.

Up to 38% of food packaging in a typical supermarket shopping basket cannot be recycled, according to a report by the Local Government Association. Its second investigation into the problem discovered only a 2% improvement from last year.

Analysis by the British Market Research Bureau into six leading supermarkets, a local retailer, and a market, concluded that retailers still had “a lot further to go” if Britain is to meet its recycling targets and avoid landfill tax.

Marks & Spencer and Lidl were the worst offenders in terms of the proportion of packaging that could be recycled. Only 62% of a range of items bought from their stores could be recycled, compared with 76% from high street retailers and 74% from markets.

M&S also used the second-highest total amount of packaging at 807g for a basket, while Sainsbury’s used the third-highest amount by weight at 746g. Asda’s packaging weighed the least among the supermarkets at 646g, 69% of which was recyclable.

Items found to have “excessive and unnecessary” layers of packaging ranged from pizza to biscuits. Fresh pizzas were found to contain several layers, including a plastic or polystyrene base and shrink-wrap, contained within a box. Biscuits were packed in plastic tubes in seven out of eight retailers, while some also had trays, adding to the waste.

However, the report stressed there had been some improvement from last year, for instance, broccoli was sold without shrink wrap in some stores. I have noticed that ASDA now sell it free of wrapping and if Ii buy things such as peppers or buternut squash I never use a plastic bag because I always wash my fruit & veg, or as in the case of squash, I peel it. However, celeriac is still shrink-wrapped…why?

…..has been moderated and approved. It reads as follows:

The removal of the 10p tax rate has, as we are all aware,
     brought much distress to those who are most in need of tax
     fairness. There has been an attempt by HM Government to redress
     the balance, but surely a change to the income limits for
     meeting the criteria of the Tax Credit Scheme would be a far
     more appropriate way of compensating those people who at the
     moment fall outside these required limits. Please sign up to
     this petition to bring a change to the Tax Credit Scheme.

To sign up to this petition, click on this link - http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/TaxCreditScheme/

Your support is much appreciated. Thank you.

…….to transport brussels. I am a vegetarian and love my fruit and veg, especially brussels. What a boon then to be able to buy them all year round. I bought some at the weekend and I was shocked to see that they had come all the way from Australia.

So what? you may think, but with all this talk of carbon footprints, don’t you agree that it’s beyond the realms of reason to carry brussels halfway around the world? I remember my father saying that brussels didn’t taste right until they had been touched by frost and he was right.

I am going to make a real effort to eat veg that is either in season in UK or comes at least from western Europe. I shall not miss Californian oranges, lemons or other citrus fruits, but I shall miss eating brussels in summer!

The Liberal Democrats have petitions relevant to Global Warming and Green Taxes; by clicking on the link to the left of this column, you can access these petitions and sign up to them.

…..THE TIME HAS COME: PULL BRITISH TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ

Find out whether your MP voted for war and how to hold them to account at

www.holdthemtoaccount.com

…..the Holocaust from history lessons for fear of offending Muslim pupils, a Government study has revealed. Also to be dropped is teaching about the 11th century Crusades  where Christinas fought Muslim armies for control of Jerusalem.   

There is a growing fear, particularly in northern schools that Muslims may start expressing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel reactions in class. In addition, teachers may lack subject knowledge resulting in history being taught in a ’shallow way leading to routine and superficial learning’.

 President Eisenhower, when the victims of the death camps were found, said words to this effect:   ‘Get it all on record now, the films, the photos, the names, because somewhere down the track of history someone will get up and say that this never happened’ …. it’s beginning to look as though he was not far from the truth.

It is now more than 60 years since the Second World War ended in Europe and 6million Jews, 20million Russians, 10million Christians and 1,900 Catholic priests suffered humiliation, rape, starvation and massacre.

As Edmund Burke (1729-1797) said ‘All that’s necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing’…..it is as true today as when he said it!

I am saying: Tolerance is a gift that is available free of charge to anyone who wants it.  The door must swing both ways;  we tolerate the tenets of other peoples and they are expected to tolerate ours. We should not have to re-write our history to accommodate another’s needs or beliefs; equally they are entitled to their history. Acceptance of our different pasts and tolerance of them is the only way forward.

 We Liberal Democrats are well-named and we do what it says on the can!! If you feel the urge to join us, look to the left of screen to find how to do it.