Glum Councillors

One of my favourite blogs is Glum Councillors a collection of stock photos of local councillors posed, pointing at graffitti, vandalism or potholes in the road. Much like the one here.

Now, this phenomena relates to a style of boss politics - vote for me and "I'll get things done for you." A kind of gift relation, we give our votes, they give us public service. Of course, really, fixing the roads is a technical matter for the highways officers, councillors are there to be political - to decide priorities, direction and style of a council. Most of the time they are simply there to oversee moneybeing handed down to them from Whitehall to spend on non-discretionary matters.

Once, I'm sure I've written about it here, when out campaigning, someone asked us 'What are you going to do about the potholes in the roads?' the comrade who was with me suggested giving the guy a shovel. That's not far off our attitude, not necessarilly dig it yourself, but you can organise yourselves, and if you have a problem, get it sorted, without asking the boss man to do it for you.

Doubtless I could (and probably will) write about roads, road transport and its condition, but the point I want to make here is anyone can go around saying 'I'll do my best for you' and promise to nag officials to do their jobs (Fib-Dems are very good at that) but we're not contesting elections for that reason - we think there is a political decision to be made about the type of society we are living in, and that is the platform we stand on.