After rising early this morning and seeing the kids off to school, I welcomed the arrival of my new gardener, Mark, on a breezier but sunny day; spending time with him to help him start his new job. Debbie found a new girl to hack with at her Staughton stables as I met colleagues to plan our contributions to this week’s council committee meetings. The HDC planning committee this evening, where I spoke on Diddington gravel extraction and was pleased to see our new opposition councillors making their impact.
A third IRA suspect was captured by Dutch police with the fourth escaping a roadblock, the EEC joins the USA in suspending economic aid to Romania, the British government removes £600m and 33 new Tornado aircraft from its defence budget as UK borrowing rises to 1.7 billion in May due to poll tax costs
I rose early this morning and undertook my normal chores before breakfast. I saw the girls off to school and Daniel to his room to study for his last remaining examination in Chemistry next Thursday. It was a bit breezier with showers forecast later, but at the least the weather started sunny for the arrival of my new gardener, Mark. He turned up on time and I got him started on the task of mowing the lawns. He had to get used to the mowers, but he made out all right and I allowed plenty of time to supervise him to start with. I also managed to get some financial planning and correspondence done between times and then had lunch with Di and Daniel. Dan was hanging around, rather bored, this afternoon and then went out this evening and he is longing to get this Thursday's Chemistry exam over.
** PRESS "Read More" BELOW for the complete story **
Di took Debbie to her Staughton stables this afternoon after school and she managed to find another girl to go on a hack with and is really liking this new place and so things are going well at the moment. After lunch, I went to Sally's house for a meeting with her and Percy and we planned our contributions to this week's council committee meetings. The meeting took from 3.00pm until 5.00pm and Percy and I also collected from Sally's the FOCUS editions for our areas and now have the job of inserting the advertisements and getting them away to the deliverers. Home for tea and to feed my doves and fish and then off, this evening, to an HDC Planning Committee meeting. I had asked to speak on the Diddington Gravel proposal - to propose conditions if they were not minded to refuse it - and there were also other major issues affecting St Neots such as a new Power Station and a Hotel development by the riverside park.
It was interesting to see the increased number of opposition members (including Percy and Daisy Seager) making their mark and this encouraged the other members to speak out. The result was much more debate and opposition, even though the meeting made slower progress. The Power Station proposals are being rushed through without people in the St Neots area being properly informed or consulted and this caused a lot of aggravation. Home quite late and to bed even later as I sat and watched some television to unwind at the end of the day. A torrid Miami Vice episode, highlighting the sickness of American Society and then a hark back to the music and news of 1966 which showed just how much things have changed from, what I and others see as, the salad days - all Beatles, mini-skirts and Harold Wilson.
Today, the third IRA suspect was captured by Dutch police, still wearing his handcuffs and waiting outside a church. The hunt is now on for a fourth who failed to stop at a road block on the way to rendezvous with him. The EEC has joined the USA in suspending newly-announced economic aid for Romania to show distaste for the violent suppression of political demonstrations in Bucharest. The "Peace Dividend" made possible by the improving East/West relations is beginning to emerge as the British Government removed £600m from the defence budget and with it 33 new Tornado aircraft.
Much of this, however, is actually due to the higher costs of inflation that necessitated most of the cut to stay within budget limits. Defence contractors are being hit hard with cancellations and deferments. The public finances have also been hit generally by the lack of anything else to privatize and a shortfall in tax collection in May due to the delays, costs and paying resistance caused by introducing the Poll Tax. There was a £1.7bn borrowing requirement in May and the budget forecast of a £7bn public sector surplus in 1990/1 is already being questioned only three months after the Budget. All this hits the stock market which lost 20 points.