According to various Internet sites, the Chinese believe that the year of the Dragon is about change and re-creation. Reform, including social reform. On the larger scale we will just have to wait and see whether that proves to be true. Here in Cobham for our own Chinese take-away, it is certainly going to be a year of change, as they have announced that they are closing their shop on the High Street this Saturday.

Personally I shall miss their cheerful service and excellent cooking. I am led to believe that their lease is not being renewed because their landlord wants to charge a far higher rent to an estate agent which can pay much more and wishes to move into Cobham. Presently there is only 1 Chinese take-away in Cobham. I have not yet noticed a shortage of estate agents in the town. I will let my readers draw their own conclusions from this.

Secondly, I have now been contacted by residents concerned about a plan to erect a large mobile telecommunications mast on Miles Lane, close to the junctions with Four Acres and Ashcroft Park. A similar application for a mast at the junction of Sandy Lane and Miles Lane was rejected last year. Any concerned resident should keep an eye out for any planning application made to Elmbridge BC and should ensure that they and as many other residents as possible write to the Planning department as soon as possible expressing their views, whether in favour or against this proposal.

Nevertheless, as I have spent more and more time in active politics, and over the last 18 months as a cabinet member of my local council, there is an aspect of journalism which has come to grate on me. It is that, whenever any person in any position of authority – whether in local or national government, in business or one of the churches – any member of the so-called Establishment –  comes up with a proposal the press seem to feel obliged, in the name of “balance” to find someone – anyone – who will disagree with that proposal.

It does not matter how blindingly sensible the suggestion may be, the press will always find someone who can be persuaded to give a comment saying that it is a bad idea. This is because you can be sure that somewhere there will be a Doris Bonkers who  believes that anything emanating from anyone in a position of authority must be tainted with self-interest, that there must be a hidden agenda. And the press will always find her, because journalists have been brought up to believe that people agreeing about things just isn’t news and won’t sell papers or air time.

Take this example:

“Yesterday it was reported that angels had descended from heaven and informed a number of shepherds that a saviour had been born in Bethlehem, and that he was Christ the Lord, and that they could find the baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Our sources tell us that a number of shepherds did indeed venture into the town and located the stable where the child had been born and came back, glorifying God. However one shepherd, who did not wish to be named, said that this was all very well, but babies are born every day, that Bethlehem was a long way away, mangers were filthy places and that there were sheep rustlers around. “I’m not interested in saviours”, he told the Gazette. “They only bother the Romans who then come and tax us shepherds all the harder. What I’d rather see is a cut in the wool duty”. (Excerpt from the Palestine Gazette, circa 4BC).

Happy New Year, everyone!

Yet what surprises me the most is that the people of the country which gave us the concept of democracy, and the descendants of Cicero, seem to have accepted the imposition of their new governments meekly and without raising more than a tiny whiff of protest. Why is this? Is it because despite having been in at the birth of democracy (classical Athens and republican Rome) their modern experience of it is relatively limited (Greece since 1974, Italy since 1945)?

The leading figures of the European Union are absolutely contemptuous of democracy – as has been seen in recent years when referendums about EU reform result in “no” votes. It is of course highly unlikely that this sort of coup would work in the UK – imagine waking up one morning to find that Mervyn King was now in charge – but if it did I would hope that somehow the spirit of 1642, or 1689, or perhaps the American spirit of 1776 would still be there to resist the imposition of will of the elites over the will of the electorate.

It is very easy for me to sit here and pontificate. I will not have a Whip cosying up to me and whispering into my ear something along the following lines:

“Look, Dom, you’re a clever chap and you have recently made a lot of very sensible suggestions about future policy after 2015. The PM sees you as a ripe candidate for promotion when some vacancies occur. You are obviously ministerial material. But DC values loyalty, and he would find it difficult to have someone in his government who did not come to his aid at a time of crisis. It’s up to you, of course, but do think about it.”

I can think of at least one current Whip who would himself find it very difficult to oppose the referendum. For me this is a matter of conscience and should not be whipped. The Conservatives went into the last election promising a referendum on the Lisbon treaty. The majority of the British population, time and again, has made it clear that they wish to express a view on the EU. The Euro project is in tatters, and we are being asked to pay some £12 billion towards the rescue package, despite having sensibly decided to stay out of the single currency. If this party is to convince the British people that it is on their side it should support this proposal.

Were I an MP and faced with the dilemma that Dom and many other MPs of  the 2005 and 2010 intakes are now facing, I would say this:

“Thank you for suggesting that I might be in line for promotion. If the PM thinks I am capable of being a Minister he will promote me irrespective of my vote on this motion. If he were to decide not to do so should I support this motion, then that says a great deal more about the priorities of the upper echelons of the party than it does about me. On this issue, I must follow my own conscience.

But that’s very easy for me to say, isn’t it?

The Farmer’s Market is on this Saturday – for the last time until June 2012 at the earliest. The organisers, unsurprisingly, have decided to relocate –  to Dorking –  as they fear that the roadworks will choke off trade. Will they come back next year? If they find rich pickings in Dorking, why should they? A lot of hard work went in to getting the market off the ground – much of it by David Tipping, who sometimes contributes to this site – and it is all about to go up in smoke.

One bright light on the horizon – the Parochial Church Council – hardly a known hotbed of radical action – have written letters before action to both Scotia Gas Networks and Surrey CC demanding that the proposed closure of Downside Bridge Road be stopped, and replaced by an alternate one-way traffic light controlled system. Well done to them. Perhaps the powers that be will now sit up and take notice. It’s not everyday that the Church gets militant and it says a lot about the way in which these road closures have been handled by the utilities groups and the County Council that the PCC have had to go to such lengths.

Your friendly gas supplier

 I spotted this on Cobham High Street the other day. It seems so friendly and innocuous, doesn’t it? “I’m sorry we’re about to dig up the roads again”, it is saying, “but don’t worry, dear friends because at the end of the day you are going to get a top of the range modern gas main that will make all your lives warm and lovely.”

Except of course that isn’t the reason the roads are being dug up. If you ring the number you will find you are connected to the Scotia Gas Networks company, where a recorded message directs you to their web site, here: http://www.sgn.co.uk/index.aspx?rightColHeader=9&rightColContent=15&rightColFooter=237&id=6251&TierSlicer1_TSMenuTargetID=70&TierSlicer1_TSMenuTargetType=1&TierSlicer1_TSMenuID=6

Had SGN decided to be entirely honest and straightforward, this is what the notice would have said.

“Dear Cobhamites. We are going to dig up the road because we want to make sure there is a proper gas supply to the new M25 service station, where all the shops and hotels will be spending lots of money on our gas. Ker-ching. Yes we could probably have done this work during the school summer holidays when there is less traffic on the roads, but doing it now makes the best commercial sense to us. So you just sit there in long queues of traffic as you try to get your kids to school, or walk past breathing in the fumes. Because we could not care less. And no, we didn’t bother to consult with your councillors, MP, or local community groups before planning this work, because we don’t have to. And time is money, right? All we need to do is tell some Surrey County Council pen-pusher what we’re planning on doing. He probably can’t find Cobham on a map, let alone know what it’s like to live here with main roads being disrupted. And even if by chance said bureaucrat had any points to make we don’t have to pay any attention if we don’t want to.”

“Oh, and while we’re on the subject, the sparks and the drains people will be digging roads up round here on and off from now till June. All this for a service station that hardly anyone in the area wants.  Enjoy.”

There has always been an underclass in British society, a group of people unwilling to work and living in, or at the edges of, criminality. Read the novels of Dickens if you are in any doubt about that. If you lived in the Rookeries of London, you were largely out of touch with any form of law or civilisation known to the world outside. The only difference between then and now is that there are now far more people living in idleness or on the edges of criminality than there were in the Victorian period.

The root causes of the increase are the state of our education system, the impact of the prevailing leftist ideology of moral relativism, and the present system of benefits. The abolition of the grammar schools removed the  best route out of poverty for the clever child with few advantages. The percentage of state school entrants to Oxford and Cambridge is worse than it was in the 1960s, despite those universities spending thousands on outreach programmes. The drift towards child centred “learning” rather than an emphasis on reading, writing and numeracy has left us with a large number of school leavers who are functionally illiterate, with a reading age at 16 of only 7. These people are of little use in a world where there are few jobs available for those who cannot read or write properly. Even the less academically able had a basic level of literacy far higher than obtains today.

There is no prospect of turning the clock back to before the time of the “permissive society” and in any event I am of the view that the state has little role in regulating private morality. However the unwanted side effect of social liberalism has been an almost complete breakdown in respect for the institutions of this country. Admittedly, many MPs, clergymen, policeman and even members of the Royal Family have contributed to this, but there seems to be little residual respect for the institutions themselves, which nonetheless still have a vital role to play in our society. Parliament, the Churches, the police forces, and all such bodies need to take a long look at themselves and ask how they can regain that trust.

Our welfare state was designed to combat the threat of poverty and the misery caused by lack of the reasonable resources required for life. The problem now is that the marginal difference between the income available to someone on benefits and the income which can be obtained from a job on minimum wage is so small that there is not enough of an incentive to force people to choose work over a life on benefits. The phrase “only fools and horses work” is no joke in some parts of society.

I doubt that there is any prospect of increasing wages at the bottom end in the short term. The economy would not stand a significant increase in the minimum wage, even if its effects were mitigated by some form of tax relief for those taking on new employees. The answer lies in a root and branch reform of the benefits system. It is essential that choosing to work pays far higher dividends than staying on benefit. It cannot be impossible for some portion of the budget currently devoted to paying benefits to be channelled instead into a distinct incentive to taking up employment or training.

David Cameron now has the perfect opportunity to let Iain Duncan Smith off the leash. There is a public appetite for benefits reform – even if it has been couched in somewhat crude terms. He will never have a better opportunity.

I’d like to see them beat the Indians in India, the South Africans in their own hemisphere and then pick up the World Cup as well before I’m absolutely sure they are top of the world, but this sure beats the 15 years of putting up with rampant Aussies which has only just come to an end…

Year on year this event gets better and better. Church Street, St Andrew’s Churchyard and the fields behind  the church are filled with stalls, there are vintage cars and buses to see, tours of the Church belfry, a Punch & Judy show for the children, food stalls and of course the famous Duck Race along the River Mole. It is community engagement at its best. The day ends with a splendid concert in the Church.

The Trust are now very close to hitting their fundraising target for the riverbank improvement scheme which will turn this beautiful but neglected part of the town into a key visitor attraction. so I wish them all the best for a great day.