(Originally written 11th Sept 2006. Before my brother won his council seat, obviously.)
See, the problem with councils is that they are invariably made up of councillors, the lowest form of political life, and unless you watch them like a fucking hawk, they'll actually get around to doing something, and it'll be the precise opposite of what you want or need.
Councillors, who will tell you how they work lots of hours for no pay, are rarely grounded in reality. If they were, they wouldn't have time to be a councillor, they'd have a life. Councillors set themselves up for election for two reasons, they either fancy a life of politics (and therefore should be distrusted as a matter of routine) or they are there to Do Something For The Community. (Screw it up beyond recognition, usually.)
Bleating about all the hours they spend in the Council Chamber should be disregarded, because a) they asked for it - I mean, what did they expect? A questionnaire every three months? And b) because they get a great deal of self-gratification from telling their few friends about life in the Council Chamber. Plus they all know that if they can just hang on for ten years or so, one day it will be their turn to be Mayor, and they'll get the chauffeur-driven Rolls and the chain and the respect and that.
Councillors have lots of advisers, called Local Government employees, and councillors are more likely to listen to their mates down the pub or the latest Daily Mail or, (let's be fair) Guardian leader than they are to the people who have lots of qualifications and know what's really happening in the tower blocks that can't be seen from the Town Hall. Here, I speak from second-hand experience. Some years ago, I lived in a Hampshire city
Sometimes, Karen would have to fill in for her boss and attend Housing Committee meetings, and I used to dread those evenings, because she'd return home spitting feathers and sweary words. The main thrust of her complaint was always that, while she had studied for years, kept up to date with housing trends, knew the city and its housing stock really quite well and what's more, Babba, I bloody do the job five days a week, no, I don't want a sodding drink, and some middle-class tosser who lives in a village tells me I don't understand the problems of inner-city housing provision. Oh, and where's that fucking drink?
By which I understood that any main thrusts that I had planned would have to wait for another evening.
Karen really was good at her job - she took the time to explain it to me, and I took an interest. Yet she was so often banjaxed by elected amateurs who couldn't recognise that the person advising them not only knew an awful lot about the subject, but also had proved it by taking hard exams.
I know the copper who liases with the Transport Committee of Portsmouth Council, and he's similarly gloomy. They don't listen to him, much, either. His latest experience bears repeating... There was a fatality on the Eastern Road, a dual carriageway that runs down the eastern side ofPortsea Island
Now, on reporting this to the council committee, he was told that the crash was probably due to Speed. If the car hadn't been speeding, it would have hit the lamppost with rather less velocity, and the driver would not have been killed. No, said my pal, if the car had been speeding, the skid marks would have been shorter, and anyway, if he'd been wearing his seat belt, he might still be alive. But if the car had been going slower, officer, the driver might have survived? Well, of course he would... if the car had been going at 30, there's a chance... but the speed limit on that stretch of the road is 60.
The committee decided that speed was a significant factor in the crash and have launched a review of speed limits on the Eastern Road. The crash happened on a bend where there have been three crashes in the last five years, so my mate was asked whether he thought this was an accident that was waiting to happen? Emphatically no, was the reply. The road carries thousands of cars every day, so the accident frequency there is, if anything, lower than the average.
The next night, the Portsmouth Evening News carried the front-page headline "An Accident Waiting To Happen, Says Councillor".
There are probably some fine councillors out there, but not many. Most suffer from the same complaint that all politicians suffer from – large numbers of people voted for them, so they must be right. Bugger what experts tell them - they're right. They make policy from gut reaction, prejudice, what they remember of the party line and the desiccated ideas of deadline-driven journalists. They insist on being the final managers of projects, despite having no qualification in project management, and override the warnings of those who have that qualification. They "gentrify" streets of terraced houses by installing bays, and planting trees in them, while wiping out a quarter of the car parking spaces, then bring in a residents parking scheme that sees people scrambling for parking, with the latecomers having to purchase a ticket to park in an adjacent street. They are amazed when "vandals" cut down the trees, then park on the bays.
They take away the swings and slides in playgrounds, lest children hurt themselves, forgetting that "hurting yourself" is partly something that children have to learn about, but mainly a way of getting really interesting scars that your mates can envy. Yet they tolerate cracked pavements that adults trip on.
They instigate curtain-twitching "Neighbourhood Watch" initiatives, encourage semi-vigilante neighbourhood patrols and send leaflets to older people warning them to be careful, all in the name of protecting people from lawless adolescents in gangs. Yet they never provide a place where teenagers can be loud and reckless and away from cheerless authority.
They demolish High Streets that have an odd mix of architectural styles and parking difficulties so that they can erect shopping malls called The Cascades, where the rents are so high that the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker take early retirement and are replaced by "A Body Shop" (prop: Burke and Hare), "Cheap Books At Cheap Prices", "Luggage R Us", "Comedy T-Shirts'n'Tat", "Plasticised Meat - Any Three Trays For A Fiver!", "The Pre-Owned DVD and Burgled PS2 Game Outlet", "Keys Cut While U Wait", "Rumbelows, Sorry, Currys, Sorry, Dixons, Sorry, DixonsDotCom" (the place for hi-fi separates and cameras, except that all we've got at the moment is these huge plasma TVs), "The Baker's Oven - Famous For Our Bacon'n'Cheese Pasties!", "TK Maxx", "Ottakars Books - Now With Coffee And A Sort Of 'Friends' Feel" and a strange shop that sells ceramics, cushions, adjustable shelving and mass-produced candlesticks.
Councillors need to be watched at all times, because councillors built the grey dungeons that are your local council estates. They pedestrianised your shopping area, so that buses only stop at each end. They removed the street market that used to be there, and put it in a purpose-built market arena, where it withered and died. Councillors built the BMX park where the bandstand stood, and they did it three years after someone who knew told them that bike-related activities were "like, so last year, dude". They're the reason why your nearest swimming pool is now a Water Experience that charges £2 more than it used to, and they're the reason why the plentiful life rings on ropes have been replaced by a bored lifeguard. They're the people who put road humps down your street and made it one-way. They're the people who spent £3m on a study of what the multicultural people of your area need, when you and all the other council tax payers could have told them "Tolerance" and saved the £4m (due to budget overruns).
Councillors are always the reason why you can't do something, where the small-minded solution is "local democracy", where ineptitude meets informed argument and wins by default and self-effected by-law. Where the chosen ones care deeply for their town or city, yet forget the people who live there - the people who continue to make and invent their choice of residence, and the people who voted for their councillors.
There'll be some Council elections along anytime soon. Remember the wise words of the fictitious President Bartlet, "Decisions are made by the people who turn up", and vote - vote for the person who wants to do mostly what you want, not the person who mostly wants to be a Councillor. Talk to them on your doorstep, and if they're too busy to talk to you there and send a "party worker", demand a doorstep interview, because being a councillor is all about what goes on at the doorsteps of your town. And when you've made your choice, leave your preferred candidate with this cheering message -
"I'm watching you, pal."
Councillors, who will tell you how they work lots of hours for no pay, are rarely grounded in reality. If they were, they wouldn't have time to be a councillor, they'd have a life. Councillors set themselves up for election for two reasons, they either fancy a life of politics (and therefore should be distrusted as a matter of routine) or they are there to Do Something For The Community. (Screw it up beyond recognition, usually.)
Bleating about all the hours they spend in the Council Chamber should be disregarded, because a) they asked for it - I mean, what did they expect? A questionnaire every three months? And b) because they get a great deal of self-gratification from telling their few friends about life in the Council Chamber. Plus they all know that if they can just hang on for ten years or so, one day it will be their turn to be Mayor, and they'll get the chauffeur-driven Rolls and the chain and the respect and that.
Councillors have lots of advisers, called Local Government employees, and councillors are more likely to listen to their mates down the pub or the latest Daily Mail or, (let's be fair) Guardian leader than they are to the people who have lots of qualifications and know what's really happening in the tower blocks that can't be seen from the Town Hall. Here, I speak from second-hand experience. Some years ago, I lived in a Hampshire city
Sometimes, Karen would have to fill in for her boss and attend Housing Committee meetings, and I used to dread those evenings, because she'd return home spitting feathers and sweary words. The main thrust of her complaint was always that, while she had studied for years, kept up to date with housing trends, knew the city and its housing stock really quite well and what's more, Babba, I bloody do the job five days a week, no, I don't want a sodding drink, and some middle-class tosser who lives in a village tells me I don't understand the problems of inner-city housing provision. Oh, and where's that fucking drink?
By which I understood that any main thrusts that I had planned would have to wait for another evening.
Karen really was good at her job - she took the time to explain it to me, and I took an interest. Yet she was so often banjaxed by elected amateurs who couldn't recognise that the person advising them not only knew an awful lot about the subject, but also had proved it by taking hard exams.
I know the copper who liases with the Transport Committee of Portsmouth Council, and he's similarly gloomy. They don't listen to him, much, either. His latest experience bears repeating... There was a fatality on the Eastern Road, a dual carriageway that runs down the eastern side of
Now, on reporting this to the council committee, he was told that the crash was probably due to Speed. If the car hadn't been speeding, it would have hit the lamppost with rather less velocity, and the driver would not have been killed. No, said my pal, if the car had been speeding, the skid marks would have been shorter, and anyway, if he'd been wearing his seat belt, he might still be alive. But if the car had been going slower, officer, the driver might have survived? Well, of course he would... if the car had been going at 30, there's a chance... but the speed limit on that stretch of the road is 60.
The committee decided that speed was a significant factor in the crash and have launched a review of speed limits on the Eastern Road. The crash happened on a bend where there have been three crashes in the last five years, so my mate was asked whether he thought this was an accident that was waiting to happen? Emphatically no, was the reply. The road carries thousands of cars every day, so the accident frequency there is, if anything, lower than the average.
The next night, the Portsmouth Evening News carried the front-page headline "An Accident Waiting To Happen, Says Councillor".
There are probably some fine councillors out there, but not many. Most suffer from the same complaint that all politicians suffer from – large numbers of people voted for them, so they must be right. Bugger what experts tell them - they're right. They make policy from gut reaction, prejudice, what they remember of the party line and the desiccated ideas of deadline-driven journalists. They insist on being the final managers of projects, despite having no qualification in project management, and override the warnings of those who have that qualification. They "gentrify" streets of terraced houses by installing bays, and planting trees in them, while wiping out a quarter of the car parking spaces, then bring in a residents parking scheme that sees people scrambling for parking, with the latecomers having to purchase a ticket to park in an adjacent street. They are amazed when "vandals" cut down the trees, then park on the bays.
They take away the swings and slides in playgrounds, lest children hurt themselves, forgetting that "hurting yourself" is partly something that children have to learn about, but mainly a way of getting really interesting scars that your mates can envy. Yet they tolerate cracked pavements that adults trip on.
They instigate curtain-twitching "Neighbourhood Watch" initiatives, encourage semi-vigilante neighbourhood patrols and send leaflets to older people warning them to be careful, all in the name of protecting people from lawless adolescents in gangs. Yet they never provide a place where teenagers can be loud and reckless and away from cheerless authority.
They demolish High Streets that have an odd mix of architectural styles and parking difficulties so that they can erect shopping malls called The Cascades, where the rents are so high that the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker take early retirement and are replaced by "A Body Shop" (prop: Burke and Hare), "Cheap Books At Cheap Prices", "Luggage R Us", "Comedy T-Shirts'n'Tat", "Plasticised Meat - Any Three Trays For A Fiver!", "The Pre-Owned DVD and Burgled PS2 Game Outlet", "Keys Cut While U Wait", "Rumbelows, Sorry, Currys, Sorry, Dixons, Sorry, DixonsDotCom" (the place for hi-fi separates and cameras, except that all we've got at the moment is these huge plasma TVs), "The Baker's Oven - Famous For Our Bacon'n'Cheese Pasties!", "TK Maxx", "Ottakars Books - Now With Coffee And A Sort Of 'Friends' Feel" and a strange shop that sells ceramics, cushions, adjustable shelving and mass-produced candlesticks.
Councillors need to be watched at all times, because councillors built the grey dungeons that are your local council estates. They pedestrianised your shopping area, so that buses only stop at each end. They removed the street market that used to be there, and put it in a purpose-built market arena, where it withered and died. Councillors built the BMX park where the bandstand stood, and they did it three years after someone who knew told them that bike-related activities were "like, so last year, dude". They're the reason why your nearest swimming pool is now a Water Experience that charges £2 more than it used to, and they're the reason why the plentiful life rings on ropes have been replaced by a bored lifeguard. They're the people who put road humps down your street and made it one-way. They're the people who spent £3m on a study of what the multicultural people of your area need, when you and all the other council tax payers could have told them "Tolerance" and saved the £4m (due to budget overruns).
Councillors are always the reason why you can't do something, where the small-minded solution is "local democracy", where ineptitude meets informed argument and wins by default and self-effected by-law. Where the chosen ones care deeply for their town or city, yet forget the people who live there - the people who continue to make and invent their choice of residence, and the people who voted for their councillors.
There'll be some Council elections along anytime soon. Remember the wise words of the fictitious President Bartlet, "Decisions are made by the people who turn up", and vote - vote for the person who wants to do mostly what you want, not the person who mostly wants to be a Councillor. Talk to them on your doorstep, and if they're too busy to talk to you there and send a "party worker", demand a doorstep interview, because being a councillor is all about what goes on at the doorsteps of your town. And when you've made your choice, leave your preferred candidate with this cheering message -
"I'm watching you, pal."
