Strayside Sunday is our weekly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

This week, Harrogate Borough Council was on the receiving end of the Stray Ferret’s interest in its sparkling, circular, glass-fronted, council headquarters at Knapping Mount.  This to replace the down at heel Victorian jewel at Crescent Gardens that served as the council’s home between the 1930’s and 2017.  At question, both the decision-making rationale and the economic fundamentals of the move.  Given the usually somnolent nature of the council’s communications in response to our publication, it has been with some surprise that the investigation has provoked a series of carefully written council Tweets and a special edition of its “Resident’s News” email to issues its denials.

It seems the investigation struck a nerve; not least the claim, based on assessments made by local estate agents, architects and quantity surveyors, that the land value of the site at Knapping Mount can be estimated at £4.5 million.  Given that the adjacent Springfield Court parcel of land (which is roughly half the Knapping Mount acreage) sold with planning permission to developers for £4.8 million just a couple of years ago, this does not seem an unreasonable estimate.

In one of its Tweets the council said: “The land at civic centre did not cost the council £4.5million. We already owned it, so the cost was £0.”  This is an answer to a question the Stray Ferret did not pose.  The point made was that the council had a duty to maximise taxpayer value as it explored its relocation options, including an assessment of the value of the Knapping Mount plot, both with and without planning consents.  Saying that Knapping Mount cost £0 is either voodoo economics or commercially illiterate.  Neither is good enough.  Further, a Tweet like the one published is silly and, in my view, serves only to mislead Harrogate’s good burghers.

It leads one to the unavoidable conclusion that the council ‘did decree’ they were going to have their stately pleasure dome come what may. Close to town, nuzzled into a leafy hillside, shaped around a consensus building demi-sphere, this was to be their Xanadu.  At a time when, even pre-Covid, the council was facing real financial challenges, it was (and remains) their duty to mangle every last drop of value from the council’s estate – which they hold on trust for the public – and that should include being live to the economic potential of all its land assets.  National campaign group The Taxpayer’s Alliance agrees.

I accept that being a modern public servant is a hiding to nothing; everyone is a critic.  But when decisions are made that place a premium on vanity and status, and disregard utility, service, and cost effectiveness, they need to be called out.  The great days of building neo-gothic municipal town halls as palaces of leadership are long gone; I would argue that in contemporary society we don’t much care what the council building looks like; we care whether the services we receive for the council tax we pay feels like a fair deal.  I’m not sure Harrogate Borough Council gets it.

When Covid struck and Harrogate Convention Centre was named as one of the Government’s Nightingale Hospitals, I confess I felt pride.  And it seemed morally right that the council gave use of the facility to the NHS free of charge.  Now we know that the HCC will remain a Nightingale until at least March 2021, left in place – take your pick – either to provide specialist care, NHS Winter Pressures cover, or Covid second (or third) wave capacity.  I’ve written here before that diverting HCC away from conference use deprives Harrogate’s economy of up to £57 million per annum.  That’s a huge fiscal hole to fill, particularly in “new normal” circumstances. And now it seems the HCC may well be out of commission for two years, which has come as a bitter blow to local businesses already on their knees and (I suspect) to the chagrin of the council.  Its ‘greater good’ decision has come back to haunt it – even when it does the right thing, Harrogate Borough Council is unlucky.

Talking of which, word reaches that Boris Johnson aims to fast track his plans for regional devolution for implementation in 2022.  If brought into effect, this will mean that Harrogate Borough Council would be subsumed into a newly empowered and funded North Yorkshire unitary authority, with a directly elected Mayor.  What this will mean for the political careers of local politicians like HBC leader Richard Cooper, one can only speculate.  It wouldn’t comfort me if he were catapulted onto a larger political stage before he can demonstrate he has mastered the footlights at the local rep.  Still, if devolution does go ahead, and Harrogate Council ceases to exist, we might yet be able to realise the true value of Knapping Mount.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More:

• Strayside Sunday: Is Harrogate too dependent on its hospitality industry?
• Column: Not all of Rishi Sunak’s measures will help Harrogate’s hospitality industry

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:

Not too long ago, in the early days of Boris Johnson’s recovery from Covid, our chastened PM admitted that the width of his seat was a contributory factor to the severity of his brush with the dread virus.  Brought low by the bug, he ‘for one’, was going to lose weight, and, in so doing, provide an example to the rest of us.  Echoing his Tory forebear Stormin’ Norman Tebbit, Boris implored us to get on our bikes, this time for the worthy purpose of exercise, (and greener transport) rather than in pursuit of scarce work.  Heart healthy you might say, rather than heart-less.

This week, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that he is going to be paying us (or, more accurately, paying the hospitality industry for us) to dine.  We have been asked to “eat out to help out,” this an eye-catching part of his £30b emergency stimulus package for our covid-ravaged economy.  Rish the Dish has found Dosh for Nosh; up to a discount limit of £10 per head.  This does of course mean that the world has officially gone mad; we can now boast a Conservative Government so interventionist it is promoting a basic bodily function.  Whatever next; red wine with fish? White jeans after November 1st? Where will it end?

To my mind however there are serious policy issues here: Obesity and public health; and the over-reliance of the UK economy on services (and particularly hospitality).  As a nation we rank 6^th in the global obesity rankings.  As such, obesity isn’t just a risk factor for covid symptom severity, it also costs the NHS almost £10b every year to treat its deleterious health effects.  I don’t blame people for being overweight, indeed, to my chagrin, I’m carrying a few extra pounds myself.  Nor do I accept that a focus on reducing obesity is, by definition, a class-based attack on those at the bottom end of the social scale, more often caught in possession of a high Body Mass Index than the rest of us.  We simply all have to get thinner, improve our health, avoid hospitals and leave the NHS free to treat serious illnesses, seasonal flu’s and future pandemics.

On the subject of food, Harrogate’s hospitality business owners let out a huge collective sigh of relief when allowed finally to open last weekend, albeit with social distancing regimens in place alongside ersatz “be wise, sanitise!” signs.  With fingers crossed tightly that we avoid a covid second wave, I for one hope that Harrogate’s residents feel able to turn out and support our local and independent hospitality businesses.  As with hospitality venues around the UK, venues in Harrogate are at risk, and the town can ill afford to lose them.  But as we move past covid response, we must build a newly diverse and resilient local economy, one in which the current over-reliance on hospitality is addressed directly in the council town plan.

The Anglo-Irish philosopher Edmund Burke said of being an MP that “your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serves you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”  And I agree with that.  It’s my belief that by creating a public discourse in which our MP’s are expected to act simply as a megaphone for local views (nothing enrages me more than to hear the lazy “what I hear on the doorstep is…”) we diminish the quality of our national politics and impose constraints and limits on our local politics.  As such we get the mediocre politics and politicians we deserve. Rather than thinking statesmen and woman of character in parliament, and outstanding municipal leaders closer to home, we get neither.  Instead, in our apathy, we must resign ourselves to obsequious lobby fodder in Westminster and to unchecked incompetence in our councils.  We should demand more of ourselves – intellectually and practically – and of our representatives.

To that end The Stray Ferret makes a point of reporting on the activities of our two local MPs, Andrew Jones in Harrogate and Julian Smith in Ripon.  In the month of June, for example, our parliamentary representatives voted against weekly covid testing for NHS staff members and voted against legal protections and the provision of help for migrant victims of domestic abuse.  But it’s so much less interesting to know how the MPs voted than it would be to know why they did so.

Try as we might, and we have asked repeatedly, we have yet to receive any explanation of why our MPs cast their vote in the manner they did.  Were they to engage with their electorate (you, me, us), whether directly, or through this and other media outlets, in order to explain their intellectual and principled positions, then two beneficial consequences would follow;  first, we would understand better the judgements they make in our name, and, second, we would support better the decisions they make in the face of our opinions.

Harrogate Council made a decision this week when it gave final approval to its overhaul of leisure service provision, with the opposition Lib Dems voting in favour.  Their 7 votes were secured because they tabled successful amendments to the motion supporting “affordable pricing, accountability and worker’s rights.”  Who can argue with that?  And I’m all in favour of constructive opposition and pragmatism, however, as a matter of bald politics, the Lib Dems always seem to get it wrong.  Come the reckoning Councillor Pat Marsh and her well-meaning team will not be able to say that they took a position of principle – against the privatisation of the leisure we should all be encouraged to take more of for the sake both of our waistlines and long-term health – and fought it to the last.  Instead they will be complicit in Harrogate Council’s decision to place leisure provision at arms-length, as the expression makes plain, away from the body and beating heart of government where it ought to be.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More:

• Council takes final vote to over-haul leisure services 
• Council leader says race comments by parish councillor are “deplorable”

Do you have anything you want to say to Paul or think there is a specific subject he should be writing about?

You can get in touch at paul@thestrayferret.co.uk

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. 

Yesterday was ‘Super Saturday’. 101 days since lockdown, the nation is emerging from the social constraints and restrictions of pandemic into what I hope will blossom into newly respected and cherished freedoms, rather than revert to the taken-for-granted entitlements we had allowed to develop pre-crisis.  Many too hope that yesterday’s grand opening will herald the dawn of what economists call a “V-shaped” recovery, one in which the financial markets, business wealth and personal incomes rebound swiftly to pre-pandemic levels.  But should we wish for an old, rather than a new normal?

During the early days and weeks of lockdown, for those of us fortunate enough to possess a garden or other outside space, could not fail to notice the nature that filled the space we and our noisy humanity had vacated.  Birdsong never sounded so good.  Now, even approaching Independence Day, traffic noise and the hustle and bustle of life are coming back and nature is in visible retreat.  I fear we have not heeded Mother Nature’s warning and that we will revert to environmentally disastrous type.

With luck, Boris Johnson’s cry of “Build, build, build” will let loose a new, green and historically respectful economy. One in which the streamlined planning laws the Prime Minister promises, create thriving high streets and town centres, mixed and affordable residential and business use property, local shops and eateries stocked with local produce, with attention paid to making our world-beating heritage work for the public good of all.  I’m not wholly optimistic; a planned £6,000 scrappage scheme to encourage us to buy electric cars has already been, well, scrapped; and a bicycling revolution has been announced, but little evidence of the pedalling republic has yet been seen.

Meanwhile, our leaders here in Harrogate are, in a special edition of “Residents’ News,” signposting a move away from a posture of Covid response, towards one of recovery.  This is welcome, as is the news that the borough council does not face an immediate threat of bankruptcy.  It’s clear too that the council understand how much effort it will take to reboot our town centres across the district.  Indeed, the council has received cash from the European Union (remember them?) Development Fund and will be using it, they tell us, to run a campaign promoting our high streets.  This is great news and the perfect opportunity to bring activist voices together, to create a recovery campaign with the full and engaged support of those it seeks to serve, and to build the ‘Town Teams’ that the council needs, both for their fresh ideas and for their undeniable industry.  We look forward to hearing the detail soon…

In last week’s column, I discussed the recent racist Facebook posts of Darley parish councillor Ernest Butler.  In so doing I expressed my opinion that public representatives (whether they are elected or co-opted into their position, as Mr. Butler was into his) are always on duty and, as such, should always be held to account for any and all views they express on social media, or indeed anywhere else.

My column prompted corrective email correspondence from Harrogate Borough Council Leader Richard Cooper.  In order to respect Mr. Cooper’s express wishes I will not quote here the contents of his email, save to say that he was not impressed by my column, in which I accused the council of “washing their hands” of the Ernest Butler affair.  In fact, the council’s code of conduct does not apply to social media comments made by councillors “in a personal capacity.” My piece suggested otherwise and I am happy to clarify that the council felt their hands, rather than being washed, were tied.

However, in his latest and much reported bigoted outburst, that historian David Starkey was not speaking, at or on behalf of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, did not stop them stripping him of his honourary fellowship.  Nor did it stop Harper Collins refusing, henceforth, to publish his history books.  Starkey has been so unceremoniously given the boot, precisely because his employers know that public opinion is a blunt instrument and makes no distinction between what we say in a private capacity and what we say in public.  In short, if you are a public figure, no matter how obscure, you simply don’t have the luxury of sharing abhorrent views.

Nonetheless, my opinion – and it is just my opinion – remains that it is always the role of our political leaders to call out any racism on their patch, when they become aware of it, whether they choose to do so comfortably, within the narrow confines of written procedure, or on the basis of their implied moral authority; sought freely through public election.

As I hope to continue to write opinion about the council and local politics for our growing Stray Ferret readership, and given I believe in dialogue, on Wednesday I wrote to Councillor Cooper directly to ask him whether he would like to meet, have the opportunity to share his vision for the district and to have a no doubt robust exchange of views.  At time of going to press my email to him has yet to be acknowledged.  I look forward to a response.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communication for the Conservative Party

This week, two politicians, one an obscure local parish councillor, the other a Labour MP of some note, have both fallen foul of unwise activity on social media.  The very ‘White British’ Harrogate district parish councillor Ernest Butler took to Facebook to claim that (sigh) “White Lives Matter” and, to boot, that Jonny Foreigner is taking over.  Meanwhile, Rebecca Long-Bailey MP couldn’t resist attaching herself to the celebrity twitter coattails of actress and activist Maxine Peake, when retweeting the antisemitic claim that Israeli arrest methods caused the death of George Floyd.

Following multiple complaints from the public about the content of his statements, an unrepentant Mr. Butler has been suspended from work by his employers, Nidd Hall, while Ms. Long-Bailey’s unwillingness to take down her retweet gave Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer the excuse he needed to rid his Shadow Cabinet of a leading and unreformed Corbynista.

Ms. Long-Bailey is a professional politician, working under the constant scrutiny of the British political media, and should know better.  In fact, I believe she does know better, and that she provoked a deliberate stand-off with Sir Keir in order to cement her position as Momentum’s torch bearer.  But to have done so with two such incendiary topics as Mossad and the murder of George Floyd demonstrates a deeply troubling triumph of ambition over reason.

Ernest Butler doesn’t know any better.  He is an amateur politician, bustling around Darley’s rather lovely parish, trying sincerely to do his bit for his community.  No one questions that.  His ignorance of the evil ways of social media (once you publish your views they exist on a global media platform and can never be taken back) is not a sin and should be forgiven, especially of someone not born into the generation of so-called ‘digital natives’.  However, ignorance of the current cultural context in which you make your rather fruity views known when using social media deserves less charity; the views Mr. Butler expressed are wrong.

Harrogate Council too has received complaints about Mr. Butler’s views, but has washed its hands of the affair, notwithstanding that its own code of conduct (to which, as a district councillor, Mr. Butler is subject) makes it entirely plain that, to paraphrase, you don’t get to publish your views in a purely personal capacity on social media.  And that has to be right, doesn’t it?  The very reason these pages have covered this story this week is because Mr. Butler is a Councillor, and therefore a representative of the Council.  As such he is not free to publish his views absent of Council oversight and censure.  One might have thought that, at the very least, the council would have taken the opportunity of Mr. Butler’s indiscretion to voice it’s support for a world in which Black Lives Matter, even here in Harrogate.  True to form, the council said nothing, and did nothing.  It pains me to say that Labour’s Sir Keir has this week shown our own Richard Cooper what real leadership looks like.

This is difficult and sensitive territory I know. Surely a right to free speech is part of what defines our democracy and our society?  For my part I believe in a public discourse that celebrates a person who, in the brilliant words of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, “would advocate at the top of their lungs that which I had spent a lifetime opposing at the top of mine.” I believe in passionate arguments well-made. But I don’t get to decide. And neither, individually, do you.  It’s too late for that.

In order to support a business model based on targeted advertising, we have allowed companies like Facebook and Twitter to beg ‘platform,’ rather than publisher status.  If they had been subject to the rules traditional news and content publishers comply with we may not have seen the hate-filled, mudslinging, tear it down, free-for-all that such social media platforms enable.

In reaction, a new tyranny has taken hold, one in which social media is a megaphone to rally like-minded support and to shout down the targets of ire.  It gives expression to an ugly need to condemn, to shame, to bully and it gives an outlet to the primary school playground impulse to “all pile on.”  Worst of all it is reductionist and intellectually lazy. If you can’t hashtag it then it’s not worth saying.  Social media offers no space or inclination to inform and educate those who, like Councillor Ernest Butler, sometimes get things wrong.

Social media is but one area of contemporary life where personal responsibility is now at a premium.  This week the Great British Public has reacted to the easing of lockdown measures with wanton abandon. From the packed beaches of Bournemouth to the packed green spaces of Harrogate’s Stray, we have seen a total disregard for social distancing guidelines as lovely weather and the frustrations of lockdown seem to have overwhelmed any sense of self-control;  Dorset and North Yorkshire Police both have complained of large and rowdy gatherings of people drinking, drugging, littering and using common outdoor space as a toilet.

Boris Johnson’s strand of conservatism places personal responsibility at its core.  He believes that the right to freedom (speech and otherwise) is balanced by the responsibilities of individual citizenship.  It has been the compass he has used to guide his decision-making during the coronavirus crisis; so, when possible, Boris has chosen the path of least restriction and asked, rather than required people to change their behaviour.  This worked well initially.  However, it seems increasingly clear to me that, whether on Twitter or on the Stray, we can’t be trusted to behave.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More: 

• Stray in disarray:  “Biggest mess for years” 
• Parish councillor defends “White Lives Matter” post

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:

The Liberal Democrats used to be hugely effective local campaigners.  Not least here in Harrogate where Phil, now Baron Willis of Knaresborough, was a formidable and highly popular Liberal Democrat MP.  Willis served 13 years in parliament and retired ahead of the 2010 election.  From potholes to streetlights, and from parking to dog poo – no issue that affected the daily lives of residents was too small for the Lib Dems to champion.

During these past few months of crisis, the local Lib Dems insipid contribution has largely been to criticise our MPs for returning to Westminster, suggesting the creation of Covid Recovery Response Teams, calling on Harrogate council to declare a climate emergency (something that has even proven beyond Greta Thunberg), and worrying about the council’s “abysmal communication.”

Granted, it is difficult to make any real political impression when you occupy just 7 seats on a council of 40, but an effective Lib Dem opposition should look to serve as a locus for local issues, campaigns and activism, and attempt to frame and lead local political debate.  Let’s hope they can shake their somnolence in the months to come.  The people of Harrogate need a functioning opposition.

In last week’s column I argued against Harrogate Council’s plan to create a Local Authority Controlled Company (LACC) to manage the area’s sport centres and deliver leisure services across the district.  On Wednesday evening, the 7 Conservative members of the council’s cabinet approved unanimously plans to create the new company, called ‘Brimham Active.’  This will now be put to a full vote of the council on July 8^th.  If the council rubberstamps cabinet’s recommendation, as the thumping Conservative majority will surely do, it will be a decision taken in the face of public opinion, that was sought through a ‘consultation’ exercise, bought and paid for with public, read our, money.

During my professional life in politics and communication I have written, conducted and commissioned a myriad of polls, surveys and consultations. From experience, I can tell you there is no legitimate basis upon which the leisure service consultation results can be interpreted as supportive of the council’s privatisation plan.  Of 433 opinions sought, just 27% of us agreed with the council’s scheme.  That’s just 117 Harrogate residents who support £300,000 in venture start-up costs and borrowings of £26m to fund the facilities upgrades on which the plan for leisure depends.  In fact, the balance of public opinion was undeniably negative; 46% of us disagreed with the plan.  You have to hand it to the council; it takes some kind of brass neck to ignore a poll result that is 2 to 1 against.  And no, there’s no excuse for the Lib Dems ,who arrived too late in the debate, and then howled about being kept in the dark – this proposal was covered in this publication and others well ahead of the vote.

This week the district has seen the closure of Henshaw’s Arts and Crafts centre in Knaresborough.  These pages also reported on their announcement that its Assisted Living Centre is to shut this coming October.  It appears that Henshaw’s actually made the decision to close four long months ago but, for reasons passing understanding, delayed the news until now.  What has gone so wrong financially it has left 21 families urgently needing alternative arrangements to house their disabled loved ones?  Something else for the local Lib Dems to get their teeth into, perhaps?

Poor old ‘App-less’ Matt Hancock is having a bad war of late.  When appointed to his post, the technophile Secretary of State for Health and Social Care set up a shiny new unit called NHSx and tasked it with the digital transformation of healthcare.  It’s job is to bring the NHS’s prehistoric I.T. kit up to date, make it work well and work most of the time, link and share our patient data across care settings (between your GP surgery and hospital for example) and generally harness the power of innovation to improve care, and to make it more cost efficient for the taxpayer.  I can talk this way because, when I was Director of Communication for Paperless 2020, the former name of the digital transformation programme for healthcare in England and Wales, it used to be my job to talk this way.

The thing is, building technology at pace and scale is both hard and expensive, even if you are a technology company like, say, Apple or Google, to pick but two at random…  Matt Hancock actually has his own app, imaginatively called ‘Matt Hancock MP.’  You should download it.  An hour or so before the Downing Street daily press conference, at which he announced that our “world beating” track and trace app was being binned before it could be launched, he posted a message of congratulations to Frankie Dettori for winning the Ascot Gold Cup.  You couldn’t make it up. Could you?

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More:

• Column: Travel agents have had bad press during pandemic
• Strayside Sunday: Part privatisation will lead to higher prices for leisure

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:

In 2019, Britain ranked sixth in the world in its incidence of obesity, with the proportion of us “struggling with our weight” growing faster than anywhere in the world.  And even before the emotional trauma imposed by lockdown, 1 in 4 of us experienced some form of mental ill health.  It’s for that reason that I believe the first principle for any governing body, be they national, regional (North Yorkshire County Council) or local (Harrogate Borough Council), is now to provide for the physical, mental and economic wellbeing of all the people it serves.  Without such holistic and inclusive thinking we will continue to see the wider determinants of ill health – low income, inadequate housing, poor diet and loneliness, to name a few – impact those of us that can least afford it, at a time when household budgets are going to be stretched to their limits.

In this context, the hiving-off of the borough’s leisure facilities by Harrogate Council (into what is known as a Local Authority Controlled Company) is not in the public interest.

On Friday, these pages quoted the wonderfully named Councillor Stan Lumley, Harrogate Borough Council Cabinet Member for Culture, Tourism and Sport, who justified his creation thus:

“This is like a partial privatisation. It allows us to benefit from some things that a private company would, but by keeping control of the business. It’s the best of both worlds.”

I am a conservative, so, as you might expect, I believe in the market economy, but only in terms.  The provision of leisure services is, I believe, an essential public good, especially at a time when we must surely nurture the health and wellbeing of our bruised and tender population.

Harrogate Borough Council, in the name of cost savings and efficiencies, is attempting to ‘marketise’ our leisure at precisely the moment it is needed most, by most.  Unsurprisingly, no long term assurances can be given about the future of Starbeck Baths, a monument to place and community, serving one of the less affluent areas of the borough, yet great plans await for the Hydro, a gentle walk down the hill from tree-lined avenues of The Duchy.  Setting aside the fact that, in the Harrogate Convention Centre, the council has not previously covered itself in glory with its similar arms-length operations (the centre has not been profitable for years), nobody has asked what seems to me to be the only important question: “Whatever the original decision, is it still the right thing to do?”

In my view, given the circumstances we now face, it is wrong to take a course of action that will likely make leisure more expensive and less geographically accessible, and, in so doing, negatively impact the wellbeing of the people of the borough.  The council seems set, as ever, to pursue blindly the ideology of privatisation.  To do this in the face of compelling new arguments is negligent.

As a former Parliamentary Private Secretary to Jeremy Hunt when he was Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Jones MP knows the negative impact that wider determinants can have on wellbeing, he knows too how important wellbeing is to economic success, both individual and collective, let alone to social stability and cohesion. That’s why I’d like to see Mr. Jones take this on as a cause celebre: I’d like him to call for a rethink from the council on leisure privatisation.  Sadly, I predict he won’t, because the campaigns he tends to favour, think “save” Stray FM and Nidd Gorge, allow him to avoid coming into conflict with his friends and constituency office employees at Harrogate Borough Council.

The very first class I walked into at university was taught by Professor, now Sir Simon Schama.  The class, “Britain Since 1945,” was co-taught with another ex-pat Brit, Professor John Brewer.  Thirty-four years later, what stands out in my memory is that these two undoubtedly brilliant academic friends and colleagues attempted to out-Popinjay one another with Flock of Seagull fashions and multi-coloured spectacle frames.  The class was brilliant.  It made me feel that, on the whole, we, the Brits, were the good guys, and could be proud of our heritage, history, culture and tolerance.

Sir Simon was in the news this week to comment on the protests against memorials across the land, these built or named to celebrate “Great” British historical figures from Baden-Powell (a Nazi sympathiser), to Colston (a slave owner), to Gladstone (supporter of the pro-slavery Confederacy) and to Robert Peel Jr (son of an anti-abolitionist) et al.  I’m with Schama when he says that if it was good enough for the Romans to melt down the statues of their fallen emperors for coinage, it’s certainly fine to dispose of the statue of a man, namely Edward Colston, whose riches came, at least in large part, from the blood, sweat and toil of slave labour.

If a protest captures the imagination, wins hearts and gains mass support, as Black Lives Matter has undoubtedly done, then progressive changes happen and we should celebrate them.  This especially if we are challenged to think critically about our existing assumptions.  But the right to protest is a gift, a gift actually achieved through our complicated and murky history, built by men and women who can never be judged unimpeachable by contemporary norms and contexts, given to us by an imperfect democracy which we abuse at our peril.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Read More from columns: 

• Harrogate needs to know what the long term future of the NHS Nightingale 
• Business in the district still faces months of challenge

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:

In the days after Boris Johnson introduced lockdown on March 24th, I wrote in the Yorkshire Post and Stray Ferret in praise of the Prime Minister’s leadership and in praise of the substance and effectiveness of government communication at the time. 11 weeks later the PM’S moral leadership is under threat and the Government’s initial clarity of communication has been lost.

This week, hot on the heels of the credibility-sapping Cummings affair, the government has asked for, and succeeded in bringing, all members from every constituency in the land back to parliament.  Observing social distancing requirements, it took MPs 90 minutes to make their way through the queue to vote for a measure that disenfranchises any MP with an underlying health condition, or who is isolated for family reasons. This cannot be sustainable.

As parliament will soon be rehoused to make way for the pending multi-billion renovation of the Palace of Westminster, the Government should have grasped the opportunity for a continued virtual parliament, embracing technology in circumstances that make it both possible and advisable: Saving money for the taxpayer; repatriating MP’s to spend more time in their constituencies; closer and more accountable to the people they represent.  Little wonder that Harrogate and Ripon’s own ‘virtual’ MPs, Andrew Jones and Julian Smith, both voted to return to Westminster.

Now that both MPs are back in the capital, perhaps they could ask ministers for urgent clarification about the future of Harrogate’s Nightingale Hospital, thankfully under-utilised for covid cases, which, from Friday past, was being used to provide CT scans for non-covid patients. In the “Before Times” Harrogate relied greatly on the income from conferences and attendees.

The NHS’s contract to use the Convention Centre ends on June 30th.  Given the centrality of the centre to Harrogate’s economic future we need urgent information from the council about the plans for it. It may well be that the Department of Health and Social Care is hedging specialist beds capacity against a covid ‘second wave’ spike. It might just be that a decision is pending. Either way, any plan to get the town’s economy back on its feet needs the Convention Centre convening again, not least to generate some proportion of the £57m economic benefit it claimed to bring to the town in 2017/18.  Even the public acknowledgement of uncertainty by Harrogate Borough Councillors Cooper and Swift is better communication than saying nothing at all and signals to the local business community that they need to make contingent plans for a much straitened economic future.

No political column this week can fail to mention the killing of George Floyd.  As of writing, the charge against Minneapolis policemen, Derek Chauvin, has been elevated to second-degree murder and the other three officers face counts of aiding and abetting murder. Mr Floyd’s death was caught on video and, thanks to social media ‘shares,’ has now been seen by millions around the globe.

On Tuesday, activists asked us all to post a “Blackout Tuesday” black disc in place of our social media profile pictures and asked that we spend our time understanding how to combat the innate and institutionalised racism that the organisers say we are all guilty of, because we were born into white privilege.  While it is undeniable that the good and, let’s face it, mostly white burghers of genteel Harrogate cannot in any way appreciate the lived experience of an urban black Minnesotan, to extrapolate from that to a blanket charge of racism is wrong headed and dangerous.

Which is a clue for those of you who’ve asked why I won’t participate in discussion on social media.  A battle of ideas fought on social media can’t possibly have the space, tolerance and reasoned discourse needed if we are to bottom out loaded subjects like race and make progress toward real equality together.

I don’t believe it is possible or even wise to attempt to substantiate reason and complexity in 280 characters or, as Twitter says ‘less’ (when of course it should say ‘fewer’).  Titbits of virtue signalling, local bores, selfie whores, moaners and the ‘let’s all pile on kicking of those who made mistakes years ago, in contexts long forgotten’, are not of interest and gladden neither heart nor soul.

I celebrate the power of social media to reveal acts of criminal violence such as the killing of George Floyd but I also denigrate its dumbing down and silencing of real public discourse.

Some things are as simple as black and white; it’s just that most things are not.  Things in the public realm are and should be difficult. Reaching agreement and achieving compromise asks the best of us, while, IMHO (sigh), social media amplifies the worst.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Strayside Sunday is our weekly political column written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party:

This week has seen a flurry of proposals from local leaders to reinvigorate Harrogate and its economy as we begin to emerge from lockdown: North Yorkshire County Council has set up an in-house taskforce; Independent Harrogate has published a 1700-word mission statement with its proposals for Harrogate town centre; and we have even heard from Harrogate’s Lib Dems (remember them?) with their idea of creating multiple, Coronavirus Recovery Teams.  It’s reassuring to know that there is no lack of appetite, dearth of ideas or offers of industry to make Harrogate thrive.

My suggestion in last week’s Strayside Sunday that Harrogate lacked the magic ingredient – that of leadership – to harness this obvious and abundant energy seemed to touch a nerve and elicited lively correspondence, for which thank you.

In addition to innate qualities of vision and energy, leadership needs both a platform and method to flourish.  Around the world, imaginative governments, whether national or local, have used a technique called Citizen’s Assemblies to bring together often vehemently opposing groups to discuss and reach a negotiated settlement on highly contentious issues. This method, in which professionals facilitate a group of between 100 and 160 socio-demographically representative people for an intense period of what is called deliberative consultation, is well proven.  Among other successes, it led to a change to the Irish Constitution to allow gay marriage, to a new proportional voting system in British Columbia, Canada and to the creation of the NHS Constitution here at home.

If it can achieve those potentially contentious things, a Citizens Assembly here in Harrogate could certainly bring together Independent Harrogate and Zero Carbon Harrogate to work our way through the car versus bike, parking versus cycle lane debate.  So come on Mr Jones and Mr Cooper, grab your chance to lead and create a nation-leading model for unifying people and interests in the name of covid recovery.  You’ll find no shortage of willing and qualified participants, you’ll energise the town, and you’ll make a name for yourselves nationally. Think big, be big.

Talking of making a name for yourself, Dominic Cummings has been the national news story of the week. Dominic is a formidable political strategist, but, in common with many intellectually gifted people, he doesn’t suffer fools, nor is he in any way reticent with his views.  In my experience he holds the political classes in contempt, whether they be politician, civil servant or party apparatchik.  He is self-consciously out of step with the accepted norms of political behaviour.

Boris Johnson knows that without Cummings, the government will lose its’ policy conscience, lose the driving force behind the “levelling up” agenda, and still the beating heart of the Conservative’s stated objective for this parliament, coronavirus or no, to bring jobs and socio-economic progress to the Red Wall seats here in the North.  No wonder Boris is loath to let him go.  But let him go he must, or the Prime Minister risks fatally undermining his own position of trust with the Great British Public.

Harrogate MP Andrew Jones was quick to condemn him. It’s good to see our MP getting involved in a heated public debate for a change, even though in political terms going after Mr. Cummings is a freebie, with little or no personal political risk.  Andrew Jones is a remainer though (albeit one who voted for every iteration of the Brexit deal) who’s unable to find ministerial preferment in BoJo’s heavily Brexiteer team.  Nonetheless, more of this ‘sharp-elbowed’ engagement please Mr. Jones.

Finally, the town’s cyclists taught me a new word this week, namely Todesrinne.  This, translated from the German, means “death gutter” and is used to describe the narrow cycle lanes which are painted on the periphery of existing road surfaces.  The German’s have a knack for capturing the essence of a thing in their language and in this case its instructive. Not all cycle lanes are created equal and, when we do get them, as we must, they need to be properly planned and integrated, rather than painted on as a symbolic afterthought.

That’s my Strayside Sunday.

Got a view on my views? You can get in touch with me on paul@thestrayferret.co.uk 

Paul Baverstock is an advisor to leaders in business, politics and the third sector . His roles have included Director of Communication for the Conservative Party, Director of Engagement and Communication for the British Medical Association and Director of Communication for Paperless 2020, the government’s digital transformation plan for Health and Care. He is a graduate of Harvard University and the Yale University School of Management.

The Stray Ferret is delighted Paul has agreed to write a political column for us every week -we’re calling it Strayside Sunday.

Let me set out my stall:  I am a conservative.  A sometime member and sometime not.  I worked for the party as Director of Communication for Iain Duncan Smith, a job that, when I accepted it, my father described as a triumph of ambition over reason.  I strongly support the measures taken by Boris Johnson’s government in response to the coronavirus pandemic.  A response that, to date, has diminished our peacetime liberties as never before, an interventionist response so spendthrift, that you, I, and everyone, will be paying for it far into the future. In short, a most un-conservative approach.

Our leaders have been visible front and centre, their actions have been transparent and, when the inevitable post-pandemic investigations and reckonings come, they will be made accountable for their decisions in office.  Would that were true of our local Conservative leaders here in Harrogate and North Yorkshire.

On the 24^th March I wrote to the Stray Ferret calling on Andrew Jones MP to demonstrate visible leadership during this crisis.  This week the Stray Ferret reported that in the last month Mr. Jones’ public voice – one news story, three tweets and one public statement – has done little to fill the leadership void.  Hardly “roll your sleeves up” stuff is it?

As and when we are able to move on from lockdown, Harrogate, in common with places everywhere across the United Kingdom, faces a generational challenge to recover its economy, build business and improve the lot of its people.  The question is whether our leadership and the local institutions they run are up to it?  Evidence suggests not.

The town’s business community despairs over the machinations of the Harrogate Business Improvement District, four of whose members, including the Chair, resigned in protest at what they see as the Council’s impeding of the BIDs’ plans.  Council Leader Richard Cooper dismissed their actions as nothing more than a “distraction from what really matters.”  Hmmm. Is that really good enough?  At a time when leadership and conciliation is what we most need, isn’t this response complacent and graceless at best?

From the dilapidated eyesore of our pedestrian precincts to the vacancies on James Street, the town centre is dying on its feet.  With experts predicting that as little as 10% of the restaurant trade will make it through the current crisis and recession to follow, this trend toward “hollowing out” is only likely to get worse.

This week has also seen “Bollardgate.”  Brand spanking new bollards deployed in the district’s towns to general bemusement; the socially distanced pavements clear for those wanting to window shop our largely shuttered retail outlets.  Well intentioned no doubt, but barmy none the less.  Paving the way, to coin a phrase, for the pedestrianisation debate.

The existing town masterplan envisages more pedestrianisation, more walking and more cycling, while the local business community believe that there still needs to be space and parking for people to pop into town, park up and shop.  Post-covid we will likely see a tussle between the pro-car, pro-parking traders represented by Independent Harrogate, desperate to rebuild their business in the face of economic difficulty, with pro-walking and cycling environmental and sustainability activists like Zero Carbon and Sustainably Harrogate.  Both have a point and need a way to engage with each other, to talk it out in collaborative spirit.

As the town’s MP, Andrew Jones holds a unique convening power to bring together these countervailing interests, to reach across the divides of politics and activism, lead debate and build bridges.  To do that he has to represent all his constituents, not only those who, like me, voted for him at the last election.  For the next few years, as we dig ourselves out of the economic Mariana Trench to come, none of us, I argue, has the luxury of our existing ideology. We have to get deeply consensual, practical, and we have to do it fast.

Innovative planning, incentives to attract independent (local) place-based business, helping developers bring residents back to the town centre, park and ride, cycling-first, and wellbeing strategy, all these and more will help Harrogate thrive but not, if the interests that represent them, are set squarely against each other.

Surely we have to talk out these issues publicly if we are to negotiate a vision we can all get behind?

In this column I hope I can stimulate debate so that together we can emerge from the covid crisis in good health, in good spirits and in good economic order.  So, I’d like to hear your ideas; how can we work together to bring about the radical structural and institutional changes we need to make Harrogate a better place to live in, to shop, and to work?  How can we press our leaders to do more on our behalf and do it better in these testing times?  I want to hear from you.  You deserve nothing less.

That’s it for this week’s Strayside Sunday.

Contact me with your views on paul@thestrayferret.co.uk