Stony Stratford - the event

A turnout of approximately 100 people included, along with residents, bloggers Dave Atherton, Misanthrope Girl, The Boiling Frog, Fuel Injected Moose, Lid on a Scream, Anonymong, Christopher Snowdon, Nigel Farage, Bill Etheridge, Patrick Hayes, David Odell, and Roger Helmer.

There were quite a few cameras there, including BBC East, all of whose kit was far superior to mine and The Last Ditch has posted videos so I will limit my pictorial contribution to the following, showing left-to-right: Bill Etheridge, Roger Helmer and Patrick Hayes waiting for the arrival of Nigel Farage, the latter who, as usual, managed to be delayed by traffic.

That so many people turned out to express their disapproval of Councillor Bartlett's stated wish to impose his dictatorial attitude on the inhabitants of Stony Stratford was testament to the efforts of Dick Puddlecote who organised the entire event - and to whom our thanks are extended.

To say that all attendees were "apauled" by Bartlett's proposal would be an understatement and I got the impression that had he been there he would promptly have been "elevated by his neck". The views of this apology for an elected "representative" are but symptomatic of our political elite in Westminster who seem determined to expand state control of our lives to a level beyond even that which was imagined by George Orwell.

Admitting that he finds smoking offensive and wishing to limit the enjoyment of that to our own homes, we can but hope that Bartlett reciprocates by limiting his verbal output to that of his own home!