IN WHICH WE SERVE...

MAN OF THE PEOPLE

Well, true to form, there was no mention of the latest political scandal in John Taylor’s weekly letter, published in this week’s Reporter. However, his theme did raise a few eyebrows as he endeavoured to put his own interpretation on why the people’s republic of Tameside has had a de facto single-party democratically elected council for over 30 years.

Predictably though, the limited depth of his reasoning stopped short of explaining how the existing practices and balance of political power effectively prevents any opposition from winning the elections.

Playing the ‘I’m a fully paid up man of the people’ card, he defended those voters who he claimed had been accused of apathy or of lacking intelligence and would; as the old saying goes, ‘vote for a donkey, if it were wearing a red rosette’ and offered the alternative, that the key to his, and Labour’s success was not; as one might have expected, due to the successful policies of the Labour Government and Labour councillors successfully running local civic services, but it was all down to the shoddy treatment from the Conservative party!

But that didn’t shed light on why only 70% of those eligible to vote in the last local election he contested, didn’t! – In John Taylor’s case it meant that the ‘Deputy Leader’ of Tameside council kept his seat by securing 681 more votes that the other candidates! However, with only a 32.9% turnout in his Dukinfield ward, it tells us that out of those eligible, some 7500 people didn’t, for one reason or another, bother to vote for John Taylor! Obviously, his continuing spouting of his political message is really having a major impact in Dukinfield!

Should have gone to Specsavers!

It also doesn’t explain why; considering Tameside has been administered by a Labour council for over 3 decades, the town centres are dying whilst out of town retail developments are thriving; the town’s markets are a wasteland; there’s a severe lack of social housing and the authority has been slated as presiding over one of the worst places in the entire country for secondary education,( according to the latest OFSTED report, who sighted Tameside as the worst-performing authority in Greater Manchester and fifth lowest nationally with only 34% of secondary schools ranked good or outstanding). Our hospital is constantly under the microscope for one reason or another, our theatres have closed, our libraries are closing, the roads are full of pot-holes there’s litter everywhere and all that despite a yearly increase in council tax bills since its inception!

Tameside’s Labour councillors need to realise that a ballot is no more than a show of hands to be a representative of the local people. Clearly this hasn’t sunk in with some of our career councillors, because they seem to view themselves as being special, with an unquestioning entitlement to swan around the borough doing the bidding of their political masters sitting high up in the town hall or in Labour’s Central Office in Westminster, rather than the bidding of the people of Tameside.

The councillor then added his thoughts on political ‘slickness’ and told us ‘if you contact a party about an issue, they simply press a button and you get a personalised letter detailing their position.’ ‘That’s not the way Tameside Labour does it!’ He said, ‘we believe in the old fashioned methods!’

Which usually means either a response is not forthcoming or the open letters published in the local press, are answered by another’s hand!

With 52 Labour and 5 Conservatives comprising Tameside council, we must thank God that the majority of the council's services (well at least those that haven’t yet been sold off to the private sector) are delivered by a core of committed public servants who have not forgotten that the council exists to serve its citizens and not the reverse.