18th January 2015

Tendring Topics……….on line

The Parliamentary General Election

          There was a time when political parties existed to promote specific policies – the Conservative Party on retaining the status quo and, in general, observing the sage advice, ‘If it ain’t bust, don’t fix it’.  They were naturally the party of the ‘haves’ rather than the ‘have nots’.  The Labour Party on the other hand, was the party of change.  They wanted a fairer, more equal Britain, a Britain without nuclear weapons and without imperial pretensions or ambitions.  They argued that these objectives could best be achieved if most or all public services were owned and run by the public.   They were the party of the ‘have nots’.  Both parties tried to persuade a majority of the electorate to support them.

            Now both main parties, and what’s left of the Liberals, claim to serve the interests of the whole country.  In reality they all have just one overriding policy. It’s the same policy; to win elections, gain political power – and keep it.  To this end the Conservatives under Mrs Thatcher became a party of revolutionary change; among other things selling off most public services to private enterprise and compelling local authorities, who had built houses to rid their districts of overcrowding and homelessness, to sell them to sitting tenants at bargain basement prices; thus very cleverly buying votes with other people’s money.

            New Labour, ‘to make itself electable’, sold its own soul by going along with the retention of a nuclear ‘deterrent’, accepting the revolutionary changes that had been introduced by Mrs Thatcher and erasing ‘Clause 4’ from its own constitution.  I have little doubt that many party members voted for the removal of Clause 4 imagining that they were simply acknowledging that some activities were best carried out by private enterprise.  If fact they were accepting the wholesale privatisation of every public service.  In addition, they allowed our country to become the puppet of the most reactionary American president in living memory.  This resulted in our engagement in two ‘colonial’ wars – one illegal and the other unwinnable – resulting in the loss of billions of pounds and the sacrifice of hundreds of British lives

            Party policies are decided nowadays, not by principles or by the exercise of reason and compassion, but by the findings of the latest opinion polls.  And influencing opinion polls is the popular press, owned largely by foreign billionaires who owe no loyalty to the United Kingdom and care only about ‘circulation and profit’. I don’t find it in the least surprising that thousands of electors are now disillusioned with the traditional political parties.  It is upon the way that they react to that disillusion that the future of our country depends.

Don’t bother to vote

            Probably the commonest reaction is to decline to vote.  What’s the point?  They’re all the same – feathering their own nests.  If voting changed anything they’d ban it. Our first-past-the-post electoral system makes sure that the voice of those who can’t bring themselves to vote for any of the main parties, is never heard. The Chartists of the nineteenth and the Suffragettes of the twentieth century must be turning in their graves.  They suffered and died to make sure that everyone had a vote – and they really believed that universal suffrage would change the world.

           

Those who don’t bother to vote have no right to complain when they find themselves represented by someone whose views they thoroughly detest.  Those who can’t bring themselves to vote for any of the candidates must surely be able to select one of them whose policies and attitudes they detest more than those of the others. Vote for the candidate most likely to defeat him or her.  For the much-publicised recent Clacton-on-Sea by-election I voted Conservative for the first (and probably only) time of my life.  Although I disliked the Conservative candidate’s policies, he seemed to be a nice enough chap and I thought he was the candidate most likely to defeat Douglas Carswell who had defected to UKIP (United Kingdom Independence Party).   He didn’t do so and Clacton had the dubious honour of returning the very first UKIP MP to Westminster!  Still – I did my best. 

Vote for one of the ‘minority’ candidates

            We don’t yet know how many candidates there will be for our own constituencies in next May’s General Election. In every English constituency there will certainly be representatives of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal-Democrat Party.  There will almost certainly be a Ukipper (in my Clacton constituency he’ll be the sitting MP) and a Green Party Candidate.  Also there’s likely to be a variety of fringe party and special-interest candidates ranging from the Official Raving Loony Party to those eager to publicise local or special concerns like ‘saving a hospital from closure’, ‘building a new bypass’ or, as we had for the Clacton by-election, a lady who wanted to raise the status and ensure the safety of ‘sex workers’.   

            My guess (and you can’t exaggerate how much I’d like to be proved wrong!) is that in the Clacton-on-Sea Constituency Douglas Carswell (the sitting UKIP MP) will retain his seat though with a smaller majority, The Conservative Candidate will come next but with only a few more votes than  his Labour opponent, followed by the Green, the Lib.Dem. the Official Raving Loony Candidate and the various ‘special interest’ candidates who will get only a tiny handful of votes each.

UKIP versus GREEN

            In my constituency (Clacton-on-Sea) our sitting MP is a Ukipper.  That is true of only one other constituency in the United Kingdom.  In most other constituencies there will be a Conservative, Labour or Liberal Democrat MP who will be looking nervously over his or her shoulder at the UKIP contestant and wondering what effect this new and apparently growing party will have on the election result.

            UKIP and its leader Nigel Farage, remind me uncomfortably of the NAZI party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, in Germany in the 1920s and early ‘30s.   There too, the electorate was disillusioned and tired of the old political parties and their failing policies.  In Adolf Hitler they found someone who was a fervent German nationalist, just as Nigel Farage is a fervent British Nationalist, who disliked the ‘old politics’ and offered a new path for Germany of action rather than talk.  What’s more he assured the Germans that they weren’t to blame for their country’s problems – it was all the fault of ‘the Jews’.  At first most Germans thought that he was a bit of a joke,  Then the wealthy thought they could manipulate him for their own purposes.   One morning though they woke up to discover that he and his brown-shirted followers had taken over their country. – Hitler’s Third Reich had arrived.

            Nigel Farage also assures us that outside forces – the European Union (demonised as ‘Brussels’) and all those foreign immigrants for which the EU, so he says, was largely responsible – were the cause of Britain’s problems.  Shake off the European yoke and get rid of all those foreigners, and Britain would be great again!  At first everyone thought that Nigel Farage – usually seen holding ‘a fag and a pint’ to assure those who saw him that he was ‘one of us’ - was a bit of a joke.  Then, as with Hitler, the wealthy and powerful thought they could use him for their purposes. They have poured their spare thousands of pounds into his party’s coffers. The story is on-going……….. UKIP is essentially a ‘one-objective party’.   The EU and immigrants are its main target.  Other causes are taken up as seems opportune, but generally UKIP policies are those of the extreme right of the Conservative Party.  Abolish ‘green taxes’ and cease subsidising solar and wind power schemes.  Encourage ‘fracking’ for cheap oil and gas.  Ignore the warnings about climate change and global warming.  It either isn’t happening or, if it is, it’s got nothing to do with human activities so there’s nothing to be done about it.  Vote for UKIP and cheaper fuel oil!  I have little doubt that thousands will be short-sighted enough to do so.

            The Green Party is almost the exact opposite of UKIP.  Below is a brief account of their policies and intentions.

We live in unsettling times. Many of the securities that our parents and grandparents fought for – a functioning National Health Service, free education, and an affordable home – now look out of reach for most of us. Coupled with this, climate change is bringing unpredictable and threatening weather patterns. People feel let down by politicians, and yet there has been an explosion in political activism. People want to do things differently and aren’t afraid to be bold and challenging.

We believe that public services should be for the benefit of the public, not sold off in bits; we believe that education is worth investing in and not something that should mean a lifetime of debt; we believe in leaving behind a better world for our children and grandchildren. This is the only world we have and its welfare, above all things, should be the highest priority for us all.

Politics should work for the benefit of all, not just those who shout the loudest or have the deepest pockets.  We believe in “The Common Good”. A vote for the Green Party is a vote for The Common Good.

            Like UKIP, the Green Party is growing.   They have just one MP – in Brighton – but in the European Parliament elections and in recent by-elections (including that in Clacton) Green candidates received more votes than the Liberal Democrats. Currently there is controversy as to whether The Green Party’s President is to join with the leaders of the Conservative Party, Liberal-Democratic Party, Labour Party and UKIP in public televised debate before next May’s general election.  David Cameron is refusing to take part in the debate unless the Greens are also invited.  He is probably wise to do so.   Green arguments, persuasively presented, are far more likely to draw voters from Labour, Liberal Democrat, and even UKIP than they are from the Conservatives.

            If (and it’s quite a big ‘if’) I’m still around in May, I shall vote for the Green Candidate.  I hope that a great many other people will do the same.    

           

Week 20.10

Tendring Topics……..on Line

We can’t have Democracy ‘on the cheap’

Events since the general election have been so newsworthy and have moved so swiftly that shameful situations that arose during that election appear to have been all-but-forgotten. Have we all, except for those directly involved, forgotten that scores of our fellow citizens were denied their right to vote for no other reason than that the local authorities whose duty it is the organise the poll hadn’t made adequate provision for the numbers who turned up at the polling stations on election day?

For years those concerned with the democratic electoral process have bemoaned the apathy of the public and the low turnout at elections. This time, crowds did turn out to vote and, in at least two large cities, they were turned away!

During some three decades of local government service I have, on occasion, performed every task there is, in both local and national elections. I have helped prepare the electoral register. I have counted the votes and have acted as both a poll clerk and as a presiding officer at a polling station. I have even, on just one occasion, performed as Acting Returning Officer, announcing the result of a parish council election to a ‘cheering crowd’ of perhaps half a dozen passers-by! Never once was any registered elector denied the right to vote. Nor did I ever hear of such a thing happening elsewhere.

What was so different about the election of 2010? Simply, I think, that economy has become local authorities’ top priority; cost effectiveness and productivity their main objectives. During previous elections it had been noted that there had been occasions during the day when presiding officer and poll clerks had been idle, perhaps for as long as an hour at a time! Dozens of ballot papers had been unused; wasted manpower! Wasted paper!

The techniques of direction of human resources (we used to call it ‘personnel management’) will have been brought into operation. Take the average number of voters voting at each polling station. Reduce these figures by the expected number of postal voters. Add say ten percent to allow for emergencies. Calculate how long it takes the average elector to register his or her vote and you can calculate the cost- effective requirement of human resources (presiding officers and poll clerks) at each polling station. A similar calculation will reveal how many voting papers should be needed at each station.

Such calculations are valueless because electors are humans, not machines – nor even sheep. The number of people turning out to vote depends upon the weather, the local and national news headlines on Election Day, and on such local issues as the threatened closure of a school or hospital. Polling is not spread evenly throughout the day. Last minute decisions bring in voters at the last minute. There is usually a surge during the final hours of polling.

We need to decide whether our top priority is a cost-effective election, or one that truly reveals the will of the electorate. It is unlikely that we can have both.

Hung Parliaments, Coalition Governments

Today we have a ‘hung parliament’ and a coalition government. I think that we shall be better governed as a result, just as I thought (and the national Audit Commission agreed with me) that Tendring District Council performed better with the Tendring First coalition administration than under single-party – any single-party – rule. During the general election campaign, most of the national press and a great many of the contending politicians assured us that ‘hung parliaments’ and coalition governments were a recipe for national disaster.

One of the comments on government that I have heard most frequently in recent years from ordinary people (as distinct from political zealots) is, ‘Why on earth can’t those politicians stop slanging each other off, and get together to solve the nation’s problems’. How could that possibly happen except in a coalition government?

It is, in fact, precisely what politicians do when they are convinced that our country is in real and immediate peril. Have we so soon forgotten the coalition government, headed by Conservative Winston Churchill with Labour Clement Attlee as his deputy that we had in World War II; Britain’s ‘finest hour’? There were, of course, strong, decisive one-party governments existing at that time – in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy for instance!

Did you realize that modern Germany, the Netherlands and the Scandinavian countries, probably the most stable and prosperous countries in Europe, customarily have coalition governments? Greece, Portugal and Spain, like us, struggle along with single-party ones – and are in an even worse financial muddle than we are!

Recently I watched a tv programme about New Zealand’s political system. There, it seems, they replaced their archaic and discredited first-past-the-post electoral system with proportional representation in 1996. Since then they have had nothing but coalition governments. Throughout that time they have surely set an example of stability and civilised democracy to the whole of the southern hemisphere.

Proportional representation works! Coalition government works! Don’t let self-interested politicians who would like a free hand to carry out their own hare-brained schemes (like introducing poll tax! like invading Iraq!) persuade you otherwise

How about the current Conservative/Lib.Dem Coalition?

I wish it well – though it is a somewhat unexpected marriage of convenience. In so far as ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ still have any meaning in politics the Liberal Democrats were to the ‘Left’ of the Labour Party, which has moved steadily towards the ‘Right’ since World War II. It is fair to add though that David Cameron’s views seem well to the ‘Left’ of a great many Conservatives – of our own Clacton MP for instance.

David Cameron is said to be a great admirer of Benjamin Disraeli (founder of the modern Conservative Party) who, in his early years at least, had some very radical ideas. His description of the squalor and poverty of the working classes in his political novel ‘Sybil, or the Two Nations’ bears remarkable similarities to that in ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844’ by Frederic Engels, friend and collaborator of Karl Marx. Both books were published in 1845. The secondary title of Disraeli’s novel is the origin of the phrase ‘One Nation Conservatism’ meaning a Conservatism that hopes to appeal to every class in our Society. Some years ago I was amused to hear a very right-wing Tory announce that he was a ‘one nation Conservative’ because he was opposed to Scottish, Welsh and Irish nationalism!

I had hoped to see a rather stronger Lib.Dem Party emerge from the election so that they could have retained more of their policies (their opposition to Trident for example) in any coalition that they entered. I had feared though that the Conservatives would have an overall majority. I think that most ordinary people will welcome the new coalition government, while watching it somewhat warily.

Strongest opposition is likely come from the right. I can’t imagine the ‘Withdraw from the European Union now! Stop all immigration now! Stop all this alternative energy nonsense! Britain for the true Brits! Brigade being satisfied with what they’ll get. I certainly hope that they won’t be.

I don’t imagine that they’re very happy about Ken Clarke, a Tory Europhile, being made Lord Chancellor. Nor will they be happy about the number of Lib.Dems becoming Ministers and Cabinet Members. It must be remembered that for every Lib.Dem who gets such an office, there will be an ambitious Conservative MP who had been considering it to be his (or her) job.

The watchword of Lord Asquith, a Liberal Prime Minister of the past, was ‘Wait and see’. I am content to follow that advice.

A Weekend ‘up North’

On Friday, 7th May, while the results of the previous day’s General Election were still unfolding, Andy and Marilyn, my younger son and daughter-in-law whisked me away to Sheffield to spend a politics-free few days with my grand-daughter Jo and her partner Siobhan. It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend.

We went to Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre, a beautifully restored (though I thought the seats needed a little extra padding!) ‘Old-time music hall’ type theatre, to see the musical ‘Oh what a lovely war!’ a sometimes savagely satirical musical on the theme of World War I. I had seen the film version many years earlier, but on the stage the proximity of the action (in the theatre steel helmeted German soldiers walked through the audience to meet the British squaddies in no-mans-land for the unofficial Christmas truce of 1914) gave an added immediacy to the performance.

Andy and Marilyn at a restaurant in Eyam

On Sunday we visited Eyam. The Derbyshire village where, when stricken by plague in the 17th Century, the villagers cut themselves off from the rest of the world. While village folk died all round them they remained in isolation to prevent the plague from spreading further.

We also visited the Parish Church of St John the Baptist in Tideswell, which has been called ‘The Cathedral of the Peak’. It certainly is a remarkable church, dating from the 14th Century, with a magnificent stained-glass windows, choir stalls embellished with figures carved by Suffolk craftsmen in 1800, and some very noteworthy tombs.

One placed squarely in the middle of the chancel was that of a locally very important person indeed. Sir Sampson Meverill, who died in 1462, had been a famous warrior in the Hundred Years War against France. Known to have been in battle against Joan of Arc he was probably one of the ‘ band of brothers’ who fought with King Henry V at Agincourt.

Siobhan (left) and Jo

One of the carvings by Suffolk Craftsmen, on the choir stalls

I found the life of Bishop Robert Pursglove, whose burial Brass is to be found outside the Sanctuary, of particular interest. I'm inclined to think that it is only folk of my generation who are likely to be familiar with the ballad of the Vicar of Bray – to be found in every Community Singing songbook in the ‘20s and ‘30s. He was a 17th Century vicar who had changed his faith a number of times, to match the faith of succeding rulers. The chorus went:

And this is the law that I’ll maintain until my dying day sir
That whatsoever king may reign I’ll be the Vicar of Bray sir!

Bishop Pursglove seems to have been an earlier Episcopal equivalent of that vicar. Originally a priest of the old Undivided and Unreformed Church, in 1538 at the age of 38, as Suffragen Bishop of Hull and Prior of Gisbourne, he embraced the Reformed Faith and assisted Henry VIII in his dissolution of some of the northern monasteries. For this he was awarded a pension. He continued in office from 1548 to 1552 under the strongly reformist King Edward VI. When Henry VIII’s fanatically Roman Catholic daughter Mary came to the throne, he had no intention of following his fellow-bishops Latimer and Ridley, and Archbishop Cranmer to martyrdom (and who can blame him!) He reverted to his former unreformed (Roman Catholic) faith and continued to prosper. When Elizabeth came to the throne in 1552 he decided that to revert again to the Reformed Church would be a change too far. He retired, using his considerable wealth to found Grammar Schools in Tideswell and Gisbourne. His brass memorial shows him in all his pre-Reformation Eucharistic Vestments, with his Bishop’s mitre and staff.

week 19.10

Tendring Topics……..on Line

Maja – in May

I mentioned in January that one of my most welcome Christmas presents had been a pictorial calendar from my friends, Andreas and Konnie Kulke of Zittau. They had provided and pasted in the photographs that illustrated it. All were pictures of their then three-year-old daughter Maja and/or her little brother Tom, born last September .

I have a particularly attractive picture to look at this month. It is of little Maja happily getting ready for bed and clutching her well-loved teddy bear. The teddy bear is a friend of mine too. I bought him as a gift for Maja, at the International Rail Terminal at St Pancras last July, while I was waiting to catch my Eurostar train to Brussels the first lap of my journey to Maja’s home in Germany’s most easterly town. It was to be my third and almost certainly last visit to Zittau. since World War II.

The teddy bear is wearing the uniform of a Yeoman of the Guard of the Tower of London (the beefeaters) and Maja decided that his name was Bobby.


What would be your immediate thought if you saw the newspaper headline above? It was in the Daily Gazette on Wednesday 28th April. Perhaps you did see it, so you’ll know the answer to that question.

Could it be that I was the only Gazette reader who didn’t instantly understand what the headline writer was trying to say? Quite possibly; because I have realized for some time that if it is possible to read more than one meaning into any written statement I will unfailingly go for the wrong one. Perhaps that is why I have had a modest success at writing books about domestic hot and cold water supply and waste drainage for ordinary householders. I knew how easily I could misunderstand written instructions or descriptions – so I made certain that my narrative couldn’t possibly be misconstrued.

Be that as it may, I have to confess that when I first read that headline I had an immediate mental image of perhaps two or more intrepid members of the clergy, wearing their customary dark grey suits and clerical collars and armed with furled umbrellas, leading a fearless commando of repentant burglars and pickpockets in a daring raid over the rooftops to ‘take out’ a high rise centre of sin and iniquity.

It was a momentary vision only. Then I realized that ‘lead’ in this context was a noun and not a verb and that it rhymed with ‘fed’ and not ‘feed’. The humdrum and rather depressing true meaning of the headline became obvious. No wonder non-natives complain that English is a difficult language to learn.

7.00 pm 11th May 2010. It’s all over – except that it isn’t, quite!

Of course, by the time you read this blog, it may be. Today the political situation is changing almost minute by minute.

An unusual feature of the general election that we have just endured is that it disappointed almost everybody. The Conservatives surely hoped that Labour support would crumble and that David Cameron would make a swift and easy passage to No. 10 Downing Street. Labour supporters believed that public fear of swingeing Conservative cuts would enable their Party to cling to power, though probably with a reduced majority. Those of us who voted Lib.Dem, buoyed by the opinion polls, thought that our Party would have sufficient seats in Parliament to be able to negotiate with either of the other two Parties from a position of power.

None of that happened. No Party secured an overall majority. To some extent the Liberal Democrats are in a strong negotiating position. This is weakened though by the fact that they actually have fewer seats than before, and that the total number of Labour and Lib.Dem. MPs, although greater than the number of Conservatives, doesn’t add up to that elusive overall majority.

The Lib.Dems. and Conservatives are discussing possible co-operation, it seems with success. I didn’t see how they could realistically form a coalition government unless the Lib.Dems were prepared to discard some of their cherished policies; in particular, their attitude to the European Union, their insistence upon electoral reform, including some form of proportional representation, and their intention to use the taxation system to create a fairer society. Retaining them would make coalition with the Conservatives impossible. Dropping them would surely enrage many loyal supporters. It now (6.30 pm on 11.5.10!) appears that they have squared that particular circle!

They might have agreed to co-operation short of a coalition, in return for some compromises on the part of the Lib.Dems. This solution at one time seemed to me the most likely outcome.

While negotiations between the Conservatives and Lib.Dems were still ongoing we learned that serious talks are also taking place between the Lib.Dems. and Labour. Presumably to facilitate these talks, Gordon Brown was stepping down as Labour Party Leader. Were these talks serious I wonder, or could Nick Clegg be playing ‘hard to get’ and encouraging the Conservatives to think again about some of his demands that they are finding difficult to accept?

The one permutation that has not, as far as I know, been considered is that of co-operation, perhaps a coalition, between New Labour and the Conservatives. Why not? There is less difference between New Labour and Conservative policies than there is between both of those policies and those of the Lib.Dems. Both Parties offer much the same solutions to the nation’s ills, differences being in emphasis and timing rather than substance. David Cameron wants ‘change’ but only a change of government – not a change in the voting system, the economic system, foreign and defence policies, and policy towards the rest of Europe. I reckon that if the Conservatives and New Labourites could forget some of the nasty things they have said about each other in recent weeks, they’d get along famously.

The Daily Gazette reports that our re-elected MP, Mr Douglas Carswell, doesn’t think that the Conservatives should seek Lib.Dem co-operation but should go it alone, forming a minority government. Well, that is at least an honest and straightforward solution. Since no one can possibly be eager to experience another election in the near future, such an administration might last longer than appears likely at first glance. Before forcing a vote of ‘no confidence’ the opposition would probably wait until the government had pushed through enough unpopular (though quite likely essential) measures to ensure that it didn’t get re-elected! That’s politics for you!

It now seems likely though that some time later this evening, we shall be told that agreement has been reached between the Conservatives and the Lib.Dems and that a formal coalition government will be formed. If this is true (there could be yet another surprise awaiting us!) I look forward to learning the details and will no doubt comment on them next week.


Look on the Bright Side!

Do you remember Pollyanna, that fictional little American girl who, even in the direst situations, was always able to find ‘something about which to be glad?’ Earlier I said that almost everybody had been disappointed by the outcome of the recent General Election. I certainly was. What, I wondered, would Pollyanna have discovered that should have gladdened my heart?

There were one or two things. I was very glad that Bob Russell, Colchester’s Lib.Dem. MP, had not only held his parliamentary seat but had increased his majority. I was glad too that the very first Green Party MP had been elected to the House of Commons to represent the Pavilion Ward of Brighton. Conversely, I was delighted that not a single UKIP or BNP candidate had been elected though, of course, a number of MPs (including our own in Clacton) were not opposed by UKIP as it was considered that they shared UKIP’s Europhobia.

No, the General Election was generally very disappointing – but it wasn’t all loss! I am sure that Pollyanna would have been very glad about that!

Week 24.09

Tendring Topics…..on Line

A 'Change of Horses'


'Never change horses in mid-stream', insists the proverb. But that is precisely what Tendring Council has done. Circumstances having little or nothing to do with democratic choice have resulted in a tiny majority in the Council Chamber of the 'Tendring First' Coalition (Labour, Lib.Dems and others) councillors being replaced by an equally tiny majority of Conservatives. The next 'general election' of Tendring District councillors will be early in May 2011, so we are almost exactly in mid-stream.

In the 'bad old days' when, at least in most provincial authorities, political party labels meant no more than an indication of councillors' general political philosophy, this would have made very little difference. The composition of the committees and their chairmen might have changed but there would have been a general continuity of Council policy. Members would have been horrified at the thought of being required to vote at all times in accordance with local party policy rather than as common sense and conscience dictated.

All that has, of course, changed with the introduction of parliamentary style party politics into the Council Chamber. Now we have a local 'government' and 'opposition'. There is a 'cabinet' consisting of members of the majority party. These are each given responsibility for various aspects of the Council' functions. ''Cabinet Ministers' would be just a little too pretentious a designation even for 2009 AD, so they are called 'Portfolio Holders'. Needless to say, 'the Opposition' then has to have 'Shadow Portfolio Holders'. What pretentious nonsense it all is!
It is in the meetings of this 'cabinet' (a small minority of the full council whom we vote into office) that real decisions are taken. Party members on the Council are expected to support them loyally. Those who fail to do so 'have the party whip withdrawn'. This has, in fact, happened to members of both main parties.

Authority is thus concentrated in the hands of a very small group. This makes for efficiency and speed in decision-making, which was presumably the purpose of the change. It doesn't make it any more likely that the right decisions will be made. It also means that a tiny change in the Council's composition can result in an immediate reversal of policy.

Tendring Council's new administration can hardly have anticipated and made plans for their future in power. For the first time ever, I feel quite relieved that since World War II successive governments have progressively limited the scope of local authorities' freedom of action!

The Best of Intentions

Our MP, Mr Douglas Carswell, once commented that the out-going Tendring District Administration, 'couldn't run a bath'. It was an effective and memorable sound-bite, but it came ill from a member of an organisation so badly run it that has proved to be incapable of preventing many of its members from feathering their own nests at our expense*.

Tendring Council did and does, in fact, run a number of public services extremely efficiently. Its once-weekly refuse and recyclables collection, for instance, sets an example for other authorities to follow. There have been a few very serious mistakes and misjudgements though.

There was a bad slip-up over the ill-fated water feature in the town square. I still haven't heard an explanation of how it is that our water feature is a danger to health, while those (apparently identical) in other towns are considered to be safe. There's no sign as yet of that protective fence that was supposed to be erected round it. Could that be an idea that has been dropped by the new administration?

I think though that the very worst decision that the 'Tendring First' Council made was in creating a separate, privately-run regeneration company InTend, financing it with thousands of pounds of our money, and eventually seconding to it the Council's own regeneration staff. A recent issue of the Daily Gazette succinctly defines what was considered to be InTend's purpose; It would access grants the council could not, would be far removed from the humdrum business of emptying bins and other menial matters, and would recruit specialised staff.

It is a definition that underlines InTend's pointlessness. Councils have always employed highly professional specialised staff. When I was employed by the Tendring Council there was a barrister, two solicitors, an engineer and surveyor, accountants, environmental health experts, planning experts and, of course, one journalist (myself!). How many of those were ever required to concern themselves with the humdrum business of emptying bins and other menial matters? As for accessing grants that are not available to local authorities, I don't believe that there are any such grants. We know that InTend has made a number of applications but we haven't yet heard of any being successful.

I think that in deciding to create InTend the Council had simply swallowed whole the idea, taken by some politicians to be a universally acknowledged fact, that anything a public body can do, a private firm can do better and more economically. This simply isn't true, as the expensive failure of many put-out-to-tender services has amply demonstrated.

InTend's 'specialist staff' may not have been very good at raising money…..but they have been very good at raising expectations. While some of them were seeking funding, so far in vain, others were busying themselves working on ways in which, once the money was available, it could be spent on bringing currently dormant parts of our district back to a new life, regenerated in fact. £7 million would be spent in Brightlingsea, giving the Cinque Port town a revamped western promenade, converting the open-air swimming pool into a 'children's water park', providing a new sea water pool near Bateman's Tower, building a town museum and so on! Harwich's master-plan included pedestrianising the quayside, redeveloping Navyyard Wharf to include flats, and bringing the town's railway station up to date.

It now seems possible that the days of InTend, the author of these utopian visions, are numbered. Four of its nine directors have been removed from their posts by Tendring Council's new bosses, who have made it clear that they believe that InTend is a waste of tax-payers' money. If InTend is wound up what, ask the citizens of Harwich and Brightlingsea, is to come of those plans that offered their towns such a dazzling future?
The Daily Gazette thinks it has the answer. 'InTend may end, but work cannot', urges its headline. 'We don't care who regenerates the area. We just want someone to ensure urgent projects, such as the regeneration of Jaywick, Harwich and Brightlingsea, take place'. And so say all of us.

But the fulfilment of those more-than-ambitious regeneration plans depended upon InTend obtaining the grants that were claimed to be inaccessible to mere local authorities. So far there has been no sign of them, and I don't think that there ever will be. However, I could be wrong. I hope that before winding InTend down, the new Conservative administration will make absolutely sure that there isn't one or more unexpectedly in the pipeline.

Having done that, they will be in a position to assure the people of Brightlingsea, Harwich and elsewhere that their areas' regeneration plans are at least as likely to come to fruition as a result of direct action by the Council as they would have been by InTend………but that they will have to take their place in the queue of other council commitments funded by grants that are available to local authorities, by ever-more-meagre central government support, and by Council Tax.

'InTend', I have no doubt, was a clever play on words evoking both 'in Tendring' and firm 'Intention'. Perhaps its creators should have remembered that, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions'.

*The Pot and the Kettles!

While Mr Douglas Carswell, our MP, has been loud in his denunciations of other Honourable Gentlemen (and Ladies) making hay, at our expense, while the sun shone, it seems that he himself isn't totally beyond question, though I am quite sure that he hasn't stepped a millimetre outside those remarkable rules that our legislators have made for themselves.

Some though may question why, for the performance of his parliamentary duties, he found it necessary to rent a second home in Thorpe-le-Soken at a cost (to us of course) of £1,250 a month. Possibly he needed a home base within his constituency and that was all that was available.

In that case he will have been delighted to read in the Daily Gazette that they have found a recently built vacant apartment that would be eminently suitable for his purpose. It is a two bedroom first-floor flat overlooking the sea in Southcliff Hall, Marine Parade East (definitely an up-market area of Clacton), with a lounge, kitchen, bathroom, gas central heating, double glazing and car parking. The rent is only £535 a month, less than half the rent for his Thorpe home. If he moved there now it would be a pity about the £32,000 that he has spent (and claimed back as expenses) on refurbishing the Thorpe-le-Soken house to make it suitable for him to live in. However he would presumably be able to take with him some of his purchases; the 'love seat' easy-chair (the imagination boggles!) for instance, together with bed, mattress and bedding, chairs, sofa, fridge freezer, washing machine, radio, tv, vacuum cleaner, electric iron and tv set.

Mr Carswell told The Gazette that he doesn't feel the need to pay back any of the money he has claimed. 'Every single time I have claimed for money I always think whether I can justify it to the editor and readers of the Gazette'. It is nice to know that we are in his thoughts on those occasions!

His Lordship is right!

It isn't very often that I find myself in total agreement with Lord Hanningfield, leader of Essex County Council, whose party has just been returned to power at Chelmsford with an increased majority. I do though share his views entirely on the subject of the BNP. The day after the election, the East Anglian Daily Times quoted him as saying, 'The most disturbing thing about this election has been the BNP getting a sizeable percentage of the result. It's very depressing just knowing people vote for them. People who vote for them are not in favour of the value of the individual. The expenses row is one thing, but the BNP is the least genuine of all the parties.

Many people did, in fact, vote for them…..not least within our own Tendring District. In the eight county council wards in our district a total of 3,974 electors put their cross against the names of BNP candidates, 1,883 (almost half) within Clacton's three wards.

I would perhaps be rather less concerned about this had I not just watched the two part drama documentary on tv Channel 4 'The Birth of Evil; Adolf Hitler'. This graphically demonstrated how in Germany in the late 1920s and early '30s, in economic turmoil and disillusion not unlike that which prevails in Britain today, the young Adolf Hitler (a brilliant orator 'with a vision'!) joined a struggling minority political party. In it he managed to supplant its leader, change its policies into something resembling those of the BNP today and eventually bring the whole of Germany under his fanatical rule.

At least the voters did keep the BNP out of the Council Chamber at Chelmsford and increased the number of representatives of the Lib.Dems. for whose party I had voted. They're still a small minority though.

The same cannot be said for the European elections. The BNP has secured representation there for the first time, and UKIP has increased its strength both in Europe and throughout the UK. Britain now has increased the number of its representatives in the European parliament who firmly believe that that parliament should be abolished and that we should leave the EU!

I shall probably return to this matter next week when I have had an opportunity to look at the election results more closely. In the meantime I derive just a little comfort from the fact that the total turn-out was very low and that UKIP achieved its result with only a tiny increase in its share of the national vote.