I know it became fashionable amongst some a few years ago to criticise the tourism business for filling the Bay with visitors and holiday makers and providing 'low paid' jobs.

The Bay Authorities have flirted for fifteen years with other forms of industry in a misguided attempt to 'diversify' the local economy to make us less dependant on the hotel and catering trade; meaning that we have missed opportunities to make the best of our main asset, our location for tourism.

We have wasted too much time and money attracting short-term industrial jobs only to watch them exported to India and China; in the meantime we have failed to come up with a meaningful 'corporate plan' for our tourism businesses to work to.

Consider the efforts gone to to protect 6,000 jobs in Longbridge and the work done to try and maintain the Nortel/STC site in Paignton.

Then imagine if there was a single employer in Torbay who employed 20,000 in the Bay, imagine how much time and care the authorities would have spent ensuring that the company had everything it needed, new roads? - No problem; regional grants? - consider it done; a government minister to fuss around whenever things look a bit shaky? No worries.

Yet tourism and leisure easily accounts for that number of employees in our borough, it dominates our economy - it's the main reason Torbay exists at all! - Yet our council scrimps on support, cuts spending on advertising, annoys our 'customers' with stupid and unfair parking restrictions, rips them off with excessive car parking charges, withdraws much needed facilities like public toilets, leaves the place covered in litter and seaweed, and generally treats it's customers as if they were about as welcome as a flock of seagulls.

We have experimented with a diversified economy in the bay for long enough to prove that it is a road to economic oblivion.

Like it or not, Torbay needs tourism and depends on visitors, incomers and tourists for its prosperity.

We should all be proud that so many people want to come to our town.

Torbay council should be making sure that we have a town to be proud of.

There is a question that has been taxing me a lot lately.

Is Tony Blair really going to stand down 'at the next election' as he promised?

Clearly he has been on a political 'high' since May 5th, even the catastrophic bombing in London has proved him right about the threat to us from extreme religious groups, a danger that some of us were frankly beginning to doubt before the election.

He is clearly enjoying the job and shows no signs of really wanting to stand down - and lets face it he is young enough to carry on for years yet.

And who gains if he goes sooner? Certainly not most of the cabinet, most of whom will lose out badly if Gordon gets the leadership on a silver plate. And not just because as 'Tony's men' they may lose power and status under a Gordon premiership but also because, as I have always pointed out, everyone in politics secretly wants to be Prime Minister.

If Gordon takes over the leadership the ambitions of all the other cabinet members is crushed, Brown is only in his early 50's and cute observers know that the New Labour oligarchy is beginning to wane so time is running out for those senior older dogs who really fancy being 'top dog'.

Blair has continually led his Chancellor on a merry dance over the 'accession' and I predict that the drama is going to enter a new phase very soon.

So here is one prediction. Boosted by his own 'falklands factor' (the war on Terror) and with the economy on the slide Tony Blair will sideways move his chancellor in his first big cabinet reshuffle possibly next spring.

He will risk the fall-out in the clear knowledge that his cabinet colleagues, the majority of the parliamentary party and, for once, the majority of public opinion will be on his side. Although I suspect that Gordon might prefer the damage of a sideways move in preference to being in charge at the Treasury as the economy falls apart.

In my view Tony Blair is the sole reason Labour won power and held on to power - in spite of our (somewhat tasteless) attempts to discredit him in the election campaign the public voted to keep him in No10 and they will carry on doing so until we Conservatives come up with an alternative Prime Minister.

"The letters page in the Herald has once again become polluted with countless letters from Lib Dem councillors whingeing about the result of the elected mayor vote, either complaining about the outcome or complaining about the turnout.

Everyone accepts that the whole question of an elected mayor would not have arisen if this council was run by them in a half-decent fashion.

Most observers agree that if -instead of simply trying to shoot the messenger- they had listened to the public outcry summed up by the Herald Express so well, they might have avoided the current situation where they are being -in effect- sacked mid-term.

I have accused this gang many times before of shouting down their opponents, of discrediting people instead of addressing the points they raise, of making dishonest promises to win power, and of using sometimes downright dirty campaign tactics.

This kind of awful, arrogant and disdainful politics unfortunately damages all of us in politics - regardless of party, so although I am glad to see the Lib Dems exposed I am sorry for the ongoing implications for local party politics.

The idea that somehow party politics is a bad idea is mistaken, hung councils or councils with independents in control don't have a particularly strong track record. On the other hand the councils that have the strongest track record are overwhelmingly those with a clear majority party in charge, - a clear Conservative majority.

I accept that Torbay Conservatives made some mistakes in the days of our local power in the 1970's and 1980's. But -unlike this lot- the people that served for us then had only one aim, to make Torbay a better place to live and work in - and by and large they succeeded.

Torbay's heyday was when it had Conservatives in charge.

Up and down the country today Conservative councils are run more efficiently offering better services and lower taxes than their Lib dem, Labour or even their independently run counterparts.

Conservatives have consistently taken the view that the question of whether Torbay has a mayor or not was a constitutional decision, not a party political one. We believe that whatever system you have for local Government is secondary to whom you have running it. .

The Torbay Conservative party will offer Torbay residents a real alternative in October - our candidate will brandish a thoroughly considered and detailed programme designed to get the town back on it's feet.

We will show between now and October that the best way forward for Torbay is to elect a Conservative mayor."

Being a passionate Conservative can be deeply frustrating at times. We knew that after the election there would be a) another bout of navel gazing and b) another leadership contest but the fact is that the debate is both disjointed and mostly being conducted about the wrong things, by the wrong people. The entire future of the Conservative party is being discussed and it seems decided by 198 entirely unrepresentative people; our MP's (of whom only 17 are female, for a start).

They live in the bubble of politics in Westminster and yet seem to be intent on deciding not just our future leader (and in this 'presidential' political age, when the leader of the party is who the vast majority of people actually 'vote for' at an election instead of their local candidate this decision is probably the one that will make the difference between winning and losing the next election) but also deciding the 'future direction' of the party and it's policies.

The question is, are they likely to make the right decision?

How many MP's do what most people do every day? How many of them sit and watch Eastenders, The Simpsons or Big Brother? How many of them wash their cars on a Sunday or take their kids to footie on a Saturday?

How many of them really, regularily go to the pub with their mates on a Friday night or go to a Virgin Vie party with their girlfriends?

The answer of course is probably none. And we are no different to any of the other parties in this regard.

How can we possibly ever connect with the wider public if we don't let the wider public 'in' on our decision making?

In America big decisions (like who the Presidential hopefuls are) are made by a series of 'primary' elections where ordinary members of the public who are merely registered as the supporters of one or other party (they don't have to join, just pledge to vote Republican or whatever) hear the party's hopefuls speak and then vote.

Whoever wins the primary's for each party nomination becomes that partys candidate, which gives Americans a real choice of two 'road tested' candidates at every election.

One way of adapting this system would be for the three main parties in Torbay to agree to adopt a similar system for selecting a candidate to fight the mayoral campaign.

I doubt it will happen, but democracy would be better served if it did.

The very unsettling news that the London bombs last week were placed by British born muslims is deeply worrying.

I was in London (on the tube) when the bombs went off and here again this morning it is disturbing to notice that while the roads from West London were full of cars containing Asian men, there was not a single asian male on the tube today - when, normally, a good 20% of passengers from this part of London are of Asian extraction.

Who can blame them? Would you want to be a young asian bloke with a rucksack on the London tube network at the moment? - with hundreds of pairs of suspicious eyes staring at you the whole time?

The mood in the City of London has subtly changed - and not for the better.

I feel desperately sorry for the mess that a few wild fanatics have caused and deeply depressed at the long-term implications for the much-vaunted multi-cultural Britain we are supposed to be.

Is this what the terrorists want? I fear that it is.

Politics never sleeps. In spite of having had an overdose of political activity in the lead-up to the general election - to the extent that I thought it might forever cure my consuming passion for it- I have found myself becoming drawn in to the debate about a directly elected mayor for Torbay.

Partly because the public seem to be taking the opportunity to pass judgement on the Lib Dems and partly because it's a postal vote I am fairly confidant that the yes vote will prevail and we will have an election for a mayor this Autumn.

I have been asked about my own intentions in this direction, but I am clear that I won't be putting my name forward for two good reasons, 1) I have always criticised career politicians who stand for one thing after another just so that they can get a 'paid' job in politics and don't intend to become one and 2) I think there are at least two and possibly three or four existing Conservatives who have more experience of Torbay local politics any of whom would make a better candidate than I.

The important thing is for the Conservatives to pick a winning candidate who can offer a programme that galvanises the local economy; and then get it past the wall of Lib Dems who would still (just) control 2/3rds of the council chamber - enough to block the Mayors programme.

I am pleased to see that Adrian Sanders is at last taking an interest in the vital issue of the bleak future potentially facing parents and children at Upton School, and I welcome his involvement - better late than never, as I always say.

However, like your correspondent Brenda Heath I was more than a little annoyed to see his immediate reaction to this very real crisis is a blatant attempt to blame the Government for a debacle that is entirely the fault of his own Lib Dem colleagues on the council.

The idea that this closure is somehow the result of a conspiricy of under-funding is totally false, the figures given in his piece in last Friday's paper were, I am afraid, misleading in the extreme.

The facts are simple, had the Lib Dem administration not wasted several millions of their budget (and our money) on the needless appointment of several bureaucrats and officers in 2004, inflating their own pay and luxuries like expense accounts for the leader of the council there would be ample funds available to keep this school open.

His astonishing idea to ask the church for extra money would mean -in effect- that charitable donations were being used to subsidise Cllr Harris' mismanagment of the council budget.

Mr Sanders finds himself in another political situation that calls for clear leadership and tough action. Last time it was over the allowances issue and he let us down - this time there must be no backsliding. Kind words and sympathetic noises directed at the parents is just not enough.

I call on him, please, to set aside party political considerations just once, and to use his position at the head of the local Lib Dem party to force the ruling group to re-think their decision.
Only he has the authority to call his troops to order. It can and must be done