Traffic Lights to be Installed at the Black Dog Crossroads For Political Point Scoring

Reports of another road traffic accident at the notorious Black Dog Crossroads near Lavington today coincides with Wiltshire Councillor for the Lavington constituency, Dominic Muns taking to Facebook to announce a new investment for Highways in the county will include traffic lights at the crossroads to be installed by spring next year….

Hey, look, don’t get me wrong, it is good news, of course it is. For a campaign which has been running for decades to finally become a reality, hopefully we can now look forward to a time when the crossroads is safer. But safety is far from the top priority in Mr Muns’ rather inane and quite frankly aberrant pontification. What is clear from this is that it has been pushed forward predominately for political point scoring.

Knowing this will attract media attention, the angle of Mr Muns’ announcement is based solely on what he perceives as a golden opportunity to slag off any and every opposition party. It is a shameless excuse to praise his own political party when the angle of the accomplishment isn’t a political matter at all, and could’ve been better projected as a safety measure ticked off, for the good of a community.

As a Conservative councillor for a majority Conservative county council, Dominic Muns states in comments criticising the political angle he’s used in this video, that he’s “had enough” of apparent “constant local Conservative bashing!” Whoa, there, because pointing out the manipulation of the media to push a right-wing agenda is “bashing?!” Have people no right to be critical of a government who held parties and profiteered from a pandemic, a government who exploited their entitlements, bankrupted the country, condoned inequality, and supported genocide? Asking for a friend!

Face facts, Mr Muns, for if you are to make this political, as you have for whatever inane objective, these are the bigger reasons why the nation decided change was needed, putting up traffic lights at a road junction isn’t going to right that wrong, unfortunately, and the idea you think it will is the justification I needed to express my opinion that this was yet another cheap shot by Conservatives still in a temper tantrum over the recent democratic election results. Whatever reasons the Lib Dems, as he claimed, voted against this larger highways budget I’m certain will be earnest and likely involve a financial concentration on areas also in need to be upped, after years of Conservative tomfoolery and their gross misuse of public spending.

I cleared the issue up with our MP Brian Mathew, who said he welcomes the news about the traffic lights at the Black Dog Crossroads. “I was there this morning as the Police were clearing up a crash. It’s a danger spot and it’s over time that it was sorted,” he told me.

“In terms of the rest,” he continued to explain, “the Lib Dems voted against the overall budget back in February budget, because the Tories wouldn’t support free parking for blue badge holders, support extra funding for area boards to support our communities, or fund Visit Wiltshire. The £10 million he is referring to wasn’t in the budget and therefore we couldn’t have voted for it even if we wanted to! This is typical Tory electioneering at the taxpayer’s expense. Perhaps there should have been a debate on what else we could have spent £10 million on.”

So, there it is, no joyful notion of the improvement of safety matters, no remorse for accidents already happened while the council dilly-dallied around this obvious issue for decades, no accreditation for the work of local campaigners over said time, just a video suggesting, “look at us lionhearted Conservatives, we did this, and all the other’s are big poo-poo heads who hate you,” while he braggarts against a background showy of his own affluence; his fireplace is bigger than my house, dammit! Unbelievably tactless and shameful to use matters of safety for political points on any level, especially on a local level.

Perhaps we should question why it has taken decades to put this into motion, during which most of that time the Conservatives have been in power and certainly been dominant in WC. And we could possibly add the utter disgrace the road network has dilapidated into, countywide, while they threw thousands at an imaginary feasibility study to play choo-choo trains, or promote a pointless king’s ransom to hide Stonehenge. Maybe go as far to suggest smaller solutions could’ve been actioned to ease dangers of this crossroads and every other major road junction in the area, like ensuring the trees and bushes are trimmed appropriately; visibility, imagine! The closure of the truck road close by did nothing but add traffic to the junction itself.

Perhaps we should be thankful for the loss of a Conservative majority nationally as it appears to have shoved a rocket up the backsides of Tory councillors who made minimal changes when they were in power?! Oh dear me, what a shameful excuse; while supportive and grateful for Mr Mann’s continued efforts in achieving this issue, it is good news, it’s entirely the wrong angle I’m afraid!

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One thought on “Traffic Lights to be Installed at the Black Dog Crossroads For Political Point Scoring”

  1. All that effort and you couldn’t even spell my name correctly!
    I don’t think it’s an accurate representation of the evolution of the Black Dog project. The errors or inaccuracies are understandable because you haven’t lived and breathed the project for the same amount of time as I have.
    All that said, as far as sensationalist journalism goes it’s a really entertaining article and I enjoyed reading it! I like your writing style!

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