I’ve been out of local government for nearly three and a half years. But I have continued to watch the continuing chain of messes being created within our Gloucestershire Boroughs and Districts. Usually because someone or a few people with power and with influence have personal ownership of and therefore investment in some ‘great’ idea. Ideas which are nearly always in some way about them, their career, their legacy or future. Wholly impractical ideas which are then misrepresented as being beneficial to the people they are actually responsible to. The people that they all represent.

There is some rich irony in the fact that lessons are never learned by these same people who have responsibilities not only to themselves, their jobs or their Political Parties.

Lessons are there to be learned through everything these public organisations do. They may appear to arrive in different form, but the same mistakes are being made time after time, over and over again.

Planning, for all the questions which surround its often arbitrary processes, has regrettably become the most day-to-day example of all that’s wrong in local government.

Yet the Local Planning Process only demonstrates what is wrong with the wider system itself.

The problem is only in small part due to laws and regulations, and actually more about the people who manage and implement government processes, their ideas, motives and yes, the ties that bind them to their ‘interpretations’ within the protectionist culture and environment in which they work.

Watching the Boots Corner fiasco unfold over recent months has been like reading a text-book example of what happens when Planners and their Political Masters get things wrong. What people experience when Councils come up with a ‘great idea’ to improve things, but overlook the biggest elephant in the room: What the real experience, impact and consequences will be for the people and businesses whose interests they are actually paid and elected to look after.

It doesn’t take many conversations with local business people, residents, employees and regular visitors from the local feeder Towns to know that these changes at Boots Corner are idealistic at best, but simply awful in practical terms.

The changes are having an impact not only on the Centre of Cheltenham itself, but are loading traffic onto the already congested main roads around the Town at rush hour, and now jamming back streets and almost certainly creating rat-runs unseen at every opportunity in between.

The change at Boots Corner is unnecessary. It’s not improving the Town Centre and nobody apart from the Planners and whoever on the Council they have convinced of the validity of this Scheme really has any idea what the real benefit of these changes are to anyone using Cheltenham Town Centre.

And that’s right now. Just wait until the long-awaited John Lewis Store opens its doors and visitor numbers really do burst through the lid.

Now don’t let anyone tell you that the Council is not aware of how people feel. If you follow local news, you cannot miss the disquiet that the changes in late June have raised. This is not Nimby-ism. It’s real people voicing genuine concern over the impact of poor decision making which is now having meaningful impact on their everyday lives.

The travesty is that instead of listening, and for fear of admitting being ‘wrong’, the Council is doubling down and now adding oversized flowerpots, cycle racks, benches, a lot of unhelpful white lines and yes, some artificial grass sat on the lump in between.

And there’s unlikely to be any mistake about the drawn-out nature of the timing of additions either.

Why? Well it’s all to give a repetitive sense to us all that this change is permanent. That when they tell us all that the trial was a success, that with hindsight it will feel like its permanence was always inevitable. That there was no option or reason to change their minds at any point in between.

But this simply isn’t true. And any tales you are told about decisions taking a long time to reverse in Council, or that a trial period must be seen through to its end to be valid are disingenuous at best.

There is no inevitability of confirmation for these changes at Boots Corner or indeed permanence of this change. It simply hinges on what the Officers and therefore the Councillors ultimately decide and however they choose to harvest and then interpret their ‘data’.

The fact is the Council could reinstate the pre-June road system within a few days if they really had doing what’s right for Cheltenham, in mind.

However, it is only fair that no Officer or Councillor be singled out and in some way blamed for what is happening in the Centre of Cheltenham right now.

The whole Government system is rotten with a protectionist and self-serving culture, only made worse by the quasi-bankrupt state of the Government and Public Sector, with austerity being a big part of the problem, but a significant way from being the cause.

But this in itself doesn’t mean that Cheltenham and indeed any of our Local Authorities cannot choose to be different.

The Council has the choice to be big about it. To listen. To gain respect from local people and businesses for trying something new but recognising it doesn’t work, for listening AND HEARING what is being said and quickly responding. To be adaptable to changing things that aren’t right and not get hung up at a personal level about what appearing to take a step back might look like.

Decisions are being made big and small within local authorities up and down the Country which have very little to do with with the people. And in case anyone isn’t sure, that’s the boss that Officers and Politicians ALL ultimately work for.

Locally the latest one is Boots Corner. In terms of direction, this one is definitely going the wrong way, and poor decisions which are having a real impact on daily life in Cheltenham are not the kind of change in local government that we all so badly need.

How about surprising us all and doing what’s actually right, rather telling us that’s what you are doing?

You can read some more of Adam’s writing about the realities of Local Government and the wider Public Sector here and here.

In amongst the din of the Brexit chaos, you may detect the odd snippet of news concerning the proposed reduction in the number of MP’s.

Under a supposed process of making representation more fair, by redrawing Parliamentary Constituency Boundaries, the current Government is seeking to complete the process began by David Cameron to reduce the number of Parliamentary Seats.

As has become normal practice with the Political Classes of today, the story focuses on what they want us all to hear. Not what they don’t want us to think.

Hear ‘balance’, hear ‘fair’, hear ‘equality in representation’.

Don’t hear ‘more people per MP. Don’t hear ‘greater distance between voters and their representatives’. Certainly don’t hear ‘redrawing the political geography of the Country to favour one political side’.

Its pretty normal for us all to have political allegiances of one kind or another. Thats the way that the UK has worked culturally for a long time. But whatever side we support, there is nothing positive to be gained by attempting to tip the balance of the electoral system to place one Party in front, with the indirect aim of ensuring that for the opposition, becoming a government will almost always be denied.

One of the greatest struggles of contemporary politicians is understanding why they don’t get support for their ideas and policies. They don’t consider that their policies and ideas might be wrong. They certainly don’t entertain the thought that they are so completely out of touch with the electorate that they represent, that they have lost their way from the pathway that they should be taking. That of ensuring the impact of policies and decisions, and therefore their consequences are considered for their impact upon us all.

Instead they have concluded that it is the system which is broken. It is the system that is wrong. Their solution being that the system should be fixed. That everything will be much better if they can ensure that their own side can achieve a guaranteed and majority win.

It doesn’t matter if its redrawing electoral boundaries, or introducing proportional representation or a derivative form of it. All these ideas are about gaining more control by dubious means, rather than simply doing the job that all of these politicians have been elected to do.

The problem is that each and every step that is taken in this way is ultimately making the disconnect, the disenfranchisement between us, the Government and the Establishment more distinct. It will not make things better. It will give voters even less of a chance to speak.

image thanks to unknown

I’ve written about televised leaders debates before and I continue to have doubts about their validity, and whether it is even possible for them to be truly fair.

With talk of another General Elections becoming ever frequent, probably because of Labours obsession with finding a way to cause one, it comes as little surprise that somebody, somewhere is obsessing about how people will feel in a very specific, but what will be painted as being a wholly comprehensive way..

That looking to ‘big up’ a certain point of view is a process of little more than confirmation bias by people with the public ear is no great shock. But it is ironic that the subject matter here is the focus of the media, where a lot of the symptoms or effects causing upset amongst not only young people but the wider population too, was generated in the first place.

No, there’s nothing wrong with young people being in favour with television debates. In fact, I defy anyone to suggest other than it is what we can all safely expect.

After all, TV and all forms of media are now to many representative of the world we live in. From that perspective alone, we would be foolish to overlook the way that to so many people the world of politics is now perceived.

What happens is we all forget or overlook one massive and inescapable truth when when the infinitesimally small, pure, unadulterated level of fact provided through these mediums is acknowledged and put to one side.

Every other bit of content on the news, on TV, on the internet and on social media isn’t real. Its words. Opinion. Spin. Someone else’s way of interpreting events in the world. It’s the way that other people want us all to see AND interpret what is going on around us. And even then what they say and what we hear may be very different things.

We have created the illusion of all illusions. Instead of measuring our life decisions with the facts hidden below the surface of this pretend veil, we are mistaking illusion for fact. We have fallen in to the trap of creating a parallel universe where nothing really exists except the many perceptions that we have differently as individuals. Perceptions that we experience as genuine which are misleading is about everything.

No, I do not blame young people or anyone living a normal life outside the bubble where this is all created for the misunderstanding, the frustration and yes, the injustice which sits in between. I don’t even blame those creating the problem from within it, because these are people who are so clearly lost from the impact and consequence of what they are doing, that they cannot really have any idea of what it all means.

The biggest problem in amongst all of this is that our political classes do not see the reality of what is going on and what this all really is. Despite it not being unreasonable that we should be able to expect all those holding elected office to be savvy enough to see the wood for the trees AND act upon it, they have become obsessed with making all this noise real. They simply overlook the responsibilities that they have to us all and obsess about what looks good when it is presented to us

Watch Politicians on Twitter. Observe them on Facebook. But above all take note of how little sense any of their answers or statements really make when they are asked reasonable question about the work they are supposed to be doing for you.

Our political classes have become so obsessed with playing up to what they think people think, rather than doing the job they are supposed to do, that it really comes as no surprise that things have got as bad as they really are for us all. This is wrong.

The establishment didn’t see Brexit coming. Many of the Politicians belonging to it are still convinced that everyone outside Westminster and London actually wants to remain. They certainly haven’t got any real idea of what it is to be a normal person trying to make ends meet, or to be a young person struggling with the prospect of taking on a lifelong debt to obtain what will probably be useless qualifications before their adult life even begins.

So if we focus only on how a Politician or would-be Prime Minister performs on TV or all the other forms of media, we are overlooking a great many things.

Yes, good media performance is important for Politicians. But it is only just the cherry on a very large metaphorical cake. It’s not even the icing, or the most important part, the middle, which itself needs to contain real quality ingredients. All in one what should really be a many great things.

None of this can really be seen within a televised debate forum. Seeing is believing only if you believe the idea that the camera never lies. And if any of us use this example of judging the suitably of a prime ministerial candidate and the substance of the Political Party that backs them, we should not be surprised when the results are policies which only inflict pain within our lives, because the illusion of credibility that being on a screen gives then wins.

 

image thanks to independent.co.uk

Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England has become a divisive figure, despite some protestations that his efforts are the only thing keeping the Government sound.

Appointed by George Osborne, some would have been surprised by the recent extension of his Contract, but less so by his intervention this week suggesting that there could be a housing market crash, post ‘no deal Brexit’. He has form when it comes to ‘Project Fear’ after all.

First things first. Bank of England Governor or not, nobody has the level of knowledge of the future that it would take to make a credible prediction of this kind with such clarity and yes, conviction too.

The great irony surrounding Mr Carney’s latest projection is that a great many people throughout the UK would not only welcome a drop in house prices of the kind he has suggested. They would probably go out and celebrate it too.

A correction in the massively over-inflated UK housing market is long overdue and We can be sure that with the experience and background that Mr Carney has, he jolly well knows this too. It’s just very easy right now for him to link anything bad with the all absorbing process and negativity being peddled about Brexit by key people who should really behave better.

Houses in this country have been vastly overpriced for an entire generation already.

The gap between income level and the borrowing necessary to secure home ownership grows exponentially every year.

Yet the people who could do more to bring into check the out of control monster that is the housing market – that’s people like Mr Carney himself, have long since given up on trying to tackle the issues creating the housing crisis head on.

They instead rely on hollow excuses to create policies like aggressive house building which won’t actually solve the housing problem through our Country but will certainly ensure that the green parts of England will soon never ever look quite the same.

Ask yourself this. When was the last time you experienced house prices falling in your local area when a new and probably large housing development was built nearby?

No. House prices are drastically over-inflated and it is only because so little meaningful regulation is placed upon the banks and finance houses, that their unbridled processes of money creation have been allowed to build and consolidate a mountain of private debt for the general population.

Meanwhile those responsible for what is to them a distant reality live gilded lives which are only possible because they have been allowed to create a culture of financial oppression for others which is progressively enslaving the masses whilst the benefits push up prices for everyone but only deliver benefits for the few.

The false world which has been created by the work of the financial sector really is a wonder to behold. But it is not real and it is dangerously dependent upon the security and stability of the financial markets which are intrinsically linked to the wants and whims of traders and government appointed officials, leaving little in terms of cushioning or a safety net located in between.

The correction in the housing market for which many are now waiting could as easily come after a no deal Brexit as it could at any other time.

But if the housing market correction should appear to arrive at the time of our leaving the EU, it will not be because of the decision made in the European Referendum in 2016.

It will do so because of the catalystic behaviour of officials and politicians in the European Union and our Government who have and continue to resist the democratic decision of the British People to complete Brexit.

They have worked tirelessly instead for a mismatch and mess of measures which cannot possibly work as a solution as it has always been their aim to place the UK within a mythical no mans land between us and the EU which could never actually exist, even though they would continually tell us all that it was so.

 

image thanks to thetimes.co.uk

 

We can only imagine the thought process that a Minister must go through before declaring that their answer to a significant, cross-demographic problem, is to commission yet another report and delay action for at least another year.

What can it possibly be that tells a representative of the people who has been in the job long enough to secure a Cabinet Seat in No.10, that getting a conclusion upon the state of our Railways can only come from just one person who they obviously look up to, rather than those who elected them, and who we might not unreasonably conclude from their behaviour, that they look down upon too?

Before you get carried away and think I’m suggesting that we hold a Referendum over the state of the Railways, I’m not.

What I am saying, is that it doesn’t take a lot of effort to talk to and then understand the perspective of the public and how we see and experience the problem daily, and grow increasingly frustrated with the transportation nightmare which seems to be getting worse before our eyes.

Have a conversation with a commuter. Have conversations with many. Don’t leave it at just a few.

Speak to the people who run the railways, that work on them. Talk to the people who live by them. Consult the motorists held up at level crossings too.

You don’t need a supermarket guru to understand that the Railways aren’t working. A big part of the problem which faces commuters and tourists on our Railways every day was created by a past Government doing something very similar in the early 1960’s to what Chris Grayling is doing now.

When the Beeching Axe fell upon lines and stations across the Country, the UK’s entire Rail Network was cut back to such a level that very few of us could now deny that it would have made travel so much easier for all at both local and national level, if this wasted infrastructure had still been in use today.

Falling back on consultants or setting up some elaborate consultation which will cost lots of public money, delay things needlessly and end up with a report which will have come to whatever conclusions the Government want it to anyway, won’t solve the problem. It won’t change the fundamental issues facing Rail Users. It won’t escape the real problems which need to be addressed, that politicians find too hard to address when the only passion they have is for winning power again at the next election.

Politicians from Town and Parish Councils, right up to the Cabinet Table in No.10 Downing Street are failing to connect policy with the people they are elected to represent. They fail because they do not speak with or communicate with the very people they represent (And no, Party Members in an MP’s own constituency don’t really count on their own)

If those responsible for Railway Policy did so, they would soon understand that:

• HS2 should be scrapped. It is a waste of time, money and is upsetting far more people than it will ever help. It will not solve the problem of limited capacity on the Railway network anywhere other than in the areas adjacent to its immediate route and this improvement could be gained within other improvements which could be made to the existing infrastructure.
• There are not enough Platforms and/or ‘Terminus’ Stations. We need more trains running more often on key commuter journeys. Technology is no longer the problem as trains can be run, scheduled and operated digitally and London Underground is a good example of this. More trains cannot run on key lines because there simply aren’t the platforms available at stations where trains terminate to be ‘turned around’ in greater numbers at the same time. Opening up and building new platforms and corresponding lines at existing ‘Terminus’ Stations, or building new stations to accommodate more platforms would address the capacity problem on the existing network immeasurably.
• Management of public services for profit doesn’t work, but nationalisation or public ownership is its purest or accepted sense doesn’t either. People cannot have two masters. They are either focused on service or focused on profit. Public services, where a level of service should be the same for everyone equally, should never be placed in the hands of decision makers who are set to make a profit, as they will always be obsessive about cutting elements of the service or product where they see no profit, or where they perceive that a monetary loss will be made. Quality service delivery requires fairness and balance and in fiscal terms, that means that sometimes, some parts of a service will appear to run at a ‘loss’.
• All Rail Operating Companies should be non-profit-making trusts run on commercial lines with staff incentivised to deliver the best results, but with all profit ploughed back into further development, renewals of rolling stock and bringing ticket prices back to a realistic level over the longer term.
• Unions have too much power to disrupt strategic decisions. Businesses and organisations exist to provide products and services. They are not normally created as a vehicle to create jobs and the Unions are completely out of touch with this. Employment and Union Law needs to protect employees from poor management practice, but also needs to be conversant with the requirements of a business and the reality that it is in the interests of both the employer and the employed for work to be carried out in the right conditions, which are not ones which prioritise the experience of employees over that of the customer.
• Health & Safety rules coupled with the blame and ambulance-chasing culture are compromising passenger experience for no benefit greater than being able to tick a box on a risk assessment. 
• Derelict and unused Railway beds should be put back into use, with heritage Railway Companies, Charities and Trusts encouraged and supported to run commuter services wherever they can and with help would have the ability to do so.

Yes, this is a simplification of the facts as they stand. But that’s all a politician needs before asking executives or civil servants to get on and do their jobs.

No MP is going to stand up against genuine improvements to the services provided to their constituents and its time for them all to grow up and stop using politics as and excuse and a phoney divide.

Nothing will change for the better by delaying things for 12 months.

It’s time to drop all the talk and get on with some action.

 

image thanks to telegraph.co.uk