Bourne Comment

WHEN DID YOU LAST SEE YOUR COUNCILLOR?

Election time is with us again and our senses are assaulted daily with the hub-bub from the hustings where the main parties jostle for advantage as they try to persuade us to give them our vote.

Most, if not all of the noise is coming at national level from politicians anxious to retain their seats and power in Parliament whereas many electors are more concerned at what is happening in their own communities although the struggle for victory at the polls at this level is far more muted, even to the point of silence.

The blast from Westminster is so loud that we do tend to forget that the local elections are also being fought at this time, when councillors who will decide policy over many rural and urban issues are seeking election but unlike the political bandwagon now underway in this and other constituencies, sightings of our council candidates will be rare if past record is anything to go by.

In fact, the majority of our local councillors are unknown to many people, even those they are supposed to represent and it would be a safe bet to assume that most could not name their local representatives let alone recognise them in the street.

Despite covering these issues in Bourne for over thirty years I have not yet met two of the three district councillors who have represented my ward since 2007. Similarly, eight of the 15 members of the town council, three of them in my own ward, are totally unknown to me and none of the above, whether district or town councillors, have ever knocked on the door at election time seeking my vote.

Gone too are the posters with photographs of the candidates and their names emblazoned across the top in gaudy colours that we used to see in the front windows and on hoardings around town as a reminder of the struggle to come and how many candidates I wonder are actually sending out an election address, that leaflet which should drop through the door in the run up to the election giving details of their career and family life and outlining their intentions for the coming term and what they hope to achieve.

No longer do we see candidates standing on a soap box in the market place haranguing shoppers about the benefits their vote would bring, or glad-handing their way down North Street with a smile on their face and a huge rosette in their buttonhole, or jostling with shoppers in Sainsbury’s and Tesco to discuss the rising cost of groceries, or joining crowds wherever they gather to push home the message that they are the person for the job with this council or that.

That was all part of the razzmatazz of electioneering of yesteryear that now seems to have disappeared to be replaced by an expectancy that a candidate merely has to announce his name and party on the ballot paper and everyone will vote for them and so we are presented with a gallery of faces and potted biographies in the local newspapers.

Candidates today who plead insufficient time to doorstep for support should consider the case of a predecessor who well knew the advantage of being seen and profited by it for almost 30 years. John Kirkman sat as an independent at town, district and county level from 1979-2007 without the support of a party machine yet he polled first place in every election he fought without the benefit of the organised campaigns enjoyed by his opponents and the reason for this was that he firmly believed in the old fashioned method of door-stepping and at each election visited every house in his ward to show his face.

This approach is commended to all candidates if they wish to win the trust and allegiance of the people, particularly those councillors who never take to the streets, believing that they have a right to the popular vote without making any effort whatsoever.

There will be no election this year for seats on Bourne Town Council because insufficient candidates have been nominated for the 15 available seats with the result that the ten that have are being returned unopposed and the hunt is on to find five more suitable people who might be co-opted.

But there will be elections for seats on South Kesteven District Council although the wards are now different due to boundary changes. Until this year, the town was split into two wards, Bourne East and Bourne West with three councillors each but this has been changed to keep pace with an expanding town and we now have Bourne Austerby with three councillors (five candidates), Bourne East with two councillors (three candidates) and Bourne West with two councillors (four candidates).

We have therefore gained an additional seat on this authority and seven councillors will now give Bourne a substantial representation on SKDC and so the theory is that matters of importance should move in our favour but unfortunately local authorities are governed mainly by the political parties, in this case the Conservative who have overall control, a situation unlikely to change with the next administration, and so the independence of our representatives cannot be guaranteed because the endorsement of a candidate demands an adherence to the party line with the threat of expulsion if they transgress. We may therefore expect them to vote for what is expedient for the party and has been decided by the restricted membership of the executive committee rather than what is good for the town and the people they represent which is one of the drawbacks of political influence in local government and one that may well be the reason for such a low turnout time after time.

Those electors who get the opportunity to speak to their candidates before voting, whether at meetings, in the street or on the doorstep, should discuss this with them before committing their vote because during the next five years when they are sitting on the council there are certain to be conflicts between party policy and what is right for the people, the decision whether to increase council tax being among the most important.

Surgeries too appear to be a thing of the past when councillors turned up at a convenient venue on a Saturday morning to hear from those they represented, usually without an appointment, an opportunity for people to air their grievances, discuss an issue that was troubling them or merely to seek advice yet these one-to-one sessions have all but disappeared and although this is the age of social media, only one or two councillors share their thoughts on Twitter.

As a result, most of our councillors remain unknown to the electorate, a situation exacerbated by the inadequate reporting of parochial issues by our local newspapers, a startling contrast to the parish pump coverage of past years when every word they uttered in the council chamber and at meetings was reported in detail with the result that all of our councillors soon became household names.

The case for the electors is therefore clear. They should study the list of candidates standing in their ward and check on the efforts that have been made to make them aware of their intention to contest a seat, whether an election address has arrived, whether they have the support of a political party and, most importantly whether they will be addressing any local meetings or canvassing for votes door to door.

All of these pointers should help the doubtful elector make up their mind, whether you know the candidates or not, whether you have spoken to them or whether they have made the effort to meet you and it is always worth remembering that you would never buy a used car from a stranger and so why on earth should you vote for one.

Note: This article was published by the Bourne web site on 2nd May 2015