18 November (Part 2) - Just a windbag
You
can’t go more than two or three days without reading in a newspaper
criticism of local authorities by government ministers. Yesterday’s Telegraph
was typical; it reported local government minister Grant Shapps saying councils that cut services have poor
leadership. “Well managed councils can do more for less through embracing
transparency and more joint working. Councils which hike charges are guilty of
poor leadership and poor management.” More transparency? He’s not been to Bexley
has he? Hiking charges equals poor leadership and poor management? Ah, maybe he has.
These politicians are all hot air, Eric Pickles in particular is, to use the
vernacular, all piss and wind. Just a week ago when asked to be a little more
specific than sound bites for the media, he said ,“As each local authority is an
individual employer in its own right it is for them to determine how best to
organise and pay their workforces.” He goes on to say that “an authority can
reject your petition if it regards it as inappropriate.” So a petition that follows
Eric Pickles advice can be deemed inappropriate because it follows his advice.
This is not me being mischievous with some generic statement about petitions, those
quotations come from Mr. Pickles in a letter to Elwyn Bryant, the organiser of
the Bexley petition.
You can see how close to Bexley’s unsavoury crew Eric Pickles is in the photograph below.
Scheming cohorts do you think?
I never did believe that Elwyn’s petition would be anything more than an
opportunity to embarrass Bexley council as much as we can. It will be yet another example
of their commitment to lining their own pockets at the expense of residents.
Elwyn is not of course devoid of ideas on how to maximise that embarrassment and
is grateful for those received from Bonkers readers after he
passed the 2,000
barrier yesterday. If you have any more bright ideas I’ll pass them on to him.
Councilwatch on the same subject.