Councillor Bob Piper

Well, almost! From The Guardian Diary….

Things are bad, but there’s an answer. Move to Haringey. For despite everything one hears, there are no cuts in Haringey. At least that is the conclusion reached by auditors Grant Thornton, who have ordered the council to stop referring to “cuts” in the municipal publication. The word was upsetting the Lib Dems. Instead, said the auditor, the authority should explain how both central government and the council are involved in setting a restricted budget. Never mind that ministers made the cuts inevitable. Always the poor wot gets the blame.

Despite the perilous economic situation, I can’t help but find it amusing to see the level of opprobrium being poured on the head of George Papandreou, the Greek Prime Minister for having the temerity to ask his electorate what they think about the backdoor deal cobbled together by European governments to resolve their debt crisis.

The markets are in turmoil, share prices are tumbling, the FTSE 100, the German Dax, the French Cac and the Dow Jones are plummeting, Sarkozy and Merkel are crapping themselves, and for once even Berlusconi is working up a sweat over something that isn’t nubile.

And all because here in Athens, as a husky-voiced Joanna Lumley drooled last week, the birthplace of European democracy, someone decided to consult with the citizens about a series of economic austerity measures designed to throw many of them out of work, cut their pensions and slash their public services.

Bloody cheek!

The media and our posh Prime Minister, and even old Betty herself have been wetting themselves with excitement that in future both daughters as well as the sons of the monarch will be able to become the Commonwealth Head of State.

What complete twaddle!

I mean no harm to Betty or her current small army of relatives, carers, civil servants, hangers-on and flunkies in the current ‘Royal Family’, although I do get mightily racked-off by those who think we should all bow down fawning to an extended family who owe nothing more than an accident of birth to their lives of privilege. But nothing more exposes the plain stupidity of the hereditary monarchy that we arrive at the second decade of the 21st century before they even start to think of females as being acceptable progeny for someone who is supposed to be our Head of State.

Instead of Cameron grinning like a demented baboon telling us that this vitally important breakthrough has been achieved, it would be much more sensible and grown up if he had announced that our current monarch will be the last, and serve notice on the rest of the family and there dependent hangers-on that it is time to head of to Jobcentre Plus and filling out an application for or two.

I have had quite a bit of debate over the last week with comrades who should know better about Labour’s position on the EU. In a nutshell, the centre-right of the Labour Party seem to take the view that what we have got is the best we are going to get, therefore we should shut up and put up with the current relationship with the EU.

Paul Cotterill at Though Cowards Flinch builds on a proposal from Caroline Lucas to suggest an amendment to the current, predominantly Tory, motion which, if defeated would allow Labour to vote against the substantive resolution on a principled position rather than the current ‘don’t rock the boat’ position. Paul suggests something along the lines of…

renegotiate the terms of its [the UK's] membership in order to create a new relationship based on peaceful co-operation, democratic accountability, citizen rights, economic and environmental sustainability.

That’ll do for me!

…a lie repeated often enough, still doesn’t make it the truth!

I don’t often write much about Sandwell Council on here, but one of the things that has been bugging me for the last few years has been the Council’s procurement policies.

I suspect, as with most local authorities, Sandwell has been left with the scars of Thatcher’s compulsory competitive tendering regime. Old habits die hard, and the notion that you should look primarily for the cheapest tender when procuring goods and services has been burned on to the hearts and brains of local government procurement officers. Even in the days when quality or environmental factors can be taken in to consideration, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that they are guided by two overriding principles; can the contractor do they job in the timescales required, and how cheap are they.

Our problem in the Black Country is that despite the fact that we still actually manufacture quite a lot of things to a very high standard, the tenders are not always the lowest. And when the bids are open there is very little scope, even taking into consideration all of the ‘green’ issues, to let tenders locally to help stimulate the local economy. This leads to a ludicrous situation where, within EU procurement rules, we end up purchasing renewal windows for council flats from Sweden, when a local company down the road can supply them at a slightly higher cost and of a similar quality.

As a consequence, our glazing company ends up laying people off, and the Council ends up dealing with unemployed families claiming rent and rate rebates, and with all the other social costs of unemployment. Every attempt we make to weight factors to enable local businesses to compete favourably is met with much tutting and raising of eyebrows, and muttered remarks about ‘OJEU notices’ and ‘EU rules’

So I cautiously welcome this piece about a Private Member’s Bill by Conservative MP Chris White which will allow social factors to be taken into consideration in the procurement process. Although on the surface White’s Bill may have the intention of opening up competition to social enterprises, it may also have the effect of allowing local authorities to do more about local procurement.

It would be great if that could happen, but I suspect if there is any prospect of it happening then, like that giant foot in the Monty Python cartoon, the monolith of EU competition will descend upon it and squash the life out of it.

Brian Hughes, occasionally of this parish, gets it right on today’s Guardian letters page.

Our prime minister urges us to shop around for energy suppliers, but few of us have the time or inclination to engage regularly in such a tedious activity, especially given that the answer we come up with may be out of date after the next round of price adjustments. Not-for-profit boards should be given the task of obtaining gas and electricity for consumers at the best possible prices. But such a change won’t happen until politicians and opinion formers grow out of their quasi-religious belief in the mystical powers of market forces and come to realise that not every area of life is beneficially susceptible to individual consumer choice.
Brian Hughes
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire

Well, almost right, anyway. I have some concern about ‘not-for-profit boards’, on the basis that true, they don’t make a profit, but they also tend to pay themselves bloody great hefty salaries… so I would insert the words ‘heavily regulate’ in there.

Via ConservativeHome

A couple of days ago I published a piece from the Sandwell CEO’s blog pointing out how much quicker the Council was these days in responding to complaints about pot holes on the highway.

The piece had a fairly quick response from a rare and endangered species, the lesser -spotted Sandwell Conservatives, saying I should really be thanking the Conservative led government for the additional resources they had allocated to repairing pot holes.

So I was particularly amused to read this article about our neighbouring Black Country Council, Tory-controlled Walsall.

What was that you were saying….