Gordon Brown yesterday told MPs in Parliament that, ‘tax rises for small firms were needed to counter East European scams’. He claimed that East European workers were being encouraged to register themselves as companies to avoid paying income tax when they arrived in the UK.

That is, quite possibly, the most ridiculous excuse since ‘the dog ate my homework’. To punish all small businesses with a tax rise for the misdemeanours of a few seems completely unfair. The Federation of Small Business rightly accused Mr Brown of being ‘disingenuous’ and commented:

Why did he not close that particular loophole, rather than increasing tax on small firms, the vast majority of whom don’t incorporate as a tax dodge.

In truth, Gordon Brown is an archaic socialist who hates enterprise, freedom, personal effort and self-furtherment. He desperately wishes to curb such behaviour by stifling everyone and everything through ever increasing levels of taxation, regulation and bureaucracy. These were the reasons for the small business tax increase; nothing to do with Eastern European immigrants.

Such a deceitful man does not deserve to leader this country as Prime Minister. So far it would appear that there is no challenge to the seeming inevitability of Brown’s Labour leadership victory. David Miliband waits in the wings – though he too is equally as bad a prospect, being another Blairite clone who has never had a real job in his life. Future British prospects seem bleak.

I heard with a certain delight this afternoon, the news that Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams agreed to deal concerning power-sharing in the Northern Irish Assembly. For the first time in his life, one can say that the man known as Dr No said yes.

It is worth remembering that the political journey of Ian Paisley, from the sixties up to now is closely linked with episodes of refusal and unrest which sometimes led to violence. Denying the fact that Northern Ireland was a ‘cold house of Catholics’ is impossible, despite warnings by the senior unionist Edward Carson not to alienate the Catholic populations as soon as Northern Ireland assembly was formed in 1921. From this date up to the sixties, most of the senior politicians in charge including the Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland themselves, did nothing to alleviate sectarianism, which was a long term necessity in order to foster any feeling of allegiance on the part of the Catholic community, preferring in their own words to rule ‘a protestant province for a protestant people’.

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Yesterday, David Cameron visited the University of Bath and gave a speech to the local party faithful at the Saltford Hall in Wansdyke. Only the previous night, members of the public assisted the local Conservative association in selecting Fabian Richter as the new Conservative candidate for Bath in an Open Primary; a decision which Mr Cameron took the chance to endorse.

David Cameron visited the University of Bath to discuss environmental and sustainability issues with local researchers and view some of the modern research and development facilities that had been constructed on site. He later gave a speech in the Wansdyke Room of the Saltford Hall in which he spoke out to previous Liberal Democrat voters to stand up to an authoritarian Gordon Brown and vote for a modern compassionate liberal Conservative party. A recording of his speech and the questions taken afterwards can be downloaded here (35mins – 8.2MB.)

Notably David Cameron is the only current leader of a major political party to visit Bath recently, taking the time to prove the Conservative party’s commitment to the people of Bath and the students at the University. Photographs from the day can be found here.

Tonight, local Conservatives approved the Open Primary selection of Fabian Richter to fight for Bath at the next General Election.

Fabian made a strong speech that probably went a long way to winning the support of the hall. What’s more, many probably found it incredibly rare, as Fabian put it in his own speech (to great amusement,) to find ‘a German with a sense of humour!’ Congratulations therefore must go to Fabian. We are sure that he will make an excellent candidate and we look forward to working with him to win Bath and prise the seat from the Liberal Democrats grip.

Also, our commiserations to Flick Drummond, Jessica Lee and Harry Morley who missed out on the seat. We wish them the best of luck in the future and we’re sure they will make excellent candidates for another constituency.

Current opinion polling would suggest that, at number 128 on the Conservatives’ projected target seat list, Fabian is in with a very good chance of becoming Bath’s next MP.

The Lib Dems often like to claim that they are against discrimination in any form. Of course, the vast majority of people realise that in light of their actions, what they claim is far from the truth.

It certainly is therefore particularly illuminating to see the local Lib Dem students prove the above point in their latest campus newsletter by making jokes about the ‘old Tories’ on the local council. Tell me again, just how old is their leader Menzies Campbell..?

When their own leader has one foot in the grave, it is frankly saddening to read their hypocritical and intolerant spiel condemning those older themselves just because of their age. This is yet more proof that the hypocritical Liberal Democrats preach against discrimination, but actively advocate it themselves – another one of their great many deceptions.

Best of all however, by their own argument, no student should vote Lib Dem at the forthcoming General Election because, due to his age, their ‘old’ leader does not really represent students. Brilliant advice that we can wholly recommend – though not necessarily the discriminatory reasoning behind it!

Yesterday evening, a few members of Bath Conservative Future attended the societies’ Annual General Meeting which was held in the Ale House in Bath. Gavin Bishop was voted in as Chairman again, with Florian Bay remaining as Secretary and Darien Jay being promoted to Treasurer and group Vice Chairman.

We were also joined by Fabian Richter; one of the four remaining prospective candidates hoping to become Conservative PPC for Bath. He spoke with us for a good few hours, outlining his views on various different issues ranging from local train services and traffic congestion through to improving methods of canvassing and gaining support for the party.

We would like to very much thank Fabian for kindly taking the time to come and speak to us. We wish him well tomorrow at the final selections.

Yesterday, some members of Bath Conservative Future attended the Bristol North West event ‘How To Be An MP’ organised by Nick Webb. The meeting included short but insightful speeches by Member of Parliament for the Forest of Dean, Mark Harper, and Conservative South West campaign director Carys Parry.

After both speakers had said their bit, the meeting was then opened up to questions from the floor. Topics covered included the slightly contentious issue of the sacking of Conservative MP Patrick Mercer from the frontbench by David Cameron, the renewal of Trident nuclear weapons and the upcoming local council elections.

Around ten or so members of Conservative Future from across the South West made it to the event – so the turnout was reasonable considering that unfortunately a few people apparently dropped out at the last moment. A few pictures of us at the event can be found in our Photographs area. There is also an interesting document compiled by the Conservative party on becoming an MP.

The next UK General election is predicted to be in 2009; probably in July to coincide with the European Parliamentary elections. Should the Conservative party wish to form a majority Government at the next election, then seats such as Bath must be won.

Very recently, the local Bath Conservative association has been engaged in selecting candidates to go forward to an open primary to be held at the end of March.

The final four candidates are:

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On the front page of today’s Daily Telegraph, one can find a title which says everything, “Millions to pay more for train tickets”. I had highlighted in a past article, the policy of the DfT to meddle with timetables and the like. Yet where some kind of regulation is necessary for the sake of clarity in the rail industry, none is made and the results can be seen everyday. Bath residents know how expensive it is to travel to London by train, indeed with a single fare of more than £70 in standard class; it is one of the most expensive train journeys in the whole world. And now the DfT is considering removing the capping of Saver tickets, potentially scrapping them altogether. Since a saver return from Bath to London costs £47, one can easily see the consequences of this policy.

The government has always claimed that “promoting public transport was our priority”, yet the actions of the DfT are doing precisely the opposite, potentially preventing millions of people from using trains due to excessive fares. I would not mind paying a lot for my train journey, but only if my ticket would undoubtedly offer value for money. If I believe the last figures, published in a well know railway magazine, the impression of value for money is falling among customers and the recent stories about overcrowding only confirms this fact.

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Channel Four broadcast the supposedly ‘controversial’ documentary, ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’ last Thursday. I recommend that everyone takes the time to watch the programme which is around an hour and a quarter in length – click here to view.

Many of the arguments put forward in the film challenged the growing consensus that carbon dioxide and human activity are the cause of climate change, and instead the programme laid claim that it was the sun’s activity that was by far more important. This was in striking contrast to the conclusions drawn in the film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ by that great left-wing spiritual and moral leader, self proclaimed pseudo-scientist and failed US Presidential candidate, the Rev. Al Gore.

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