Week ending 18th March

Our Friday miscellany

of the week's

news and events

There was no shortage of warnings when Strait Bargate opened to traffic in the form of the noisy, polluting Into Town buses. People said that other vehicles would follow the example set by the buses – and that has proved to be the case on more than one occasion. Most recently, a reader reports seeing Loomis Security vehicles on more than one occasion using Strait Bargate as a shortcut between Wide Bargate and the Market Place. Hopefully someone will address this issue as quickly as possibly.
We wondered the other day what sort of benefit had been gained from the £11,100 spent with consultants Vanguard, for a look at Boston's refuse collection service under the expenditure heading “Lean Project Costs.” Well, our readers are ever helpful, and one of them was able to offer an explanation. "The council received some negative comments about the refuse collection service, so what do we do? Of course, we get in a load of consultants! They suggested ringing random addresses within the borough to ask the following questions. Are you happy with the refuse collection in your area? Out of 5, with 5 being the highest how would you rate the service? Then if you gave less than 5 out of 5, the killer question. How do you think we could improve the service so next time you would give a 5. Do you not agree that this was money well spent? I cannot imagine there was any one clever enough within the municipal buildings that could have come up with those questions - so I think it was a bargain."
It’s interesting to see so many people joining the debate over the future of Boston in the letters pages of our local “newspapers.” Universally, they are sending a message that the current political leadership - even in its dog days – should heed. "We don’t like a council that tries to pull the wool over our eyes, or thinks that we aren’t capable of being trusted to hear why decisions which affect us all are being taken." The key thing about local politics is to involve the community – not shut it out. Any party campaigning genuinely to offer more “openness and transparency” should storm its way home – so long it can make people believe what it says!

Meanwhile, our local “newspapers” continue to underwhelm. A tepid attack in the Boston Standard on The Guardian writer Tom Dyckhoff, who wrote an unflattering piece about Boston, tells us that we may have missed it because “The Guardian only really appeals to people in berets who eat lentils and still use the phrase ‘right on.’” Quality journalism such as this goes a long way to explaining the plunging circulation figures at the Boston Standard. Senior reporter David Seymour tries to demean the London journalist still further by calling him “Tommy” when his preferred diminutive is Tom. Someone with a shred more imagination would have had far more fun with the man’s surname! But what can you expect when Mr Seymour's idea of a news picture  appears to be seen jumping into the air at gunpoint with a letter ‘D’ stuck to his chest?

The Standard is not alone, however. The Boston Target is seeing no benefit from reducing the columns by the irrepressibly dull George Wheatman from a weekly to a monthly frequency. Even with four weeks worth of local news to digest and comment on, George manages to devote all three items on his “Nowhere’s a thought” page to sporting matters. We all know about his love of sport. But if the column is to contain nothing else, then it should either be relocated to the appropriate section of the paper – or dropped entirely.

We note that Boston Borough Council leader Richard Austin has added green credentials to his roll of achievements. He’s pictured in a local paper standing against the wall of his Wyberton home like a man facing a firing squad, having turned the roof into a greenhouse look-alike with a dozen solar panels to generate his own electricity. How unnecessary. All that hot air available going to waste!

Good news for everyone who is fed up to the back teeth with all the party political campaigning by the BBI is the local papers. Friday next week should see the last of the claptrap as we enter a period called “purdah” for the local council election on May 5th. "Purdah" brings a pre-election restriction on publicity under a government code of practice which precludes proactive publicity in all its forms of candidates and other politicians involved directly in the election. That’s the good news. The bad news is that we can probably expect a last hurrah in the letters pages this coming Wednesday. Incidentally, if you’re wondering why the period is so named,  so are we. The dictionary defines the word as “solitude: a state of social isolation; the traditional Hindu or Muslim system of keeping women secluded; and a screen used in India to separate women from men or strangers. Meanwhile if you see some apparently deranged people wandering the streets muttering political slogans, don’t worry. They will just be members of the BBI talking to themselves.

Having said that, there's a sneaky little page in the leaflet accompanying this year's council tax demands, which fell through our letter boxes this week, and which will be around throughout the purdah period. As well as the usual incomprehensible figures, which need the skills of an accountant to interpret, there is a page entitled: "A look back: Our achievements"  (our italics.) The "look back" in question is not over the previous twelve months as one might imagine with a document that is issued annually - but covers a much longer period. And there can be little doubt that the capitalised pronoun "Our" in this case refers not to Boston Borough Council as a whole but to the Bypass Independent Party in particular. How clever to try to wheedle a few votes out of a gullible public with an almost subliminal party political pamphlet. And what’s this slogan "Save The Day 5th May 2011 Local Elections?" Does this appear only on Boston's council tax demand envelopes? What does it mean? Put the date in your diary? Save the day for the BBI? Moreinformation would help. On top of all that, the invitation to "view your account online" gives an  internet address that links only to the council website homepage. Where you go from there is anyone’s guess. Save the day for finding the page!
Despite all the encouraging noises made by the BBI about how Boston is flourishing, we note from the February unemployment figures that the borough has seen an increase of six per-cent over the previous month. The figures are the largest among the thirteen economic zones in Lincolnshire and are equalled in percentage terms only by the Spalding and Holbeach areas. In January, 1,453 people were out of work, while last month the number rose to 1,540. It’s a worrying jump coming as it does after a period of some improvement and stability. We hope that it isn’t a sign of the cuts beginning to bite.

You can write to us at boston.eye@googlemail.com  Your e-mails will be treated in confidence and published anonymously if requested.