ULEZ

The recent by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip last Thursday resulted in the Tories holding on to the seat with a majority of 495 votes, down from the 7210 they got in the 2019 election. This, according to many political pundits of the climate change denial variety shows how Londoners are rejecting the expansion of ULEZ across the city.

So let's look at the results and see just what they mean. 

The Conservative (anti-ULEZ) candidate achieved 13,965 votes; down from 53% of the vote in 2019 to 45%

The Labour candidate achieved 13,470 votes; up from 38% of the vote in 2019 to 44%

53.77% of those eligible to vote didn't bother.

If this was a referendum on ULEZ, the result is perfectly clear; most people couldn't give a damm about ULEZ one way or the other, although to be fair, they don't seem to give a damm about anything else much elther.

Those who voted Labour or for most of the other candidates don't give a damm about ULEZ or actively support it.

In any case, anyone claiming that almost wiping out a substantial Conservative majority, leaving them to scrape through by a gnat's whisker as a disaster for Labour must be reading the Daily Telegraph.

The anti-ULEZ campaign is a storm in a teacup, with it's advocates making a lot of noise and getting a lot of media attention with little effect.

Speaking of pressure groups making a lot of noise, getting a lot of media attention with little effect:-

JUST STOP OIL

An international organisation pops up out of nowhere, well organised, well funded and seemingly with the purpose of totally discrediting the environmental movement. In cases like this, one usually just follows the money and in this case, it leads right back to the fossil fuel industry.

How better to derail the campaign to try and reverse the damage being done to our planet than by demonising those who advocate a movement to a more sustainable lifestyle. Get a bunch of idiots and tell them to disrupt society in any way they can. They are supplied with all the accoutrements necessary to do this; tickets to major public events, tee shirts, banners, no end of orange dye. We are left in no doubt as to who they are.

Some people may argue that those taking part in these disruptive stunts are genuine climate activists. What utter nonsense. Anyone believing that making a fool of yourself, disrupting popular public events and stopping the traffic actually makes people more supportive of the environmental movement would have to be a complete moron and I don't believe anyone could be that stupid.

JUST STOP OIL

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CLANGERS TO RETURN TO THE BBC 

Not an actual picture of
Nadine Dorries.

Nadine Dorries, our government culture secretary was speaking in front of the digital, media and sports select committee last week, trying to justify her decision to try and sell off the publicly owned Channel 4. It seems that, in spite of being responsible for the oversight of our national TV stations, she has no clue whatsoever of what it is she is in charge of. 

"I would argue that to say that, just because Channel 4's been established as a public service broadcaster and just because it's in receipt of public money, we should never audit the future of Channel 4 and we should never evaluate how Channel 4 looks in the future and whether or not it's a sustainable and viable model". Is how she justified her proposal to the committee.

A shame then that she doesn't know that Channel 4 is entirely funded by advertising. When challenged by Tory MP Damien Green that Channel 4 gets it's revenue from advertising, her response was, "And....so.....though it's.....yeah and that".

Whether this is an even more stupid blunder that her LBC interview where she was boasting about how well Channel 5 was doing since being privatised is open to debate.

Channel 5 has never been publicly owned.

 Shopping in the 21st century (part 4)

I needed a replacement washing machine connector tap as the existing one has broken; I also needed some PTFE sealant tape so the whole thing doesn't leak like buggery afterwards. Seems like a simple enough task: think again.

Went to B&Q to get one; did they have what I wanted? You must be joking. 

While I was there though, I did see a nice house plant that would work well in our new planter; at least it wouldn't be an entirely wasted journey. Took it to the checkout and found the only till open had a queue of customers half the length of the shop in front of it. Put the plant back and went home.

The tap and tape? Ordered it online: it arrives tomorrow.

Local Elections Update.

Nothing to report really. I still don't know anything about the Conservative candidates, not that I intended voting for any of them anyway.

A FEATHERED WARNING 

According to this article, published by the Daily Mirror, a self-appointed "UFO expert" who goes by the name of Nick Pope has suggested that we should be wary of seagulls who have been repurposed as secret drones, acting as alien spies and sending information about us back to their mothership.

The Mirror journalist reporting the story, John Bett, says this makes a lot of sense.

The reason they have to use this sort of devious method is because despite being thousands of years in advance of us, they never invented the internet so would never think to find out everything they need to know about our species just by watching YouTube.

One has to wonder just what information the aliens are collecting and what they intend doing with it. Infiltrating our secret military headquarters would be problematical; I'm sure with even the most lax security measures, the people inside would have no difficulty in spotting a seagull flying around. 

Imagine the Cabinet Office at No 10 with Jonathan Livingstone Seagull perched on the picture rail, gathering all that secret information whilst waiting to pounce on the hors d'oeuvres during one of their lockdown parties. Surely someone would notice.

Of course, if they were spying on the rest of us like some of the conspiracy theorist fruit loops claim, that would make more sense. After all, what an alien race that has just spent 50,000 years crossing the light years wants to really know about us Earthlings is ............. actually, I've no idea what they want to know about us but whatever it is, it must be important.

I know for a fact that they are spying on me and I caught one in the act. In this case the seagull had cunningly disguised itself as a collared dove but it didn't fool me for a moment. From now on, I'll be watching the skies.

5 MAY ELECTION UPDATE.

For those of you who are waiting with baited breath for my latest election update, I'm afraid I don't have much to add.

This information refers to the Thamesmead East ward where I live. I don't know anything about any of the others.

I did receive another election leaflet, again from Labour, this time giving me a little more information about their candidates and more details about what they have planned for the borough if they win a majority.

Trying to find out anything about any of the others is like pulling teeth. The sole Liberal Democrat, Doro Oddiri seems a sincere enough fellow although his Statement to Voters is left over from his 2017 General Election one when he stood as an Independent. 

The three Tory candidates, Graham Anthony Moon, Natalie Price, Rajinder Singh Tumber, I think work for MI5 so cannot disclose anything about themselves at all. Apart from a name, there is nothing; no address, no contact details, no picture; nothing.

More when (if) I get it.