Does power corrupt?

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Judith Addison

It strikes me that those who criticise local councillors on this website have probably never been councillors themselves. So if you think that our performance doesn't come up to the mark or that we are motivated purely by a desire for power, why not consider standing for election yourselves and see whether you can improve the standard? You may find that being a councillor is not quite as easy as you imagined!

Who mentioned councillors?

The question was a general one, and could refer to anything from a member becoming a moderator, to a Member of Parliament.

To my knowledge councillors have been both criticised, or praised on this forum, depending on what they've actually done.

Besides, the most vitriolic attacks, and criticism of our local councillors on this forum, have been made by other councillors.

Guess that was before your time.

As in every field, there are good, and bad councillors.

Personally I've yet to hear a bad word said of you, or of your performance as a councillor...yet.

Now wind your neck in, and concentrate on the question being asked in this thread and poll.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I have always thought that 'party' politics' should be taken out of local government.
The focus on which party a councillor belongs to takes away the focus from what should be happening locally........'party politics' has no place in local government....and it sometimes means that the wrong person is chosen for the job because he/she stands under the 'right'(as far as the elector is concerned) political banner.
It prevents some people from voting because they cannot see past political dogma.
(you know the kind of thing - 'I can't vote for him/ her....wouldn't put my cross on the paper for a tory')...........this despite the fact that they may be the right person to do the job in hand.....which is, after all, to look after local issues.

Some of the electorate cannot separate local issues from national issues when election time comes around.
Remove 'party po;itics' and more the important local issues might get dealt with in a better way. Without mud slinging, back biting and all the nasty things that get in the way of someone doing a great job......and serving the local people.

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Houseboy

The general consensus here seems to be in agreement with the idea that party politics should have no place in local government, but the disagreement appears to be how much it actually is. There must be a way of looking at voting trends locally to see how strictly local issues have been voted for and against by individual members of council, and looking at the political affiliations of those councilors to see if there are party "trends".
My point is that it is possible to be of a particular political persuasion but still have the individuality to express ones own views when faced with that which you fundamentally disagree. The problem arises, all too often, that people with any political ambition at all seem to throw principle out of the window in order to tow the party line.
At a higher level, nationally, we only have to look at what the Lib Dems have done in order to cling on to that little bit of "power". The original question here was about power corrupting and I think that the Lib Dems provide an excellent example of that. They have abandoned all their "principles" and any semblance of moral value in order to cling on to that influence and power they have gained out of all proportion to the number of votes cast for them. The Tories are doing what Tories do and, while I don't like it, I have respect because they stick to what they believe in. The Lib Dems are simply doing whatever it takes to wield power.
To go back to the original question, "Does power corrupt?" I think that the answer is yes, look at the Lib Dems.

Party politics do have an influence on local politics, you usually find that, in places like Hyndburn, the colour of the council is opposite to that at Westminster, from 86 through to 1999 it was Labour, in fact on the day of the 1997 election the constitution of HBC was 44 Labour 3 Conservative councillors, within 3 elections Labour lost control, same in 2010, labour took control in 2011, although there is a slight leaning to personal votes in local elections, the party of Government usually lose local councillors very quickly and control changes hands

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I have always thought that 'party' politics' should be taken out of local government.
The focus on which party a councillor belongs to takes away the focus from what should be happening locally........'party politics' has no place in local government....and it sometimes means that the wrong person is chosen for the job because he/she stands under the 'right'(as far as the elector is concerned) political banner.
It prevents some people from voting because they cannot see past political dogma.
(you know the kind of thing - 'I can't vote for him/ her....wouldn't put my cross on the paper for a tory')...........this despite the fact that they may be the right person to do the job in hand.....which is, after all, to look after local issues.

Some of the electorate cannot separate local issues from national issues when election time comes around.
Remove 'party po;itics' and more the important local issues might get dealt with in a better way. Without mud slinging, back biting and all the nasty things that get in the way of someone doing a great job......and serving the local people.

Okay Margaret, we'll take politics out of local government and all councillors will have to stand on their own independent ticket, so you get a ballot paper with two candidates on, lets just say Ken Moss and Peter Britcliffe, 99% of people will look and say ah Mossy's Labour and Britcliffe's a Tory, that's why you'll never manage it, unless you bar the present incumbents from entering the election or people who have stood on a political ticket before, it ain't going to happen, the only thing is I totally agree with you and have done for a very long time, but know it hasn't a snowballs chance of happening, because political parties won't let it

[susie123]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Party politics do have an influence on local politics, you usually find that, in places like Hyndburn, the colour of the council is opposite to that at Westminster, from 86 through to 1999 it was Labour, in fact on the day of the 1997 election the constitution of HBC was 44 Labour 3 Conservative councillors, within 3 elections Labour lost control, same in 2010, labour took control in 2011, although there is a slight leaning to personal votes in local elections, the party of Government usually lose local councillors very quickly and control changes hands

Originally Posted by jaysay

Okay Margaret, we'll take politics out of local government and all councillors will have to stand on their own independent ticket, so you get a ballot paper with two candidates on, lets just say Ken Moss and Peter Britcliffe, 99% of people will look and say ah Mossy's Labour and Britcliffe's a Tory, that's why you'll never manage it, unless you bar the present incumbents from entering the election or people who have stood on a political ticket before, it ain't going to happen, the only thing is I totally agree with you and have done for a very long time, but know it hasn't a snowballs chance of happening, because political parties won't let it

Two very good and well made points there, John, totally agree.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Originally Posted by jaysay

Okay Margaret, we'll take politics out of local government and all councillors will have to stand on their own independent ticket, so you get a ballot paper with two candidates on, lets just say Ken Moss and Peter Britcliffe, 99% of people will look and say ah Mossy's Labour and Britcliffe's a Tory, that's why you'll never manage it, unless you bar the present incumbents from entering the election or people who have stood on a political ticket before, it ain't going to happen, the only thing is I totally agree with you and have done for a very long time, but know it hasn't a snowballs chance of happening, because political parties won't let it

You miss my point entirely. The elections would be for local government officers with no party allegiance...they would not be standing as 'Independents' because we would be taking politics out of the equation.
They would be judged on how they could do the job, what skills they had in certain aspects of what was required, their local knowledge of the area which they wanted to support in their work...not which political banner they sheltered under.
Maybe it would take a while for people to forget thay had allegiances with a political party...but perhaps it would stop the divides that party politics puts up...and allow the local government officers to work together with less rancour and backstabbing(we have all read of how certain people storm out of meetings because of political dogma and short sightedness, petty name calling. These are playground tactics, 'showboating' and should have no place in the council chamber).....because this gets in the way of getting local isues sorted.

The mindset of politics, in relation to local issues, needs to be altered and altered radically.

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by Guinness

In which case why align yourself with a party at all?

This is what I was trying to infer in my reply to our conservative deputy mayor..in Hyndburn you have little to zero chance of being elected unless you get into bed with one of the main parties regardless of the fact that party manifestos are irrelevant in local government..our current and previious independents are ex party members who have become disillusioned and can be discounted.

You are a card carrying member of the labour party, you can protest all you want about not slavishly adhering, but do you really think you, as an unknown immigrant from Preston would have had a chance of becoming an independent councillor in Rishton???

You've nailed it there, I never would have got in as an independent candidate. At the time I wrote to the three existing councillors in Rishton to see how I could get involved and only the Labour councillor responded (Cllr Grayson). He came to my house and I asked him what exactly our representatives do, to which he gave me a tour of the village and got me involved with all the local groups over the course of a few months. I met the Labour group, liked their local ethic and thought to myself that these people were the only ones who had even bothered to respond to my letter.

In comparison we had the local Conservatives, most of whom I get on with very well, but it would have meant being under the wing (some may say 'thumb') of Cllr Britcliffe and I'm afraid that isn't terribly attractive.

To be an Independent you need to have a large personal following, something which I certainly didn't in 2010 (and to be honest, still probably don't now). There are only a handful in Hyndburn and those who have been voted in on that ticket (as opposed to being a mainstream candidate who then changes to being Independent) are very well known in their respective communities.

Independents lack the support of a group when they need it so motions to Council and policies require the backing of a mainstream group anyway. Canvassing would be soul destroying without a campaign team behind you and you get an awful lot of moral support and help when things go a bit bandy. I've had tremendous help on several issues during my time on HBC which I wouldn't have had as an Independent so for all the talk of slashing political ties you're actually putting yourself out on a lonely limb.

I'm not a dyed in the wool red as my colleagues know full well but I'm very definitely on the right local team.

[Mog]

Yes, it has. 8 66.67%
No, it hasn't. 0 0%
They've remained the same. 4 33.33%
Voters: 12. This poll is closed

All that was asked was. Does Power Corrupt ? The answers is in the Poll above. I have just read War and Peace, but I damn love it. This is why I joined in the first place. Keep it up.

[gynn]

Originally Posted by Guinness

Are you saying that council committees are pointless, other than applying a rubber stamp, since work and decisions are already made by officers and national guidelines?

Yes, 90% of the time.

[Houseboy]

Jay, I take your point about not letting the present incumbents stand under the new system (the theoretical one that we know would never happen but it would be nice to think it could), after all if it is good enough for the presidency of the United States it's good enough for a Hyndburn councilor.
Our hypothetical new order would indeed need to be contested by "unknowns", which might be off-putting to a lot of people but, since the present system (in my view) leaves a lot to be desired I don't see it as a bad thing. There would be the problem of experience (or lack of it) but then everyone has to learn by their mistakes. Maybe we could even adopt the US presidency model and stop anyone from being re-elected after a certain amount of time. That would solve a lot of corruption problems.

What a wonderful dream!!!

[jaysay]

Originally Posted by Houseboy

Jay, I take your point about not letting the present incumbents stand under the new system (the theoretical one that we know would never happen but it would be nice to think it could), after all if it is good enough for the presidency of the United States it's good enough for a Hyndburn councilor.
Our hypothetical new order would indeed need to be contested by "unknowns", which might be off-putting to a lot of people but, since the present system (in my view) leaves a lot to be desired I don't see it as a bad thing. There would be the problem of experience (or lack of it) but then everyone has to learn by their mistakes. Maybe we could even adopt the US presidency model and stop anyone from being re-elected after a certain amount of time. That would solve a lot of corruption problems.

What a wonderful dream!!!

To be honest I don't think that anything on the American model would fly in this country, nor should it, if your talking about corruption in politics, using the yankee plan here would be a disaster, lets face it its not how good you are in the good old US of A its how many bucks you've got behind you. No, rather than going down that road I'll stick with what we've got, and I have to say in all my time in and around local government I certainly haven't seen corruption, misguided individuals who appear from time to time hoping to use there influences for their own purposes, but even those incidents are very very rare, on the whole irrespective of party you get people who set out to try and make a difference, and most of them DO achieve that

[Ken Moss]

Originally Posted by Houseboy

Jay, I take your point about not letting the present incumbents stand under the new system (the theoretical one that we know would never happen but it would be nice to think it could), after all if it is good enough for the presidency of the United States it's good enough for a Hyndburn councilor.
Our hypothetical new order would indeed need to be contested by "unknowns", which might be off-putting to a lot of people but, since the present system (in my view) leaves a lot to be desired I don't see it as a bad thing. There would be the problem of experience (or lack of it) but then everyone has to learn by their mistakes. Maybe we could even adopt the US presidency model and stop anyone from being re-elected after a certain amount of time. That would solve a lot of corruption problems.

What a wonderful dream!!!

Graham Jones pointed out some years ago that there is hardly a queue of people lined up to be councillors.

Despite the perceived gravy train and corruption, most people realise that it's a thankless, bloody hard job.

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Ken Moss

Graham Jones pointed out some years ago that there is hardly a queue of people lined up to be councillors.

Despite the perceived gravy train and corruption, most people realise that it's a thankless, bloody hard job.

Thank you.

[Guinness]

Originally Posted by Ken Moss

Graham Jones pointed out some years ago that there is hardly a queue of people lined up to be councillors.

Despite the perceived gravy train and corruption, most people realise that it's a thankless, bloody hard job.

Strange post since your last post agrees that, in the main, you need party support to be elected.

As usual our local meglomaniac MP has only half a grasp of logical thought..There is no queue because of the reasons you outlined in your last post and I'd also suggest that most people aren't prepared to sacrifice independent thought and personal dignity just to become a councillor. (walkouts anyone?)

[garinda]

Originally Posted by Guinness

I'd also suggest that most people aren't prepared to sacrifice independent thought and personal dignity just to become a councillor.

Apparently the whoring profession faces the same recruitment difficulties.