Dear West Country Voices,
This week we heard of a six-month ban and a speeding fine levied against Robert Jenrick, our esteemed immigration minister. He is the one who has to appear in parliament when his boss, Suella Braverman, either can’t be bothered or doesn’t feel up to answering difficult questions.
Most of us will remember when he was in charge of planning.
This is from the Guardian.
‘Jenrick granted planning permission for a £1bn property scheme two weeks before the developer donated £12,000 to the Conservative party.
Jenrick and his housing department initially backed a plan by the billionaire for media tycoon Richard Desmond to construct 1,524 apartments on a site in the Isle of the Dogs, east London.
As documents released on Wednesday confirm, Jenrick knew that Desmond had only 24 hours to have the development approved before new council community charges were imposed that would have cost him about £45m. Desmond said the charge would have made the whole scheme unviable and put the accompanying social housing at risk.
Jenrick later accepted that his approval of Desmond’s project on the old Westferry Road printworks in January was unlawful.’
Well, at least he accepted the speeding fine and paid sixteen hundred quid. I doubt if he was offered a speed awareness course because of the severity of his offence and his ‘personal standing’.
A speed awareness course takes a few hours and clearly explains the dangers of speeding. Participants have to take an active part and are welcome to offer their opinions.
Maybe now is the time to make all members of parliament take a Brexit Awareness Course.
They could be instructed on how around 70 per cent of their constituents realise that Brexit is a mistake. The minimum 4 per cent loss of GDP could be explained to them. They could have an explanation of how pathetic the trade deals with Australia, New Zealand and the greater Pacific really are. Maybe environmentalists could explain palm oil production and its effect on rainforests and how meat products from our new free trade partners are not produced to our and EU standards.
In the meantime, all of us are paying the Brexit fine.
Ian Jacques
Dorset
