Viewpoint: Former council leader 'is Nigel's problem now'

Land is open space and should remain that way

Just when you thought it was safe to walk on Braywick Park, Maidenhead United FC come up with another proposal to build on the park.

The area that they are looking to destroy is used by hundreds of people every day for a wide variety of activities; it’s public open space and should remain that way.

The idea of constructing a stadium for 5,000 supporters, with stands, floodlights and roads is appalling.

It’s completely at odds with the open feel of the park and to the adjacent Braywick Nature Reserve.

With the recent loss of the former golf club, I’m surprised the threat to another green area is being considered at all.

JONATHAN NEAL

Forlease Drive

Maidenhead

Boom or bust at weir

Readers who follow the Waterways project might be interested.

The Green Lane weir was described by The Advertiser at its opening as ‘the crowning glory’ – La Theresa performing the honours.

The licence issuing authority is the Environment Agency.

Upon my raising queries about this installation, the Agency is quick to reply they are not the owners – please address RBWM, the licensee.

This conveniently dodges the fact that Environment Agency approved and authorised the design and construction details.

A feature of our weir is a trash boom – the purpose of which is the collection of flotsam and jetsam arriving by York Stream and Moor Cut carried by water flow if any.

Since 2020, I’ve not seen a single twig, branch, beer can, food wrapper, sweet paper, leaf, or grass cutting filtered by our trash boom.

Laid at 45 degrees across the supply canal, our trash boom directs stuff into the eel pass entrance. Dear old RBWM is supposed to maintain navigability and water flow – but pensioner volunteers do the job for free.

MDG

Forlease Drive

Maidenhead

Former council leader is Nigel’s problem now

I have been a Royal Borough councillor for less than eighteen months.

Until Jack Rankin MP approached me to consider putting my name forward for the October 2024 by-election, I had no involvement in local or national politics, but was involved in my local community and passionate about the area where my family and I live.

But in May 2025, the Conservative group elected me leader, even though I knew little history of anyone, and little about how the council actually worked. Since then, I’ve learnt a great deal.

Inside the council chamber, I’ve seen the arrogance of the governing Maidenhead Liberal Democrats: noses firmly in two – or three – troughs, obsessed with partisan point-scoring and indifferent to the residents who elected them.

On the doorstep, I hear the concerns about this and also concerns about the previous Conservative administration.

This is why we have changed and are putting forward in the council chamber what the residents are telling us.

This week we learned that Simon Dudley has joined Reform UK as their housing guru. On behalf of Conservative councillors and members across the Royal Borough, I can only echo Kemi Badenoch’s words: the Conservatives are learning from the mistakes of the past and he’s Nigel’s problem now.

Cllr SALLY CONERON

RBWM Conservative Group leader

Opinion: Notes on a scandal

It’s more than 60 years since Cliveden was at the heart of Britain’s biggest political scandal.

The Profumo Affair – featuring a married Minister of State, a sexy young model, and a Russian spy – played out in the grounds of the beautiful stately home, at the height of the Cold War.

It became the benchmark for how all future political shenanigans were viewed.

At the time, the impact was immense – resignations, the downfall of Macmillan’s Conservative Government, plus a media frenzy at a salacious court case and a tragic suicide.

Christine Keeler and her pal Mandy Rice-Davies became celebrities, and the scandal sparked TV series, movies, and even a Pet Shop Boys-penned hit, sung by Dusty Springfield.

The lasting impact on British society and politics saw public confidence in politicians and the establishment undermined, and more calls for greater transparency and accountability.

Sound familiar?

The big deal back then, of course, was that Profumo lied in the House of Commons about his affair… breaking the unwritten rule that leaders must tell the truth.

Fast forward to this week and we might just be in the middle of a political scandal – centred on Lord Peter Mandelson – which finally knocks Profumo off his perch.

By coincidence, I was on a tour of the Palace of Westminster on Saturday and walked through the House of Commons and the House of Lords chambers… although we were not allowed to sit on any of the leather benches!

I stood at the Despatch Box where Sir Keir Starmer stated at last week’s PMQs how Mandy had lied to him about his continued friendship with the late, disgraced American Jeffrey Epstein.

That was referring to before Mandelson was appointed – and later sacked – as our British Ambassador to the United States and a major player in the court of President Trump.

Surrounded by history, I got a fleeting sense of how much pressure Sir Keir must have felt.

The grandeur of the Speaker’s Chair to his left, the cabinet front bench squeezed in behind him, and the Opposition baying for blood across the floor.

The Westminster corridors are crammed with statues and busts of previous Prime Ministers – Winston Churchill and Maggie Thatcher dominate one lobby.

Kings and Queens who battled with our Parliamentarians for the democracy we enjoy today also adorn the walls.

The Palace has seen it all over the centuries, but only time will whether the latest shocking revelations – police investigations are underway – will have as big an impact as the Profumo Affair did all those years ago.

The final part of the tour focused on how women finally got the vote.

The first female MP who took her seat in 1919 was American-born Nancy Astor… whose family just happened to own the Cliveden estate.

That place is never out of the news – as the National Trust’s latest email reminds me, now is the perfect time to visit the grounds of Cliveden to see the carpet of snowdrops in the Water Gardens…

I bet the scent is sweet, without a whiff of scandal!

JIM TAYLOR