It was my privilege to open the Burringham Fun Day yesterday which, despite a pour down later on, seemed to be a success. As usual I lucked out on the raffle (see photo) but did manage to come away with a nice bottle from the Committee for opening the event.

The Village Hall Committee do a great job in keeping the Village Hall running and deserve full marks for the effort they go to in organising the Fun Day. Last year I was there with a petition calling for action to improve road safety in the village which eventually led to action.

We will be back in the Village Hall on Friday night as we are organising a quiz night for local party members and supporters.

According to research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research the average family this year is £400 worse off thanks to Gordon Brown and the Labour Government. The doubling of the ten pence tax rate, the increases in car taxes and hikes in Council Tax have all hit hard working families and individuals hard.

I accept that the Government cannot control everything that happens in the world economy but there are things it can do to lessen the impact. Sadly, instead of helping hard-working families out, Gordon Brown and Labour have decided to burden them with even more tax rises.

Worst of all, they have decided to hammer the poorest families and workers the hardest.

I am delighted to have been able to support the 'Goole Gift Campaign for Heroes' who are doing a fantastic job in sending parcels to our brave troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kerry and Darren Smith who run the campaign from their home in Swinefleet are doing a great job and deserve our support.

I wanted to do a little something so I decided to put a request for support in my most recent newspaper which was delivered across Brigg and Goole. We have had residents dropping in items for the parcels to the office and even got an offer of 60 boxes of Haribo sweets from Haribo! We are storing the rest in our office in Normanby until the first few boxes are dispatched!

The photo above shows me delivering some of the boxes to Kerry and Darren. Haribo deserve our thanks in supporting this non-political campaign. Well done to Haribo and well done to Kerry and Darren.

Anyone wanting to contribute items to the parcels can either drop them into our office at 32 Main Street in Normanby or to the office of the Goole Times or Goole Courier in Goole. Items needed incled, talc, deodorants, soups, sachet food, pot noodle type foods, cotton socks, energy bars etc.

The above are all headlines in the news today and sum up just what a mess Labour have got Britain in to. Everyone I speak to at the moment just seems to be crying out for a change of Government and for Labour to be booted out.

It comes to something when a Government can manage in the same year to increase pensioner poverty, increase child poverty, undermine the housing market and still manage to raise taxes on hard working people. In fact, Labour's most recent tax changes, to scrap the 10p tax rate and raise taxes on older cars, actually hit some of our poorest people the hardest.

Who knows what people will think come the election. I am certainly not going to get excited by all these massive opinion polls leads we seem to have at the moment. Polls this far from an election mean nothing.

All I know is that local people are finding life harder and more expensive by the day. Our local Labour MP, who as the Vice Chairman of the Labour Party is at the heart of this Labour Government, seems to have little to say about any of these huge issues. Just the usual cheap photo opportunities and self-promotion in the local press. Not much use to local people facing higher taxes or negative equity! No wonder so many ex-Labour voters are contacting me to offer support.