Linda McCartney's & Pillocks In The EDP

Two things to write about today. Firstly, really bad news for Fakenham, where I am disctrict councillor, with the news that Linda McCartney's are to make redundancies. Fakenham's economy is reliant on factories (Kinnerton, Fakenham Laundry, Oriental Express and Linda McCartney's). This is a big blow to the local economy in the wake of other recent job losses in the town.

I know in the past there has actually been an oversupply of factory jobs in the town with companies finding it difficult to recruit people, but the level of job losses announceD (50 full time jobs) is another blow and speaks volumes for what happens to British Industry when it is taken over by foreign firms. The new owners are American, and as is the case with other takeovers (Rover, IBM (now Chinese owned and used to be American) & Rowntrees come to mind), often the company doing the takeovers are more interested in the brand name than they are the workforce.

I can remember Nestle promising that jobs were safe in Norwich when Rowtrees were taken over, yet within 10 years the chocolate factory was closed. Similarly, other firms are assett stripping businesses in the UK, moving jobs and production abroad, transferring head offices abroad too (meaning all too often that corporation taxes are no longer paid to the UK government), and British workers and tax-payesrs miss out.

When you look at how many UK firms have just recently been taken over (Abbey National, BAA, O2, and possibly soon even the London Stock Exchange), we should all be worried and start to ask what the UK government are doing to protect jobs in the UK.

In the meantime, lets hope Fakenham can recover.

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The other point I wanted to make was is that I have read the letter in the EDP having a go at me today. When I saw who it was from it made me laugh. Many years ago there was a Lib Dem activist who I knew, we campaigned together on a few things, and when he phoned me up at 4.30 in the morning ranting frantically one night, I even took some time off work to go round to his house to check he was not having a breakdown or doing him self some harm.

So it is a shame that this person when having subsequently fallen out with the Lib Dems, he leaves the party and joined Labour (usually rats leave sinking ships, not join them), he chooses to ignore basic facts of Lib Dem policy on the post office and attack me through the pages of the EDP.

I always make the point that I try to have friend of all political colours and would think very hard about attacking anyone personally, as the person being attacked is someone's partner, parent, child, friend, etc. Sadly some people lack those same basic morals, which is why som many people are put off politics.

It makes me wonder why I ever bothered to worry about this person's health all those years ago.