Our lovely local upright Tories have long been saying they are opposed to any planned development of large scale housing on Pincents Hill (in West Berkshire between Calcot and Tilehurst). Yesterday’s announcement that Blue Living had put in a Planning Application for 750 houses on the site reminded me of the Tory hypocracy on this issue.

A month or two ago, after Alok Sharma the Tory PPC for Reading West and the local Birch Copse councillors (all Tories) and said publicly that they opposed the development, there was a vote on West Berks Council on the Pincents Hill development. You can guess what happened:  Cllr Emma Webster abstained, Cllr Joe Mooney voted for the plans without amendment and Cllr Tony Linden did not even turn up to vote.

I expect we will hear a lot more from the Tories now that the application has gone in, and they will all be doing their best to oppose it. Until, that is, the Conservative Party in West Berks tells them not to. Whereupon they all slink off and hope nobody notices.  Actually this kind of bellicose verbosity before a vote, followed by abstention or even supporting the other side during the vote, is strangely reminiscent of our local MP, the great Martin Salter. Yes he who campaigns against the Iraq war, against tuition fees and many other causes, but strangely does not manage to actually vote according to his ‘beliefs’. 

If politicians were rewarded for their principles Salter would not be our MP and the Birch Copse Tories would be out on their ears.