Our New Year message to voters:-

Don't be tricked  by the BBI

Once again local people have been treated to a “message from the council leader” on Boston Borough Council’s website and in the local   “newspapers.”.
But when looked at more closely, it is less a message and more an opening salvo in the battle for control of the council at this year’s election on 5th May – just four months away.
One would expect a council leader to write in a general tone about the work of the authority as we enter a new year – but the opportunity to bang the BBI drum seems to have been just too good to miss.
Lines such as: - “It is satisfying to note that most of the many other manifesto items identified in 2007 have been well progressed or completed,” show quite clearly that Councillor Richard Austin is writing in the context of his party and not the council that he leads.
It underlines the fact that despite the existence of opposition groups, Boston Borough Council is in fact an oligarchy run by a small elite.
All of which brings us to the point of today’s blog – a New Year message of our own.
This is an election year, and in several ways, the campaigning has begun –dominated by the BBI, as they begin the relatively brief task of imprinting their party on the minds of the electorate.
Scarcely a week goes by without a letter from one of more senior BBI figure appearing in or both of our local papers.
By and large the only time we see letters from any of the various opposition groups they are in response to a lead made by the BBI – which makes the writers appear wrong-footed and defensive.
The BBI has cleverly muddied the waters with its involvement with the Independent Network as a member empowered to endorse “independent” candidates locally. The fact that the BBI fails to meet many of the strict but fair criteria for membership seems to have bothered neither them, nor the Independent Network – which puts that organisation’s credibility in serious doubt.
However, it creates an opportunity for the BBI to entrap would-be councillors who feel that they are becoming part of an independent organisation, when the reverse is the case.
The six weeks before an election is known as purdah, when the government cannot publicise initiatives which might influence a voter’s choice, and candidates also have to exercise restraint.
However, there is nothing to stop campaigning from now until the start of that embargo.
As we have already observed, the BBI is taking maximum advantage of the local press as a means of blowing its trumpet.
But the opposition groups remain largely supine.
The largest of these – the Conservatives – should not assume that they will regain the seats they lost in 1997. Similarly, Labour, which was routed with the loss of all its seats, cannot realistically to gain much, if anything.
We think that both parties are wrongly assuming that after being so badly let down by the BBI local voters will revert to their national political persuasions. The departing Labour government has tarnished the party name for years to come, whilst the Tories and Lib Dems will lose popularity as the economic cuts begin to bite in the months ahead.
Boston’s opposition also includes the Better Boston Group – formed by a disaffected faction which fell out with the BBI. But it exists in name only – and is a completely unknown quantity to voters. To achieve anything by way of success in May, the BBG needs to start campaigning … now.
We also have a handful of independents, who are genuinely entitled to use the name – but we need more of these.
Complacency, inaction, leaving campaigning until the last minute could very well put the BBI back in power – gloating their way through another four years in office.
You have been warned!

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