Home
Harwell Parish Blog
The Blog Debate
Parish Council Members
Whats broke?
Drugs in the Village
Moving forward
Around the village
Local Activities
Local Business
News
Contact
  
 


This month its time for the General Election in the UK where we vote for our member of parliament.   The next Prime Minister is decided by these elections.  This month's blog has been provided by villager emails and have not been edited.

"k  - i can understand where ur site is comming from.  u r in a tory area with a good margin, but the last tory we had defected to labour.  i have seen a lot of labour posters about and no tory ones.  u will again have to rely on old people and r stuck in the past."

Reply: Perhaps you are right.  It is true that the majority of the Conservative Party are 50+ and I'm sure that must sway the direction of the Party line, but I don't think that the cumulative knowledge of the senior generation should be thrown away and ignored.  By the very nature, this group of people have 'been there and done that'.  Their knowledge is important and they help reduce any momentary 'fad' or 'whim' from changing our society and political base radically.  This is a good thing and brings us stability.

"it must be difficult 4 ya as the labour party has certainly taken the traditional centre ground leaving u with nowt but radical moves backwards."

Reply:  Tony Blair does seem to occupy the centre right ground to people - specifically in his explanation of policies - but the stealth introduction of socialist ways will continue to damage our country.  I think this 'Conservative' facade that Tony Blair uses will be destroyed when Gordon Brown gets closer to power.  His clear and open socialist approach will be too blatant for middle England and the Conservative party will gain the lead back quickly.

"gordon has done so much for the country.  he has put our economy back on track and we are seen as leaders in europe.  he is clearly the leader of the future and someone that most people now trust.  how do the conservatives think that they can be trusted following years of corruption?"

Reply: Gordon Brown has benefitted from John Majors time at the top.  He initiated financial policies that have seen this country growing.  Gordon Brown has funded his additional spending by stealth taxes - lots of them.  Anyone working hard to achieve a good working income is taxed harder and harder.  The money I earn is spent on local goods and services, it goes to supporting our economic growth.  Why should it be taken in ever increasing amount by Gordon Brown to pay for a bloated government with high beaurocracy and low delivery?



Since this site has been up and running, which is over five months now, there have been only three people who have offered any sort of defence of June Blisset's position, and no one has offered any support for the other members of the Parish Council that have been named and shamed on our site.

Of the three people who 'rushed' to her aid, one sent a partially illiterate email, the second sent a well constructed email that could be part of a good debate, and the last sent an email that has actually made me question my assumptions.

It is this third email that has interested me and a nice debate broke out in the White Hart in our group discussing it. The email starts by offering assistance to the Harwell Village web site, but goes on to say “I could never trust anything where I do not know the author”. What a great statement, and I suspect quite a naive statement.

If this statement was true, then one would have to question his understanding of 'trust'. I suspect for example, that the author of the email 'trusts' documents issued by banks – the statement of your account, what the cash point tells him, letters from the branch and head office. None of these items has an author to which he is aware, and yet largely (apart from some cursory review) the information provided is taken as given.

So if trust is given to computerised and automated systems, does that imply that the author of the email trusts computers more than people (and therefore trusting the person/organisation who programmed that computer)?   Perhaps it's the logo or the format of the paperwork that makes us trust it?

If we were to take the example further, train timetables, bus timetables etc are usually taken as a given. These could be fobbed off as statistics, but they have been written by someone, and I would suspect that one would never question the timetables (although one may question if the bus/train is on time).

So trust could also be given to statistics?  Should we not question the information provided to us anyway?

Again, playing devils advocate, if the statement were true you would have to live in a world where newspapers, pages of information on the Internet, general public information (such as that on the Harwell Parish notice board) would all be irrelevant, as the sources of this information, the owners of the companies/organisation that produced them, or the editor that manipulated the words would all be unknown to you, and the information would have to be considered non-trustworthy.

Clearly, this is an extreme as we do trust some information. The big debate and question to examine is “What makes us 'trust' information provided to us?”


So whats the purpose of this blog?  Well we are all fed up with what the Parish Council has done and is doing for our community.  There seems to be a lot of money spent, and apart from the ground staff who seem to do a stunning job, we've no idea where it goes.

There has been a recent change though - since this web site was formed the Parish Council do seem to have some policies - they might be the policies laid down on this site, but at least that's a start.

One can only wonder how embarrassing it must be to follow the policies of a web site that they are attempting to close down.  Humiliation comes in many forms.

Stuart Willy has been a Parish Councillor since he was 'elected' for us by June Blissett.  His political career has up to now been quiet, with no sign of any positive contribution to the community.  Stuart Willy is also the first of the Parish Councillors to openly back the policies on this site.  This is a terrible start for Stuart Willy's political career, and a great sign for us as it just shows how much of the Parish policy is now run from this web site.

It's clear that June Blisset and the B-list Parish Councillors are lost.  One can only speculate on the level of credibility that June and the B-list has within the community, but it must be time for them to seriously think about resigning. 

June and the B-listers - Do you really believe that you represent the Harwell community and the people of Harwell?  Do you honestly believe that?

We on this site, and many of the villagers think that it's time for the humiliated June Blissett and the B-listers to leave the Parish Council and allow new people, unburdened by previous battles and empires to serve the community for the community.