Day 3 - Skopje to Tbilisi, via the world’s meeting point...

Skopje Airport, and not Skopje Alexander the Great Airport, is the equivalent of, say, Leeds Bradford Airport, but without the glamour. It’s functional, no more, no less, but it has the advantage of not being a place you can easily get lost.

The flight to Istanbul was short and uneventful, although Turkish Airlines managed to serve a cooked breakfast which was better than just about anything British Airways have ever served me, and they do this for a flight of just over an hour and a half.

My connection in the new Istanbul Airport was rather less than that, but I bypassed the short connection route and headed into the heart of the airport. And my, is it something, a vast shopping and eating opportunity with convenient parking for aircraft and connections to just about everywhere. Mogadishu? Check. Ulaan Bataar? Certainly, via Almaty. And, unlike Heathrow, it didn’t seem to be particularly stressed, as everyone seemed pretty relaxed. It’s an airport that seems to work, and if there is a flaw, it’s that there aren’t many convenient hotel rooms available.

As an comparison with the fiasco that is Berlin’s new airport, it just shows how ambitious Turkey is, even whilst its government edges ever closer towards authoritarianism.

I made the next flight easily, in fact, so easily that I went for another walk - those steps don’t do themselves, you know.

The Tbilisi flight is another two and a half hours eastwards, and the Turkish meatballs with a vegetable casserole were most welcome. And, unlike most European airlines, business class on Turkish Airlines comes with wider seats, rather more legroom and a fair bit of recline.

Tbilisi. Capital of Georgia. Home to some of the world’s most rapacious taxi drivers. My advice is, do your research first so, when they somehow forget to start the meter, the 90 Lari fare they ask for can be negotiated down to something more like the 30 Lari it should be. It’s a pity, as Georgians seem like a friendly enough bunch, but their Tourism Ministry need to do something about that.

My hotel was within a reasonable walk of the main station so, having settled in, I set off to explore and buy my train ticket for the next day. I found the station, even found the ticket office and managed to find out that they don’t sell tickets in advance on the route I would be taking.

I would have an early start the next morning...

Day 2 - Skopje, skoping out a new city...

North Macedonia is country number 65, and whilst for some of my FIRC colleagues, I am a mere amateur, my goal of visiting more countries than I have birthdays is well on target. But why Skopje, and why for just thirty-three hours?

Well, it comes down to those frequent flyer miles and the best means of using them. The best connection for my next destination is through Istanbul, but I didn’t want the hassle of a Turkish visa, thus somewhere with an early, but not too early, flight to Istanbul allowing the connection to be made.

My hotel was on Macedonia Square, close to the enormous statue of Alexander the Great. And it is very big. The idea of the government was to build big statues to celebrate the historic past of a country which, strictly, doesn’t have that much.

And there is a lot of statuary. Now, given that the country could do with some infrastructure, I would probably have used the money differently, but then I’m not trying to create a sense of nationhood.

I didn’t really have any plans, but did what I usually do, i.e. go and find the railway station and have a look around. Take my advice. Don’t bother. Skopje’s railway station is undoubtedly the most depressing place I have ever been, dark, gloomy, neglected. There are trains, albeit not that many, but you wouldn’t want to turn up too early, or during the hours of darkness.

The old railway station is now the Museum of the City of Skopje, with the clock stopped at the moment the 1963 earthquake struck the city. And that’s why they built a new one. Socialist brutalism is a thing, but not one to cherish.

The city lies between two ranges of hills, and the River Vardar runs through its heart on its way to the Aegean Sea. Its primary role in Skopje is to provide an excuse to build new-classical buildings along its banks, but it’s grey and not terribly inviting.

In the afternoon, I went for another walk, this time heading northwest along the river, past the home ground of FK Vardar, apparently the most renowned football team in North Macedonia. No, I hadn’t heard of them either, perhaps because they’ve never met an English opponent in the twenty seasons they’ve taken part in European club competitions. It’s a big stadium though, and the national team play here.

My goal was the Skopje City Mall, and to get there, my route took me through the City Park, which is rather peaceful and, whilst it isn’t terribly nurtured, it’s a nice place to walk.

The shopping mall is where the young of Skopje go to hang out and, whilst by our standards, it’s not that special, there’s a decent range of shops, some of which are vaguely familiar, including an outpost of Lush. But there wasn’t enough to persuade me to hang around, so I headed back to the hotel and an early night.

For I had a plane to catch in the morning...

Day 1 - London to Skopje, taking the scenic route to the spa...

So, here I am, sitting on a balcony overlooking a small spa town in the South Caucasus. And the water is slightly, but noticeably salty, best drunk warm. You may wonder what I’m doing here and, to some extent, I’m wondering too. But it’s been fun, and a little bit erratically journeyed.

Perhaps I ought to go back to the beginning...

When I arranged this trip, it was on the basis that Ros would be busy travelling somewhere else and, as is our habit, when Ros goes somewhere, I go somewhere that Ros might not be that interested in, or with an itinerary that wouldn’t really suit her. I had thought that this trip possibly fell into both categories, but certainly the latter.

That might be explained by the first leg of the journey, on Sunday morning, which took me to Skopje, the capital of North Macedonia, via Warsaw and Vienna, with a journey time of just over fifteen hours. There is a catch to using frequent flyer miles for your journey, and in this case, it meant either some fearsomely early starts (which I’m not good at), or arrival times in the middle of the night (which aren’t high on my preference list either).

Using the Lufthansa lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal 2 is strongly recommended - they have jelly beans and a typically Germanic breakfast (hearty) - before LOT Polish Airlines safely conveyed me to Warsaw, where I spent a happy(ish) hour walking laps of the airport - I’m doing the Society for Civil Servants walking challenge, and attempting to do 15,000 steps a day. I then found their lounge and ate their free snacks. Their onward flight to Vienna was very civilised too, on time, and with a perfectly decent inflight meal.

Into Vienna, and more airport laps - my, is Vienna Airport big? The Austrian Airlines lounge was surprisingly ordinary though, enlivened only by the sight of Sir Nicholas Soames catching up on his reading before heading home from a NATO Parliamentary Assembly meeting in Bratislava. I didn’t disturb him, although if I had, it would have been to say how much I enjoy his Twitter feed.

Their inflight meal on the short hop to Skopje was pretty good though, with a hot, breaded chicken breast with potato salad as the highlight.

We arrived in Skopje just before midnight, and I had only one goal - to get to my hotel room and crash. I made it without drama...

Suffolk - where self-help means doing something you’ve paid someone else to do...

I’d be the first to accept that, when money is tight, a steadfast reliance on local government to do things for you is probably unwise, unless, of course, you have little choice. However, it is a step beyond that to ask lower tiers of government to take on duties that you’re levying a tax for, but keeping the money.

And that’s the case with what is charmingly called Suffolk's Community Self-Help Scheme.

Suffolk County Council, like so many other local authorities, is seeking to make savings, and apparently, has a mere £120,000 per annum available for highways work other than basic maintenance. So, they’re seeking support from Town and Parish Councils to fill the void. The Community Self-Help Scheme is described as a response by the County Council to requests to empower and support town and parish councils across Suffolk to carry out small local maintenance tasks in their communities.

Now set aside the fact that, as a Parish Council, we’d really rather not do that, but they explain that;

The limitations on local authority budgets means that Suffolk County Council prioritises its funding and its focus on maintaining a safe network for all users. As a result, we are not able to undertake the extra works which town and parish councils would like to see being done to maintain and improve the look of their areas.

Now, you’re probably thinking what I’m thinking, that would be things like traffic calming, or something vaguely infrastructure related. But no, they go on to provide a handy list of the range of works that Town and Parish Councils might like to take on;

• Sign cleaning
• Fingerpost cleaning/painting/repair
• Tree pruning/branch removal
• Hedge cutting/pruning
• Siding out of footways, or paths (removing encroaching grass and weeds)
• Grass verge cutting
• Weed killing/weed removal
• Developing verge reserves

It is my understanding that Suffolk County Council will retain legal responsibility for maintaining the road network to a satisfactory standard, a point they emphasise;

Suffolk County Council, as the highway authority, has a duty to uphold and protect the rights of the public to use and enjoy all highways for which it is responsible. 

Suffolk County Council, as the highway authority, remains bound by statute (Highways Act 1980) to maintain the highway network in a safe condition. The County Council sets out in its policies the level of service it will provide to discharge its duty to maintain.

So, why should I, or my fellow parish councillors, seek to take up their generous offer? After all, if anything were to go wrong, and volunteers found to have carried out the work in a manner considered inappropriate by Suffolk County Council (who have every incentive to pass the buck), we become liable - Suffolk County Council require the signing of an indemnity should we seek to do any work.

I’m not sure that I see the benefits outweighing the risks to the Parish Council.

Funnily enough, I did once clean a road sign in the Parish, as it was annoying me, but if I had had to fill in a bunch of paperwork, and ensure that the Parish Council had £5,000,000 worth of public liability insurance, I’m not sure I’d have bothered. In truth, I have no idea how much that level of public liability insurance costs, but it’s an additional cost, and duplicates the insurance that Suffolk County Council already hold.

And does anyone really expect that a Parish Council, run by volunteers, can achieve the same economies of scale as a County Council, with its trained professionals and lawyers? Consider me a sceptic.

So, I may sneak out and clean the odd road sign in future. But it may be in the guise of a concerned citizen, rather than as a parish councillor. You can’t be too careful, after all...

Mid Suffolk elections 2019 - a time of unexpected nervousness and high drama...

On Wednesday, I had made time to listen to an East Anglian Daily Times podcast, previewing the local elections across Suffolk. The presenters had concluded that Mid Suffolk was likely to be the least interesting of the five contests and, to be honest, I didn't really have grounds to disagree. A notional majority of fourteen on the newly trimmed thirty-four seat authority, and only really the Greens and the Liberal Democrats - both plucky but seriously under-resourced - standing in their way.

It turned out slightly differently...

When the early results started coming in from across the country on Thursday night and the early hours of Friday, it became apparent that the Conservative vote had melted down. But, and this was an important "but", it did seem that there were serious campaigns being run in those places. That wasn't entirely true in Mid Suffolk. Yes, in our held and target seats, campaigns were being run, and in many wards, if you didn't want to vote Conservative, you had very few options - half of the seats were Conservative vs A N Other - but still...

By the time I woke up on Friday morning, the sheer horror of overnight events must have been beginning to dawn on local Conservatives, and, as the very much paper candidate in Claydon & Barham, a two member ward with two Conservative candidates and a Green, it was beginning to dawn on me that a most unlikely outcome was not entirely impossible.

The count started at 9 a.m., and as the ballot papers had been verified overnight, there must already have been some unease in Conservative circles, as it turned out.

Things started to go sour early, with Bacton going to the Greens - goodbye Conservative Housing portfolio holder - by nearly 2:1, the Green canddiate having painted the sheep on his smallholding with "Vote Andy". It wasn't even close, and when Ringshall & Battisford went Green soon after, I did begin to wonder.

And then it became clear that this was going to be pretty bloody for the Conservatives, when their leader, Nick Gowrley, bit the dust, losing to our very own Keith Scarff by 114. Now, Keith has lost so many elections at District and County levels by agonisingly small margins that I seriously wondered why he does this to himself, but he got himself a proper scalp. He'll be a very good councillor for the south end of Stowmarket.

The notional Conservative majority was now eight, and only six seats had been declared...

Fressingfield went Tory (no real surprise there), and I lost in Claydon & Barham by 290 (the Green got within 155 of the County's Police and Crime Commissioner!). As a paperless candidate, resident outside the ward, I'd gained 35% of the vote. The game was, most definitely, on...

Three more holds, Kathy Guthrie and Matthew Hicks for the Conservatives in Debenham anjd Hoxne & Worlingworth respectively, and John Field in Blakenham for us with 51.7% of the vote, and then the result which made me think that no overall control was a real possibility, with a Green gain of one of the seats in the north Stowmarket ward of Chilton.

Notional Conservative majority now six...

Onehouse's veteran Green councillor won handily and then Eye returned its expected Conservative, but only after a scare. The Returning Officer had called the candidates together to advise that the Liberal Democrat candidate, Tim Glenton, had narrowly won. And then he hadn't, losing by forty-nine (I'm guessing that a bundle check undid the original verdict).

The Conservatives held Walsham-le-Willows and Stonham, Penny Otton, our Group Leader, was safely returned in Rattlesden with 64% of the votes. The two member ward of Haughley, Stowupland & Wetherden returned the two expected Greens with majorities of around 1,000 apiece, Rickinghall returned Conservative Jessica Fleming (who clearly divides her time between Cabot Cove and mid-Suffolk), although her sole opponent (Labour) got within 200 votes.

Another Green gain in Thurston, and then a result which seemed at first amazing but turned out to have rather more significance than anyone might have imagined, as my successor as Local Party Treasurer, David Child, lost by one to the sitting Conservative. Now, my suspicion is that there was no campaign in the central Stowmarket ward of St Peter's, but I'm a bit out of touch, so I'll put it down to bad luck.

The notional Conservative majority was now done to four. But they did have the Independent in Combs Ford, who'd been a portfolio holder in the outgoing Conservative administration. So, it was still six really...

And then, Gislingham went Green, and the Conservatives lost another to the Greens in the newly created Stow Thorney ward - everything east of the railway line in Stowmarket.

Mid Suffolk was notionally a no overall control authority!

Palgrave returned the expected Conservative but we were still to hear from Needham Market, a Liberal Democrat stronghold for thirty years and Ros's old District seat between 1991 and 1995 (yes, it all started there). I knew that the Conservatives hadn't campaigned but still, it's the Conservatives and I'm used to bad news. We couldn't have lost, could we? But no, we hadn't, and Mike Norris and his new running mate, Steve Phillips, were very comfortably voted in by a 2:1 margin.

That left Stradbroke & Laxfield (safe Conservative and with the former Green candidate not running) and the two member ward of Elmswell & Woolpit, notionally split with one Green and one Conservative... who lost by more than two hundred!

And so, the carnage was over, leaving the Mid Suffolk Conservatives headless and out of control, with key leadership figures gone, along with their seemingly impregnable majority.

The final outcome - Conservatives 16 (minus 8), Greens 12 (plus 7), Liberal Democrats 5 (plus 1), Independent 1 - leaves the council absolutely hung, unless Gerard Brewster, the Independent, swaps sides. I don't know if he will, indeed I strongly suspect that he won't, but from the comments I've heard, the Conservatives hope to hang on with the casting vote of the Chair. One vote switched or extra in St Peter's ward and a coin toss, and we would have seen possibly the first ever Green/Liberal Democrat coalition administration, a point that the Green Leader, Andrew Stringer openly stated as being the likely outcome afterwards.

The voting shares are a cause for thought though;

• Conservatives - 40.68% (thirty-two candidates)
• Greens - 34.00% (twenty-one candidates)
• Liberal Democrats - 17.69% (19 candidates)
• Labour - 4.30% (9 candidates)
• Independents - 3.00% (2 candidates)
• UKIP - 0.32% (1 candidate)

We're back in third place, having come second across the District in the 2017 County elections. All credit to the local Greens - they appear to have swallowed whole the classic ALDC playbook and they're very persistent - but it could be argued that, were we to be more ambitious, it could have been us.

From a proportionality perspective the result reasonably reflects the votes cast, for the vote share, if applied proportionately, would have generated a result;

Conservatives 14, Greens 12, Liberal Democrats 6, Labour 1, Independent 1

FPTP saves the Conservatives again, though.

The conclusions I draw from the results are as follows;

1. In this instance, an anti-Conservative pact, albeit a very informal, possibly accidental one, worked. The absence of Labour, UKIP and any corps of independents helped, and you're unlikely to replicate that in many places. We have a joint group on Suffolk County Council and Mid Suffolk has two relatively friendly groups at District level.
2. Labour simply don't exist in rural districts like Mid Suffolk, and even where they were the only opponents to Conservatives, they rarely did well.
3. Our local Conservatives don't campaign between elections - they seldom have to - but when circumstances combine as they did on Thursday, they are extremely vulnerable as they seem unable, or possibly too arrogant, to respond here. Again, I don't suspect that's the case in a lot of other places.
4. Whilst UKIP didn't play any significant role in Mid Suffolk, their absence saved the Conservatives from a far worse drubbing. I suspect that even I might have won had they contested Claydon & Barham, for example.

And so, the apparently least interesting contest in Suffolk turned out to be the most dramatic, even on a night of drama across the county. And, for the first time in nearly a decade, Liberal Democrats were not counting their losses and mourning their disappointments. We nearly ended up with a gain of three, but we have something to work towards for 2023, and thoughts now turn to winning back Bosmere and gaining Stowmarket South in the 2021 County elections - bearing in mind the possibility of revised boundaries in the meantime.

We've got some of our mojo back, the Greens have the wind in their sails, and the world looks like a very different place all of a sudden...

An unfortunately timed planning application...

Early April, with nominations for the District and Parish Councils closed, and a sense of hiatus, as we wait to see who our new District Councillors might be - Creeting St Peter has moved from the old Stowupland Ward to a new, two-member, Needham Market Ward. And then, a somewhat unexpected event, a planning application that impacts directly on the village core.

The key roads in the village are three in number. Pound Road, which becomes Creeting Lane as it leaves the village, runs through the middle, and is our connection to the outside world in both directions - north towards Stowupland, south towards Stowmarket and Needham Market. Two roads runs broadly eastwards off it, The Lane from the centre of the village, and a private road to Roydon Hall Farm about 150 yards further north. The U-shape that they form encloses an area of meadow, access to which is only possible through a house on Pound Road called, aptly, Meadows.

The planning application is an interesting one, seeking to demolish “Meadows” and replace it on the site with five four-bedroomed houses - executive homes, I guess you’d call them. The meadow is to be left untouched, although the design of the application is such that the option of extending into the meadow (which is much larger) remains open.

Five houses isn’t very much, I hear you say, and in that sense, you’d be right. Except that there are only seventy or so houses in the village, many of which are single storey and certainly smaller than four bedrooms. In addition, the village is designated as non-viable by the District Council, lacking as it does any facilities or services. 

It was clear that this was going to be controversial, and it was agreed that an Extraordinary Parish Council would be needed. Social media (yes, we have well established village Facebook and WhatsApp groups) was already abuzz, especially as the meadow borders many village homes.

As Chair, my job was to remain calm, work with our Clerk to organise a meeting and invite residents to take part and make their voices heard. There was only one minor complication - I wasn’t going to be available to take the chair due to a prior engagement. It was all slightly awkward.

Luckily, as previously mentioned, my Vice Chair is perfectly capable, as is our Clerk, and so, having indicated what I thought needed doing in advance, I left it to my colleagues to handle things.

The report from the meeting was interesting. Twenty-three residents had turned out for the meeting, or in other words, twenty-two more than we usually get, and there was some quite robust, and well-founded, criticism of the proposed development. A view was taken as to a formal response from the Parish Council, and Richard, my Vice Chair, set to work afterwards drafting our submission to the District Council.

It was an impressive effort, and the follow up was just what you would hope for, with engagement with our District Councillor (who added his own elegantly drafted suggestions) and all those who participated in the meeting. Frankly, I can’t see that I could have done a better job.

And so, Creeting St Peter Parish Council Fulfilled its obligations as a statutory consultee. That doesn’t sound very dramatic, or big, or important, but to the residents of the village, it is a demonstration of what we do, quietly, meeting after meeting. It also, I hope, reassures them that the Parish Council is in good hands, which is important to me and my colleagues.

And now we await the response of the District Council. They haven’t always been seen to serve us well, particularly in terms of enforcement, but they have a District Plan, a five year supply of housing plots, and the law on their side.

Let’s hope that they see it our way...

And, in Creeting St Peter election news...

Nominations closed on 3 April, and I was somewhat relaxed about my likely fate. After all, my colleagues were all thoroughly capable so, were the worst to happen (a contested election and defeat), Creeting St Peter Parish Council would be in good hands. I did at least know that my nomination papers had been successfully filed which, as it turned out, put me at a distinct advantage.

For, when dawn broke the next day (or at least not that long afterwards), it turned out that I had delivered two of the three nomination forms. From a personal perspective, not having to fight an election was probably preferable, as I would have had to campaign properly - at least one leaflet and some door knocking - but from the perspective of local democracy, it’s a bit disappointing.

I could try to convince myself that the lack of competition is due to my winning personality and glorious leadership, but you can really go too far in assuming that. It is more likely that nobody cares enough to run against you. Perhaps somewhere between the two poles is more accurate, who knows?

And so, I have (up to) another four years in office. Admittedly, I can’t currently see the circumstances whereby I fail to see out the term, but I’m a statistician, and in my world, there is no such thing as certainty. I also have a validly constituted Council, as we need a minimum of three councillors to function, and we have three.

Will I continue as Chair? Well, that isn’t entirely up to me, although I’d be happy to do so if that suits my colleagues. My current Vice Chair is thoroughly capable of stepping up, although there is a slight complication in that he didn’t submit a nomination paper. So, on that point, we’ll see.

I do have some ambitions for the next four years though. I’d like to improve the way we communicate - we’re a bit “earthbound” in terms of how we reach out to residents - and we could do more to engage them in our work on their behalf.

I’d also like to do something about the street lights. They are elderly, increasingly unreliable and expensive to run. Yes, there are only ten of them, but they are one of the few bits of infrastructure that we have control over, and they don’t go unnoticed. I’ve had some thoughts on how we might achieve something, but really need to focus on that now.

Other than that, I just want us to run our Parish well, maintaining a strong relationship with the Parochial Church Council and doing what we can to improve the fabric of our community. It’s not big, or particularly clever, but in a world where people have seemingly little faith in politicians, even Parish Councils can be a force for good, reminding people that they can make a difference.

Wish me luck!…

Welcome to the new politics, even if it does look sadly familiar...

I’ve been a Liberal, and then Liberal Democrat, for a long time - thirty-five years now. And, whilst I would prefer to deny it, I am a bit tribal in my politics. I probably cut those of my political family a bit more slack than I might otherwise do, possibly because I know them better. It’s also possibly because I acknowledge that, as a liberal, life is complicated, and people’s motivations are predicated on life experiences that I may very well be utterly unaware of. And, I know that people are flawed, myself included.

Political parties, whilst apparently monolithic on the outside, are not wholly discrete actors. There are members of all political parties who might credibly find a home elsewhere and, in any event, political parties vary their positions in response to a range of external stimuli.

And it’s for these reasons that I’ve seldom remarked on Party defections with anything other than regret.

One of my older political acquaintances announced this week that he was joining Change UK, and took some flak for doing so. I was sorry to see him go, but respect his right to do so. He has his reasons, and I’m sure that he didn’t take the decision lightly. And, depending on what happens, he may return one day. I’d like to think that we could make that easier, rather than harder.

Politics, particularly politics of the political centre, requires the building of coalitions of interest in order to achieve change and, as liberals (as opposed to centrists), we should have a clearer understanding of that than most. Thus, whilst wanting to maintain a liberal political force in British politics, we should show a little bit of tolerance for those who agree with much of our agenda but don’t feel that they are liberals for whatever reason. We will, at some point, need their votes.

Sadly, the news that Change UK have produced a (no longer) secret strategy paper which proposes a slow and steady strangulation of the Liberal Democrats suggests that they don’t see it the same way. The document, if genuine, looks like a classic “new-entrant to a business sector” paper where, in order to achieve viability, you have to drive somebody else out. And, in economics, that might work. In politics, especially FPTP politics, it’s rather less likely.

What it has achieved is to cast suspicion on the motives of a new political party which already lacks a coherent philosophical base. What is Change UK in favour of, as opposed to being against? Are their leaders able to coalesce around ideas because they’re in favour of them, rather than picking some popular policies from a competitor as a form of “sheep’s clothing”? To be blunt, I’m not convinced.

They are, in political terms, a threat for Liberal Democrats (obviously). They are fishing for voters in a similar pool, they will compete for limited media coverage, and they have the advantage of newness, regardless of whether that is justified or not. But, unless they can offer something genuinely unique, their only prospects for long-term survival are electoral reform or a collapse of the Liberal Democrats.

The former means enlarging the coalition for electoral reform, rather than cannibalising it, and the latter requires them to consistently outpoll the Liberal Democrats and make inroads in local government. The latter is surprisingly difficult, as Liberal Democrats found out in 2011-2015 - low membership equates to poor numbers of candidates, thus little likelihood of significance. It also requires a core of people who know how to run a campaign - basic stuff like getting nomination signed and submitted, for example. They will need to find people to do that, which means that this round of local elections probably came far too soon.

But they’re also going to have to come up with some policy ideas now, and as many new political parties discover, that’s where the problems start. New members in the early stages see a party as a blank canvass for their own aspirations, and as it becomes more obvious that they will need to compromise, you start to lose people - the “that’s not the Party I aspired to” dilemma.

So, we shall see. At this stage, I don’t see much to tempt me, but you can and should never say never...

A gentle reminder that underlying dread is not a new thing

It’s been an unusually hectic week on Planet Bureaucrat, but I did manage to find time to join Ros at the launch of a new exhibition at the National Archives on Wednesday evening.

In many ways, it takes reminding that, just thirty years ago, the two superpowers and their allies faced off across the centre of Europe, nuclear weapons blatantly targeted at each other’s centres of population and industry. And, whilst by then, Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts to reform the Soviet Union were interesting, there was little to suggest to most of us that the whole communist edifice was going to collapse catastrophically and suddenly any time soon.

I’m old enough to remember “War Games”, the programme too shocking (and truthful) to broadcast, which demonstrated in rather unnerving fashion the effects of a nuclear weapon dropped on central London. The fact that such an event seemed entirely possible, if not probable, hung over political debate, even if there was a general consensus that, if it really came down to it, surely nobody would be insane enough to actually push the nuclear button. It would be mutually assured destruction, right?

One of the most interesting exhibits was an extract from a speech drafted for the Queen in the event of an attack. Reading it, you could imagine her voice, stoic but slightly trembling, attempting to reassure - probably unsuccessfully. There was also a recreation of a shelter under the stairs, complete with tins of Fray Bentos and Vim because, as we all knew, in the event of a nuclear attack, Vim would be critical in restoring civilisation afterwards. Yes, we might all be glowing, but the smoking remains of our homes would be clean.

The National Archives are something of a hidden treasure, tucked away next to the Thames at Kew, but their exhibitions and events are fascinating, given the records and documents they hold. They’re a cracking research facility too, with devoted, enthusiastic and knowledgeable staff. 

So, if you’re in the area, do drop in, you’re bound to find something of interest...

Ros in the Lords: Historic Rights of Way

Yesterday saw a Grand Committee debate on historic rights of way, linked to the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000. It would be fair to say that the commitments therein to recording all existing rights of way is unpopular with the Minister...

Baroness Scott of Needham Market

I would like to thank my noble friend Lord Greaves for securing today’s debate, for setting out the issues so clearly, and for his tireless advocacy of public access and rights of way.

Between 1993 and 2005, I was a county councillor in Suffolk and, for most of that time, I chaired the public rights of way committee, so I have got quite some form in this area. I remember reading a summing up by Lord Denning in which he said that nothing excites an Englishman so much as a footpath - I have always thought that said a lot about English men.

The cut-off date for claiming these historic rights of way might have seemed a good way off at the time the legislation went through, but it is now coming in near horizon. There are two points I wish to make. The first concerns the reliance on the voluntary sector to make sure that the claims are made before the cut-off date. Groups such as the Ramblers do, and always have done, an amazing job, but they are volunteers, with all the limitations of time, money and expertise that that entails. There is a very strong reliance on local groups. Admittedly, they all know their own areas very well but, like all voluntary groups, their capacity will ebb and flow over time, with more or fewer members and so on. I just do not think it is right that the capacity of the volunteers should determine whether an ancient right of way is extinguished - that just does not feel right to me.

My second concern is around the capacity of local government to deliver within this timeframe. It is well known that council finances are now at breaking point. The legal teams that have to deal with public rights of way claims are now often part of more generalist teams, and they have to compete with areas such as child protection, which - absolutely naturally - take priority. As we have heard, the current caseload is around 4,500. I suspect that, by 2026, the backlog will be so enormous that it will pretty much negate the whole idea of providing certainty for landowners - this will just drag on for decades. Therefore, there should be common cause rather than pitting one side against the other.

I have a final point to make on local authority budgets. The evidence base for historic rights of way is often found within documents such as tithe maps, enclosure awards and so on, many of which are held in local archives. Local archives themselves are coming under enormous pressure as council budgets are squeezed. I am a board member of the National Archives and we have oversight of all this. In some councils, the situation is very serious. One contingency that many are looking at is a significant reduction in the opening hours of local archives, which would make it even more difficult for local voluntary groups to gather the evidence that they need. 

Under the existing legislation, the Secretary of State can extend the cut-off date by five years, and that leeway was put into statute with a purpose. I believe that, with the points that have been made, and to which I have added - the situation in local government, the absence of the secondary legislation and the collapse of the Discovering Lost Ways project - a very good case has been made for delay and, preferably, an entire review.

Creeting St Peter - once more unto the breach, dear friends...

It’s that time once again, when a parish councillor’s thoughts turn to the question of re-election. Given my occasionally erratic presence on Creeting St Peter Parish Council - I’ve been co-opted twice and resigned once, so the electoral cycle appears not to have taken - I’ve only previously put in one set of nomination papers, eight years ago, so it’s been a case of making sure I got the forms printed, completed and signed.

Fortunately, despite many distractions, I managed to get it done this week, and so wandered around the corner from my conveniently located office to Endeavour House, the glass and steel base for both the County and District Councils, to hand three forms over and make myself an official candidate.

And so, hopefully, the campaign starts here. Well, I say “campaign”, but we haven’t had a contested election here in recent memory, and there are no burning issues likely to provoke a mass defenestration of the serving councillors, so it’s possible that all candidates will be elected unopposed.

In some ways, that’s a positive endorsement of the work we’ve done over the past four years, but in truth, whilst I do think that we’ve been pretty effective, I suspect that most residents are just not that engaged. After all, it’s hard to claim that we have a significant impact on their day to day lives.

So, I await news of the close of nominations with a degree of equanimity. And, if there is a contest, my thoughts will turn to a leaflet...

What do you do when democracy fails you?

The reports that Nissan are about to announce the cancellation of their proposed plans to build the X-Trail in Sunderland have led to a degree of comment. There are those who have rather unkindly suggested that the good people of Sunderland are paying the price for believing what they were told during the referendum campaign about the rosy prospects for the country outside the EU.

But, in a complex world, it is easy to believe those whose narrative reflects your perceived experience. After all, they’re telling you what you want to hear, feeding into years of unhappiness.

No, if such an announcement comes to pass, it will be a matter of some sadness for a community that has been forced to reinvent itself with little support from central government, and has had the guts ripped out of it by people who knew little of life in communities like Sunderland, or in so many other former heavy industrial towns and cities of the North.

The solution for the loss of heavy industry was two-fold - encourage foreign investment to create skilled jobs on the basis that we acted as a jumping off point into the European Single Market, and relocate public sector jobs to now struggling locations - Merthyr Tydfil, Bootle, East Kilbride, to name but three. The latter addressed two primary goals - reducing the cost of the Civil Service by removing tranches of work from the expensive South East, and creating jobs in deprived areas.

Reductions in the Civil Service paybill, combined with contracting out of more functions of government, have been a blow, and the current move towards reducing estates and focusing on regional hubs in bigger towns and cities won’t help. But, more importantly, putting foreign owned business facilities on the wrong side of an emerging tariff barrier risks jobs too.

In terms of Nissan, the signing of the new Japan/EU Free Trade Agreement offers three choices. First, with the tariff on car exports reduced, cars can be shipped to Europe directly from Japan. It doesn’t mean that they will, especially if manufacturing costs in Europe are competitive with those in Japan. Second, there is the option of moving car production into the remaining European Union, to benefit from remaining within the Single Market space.

It’s the third choice that is exercising some. At some point, Japanese car manufacturers operating in the United Kingdom were offered assurances by the United Kingdom Government. We don’t know what they were, but it might be reasonable to assume that the question of financial risk was at the heart of them.

Can the United Kingdom really offer an open-ended commitment like that, and how many other foreign investors would want to strike similar deals in return for staying in the country? That’s a challenge, and one which got little in the way of calm attention.

I don’t know how much of British industry is now owned, actually or effectively, by foreign investors, or how much of their production is sold within the EU-27, but I suspect that such companies employ a lot of people, many of whom will have been persuaded to vote Leave, even where their employers publicly acknowledged the problems that Brexit would cause them. The argument that, “they’re only saying that, they’ve invested too much in Derby/Oxford/Sunderland to move now”, is only valid where the impact of tariff barriers is, or is seen as likely to be, less than the cost of new plant and machinery somewhere in the European Union. And Slovak labour costs weigh that calculation against, say, Sunderland.

It could be that, in voting to leave the European Union, Sunderland inadvertently voted for the world to leave it. The bitter consequences of democracy, I fear, but with choices come consequences. Nobody ever said that they had to be desirable ones, but now is not the time for triumphalism. It never will be...

Attempting not to yield to despair...

There is a bargain to be had in public service. In return for my loyalty and faith that what I do has value, the Government runs things with a degree of competence. I may not agree with what they choose to do, or to prioritise, but they are the elected ones, and what they get through Parliament goes, at least until someone else comes along and changes it.

This is not complex, although I accept that, for those of you who haven’t given more than three decades to professional public service, it might smack of “following orders” - and we know where that can lead.

But, assuming that the Government adheres to a set of democratic rules, and obeys the law, the Civil Service, and thus individual civil servants, carry out the tasks assigned by Ministers without obstruction or dispute. And, if you can’t do that, you quit.

Ministers need to be able to presume upon that compact, for they rely on civil servants for accurate, dispassionate information, for their best judgement on how any particular aspect of public policy might be delivered, and for honest appraisal of the available options given the resources available. And, despite whatever personal doubts they may have, our public servants deliver that.

But I sense that, as events and, increasingly, social media, expose lack of knowledge, false assumptions and, occasionally, outright untruths, the question of competence becomes more challenging to presume. The ability to fact check politicians means that, if what they say is demonstrably contrary to the facts, you wonder if they are lying or ignorant of the truth. Either brings questions of competence and good faith into stark relief.

And, regardless of which side of any debate you find yourself, for decision making to be optimal, you need either to understand the consequences of particular decisions, or be willing to accept the risks incurred by a lack of that understanding. More important, for an informed democracy, the wider polis requires access to accurate facts and data.

Now, as a public servant, you cannot fall into the trap of thinking that your political lords and masters are malicious liars, for such an acceptance makes it difficult for you to serve with a clear conscience. But is it worse to believe that they actually don’t know enough to make good decisions and, when confronted with facts, deny them credence?

I admit, I worry about such things. Professionally, I crave competence over flair, understanding over ideology, empathy over bombast. I like to think that, where difficult decisions are to be taken, the impacts of each option are carefully assessed.

But Brexit seems to be immune to that sort of quiet reason, and increasingly the debate within our body politic is fractious, angry, unthinking. The space for people to have honest doubts about the issues we face as a nation appears to be shrinking by the day, and there are good grounds for doubt or, at the very least, some serious philosophical musing on the direction our country should take.

Parliament must accept some responsibility here. The debate has been tactical, rather than strategic, designed to get the players to the end of the week still part of the game. Opposing things, rather than actually calling for a specific, detailed course of action, unpopular though that might be.

Meanwhile, I’ll be at my desk, possibly under it, but doing my job with a slightly unsettling sense of dread. But it will be alright, won’t it?...

Experiments with Instagram

Alright, so I’ve written some fine words about social media, which rather means that I ought to practice as I preach. And it dawns on me that I can dredge up something that I had experimented with in the past, i.e. hyper local reporting.

My life is multi-faceted. Whilst I am discouraged from talking about my work, for what are probably good reasons (despite the fact that I am surveyed by my employer each year, asking amongst other things whether or not I am proud to tell people that I work for it), the rest of my public existence is a bit obscure. Many of the things that I do are, in truth, hardly mainstream, but I like to think that most of them are valuable in their way, and contribute to the maintenance of civil society.

So, Instagram, allied to my Facebook and Twitter accounts, offers a means to shed a little light on the life of a Parish Council Chair, for example. It might also allow me to reach out to members regarding my Party activities, which seems like a good thing too.

There are some rules;

• no including other people without their permission, so I won’t be reporting on other people’s activities unless they are a matter of public record
• no release of confidential or secret information

I’ll probably come up with some other rules as I experiment, so the restrictions on the material I publish may expand. We’ll see.

So, if you are on Instagram, look out for me at honladymark (just like my Twitter handle)...

FIRC: thoughts on getting a message out there

It’s now the third year of my three-year term as a member of Federal International Relations Committee, and regular readers will be aware that it hasn’t always entirely gone to plan. I would argue that we haven’t (formally) communicated as well as we might, and having proposed and had accepted a communications plan which didn’t really take off - it did to some extent rely on my enthusiasm as Secretary, and a sense of buy-in which didn’t entirely materialise - I do feel some sense of responsibility.

And so, this week, I have been stirred to think about it again. Ironically, this had nothing to do with events at Federal International Relations Committee itself, but instead has been inspired by the online course that I’m taking, “Diplomacy in the 21st Century”. This week’s module has been about digital diplomacy, with particular reference to the use of social media by diplomats and ministries.

One particularly prominent suggestion is that, for such diplomacy to work, it has to be active, rather than passive. My sense is that FIRC combines two ‘misfortunes’, the first being that the intention to use the Party website for communication with members is doomed by the inability of the Party to maintain a reasonably up to date website due to a lack of human resource.

For example, can you find the minutes of Federal Committee meetings on the website? I can’t. Or identify the members of any Committee other than the Federal Board? Now you might reasonably suggest that such matters are of little import to outsiders, the sort of people who might seek the website to find out what we think, or what we’re campaigning for, and I’m sympathetic to that. What resources there are are certainly best targeted towards activities to help get Liberal Democrats elected.

But, if you want an informed democracy, you need to be able to access information and, if you want to influence the work of the Party, you need to be able to reach decision makers. I would argue that we make that quite hard.

I am, I fear, in danger of digressing though. So, how can FIRC reach out to potentially interested Liberal Democrat members if the Party website isn’t an option? The obvious answer is to create its own social media presence, something that Party committees haven’t done much, if at all. And this offers up a new question - how do you do this, and can it be done to a sufficient standard?

Party committees tend towards a certain age profile, one that is less enthusiastic about social media, and probably less likely to take up video chats, Instagram or any of the other cutting edge media. And yet, if you want to bring in a new generation of activists (and, whisper it quietly, bureaucrats), you have to reach out in a manner that will grab their attention/interest.

Ironically, a few of my FIRC colleagues are quite active on Twitter, Robert Woodthorpe Browne (@robertbrowne1), our Chair, being one of them. He’s a bit more combative than I am (bureaucrat, see), but entertaining in an occasionally frustrated way (and who can blame him?). Adrian Hyyrylainen-Trett, my successor as Secretary, is prominent on Facebook, albeit that his life is far more glamorous than mine and thus more obviously interesting.

But, for the most part, social media can feel a bit like a ‘contractual obligation’ than a valued communication tool, and if we are to reach out effectively, we need to have a team approach to doing so.

So, here’s a question for my readers. If FIRC had to pick one social media tool to reach out, what would it be, and what should be prioritised? Do let me know in the comments...

If the still voice of despair can be replaced by faith...

It’s been a trying day on Planet Bureaucrat for reasons not worth expanding upon but, at the end of the day, one must put it all into perspective. And music can help that, so here’s something to lift the spirits, some German Church music from 1643, “Von Gott will ich nicht lassen”, by Heinrich Schütz.

https://youtu.be/m3wAn76SA0c

My favourite part is possibly the fourth verse...

Auch wenn die Welt vergehet

mit ihrem stolzen Pracht,

wed’r Ehr noch Gut bestehet

welchs vor war gross geacht

wit werden nach dem Tod 

tief in der Erd begraben,

wenn wir geschlafen haben

will uns erwecken Gott.

The world may disappear

with its proud splendour

Neither glory nor goods last

What we once thought mattered,

may after our death
be buried deep in the ground,

If we sleep,

God will wake us.

Daniel Kawczynski - a sign that our politics is in critical condition?

There is much talk of treason in the air, most of it from people who define treason as being “a view or act which doesn’t concur with mine”. For, whilst I may disagree with those who want Brexit, I cannot easily conclude that they don’t have what they perceive to be the country’s best interests at heart. Wrong, maybe, but not malicious.

Yes, there are exceptions, I suspect, but they are only likely to be a very small proportion of those who still believe.

All of us want the best for the United Kingdom, most of us support the notion of Parliamentary democracy (even if many have a limited concept of what that might mean in reality). But young Daniel Kawczynski appears to think that it is acceptable to approach a foreign government, seeking to persuade it to oppose the settled will of the Parliament of which he is a member.

It does lead you to ask three questions;

1. In whose interests does he think he is acting?
2. Why should a foreign government allow itself to be overtly influenced by a Parliamentarian of another country?
3. Why the silence from those who claim that Brexit is intended to return sovereignty to this country?

Perhaps we have reached the end stage, where the delivery of Brexit is so urgent that it overrides one’s loyalty to the Parliamentary democracy which Brexit is intended to restore? Principles, what principles?

I am reminded, as so often over the past three years that our politics has been reduced to the base calculation that the means by which an outcome is achieved  don’t matter, that misrepresentation and exaggeration are perfectly justified if you win.

Trust, integrity, the notion of public policy making as a consensual, thoughtful exercise, these seem to be dead letters, with the damage to our democracy only too obvious. If you are an ordinary voter, seeking evidence upon which to base your voting choice, you’ve got no chance. Easier to appeal to the tribe and trash the opposition, whoever they are.

As a Parish Councillor, if I mislead my electorate and get caught, it would be better to resign, as I have to live amongst them. And yes, the absence of party politics means that the tribal element is missing, thus reducing the sense of conflict to personalities rather than ideology, but I have to rely on demonstrating my integrity and general goodwill. I also need to persuade, rather than browbeat.

It’s so much more satisfying...

Creeting St Peter: a little light reading matter

One of the great worries of any Parish Council, and perhaps especially for its Chair, is the prospect of housing development. Increasingly, we see speculative applications for housing, on sites that might not otherwise be obviously suitable, because the local District Council doesn’t have a five year housing land supply set aside. In reality, even if it does, the onus is on the District to prove that it meets the requirements as laid down by the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government.

Here in Mid Suffolk, we were told last summer that the District was in good shape, having carried out a lot of work to locate suitable sites, calculate likely building rates and future proof their estimates against an expected increase in the Local Housing Need, as calculated by the Housing Delivery Test. At the time, I questioned whether there was enough elbow room to survive an expected increase, and was reassured that, whilst it might be a bit tight, Mid Suffolk was expected to remain compliant.

As it turned out, the Planning Team were wrong. The increase was rather more than they had expected, and their numbers weren’t perhaps as robust as they thought. At the first challenge, a planning inspector found against the Council’s confident claim that the five year supply was there, and the fears of a number of  our neighbouring and near neighbouring Parishes were realised.

It was back to the drawing board for the District Council, and they have now launched a consultation, inviting interested parties, as set out in the NPPF (small and large developers, land promoters, private and public land owners, infrastructure providers (such as utility providers, highways, etc), upper tier authorities (county councils) and neighbouring authorities with adjourning or cross-boundary sites) to comment on the Draft Mid Suffolk Housing Land Supply Position Statement for 2018/2019.

You’ll notice that this doesn’t include Parish Councils, although it has been sent to us, and I do feel a duty to read it.

I suspect that this might have something to do with the likely scale of anger that, having had our hopes of relief raised, they were then dashed so soon.

Now I will admit that, as it currently stands, there seems little prospect of large scale development in Creeting St Peter. At least, if the planning envelope is to be respected, there isn’t. But, with Stowmarket having already annexed part of the Parish to build (one day) a business and enterprise park, and with other parishes having suffered similar losses for new housing, one has reason to fear being swallowed up by our increasingly urban neighbour.

Mid Suffolk is expected to ensure that 590 new dwellings are built each year to handle the increasing demand - partly societal but also a measure of Suffolk’s population growth relative to the country. They’ve got to go somewhere, but with increasing pressure on schools, NHS facilities and infrastructure, there is increasing unhappiness at Parish level. If you’ve got a railway station, like Elmswell, Needham Market or Thurston, you can expect new housing. Even large villages with poor public transport, such as Stowupland, are seeing sizeable new developments. Combine that with the cuts imposed on County and District Councils, and the scope for problems is obvious.

I have a bad feeling about this...

Creeting St Peter: we may be small, but we’re perfectly formed...

It’s certainly a cold and frosty evening in the Creetings, but regardless, Parish Council got through, with me in the role of compère and continuity.

We weren’t at full strength due to illness and injury, but with the need to adopt a budget for 2019/20, and to set a precept, I was keen to get through the business briskly.

A very prompt start as the clock reached the half-hour, and we were off, racing through apologies, declarations of interest and applications for dispensations (none of the latter two, I’m pleased to note), before we adopted the minutes - it’s so much easier when Council read them in advance - allowing us to move on to the County and District Councillor reports.

As usual, Keith Welham had submitted, well in advance, his detailed report, which he added to with some last minute updates, and, as usual, we didn’t get a report from our County Councillor, although he had e-mailed a very last minute apology for absence.

We’ll miss Keith after the election, but boundary changes have separated Stowupland and Creeting St Peter, and he has not unreasonably chosen to contest the ward he lives in. Instead, we’ll have the two new councillors for Needham Market, who will hopefully be friendly.

We had already considered a draft budget in November, and with little need for alterations apparent, it was adopted without further discussion. This means that we’ll be seeking an increase in our share of the Council Tax which feels about right, close to the level of inflation.

There is little progress on the planning front, although we were slightly surprised to hear that the application to put signs up on the A1120 link road had been refused. It is, I admit, not something that bothered us either way, as it is more of a concern for residents of Cedars Park, but it is vaguely reassuring to know that the District Council don’t just wave everything through.

And that was pretty much that, apart from a few items of any other business, including the leak affecting Pound Road heading south from the village - particularly treacherous in icy conditions. Anglian Water rather need to do something about that...

The meeting was wrapped up in thirty-three minutes, in line with my stance that I’d rather have Councillors free to spend their time productively, and to enjoy their young families. As long as everyone has a meaningful opportunity to express themselves, and that we can discuss issues fully...

The Battle of Wounded Elbow

One of the more unpleasant aspects of this “growing old” malarkey is that bits of me start to fail or, at least, work less effectively than they used to. And that’s only to be expected, I suppose, what with all of the wear and tear that accrues from not having always paid a terrible amount of attention to my personal wellbeing.

Losing some weight helped a bit - the back is less of a problem, as are the knees - but my eyesight continues to deteriorate slowly but surely, and my eye tests are something to be approached with, if not apprehension, then at least an expectation of expense.

But for the past few weeks, my hitherto uncomplaining left elbow has been, well, grumbling. It is stiff, or sore, or both. Sometimes, the pain is around the joint, sometimes part way down the forearm, and occasionally nearer the shoulder. My gut instinct, and it’s such a male thing to do, is to dose it with ibuprofen and leave it to mend itself.

Ros is not impressed. She thinks that I should at least have it looked at by a physiotherapist - after all, what harm can it do, and it might even do some good. Naturally, I was slow to acknowledge her usual good sense, and put it off for a week. “It will get better and I don’t need to waste my time or that of a physiotherapist.”, was my evasive reasoning.

But it still hurts, and whilst it won’t kill me, it is a distraction, and so I have made an appointment for my very first ever physiotherapy session, next week. And whilst I fully expect to be told that I need to rest it, and possibly even do some exercises, what’s the worst that can happen...