A weary nation goes shortly to the polls28 April 2010

In the last eighteen months there's been a huge financial catastrophe through greed and incompetence. Then, after decades if not centuries of sleaze and malpractice, a monstrous reminder that our parliamentary system is badly tainted. Astonishingly, nothing fundamental has been changed. You and I are taking on the debt; our savings interest has been clobbered; bankers are still rolling in obscene bonuses and many in the City are bankrolling a political party so that they have some friends at Westminster. A few rule changes there on parliamentary expenses, and some replacement of those who got caught, by eager new faces, is not a reassuring guarantee against further chicanery. Ordinary citizens are hopping mad, with good reason. Politicians take us for mugs. They think that with some "passionate" rhetoric and glib promises things will blow over: they'll get elected to do business as usual.

Are they right? It is tempting to stay away from the polls in disgust. That would be a mistake. Our vote may not count for much, but it's all we have. If we don't use it, we'll leave the field clear for the minority of political zealots who support one or another of the failed national parties like football hooligans supporting a team.

We also have elections to the Borough Council. Naturally, manifestos are flying about, some more glib and glossy than others. Our Association has always regarded party politics with great distaste and won't get wound up by the professional spin of the national parties. Party politics don't belong in local administration.

What we've seen over the last four years of politicians ruling Elmbridge has not been all bad. Although to get elected they pledged that they wouldn't introduce Alternate Weekly Collection of residual waste, in office they did introduce it - changing its name to 'Enhanced Bin Collection'.   Residents' councillors always approved of recycling and, with some concerns for citizens with particular problems, supported that in council voting. Recycling has in general gone well.   Council tax has been kept down: Residents' councillors have voted to support that too.    Central government is often maligned, but credit where it's due: the recent upgrade to turn Thames Ditton Hall into a centre for both the elderly and for youth, securing its future, was made possible by a Labour Government grant of £150,000.

But then the picture grows darker. Local administration should represent local people, find practical solutions to local problems, without polemics. All too often we've been seeing the opposite of that. We've seen the Elmbridge leadership ignoring over 3000 local petitioners and all the local ward councillors in Molesey to railroad through overdevelopment opposite Hampton Court Palace - then spending taxpayers' money on lawyers to gainsay a judge's ruling that their planning approval was flawed. We've seen them ignoring the local solution to parking in Thames Ditton, ignoring all the local business people here and a petition of 500 residents, to impose their own dogma. Lately they have set aside almost £20,000 of your money to fight the people of Walton, who understandably don't want the council to build houses on green space that Waltonians have used for recreation for decades. We've seen the Elmbridge leadership putting up their own special allowances by over 40% and spending over a quarter of a million pounds on outside consultancies, while they divest the council of services to the elderly, the arts and children costing half that much. And despite their pledges to defend our heritage and the Green Belt when they seek election, it seems that in office all they want to oppose are Labour's plans to build on the Green Belt. Of more than five hundred planning applications in the Elmbridge Green Belt, 75% have been approved during the current administration's tenure but - said their Leader when questioned - 'only six were big-ticket ones.'

We have seen lip service paid to public consultation while the Leader of the Council has been quoted in the press making disparaging remarks about citizens presenting petitions. We've seen a member of the Elmbridge Cabinet outside the Civic Centre snarling at concerned citizens who were protesting against plans to cut the Ember Centre: "Haven't you got anything better to do with your time?!" We've seen a consultation where a substantial majority of a very large number of respondents was opposed to council action at all, but where the council went ahead and added to the regulatory burden on citizens. We've seen an administration which has just reduced, by two-thirds, the council committees that scrutinise the leadership's decisions.

And in recent days we've seen the outgoing Elmbridge politicians glibly telling us that their administration has received a 'good' rating from the National Audit Commission. That's a notch less than when Residents ran the council and received the top grading of 'excellent.' Fact is, when you look at what the Council spends, all of which comes from the citizen one way or another, the spend has risen roughly in line with inflation. Yet several services, especially to the elderly, have in general been cut or degraded. We're getting less value for our money.

I think about those things carefully before I pencil that cross on my ballot paper. And what I think is that residents do a better job of actually listening to residents. They'll do a more positive job of preserving services in hard times, within the existing budget. They take trouble to represent the whole community rather than just one sector of it. They favour practical local solutions rather than the theory of some distant party leadership. They are more likely to keep developers to agreed planning guidelines.

And the parliamentary elections? Well, that decision is not so easy to make.....

Keith Evetts, Editor

Comments? - post in forum thread