Local elections - a weighing up of the issues

[sooty2]

Michael, Yes it really is time for some new blood! I lost all faith in the present councillors when at the area committee meeting held in the Memorial Park they denied any knowledge of a proposed supermarket. Some if not all knew and chose not to tell the people of Marple.

Some personal references to local councillors have been removed from this post. Admin.

[Miss Marple]

Michael I have just read via the link Marple Leaf and have to say that I found it most informative and more to the point 'in touch' with what's really happening in and to Marple and the community.   I do agree that there is now need for a change in our local representation, having an all Liberal party can not be healthy for Marple.  
The recent Supermarket issue highlighted that some councillors must have been aware of the proposals that had been spoken about within the college for years but for whatever reason decided to forget what they had been elected for, which was to represent the community, not turn a blind eye to what was going to have a devastating effect on the people living close to the site and potentially distroy our community with pollution, added Traffic and all the other things a supermarket brings especially one built in the middle of a residential area
Yes I do think  an independent should stand, one hopefully that doesn't forget what and why they were elected.  I know this may put you on the spot Michael, but I would like to know if you would consider
standing as an independent and to say if you did you would have my support and many other people who
now believe there is a need for change in order to protect the MARPLE that we all love .

Why don't you put up miss Marple you seem very good at thinking you can run Marple

I'm too honest mate ! But hey thanks for your support !  Lol  

[amazon]

Michael I have just read via the link Marple Leaf and have to say that I found it most informative and more to the point 'in touch' with what's really happening in and to Marple and the community.   I do agree that there is now need for a change in our local representation, having an all Liberal party can not be healthy for Marple.  
The recent Supermarket issue highlighted that some councillors must have been aware of the proposals that had been spoken about within the college for years but for whatever reason decided to forget what they had been elected for, which was to represent the community, not turn a blind eye to what was going to have a devastating effect on the people living close to the site and potentially distroy our community with pollution, added Traffic and all the other things a supermarket brings especially one built in the middle of a residential area.
Yes I do think an independent should stand, one hopefully that doesn't forget what and why they were elected.  I know this may put you on the spot Michael, but I would like to know if you would consider
standing as an independent and to say if you did you would have my support and many other people who now believe there is a need for change in order to protect the MARPLE that we all love .

Why don't you put up miss Marple you seem very good at thinking you can run Marple

[Johnnyboy]

You can count on my vote Michael and that of my family, if you need help canvasing give me a shout more than happy to help 

[Miss Marple]

Michael I have just read via the link Marple Leaf and have to say that I found it most informative and more to the point 'in touch' with what's really happening in and to Marple and the community.   I do agree that there is now need for a change in our local representation, having an all Liberal party can not be healthy for Marple. 
The recent Supermarket issue highlighted that some councillors must have been aware of the proposals that had been spoken about within the college for years but for whatever reason decided to forget what they had been elected for, which was to represent the community, not turn a blind eye to what was going to have a devastating effect on the people living close to the site and potentially distroy our community with pollution, added Traffic and all the other things a supermarket brings especially one built in the middle of a residential area.
Yes I do think an independent should stand, one hopefully that doesn't forget what and why they were elected.  I know this may put you on the spot Michael, but I would like to know if you would consider
standing as an independent and to say if you did you would have my support and many other people who now believe there is a need for change in order to protect the MARPLE that we all love .

[Duke Fame]

Come on Duke, join the rest of us in the real 'real world': Stockport hasn't had a town clerk for almost forty years!

Who's the equivalent of Dickie Leese and Howie Bernstein? So awful at being town clerks in Manchester they need two of them. Luckily for Manks that they only take half a salary each err hang on, they both take a huge salary way beyond their ability to do the job.

The issue for me is that these town clerk jobs are renamed into something fancy and they all get paid too much. The argument being that they have a budget comparable to a large to medium commercial enterprise. The point I make is that they don't have the performance targets of a large / medium enterprise and the penalty for failure is not even comparable to a one man band.

[Dave]

Come on Duke, join the rest of us in the real 'real world': Stockport hasn't had a town clerk for almost forty years!

[finetimefontaine]

Miss Marple

Re Councillor Alexander.

In 2009 she was the driver of a car that was involved in a traffic accident wherein her passenger subsequently died. As a consequence of this she was charged and convicted of "causing death by"... I THINK IT WAS "DANGEROUS" DRIVING BUT IT MAY HAVE BEEN "CARELESS" - I'm not quite sure. Anyway the point is she has a recent criminal conviction involving a loss of life - so it is serious. Therefore should she be standing for public office?

However and conversely, she wasn't drunk, she wasn't speeding, her car was roadworthy - so you could take the view that she was involved in a tragic accident that could happen to any of us and ..."there but for the grace of god".   

[Duke Fame]

Barbara... I may well not like the politicians that currently hold office.. and I think the financial rewards they get are excessive, however their hours are still long and very unsociable and that in the end was my reason for not standing.

Lisa, the rewards are not that great as a councillor, just ex's. It's those in the employ that get the daft money. It's amazing how town clerks etc who really are just people who can't get a job in the real world manage to land a salary well beyond what is achievable for them in the real world.

[Miss Marple]

Hi Marple leaf what is the issue of Shan Alexander staying in Public office ?  I fear I may have missed something can you enlighten us ?

[Miss Marple]

It would be my opinion that the supermarket issue has forced our elected members to be more accountable to the community   Many issues  prior to June 2011 would have been spoken about behind closed doors with the deals having been done with no public consultation or public impute.  But having said all that the community themselves were guilty of not questioning or becoming pro active.  So one could say we have the elected members we deserve because we as a community have allowed them and some of their ideas to go unchallenged but I do think things have now changed.

[marpleleaf]

Cheers all - sorry, I didn't mean that the LibDems as a party are an irrelevance, but that for the purposes of local administration it doesn't seem that relevant which party you are a member of. I'm sure Sid Lloyd and Craig Wright don't disagree on very much.

Agree that the amounts earned are a pittance, unless you are an exec member - in which case you can get a decent salary. They can claim expenses for things they go to - I see local councillors sat in all kinds of Greater Manchester meetings as "reps" of the council. No doubt counting it as time served.

[Howard]

I'm not so sure you can claim the Lib Dems are an irrelevance. They tend to be very strong in local government as they don’t have the weight of a national ideology weighing them down in the way Labour and to a smaller extent Conservatives have. Local council’s get allocated their budget and have to work to them; sadly there isn’t much incentive to find better or more efficient ways of working as they don’t have to. In not having the ideology, they tend to be able to take the action that they see as sensible (it may sometimes be wrong) rather than on some dogmatic redistributive ticket.
I’d also be surprised if Lib Dems are done nationally. They may have lost a lot of disenfranchised Labour voters but their core voter should be fairly happy with their performance in government. Vince Cable may be a bit of a liability and I’d not mention to Chris Hulne that I have a clean driving licence but a liberal small ‘L’ can’t be too upset with the coalition.

As Duke says, local councils tend to work on pragmatism. They're allocated funds which they are [supposed] to be able to top up through imposition of the council tax. Most of the way they use funds seems to be dictated to them by central government so it mainly seems to be an administrative exercise. Political dogma doesn't really come into it.

Lisa... "the financial rewards they get are excessive" - if they are I might stand myself. How much actually is it - does anybody really know? I always thought that it was a pittance for local Councillors and that's one reason why nobody will stand. It should be easy enough to find out.

On this point, my mother was a LibDem councillor for two terms during the late 1980s to early 1990s. I know that she worked her backside off, was out virtually every evening at various committee meetings as well as holding down a full time job. She received an absolute pittance - purely remuneration for expenses and a small amount for attending meetings. The myth of councillors receiving huge amounts seems to have come from the City Councils (Manchester and Liverpool being fine examples) where they supposedly worked full time and voted themselves large attendance allowances.

A local councillor's job can be pretty much full time which is why the people doing it are either retired, unemployed or run their own business and can afford to take the time off. The people doing it are clearly not representative of the general populance but unless the allowance is enough for the role to be performed full time then we'll continue to be represented by people from these backgrounds.

[Duke Fame]

As I said in the original post there are only two organised political bodies in Marple - the single issue Marple in Action and the local Liberal Democrats. I totally agree with you that it doesn't matter - in a way the party has become an irrelevance - my concern isn't really about how their interpretation of national policy or ideology plays out locally - because it usually doesn't. It's when a wafer thin majority, or a Labour controlled minority, sees the councillors toe-ing a Borough wide party line, that collides with what is right for the local area.

When I looked at the councillors last night and listened to them speak I thought I trusted and really liked two of them, was ambivalent about one, and felt outright hostility to two.

The conclusion seems to be that it's time to piss, or get off the pot.

Anyway, this anonymous stuff is a but cloak and dagger - Marple Leaf is the name of my webiste - I'm always happy to be known as Michael Taylor.

Cheers,

Michael Taylor

Hi Michael,
Intravenous here, I'm not so sure you can claim the Lib Dems are an irrelevance. They tend to be very strong in local government as they don’t have the weight of a national ideology weighing them down in the way Labour and to a smaller extent Conservatives have. Local council’s get allocated their budget and have to work to them; sadly there isn’t much incentive to find better or more efficient ways of working as they don’t have to. In not having the ideology, they tend to be able to take the action that they see as sensible (it may sometimes be wrong) rather than on some dogmatic redistributive ticket.
I’d also be surprised if Lib Dems are done nationally. They may have lost a lot of disenfranchised Labour voters but their core voter should be fairly happy with their performance in government. Vince Cable may be a bit of a liability and I’d not mention to Chris Hulne that I have a clean driving licence but a liberal small ‘L’ can’t be too upset with the coalition.

[finetimefontaine]

Hello Michael


Take your points -most of em good ones.

It was Tony Benn who said that ..."as an MP you have three responsibilities in ever changing order; one to your party, one to your constituents and one to your conscience". I expect it is the same for a local Councillor and for them it's sometimes impossible to reconcile all three, all the time. Probably the best we can hope for is that on most issues (or at least the big ones) our Councillors go with the last two.

Your point about political organisation in Marple is well made but there is also the issue of voter apathy if we get a 50% turnout in Marple we're doing well - maybe that could be made to change. Or maybe we should go along to the two Councillors that you trust and try and persuade them to become independent - "The Marple Independents" they'd have some clout in the Council - wouldn't they? The way things are going they could hold the balance of power after the next local elections.

Lisa... "the financial rewards they get are excessive" - if they are I might stand myself. How much actually is it - does anybody really know? I always thought that it was a pittance for local Councillors and that's one reason why nobody will stand. It should be easy enough to find out. 

Michael...On the subject of anonymity - I meant mine not yours. You've got the courage to declare - I haven't.