Had a good time Mr Mayor?

“I couldn’t possibly comment”

After civic silliness such as the Mayor’s refusal to answer a question about how much he’s enjoyed his year of office – on the grounds that it is political – little birds flock to our windowsill as if we were St Francis of Assisi.
Ahead of council meetings, questions can be submitted, which the Mayor then has the discretion to admit … or not, depending on his interpretation of them.
Rejection of a harmless enquiry asking which duty he most enjoyed was, quite frankly, laughable.
Surely, someone of the Mayor’s oft declared experience as a captain of industry could have trodden the political tightrope that such an interrogatory minefield posed and in the way of the seasoned politician that he is could either have damned them all with faint praise, or declared them all equally pleasurable.
However, his decision-making abilities may have been clouded by a two accompanying questions which might have made him feel that he was being led into some carefully laid trap.
The first was to Councillor Leader Richard Austin, citing the failed attempts of the BBI to run the council, and calling them a “local farce” which has made the party a laughing stock. Had it been allowed, the question would have asked Councillor Austin to assess the impact these failures have had for democracy in the Borough of Boston.
Of course it’s a political question – but then the council chamber is a political place.
The other question – similarly political – was to Councillor Richard Dungworth - the man responsible for regeneration, planning, sport and cultural services. The question asked him which particular failure he felt most responsible from each of his areas of responsibility.
The pick list included the collapse of the Modus project, the loss of a High Court judicial review costing tens of thousands of pounds, a zero star rating for cultural services from the Audit Commission, and the closure of the Geoff Moulder training pool coupled with the collapse of the £2.4 million renovation of the leisure pool.
Luckily for Councillor Dungworth, the Mayor appears to forgiven him for coming up with the soubriquet “Old Grumpy” and decided that the question should not be permitted.
The Mayor sought sanctuary behind the apron strings of “purdah” which rules on aspects of publicity in the run-up to local elections – and which we do not believe are relevant in this case.
Frankly, the only reason that we can see for refusing to allow the questions would be that it would take far too long to answer them - and thus drag the meeting on into the wee small hours.
It would have been interesting to see how Messrs Austin and Dungworth would have stumbled their respective ways through a response, as clearly there is merit in the questions.
Councillor Austin, we are told, usually fields tricky questions by punting them straight to the Chief Executive or refusing to answer them altogether, whilst Councillor Dungworth would have most probably have exploded with rage.
The questions have a particular relevance in the wake of the issue of the BBI’s manifesto – which seeks to present a gilded history of achievement by trying to drown us in a sea of historical waffle in which nothing ever went wrong.
Presumably the party is trying to fudge our collective memory so that we now recall everything in the garden as lovely … whereas before the arrival of the BBI it was a weed-strewn wilderness.
If nothing else, these two abortive questions remind us of a different picture.
Perhaps they also explain why the BBI manifesto contains absolutely no promises of any kind of future action should the party be re-elected.
More on this tomorrow …

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