Cameron’s Conservatives still keen on green

One of David Cameron’s greatest achievements so far as Conservative Leader is to have hugely and rightly strengthened the party’s commitment to tackling climate change.

And this was underlined once again earlier today in a speech by Shadow Chancellor George Osborne (left of picture), who said a Conservative Government should pay people to recycle, not “punish them…with bin taxes.”

The fact is that, by 2020, the United Kingdom must reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill by almost two-thirds if we are to meet targets laid down by the European Union. Creative thinking is therefore urgently required.

Since the spring, Windsor and Maidenhead Council - controlled by the Conservatives - has been working alongside a US company specialising in “pay to recycle schemes.”

The project, funded by savings in landfill tax, has already attracted the support of more than half of eligible households – and boosted recycling rates by 30%.

As a result, the average participant household is set to receive around £130 a year in vouchers to spend in local shops, including Marks & Spencer.

To quote George Osborne in his speech yesterday: “We’ve shown on the ground in one area of the country that this approach works – so it’s make it happen across the country.”

As the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Keighley and Ilkley, I am only too happy to endorse this view.

Paying tribute to heroes past and present

Like so many millions of others across the world at 1100 GMT this morning, I observed the two-minute silence to mark the exact moment when the guns fell silent on Armistice Day 1918.

But today was different to previous Armistice Day services I have attended for two reasons.

Firstly, this year was the first time that no British survivors of the trenches were able to be present at any of the commemorations. Harry Patch, 111, Bill Stone 108 and Henry Allingham 113, who attended services last year, have all sadly died during the course of 2009.

Secondly – and speaking as an ex-soldier myself - I cannot personally remember such a high level of public interest in the Remembrance commemorations and the Poppy Campaign than we have seen this year.

The reason, of course, is very obvious.

The almost daily reports of British casualties in Afghanistan is having a huge impact on our nation’s psyche, and a great many people simply wanted an opportunity to demonstrate their total support for our brave servicemen and women.

The arguments regarding the rights of wrongs of that campaign are perhaps best left for another occasion.

But the respect for our Armed Forces, both past and present, has to my mind never been higher in modern times than it is today.

And that fact, in the midst of the current doom and gloom, can only be viewed as a positive development.

Labour: We got it wrong on immigration

Yesterday, Alan Johnson finally admitted what Conservatives have been arguing for many years: that this Labour Government has massively failed our country on immigration.

This admission is a very welcome development but it also marks a clear change in approach from the Home Secretary.

Because, only three months ago, Mr Johnson said he did not “lie awake at night” worrying about the fact that his Government’s soft approach to immigration had led to an official projection that the population of this country would rise to 70 million within 20 years. Two thirds of the projected increase, according to the Office of National Statistics, will be through migration or by births to new migrants.

So, what motivated Mr Johnson’s sudden outburst of honesty?

Could it be that he still fancies his chances of replacing Gordon Brown as Labour’s latest unelected Prime Minister in advance of the General Election, as many newspapers continue to report?

There seem few other explanations.