A great evening last night as our fourth supper club saw a large group come together for dinner at The Tyne Green Golf Club in Hexham: Lord Michael Bates was the speaker: Michael is the former MP for Langbaugh, is now on the local government team in the Lords and is famous for his recent walk from Lindisfarne to Durham this summer to raise £14,000 for Tomorrows People North East.
He told great tales of the 1991 by election when aged 29 he fought Langbaugh [with a young William Hague as his minder] in the last days of the Thatcher / major government, and then spoke really well as to the changes a new Conservative Administration is going to bring in both nationally and locally; he attempted to describe the madness of the present system - and gave a description of the Labour government plans to scrap the Learning Skills Council ...but replace it with 15 different quangoes in its place.