Holding the European Parliamentary elections on same day as the local council elections this coming May, is likely to see more than a few councillors loose their seats for all the wrong reasons.
We’ve already seen the UKIP effective have an impact on the local government elections that took place in 2013. This can surely only be seen as an indication of what is likely to happen this May, when UKIP have both European and council election candidates on offer.
Despite repeatedly telling people that a vote for UKIP is a wasted vote at the local level – your local council can’t stop immigration, it can’t take us out of Europe, it can’t even stop the EU from grabbing more and more power. So what exactly is the point of voting for the UKIP candidate, if all you want to do is send a message to Westminster,manner that candidate is only interested in national issues?
Overarching all of this, is the stark fact, that holding both the European and local council elections on the same day, knowing how strong the UKIP protest vote can be, shows how little regard the government has for its so called grass roots Conservative councillors.
The government will of course sight cost as the reason for holding them on the same day and were it not for the proven negative and distorting effect of UKIP on local government election outcomes, I might agree. However, in this case, consideration should have been given to the potential impact and an alternative arrangement sort.
Of course, given this government’s completely negative attitude to local government, I’ve no doubt that this issue was never even given a thought.
Tag Archives: Parliament
Scrutiny is no more than whistling in the wind
Nearly every other day now, councillors are being told that they are, ‘key to driving forward the innovations needed to transform local government, so that it can weather the current financial storm being visited upon it by Westminster’.
Along with this often junior government minister uttered blurb, which is actually code for we’re passing the buck – they wouldn’t describe it as a ‘financial storm’, but rather, local government doing its bit – comes advice that the scrutiny process is an integral element in any transformation strategy.
It’s somewhat disingenuous to identify scrutiny as the way forward, given the abysmal record it has even when richly resourced and supported, as in the case of the Parliamentary scrutiny system.
Almost every other week we hear and read statements from various Parliamentary committees, with Keith Vaz and Margaret Hodge having a seemingly insatiable appetite for appearing on our TV screens, with the opening words, “The government needs to….”, yet what difference does it make to what the government actually does?
Translate this to the amateur, volunteer ‘scout master’ world of the local government councillor, where officer support is always at a premium and constantly under threat from the slash and burn economics of deficit reduction, and scrutiny looks more like whistling in the wind, than an insightful process, that can beat a path to innovative service delivery.
By way of a footnote, I would point to the recent revelations regarding the Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust. Lincolnshire County Council has a health scrutiny committee, with South Holland District Council represented by an independent councillor, who takes every opportunity to tell us what the committee is, or more accurately, isn’t doing. I say isn’t doing, because, in theory, if LCC’s scrutiny of our local hospitals was in any way effective, Lincolnshire hospitals wouldn’t have one of the highest abnormal death rates in England would it? Unfortunately, they seem to have gotten themselves completely hung up on the proposed changes to our local ambulance service instead.
Time for action on Big Society
As MPs went through the motions in Parliament, having been recalled, I hope at least a few of them, including those on the Tory benches, took the opportunity to ask David Cameron how, given the events of that triggered the recall, he intends to put his Big Society vision in to practice.
Surely, the recent, both horrifying and depressing, events across mainly England, are a confirmation of what David Cameron has been saying since he became Party leader. His biggest problem now, is the risk of being accused of being all talk and no action. Can he really expect all those people who turned out on the streets of London, armed with brooms and bin bags, to keep doing so from now on, without something more than words of encouragement from his government? If he does, then his vision is doomed already.
Just like a train needs tracks to run, Big Society will only work if it has the right sort of infrastructure to support it. People are demanding no more cuts in police budgets, so that more officers can be put on the streets and that is one solution. However, the heavy hand of authority is the way regimes such Syria, Lybia and Zimbabwe control their populations. I don’t think any right minded citizen would wish to see the UK go down this route, if only because it fails completely to address the underlying issues. Policing is the answer, but not neccesaraily high police numbers. Policing focussed on and based in the community, in other words, a return to a form of the good old village bobby.
If David Cameron believes that the Big Society can work, he could do worse than start by reintroducing genuine local policing. This could be in the form of a proper community based police officer, complete with office and house – sound familiar? Or, as works in other European countries such as Holland, community wardens living and working in their communities. Recent events in Japan also highlighted their system of community based officials. I also understand that it is common practice to see mini-police offices on many street corners, providing genuine community based policing.
The key to this approach is ensuring that there are enough boots on the ground, as they say in the military – over to you Dave.
Eviction, that’ll work- not!
I read that a number of MPs, including David Cameron, along with local councillors, are suggesting that those convicted of rioting, may be evicted from their social housing. Assuming this is a possibility, given that I doubt any of the current tenancy agreements include a non-rioting clause, what do they propose to do with the evicted reprobates?
These people will not just evaporate more’s the pity. They will almost certainly continue to be a burden on the taxpayer and a blight on our society. Many of them will no doubt be repeat criminals, living on benefits and entitled to social housing because they have children, who may of course also be fledgling criminals!
So, using a short term, headline grabbing solution like eviction, is just pushing the problem in to somebody else’s in tray, it’s not solving a damned thing!
Police or community? Why not both?
As MPs go through the motions in Parliament today, I hope at least a few of them, including those on the Tory benches, take the opportunity to ask David Cameron how, given the events of that last 7 days, he intends to put his Big Society vision in to practice.
Surely, the recent horrifying and depressing events across England, are a confirmation of what David Cameron has been saying since he became Party leader. His biggest problem now, is being seen as all talk and no action. Can he really expect all those people who turned out on the streets of London, armed with brooms and bin bags, to keep on being so community spirited, without something more than words of encouragement from his government? If he does, then his vision is doomed already.
Just like a train needs a track to run on, Big Society needs the right sort of infrastructure to support it. People are demanding no more cuts in police budgets, so that more officers can be put on the streets – that’s one solution. However, the heavy hand of authority is the way regimes such Syria, Lybia and Zimbabwe control their populations. I don’t think any right minded citizen would wish to see the UK go down this route, if only because it fails completely to address the underlying issues. Policing is the answer, but not neccesaraily high police numbers. Policing focussed on and based in the community, in other words, a return to a form of the good old village bobby.
If David Cameron believes that the Big Society can work, he could do worse than start by reintroducing genuine local policing. This could be in the form of a proper community based police officer, complete with office and house – sound familiar? Or, as works in other European countries such as Holland, community wardens living and working in their communities. Recent events in Japan also highlighted their system of community based officials. I also understand that it is common practice to see mini-police offices on many street corners in Japan, providing genuine community based policing. The key to this approach is ensuring that there are enough boots on the ground, as they say in the military – over to you Dave.
Roger Gambba-Jones 