15 December - She’s taking the rise - out of everyone
I
am in danger of getting repetitive on this one but I switched on News 24 two
days ago and caught Eric Pickles speaking in the Commons; he said that council Chief
Executives shouldn’t be paid more than the Prime Minister. A month earlier I
watched the greedy crew that is Bexley council support their leader Teresa
O’Neill when she rebuffed a member of the public who put much the same view
at a council meeting. I have also seen innumerable letters and
emails from interested residents seeking similar assurances and asking to meet
either O’Neill or the C.E.O. Will Tuckley to engage in a dialogue on the subject. All of
those attempts have got absolutely nowhere; councillors and C.E.O. alike are
simply not listening to the government’s message that “we are all in this
together”. You and I are in it but fat cat councillors and senior staff
believe they are not.
I’m amazed that a down-to-earth sort of chap like Pickles is naive enough to
expect the power he plans to devolve to local level will not be abused. What
happened when councils took over parking regulation from the police? Bexley
sent out a leaflet promising more and easier parking. Instead we got Craske on a mission to destroy communities and blight lives.
What happened when the last government gave councils additional powers to
regulate refuse collection? We had to line up bins on the pavement instead of
having them collected from our doors and have them left unemptied if the contents
fell foul of innumerable petty regulations. What happened when the previous
government allowed councils additional power under an act (R.I.P.A.) designed to
help prevent terrorism? On the flimsiest of suspicions councils paid private detectives
to spy on parents applying for school places and locally tricked residents into undergoing lie detector tests.
Councillors like O’Neill are totally untrustworthy and disciples of the ‘I’m all
right Jack’ school of politics.
To end on a brighter note, James Brokenshire M.P. has
come good on his promise
to speak up about the inflated salaries of council staff; well up to a point.
I’ve heard complaints he has not directed his comments directly at Bexley council
and that is true, but I feel he has gone as far as he could reasonably be
expected to go. I always like to give politicians the benefit of the doubt -
until they prove themselves to be beyond redemption.