Strayside Sunday is our weekly political opinion column. It is written by Paul Baverstock, former Director of Communications for the Conservative Party.
A revelation: 31% of the public now think of the Labour Party as the “nasty party,” as opposed to 34% of the public who apply that particular sobriquet to the Conservative Party. So say pollsters ComRes and, in the week during which only Labour’s washing in public of its dirty anti-semitic laundry could draw the eye from the Conservative’s face-off over school dinners with the sainted multi-millionaire man of the people Marcus Rashford, who can blame them?
The independent Equalities and Human Rights Commission, in its report into anti-Semitism found, that under the stellar leadership of Comrade Corbyn, the Labour Party was guilty of committing “unlawful acts.” Corbyn and his cronies, Abbott, Lansman, McDonnell, McCluskey and the rest of the brothers and sisters grim, have reacted with predictable fury and gifted Sir Keir Starmer with the opportunity for his own ‘Clause Four’ moment, namely sticking it to the horrible lefties for their sickening bigotry and hypocrisy.
First Neil Kinnock versus Militant, “the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.” Then Tony Blair and Clause 4. Now, in releasing the EHRC report, Keir became the latest Labour leader to pick a fight at home. At his press conference he added a flash of steel and glimpse of passion to his usual forensic use of language. It was impressive and will give succour to those of us who are Jewish and/or care about having a strong opposition to buttress the walls of our democracy. Let’s hope Conservative Central Office notice the threat and up their game.
Closer to home, local devolution is in the news again, with the projected costs and savings of the rival North Yorkshire County Council (North/South) and Harrogate (7 districts East/West) bids published. In yet further evidence that the country is actually being run by large management consultancies raking in taxpayer monies by the bucketload (NHS Test & Trace has so far spent a staggering £12b on McKinsey, Bain, Deloitte, KPMG, Serco, CapGemini, among others), the devolution studies were prepared respectively, by PWC and KPMG. The rest of the covid economy may well be in meltdown but I suspect next year’s graduate milk round will be recruiting a bumper crop of management consultants. Broadly speaking both bids will cost the same to realise, close to £40m. And, broadly speaking, both will realise the same savings over a five-year term, about £250m. Whichever shall we choose? Frankly, neither give me goosegogs.
The real question ought to be should we choose devolution at all? Some Harrogate voices have been heard to say that now is not the time to proceed. National crisis and all that. I beg to differ, if not now, when? If the total write-off car crash of our, ahem, “world-beating” Test & Trace system has taught us anything, it is that national government programmes should be about the provision of the funds for services, not the delivery. Now that councils across the land are taking control of tracing those of us exposed to the dread bug, we are starting to see real improvements in the number and proportion of contacts reached. That’s because council’s know their own patch, have and are using established relationships with community groups and charities that are known and trusted by local residents and (ought to have) a developed sense of the socio-cultural norms and needs of the people they serve.
Let me put it this way, an English speaking 20-year-old male, with four hours PowerPoint training by Zoom, a face covering, a clipboard and script, is not likely to be understood, let alone well received, by a Pakistani Grandmother in a multi-generational household who doesn’t speak English. Obvious I suppose, but not to NHS Test & Trace apparently. Councils know the cultures to which they have to be sensitive and we have to harness that. Yes, some councils are rubbish (and if you’ve read this column before you’ll know my opinion of Harrogate Borough Council can best be described as low) but they are a self-fulfilling mediocrity.
We need our leaders nearer to us, in plain sight, with actual power to dispense. That way we can watch them closely, demand better, make them accountable for the things they do in our name. If we do that, then perhaps we have a hope of attracting a new, more talented generation of municipal leaders to lead us, if not to the promised land, then at least to devolved competence.
That’s my Strayside Sunday.
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