Redrow Development, Farnborough (Farnborough Central)

Licence application for Costco in Templer Ave Farnborough

http://www.rushmoor.gov.uk/article/2173/Licensed-premises#mapsearch

Aimee Vosser

Licensing Officer

Rushmoor Borough Council

01252 398131

Nice piece on Lady T from my mate Dan

My mate Dan and Mrs T

I’m not sure you can appreciate the magnitude of Margaret Thatcher’s achievement without some knowledge of the calamity that immediately preceded it. Most British people can no longer remember the Seventies. I am just fractionally above the national median age – born September 1971 – and my recollections are hazy. What I do recall, though, was the sense of despair. Again and again, I would hear adults casually say “Britain is finished”. Having spent my early years in Peru, where Britain was still looked up to as a serious country, I was shocked.
In fact, such sentiments were understandable. These were the years of the three-day week, of prices and incomes policies, of double-digit inflation, of constant strikes, of power cuts. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the United Kingdom had been outperformed by every European economy. “Britain is a tragedy – it has sunk to borrowing, begging, stealing until North Sea oil comes in,” said Henry Kissinger. The Wall Street Journal was blunter: “Goodbye, Great Britain: it was nice knowing you”.
Margaret Thatcher, almost alone, refused to accept the inevitability of decline. She was determined to turn the country around, and she succeeded. Inflation fell, strikes stopped, the latent enterprise of a free people was awakened. Having lagged behind for a generation, we outgrew every European country in the 1980s except Spain (which was bouncing back from an even lower place). As revenues flowed in, taxes were cut and debt was repaid, while public spending – contrary to almost universal belief – rose.
In the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher showed the world that a great country doesn’t retreat forever. And, by ending the wretched policy of one-sided détente that had allowed the Soviets to march into Europe, Korea and Afghanistan, she set in train the events that would free hundreds of millions of people from what, in crude mathematical terms, must be reckoned the most murderous ideology humanity has known.
Like everyone else, I remember where I was when she resigned. It was the equivalent, for my generation of  John F Kennedy being shot – an event which, curiously, also took place on 22 November. After three election victories, the Iron Lady was brought down by a collection of Euro-fanatical MPs – the “November Criminals” as one of my local party chairmen darkly calls them. It’s true that there were several factors in her unpopularity, above all the poll tax. Still, it can’t be repeated too often: the immediate cause of Margaret Thatcher’s toppling was that she opposed Britain’s membership of the euro. Who called that one right?
On any normal measure, she was a supremely successful politician. I'd go further and call her our most successful prime minister ever. Yet she drove many to a hatred so intense that, even on the day she died, a frail grandmother, the Internet was filled with venomous joy. (Have a look, if you have a strong stomach, at my favourited comments on Twitter, or at the #dingdongthewickedwitchisdead hashtag.)
Where does it come from, this inchoate loathing? Anti-Thatcherites tell you that it’s because she closed down the old industries. (She didn’t, of course: she simply stopped obliging everyone else to support them.) Yet it must surely be obvious by now that nothing would have kept the dockyards and coalmines and steel mills open. A similar process of de-industrialisation has unfolded in every other Western European country, and the only parties that still talk of “reviving our manufacturing base” are Respect, the Scottish Socialists and the BNP.
No, what Lefties (with honourable exceptions) find so hard to forgive is the lady’s very success: the fact that she rescued a country that they had dishonoured and impoverished; that she inherited a Britain that was sclerotic, indebted and declining and left it proud, wealthy and free; that she never lost an election to them. Their rage, in truth, can never be assuaged; for it is the rage of Caliban.

Death of a legend. Margaret Thatcher

We have witnessed today the passing of one of the greatest peacetime leaders of our nation. The first woman Prime Minister of Britain, the Iron Lady that had the deepest respect from every major leader in the world. A politician of principle, with the courage to stand up to bullies, be they Union bosses or nations like Argentina.
She was loved and loathed, but never be ignored. The formidable, the powerful, the reformer the energetic and charismatic Margaret Thatcher. I am very proud to be part of the party that gave her the opportunity to serve as Prime Minister.

WARNING: Voter Registration Scam

Electoral Roll

We have recently been contacted by the Electoral Commission drawing our attention to a website www.electoralroll.uk.com  that has been offering a paid-for register to vote service.   This was drawn to the Commission’s attention by Stockton On Tees and they had also received a direct complaint from the public about the site which is being prominently advertised on GOOGLE in response to searches such as “register to vote”.

The service offered includes an online application process with the form being printed by www.electoralroll.uk.com  and then being sent to the elector with a label containing the Commission's address rather than to a person's Electoral Registration Office. The company also offers to check completed applications. The website charges a £30 fee for their service as well as offering a premium rate phone service costing £1.53 per minute, plus additional network charges, to manage a person's voter registration.

The Commission is firmly against this service, as registering to vote is free of charge, with no associated costs to complete and return a form to an individual's Electoral Registration Office.   They want to make sure that no one uses this or any other service that charges for something that is straightforward and free.  They have contacted the company to ask them to cease their activities and also informed the Office for Fair Trade and Phone Pay Plus (who regulate premium call numbers) so they can establish if there are any legal and regulatory issues that need to be investigated.

They will shortly be issuing a press release urging people not to use the service and reminding everyone that they can register to vote for free by visiting aboutmyvote.co.uk, calling 0800 3 280 280 or contacting their local authority, in our case Rushmoor Borough Council 01252 398 826. Or web link http://www.rushmoor.gov.uk/article/3565/Registering-to-vote