You don’t know what you miss till it’s gone
Did you notice the recent consultation on fundamental changes to the way our Council is run? Did you give your views? If you did, well done! You succeeded in getting past the Tories’s treacley reluctance to make it a success. A mere couple of percent did, complain the Tory councillors dismissively. Well, that’s YOUR failure, Councillors: the success of a consultation is judged on how far it succeeds in gauging our views. Of the mighty ‘few’ who did participate, over 80% opposed the councillors’ preferred option, the Cabinet system.
The Cabinet system has several advantages - for the ruling party. For example, as Councillor Dollemore of Manor Ward freely admits, he steers his committee his way anyway, so it will be simpler just to make a decision on his own. In the committee system, all parties and views can be represented. Not in the Cabinet system. In the Cabinet system, a small cabal of a single party has almost total control over all the decisions which concern the local community. Of course, any non-Tory councillor can be on the Scrutiny Committee. Great! But who decides on how to react to its recommendations? The Cabinet!
At the council meeting where the results of the Consultation were reviewed, a good third of the Tory councillors didn’t bother to turn up (not unusual) Ahead of a series of preposterous speeches, the Council’s legal officer solemenly advised the sparse attendance that “it was not a referendum but a consultation, so they shouldn’t feel obliged to take any notice of the result” !
