A Mixed Week

It is actually, a postscript to last weeks 'view'.

Shelter, the Housing Charity, has this week published a report. It highlights the Labour Government failure to provide affordable housing and get a grip on the housing crisis. Housing costs are making the elderly more isolated and keeping families apart.

The report reinforces all that I said. It needs to be realised that the cost of bringing empty homes back into use is just a fraction of the cost of building, yet the Government is sitting idly by while houses fall into disrepair.

I took a few days holiday last week to help to get me through the rest of the winter. I have had to spend the weekend catching up with all that I missed while walking through the wonderful countryside of the Welsh Marches. It was good to see that the Cheshire dairy farms are still doing well. They don't have the heavy clay soils as we do here in the Weald but a sand stone base which means the water drains away much quicker.

I also enjoyed not listening to the radio or watching television. I certainly did not wish to sit through 6 hours of Tony Blair justifying why he took the country to war with Iraq. It appears however he has managed to come up with some new excuses. Did we really expect him to say he is sorry? A degree of conviction is necessary in politicians but the excuse that Saddam Hussein would have in time made WMD's, even if he didn't have them then, had he not been removed, is appalling.

I also found time at the weekend to walk some of the streets and knock on doors of potential voters in Heathfield. Many are unaware that at the next General Election there are to be parliamentary boundary changes and the majority of Heathfield will fall within the constituency of Bexhill and Battle. Residents of Heathfield will have a new MP this Summer, whether they bother to vote or not!