Uxbridge Voting and a Possible Brunel University Contribution

Uxbridge has a potentially pivotal role in the 2019 General Election as it is the constituency of Boris Johnson, the current Prime Minister. My connection with Uxbridge is via Brunel University, where I gained both of my degrees. The current most likely to challenger to defeat Johnson is Ali Milani, the Labour party candidate and in that endeavour, although I am a Liberal Democrat supporter, I would like to endorse him.

Other connections with Brunel University and reasons to vote against the Conservatives are outlined below and can be read if that is your wish. However, at the time of posting this Blog, which is the first I have written for some time, the most important matter is to put Country before party, as eminent people like John Major, Michael Heseltine, Chris Paten and Tony Blair have exhorted people to do. I am no fan of Tony Blair due to the war in Iraq. However, this is very much Country first time. Wherever you are, if you can make a difference by voting against the Conservatives, please do just that, even if it means “holding your nose”; were I in a constituency where Labour was a close second I would do just that.

Brexit will wreck the UK economy, severely damage science, engineering, industry in general, and education, particularly our universities. It will steal the futures of our children, including those of my own family. Hopefully, there will be enough younger people to have registered to vote who will help to stop it.

Fortunately, there now seems to be movement where the Labour Party activists are leaving a constituency to Liberal Democrats where they are closest to the Conservatives and vice versa. An example of that, close to where we used to live, in Surrey, is Monica Harding standing for the Liberal Democrats, against Dominic Raab, in Esher and Walton, where enough extra support from  Labour voters could make it a win for her and defeat for the Conservatives.

So please back Ali Milani in Uxbridge, especially my fellow “Brunelians” and help him make history by ejecting a sitting Prime Minister from his Parliamentary seat. However, obviously, voters of all ages can help. I am now of the older generation, but I am totally pro-European Union. It is not perfect, far from it in many ways, but far better to be with friends than separated from them, governed by a hard right wing government, which is our current alternative.

The Conservative Party is not the party of business, Deborah Meaden has said that as well; it is the party of hedge funds, investment banks and, it appears, Russian oligarchs. I live in Havant, Hampshire, which is totally dominated by the Conservatives, though that is largely, almost entirely, down to our not fit for purpose electoral system; all the Councillors in Havant are Conservative, but for two. From personal experience, Havant is not a good area for business, Hampshire, as a whole, I am not sure is much better. I have already sent my postal vote and it was for the Liberal Democrats as Havant is a safe Conservative seat and there is little difference between them and the Labour Party as I recall previous elections. I have voted Labour, tactically, in Council Elections, though that was years ago before the Conservatives managed to get elected in virtually every seat. The current local MP has been, and will be again, Alan Mak, who succeeded David Willetts. Historically, Alan Mak was a Eurosceptic, in the sense of being pro-EU while wishing to change it from the inside, which can be checked by online research, of course. Nowadays, he is strongly for Brexit, in line with the national and local Conservative Party. In the business sense that is mad as, apart from the general damage to the Country, increased port checks, let alone the chaos that would be caused by a hard Brexit, would jam Portsmouth and roads round about, bring the region close to a standstill, if not totally so.

This Blog is my first for some time. Getting past a concerted coverup after having a business project wrecked by a Conservative administration can be that debilitating.

I gained my Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering from Brunel University in 1971 and my Masters in Non-Metallic Materials in the later 1970s. I would have been back at Brunel, many years ago, via project for which my proposal won Konver funding from the European Union. That was for a Technology Diversification Centre in Havant, Hampshire, essentially transferring high end technology, primarily in advanced materials, mostly composite materials, from aerospace type industries to more broad use. A connection with Brunel University rapidly developed such that there would have been a local centre in Havant, though linked to a major centre at Brunel, of which I would have been director. As Konver funding could not be paid to individuals, the then head of the local Chamber of commerce persuaded Havant Borough Council to help. The rest is s long story best related elsewhere but, essentially, that funding was mixed with other funding and used in ways it should not have been, required to be returned as a result, wrecking five years’ work. Note that this is all entirely accurate as well as legally related as per the “Derbyshire Ruling” of the early 1990s (Times Newspapers versus Derbyshire County Council, High Court Ruling). It is also relevant as to how the Conservative Party treats business, especially small business. Details are at () and (), for example, though the websites are “old style” as well as basic; I had to teach myself how to build websites in those years as a publicly funded organisation that was supposed to help withdrew from doing so as part of the coverup. The background to the Technology Diversification Centre is described on my Engineering Background page

I have an unusual side to me which the aforementioned former head of the local Chamber of Commerce rated as worth at least 10% of local tourism. On that basis, with the destruction of my project and the demise of the Technology Diversification Centre project, the total loss to Havant over the intervening years can reasonably be estimated to be in the region of £2Bn.

One of the civil engineering companies specialising in composite materials also wished to build a second bridge to Hayling Island, as a second generation technology demonstrator, following an earlier one at Aberfeldy, in Scotland, and were sure they could obtain a grant from Europe to do so (Hayling Island Second Bridge). That did not happen because of it would have put me in the public domain, along with what had been done to my project and is, therefore, an additional loss imposed on Havant Borough by its own Council.

Hopefully, I will now return to being rather more active on the Internet. At least there is a possible way past a conspiration of silence now, as opposed to the very early days when if local politicians would do nothing and local press would do nothing there was no way out.