Dumplings

It seems that BH has decided that one gets better results with Christmas puddings if one uses real suet rather than the vegetable alternative. With the result that she presently has some real suet left over from this year's pudding, not something she makes much use of otherwise, neither of us being up for full-strength steak and kidney puddings these days.

So last Sunday we had beef with dumplings. Rounded out with some boiled vegetables and desserted with blackberry and apple, the former handpicked locally, possibly in Hook Road Arena, as noticed at reference 4. Washed down with some more of the possibly orange wine first noticed at reference 1.

While behind the wine, we have the Lib Dems getting into a lather about Surrey pushing for Surrey to be a unitary authority. Presumably because although the Tories are not as dominant as they were in Surrey, they still dominate county elections in a way that they no longer dominate district elections, where they only have a majority in 4 of the eleven boroughs. That said, they are the biggest party in most of the others, with the Lib Dems and the Residents taking only one borough each. So a move to unitary authority would not be good news for either of these last.

I used to be a big fan of unitary authorities, but the current compromise whereby areas were allowed to choose does seem reasonable. Areas do differ, do present different challenges. These days I am much more concerned that central government has so much control over local government finance. Time for reform - while recognising that rich boroughs do have to help out poor boroughs.

And I might add that I failed to come up with any neat summary of the political scene in Surrey. The best on offer came from SurreyLive, albeit very liberally sprinkled with advertisements. 

PS: we might not do our own steak and kidney puddings any more, but we do on occasion take the offering of that name offered by Wetherspoons. Very good value it is too. See, for example, reference 3.

Reference 1: psmv4: More stuffing.

Reference 2: Surrey Live: Local Surrey News, Sport and What's On (getsurrey.co.uk).

Reference 3: psmv2: Penderel's Oak.

Reference 4: psmv4: Fifth and last blackberries.