SCOUTS ST. GEORGE'S DAY PARADE

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This afternoon I attended Bedford District Scouts Annual St. George's Day Celebration at Bedford School, followed by a Parade through Bedford town centre. The District Commissioner presented commemorative shields to the Mayor of Bedford, Chief Constable and Head Teacher of Bedford School for supporting the Scouting movement locally.

The Bedford Swan symbol above is the Bedford Scouts logo. The Parade was led by Bedford Scottish Pipe Band, which seemed just a little odd for a St. George's Day celebration. Also when I talked to one of the Scout leaders, who with his group was sporting a red and white cross on his face, he said it had proved difficult to find small English flags for his young scouts to hold - political correctness gone mad?

People of every other country in the world are proud to wave flags, celebrating their nationality, but the English get criticised if they dare to do the same! Personally I am very proud of my English heritage and equally proud that my paternal grandparents were Irish, so I am Anglo Irish and was born in England.

The Scouting movement is the largest youth movement in the world and was started by Lord Robert Baden Powell in 1907 to provide adventurous activities for young people -today volunteers offer 200 different activities to Scouts across the UK. There are 28 million Scouts of both sexes - Beavers, Cubs, Scouts, Explorers and Adults - in almost every country in the world. There are 500,000 scouts in the UK and the local scout groups are led by volunteers, who help young people to learn many different skills including teamworking, leadership, self discipline and loyalty.

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL & ST. GEORGE'S DAY

Hello everyone. On Friday I returned to Elstow from a few days away at a Conference in Salisbury and a flying visit to my widowed brother in Chichester to a mountain of mail and emails, various local crises and an election campaign to plan.

On the morning of St. George's Day, 23 April, before leaving Salisbury I visited its superb Cathedral, with the tallest spire in Britain and the best preserved copy (one of only four)of Magna Carta, signed in 1215, the foundation of our British legal system. The Cathedral also has Europe's oldest working clock and is set in the largest Cathedral close in Britain. A truly amazing building and fine part of quintessential England - a very suitable place for me to visit on St. George's Day. That evening the Cathedral had a concert and a series of poems was lit up on the Cathedral roof as part of the St. George's Day celebrations.

While away I received some panic emails on my Blackberry pc about my new upright wooden bench, donated to the Abbeyfields estate from my Community Leader Fund. I paid £750 to Bedford Borough Council to buy and instal it securely on Abbeyfields parkland. They installed it without telling me, and it was not secured strongly enough so my residents told me it was wrenched out of the ground on the day it arrived. Fortunately I got Council officers to remove it before it disappeared. Now they have to ensure that it is more securely concreted into the ground - a sad indictment on the dishonesty of some people in today's world! Once upon a time people respected the property of others but no longer.

The Budget was a damp squib which failed to address the huge economic crisis facing this country. Gordon Brown continues to spend money like water and refuses to cut back on public sector spending, eg huge sums for the new NHS computer system and the new ID system. Every proposed budget change is delayed until after the 2010 Election. However, the British people have seen through Gordon Brown and his incompetent government who have ruined the sound economy they inherited in 1997 - eg destroying our pensions industry and selling off the gold reserves at a low price.

Every Labour Government in the 20th Century departed leaving the British Economy in a mess and this one is no exception. David Cameron will be left a 'poisoned chalice' to cope with the huge public debts Gordon Brown has amassed in 12 years.