Wednesday, July 8

Whitehall farce "holds lesson for BBI"

What a farce the election of the House of Commons Speaker turned out to be!
John Bercow was voted in by Labour MPs whose only reason to do so, it seems, was to get their own back on the Conservatives who can’t stand him.
Please take note you members of the BBI, who naively followed your Oberfurher’s and UnterFuhrer’s (i.e. Messers Austin and Jordan) "guidance" and blindly voted to change Boston’s Mayoral election process.
Who knows whether you were only proving that you were in charge and could do whatever you wanted (in the name of democracy of course) - or did a certain someone have delusions of grandeur?
Whatever your reasons were, the election of our Mayor is now wide open to the kind of fawning behavior, petty bickering, backbiting and acrimony that occurred in Westminster.
Doesn’t do much for the dignity and the Mayor’s status either!
I suppose it is too much to hope you will reconsider reversing that decision, obviously made without considering the consequences, and go back to the previous method.
Incidentally, I spoke to a former member of the Borough Council staff recently.
The verdict was (and I don’t think there was any personal bitterness just a sense of regret) that the council is going to the dogs.
Staff are escaping weekly, morale is at its lowest level ever, and there is an almost complete lack of leadership from the top.
It doesn’t help that the ruling councillors have everybody running around trying to justify their decision to privatise of all the services, making it difficult for staff to carry on the day to day running of them.
Our leaders have obviously forgotten too (or have deliberately ignored) what happened last time the council went down this road.
They may get low tenders at first but, charges soon start to increase and services get worse as the council loses control.
Lincoln City Council, apparently, is doing its best to bring some services that were privatised a few years ago, back in house.
The BE BIGS* have two years left before they lose the elections.
Their legacy will not be a bypass – not even the smell of one - and, unless things alter drastically, they will leave a huge financial mess to be cleared up by whoever is brave enough to stand in 2011.
* Boston Bypass Independent Group spelled out a little ie Be B I G or BeBIG that, I think, aptly describes them.

Scanner

Scanner is the pseudonymn of one of our regular correspondents.


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