Vote for me... please?

"Who are these two miscreants?", I hear you ask. On my right is Daniel Obst, who is my usual co-Returning Officer at ALDE Congresses. We're considered to be sound, independent and competent which, given that he's a judge and I'm a tax inspector, is probably reassuring in a whole bunch of ways. The picture was taken in Stockholm last year, as we successfully delivered another uncontroversial set of Bureau elections.

In truth, it's a much less onerous job these days, as voting is electronic, and our role is more to reassure, make eligibility rulings and ensure that the process runs smoothly and the result accepted by all candidates.

But why this picture, and why now?

Well, I'm running for election, and I needed a photograph of myself to include in the manifesto. The catch is that there just aren't that many pictures of me, and even fewer "good" ones. And, by good, I mean pictures where I look vaguely as though I don't mind being photographed and not like a walrus in a jacket. This one is one of the better ones and, given that I'm running for a place on my Regional Candidates Committee, a picture with the word "elections" on it seems somewhat apposite.

Unusually, I'm involved in a contested election - there are six candidates for four places - and I don't really know my opponents that well. In fact, the only one who I am confident I would recognise in a room full of Liberal Democrats is the current Regional Candidates Chair.

And, perhaps unusually, the East of England Regional Party elections are hotly contested, with the only uncontested posts being Secretary (plus ça change (plus c'est la même chose...) and the four places on the Regional Policy Committee. Even the Presidency is contested which is... unexpected...

This means that I'm theoretically required to campaign, although how you do that when you have no access to a membership list is beyond me. And yes, I accept that ordinary members in, say, Hertsmere, probably don't want to inundated with phone calls and e-mails from me and a cast of dozens. That means that I'm going to have to rely on my good reputation, a track record of competence and a good social media game. Oh, and the contacts that I've made over forty years in the Party, which may count for something.

I do get a manifesto - A5, landscape, which doesn't really allow for an expansive statement of the wonders I have wrought over the years and those I might perform if elected, but this is what I've written...

I’m Mark Valladares and I want your vote to be part of the next Regional Candidates Committee. Why me, and why now?

A General Election may be more than four years away, but there’s a lot of work to do even now. The Selection Rules are being reviewed, we need to find and approve more potential PPCs, train Returning Officers and Assistant Returning Officers, and encourage Local Parties to start their selections earlier and support them as they go through it. None of it should be left to the last minute.

And this can’t be done in isolation, as we need to work across the Party to help meet our wider goals. So, what skills and experience would I bring to the Regional Candidates Committee?

• I know how our candidate systems work, as a veteran Returning Officer over more than thirty years, a past candidate assessor and a former member of the English Candidates Committee.

• I appreciate the burden that our processes can place on Local Parties, having led moves to simplify the Selection Rules and make it easier for non-target seats to choose their Parliamentary candidates

• As a former Regional Secretary in two English Regions, I understand how Regional Parties work, as well as the importance of reporting back

I’m a member of the Ipswich Local Party, sit on Federal Council and, in my spare time, I’m the Chair of a small Parish Council in mid-Suffolk. Questions, or simply want to know me better? You can reach me on markv233@aol.com, check me out on Bluesky, or on my blog.

I think that it sums me up pretty well, demonstrates my strengths and, all things being equal, should give me a chance to win. Time will tell, I guess...

The gathering of responsibility or, how one thing leads to another...

So, I've become the Chair of the Micro Councils Network of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC), right? Quite prestigious, I suppose, and a long way from being the Chair of a tiny Parish Council in deepest mid-Suffolk. But it only meets four times a year, and I have a professional team who are there to support me and organise things, so that's not too challenging, is it?

And, of course, that's probably too good to be true, isn't it? So, I shouldn't have been too surprised when I was invited to join the Smaller Councils Committee of NALC - after all, it is a platform on which to raise the issues of the Micro Council sector. How could I refuse? And, of course, I didn't.

What happened next was almost predictable. I was offered an induction into the work of the Committee from either a member of the professional team or the Vice Chair. My antennae twitched... "Vice Chair"? What happened to the Chair? So, I read the minutes of the recent committee meetings and discovered that there hadn't been a Chair since April - the Chair has to be a member of the National Assembly and nobody had come forward.

It wasn't long before the other shoe dropped, and an e-mail arrived from a senior colleague, asking me if I'd be willing to take on the role. I slept on it. And then I decided to go for it. Let's be honest, I'm fairly strongly of the view that there must be someone better qualified than I am, but there apparently isn't anyone and so, given that there should be a Chair, it seems that I am now (subject to a vote of the Committee, terms and conditions apply etc. etc) the Chair designate of the NALC Smaller Councils Committee, the voice of thousands of Town and Parish Councils across England whose electorate is less than 6,000. It would be reasonable to assume that Creeting St Peter qualifies...

I've had a conversation with my Vice Chair, who seems to be more than capable and offers a usefully different perspective - she's a Town Clerk - and I've started preparing for my first official meeting on 5 November, which should be interesting. It also means that, all being well, I'll be in post in time for the NALC Annual General Meeting two days later.

I haven't let the grass grow under my feet though. I was part of the two hour drop-in session at the ALDC stand at Federal Conference, talking to conference delegates about what we do and why Parish and Town Councils are such a good thing. We even offered some advice for councillors faced with challenging situations, which is sort of what NALC is there for. And I've given some thought as to what action Smaller Councils Committee could take to promote those parts of the NALC legislative agenda that particularly impact on our end of the sector.

So, the next few months could be interesting, as I settle into my new roles. At least there isn't anything else that I can be persuaded to take on, right?...

My Parish may be small, but it is, apparently, mighty...

The thing about becoming a rather infrequent blogger is that, well, I don't actually get around to telling anyone what I've been doing. And, what that means is that, when I do pick up my "digital quill", there's a risk that the context is missing.

And, perhaps unexpectedly, I've become somewhat busy. Let me explain...

I've been a member of the National Assembly of the National Association of Local Councils (NALC) for four years (really, that long?), representing Suffolk, and I've found a niche for myself, agitating for better financial reporting, seeking greater diversity and, something close to my heart, acting as a voice for the many very small Parish Councils who traditionally don't have perhaps as much influence on the work of NALC as the larger member councils.

That's not a criticism, in truth. Many "micro" Parish Councils are pretty parochial, interested in matters within, or close to, the Parish boundaries and not much else. We seldom provide services as such, and with (in my case) an annual budget of approximately £6,500, after paying our Clerk, there is not much left to do anything beyond managing a small playground, ensuring the village green is mowed and the dog bins emptied.

But what we lack in service provision, we make up for in representation. We respond to planning applications, we lobby our District and County Councillors for improved services or, sometimes, a more sympathetic delivery of the ones that exist. We are hyper-local government.

And, in lobbying for our corner of the Town and Parish Council sector within NALC, I had sought the creation of a network for micro-councils. NALC has a number of networks, designed to bring together interest groups so that they can discuss their particular issues, influence the work of NALC generally, and offer support and ideas for best practice. There's one for the largest councils in the sector, one for women councillors, one for LGBT+ councillors, one for young councillors, as well as two thematic ones, on the climate emergency and for coastal communities.

Now, there is a Micro Councils Network and its first meeting took place at the end of July. I thought that I ought to turn up, given that I had lobbied for it, and, having done so, looked forward to seeing whether or not it would work. It did need a couple of co-Chairs and I waited to see who would come forward. And waited... Eventually, I concluded that, if nobody else was willing, I would have to step forward. Perhaps, that might trigger another volunteer. it didn't, and so I have become the Chair of the NALC Micro Councils Network.

There was a presentation from the Centre for Aging Better, suggesting ways to make life easier for the elderly in our communities - something that is particularly salient in small, often quite isolated, villages. And we invited those on the Zoom call to suggest issues for future discussion - guest speakers often introduce ideas or concepts that trigger action at our local level.

And so, I gained some new responsibility. It wasn't going to end there though, was it?...

Is it me, or is British politics missing a Conservative Party?

Now I admit, I'm highly unlikely to be ever mistaken for a Conservative. I might be fiscally cautious, conservative even. And I'm never likely to be accused of being a radical thinker. But am I the only person that wonders why this country doesn't appear to have a traditional, averse to change, cautious centre-right political party any more?

Clearly, there's a space in the British political market for what one might describe as a European-style Christian Democrat type of party. Because, equally obviously, the culture war fighting, counter-institution group that leads the current Conservative Party isn't it. 

A properly conservative political force wouldn't want to undermine the judiciary, the Civil Service, local government - it would be at ease with letting them get on with their jobs. It would campaign for home ownership, for protecting the countryside from development, for supporting farmers and small businesses.

But there isn't another political force that could, or might want to, occupy that space. No matter what you think of the Starmer administration, they aren't centre-right, and Reform are far too harsh in tone to ever persuade that type of voter. The Greens are going to outflank Labour to the left, which brings its own stresses but is an obvious choice. And the Liberal Democrats may be the most comfortable alternative left, but in order to permanently occupy that space, they would have to risk alienating a large chunk of their activists. I don't believe that it's going to happen.

So, the logic is that it should be territory that the Conservatives should hope to reclaim. The problem is that the people who make leadership decisions are minded to buy into the idea that the mistake they made in July was not to be radical enough. Not to fight culture wars with sufficient conviction. And not to admit that claiming to be tough on immigration whilst letting more people into the country than ever before was just a mite hypocritical. 

No, they've bought into the idea that fighting a populist campaign targeted at a 30% wedge of reactionary voters will gain them a victory. And, despite the evidence that building a bigger tent tends to lead to better results, key elements of the Conservative Party believe that they can cannibalise the Reform UK vote and sweep back to power in 2029.

Eventually, the Conservative Party, after its massive defeat in 1997, found its way back towards the centre of British politics or, at least, it persuaded enough people that it had, under the leadership of David Cameron. But, for the life of me, I'm not seeing a similar figure emerging from the current crop of Tory MPs, and even if they did, I couldn't see them surviving a vote of Conservative Party members. It does not augur well for our democracy...

India - the centre of the known world (once upon a time)...

I always used to joke that, whilst Britons were painting themselves blue and calling it the height of fashion, my Indian ancestors were building a great civilisation. It turns out that there may have been an element of truth to it. 

But let's go back to the beginning...

Ros had received an invitation to a lecture by the Scottish historian William Dalrymple, linked to the launch of his new book, "The Golden Road - how Ancient India Transformed The World", in West Kensington. Normally, she probably wouldn't accept such an offer, especially as Parliament hadn't returned yet but, given my heritage, she asked if I'd be interested in a trip to London. And, perhaps because I don't get out as much as I ought to, I said yes.

Greater Anglia offer a "London Evening Out" ticket, which allows a traveller to go down to London in the afternoon and come back the same day for a very reasonable £27 (£41 first class, should you fancy a bit more space and leg room), and so that's what we did last Tuesday, heading down to Liverpool Street and across to Notting Hill Gate before taking a leisurely stroll from there to West Kensington.

The Bhavan is, apparently, the largest centre for Indian classical arts in the United Kingdom, located in what was originally the local parish church before undergoing a radical rebuild and reconfiguration twenty years ago. The old nave is now the Mountbatten Auditorium, and it was there that the lecture took place in front of a very engaged, and predominantly Indian, audience.

The lecture itself was, even for an audience more familiar with Indian history than most, something of an eyeopener, propounding a theory that, far from the Silk Road being the preeminent channel of trade between east and west, it was in fact India that served as the primary trading partner of the Roman Empire. As an aside, it was noted that the Silk Road as a concept was the invention of a German writer in the nineteenth century, and that the term only became widely used after his works were translated in the last century.

So, what is the evidence? Well, you'd expect to find hoards of Roman coins across Europe, and perhaps around the Black Sea. And, if there was major trade between China and the Romans, in China. But, there are no significant finds there. In India, on the other hand, major finds of Roman coins have been made. And William Dalrymple offered us plenty of other examples of sculpture and art which point towards significant, regular interaction between Indian and Roman traders in the Red Sea ports of the time.

Delivered with great verve and conviction, Dalrymple spun the threads of his story over more than an hour, to the extent that, as he finished, we concluded that we really needed to get away to catch our train rather than stay for a light supper. We did find time to purchase a signed copy of the book, which I will make time to read at some point, and I suspect that a great many will have been shifted subsequently.

I know that Jonathan Calder has also written about the book and offered more detail on the argument offered by the author, but for those of you who think of China as being the preeminent trading partner of Europe in the distant past, you might find that the book offers a rather more balanced perspective on India and its place in the ancient world. Think of it as a recommendation...

Monday night is Parish Council night...

I wasn't supposed to be at Parish Council this time. The original date clashed with Federal Conference, and I had advised Council that I wouldn't be present. But work commitments and ill health conspired to cause the postponement of the scheduled meeting, and so, having just recovered from another dose of COVID, I made my way to Creeting St Peter for another opportunity to catch up with events in my beloved village.

The big news, I guess, is that the Speed Information Device that we ordered has arrived. It wasn't cheap but, thanks to generous grants from our County and District Councillors, the cost is pretty much wholly mitigated - we've received the grant from our District Councillors and the funds from our County Councillor are expected imminently. The next step is for the post on which it is to stand to be installed, and I'm optimistic that this shouldn't take too long.

Our finances remain sound, we've received the second instalment of our precept for the 2024/25 year and I'm confident that we can make it to the end of the financial year in our customary good shape. We'll be looking at proposals for next year's precept at our next meeting, so Council will need to decide what our goals are for 2025/26 then.

One recommendation from our audit this year was that we move to having a gov.uk account, and we've acted upon that. Residents will see that the contact address for the Council is now clerk@creetingstpeter-pc.gov.uk, bringing us into line with local government generally.

We have noted our objection to the proposed solar array in Badley, on the grounds that good agricultural land will be going to waste. At a time when food miles are part of the challenge of net zero, it does seem a pity that such land cannot be farmed economically. However, it is clear that the new Labour Government are keen on renewables, as evidenced by their decision to approve the Sunnica project in West Suffolk.

Our next project is to consult with residents about the renewal of the play equipment. There is potential to apply for funding available from the Gateway 14 development and we're keen to find out what potential users would like, rather than leaving the decision to people like me.

We've been approached by the River Gipping Trust, who have taken up the challenge of keeping the river path clear of vegetation for walkers to enjoy the route. As a volunteer group, they would be grateful for any financial contribution that we might be able to offer. That's a bit of a problem for us, as we don't have a lot of money available for such things, but we'll take a look and see if there is anything that we can do. If, however, any residents want to either join the River Gipping Trust, or make donations themselves, I'm sure that the Trust would be more than grateful.

Our next meeting is at 7.30 p.m. on 18 November, in the Church Room, and residents are more than welcome to attend.

I've got a temporary library card, and I know how to use it...

As a child, I was an avid reader of books. I spent much of the summer of, I think, 1971, in the library at Notting Hill Gate, ploughing through the "Thomas the Tank Engine" series. And I still enjoy reading, assuming that I can carve out the time to do so.

But you know how it is. There's so much information, news and stuff on the internet, and it's all in the palm of your hand. And so, I spend too much time online and not enough doing the panoply of other things that I could occupy myself with.

But I can't entirely believe that this is good for me, and the internet is often a bit "short attention span", whereas a book allows an idea, plot or story to be extended, developed. And so, I found myself in the Ipswich County Library in Northgate Street yesterday afternoon, signing up for a library card.

In Creeting St Peter, we did have a library of sorts, the Mobile Library, which came to the village every fortnight at 11.45 a.m. on a Friday. Not terribly convenient for those, like me, with jobs, and if you wanted something other than the obviously limited range that a medium-sized bus could hold, you had to order it in advance and hope that they could get it onto the bus in time. Alternatively, you could travel into Stowmarket and use the library there, but I wasn't often in the town, and you really need to return books on time - are you really going to make a special trip to do that?

However, the library is now a gentle eight-minute walk away, and it's open seven days a week, so taking books out is not only viable, it's very easy. Getting a temporary borrower card was the only immediate option, as I apparently need proof of my address to obtain the full range of services (note to self, find something with both my name and address on it...). But it did allow me to borrow up to three books immediately so, I thought, let's make a start.

Accordingly, I drew out two books, "Nation" by Terry Pratchett and "Borderland: A Journey Through the History of Ukraine" by Anna Reid and took them back to the desk to be recorded and stamped out with a date stamp redolent of my days as a Senior Library Prefect at Kingsbury High School.

I've got until 12 October to return them so, if you'll excuse me...