Something fishy about the current political debate

It is the sign of a healthy democracy that anyone in power should get the brickbats as well as the plaudits -- their decisions and motives should always be thoroughly questioned. However some of the criticisms aimed at the authority recently just don't bear close scrutiny and appear to amount to nothing more than the work of a mischievous few agitating an otherwise ill-informed crowd.

'That's a bit rich coming from The Citizen ' I hear one or two of you mutter from the cheap seats... so, for the hard of thinking, I'll explain a little about the fresh batch of red herrings currently on offer.

Let's take the current financial crisis for example -- here's how some critics interpret the situation.

Step 1 the council is short of money. Step 2 the MBI run the council. Step 3 therefore it's all their fault the authority has no cash... bingo!

One cannot fault the logic but sadly it doesn't tell the whole story... not that the whole story is often an agenda item for some people.

To lose money on the scale that some are claiming has happened, would indeed be criminal, and anyone responsible should be hanging from quickly-erected gallows in Dalton Square!

So... what have they spent the millions on? Have they been throwing tenners out of the back of a double decker bus?

Some dinosaurs from the last administration are now trying to claim that when the electorate unceremoniously kicked them out of office the council's coffers were in a healthy state but it ain't necessarily so.

All we have discovered really is that today we can cover the costs of a councillor's baby-sitting arrangements for half of what it used to cost to fix a leaking shower in a council house.

For years this authority has done a better job than Paul Daniels in creating the illusion that we were performing better than we had. It's all a question of interpreting statistics and juggling figures.

For example, few will mention the fact that two months before the last local elections the authority borrowed £2million to balance the books.

Even fewer would dwell on the fact that the council has, until recently, drawn relentlessly on precious reserves which now, because of this, are unavailable to meet any genuine financial pickle.

Don't know about you but I reckon anyone could make the finances look good... using somebody else's loot.

Oh yes there was one other item as well. In the past, Citizen Smith has been informed, there has been no provision for extraordinary claims arising out of insurance or legal matters and, as readers well know, this has caused a considerable drain on the local authority for some time

Just think about some of the costs involved. We all know David Christley was awarded £29,000 but don't hear much (especially from Christley's truculent lynch-mob) about the £50,000 used to fight the tribunal case.

The same sacked officer was awarded two lots of £5k in an out-of-court libel settlement and, because the individuals concerned didn't pay, the cash had to come from somewhere. The point is a further £25,000 was wasted fighting an obvious lost cause... and they were damn well told about it!

How much was wasted seeking legal advice to fight Noel Edmonds? How much to pay Noel Edmonds? It may be all right to claim that all that was settled before polling day but can someone explain to the public just where that cash came from?

Bubbles... yes it is closing, but who ok'd the design of something which required costly constant water pumping (upwards) and the use of seven lifeguards to make sure users would be seen and (hopefully) safe?

And what of the latest and most offensive smelling red herring.. the cost of the auditor's inquiry.

One newspaper in its seemingly blind loyalty to the local Labour group was crass enough to suggest that the spiralling costs were the responsibility of one local resident who had obviously committed a grievous crime. The poor man had had the temerity to report the incompetent wasting of your hard-earned cash to the District Auditor. Not for the first time that paper got it wrong... and to its credit, apologised.

The whole point about the costs of the inquiry is that they could have, of course, been avoided. If the then ruling group, which enjoyed a much bigger working majority than today's incumbents, had done the right thing and held a full internal inquiry instead of allowing the authority to enter into another disastrous court battle, the costs could have been minimised.

If we had heard the regret and remorse recently expressed by the likes of Hilton Dawson, then instead of now, and if some councillors and officers had held up their hands there may have been no need to bear the brunt of the heavy bill for Blobby.

I could go on of course... Salt Ayre, Civic Illuminations, Christley's impending six-figure personal injury claim etc but readers know the true situation.

The auditor's report is eagerly awaited but it is not (on its own) a natural conclusion of the whole affair. The facts have now been established are that there was bungling and that councillors were too trusting in the advice they got -- we've already had belated acknowledgements from some and this alone is enough to vindicate close scrutiny of the whole matter.

Whatever the cost some are still obsessed with muddying the waters and attempt to use this and other money matters to create political confusion.

Somebody was getting hot under the collar this week about one of our rival publications in the town. How can this particular paper, they ask, tag the word 'exclusive' on certain stories when those stories have already appeared in The Citizen the day before? This bemused Citizen Smith whose investigations revealed that the whole thing could be a mere typing error.

A simple hyphen placed between the words Exclusive and the reporter's moniker would reveal that the journalist may possess a double-barrelled name and therefore any implied exclusive nature of some of the stories was nonsense!