On Saturday evening it was good to join local members of the Conservative party for a BBQ in Earley.  There was a good range of questions about the pandemic, vaccinations, economic recovery, housing and planning. I also talked a bit about levelling up and ways of getting the NHS back to full running for non covid treatments.

The news from Afghanistan is worrying. Twenty years after the first military actions by the US and her allies in Afghanistan President Biden announced a rapid withdrawal of US forces. I have no disagreement with the aim of getting out. I agree that the UK also had to leave quickly as soon as the larger US force left. We were a smaller part of a coalition force and had to think of the safety of our forces in a volatile situation. I do have a disagreement with the sudden speed of the USA planned departure, and the apparent shortcomings in reassuring the Afghan government and leaving in place enough advice and support to make their task easier.

It is surprising that given the longer term cross party aim in the USA to leave defence and policing to Afghan forces that more successful plans were not already effective  for advice and training of the now considerable Afghan forces. A lot of effort had we are told gone in to allow them to handle any insurgency or violent subversion of the state. There was a good argument to say that keeping foreign forces there for too long to suppress violence could be seen by some Afghans as a provocation that helped recruit more opponents against democratic government.  There was an even better argument that at some point to prove Afghanistan has become a self sustaining democracy it has to be left to Afghan people and institutions to defend its new order and to subsume critics within a democratic system to resolve or handle differences. They can of course ask for advice or specialist help from allies, but Afghan forces should take full responsibility for law and order.

Russia and  now NATO have found Afghanistan a difficult place for operations. President Biden seems to lack a clear vision of what if any role he wishes the USA to assume in the Middle East. We know he is not as pro Israel and as anti Iran as President Trump, but we do not yet know what he is trying to achieve and how he sees the new threats instability bring in the region.

I met with local residents, the main authorised user of the crossing and Network Rail today. Local residents find the warning noise made for each of the 123 trains a day using this piece of track very disruptive, along with bright traffic style lights on the crossing and spoken warnings when more than one train is involved.

Safety is rightly the priority. I queried again the high speed limit of 70 mph given that  this is a bend in the track close to the merger of the Waterloo and North Downs lines and close to Wokingham station to the west. Network Rail confirmed that in practice a train is likely to be travelling at half the speed limit on the bend to be safe, especially in wet and slippery conditions. The speed rating of the track affects the style of warnings needed.

Two of the local residents put their case well to Network Rail, who have promised to go away and see if they can work up proposals to keep the 4 authorised users safe but tackle the intrusive noise. The lights also need adjusting to reduce glare into homes whilst still be clearly visible to users on the ground near the crossing. I will follow up to see what solution is proposed.

It has taken the Anglican Church long soaked in the views of the international elite an age to discover the cause of England. Despite carrying our country’s name in its own the C of E has regularly adopted fashionable global and EU tropes that are unwelcome to many in a doughty independent island country with global reach and ambition.

The Archbishop is by inference attacking the Lambeth Palace and Brussels oriented views of recent Archbishops of Canterbury by remembering his own Northern roots. He then reveals he too lacks understanding of how Englishmen and women feel by recommending we get another dose of regional devolution within England. So like the EU elite he wants to break up and balkanise England whilst leaving Scottish and Welsh devolution whole at the country level. The whole point about the English case is we wish to have for England some of the  same devolved  rights that Scotland  enjoys.

I proposed to David Cameron that we gave England EVEN, English votes for English needs, in the Commons. Instead of setting up a costly new English Parliament with extra MPs and a new building, why not let UK MPs elected to Westminster carry the dual mandate and meet as a Grand Committee at Westminster for any legislation or budgetary review matters that would mirror those powers devolved to Scotland or Wales. Mr Cameron on advice from Mr Hague watered that down to an English veto on English laws, with no right to initiate an English proposal for English MPs. Now Mr Gove has removed even that.

Meanwhile we need a BBC that gives equal billing to England as to Scotland. Why is there no BBC England? We need an anthem for English teams that we know and want to sing, and a better and more sympathetic presentation of English history, literature and culture by English and UK institutions.

Readers of this blog may be interested to hear my interview this morning on COP 26 and UK Domestic Heating.

The full interview is available here: