Opinion

Someone called me a ‘Whingeing Pom’ this week. He had no right to. He wasn’t an Australian. If he had been, I might have forgiven him for not knowing any better.

People who believe my most fervent pet hates concern political correctness, privatisation, fat cats and the like, are totally wrong.

Have you ever had one of those totally inexplicable imaginary visions which appear to make a mockery of everything around you?

The holiday season is now upon us, which means weekend getaways, barbecues in the garden, and a general onslaught of activity across the whole of the county.

The recent Grantham Area Committee was well attended and therefore demonstrated the desire of many residents to debate the important issues that affect our town.

Unlike almost every other country in the world, there could never be any suggestion of anything underhand about our democratic elections.

Earlier this week, I voted for the national living wage and I don’t think I have ever been prouder to be a Conservative – or done something that will benefit more of the people I represent in the Grantham area.

For years now I have recognised that, like our democracy, the Houses of Parliament have been falling apart.

A lot of us will spend some time in the next few months lying on sunloungers somewhere on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Anti-social behaviour and poor housing was as much a feature of 19th Century Grantham as it has been more recently.

A former colleague and long-standing friend once told me he was immensely proud of the fact that he had never read a book of any kind since his schooldays.

Have you noticed that Grantham’s weather seldom follows the same pattern as that shown by forecasters on television?

Some readers have told me I should stop moaning about the future, or lack of it, for Grantham Hospital and let sleeping dogs lie.

In politics, as in tobogganing, momentum is all. The Prime Minister is determined to make the most of his victory in the general election, and of the small but perfectly-formed majority with which the voters have rewarded us.

Ever since Margaret Thatcher inflicted her ‘short-term-looks-good; long-term-disastrous’ financial policies on an unsuspecting electorate in the 1980s, I’ve been concerned that one day money would outlive its usefulness.

Our green and pleasant land is under threat. There is a creeping insidious problem which is spreading across the country. Litter.

One of the commonest misconceptions about our great country, fostered quite blatantly by successive governments, is that we have always been a nation of immigrants.

At Grantham King’s School, which incidentally couldn’t have been more a part of the establishment in the 1950s, we were taught to look forward to Utopia.

During our last communities and public health scrutiny committee meeting at Lincolnshire County Council a very serious subject was raised.

For some time now I have been trying to think of an alternative to foodbanks, the Third World solution to this country’s austerity nightmare.