In Iraq and Afghanistan you continue to make an enormous contribution in helping to rebuild those countries and in other operational theatres you undertake essential duties with a professionalism which is so highly regarded the world over. Members of my own family have had the opportunity this year to visit you on operations and see at first hand the scope of your work. They have been hugely impressed by the spirit in which you go about your business under the most difficult and dangerous circumstances.

Your courage and loyalty are not lightly taken. It is a pledge which calls for sacrifice and devotion to duty. And I know that yours is a job which often calls for great personal risk. This year men and women from across the Armed Forces have lost their lives in action in both Iraq and Afghanistan. My thoughts and prayers are with their families and friends especially at this Christmas season. For those Servicemen and women who have been injured in the course of their service, I wish each and every one of you a speedy recovery. For those of your families spending this Christmas without you, I want to express my appreciation for the understanding they show and the sacrifices they make on our behalf.

Our country asks a lot of you and your families. I have much appreciated the opportunities I have had to meet so many of you during my various visits over these past twelve months and I always draw strength from your dedication, resolve and good humour. On a personal note I would like to thank you for helping me to celebrate my 80th birthday. Throughout my life my relationship with the Armed Forces has been marked by my admiration and deep respect for everything you strive to achieve on behalf of all of us. My father, King George VI, said that 'the highest of distinctions is service to others.' There is no higher goal. Your service to our country is - I believe - an outstanding example of that ideal. I am grateful to you all.

I wish you, and your families, a happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

God save the Queen

www.burnleytoday.co.uk

COUN. MARK TOWNSEND, Queen's Park Road, Burnley

www.burnleytoday.co.uk

As a result of the Christmas Draw, cheques totalling £440,000 have been sent to participating Constituency Associations and Clubs. 

I am delighted to hear that the hon. Gentleman will at least offer Christmas greetings on behalf of his party on Tuesday. Perhaps the Liberal Democrats are having to debate whether they recognise Christmas. The hon. Gentleman is a generous character, so for the life of me, I do not understand why he cannot say "Happy Christmas" today. I have been trying to discover the source of all the politically correct nonsense; I strongly suspect that it is somewhere in the heart of the Liberal Democrat party.

Hansard, http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2006-12-14a.1009.0&s=speaker%3A11464#g1016.0

Post Offices are the lifeblood of Burnley community. But their future is now under real threat. These cuts will hit the vulnerable and the elderly the hardest. Labour Ministers need to recognise that if the local Post Office closes, often the last shop in the vicinity closes as well, and a van for a couple of hours a week is no replacement for a Post Office open full time. This government simply cannot be trusted to look after our communities.

Conservatives have called for Sub-Post Offices to be given greater freedoms to offer a wider range of commercial products and are pushing for more Post Offices to be ‘one stop shops’ for central government services.

The Government made a statement on 14 December 2006 launching a consultation on its plans for the Post Office network. It calls for major cuts in the number of Post Offices. The overwhelming majority of remaining the Post Office network are sub-post offices run by private businessmen and women. The Government plan states:

“We will provide support for a restructuring of the network with up to 2,500 closures within that framework which will maintain a national network. Subpostmasters leaving the network under the restructuring programme will be compensated. We expect that Post Office Ltd will implement this process over an 18 month period from summer 2007” (DTI, The Post Office Network, December 2006, p.6).

http://www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/page36024.html

An estimated 4,000 Post Offices have already closed under the current Government. The Labour Government’s Post Office Minister told Parliament, “the reality is that too many offices are chasing too few customers to be viable” (Jim Fitzpatrick MP, Hansard, 16 October, Col. 618).

The Chief Executive of Royal Mail has even said that he wants to reduce the Post Office network from 14,500 to just 4,000 Post Offices (The Times, 19 May 2006). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2187445,00.html

CONSERVATIVE POLICY

Giving Sub-Post Offices greater freedoms to offer services

Conservatives would rewrite Sub-Postmasters’ contracts, allowing them to provide a greater range of products and services, including private mail services.

·            The long-term future of the network will be best secured if the Post Office is opened up to new markets and new customers.

·            Just as many pubs that were tied to one brewery are new free houses, so Post Offices should be released from their ties and made able to offer a broader range of services.

Using Post Offices as ‘one stop shops’

Conservatives will investigate a scheme whereby people who have concerns about a range of Government services can use their local Post Office as a kind of ‘Government GP’.  Trained staff in Post Offices could then advise on a range of matters, including tax returns, pension entitlements, the opening hours of local pharmacies, how to apply for a disabled parking badge, and the like.

·            The Government has looked at this idea on a number of occasions  have been a number of plans and pilot schemes aimed at using Post Offices as a ‘one stop shop’ for accessing a wide range of information and services from Government and related bodies.

·            Despite their good intentions the Government have achieved little more on this than a small handful of pilot projects. 

Staff are demoralised and pupils are unruly. As a former Burnley teacher myself, I do not see this blog comment as political point-scoring, but as something that makes me very sad. Nay, angry.

Prior to September 2006, Habergham High School's Maths A-level results were the best in the County, beating even selective grammar schools. The Value Added score of each child's results by the time they left was well above the national and local average. The harmony between the different racial groups of the school was excellent.

This appears to have been lost. Although this website fully supports all school staff in their endeavours, I will be contacting the 'education bosses' at County Hall to see if they a) regret BSF and b) would have done anything differently.

I will post their responses, if any.

This is not the time to lambast the programme's producers for such a portrayal. Humour only works if an audience sympathises with it.

We in Burnley must try and improve our image.

How many presentations would be made for their services to the town? According to Labour candidate Jean Cunningham, a certain Hapton BNP councillor barely manages to attend one third of the Council's meetings.

This website appreciates that councillors must have their own lives; they are public servants, not publicly owned slaves. Nevertheless, we shall let Conservative Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill have the last say. His priorities were 'Country first, then constituency, and then party'.