The first phase of the Winnersh Relief Road, connecting the B3270 Lower Earley Way to the B3030 King Street Lane has opened today. It will provide access to the new housing on the former Hatch Farm Dairies site.

Wokingham Borough Council has submitted a full planning application for the Winnersh Relief Road phase two, which subject to planning consent, would connect the B3030 King Street Lane to the A329 Reading Road.

We read that the EU wishes to follow its veto over the UK’s positive and generous proposals so far with a further push to demand we continue with freedom of movement. This could well be the item that persuades more UK voters that No Deal is the best option.

The EU has broadly stuck to its mantra that you cannot belong to the trade part of the EU without paying contributions, accepting their laws and agreeing freedom of movement. Accepting this many of us said we must leave the Custons Union and single market when we leave the EU. We said offer them a free trade deal. The EU has not even been prepared to talk about this.

This is where they are overplaying their hand. A Free Trade deal is more in their interest than ours. Expecting the kind of concessions from us that they could seek if we wanted to stay in their single market just puts many sensible British voters off any kind of deal.

So now the EU tries to make the Irish border into an issue which can delay Brexit, with no good reason, and works with Remain forces in the UK to tell us we will suffer if we just leave.

The government has nine more months to make sure everything works if we leave without a deal. It needs to show how easy it is to apply the methods we use for non EU trade to EU trade as well. By showing its resolve to do so it will give itself the only chance of actually securing a deal which might be worth considering.

Southern Rail has delivered a very poor service for months thanks to a Union dispute on the line. Northern Rail is now delivering a bad service thanks to mismanagement of a new timetable designed to provide a better service. The one criticism that is unfair is the criticism that says of the problems the North is now experiencing happened in the south they would get fixed. They were not. There is an equality of misery around the country with cancelled and delayed trains not concentrated in one part.

The government and the Transport Secretary are well aware of the problems, and wants things to get better. There has been no shortage of financial resource into Network Rail in recent years. There have been endless government responses to poor performance by elements of the rail industry when they let the customers down. Ministers can only intervene when Network Rail and a train operating company have failed to meet targets and promises. Day to day the operating companies and Network Rail run the trains, make the decisions and are answerable to the public. In each case it is important to see what has caused the problems and to ask what could solve them.

In the case of Southern it is reminder of the poor labour relations we often experienced in nationalised days. Then Union action threatened the whole network, where today it is more likely to be concentrated on one or two lines or companies. The nationalised tube has shown that nationalisation does not eliminate labour disputes.

In the case of Northern the main problem was the inability of Network Rail, the large nationalised part of the current railway, to provide the train slots and track capacity they promised for the train operating company to deliver the revised and improved service. They delayed responding to the new timetable proposals, then replied late with a different and more limited pattern.

The senior personnel at Network Rail are paid very high salaries, miles above the pay of the PM and Transport Secretary, for doing public sector jobs with access to huge sums of public money. We need more investigation of how and why Network Rail has let us down again with the advent of this new timetable. Why didn’t they say earlier in discussions that the new timetable was too demanding? Can we at least have the satisfaction of knowing that some of those (7 Executive Committee members) paid more than £300,000 a year for making Network Rail work will face a financial penalty for the failures?

The Bank and Treasury have slowed the economy too much by tax hikes and monetary tightening. At a time when the USA is reflating its economy, and when Japan and the Euro area are still printing money and keeping interest rates at zero, UK policy has gone the other way with the predictable slow down. The UK’s performance has nothing to do with the Brexit vote and everything to do with domestic policy. The economy did well for the first nine months after the Brexit vote until policy was tightened and more taxes put in.

So what should the authorities do? They should plan to spend the £12 bn saving on net EU contributions from next March and make it clear to the EU we wont be paying them money after we have left. The EU is not offering us a good deal, so why pay? We need that money at home. I have set out before a mixed package of spending increases and tax cuts to spend this money, with the emphasis on more money for the NHS.

We do not want a debate about a new NHS tax or any other tax increases. Tax rates are too high in the UK. At a time when the USA is slashing its tax rates with a top rate of 37%, and the new Italian government favours a two rate Income tax at 15% and 20% the UK cannot afford to keep its rates too high. To do so is to export talent and jobs to lower tax rate regimes, and to lose possible revenue.

I knew my Mum best when I was small boy. I spent most of my waking hours in her company or close by her in the home we shared. I enjoyed that privileged access to many of the details of her daily life which comes from being little.

I was living in a world of giants. The chairs were too high, the table was well out of reach. Many of the things I wanted to touch or explore were wisely put beyond me. I remember my mother teaching me to walk, holding my hand to reassure that I would not fall over. When I tried on my own I had to pilot a course from chair cushion to chair cushion to have something to hold on to. I remember loving the time in the afternoon when she would read to me. It was a chance to be close to her as I sat with her in the armchair she used. I would try to puzzle out the meaningless symbols as she read fluently to bring my chosen story to life.

My Mum was in those days a hard working and accomplished housewife. She ruled the home, cleaned and tidied, cooked and shopped, washed and ironed. She put herself through the contemporary tortures of the home perm, as I watched her trying to control the unruly rollers. I was fascinated by her dressing table, where she would sit on a low stool applying powder and lipstick. As I got a bit bigger she wanted me to get the tiny hook at the top of a dress into the wayward eye, and get slightly impatient if I fumbled it for too long. I would go with her when she went to choose a pattern for her next sewing challenge. I was ready with three year old’s advice on which dress styles I liked, but she would understandably take her own counsel.

She was a talented seamstress and adroit with knitting needles. She acquired a knitting machine which extended her range and speeded progress on garments. I tried to assist her in the kitchen, gradually moving from high risk nuisance through play cook to providing some proper help. If she made mince pies she made the mince meat first. If she wanted to use minced beef she would create it herself in a hand mincer. She made jams and preserved the autumn fruit in Kilner jars, always worrying whether they would seal properly. Her Christmas cakes were good. She wrestled with the icing but always managed to pull off difficult tasks including writing messages and creating elaborate icing baskets.

When I was a teenager away from home long hours as my school stood on the opposite side of the city she had less to do. She announced she was going to get a job, and did so despite my father’s early reservations. I enjoyed talking to her about her work, and saw her rise rapidly from sales assistant to First Sales to Manager of the local Lotus shop. It was my introduction to the world of a national chain, with a tricky political balance between what Head Office did and what the local store could do for itself. She became a valued Manager. Asked to keep an eye on a neighbouring wayward store when the manager was quite often on holiday, she unearthed the problems. They wanted to promote her to be a regional Manager, but she felt that would absorb too much time and involve too much travel.

In later life she became one of the Pensions Visitors for Debenhams who had taken over the shoe chain. She edited a Pensioner Magazine and went on visits to Pensioners who might be lonely or needed extra help. With her husband as chauffeur she did this for many years well into her 80s when she was normally visiting people much younger than herself.

I am grateful to her for providing a stable and well run home all the time I was a child. She wanted me to be clean, well dressed and eat sensible meals, and did everything to ensure that when I was small I met those standards. I have tried to be those things ever since! I have seen more of her in recent years as she came to live nearby. She told me many times she was very old and in her unsentimental way said she was did not want to live on disabled. I tried to help her find things to do and enjoy after my father had died. My head tells me her matter of fact approach to death in old age is right, but my heart tells me I have lost my Mum and it hurts.