Bob Neill MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for the Department for Communities and Local Government, has written to all local authority leaders.
Yes, I know, be still my beating heart, a post about local government. I will try to keep it brief and malicious, like Bob Neill’s letter.
Remember how John Prescott’s Standards Board for England curbed freedom of speech for local councillors under the guise of “standards”?
Remember how its supposedly reformed local sucessors demanded that councillors “show respect and consideration for others”? This meant, for example, that John Dixon, a Cardiff councillor visiting London who tweeted while passing the Scientologist church in Tottenham Court Road that he just hurried past “in case the stupid rubs off” was reported to the local Standards Board. He was cleared, but as so often, and as the Scientologist who reported him knew very well, the process is the punishment.
Well, the local Standards Boards have in their turn been abolished and new rules come in tomorrow. I have not studied them in detail and am slightly less likely to do so than to gnaw off my own legs. They will probably go bad in their turn. The new rules, not my legs. But just for today, I find myself happy about this part of Bob Neill’s letter:
However, given the importance that the new arrangements are, and are clearly perceived to be, a wholly fresh start we are minded to make further provision so that any former member of a standards committee appointed under the transitional arrangements as an independent person can hold that office only until 30 June 2013.
So we bid farewell today to some quangocrats. And just for once the revolving door that smoothly glides in front of such people as it leads them from one sinecure to the next has stuck.
Ah! once again the procession moves on from the Rule of Law to the Law of Rules.
After June 2013, the former members will be able to parlay their experience into a similar position at a different agency.
Trapping vermin and transporting them to another neighborhood only produces vermin with a broader range of survival instincts.
Never were truer words written, Billll.
May I make one small correction? I believe that you are actually referring to the Church of Christ, Scientist(Link) located in Tottenham Court Road, rather than the loons of Scientology, who can be found in much more luxurious offices in the City of London.
There is a significant difference, one is about belief, the other is about Tom Cruise; I leave it to you to decide which is which.
Kettering Council duely approved these measures this evening.
No, one of them is not about Tom Cruise. Its about a discussion between two SF writers, L Ron Hubbard and Robert Heinlein, probably back in the 40’s if not the late 30’s, in which LRH decided to use his SF skills to invent a new religion. He lived very nicely for the rest of his life, albiet he did spend a lot of time at sea because there were more than a few places who wanted a piece of him.