After clearing up my office, which had been inundated with paperwork, I spent the day on political moves, agreeing cooperation with Labour and Greens over targeting election wards. In today’s Environmental Services Committee of the District Council I then successfully supporting Labour and back-bench moderate Conservatives to ban stubble burning and out-manoeuvred Leader Cllr Holley by using points of order thus dividing his members. A sad tale from Tory reject Cllr Ross McKay as I gave him a lift home.
Racial violence in the Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia with Moscow sending in 11,000 troops. More job losses in the city and other industrial firms and the stock exchange is falling again. An epidemic of "Mad Cow Disease", BSE.
Another day at home, actioning a variety of matters and starting the process of clearing up my office which had become inundated with paperwork. I had the best filing session for a long while and filled all of the wastepaper baskets. Di went to Sandy and got our dove food at long last and I completed quite a bit of correspondence. I had a call from Mark Slater of the Labour Party who was receptive to my ideas for targeting the seats in a three-way deal with the Greens in the forthcoming District Council Elections and avoiding the danger of cancelling one-another out in our opposition to the Tories. He is also keen on presenting the motion in support of "Parents-against-Smoking" which I had suggested.
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This evening, we had the Environmental Services Committee of the District Council and I supported a Labour motion to ban stubble-burning and thus saved it from the Tory trick of replacing it with a watered-down recommendation. By seconding two amendments by Tory back-benchers I managed to out-manoeuvre Cllr Holley by using points of order which may have upset him still further. It was quite a good meeting in the end, as I got several of the Tories to support me on various other things that did not come to fruition. I gave Ross McKay a lift home and the sad news is that, as well as being ejected from the Tory Group on the District Council, his wife has decided to leave him and wants a divorce. I can't see him being a local force to be reckoned with for any length of time with all this upset around him. The news was of the racial violence in the Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Armenia with Moscow sending in 11,000 troops to try to bring the in-fighting to an end. It is said that this is an "Ulster" within the Soviet Union. More job losses in the city and redundancies in brick-making and other industrial firms and I believe the unemployment figures soon will begin to rise again. The stock exchange is falling again as well. The epidemic of "Mad Cow Disease", BSE, is gathering pace and will soon become a crisis