Martin Salter has come out in support of legislation currently going through Parliament but looks to be heading for a clash with local Labour Party colleagues over his backing for the Reading Borough Council Bill. Speaking in support of the Bill he said: "Illegal peddling is a dangerous menace which can put people at risk of being ripped off with faulty merchandise with no right of redress or compensation for being cheated by false promises."

However, a Labour insider told us that they are worried about the irreparable damage passing this bill could do to prospective parliamentary candidate Anneliese Dodds at the next election. One activist told us: "If we can't peddle door to door our broken promises and faulty policies without falling foul of the law, we're screwed."

Bet Tickner has ridiculed the chair of Safer Reading, Lib Dem Daisy Benson for her amateurish approach to community safety and campaigning.

She told the Evening Post letters page: "A true professional politician, like myself, knows that whilst head of the Licensing Committee you should give garages a 24 hour licence, and then go out and spend the rest of your time collecting names on a petition to stop street drinking caused by giving a licence to a 24 hour garage. Until she learns to be completely two-faced about these things, she'll get nowhere in local politics."

Reading Conservatives are seeking a refund after sending several councillors on a public speaking course ahead of the last full council meeting. News of the course was revealed by Dave Luckett, but it's effectiveness proved to be a disappointment. A Tory source told us: "In these hard economic times, it's unfair to keep asking Mr. Madejski to pay for our upkeep and Lord Ashcroft's foreign money from Bearwood Corporate Services can only stretch so far. That and the realisation that there's not really much point in taking part in council debates because we've got absolutely bugger all to say anyway. So instead of these costly courses we've decided to buy a big rubber stamp instead."

The local party have cancelled 'Argument Theory for Debaters' and 'How to be an Effective Opposition' citing them to be as much use to them in the coming year as a chocolate tea pot. However, it appears that it was too late to withdraw their councillors from the 'How to Roll Over and Have Your Tummy Tickled by Labour' seminar, which by all accounts was well attended.

Wokingham Conservatives have hit out at local Lib Dems after the party held their South Central regional conference at the Oakwood Centre in Woodley.

Local Tory councillor Keith Baker complained to the local press: "How dare they hire out a venue for the day and put up posters advertising it? I went down there to remonstrate with them about this abuse of their own funds and they had the cheek to kick me out for not having a Lib Dem membership.

"Then they have the audacity to invite their party leader to answer questions from members of the public in Reading Civic Centre that same evening. Heaven forbid that people should now expect a Tory leader to answer questions on policy unscripted. Conservatives firmly believe that when party leaders visit town they should be whisked away to private meetings with local multi-millionaires who are the only people who really understand the plight of ordinary citizens and kept as far away from the hoi polloi as possible. Once again the Lib Dems show that they don't really understand politics in this town."

Ex-Ashmead pupil Ricky Gervais has turned his back on the Hollywood life style by walking into a local convenience store in Los Angeles and buying a carton of milk.

Born in Reading in 1961, Gervais is the Emmy award winning creater of the Office and Extras. The former Whitley schoolboy, full name Ricky Dene Gervais, went up to the counter and paid in cash for the 32 fluid ounces of semi-skimmed milk in cash. It is thought that the creator of comedy icon David Brent was buying it so that he could according to his publicist 'have a nice cup of tea'.

Tomorrow we have exclusive news of Kate Winslet, who was born in Reading in 1975, and her difficult choice between quilted or non-quilted toilet paper.

© 1994-2035 Reading Evening Post

Any guesses about which Labour councillor threatened a member of the public with calling the police for daring to turn up at the last full council meeting?

Reading Police Community Support Officers' (PCSOs) effectiveness has been criticised after it was revealed that a PCSO in West Reading has been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting an armed robbery.

The suspect has denied the charge, but has pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of attempting to fiddle the crime clear up rate stats.

Now Mick Spreader doesn't like getting involved in other parties' tantrums, but it would seem that Tony Jones voting for an amendment to their beloved Anti-Social Behaviour strategy (a report that would cause great difficulty to the Oxford English Dictionary if they were asked to verify the use of 'strategy' in that context) was too much.

Fear not Reading residents, you cannot be censored by Martin Salter's mob of web luddites and amateur web designers. muckspReading which remains the only oasis in the local media for respite from Salter's barmy army has rescued cllrtonyjones for posterity.

Notes to editors: If the local Labour party learned how to run a web site properly... they'd be dangerous!

Reading Conservatives have accused the Lib Dems of actively taking part in party politics. The vicious slur was delivered during a heated debate in the council chamber when local Conservatives repeatedly propped up the beleaguered Labour minority administration.

"It's a bloody disgrace," said Tory group leader Andrew Cumpsty. "Those bloody Lib Dems come in here and propose motions asking for things to be done during a political meeting. That's not how we do it around here. And it is outrageous that they should go out and talk to people, send out press releases and deliver leaflets, is that what politics has come to? Rubbish, politics is about using parliamentary allowances for political purposes and rich donors to spread lies on glossy paper whilst doing absolutely nothing that involves making a decision."

"If the Lib Dems weren't so naive they would know that the correct procedure is to refer all items back to the CCEA scrutiny panel where David Stevens will roll over, waggle his arms and legs in the air and vote with the Labour Party. That's the Tory way."

Leader of the council Jo Lovelock has predicted gloom and doom for Reading residents after last year's election bribe budget sat up and bit her on the bum.

She wailed: "Who would have thought that Chris Maskell's year in office would have led to such a huge rise in catering costs? The cost of heating Peter Jones alone has rocketed and subsiding the buses to pay the shortfall caused by Reading Transport having to pay David Sutton's salary has hit us hard. Oh, and the sky is going to fall in."

Labour councillors visiting the road works designed to improve the layout of junction 11 were fascinated to find shattered remains buried at the construction site. The lead member for transport Tony Page was visiting the site to see progress when they were shown the find by contrator Laing O'Rourke.

"It was seeing a little bit of local history come to life," said Mr. Page. "The remains of John Howarth's political career smashed into a thousand little pieces and scattered all around. I've asked them to donate the shards to the Reading Labour Party as a reminder of what happens when you become too arrogant to listen to the voters."

Local Conservatives have hit out at Government policies which they say have reduced the numbers of council houses sold to tenants under right-to-buy schemes. In a press release, regurgitated uncritically, Rob Wilson and Alok Sharma have highlighted the reduction in discounts given over the last ten years to tenants.

Rob Wilson told us: "In 1998, £22,800 was 50% of the house price. Now the current figure of £25,340 is only 24% of the house price. Conservatives say that councils should be forced to make up the difference and hand out an extra £30,000 of your money to all council tenants who want to buy their houses. It's unfair that council tenants should be denied the democratic right to live in negative equity paid for out of everyone else's council tax." Alok Sharma said: "Vote Conservative, if you want more state handouts to the few."

Tory group leader Andrew Cumpsty has said he is outraged over another fighting event at the Rivermead Leisure Centre, calling it 'unsafe' and that it 'glorified violence'.

Robots Live! will be staged at Rivermead Leisure Centre in Richfield Avenue and will feature machines from cult BBC show Robot Wars. Mr. Cumpsty said: "What sort of message is this sending to kids? One minute robots are saving lives at the Royal Berks, then next they see them disembowling themselves in the name of entertainment. Mark my words, events of this type will have children around the town raiding the pot cupboard, walking around wearing saucepans on their head and hitting themselves with wooden spoons. It's bloody irresponsible."

Former Reading Borough Council chief executive Tricia Haines has hit out at Lib Dem plans to make public servants earning more than £100,000 re-apply for their jobs. She told the Local Government Chronicle: "I'm not going to do all that work for no extra money. The pay scales for chief execs are the same as for everybody else. My pay went up 2.4% just like everybody else."

Council employees in Worcestershire are now hoping that as their chief executive is feeling their pain over such a miserly increase that this will mean that their salaries will also go up by 2.4% of £160,000 for the purpose of equatability.

Royal Berks Hospital has unveilled a new £1m robotic surgeon which will perform many difficult and demanding operations and reduce recovery time for patients. RBH will now be able to offer a full frontal robotomy and have also bought a Robutt to perform prostate cancer surgery.

Hospital managers have denied that the mechnical medic will put patients at risk. A consulting surgeon assured us: "We have programmed it with the Three Laws of Hospital Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm - apart from slicing open their skin with a scapel;
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law or the terms of the PFI contract;
3. And a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the profit margins of the private sector managers."

Plans to also replace the PCT managers with robots have been cancelled as the cancellation of the Park and Ride scheme and parking charges of £10.00 for over 6 hours show that the robots are already in charge of the finances.

Tuesday's meeting of the Corporate, Community and External Affairs Scrutiny Panel was livened up when Peter Jones fell off his chair during proceedings. He explained afterwards: "I got bored listening to those tossers droning on about bollocks, so I had a quick flick through my TV Guide and I just couldn't believe the story line next week in Eastenders."

Fellow committee member Richard Stainthorp missed all the excitement as he was catching a sly forty winks during the meeting.

As students flock back to town, new students starting at Reading University have been warned to beware of shady characters trading on their naïveté as the Freshers Fayre takes place in the Students' Union.

nuGay and nuLesbian Labour, Gay and Lesbian Tories Against the Whale and for the Bomb, the Far Too Damn Liberal If You Ask Me Democrats and the Greens will be fighting to prove to the new intake which one is the looniest party left in town. Already the Development and External Affairs Office has warned students to avoid the Lib Dems for holding an monthly 'Liberal Drinks' session which has been blamed on a spate of students knocking on doors over the past year.

The Highways Agency has also been preparing for the return of students by rushing through the last of the summer's road repair schemes before cone hunting season starts in Earnest, a small village to the south of the Whiteknights Campus.