I return from a hol to find ... the Commissars Commissioners that are to run Croydon have been installed, and already started calling the shots. Some background.
In the late 2010s Croydon, a marginal borough that has yo-yo'd between Tory and Labour since the 1960s, fell into the hands of a baleful Labour regime. At the time we had the "Cabinet" system in place and the Leader of the Council, a paradigm case of the 'four-letter man' as my father would have termed him, ran both his cabinet and indeed the whole borough as a personal fiefdom. Well, when you have a dictator, you'd better hope his judgement is good. This man's judgement was appalling (for present purposes we needn't get into the cronyism and third-world-style corruption that went with it) and he duly bankrupted the borough - literally. (Total incompetence married to property speculation, you won't be surprised to learn.)
In order to clean this out politically, residents petitioned successfully for a switch to the "Mayoral" system: the resulting referendum was a resounding win for the new system and in due course a Tory was elected Executive Mayor. I've recounted some of this story before, and this chap & his regime turned out to be more diligent and dynamic than I'd feared might be the case when I wrote about it last.
But his task was always gargantuan, since most of the (remaining) council services are required to be provided by statute, so where can seriously big cuts be found, and debt repaid? The brough remains technically bankrupt, though "essential services" are being maintained, as the law requires.
Anyhow, whether for procedural or narrowly political** reasons, Starmer's government has decided to send in the commissioners. This is a baleful development. We live in an age where democracy seems to be falling out of favour, but experience of the alternatives might cause some to revisit that argument. If not elected governance, what do you get? Dictatorship, or commissioners at every level. The priesthood. Unelected; unaccountable; un-ejectable.
More from South London in due course.
ND
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**Several leading Croydon Labour movers and shakers currently hold positions in Starmer's coterie, and the suspicion must be that they plan this as a maneouvre to get a Labour mayor elected in the borough next year.
7 comments:
Problem is, we - I mean the West in general - haven't a good record of promoting democracy. Or capitalism either.
With immigration and Brexit as the most prominent examples, we've seen a complete breakdown between the political classes and the public at large, and when they have been mentioned it's purely been for personal progression, not any form of duty to the nation or the public.
The Tories, Boris in particular, are going to find the history books giving them very short shrift. The groundwork for many of the problems may have been sown during the New Labour years, but it was the Tories who went and harvested them.
I'd love to think Reform are the answer, and there does appear to be a genuine political party trying to get out from under all the egos and Farage's limelight seeking, it's just whether its Big Beasts will suffocate that or not.
Politics has become a career, not a calling, and we're all worse off for it.
@ I'd love to think Reform are the answer
The problem with Reform - and it's a massive one - is that it has a great tune, but no words.
What their detailed policies will be on any given issue are purely a function of whichever hack in their perilously underpowered top-echelon officer-class has been put in charge of it - and some of them are morons with all manner of personal fish they'd like to fry
In other words, a Reform government would be wholly captive to the Civil Service on most issues (er, no, Minister, that's technically impossible ...)
Even the Trump-wallahs had (some) semi-coherent, moderately heavyweight 'thinkers' working away at the details, years before Jan 2025
"Politics has become a career, not a calling, and we're all worse off for it."
Hence my proposal to limit MPs to those aged 50 and over only. Make politics something you do after having already had a career and a life, not a career in and of itself.
@ND - I've considered joining Reform in attempt to help with that, but I've a suspicion that it would prove to be frustrating.
Having worked for, worked with, and dealt with public sector and government organisations at various levels across the years, I've some insights that will range from the opinionated to the valuable.
And as small businessman, I have a few suggestions that may hold less value, but worth listening to.
But looking at how Reform prize fighting over delivery at the moment, I'm not convinced I'd get an ear or two.
"The Tories, Boris in particular, are going to find the history books giving them very short shrift."
That's because the Brexit vote, especially in Labour voting areas, was a vote against the Polish plumber so beloved of the metropolitan classes, who put the "loadsamoney" working class Londoners back in their subordinate places, as well as the unskilled people who made minimum wage = maximum wage all over the UK.
So when Boris handed out over a million visas a year to Indians and Africans, and Sunak followed suit, they rightly doomed the Tory Party for a generation.
The highest immigration years (so far) were 2015, 2021, 2022 and 2023, all higher net levels (double during the last three years) than at any time in Labour's 13 years.
Not that little things like that, or their last two leaders, stops Guardianistas talking about the Tories "anti-immigrant nastiness".
https://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/169380368
Under TTK democracy is ceasing to exist.
"Politics has become a career, not a calling, and we're all worse off for it.
8:59 am"
Caesar - I have long said that once politics became a career rather than a vocation, it's been all downhill since. Parliament now full of people who have in most case never held a proper job, or indeed, be capable of doing so.
I give you, as one example, Mr. Matthew Hancock, sent to us as he were a Biblical plague. Except worse.
Off with their heads. I'm sick of this. Never mind the barely human Starmer and his odious sidekick, Hermer.
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