Week ending 11th December ...

Our Friday miscellany of the week's news and events
Why the Secret Squirrel mentality ... The news that the Borough's Acting Chief Executive is to have his tenure extended until October next year is another of those items surrounded in unnecessary secrecy. The decision was taken at the Full Council meeting on November 9th, after a paper entitled "Management Structure" was considered in secret, and was not announced for a month afterwards. Did such secrecy imply a lack of confidence that the appointment would be extended thus making a debate necessary? Of course not. Richard Harbord was a popular choice back in August, and unless lightning strikes twice in the same place, there was no reason to assume that he was doing anything other than a good job. So why the secrecy? We think it's just because councillors like the idea of intrigue. - and that perhaps its time they grew out of it. Incidentally, the last we heard from the ACE was on the day he started work. Any chance of a proclamation on how things are going four months in?
Blogged down in the mire ... Blogging by our elected members seems to have hit something of a fallow period recently, but we hope that those councillors who do will start writing more (and more often) again soon. The Leader's brief attempt at blogging on the council's webpage has been replaced by an ad hoc "Message" which is now a month out of date, and there is no news on whether he will start a personal blog at some point. However, this is all an improvement on the almost forgotten Lib Dem hopeful Mike Sheridan-Shinn, whose "vote for me" blog still promises the launch of phase two of the Boston North West by-election campaign last October which "is very exciting and I know my supporters will like it."
Higher politics - 1 ... Boston Lib Dem MEP Bill Newton-Dunn was more than happy to snuggle up to Sir Paul McCartney when he visited the European Parliament to present his argument for a Meat-Free Monday, which asks everyone to go vegetarian for one day a week. The MP who turned his back on the Tories when he thought William Hague hadn't got a chance obviously feel that sucking up to Macca is a good source of brownie points ... but we doubt it will win him any votes.
Higher politics -2 ... We think that whoever produces the occasional newsletter put out by our MP Mark Simmonds should take a look at pictures before captioning them. "Mark presents a donation to staff at St Barnabas Hospice" shows him loafing up against a sign. "Mark helps local farmers with the pea harvest..." shows him standing as a lord-of-all-he-surveys from the balcony on a pea viner, whilst "Mark tours local businesses ..." shows him standing around in ASDA - that famous local business. Almost every caption tells a story that the photo doesn't. Perhaps its an innate habit among politicians.
Dig this ... We had to smile at a report to next week's borough cabinet recommending spending £25,000 on infrastructure works at Cuckoo Land to turn it into allotments. Among the reasons given are to cater for unmet demand from local allotment holders, to promote "grow your own" and physical activity as part of the healthy lifestyles agenda, to promote the growing of local produce to reduce “food miles” and carbon emissions and to encourage a sense of belonging and pride. We wonder what the allotment holders evicted from Broadfield Lane might have to say about that - especially as they were thrown out with such indecent haste to make way for housing developments that now seem unlikely to take place.
Lookalike of the week ... Earlier this week we reported on last Friday's County Council meeting (which is more than our local papers did.) A propos of nothing at all we noticed a remarkable resemblance between the Highways supremo Councillor William Webb, and Mr Jolliman, who models clothing for gentlemen of a certain age. What do you think?

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