Gravy train rolls along!

IF nothing else, the disclosure that Blackburn with Darwen councillors' expense claims rocketed by some 20 per cent last year to more than £370,000 - up by around ten times the rate of inflation - shows how well-greased the gravy train's wheels are.

But we are told that the reason they can claim more than they ever did before- enough to have kept one of their shut-down old folk's homes running for quite a while or to pay for a dozen or more teachers to cut classes sizes - is because the council has taken on extra responsibilities, such as education and social services, since becoming a self-run, unitary authority.

Yet, surely, to justify such a thumping increase, the yardstick should be not how much more councillors are supposedly doing, but how much better or efficient are the services provided by the council.

And if council leader, Malcolm Doherty, collecting more than £17,000 of this money, or any of his colleagues can point to performance indicators showing a 20 per cent improvement overall or efficiency savings of that order resulting in even a council tax freeze, I will promptly shut up.

However, while we can perhaps anticipate the sight of pigs flying overhead before that eventuality, am I expecting too much in looking towards this gross snouts-in-trough bill being markedly reduced by the forthcoming review of the expenses' system that is to take place as a result of the changes in the pipeline to the way decisions are made at the town hall? Like other councils, Blackburn with Darwen is moving - under the government's impulse for reform -to a cabinet-style system involving fewer than a dozen top-level councillors heading different departments in a similar way to that in which government ministers operate at national level.

But, by my reckoning, this would mean that some 50 ordinary-rank councillors end up doing very little.

Presently, the members of this less-important cohort are, according to official list of their allowances last year, drawing expenses ranging from more than £60 to £120 a week - when, as a result of the junta-style set-up that the Labour regime at Blackburn with Darwen has created as a neat template for the cabinet system to come, they contribute no more to the decision-making than voting as they are told to by the party chiefs.

If dozens of them are in future destined to be doing even less, should their expenses not be a whole lot less?

It is a fair question that should occupy the minds of the independent panel destined to review the allowances system, should it not?

We do vote - with our feet

IT is hardly surprising that a government displaying such bossy characteristics as this one should now consider making it a criminal offence to refuse to vote.

But if this is their autocratic remedy for low turn-outs like those in this year's European elections, what they overlook is that the droves who stayed away did indeed vote. By default they showed their contempt for politics and, above all, wasteful and corrupt institutions like the EU. If, somehow, the government imagines it can force people to participate and sustain politicians and parliaments for which they have only scorn, it stands only to be rudely and deservedly disabused by election counts at which the winners' votes are far outnumbered by the total of spoiled ballot papers.

You can take a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink - least of all in a Britain where the disdainful voters' idea of democracy is somewhat better than that of the dictatorial regime at Westminster which has let power go to its arrogant head.

Clean slate for black economy

BRITAIN'S Iron Chancellor, Gordon Brown, was this week reported to be poised to launch an unprecedented assault on the country's army of tax dodgers and benefit cheats as he strives to bring under control a black economy that's worth a staggering £80 billion in lost revenue.

A key component of this crackdown on the skivers and fiddlers will be letting them off - as with their slates clean, they start afresh; this time, with everything above board and with the Inland Revenue, DSS and VAT investigators ready to hound the suspects who do not take advantage of the amnesty.

Crime does not pay? Try telling that to the hordes set to get away with it - with official approval. But if this is pragmatism that is deemed to benefit us all at the end of the day, I am sure it will be viewed with weary resignation by the millions of hard-working, honest citizens who pay their dues and demands as their membership of society and the law demand. A tax holiday is, of course, something they can only dream of - unless now they decide to become bent and earn one by right.

Practical Mr Brown's wheeze may be, but fair? Is it heck as like!

What about the workers, Gord?

Buy a dump, win a fortune

SETTING aside the dishonesty that landed Iranian air force deserter Mostafa Mobasseri in court for not declaring his share in a fish and chip shop when HE obtained a renovation grant for a house in Blackburn, what does one make of the sum he got from Blackburn with Darwen Council - £19,651.73, no less?

It's the sort of amount a pools winner might gladly collect on a week when dividends forecasts are "moderate".

It is also about half of what thousands of houses in Blackburn are worth and also as much as what many others in East Lancashire actually change hands for.

Given this level of official generosity with taxpayers' money, it would be hardly surprising if Mr Mobasseri, tempted to make the most of it by deception, believed that he had come to the land of milk and honey - before the court ordered him to repay the loot in full, that is. But if the actual availability of such amounts of free money raises your eyebrows in surprise, as it did mine, prepare to have them go up even higher. The maximum renovation grant when Mr Mobasseri was all but making the most of it was £20,000; now, there's no limit.

But I wonder what the hard-working souls, paying their taxes and crippling mortgage repayments as they go about putting a roof over their heads without shoving their hands into others' pockets, think of the notion that inevitably comes with this in areas like East Lancashire where run-down housing abounds . . . that is: Buy a cheap dump and win a small fortune.

If the government are for self-help replacing the something-for-nothing culture, they could have fooled me - especially now that they have put no limit on the prize.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.