Nadine Dorries

I know the Labour council people that have been elevated up to this personally. The head of the council here lives on my street, he used to be next door but moved a bit further down. His mentor who taught him how to do it is the dad of our landlord on our local. All shysters.

The last one who did it is now an Assembly Member for the Welsh govt and he looks and sounds like Mr Bean. Goes to coffee mornings and has to listen to local gripes he will never fix.

The MP for here used to be the secretary for the last one, and I dare say neither of them did a days graft ever. I had to meet the MP in a professional capacity once when she needed something and honestly she is thick as fuck. Her whole manner, and whole ability, makes her ideal to be the nasty miserable **** you have to get through on the phone to get a GP appointment. She is just a doctors receptionist really.

When I retire I may think seriously about being a local politician, it clearly doesnt take much ability or effort.
 
To be a local politician, the first step is to join whatever party is locally dominant.

You then need to sit through boring party debates, involve yourself in local party intrigue, and work hard at the elections, tramping the streets and delivering leaflets and so on.

Eventually, with a bit of luck, you will be chosen as a candidate in a winnable ward. You don't have to be particularly intelligent. After all, you are there to represent the public. It is useful to have a ready smile and the winning nature of a double-glazing salesperson, but this is not essential if you have a safe seat. In fact, you can be an utter twat and people will still vote for you because you are :< name of party>.

You then have your name, address and phone number put up in various public places so that annoying cunts can contact you at any hour of day or night with their whining complaints. You should be aware that at least half will never be satisfied with whatever you say or do, and that, in any case, your powers are limited. Contrary to popular opinion, there is not a gold mine under the town hall, and councillors work under all sorts of legal, financial and political constraints. Having the hide of a rhinoceros is an advantage. Most people will regard you as a ****, and assume you receive brown envelopes of cash on a regular basis. (The chances are you won't, and if you do you are opening yourself to prosecution and imprisonment.) You will be expected to turn up at flower shows, Flossie's 100th Birthday, and all manner of local events. You may even be expected to be a school governor or something of that sort. A world of tedium awaits.

You will, of course, receive a financial reward for doing this. If you eventually become an 'executive member', roughly what a Committee Chairman used to be, it may even be worth getting out of bed for. But it will occupy a lot of your time and you will be plagued by council officers asking you to make decisions, or approve theirs, on pretty much a daily basis. You will regularly be in the local paper, and at least half the readers will hate you and feel they could do a better job.

If dealing with this shite appeals to you, great, go ahead. Personally, I would not touch it for 100k a year. I value my time and privacy far too much. Nor does the exercise of petty power appeal, and I have never wanted to be mayor and walk about with a gold chain around my neck. YMMV.
 
Councillors and council employees are generally not allowed to accept gifts over £25 so the brown envelopes is quite amusing. Interestingly the same restrictions don't apply to central government.

I once did some temp work for another council and overheard a lowly administrative worker (middle aged female) ask her supervisor if she needed to report a gift of chocolates (Roses or Quality Street) because a male had make a dry remark about it the day before. This amused me highly at the time.
 
BrianW said:
To be a local politician, the first step is to join whatever party is locally dominant.

You then need to sit through boring party debates, involve yourself in local party intrigue, and work hard at the elections, tramping the streets and delivering leaflets and so on.

Eventually, with a bit of luck, you will be chosen as a candidate in a winnable ward. You don't have to be particularly intelligent. After all, you are there to represent the public. It is useful to have a ready smile and the winning nature of a double-glazing salesperson, but this is not essential if you have a safe seat. In fact, you can be an utter twat and people will still vote for you because you are :< name of party>.

You then have your name, address and phone number put up in various public places so that annoying cunts can contact you at any hour of day or night with their whining complaints. You should be aware that at least half will never be satisfied with whatever you say or do, and that, in any case, your powers are limited. Contrary to popular opinion, there is not a gold mine under the town hall, and councillors work under all sorts of legal, financial and political constraints. Having the hide of a rhinoceros is an advantage. Most people will regard you as a ****, and assume you receive brown envelopes of cash on a regular basis. (The chances are you won't, and if you do you are opening yourself to prosecution and imprisonment.) You will be expected to turn up at flower shows, Flossie's 100th Birthday, and all manner of local events. You may even be expected to be a school governor or something of that sort. A world of tedium awaits.

You will, of course, receive a financial reward for doing this. If you eventually become an 'executive member', roughly what a Committee Chairman used to be, it may even be worth getting out of bed for. But it will occupy a lot of your time and you will be plagued by council officers asking you to make decisions, or approve theirs, on pretty much a daily basis. You will regularly be in the local paper, and at least half the readers will hate you and feel they could do a better job.

If dealing with this shite appeals to you, great, go ahead. Personally, I would not touch it for 100k a year. I value my time and privacy far too much. Nor does the exercise of petty power appeal, and I have never wanted to be mayor and walk about with a gold chain around my neck. YMMV.
Click to expand...
To that you now have to add some very nasty social media. And having to do risk assessments for what used to be routine ward surgeries.

Not just councillors though. Don't do doorknocking on your own is standard advice to all Labour activists. I wouldn't want to knock on the door of some on here.

Oh, and you're not there to "represent the public". You're there to increase the council tax to make up for when the Tories cut central grants, to close libraries and baths when there's still not enough money, and to pass planning applications that meet government guidelines no matter what the public think.

And all parties are now struggling for candidates.
 
Vic said:
Not just councillors though. Don't do doorknocking on your own is standard advice to all Labour activists. I wouldn't want to knock on the door of some on here.
Click to expand...

You could come in have a biscuit with your brew if you called at mine.

The one time I had a labour canvasser call was in Bristol, he raised a fist in solidarity when I told him most of the house would probably vote labour (I can't remember whether this was before or after one housemate said that she wanted to vote SNP though). I think some on here would demand you'd be locked up for that?

What's your excuse to put the phone down on pests and nutters? The retired Lib Dem councillor in my ward always had potatoes in the oven.
 
Mr Kobayashi said:
You could come in have a biscuit with your brew if you called at mine.

The one time I had a labour canvasser call was in Bristol, he raised a fist in solidarity when I told him most of the house would probably vote labour (I can't remember whether this was before or after one housemate said that she wanted to vote SNP though). I think some on here would demand you'd be locked up for that?

What's your excuse to put the phone down on pests and nutters? The retired Lib Dem councillor in my ward always had potatoes in the oven.
Click to expand...
Even going in a house is a bit suspect these days (at least if you're in a team you can tell others where you're going). I think most councillors now have phones that they don't answer, just record messages.
 
BrianW said:
To be a local politician, the first step is to join whatever party is locally dominant.

You then need to sit through boring party debates, involve yourself in local party intrigue, and work hard at the elections, tramping the streets and delivering leaflets and so on.

Eventually, with a bit of luck, you will be chosen as a candidate in a winnable ward. You don't have to be particularly intelligent. After all, you are there to represent the public. It is useful to have a ready smile and the winning nature of a double-glazing salesperson, but this is not essential if you have a safe seat. In fact, you can be an utter twat and people will still vote for you because you are :< name of party>.

You then have your name, address and phone number put up in various public places so that annoying cunts can contact you at any hour of day or night with their whining complaints. You should be aware that at least half will never be satisfied with whatever you say or do, and that, in any case, your powers are limited. Contrary to popular opinion, there is not a gold mine under the town hall, and councillors work under all sorts of legal, financial and political constraints. Having the hide of a rhinoceros is an advantage. Most people will regard you as a ****, and assume you receive brown envelopes of cash on a regular basis. (The chances are you won't, and if you do you are opening yourself to prosecution and imprisonment.) You will be expected to turn up at flower shows, Flossie's 100th Birthday, and all manner of local events. You may even be expected to be a school governor or something of that sort. A world of tedium awaits.

You will, of course, receive a financial reward for doing this. If you eventually become an 'executive member', roughly what a Committee Chairman used to be, it may even be worth getting out of bed for. But it will occupy a lot of your time and you will be plagued by council officers asking you to make decisions, or approve theirs, on pretty much a daily basis. You will regularly be in the local paper, and at least half the readers will hate you and feel they could do a better job.

If dealing with this shite appeals to you, great, go ahead. Personally, I would not touch it for 100k a year. I value my time and privacy far too much. Nor does the exercise of petty power appeal, and I have never wanted to be mayor and walk about with a gold chain around my neck. YMMV.
Click to expand...
That's basically why I eventually decided to stand down from the the official list of approved Labour candidates for Salford C.C. As a postie I was astonished at all the stuff being delivered to councillors. The thought of having to trawl through that each day made me think "nah fuck it"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top
✖
  AdBlock Detected
Bluemoon relies on advertising to pay our hosting fees. Please support the site by disabling your ad blocking software to help keep the forum sustainable. Thanks.