Tea and Rhubarb

In local politics, it is often the most innocuous and (to an incurious observer) banal events, which sum up the prevailing attitude of certain political parties.

I have a bee in my bonnet regarding how public money is spent. This is, from district council level upward, a complicated matter. However, this is not the case at parish/town council level. I get particularly interested if I suspect public money is being spent for party political purposes.

Now, we in Morley celebrate Yorkshire Day on August 1st. Nothing wrong with that! In fact, one would expect that the town council would support that through it’s (recently acquired) Entertainments Committee.

However, following Yorkshire Day, I broke the habit of a few years and wrote a letter to the Morley Observer & Advertiser, which amongst other things observed the following:

“This newspaper stated that that Morley Borough Independent councillors (not Morley town councillors) dished out the tea and rhubarb (I paraphrase). My simple question was, and is, who funded it; Morley Town Council or the MBI party?”

I have asked that question directly many times before, and since. So far, the only reply has been:

“"Ahh back to the Rhubarb, what interest is it of yours who funded it?"
(c) Chairman of the Parish Council (Terrence Grayshon Esquire)

As I say, a silly thing but telling. I don’t care if it only cost a tenner….

Why not just answer the question?

A quote from the MBI website:

Councillor Robert Finnigan said "Morley Folk have so many typical Yorkshire characteristics such as loyalty, tenacity and a desire for plain speaking.


Well said Rob!

What is a liar?

The Oxford English Dictionary is subscription only online, so I tend to use dictionary.co.uk (or dictionary.com if no entry found).

What is a liar?

Dictionary - liar - 1 entry.

1. Noun - A person who knowingly utters falsehood; one who lies.

What is a Falsehood?

Dictionary - falsehood - 4 entries.

1. Noun - Want of truth or accuracy; an untrue assertion or representation; error; misrepresentation; falsity.
2. Noun - A deliberate intentional assertion of what is known to be untrue; a departure from moral integrity; a lie.
3. Noun - Treachery; deceit; perfidy; unfaithfulness.
4. Noun - A counterfeit; a false appearance; an imposture.

What is a lie?

lie - 13 entries.

1. Noun - See Lye.
2. Noun - A falsehood uttered or acted for the purpose of deception; an intentional violation of truth; an untruth spoken with the intention to deceive.
3. Noun - A fiction; a fable; an untruth.
4. Noun - Anything which misleads or disappoints.
5. v. i. - To utter falsehood with an intention to deceive; to say or do that which is intended to deceive another, when he a right to know the truth, or when morality requires a just representation.

(Ones pertaining to geography or sleeping snipped)

Now Wikipedia is somewhat more pragmatic about it, explaining various types of lies:

A lie (also called prevarication), is a type of deception in the form of an untruthful statement, especially with the intention to deceive others, often with the further intention to maintain a secret or reputation, protect someone's feelings or to avoid a punishment. To lie is to state something that one knows to be false or that one has not reasonably ascertained to be true with the intention that it be taken for the truth by oneself or someone else. A liar is a person who is lying, who has previously lied, or who tends by nature to lie repeatedly.
Lying is typically used to refer to deceptions in oral or written communication.[citation needed] Other forms of deception, such as disguises or forgeries, are generally not considered lies, though the underlying intent may be the same. However, even a true statement can be considered a lie if the person making that statement is doing so to deceive. In this situation, it is the intent of being untruthful rather than the truthfulness of the statement itself that is considered.

So, is calling someone a liar liable to result in court proceedings? It depends on which definition applies, and the intent. A white lie, for example, may just be for the purpose of simplification where the full detail makes no real difference. Now, let us talk about parking in Morley.

This letter was published in the Morley Obtiser on Wednesday:

I am writing in response to the letter published last week by regular correspondent Nigel Bywater.
The new parking arrangements have been warmly welcomed by the overwhelming majority of residents who have raised the issue with me. Some have offered some suggestions to improve the arrangements, such as better signage and an implementation of the scheme between 8am and 6pm only, and we are exploring these suggestions with officers to see if they can be introduced.
To clarify for all your readers I would re-confirm the following.
All parking in Morley is free- there is no charge to park at any of Morley's car parks. The car park at Morrisons has a three hour limit for those spaces closest to the Town centre and there is no time limit on the spaces at the top of the car park. If you are parking in the bottom section for a three hour period, you need a ticket. You do not need a ticket if you are parking in the unrestricted areas.
The ticket machines stopped working on Monday and Tuesday last week.
I reported them following my own observations and they were fixed by wednesday. If Nigel Bywater had made as much effort in ringing me to report the fault as he does writing letters to the papers then I could have had them fixed quicker. But as ever with Mr. Bywater, whether it's the new sports centre, events in Morley, Morley's Mayor or the new car parking arrangements, he rarely has anything positive to offer.
COUN ROBERT FINNIGAN
Morley Borough Independent

Now I can't comment on whether the new arrangements have been warmly welcomed or not, but every time I go in (which tends to be outside of core shopping hours) there are puzzled people standing at the machines, asking questions.

Why do the Councillors need to explore suggestions about signage & hours of operation? Surely they gave it all careful thought before it was implemnented? Or was it a case of Traffic basically deciding the scope of the scheme and the Councillors nodding? After all, the original concern was people parking all day (which a subsequent survey said was not the case) and it seems rather bizarre to make the scheme a 24 hour one when it isn't warranted.

"There is no time limit on the spaces at the top of the car park"- Yes there is, 23 hours maximum, as specified in the parking order and mentioned in the document produced for handout at Morrisons, additional document item 10c at The Outer South meeting on October 20th. Coun Finnigan was there. Was he not paying attention, had he simply forgotten about this or did he just decide to lie? It is certainly a falsehood definition #1 and a lie definition #4.

"The ticket machines stopped working on Monday and Tuesday last week". And the rest. Qweensway 2 machine was broken on October 25th, November 2nd and November 3rd whilst Qweensway 3 was broken on Nov 2nd/3rd. How do I know this? Because I commented about it on facebook at the time.

He then proceeds to slag off Nigel Bywater for not ringing him. Surely nobody should have to ring Councillors as anything other than a matter of last resort when things aren't getting done. After all, parking attendants patrol the Queensway area and apparently always check that the machines are working before issuing tickets. Perhaps they should also report the faulty machines to their base as well so that it doesn't need the intervention of a Councillor to get them resolved.

I can recall Morley Borough Independents telling me not to worry about being smeared by the Labour Party when I stood for the Town Council, as it wasn't the done thing for politicians to attack "concerned citizens". When did that go out of the window, and why?

I also notice that the paper didn't print Cllr Finnigan's address. I'm curious to know if he is still living in Queen Street.

Morley Town Council money

It was quoted in this weeks Morley Obtiser that "the position of the council was "desperate" "

It would be nice, would it not, to know what "desperate" means.

I chaired the Finance committee on MTC for several years; and indeed still held that position when I stood down in May 2007.

In July 2005 I sent a letter to the committee chairmen (reproduced below, and all my own words). The following November Morley Town Council set their budget (my final one). This budget did not, in my recollection, reduce the level of reserves; in fact, I suspect owing to committee underspend, it may have increased them.

I recall speaking to a fellow member of Finance & General Purposes committee, and saying we can lower the precept here, because it aint being spent. I was twittered at for a while and in the end the precept stayed as it was, and is (about £18 for a band D)

Oh well, maiden post :)

"Dear

I am writing to you as a Chairman of one of the standing committees of Morley Town Council.

The Town Clerk has advised that external audit have recently queried the high reserves held by the Town Council. It has been explained that circa £36,000 has been set aside to meet the variance between the precept and planned expenditure in the current year. It would also be anticipated, although this cannot be confirmed until 2006 budgets are developed and agreed by Council, that a similar amount would be used to offset 2006/07 expenditure.

External Audit have stated that they feel the level of reserves held is too high and that the precept claim should be reduced in future years. Should a similar amount of reserves be retained at the end of March 2005; they will be closely scrutinising those annual accounts with particular regard to reserves and the subsequent precept claimed for 2006-07.

The Town Clerk has asked External Audit if they could indicate what an acceptable level of reserves would be. Audit advised that a working balance should be held to cover emergencies but could not say how much this would amount to and advised seeking further guidance from YLCA.

In order that the Town Council is not compromised by a further increase in reserves, I am writing to ask Chairmen to ensure, as far as possible, that all planned expenditure is committed as soon as possible. This will avoid a large end of year surplus.

If there are any problems with the above, please contact the Town Clerk as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely



Paul Jamieson
Chairman of Finance and General Purposes Committee "

How weak have we become?

(This post appeared at Underdogs bite upwards, a (small L) libertarian blogger of the sort that the Secretary of State for Bread and Circuses would not approve of. I have admired his very cogent analysis of the Righteous but this post came along and stopped me dead.

It is the best blogpost that I have read this year and worthy of much, much wider reading.)

First, a parable. Apply it to whatever you like.

There was once an unfenced hill where a flock of sheep lived.

One rainy day, a man came to talk to them. "It's cold and wet here. How can you stand it?" he asked.

"It's not so bad," said the sheep. " We get up when we like, there's plenty to eat, and life is pretty good most of the time. It's raining now but we can just go under the trees if it gets too much. It will stop eventually. We have our freedom, and to us that's the most important thing."

"It looks awful," the man said. "And how do you know it will stop raining? It might go on for weeks. Your land might become swampy and all your grass might be washed away. Tell you what, there is a big building over there. It's warm and dry inside. I will make it let you in. It's only fair. You deserve better than this."

"Is there grass to eat?" the sheep asked.

"No, but I will make the building provide hay. I will make it provide a place to sleep and food to eat and you need do nothing to earn it. You'll be warm and dry and still you'll be free. Really, it's best to take my offer just in case, don't you think? Surely you can see it's for your benefit?"

Some of the sheep were suspicious. "What do you get out of it?"

"Me? Nothing." The man smiled. "And once in a while, I'll invite the most special of you to come and live in a special flock where life will be more wonderful than you have ever known. Of course, you won't all be able to join that flock at once but I promise, every one of you will pass through the Golden Doorway eventually."

The sheep considered. A few distrusted the man and refused to go with him, but most accepted his kind offer. They laughed and scoffed at those who chose to stay in the rain while they filed obediently into the man's dry, warm abbatoir.

_________

And now, a rant.

Does anyone remember the 'stiff upper lip' of the British? The fighting spirit? The indomitable people who once ran a big chunk of the planet, and who could chase away armed guerillas with a walking stick and an angry voice? A people who, nevertheless, could laugh at themselves and had a great, if sometimes cruel, sense of humour? What happened to them?

Those people would never have set off a security scare because a schoolboy dressed up as the Joker and waved a plastic gun around. Those people would never have arrested a man in fancy dress because he had a plastic knife as part of his outfit. Those people would not have shrieked 'Terrorist!' at the sight of a plastic halloween skeleton. The first might have earned a caning, but not expulsion. The second and third should not even have raised an eyebrow. Neither should Old Holborn's walk.

The people who replaced those real British are spineless weaklings who jump at shadows. Who call the police if they are slightly offended by a word or two. Worse, the police respond not by saying 'It's nothing, don't worry about it', but by harassing and usually arresting anyone complained about, no matter how trivial and all too often, no matter whether an offence has been committed or not.

These new people are quaking, trembling jellys. They are frightened by mere words, and terrified by a raised hand. They take offence at anything they're told to take offence at. Those who consider themselves strong are those who have not yet experienced adversity because when they do, they run to the government for help. They cannot help themselves. They will not try.

Oh, there are a few real people left, for sure, but they are only a few. Most are now soft, weak loathsome creatures who stare at the unreality of reality TV from their well-pressed sofas and aim their rage wherever the Righteous tell them. The two minute hate. One day smokers, next day drinkers, next day hoodies, next the obese, next Eurasia... or is it Eastasia? Doesn't matter. We are at war with the terrorists. We have always been at war with the terrorists.

These people who once called themselves the Great of Great Britain (can we still use that name for this country, or is it not considered sufficiently self-humiliating now?) are useful only for rendering into animal feed. They accept every word they are fed and have no problem at all with the doublethink required to accept it all. Coal-fired power stations will kill us all through global warming. We must build huge windmills everywhere to save the environment and we must not install new power lines underground because that would harm the environment. Snow in October? That's caused by global warming.

They obsess about their carbon footprint while having no idea what carbon is, they accept that the same number of alcohol units apply to each and every person, that if they allow a ninety-year-old smoker within a hundred yards of them in the open air, they will die the next day from lung cancer. They accept that one ageing rock perv who everyone recognises because his face has been all over the news will sneak up unnoticed and steal their children, and they accept that social services can take children from parents for any reason they feel like making up.

They accept that everything that happens to them is someone else's fault and that they are entitled to compensation for it, and they accept that events on the other side of the planet are all the fault of the British.

Doublethink. All of it. And those minds, once the envy of the world, are now so numb and feeble that they cannot see any contradiction in the information drifting into them. None of it is sorted, categorised, analysed or considered. Every last bit of nonsense is accepted as if God himself delivered it to them.

Today I heard that Sainsbury's is offering education, including basic literacy and maths education to its staff. Good God, what is going on when the supermarkets have to do the job our schools once did? Basic literacy and maths. Hardly a part-time degree, is it? They have set a target of 25% of staff having a qualification within five years. While I think what Sainsbury's is doing here is commendable, the fact remains that they should not have to. We used to have schools. Now we have indoctrination centres and that is just accepted by those sofa-bound parents. They will see no contradiction in wasting years at school only to start earning basic GCSE's after a spell of trolley-pushing.

When did this happen? When was the spirit sucked out of the people of this country? It was no overnight thing. It started small and spread like fungus throughout the land. It began with the best intentions, as these things always do. It began when those who had no jobs were entitled to a small government payment to keep them going until they found work. That, in itself, was not the problem. Work was always the better option and the dole was an embarassing place to be. Oh, yes, there were a few who were happy with that dole cheque and happy to sit back and do nothing but for most, it wasn't enough.

Then came free housing, free gas and electricity, a host of freebies and a wide range of tax-funded benefits until unemployment was more profitable than most of the lower-paid jobs. The idea that those lower-paid jobs were just a start, that they could lead into better-paid jobs, seems to have been lost. The people settled back to claim, spend, and claim some more. Their bodies fell into disuse, their brains atrophied by the drivel pouring from the little box in the corner. That box now occupies half the wall in some living rooms, in accordance with its status in those people's lives. In many houses, most rooms have them. You can even buy pocket ones. The mind-numbing output is everywhere.

Now they are confused by contradictions their conditioning insists they accept without question. Why question, when some vestige of their minds already knows there is no answer? Just accept it and have another beer. Drown the confusion with a chaser of something fluorescent. Bodies flaccid, minds baffled, they accept that they are obese because they eat the wrong kind of food, not because they eat too much and do too little. It's not their fault, you see? If only they had more benefits, they could afford fruit to eat while they watch three hundred channels on their 60-inch flatscreen with surround sound. The contradiction is whisked away by doublethink.

There are a few real people left. Some who are fit and healthy, some with intelligence, some to whom these contradictions are obvious. A few who would, if they could, wake up the zombies the British have become and urge them once more to innovate, to fend for themselves, to reach for those stars they once looked up to see.

To dismiss insulting words not as 'offensive' but as 'the ramblings of a fool'. To stand up for those rights they once had instead of allowing them to be taken away one by one. To think their own thoughts once more. To see those contradictions for what they are, and to analyse and deny them. To take back their lives.

Can they be woken? I am sure some can. I am sure some of the British can be revived. If I thought there was no hope at all I would not be writing this.

For many, it's far too late. For many, there can be no escape from that sleep they believe to be real life. They will spend their time displaying Pavlovian offence at anything that is pointed out to them. They will bleat 'Baaan' on command. They will enjoy the daily two minute hate, and agree like those sheep that while they can no longer do the things they used to enjoy, the slaughterhouse is at least warmer than the field. Those are the British now. Those are the 'vast majority' the Righteous love to quote at dissenters.

It can be dangerous to wake sleepwalkers, and we know that the shepherds will try to prevent it, but if we do nothing then that abbatoir will expand up our hillside until it is covered. In the end, the choice is simple. Take the risk or join them in the warmth of oblivion.

The rain does stop. They just need to be reminded of that.

(Original post & comments here)