Reflections on local politics

Do local public service officers and councillors warrant our respect and trust?

I am frequently approached by concerned residents asking what has happened to our supplications to the Council regarding fishing on Cannon Hill Common and its despoliation of the nature reserve.

The amendments to local government procedures, as printed in the Daily Telegraph and the Raynes Park residents Guide (January 2011) show that, in the past, councillors who publicly averred to be pursuing the concerns of residents over such matters as fishing Cannon Hill lake, may have in fact been guilty of misleading us, as protocol has formerly forbidden them to vote on matters that they say they have introduced to Council!

Talk of running with the hare whilst chasing the fox, or of being all things to all men..

Is this so and has this happened to our petition? I honestly don’t know.

What I do know is that the Town Halls throughout the country appear to be mired in smelly matters.

Hopefully not ours, but Manchester is a city under the spotlight and might provide an illustration and a caution.

£100 million resting in their kitty, a chief executive paid three times the Prime Minister’s salary and they are shedding crocodile tears about redundancies to the workers.

Intelligent suggestions of some solution by cutting the inflated salaries and bungs of the Chiefs are greeted with horror.

As I say, hopefully not in our backyard at Merton Council, but with a CEO pulling in £250,000 per annum and three colleagues enjoying over £150,000 each, there could be a feeling of justified unease?

Realistically it means that, what was once the respected old office of Chief Clerk now warrants American style titles, salaries by reference to another parasitic lucrative self serving folly - the Hay remuneration comparison chart - and means, a deep breath now, that our CEO is guaranteed one million pounds (£1,000,000) over the next four years and so on forever increasing.

Add to this the increased allowances our elected councillors have voted themselves and one could be excused in feeling it’s simply the ratepayers and others facing redundancy who have drawn the short straw and are being treated with contempt.

By David Coleman, Friends of Cannon Hill Pond