Winter 2008

I’m liberal, to a degree…

 

Bob Dylan once wrote a song with the line that went;

 

“I’m liberal to a degree, but if you think I’d let Barry Goldwater move in next door and marry my daughter…”

 

Well I kinda feel that way at the moment over our once shiny Lib-Dem administration swanning about in the Guildhall.

 

Of course they are not new, they’ve been there eighteen months and far from being the bright shiny new kids on the block they are somewhat grey and shop-soiled

 

Some of them had been knocking about the old place for a number of years, always ready to tell other parties how to do things and what mistakes they were all making.

In the days of permanent opposition the Lib-dems could do no wrong.

 

In many ways being in opposition is the best place to be in British politics, you can criticise, ridicule and make impossible promises, and at the same time pretend that you would never behave like the ‘old parties’

 

(NB. Liberals were of course once an ’old’ party themselves, being the party of Government during World War 1 , enough said!)

Eighteen months ago the people of Northampton, in a sporadic fit of generosity gave the Lib-dems the opportunity to run the town.

 

We must allow for the fact that they were all political virgins, some were in a virginal state, and some were political novices too. Indeed some were (and still are) wusses of the first rank, often rejects from other parties.

But they have, despite a feeling of general good will towards them, made a complete hash of managing the town.

 

In truth they look just the same as both the other parties.

 

The Market Square still a declining asset, the Bus Station still a dirty and declining asset, the Town Centre still subject to yet another consultation, the Sixfields planning application still in limbo……

What in fact have they done?

Well they have managed to build up a £7.2 million deficit, nothing of course to do with them, it was all the big boys what dun it!!

 

And then, in the face of mounting financial problems they vote themselves a huge pay rise, with the assistance of the Labour group leader Mr. Keith (22%rise) Davies.

 

Then to cover up their gaff, after the feeble justification that it would encourage more young people from minority communities to become councillors (Does that sound plausible to you?) They have decided that they will give their increases to charity.

 

It is a very odd sort of redistribution that means you give them more council tax and they give it on to someone else, and then claim they are doing something virtuous!!

It reminds me too much of Tony Hancock’s idea of charitable giving, his little black notebook with his donations listed, to chuck at St Peter when he reaches the pearly gates!

 

The Liberal-democrats are just one more bunch of opportunistic chancers, with not a single coherent idea between them

They can no longer blame anyone else for what goes wrong, but I bet a pound to a penny that will be their only excuse:

 

“It wasn’t us Guv!”

 

 

 

 

Summer 2007

Now is the time to name names!

 

For months we tiptoed around the prospect of the Northampton Needle with the hope that it would simply disappear.

 

It was always  bad idea with no public support and even less public enthusiasm and one that WNDC planners would quietly drop in favour of something in keeping with the town.

A bit of reconstructed castle, a statue of John Clare or maybe a full sized effigy of the bus station made out of paper mache.

 

But despite it’s eventual demise we can’t escape the fact that the planning committee of WNDC made the decision to sink over £300k of public money into a 130’ needle outside the refurbished station as a symbol of a new dynamic Northampton and  at the same time a remembrance of the shoe industry.

 

This decision was taken by a majority of one vote.It is illuminating to see who voted on that evening.

Three votes were cast against, two Borough Councillors Lib-Dem Richard Church and Tory Penny Flavell and a businessman Nick Thompson.(take note that the two LOCAL councillors voted against.

In favour of the tedious needle and happy to pass a large sum of public money to a Nottinghamshire ‘artist’ were Ann Tate(rector of Northampton University )John Weir(a resident of Daventry and former head honcho with cutting edge cultural house builder Wilcon)

Chris Millar (A Daventry Tory Councillor) and David Dickenson (a property developer unlikely to come from Northampton)

 

Weir argued that as there had been no public’ furore’ it was obvious that we all want the needle.

Now I’m not clear quite what Mr Weir wanted by a ‘public furore’? Hundreds of frenzied petitioners? A furious march on the offices of WNDC? A dead horses’ head in bed?

Was the outpouring of angry letters in this newspaper not vocal enough? The united opposition of the entire Borough Council not a bit of a hint that most people thought it a bad idea? The opposition of the local Councillors in whose ward this abomination is to be sited not a clue that all might not be well in the Borough of Sleepy Hollow?

 

Of course the dreadful reality is that most people view the whole story with dreadful cynicism. The feeling is that it is done deal, that despite what people think, the collective closed minds down at WNDC are already made up and the Nottingham artist has been promised his dosh and another dreary pylon with in due course appears.

 

WNDC did not consult local residents, we are very local residents and will live under the shadow of the needle-no one bothered to ask us despite the proud boast that 81 letters were sent out!

 

Repeatedly I have argued in favour of WNDC as being the vehicle that might really effect change here in Sleepy Hollow. Not any longer, like central government it is remote and insensitive to what people and communities want.

I support public art and want to see much more, but I want to see that art say something about the public it’s designed for. I would  also have thought that the use of talented local artists for the project was a no-brainer.

But then as the majority of WNDC members on the planning committee have little or no connection with the town can it come as a surprise?

Spring 2008

Just a Hypocrite

 

Under normal circumstances I would have considerable sympathy for Simon Hughes and the prurient interest that the media are currently taking in his sexual history.

With Hughes however I make an exception.

 

Many years ago in an earlier political existence I was an active member the Young Communist League (YCL) in London.

We were a part of a fine institution called the Hackney Youth Parliament, an organisation designed to make politics relevant to young people. Each political youth group were encouraged to debate in the style of Westminster.

Because it was Hackney the ‘government’ was the Labour Party Young Socialists(then a variation of Trotskyism known as Young Guard who transmogrified many years later into the Socialist Workers Party) I hope you are keeping up!

 

There were some Young Conservatives, but we put them to the sword very early on, and that left the parliament with the curious situation of a LPYS government and an opposition made up of the Young Liberals and the YCL. Our alliance did for the trots too!

 

During that period the political debates were fierce and passionate and I had considerable respect for many of the Young Libs.Some like George Kiloh became their national chairman and was a formidable opponent of the US war in Vietnam..

Others like Louis Eaks were fierce defenders of the Palestinian people’s rights-a very difficult and brave position to take for a young Jewish lad in Hackney nearly 40 years ago.

The reason for that long technical explanation was to show that at one time I had considerable respect and sympathy for some very talented and brave Liberals, and that was even before Peter Hain and his magnificent leadership of part of the anti-apartheid struggle when he was a Young Liberal.

But then came 1983 and the Bermondsey by-election. For those with no memory of those days.Mrs Thatcher was the Prime Minister, Michael Foot led the Labour Party

And New Labour lay in the distant future.

 

Bob Mellish was the Labour MP for Bermondsey. He was the son of a London docker but he had been a clerk in the TGWU offices. He was an old fashioned right wing London MP-he had been Chief Whip in Harold Wilson’s government.

 

Mrs Thatcher offered him the Chairmanship of the Dockland Development Board.It carried a nice salary so he quit his seat. Significantly perhaps she gave him a peerage and he joined the SDP.

The Labour Party selected Peter Tachell as their candidate; a young Australian who left his country to avoid being drafted to Vietnam

Tatchell was also a gay activist.

It was the vilest by-election of the last century.Mellish backed as an unofficial candidate the Labour leader of the local council, a man called O’Grady, who was a brutish oaf whose homophobia knew no bounds.

Truth to tell the national Labour party did not come out of the campaign well and Tatchell suffered a humiliating defeat.

But the homophobia of O’Grady was matched by the Liberals. It was well known that male Liberal canvassers went around with stickers,”I’ve been kissed by Peter Tatchell”and a Liberal leaflet was circulated calling for electors to ‘Vote for the straight candidate’

Experience told me that Simon Hughes the Liberal candidate must have known what was going on in his name. His failures to condemn the vicious personal attacks on his opponent showed at best an opportunist streak and at worst a cowardly one.

 

Recent revelations show that he is nothing more than a hypocrite.