Angela Smith doesn't like Zoos

Basildon and East Thurrock MP, Angela Smith has decided that she doesn't like zoos. She doesn't like them so much in fact that she wants them all closed. As you might expect, this has gone down very badly with most people, including the Labour government. Animal welfare minister Jim Fitzpatrick was especially unimpressed when he said, 'Angela doesn’t have responsibility for this area. We’re not going anywhere near zoos'.

So, why is Mrs. Smith pursuing this on the eve of a general election where she is fighting a marginal seat that is a must-win for Gordon Brown to stay as Prime Minister? Well, there is the first clue. It is likely that the General Election campaign starts tomorrow and so any such statements from Angela will get lost among dozens of election stories. The Easter weekend was the last chance she had to get any attention with something like this. This begs the question as to why she wants the attention, and the answer to this is that Mrs. Smith is already thinking about life after Westminster. Before she came into parliament Angela Smith was a leading light in the League Against Cruel Sports. If she thinks that she is going to lose, and many people have told me that she is not confident, then she has to be considering what she does next. It seems that her thinking is turning to the charitable animal-rights sector, hence the staking out of a policy platform.

One thing though, Mrs. Smith is a very good at influencing public policy. Look at the way the League Against Cruel Sports pushed Labour into the hunting ban despite its inherent idiocy, the vast amount of parliamentary time and focus it consumed and the long-term damage it has done to Labour in rural areas. If she does exit parliament then this zoo business is probably not going to go away.

Basildon Sign

It must be fairly rare for an English Council putting up a sign gets worldwide publicity, but we seem to have managed it. This, of course, is the 'Basildon' sign that Basildon District Council has erected on the A127 in order to promote the Basildon Enterprise Corridor, which stretches down that highway. There is more to it than that of course; the sign is part of £400,000 project to replace and improve dozens of signs and to tidy up the Fortune of War intersection, which is a key entry point to the District. The point, which has been lost on some critics, is to improve the infrastructure that supports over 40,000 of local jobs, and hopefully to increase that number.

Anyway, it has garnered a great deal of interest in the media as far away as Australia. Better yet the coverage has generally been positive. I think that the sign looks good and that it does its primary job. There's no way you can speed down the A127 now and not notice when you get to Basildon District.