Lord Pearson visits Ludlow's next MP

Lord Pearson took a trip up the M6 today to visit Christopher Gill, the UKIP candidate for South Shropshire.

South Shropshire is a target seat for UKIP with Chris Gill (who was Conservative MP for the constituency a decade ago) worrying the incumbent Tory, Philip Dunne, so much that he's spent the last few days scaremongering about a hung election.  Rather than spending the last couple of days of the election campaign giving people a positive reason why they should vote for him, he has instead been making up bizarre scare stories about how interest rates will go up with a hung parliament!

Lord Pearson was shown around Bridgnorth by (amongst others) Shropshire PPCs Christopher Gill, Councillor Denis Allen and Malcolm Hurst; Councillor Derek Armstrong and UKIP NEC member, Councillor Jill Seymour.

Meanwhile, the Shropshire Star is very much of the opinion that Chris Gill is going to cause an upset on Thursday.

Leafleting in Shifnal

Former NEC member, MEP-in-waiting and UKIP parish councillor, Jill Seymour, is standing in the upcoming by-election for the Shifnal Rural ward.

A leafleting session has been arranged for today and members from all over the West Midlands euroregion will be in Shifnal to help out.  If you are at a loose end today, feel free to come along (I'll be there).

The meeting point is the car park behind the Co-op on Shifnal High Street.  Meeting time is 11:30am and maps will be provided.  For a map of the location, click here.

NHS Trust blames EU regulations for cut-backs

Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust are currently consulting on changes to the services they provide at the two hospitals. Services are going to have to be cut back and there's even the possibility that both hospitals will have to be closed and replaced with a single hospital.

Along with the usual reason of never having enough money, the booklet they've produced lays the a large portion of the blame on the EU Working Time Directive and the fact that abolishing our opt-out is going to mean staff shortages and increased wage bills.

It's refreshing to see someone like an NHS Trust going off message and telling people that stupid EU regulations are to blame for bad things that are happening. But what would be really refreshing would be the NHS Trust and other public services such as the fire service who are suffering at the hands of EU regulations to begin actively campaigning against them.

The NHS has a duty to provide a public service and if the EU is stopping them from doing that then they have a duty to oppose it.