Twin Rays spotlight Boston's plight

We're not big fans of reality TV - but Friday's live webcast of Lincolnshire County Council's December meeting was in a class all of its own.
There was a grim magnetism that glued your eyes to the computer screen as the councillors lurched through the agenda.
More worrying is how poorly some of the more senior members performed, and what a fragile grip some of them seem to have on language and presentation.
But what we were looking for was evidence that Boston's name is being pushed to the fore.
Boston has seven councillors, and at the last meeting just one of them spoke.
The latest meeting saw twin Rays of Sunshine, in the form of the unlikely duo of Councillors Raymond Singleton-McGuire and Ray Newell.
Councillor Singleton-McGuire raised a question with the County Council's Executive member for highways, William Webb about a bypass for Boston, during which he seemed to be interrupted by an invisible and anonymous heckler in the early stages. The tone of the question was more critical of Boston Borough Council's leadership rather than Lincolnshire County Council, and underlined the communication difficulties which have hogtied relations between the BBI and opposition parties. By the sound of things, it appears that more information is passed from the rulers to their fellow councillors through the letters pages of the local papers than in the council chamber.
Unfortunately, this opened a window of opportunity to field the question by way of a statement of the qualification protocol before a town gets a chance to get a foot on the first rung of the bypass ladder. But at least the opportunity was taken and the point made.
When his turn came, Councillor Newell bemoaned the withdrawal of the flood warning sirens and painted an Armageddon-like scenario of Bostonians of all nations being washed out to sea - stressing that the sirens speak in all of the sixty some odd tongues that it's now claimed comprise polyglot Boston. He was told he was over reacting and that the new system would be a grand improvement on the old one.
The only other mention of Boston came in an answer from Eddie Poll, Executive Councillor for Economic Development, and Conservative member for Spalding East and Moulton, whose photo on the county council's website shows a slightly rakish figure with designer stubble and a gold hoop earring in his left ear.
Referring back to Councillor Singleton-McGuire's question, he said: "I have to say that the comments from the question to Councillor Webb about Boston quite struck me that there were certain parallels with Rome in that yeah, all roads allegedly lead to Rome - and I think that Boston thinks that all roads lead to Boston. I couldn't but help but extend that parallel a bit further and see that the current administration kinda reminds me of Emperor Nero."
For those non-historians among our readers, Nero's rule is often associated with tyranny and extravagance while the emperor himself "fiddled while Rome burned."
So, out of seven councillors from Boston (assuming they were all there) just two asked questions. Given that a third, Andrea Jenkyns, was being welcomed back into the fold on that day, whilst a fourth, Peter Bedford, is Vice Chairman and therefore somewhat limited in his ability to grab the floor, that still leaves three other councillors unheard from over two meetings.
Boston admittedly has a lot of problems and special needs - many of which can be remedied by Lincolnshire County Council - but how can we expect to have a voice when our representatives remain mute?

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