Within days of the current Conservative-led group taking control of Bath and North-East Somerset council, the Student Liaison Committee was unceremoniously scrapped without any supposed consultation.

The local Bath Lib Dems also immediately began complaining that because the ruling Conservative group reduced the number of executive members from eleven to five and renamed it the Cabinet, this was a massive recentralisation of power away from local people – which of course is utter rubbish.

I think firstly, if we take the point about centralisation. Looking just over the border, in Somerset, the County Council run by (yes, you guessed it) the Liberal Democrats is trying to force a massively centralised Unitary authority upon all, which involves abolishing all the District councils and creating one massive super-council for the whole area. The Labour Government is in full support and only a high turnout in a referendum on the matter may dissuade them.

Elsewhere, the real centralisation of power is that in both Westminster and Brussels – the latter of which the Liberal Democrats and Labour staunchly support with unflinching resolve. Anyone see the hypocrisy of claiming you are against what your own side has been doing on a far, far greater scale for years? But then that is the deceitful, two-faced and duplicitous nature of the Liberal Democrats for you. Their sort will do and say absolutely anything to obtain office, even if it means completely contradicting what they are saying elsewhere or have said previously.

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As said yesterday, the controversy sparked by the possible venue of the BNP leader Nick Griffin in Bath, was the reason why an extraordinary meeting was called in today, in Elements. Attendance was very high and the BBC was even here recording the meeting. The fact that a 2/3 voting majority was considered before the meeting, but subsequently dropped, highlighted the fears coming from the Student Union.

Two votes were scheduled on the meeting agenda, the first one about a ‘statement of belief’ condemning the BNP and the second one about the decision of allowing Nick Griffin to speak on campus. In fact no real vote took place as far as the ‘statement of belief’ was concerned, the blue ballot paper provided ended up being unused. Hot debates erupted though, mostly concerning amendments to the statement, with the sentence ‘The BNP is not a viable option for a political vote’ removed from the statement. The amended statement of belief was nevertheless passed without a real vote, a very negotiable measure considering the fact that the statement was written by Adam Laird, the chairman of the Liberal Democrat society in person, in terms of political neutrality no one could have chosen a better writer.

The discussion about University’s decision to allow Nick Griffin to come was, very heated to say the least. Three sides clearly emerged in the room, with a good proportion of members coming from the homosexual (the politically incorrect word for LGBT) group, another in favour of letting Nick Griffin come on the basis of freedom of speech and final one of mostly neutral students more concerned by the potential disruptions to exams. A representative from the homosexual group said that, ‘our group voted unanimously against the University’s decision, on the basis that the safe space policy is violated’. If they felt that threatened, then instead of making such a fuss about Nick Griffin visit, they should just simply stay at home. I also doubt that such an opposition would have occurred, if a radical Muslim cleric most of whom simply think that homosexuals should be burnt at the stake, had decided to make a speech here in Bath. Same remark as well, for someone like George Galloway.

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Yesterday, Warwick and Breckland, the final two councils yet to conclude their counts, returned their results and brought an end to the English local elections.

In total, the Conservative party took 41% of the vote and gained an extra nine hundred and eleven councillors across England, which was substantially more than had been projected. At the same time Labour dropped five hundred and five seats and the Liberal Democrats suffered a humiliating loss of two hundred and forty six seats.

In Bath, the Lib Dems lost three seats overall while the Conservatives gained a total of five. Labour made a net loss of just one and two independents lost their seats. Therefore, the Conservatives are now the largest group on the council, though they do ran in just two seats short of an overall majority and thus Bath & North-East Somerset remains in No Overall Control.

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Just recently, the University of Bath, received a request for the Leader of the British National Party, Nick Griffin, to speak at an event on campus. Nick Griffin is scheduled to arrive on the 14th of May; just six days time – and this announcement has already sparked a somewhat heated debate in certain circles.

The Bath University Secretary, Mark Humphriss, recently sent out an internal news item saying that the meeting would go ahead as planned, as the University of Bath website claims that:

So far as is reasonably practicable, no premises of the University shall be denied to any individual or body of persons on any grounds connected with the beliefs or views of that individual or of that body, or the policy or objectives of that body.

This seems a perfectly good and sensible policy to me, however, there has been much dissension among, what could ostensibly labelled as the authoritarian liberal-left of the student and university body. The three campus trade unions, UCU, Unison and Amicus have jointly released a document stating:

We are extremely disappointed that the University has made this decision, as we do not think it is a freedom of speech issue, but a freedom from harassment issue.

Though they have said they will peacefully protest against the BNP meeting and will not actively try to stop it, I think this gives a good insight into their general mindset. I wonder though, would these Unions have been protesting so profusely; or indeed at all, if for example an archaic Communist such as Hugo Chavez wished to speak at a similar event?

In addition, the useless Bath Student Union even went as far as to call an ‘extraordinary meeting’ to discuss the proposal in detail, in the Elements Bar (any excuse,) and numerous Bath students have signed up to a number of the now seemingly obligatory and pointless facebook groups that never achieve anything except to further inflate the egos of their creators.

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The University of Bath is part of the Bath & North-East Somerset council ward of Bathwick. Recently, Chris Dawson, administrator for the newly launched Bathwick Hill Community site, emailed us to tell us about his online initiative and about how students could get involved.

Mr Dawson hopes that as many people as possible will register on the site and take part in local activities and events. We have added a link to the sidebar of our website and we hope this website will play its part in helping to bridge the divide between University students and the long-term residents of Bathwick.

Yesterday, on May 4th 2007 I met one of the few living people whom warrant my veneration, for today Boris Johnson attended a Conservative meeting in Bath.

Several of my peers and aquaintences were sceptical about whether his speech would be of any relevance whatsoever, and even after his appearance some were left with the presiding belief that he was a ‘bumbling idiot’, but to those of us who take Mr Johnson as seriously as his intellect deserves, we were not disappointed.

Whilst talking about more national issues than many expected, baring in mind the council elections were held only a day previously, Mr Johnson produced such fine statements (albeit paraphrased) as “Tony Blair is doing his farewell tour on an open top submarine” and when mentioning Bath Conservative PPC Fabian Ritcher, pronouncing himself as the “president of the Fabian Society”. When talking about the stupidity of regulation on booster seats, Boris claimed that people of his age did not come to any harm without such pointless regulation, accentuating his point that such trivial matters should be at the discretion of parents.

Although clearly in a hurry, Johnson was doubtlessly in fine form; talking to his loyal supporters seemed to flow from his heart as effortlessly as the Latin prose that he spouted to the audience. When shaking his hand I was able to splurt out in the utmost sycophancy: “It’s an honour to meet you sir”, only to hear the response “yes yes, an honour to meet you”.

And so Bath CF left, myself personally feeling slightly bemused but altogether overjoyed after an afternoon that we won’t forget in a long while.

And so, late last night, the results came in that Bath & North-East Somerset council remained in No Overall Control. Our friend, Brook Whelan was elected in Widcombe with a fantastic result against the Lib Dems, and Gavin Bishop doubled the Conservative vote in Twerton though was unfortunately not elected.

Closer to home, unfortunately the two Liberal Democrat students in the University ward of Bathwick took both seats off previously incumbent Conservative councillors, John Bailey and Sir Elgar Jenkins. However, this was more than made up elsewhere with the Conservative party taking 31 seats on the council, while the Lib Dems slipped to 26. More coming soon…

Firstly, apologies for the lack of updates recently. Those people writing for this website have been very busy lately with University work and local election campaigning.

Boris Johnson, the Conservative Shadow Higher Education secretary and Member of Parliament for Henley in Oxfordshire is coming to Bath on the 4th of May to make a speech. The event is taking place at St. John’s Hall on Pulteney Road. Tickets cost £10 each, but if you bring a valid student card then it is only £5. Refreshments will be provided.

Boris will, no doubt, take the opportunity to celebrate Conservative gains in the local elections, and the Scottish and Welsh assemblies. The speaking event should run from 5:30pm to 8pm.

I was pleasantly surprised to read this letter from Derek Phillips in the Bath Chronicle yesterday. It really brightened my day by illustrating some of the current problems in Bath in a humorous way. The original letter can be found here.

We are the Lib Dem council,
We know a thing or two,
Like trusting folk will vote for us, What a silly thing to do.

We are the Lib Dem council,
We’re the best there’s ever been,We fill our ears with cotton wool, And pass plans we haven’t seen.

We are the Lib Dem council,
We think Bath buildings crass, We’ll knock them down, old things of stone,
And replace them all with glass.

We are the Lib Dem council,
We think the town is ours,
We’ll build some things that no one wants,
And call them Crossley Towers.

We are the Lib Dem council,
We know you’ll be like a mouse,
We do away with landmarks,
It’s started with the old Burnt House.

We are the Lib Dem council,
Your heritage is fast eroding,
We have schemes lined up, yes plenty more,
To fill you with foreboding.

We are the Lib Dem council,
Churchill House gone now any day,
Two fingers to our electorate,
And we’re standing again in May.

We are the Lib Dem council,
We know a thing or two,
Like people still will vote for us,
What a silly thing to do.

Today, Francis Maude, Chairman of the Conservative party visited Bath to meet our new Conservative Parliamentary candidate, Fabian Richter, and members of Bath Conservative Future.

Chairman Maude met us, along with local Conservative councillors and party officials outside the historic Bath Abbey. After a number of photographs were taken by a photographer from the Bath Chronicle, Fabian and Francis left to discuss a Conservative future for Bath and how best to defeat the current Liberal Democrat Bath MP, Don Foster who has a 4638 majority.

Later in the day Fabian and Francis went canvassing in the Combe Down ward, where Mr Maude told reporters:

Our concerns are with getting good value so that the money the council spends yields the best results. It’s not a choice between good services and low taxes. You can deliver good services and low taxes by making sensible decisions and running the council in an effective and efficient way.

This statement has been backed up by this year’s Audit Commission annual assessment of the quality of services provided by local councils, that proves Conservative run councils provide better services than any other party and at less cost to residents.