Two early calls as I was getting readying to leave for Heronshaw, the first from Stephen Bloom and the second from Derek Giles about an appalling meeting of St Neots Town Council last night, agreeing policies to hamper councillors. Some progress with Brooks and Gatehouse, concerning auto-pilots for The Paxton Princess and Ebac over a replacement pc board for my conservatory/pond air conditioner.
After drafting and publishing District Council press releases for Percy to follow up on, I finally loaded up and left for Norfolk, at the end of a dull, mild and dry day arriving very late and tired.
Chancellor Major nominates Thatcher for the forthcoming Tory leadership election and his Autumn budget statement goes doen like a lead ballon in the City. Tony Benn, former labour Cabinet Minister and peace activist, is going to see Sadam Hussein of Iraq to discuss political negotiations to end the conflict and this has led to another storm of objections just as the US and the UK seem to be embarked on war preparations
Up at a reasonable time this morning as I had a call from Stephen Bloom who was already at his office at 7.30am! I asked him about getting some old second-hand railway sleepers for raising my garage and he will look into this and probably come to see me this weekend in Horning. No sooner as I had breakfast than I also had a call from Derek Giles who gave me some bad news about the St Neots Town Council meeting last night. Tory Bill Longford was up to his old spoiling tricks again and this time proposed a new procedural motion that each councillor be limited to a single motion in future which was very restrictive. Then the only Labour member, Daisy Seager, fell for this and proposed an amendment that restricted motions even further by reducing the permissible number to only one per party group. Derek and Michael were shocked by this turn of events and annoyed further when the Tories supported the amendment, and the motion was carried. I reviewed the Town Council Standing Orders with Derek and could not find any reason why the motion could be ruled out of order, but I was upset nevertheless. I had cause to speak to Percy and Sally later who agreed and then with Michael and two leading labour members who I contacted particularly by telephone. They too were appalled by this turn of events and so I have insisted that the opposition parties have got to meet to thrash out better ways of avoiding conflict in St Neots if we are to co-operate over next May's local elections.
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I was then pleased to hear from Brooks and Gatehouse, specialists in auto-pilots, and I had a good chat about the way in which their units could be used on the Paxton Princess. I spent just about all of the morning on these affairs and other matters, but I was pleased to receive a replacement circuit board and schematics from Ebac in response to my fax. I fitted the new timing board and timed several complete defrosting sequences and the unit then worked perfectly which was a good outcome. This took until after lunch and I was trying to get away to Norfolk but I then realised that I should issue a couple of press releases about next week's District Council meeting and this took me the rest of the afternoon. I ended up sending them off by fax between 4.00pm and 5.00pm as the last activity before I finally loaded up the car and set off for Norfolk. First I had to post all of my letters and drop in copies of the press releases to my colleagues in case they were interviewed by the press or local radio stations.
I telephoned my sister Freda on the way and arranged to immediately visit her family and Mum who is also at Redgrave at the moment. They received me well and treated me to a nice dinner and it was good to see and chat to them. I left in time to get to Heronshaw by 9.30pm and I was unloaded and settled in by 10.00pm. Half an hour to write up my journal (for I had taken my computer with me this time) and then to make myself some drinking-chocolate before I turned in quite tired to bed. Chancellor Major made his Autumn Statement to the Commons today and it went down like a lead balloon in the City. Thatcher is nominated by him and Douglas Hurd, the Foreign Secretary, and all eyes are looking to see if another Tory contender comes forward to dispute the leadership of the parliamentary Conservatives with her. Now Tony Benn, former labour Cabinet Minister and peace activist, is going to see Sadam Hussein of Iraq to discuss political negotiations to end the conflict and this has led to another storm of objections just as the US and the UK seem to be embarked on war preparations. The weather was dull but dry but not too cold today; not that I saw much of it.