I joined Diana for her regular Tuesday shopping trip to Cambridge on what had become a nice, still and sunny morning and then spent the afternoon editing my Focus newsletter until joining the HDC Policy Committee to consider the link road around Ramsey & Bury in the evening, which I almost got deferred.
We were all astonished to hear that John Major had been elected Conservative Leader and thus Prime Minister.
I was up a little late but was still able to get to the table in time to have a breakfast of croissants with the family. These days, Diana uses the oven to heat them and they are nice and crisp to eat. I decided to join Diana on a shopping trip to Cambridge today as it was a chance to meet her parents and also to get some of my own Christmas shopping done before the shops get so crowded in December. There was still a lot of traffic on entering the city and so we parked on the outskirts and walked across St Johns College grounds on what had become a nice, still and sunny morning. The peaceful and serene scene was somewhat spoilt by us being approached by a beggar to whom I gave fifty pence and I thought allowed that I hoped that the passing of Thatcher's Britain would see the end of all this.
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We called in at a couple of building societies on the way to have morning coffee and withdrew some cash so that we would not have to tax the low limits of our new credit cards too much. Coffee with Charles and Norma Jackson who wanted to know all about Daniel's new girlfriend during the wider process of exchanging family news. Then some time shopping during which I bought a nice new lady’s fountain pen for Debbie and some Filofax diary inserts for Daniel. Di also got quite a few presents and stocking fillers before we walked back across the college grounds and on to the car. I drove us to the garden centre at Shelford where we had lunch of soup and toasted cheese sandwich before looking around.
We decided to buy our Christmas Tree to have safely secured it and then added a few more purchases before driving home via the M11. I spent the rest of the afternoon in my office editing the FOCUS copy and printing it out, making a few telephone calls as part of the same process. Tea, and then I got washed and changes as I listened to the radio for results of the Tory leadership ballot. John Major had won just two votes short of his 187 needed to win this stage of the ballot outright, but the other two candidates gracefully withdrew to let him become the next leader of the Conservative Party.
Off to Pathfinder House where the Tories were gathering for the Policy Committee meeting of the District Council and they were absolutely astonished by the news of their MP becoming the Prime Minister. I asked the leader of the Council whether he was going to allow a congratulatory motion by way of urgent business and this crystalised his thoughts on the matter so that he decided to check on the legitimacy of it. The meeting itself was to consider the Planning Committee's report on the Local Plan and it was quite interesting. I moved the recommendation that the question of having a Southern Link road around Ramsey & Bury be re-considered by the Full Council as the local people could see no reason for it and this split the committee five all with the rest of the committee abstaining and it needed the Tory leader's casting vote to defeat me! I united the opposition and got one Tory vote as well and now the press story can read that the Tories contemptuously-ignored the views of the residents.
I stayed behind afterwards and chatted to the Bury member and my Liberal Democrat colleague from Bury, Carole Crompton, and commiserated over the decision. Also to talk to the Labour leader about the significance of John Major being the new Prime Minister and it effect on local politics. Home in mid-evening and mind full of a range of action items that this will inevitably lead to.