What about the soldiers and premature babies Eric? #No2AV

There is something about the figure that Eric Pickles (pictured left in a role he fulfilled when I was working for the other side) has magically plucked out of the treasury to ensure the 'front line' services of weekly bin collections are brought back.

It seems vaguely familiar.

Oh yeah that was it. Has that £250 million been offered to buying bulletbroof vests for our soldiers? (Especially on the day that Liam Fox announces MoD job cuts). Has it gone into maternity units especially cardiac units after all it seemed to be all that Labour were moaning about all week?

I haven't seen those pledges made anywhere since May 5th. Therefore I think Eric Pickles should do the only honourable thing and give up that amount which is actually quite a lot more than a vote under AV would have cost the tax payer extra to one of those noble causes that only months ago he was claiming could have done with the money.

After all I don't recall seeing Eric launching the following ad anywhere, do you?

Hat tip to James Shaddock for sparking this idea

Eric in a pickle over waste

Eric Pickles says it is a basic right for people to have their rubbish collected weekly and therefore is looking at ways to spend £250 million to 'restore' weekly collections.

Of course what has happened in most locations is that alternative weeks are taken up with general waste collection and recyclable waste. the example of flats as a case were weekly or more than weekly collections are made is of course an anomaly as there of course there are communal waste facilities and what you provide for residents has to be empties when it is required. Of course people in flats can of course recycle, look at the scheme in Edinburgh where different types of communal bins are provided for tenements for different types of waste.

Take a look at the size of the average wheelie bin. Compare that to the size of the old style bin that we all used to get by with being collected once a week. With the size of families going down and more single occupancy it is clear that we are actually each producing more individual waste every week. Most of us have more than one for different types of waste, so sort it out properly. If your general waste is too full look at what should and could go in other collections. Therefore it is not so much the right of each individual to have weekly collection but the responsibility of each individual to reduce their waste.

Today's Feeding of the 5000

The charity Fairshare is going to demonstrate the food waste problem in Trafalgar Square at noon today. The food they are using has been grown by farmers but is considered too ugly to sit on the shelves by our supermarkets (maybe Jo Swinson and I should set up a campaign against our 'airbrushed' and discriminatory fresh produce aisles but I digress).

They will be providing soups and curries, as well as free groceries with the 6 tonnes of produce that have been turned down by the supermarkets. I can guarantee that nobody will be able to tell the difference from the homogeneous shaped siblings that they grew alongside. Having grown up in a family that grew and harvested our own crops in the back garden I long for the time I can have a little spot of land that I can grow some more of my own food. I will no throw out a potato that is not universally smooth for ease of peeling or a carrot than cannot stand straight at attention or whatever. I'll also only plant what I can personally use or give away any bumper crop to friends before it goes off.

There is a Slow Food Group in Linlithgow which is part of the town's major movement to make the town more environmentally friendly. The protest today fits very comfortably within the slow food ethos, in that is using food that has been grown as much as possible, to made good healthy food. Of course I'm not sure how the food has been grown, but the fact that it has means that it should be available to consumption first and foremost which is what today's demonstration is about.

So may I urge you next time you prepare to go to the supermarket, local greengrocer or farmers market, have you checked the larder? Have you planned what you want to eat around what is already available to you but is perishable? When you get there do you have a plan of what you need? If you cannot buy the quantity that you need but have to purchase more is there something else you could do with the excess before it perishes, even if you make extra and are able to freeze it for later?

Volunteer to be a Nuclear Dumping Ground

David Miliband the 'Wayne Rooney' of Tony Blair's cabinet want to sweep the issue of the waste created by nuclear power station under the carpet, or at least under the ground in a willing local authority.

Obviously after decades of consideration weighing this up this has been considered the safest option open to the government. That is clearly why they will be offering hte willing local authority a multi-million pound bribe, sorry, investment incentive to volunteer. Of course the officers of the local authority who agree to having the nuclear depository built in their area will propably be long out of office by the time it comes online, as it is expected to take 40 years to construct the at least 500 metre deep dumping ground. So obviously it will be as 'safe' as houses then.

The previous attempt to try and get a deep nuclear dumping site established was scraped in the 1980s due to public resistance. Of course then public awareness was far more worried of nuclear fallout coming from the sky if America and Russia got a little too heated.

Of course the best way to avoid having to dispose of nuclear waste is to avoid creating new nuclear power stations. There is plenty of options for other energys to be utilised that will reduce our countries carbon footprint and be safer and cleaner to use.