<td align="left" > Keighley Town Council will be holding a Yorkshire Day celebration at Church Green at the St Andrews Church end of North Street on Yorkshire Day - this Sunday - 1st August. It promises to be great fun, with two live bands, the internationally known Wes Paul Band playing country and western music and home grown Keighley band Jamba, playing samba music.  There'll be afternoon teas at the Lord Rodney, home made cakes at the Shared Church (St Andrews), cask ale and children's roundabouts.  If you were born in or live in Yorkshire you can get your own Yorkshire passport for £2:00 - and it pays for your afternoon tea - whether you are a native or adopted son or daughter of Yorkshire. I was interviewed about it by Bradford Community Broadcasting on Monday. There's sure to be a bit of boogeying to the music too.  Do come along between 1 and 5 p.m.  Bring the kids; have a lovely afternoon! Oh well, Bradford Council has cancelled its promised try out of a one way system around the centre of Keighley while gas pipes are renewed in East Parade.  Too expensive.  Fancy waterworks in Centenary Square aren't too expensive, of course.  No wonder Keighley people feel heartily sick of being in with Bradford. I can't help thinking - whenever I see a TV interview with Ed Balls - that it's a new episode of The Office with David Brent.  They not only look alike but they have similar voices, vocal inflections and er, smug protrayal of themselves (in my opinion). At an extraordinary extraordinary meeting tonight Keighley Town Council, after a very good debate, has voted to go ahead with buying the former police station on North Street, Keighley and making the site, part of which is a listed building, into a civic centre for Keighley.  It's a bold decision for a town council and plans for it are very innovative.  It will involve having tenants who will contribute to Keighley by being there, for instance by bringing back a police presence to the town centre, having an Information Tourist Information Centre (Bradford Council has taken away the Information Centre from our town), a solicitor who can take legal help cases, a wedding and meetings venue and a restaurant.  There are even plans to base a police museum in the old cells.  Tenants using the building will pay towards costs so that we will be able to break even or even make a small profit to use for the benefit of the town whilst the town council gains its own base. Yesterday Gerald said he'd seen several police cars heading in the Highfield, Keighley, direction at around 5:30 pm and we wondered what had happened.  Later in the evening the local TV news announced the tragic death of a man and injury of a woman in a house fire at Argyle Street, Highfield.  Apparently police believe the fire may have been deliberate and are investigating.  This is shocking, and on top of the dreadful murders in Cumbria, Northumberland and Bradford this month it shows how fragile life really can be. It seems that the battiest idea the Conservatives have come up with might be going to the top of the queue for legislation - so-called "Free Schools".  These proposed schools may be going to be free from local authority control but they will be spending public money, that is, money provided by us.  They therefore will have to be controlled by some section of government.  So they must be going to be controlled by central government then.  The only other alternative is that these proposed schools will be free to spend our money as they wish without any control at all.  Er, thanks! Free schools certainly won't be free for the tax payer.  And there are already free school places available for all our children. The whole idea is very silly, in my opinion, and should be dropped immediately as being a waste of public money: you know, that thing the Tories have promised to cut out.  Quite apart from the enormous cost of setting them up these schools will all need new or converted buildings.  But I've heard this week that the school building programme is being curtailed.  What can the government be thinking of?  I know the Lib Dems are few in number but the Conservatives need us if they are going to stay in power.  They can't do it without us so come on, Nick, just say, "No!" On the whole I think the Libe Dems in government are making a reasonable fist of the hand they've got.  We are in the minority, and by 'eck I rather wish a few people charging about like Don Quixote would remember that.  Just having done a Lib Dem Voice survey on the subject made me realise that I am reasonably happy with what our MPs in government have done so far.  The one thing I'm not at all sure about is the raising of VAT to 20% rather than taxing those super rich bankers more!!! The weather was beautiful for Keighley Gala on Saturday.  I still can't walk fast enough to collect along the procession so my role was a very low key one this year - but I gather everyone had a terrific time.  Gerald dressed up as a jester (whoops, I nearly said he looked more sensible than usual).  Congratulations to all who organised and took part in the gala which is a great tradition dating back more than 130 years. In the evening younger son took us out for a meal for a late Father's Day celebration; he'd been away on the actual date. On Sunday it was the Civic Service for Keighley's mayor, mayoress, deputy mayor and deputy mayoress.  The service was at the church at East Morton where it was lovely to see some of my old singing friends in their very good choir.  At the meal afterwards I met up with a dear friend who is now the mayor of Todmorden and we had a right good cal, as they say in Keighley. Our new MP, Kris Hopkins remarked that Gerald looked smarter than he had in his Gala costume.  He need talk: he admitted that he had been Kliffe Kastle, but that he HAD raised several thousand pounds for Manorlands, our local hospice, in that disguise. The late Labour government did a few good things in their thirteen years.  One of them was law to devolve more power to local communities and to allow parish and town councils a greater say over what happens within their areas.  I'm glad to hear that the coalition government is honouring these promises. </td>

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