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.

Tesco and the Green Points Mystery

Now I'm all Tesco trying to encourage its customers recycling or using reusable bags by offering green points on their loyalty card scheme.

However, I'm sure I'm not alone in constantly having to traipse over to the customer service desk after making my purchases to get these points added on to the scheme because my cashier/s have not added them on at the point of sale. Now I'm not exactly inconspicous in using by bag. It is a big black thing with the words 'use this bag to earn green clubcard points' written on it. I also have it on the bagging area when I hand over my clubcard. So why can't the cashier add these green points on at the time my card is swiped as the bag is clearly getting filled and used.

In my last dozen trips my green points have been added at the till only once. I can tell this my the number of double reciepts, wasting paper and energy from using a second till, to add these on. Now I'm contimplating asking the cashiers have they added my green points before I hand over my cash, but that shouldn't be up to me.

I doubt my experiences in my local Tescos are isolated, and therefore I wonder just how productive this scheme is? I also wonder if Tesco do an audit to show that customers clearly are not recycling bags, because of the number of incorrectly logged transactions?