I have been rather busy lately and have not posted on the blog for some time but now I have the chance.

Well we have had the great budget debate at the beginning of the month here in Reading. We saw the Tories showing unbelievable incompetence but managing to absent themselves from the actual vote which Labour pushing though its budget against Lib Dem opposition. The result is now that Reading’s council tax will rise by an average of 2.2% and all because Captain Mainwaring-Cumpsty’s bungling party could not turn up on time. Reading’s Tories are a sick joke after this fiasco. And this is the team that want to run Reading – they could not organise a a p—- up in a brewery !

Then we had an interesting debate organised by GREN (Greater Reading Environmental Network) in Tilehurst last Thursday where I stood in for our Parliamentary candidate, Daisy Benson, and debated with Alok Sharma (Con), Naz Sarkar (Lab) and Adrian Windisch (Green). Daisy was chairing a meeting of the Housing and Health Scrutiny Panel in the Civic Centre that evening.

It turns out the Alok is a real smooth talker with all the sincerity of David Cameron. Naz is a bit sharper but clearly not at his best on environmental issues. Adrian was at least consistent and set out a green view of the issues with sincerity and plain talking. I am not sure that I am a brilliant debater (actually I know I am not) but I did manage to get some policies over.

The highlight of the evening for me was when I mentioned that we were not making enough use of food waste for energy and that given the fact that over a third of what we currently throw away into landfill, is actually food waste, we should be putting much more effort into making use of it. Alok picked up on this and re-iterated what a good idea using wast for energy was. I then pointed out to Alok (and to Naz) that their local Tory and Labour councillors took exactly the opposite line and when the subject came up at a recent Environment Scrutiny Panel which I chair, they pooh-poohed the idea of using food waste for energy even though other councils manage it successfully and even West Berkshire is moving otwards it. Alok, smoothie that he is took this in his stride and pointedly made a note to look into this. Tory Cllr Emma Warman (who also sits on the same Environment Scrutiny Panel) piped up from the audience that they had only voted against handling food waste as it cost too much. Emma, I think that is exactly the point, if you take officers words for everything (as the Tory and Labour councillors did) no new schemes will ever come about. Councils such as Ceredigion have already taken the food collection route and are supported by the Welsh Assembly, I read that Chipping Norton-based composting firm Agrivert has announced that it has signed a 15-year contract with Oxfordshire county council to process the county’s food and green waste. Apparently here in Reading we are stuck in the dark ages. We do not even compost it.

Wake up and smell the coffee ! Food waste is a huge source of green energy if we are prepared to take it seriously.