Let's have a

taste of the

Tory pick 'n mix

The bunting has been taken down, and the champagne corks that littered the streets of Boston swept away, and now it’s time to get to work.

The first thing on the Conservative agenda – assuming that Councillor Raymond Singleton-McGuire is shooed in as the council leader - will be the appointment of a cabinet.
If the Tories follow the pattern of the previous administration, the leader has a deputy and a six further members in the cabinet – each with portfolios for particular responsibilities.
It is not always possible for a ruling party to have the good fortune to have an expert on each and every subject in local government – the BBI proved that.
It’s also a good idea to remember at this early stage that the rules of the game have changed, and that the newly elected council now embraces a new leadership model.
Once elected, the leader remains a fixture in office for the four year duration of the council, and the role of deputy – whilst previously optional – becomes formal.
All executive functions will rest with the leader, who will have complete discretion to allocate decision-making powers to the cabinet as a body or to delegate decision-making to individual cabinet members or to officers.
We know of at least one former leader who would have been rubbing his hands with glee at the prospect – although he never let the previous absence of any formalities get in his way.
So what sort of arrows do the Tories have in their quiver of councillors?
Some are long on council experience, which will be more helpful than after the last election, when all but one had never set foot in a council chamber before.
But the general feeling we get from reading the declarations they posted in the run up to the election was one of good-intentions, but little more.
Of course, this situation was the same with every party seeking to run Boston, and we can’t expect to have the good fortune to elect people with round peg skills for round holes – life isn’t like that.
In the last council, the leader oversaw community and transport strategy, whilst the deputy took on health, learning, human resources, performance and improvement services.
Other postholders took on financial management, environment, regeneration, planning, sport, cultural services, community safety, emergency planning, parks and housing.
Looking back we get the impression that the members chosen for the cabinet were allowed to pick and mix their roles – and certainly, some of the posts contained far too much by way of responsibility for any one person to manage … which hinted at self-aggrandisement more than anything else.
The first job of the new regime ought to be to narrow down the roles.
This means sitting down and prioritising what needs doing in Boston for the coming four years.
Whilst we accept that in their pitch for office, the candidates were trying to persuade local people of their local loyalty and enthusiasm, their combined pledges have little to say about what needs doing for Boston – and how it is going to be done.
When we want something, we are always willing to say whatever it takes to get it.
But the time for honeyed words is now past – what we want now is shoulders to the wheel and noses to the grindstone.
And we want to know what the Conservative have in their collective mind to bring about the changes and improvements that Boston so sorely needs.
In the interim, we are pleased to see a more informative list of new councillors in progress on the borough’s website – and hope that a full set of photographs and contact numbers will be available shortly. By an alphabetical irony, the councillors Austin occupy the top two places on the list. We never knew that the alphabet had a sense of humour! All we would add at this stage, is that Councillor David Owens now represents the English Democrats, and not the BNP.

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