A link to rockyf.com has been added - Rocky Fernandez:advocate and campaigner. Rocky has stood as an independent candidate in both local and national elections in Brent over the last few years. Most recently famous for the double-switchback manoeuver: joining the Lib Dems getting kicked out and then bitching about them online and in print (I’ll scan the letter from last weeks local paper later)…hummm, search for ‘fernandez‘ yeilded no documents…..

I was emailed a copy of the Queen’s Park Conservative Action Team campaign materials yesterday. Arwh, they are so smiley! not meanleanbusinessy-looking like some of the candidates in their campaign materials. So friendly looking I almost misstook them for the Greens!

Anyway… The photos, I noticed, were all taken in the Brent Conservatives office on Walm Lane. No ward walking for this lot! Where others have posed mid-reporting-a-local-grot-spot (sorry Sarah), the QPCAT (!) have opted for ‘about the office’ poses.

But….over the weekend my extra-day was interrupted by the Brent East Conservatives BATTLE BUS! ROCK ON! I wish I’d had my camera at the ready to capture the sight: A bright red double decker bus, still with the advertising posters for a film or something, with a brent Tory screaming down a megaphone: VOTE JACK SAYERS! VOTE CONSERVATIVE ON MAY 4TH!. It reminded me of Fridays Greeen Wing - the political ambitions of Dr Alan Statham broadcast from a small car: Come back here! Listen to me! Vote for me! etc etc….. You probably had to have been there…..

You may have read a letter in the Kilburn Times from a residents in Queen’s Park questioning the sanity of planning regulations that prevent people from moving towards renewable energy. I bumped into Rupet Degas from the Brent and Harrow Green Party in Queen’s Park yesterday and he nearly split our sides laughing at the lack of joined up thinking. This morning he forwarded me a reply he wrote that has, as yet, not been published by the paper.

“It saddens me to hear yet another story of Brent Council’s ludicrous policy regarding solar panels (’Council policy has gone mad’, letter, Times, 12th April). For the Labour led council to declaim support for renewable energy and then deny planning permission to those who want solar panels on their houses is at best hypocritical, at worst utterly irresponsible and environmentally destructive. Solar panels don’t look much different from your average dormer window, so my guess as to why the council doesn’t want them up probably has something to do with bottom-line profit or some such nonsense. The fact remains that the sooner more people go to the initial expense of installing solar panels, the sooner prices will come down and everyone will have them. I’d buy shares now if I were you before the Labour boys finally wake up and want a piece of the action. Joking apart, self sufficiency should be strongly encouraged and advocated by the council, but without any Greens at the table to get things moving, what hope is there? Look on the bright side though - at least you can watch Rupert Murdoch’s propaganda channels without the fear of Brent Council asking you to remove your satellite dish! Funny that.”

Rupert Degas
Green Candidate for Queens Park
Brent and Harrow Green Party
PO Box 42434
London NW10 3XT
rupert@qsound.uk.com

After bumping into one of the Dudden Hill Tory candidates last friday I now have the correct website for the Brent Conservatives. The link has been added to the sidebar. I’ll keep the old link up as it is the link that the official Conservative Party website links to - when they update, so will I.

An update to this post.

I was sitting out my step, enjoying a smoke in the evening air, when Jack Sayers walks up the drive out on the campaign trail delivering leafets. Jack has been a Councillor since 1990 so he is looking to be returned for the fourth time by this ward. The leaflet introduces us to the other two Conservative candidates, Khalid dar and Jennifer Brown.

Speaking of police… The Conservatives leafet compares the size of the Safer Neighbourhood teams in Conservative run Barnet Council to Labour run Brent. Brent’s Safer Neighbourhood teams are “about half” that of Barnets. Now, I’m not sure of this, but I had understood that the deployment of police resources were not a  matter for the council but for that of the Borough Commander for the Met.

The Compassionate Cameron Conservatives have plans for saving £1.2m in Brent Council - savings they think they can make in the machine without impact on service delivery.