Sunday 4 April 2010

NOBODY GIVES YOU POWER, YOU JUST HAVE TO WRESTLE IT FROM THEM

As if in response to the recent debate on this blog as to what a real "Localist" agenda really means, both of the main two parties have made feeble attempts to try and convince us all that they too are listening to the voices at the grass roots.  They at least acknowledge that they are responding to the need to tackle the we know best "Big Government" approach to our local communities and the services delivered in them.

David Cameron for the Tories weighed in first with a pledge to create and train 5000 strong "neighbourhood army" to help set up local community groups. The Conservatives are promising to fund the training of 5,000 full-time, professional community organisers  over the course of the next Parliament. They say this is based on a movement in the United States which has trained generations of community organisers, including President Obama.

He told a central London audience (where else!) that: 
"We want every adult to be a member of an active neighbourhood group, I know some people argue that there isn't the appetite for this sort of widespread community participation. I don't agree."
But no new funding will be set aside for this still very much centrally controlled intervention into our local community instead it must be pilfered from the existing Futurebuilders project, a government programme which provides grants and loans to charities and other voluntary bodies to help them bid for and deliver public service contracts.

And as an Independent colleague Phil Andrews in a similar blog asks:

"In short, can Community Power be imposed by government initiative, or must it necessarily be organic and rise unassisted out of the efforts of the people themselves?

Would the organisers withdraw once local people had been trained, and would there be strings attached to the continued support of the "experts" as there always is under Labour?"

Meanwhile Tessa Jowell has responded for the government by announcing new plans to let parents run "Sure Start" centres and nurses and doctors to have more of a say in how the NHS is to be run, she said:

"The era of top-down government is over. Often, the best people to decide how local services should work are the local people using and running those services".

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats whilst short on ideas themselves at least acknowledged the shallowness of the above half hearted attempts on local involvement with party's community’s spokeswoman Julia Goldsworthy. Saying
"The 'Big Society' is just patronising nonsense, particularly for the thousands of dedicated people who are working to make their communities better every day,"

And maybe she got the closest to the truth?  You see David Cameron and the Tories need to realise that you can't implant community activity! For example what happens if the community doesn't want their "Trained Community Organiser"? And who chooses them? Or what happens if we find that 5000 organisers divided across a 65 million population doesn’t fit nicely into our settled community boundaries?

He also fails to understand that many communities already have good community groups and local organisers working in their neighbourhoods and that often it is the lack of "top down" "organised"  interference which gives them local kudos needed for them to be respected in their areas.

Tessa Jowells intervention is equally uninspiring and seems to be driven by a need to placate the workers in our NHS and to engage parents more in Sure Start, both of course are very welcome gestures but are they really born from any real desire to give power back to local people?

And what about local government? What about the role of elected Councillors, who are year by year losing more and more authority (often guilty themselves of voting to hand over control of services to the unelected and unaccountable) and who are becoming more irrelevant to the needs of their local community?

 Both the Tories and the Labour Party it would seem have no real agenda for devolving real power down to the people, they just want to spend existing funds to finance new projects which don't really engage people but simply tell them how they can become local advocates and more more locally aware.

It is for this reason that I believe more than ever that the only way to change local services and to create real difference within local neighbourhoods is by the communities deciding to do it for themselves. To identify their own leaders and to get them elected to office if necessary to shake up the system. Our neighbourhoods don't need government trained yes men and women imposed on them to activate their community.  They just need to do what they are already doing and to start making decisions for themselves and taking on the big government agenda wherever it may based at Westminster or at  the Town or County Hall.

We need more locally elected, non party, non controlled, non whipped, non conformist people from the community taking real decisions at a local level, not a pre election call from London telling us that they have all have big plans for us

11 comments:

  1. Tony - still no policies! If the election is called tommorrow (Tues) you could be the first to go into the election campaign with no policies at all. Even Cameron has inheritance tax!

    I read from your previous blog the examples of the gay community and muslim women voting together and leaflets being hoisted up tower blocks, but then the ballot boxes close, the dust settles and for arguements sake you get elected, the mother of all parliaments and the voters of N'pton South will and should expect more than just 'bottom up grass roots' rhetoric.

    A recent poll in the Chron was on the thorny issue of capital punishment. If from a grass roots bottom up campaign in N'pton South you were lobbied to support the re-introduction of hanging, and lets say a straw poll of constituents also supported it, would you, as the peoples representative push this in Parliament?

    Anon

    ReplyDelete
  2. Joan from St James End5 April 2010 at 17:11

    Me again - as ever I think anon has some valid points but is far to agressive in his/her approach.

    Tony - you refer in this article to bottom up politics and use the best example there is of a communuity organiser really making a difference to the world; President Obama.

    President Obama is the first President to make the change to medicare which for decades figures such as Clinton and Carter have failed and which will make a real difference to 30 million low income citizens in the USA.

    He did start as a Community Organiser but, the great changes he has made to country and the communities he serves,is via, and you know its coming Tony, through the political party he serves, the Democrats.

    Obama would have not got into the White House as an Independent. When you read his speeches he talks about acheiving more together than we will ever do alone.

    Gosh this election of ours needs an Obama. Tony you give us your vision quite rightly (yes we can!) but President Obama also gave tangibles - he didnt just say he believes in equality and fairness, he took it to the next level and said health care reform was the right thing to deliver this. He didn't stop there, he went to the next level and explained how health care would be reformed step by step.

    Thats real leadership, real authority, real risk taking and yes, I am biased to the left, but its real lasting change to our world too (whatever that awful bible belt republicanism says)

    To anon above I say hanging is the least of our worries. Where are the new policies for our NHS, our schools, our police and yes our business hopes and dreams.

    Some would say rhetoric and vision leaves the glass of leadership half empty. I would say it leaves it half full.

    Please someone fill it up before polling day.

    Joan

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  3. Many years ago, when I first stood as a Labour Councillor in Castle Ward (1973) we had a view that each street in the ward would eventually be a mini soviet.All decisions would be taken at street corner meetings by the direct involvement of the citizenry.
    A primitive romantic notion,but a method of direct democracy that in this country goes back to the Levellers and the Diggers at the time of Cromwell.
    We swiftly abandoned the notion of the Castle Ward Soviets in favour of regular newsletters-yes we were doing them before the Liberal Focus teams were ever invented here.Ironically we introduced Tony Rounthwaite to the idea when he lived in Semilong.
    But the core of that idea-talking regularly to your constituents is the key to building that community relationship.
    Of course you don't need a referendum on every issue, and of course you will disagree with large numbers of your electorate at any one time.
    All I ask from Tony is that his position is consistent with the bundle of ideas and principles that he has built up over the years and that he is in dialogue with those who elect him.
    Manifestos have a habit of being merely historical snapshots of what seemed popular at the time

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm not standing as a candidate for election so my being anonymous doesn't matter a jot but if Cllr Paul Varnsverry wants to question Tony Clarke about anything shouldn't he state his case under his name and furthermore open his own comment function on MYCOUNCILLOR.ORG.UK?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anon, I am happy to say I would never support a vote in the Commons on the reintroduction of capital punishment...............

    As to your sudden interest in my policies? Did you not read a word I said in tresponse to you before about the difference between policy and belief?

    Or my concerns that all the main party's policies are so alike and so flexible that they are not worth the paper they are written on?

    As I said before we will develop a number of discussions over the next 4 weeks on all sorts of matters, where I will give you plenty of ammunition for you to vent your spleen but to help you find an identity, I offer you below a taster.

    EDUCATION
    For Local Community Schools
    Against: Academies as the ONLY answer

    HEALTH
    For: Local Control of Healthcare
    Against: Regionalisation of Services

    CRIME
    For: Keeping a Northamptonshire Force
    Against: A Regional Police Force

    ENVIRONMENT
    For: Green energy, Local Sustainability
    Against: Further imports of carbon energy

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT
    For: A Unitary Council for Northampton Against: Two tier Local government

    OLDER PEOPLE
    For: Restoring the Pension link to earnings
    Against: Cuts to personal care budgets

    YOUNG PEOPLE
    For: Votes for all at 17
    Against: Further Student top up fees

    SPORT
    For: More statutory provision for Sport Against: Further loss of playing fields

    FORIEGN AFFAIRS
    For:Phased withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan Against:Unilateral action without UN consent

    Joan, thanks for the more reasoned post, I believe Obama can make a difference but again only if he is willing to take on the interest groups both inside and outside of his party. Politics in the USA has a lot more change to go through than even our own discredited system

    Anonymous? You may be right about Anon's identity? but all this anominity is confusing!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Original Anon here - not sure what all that stuff about the Lib Dem was but, at the risk of being a hypocrit; if a candidate is asking Tony Clarke questions they should reveal their name. I think the only thing that Tony Clarke and I have in common is that we (probably) agree the Lib Dems are a waste of time.

    John Dickies points on a 'Soviet' made me laugh out loud. In the Soviet Union in 1973 if people got together on a street corner, or even leafletted they would never be seen again....

    ReplyDelete
  7. Campaign for a fair C.O.P (Clarke's own policy)5 April 2010 at 22:37

    C.O.P

    Tony, you arrogance in the last blog was well out of order. Yes you have set out your view on beliefs but that doesn't mean (obviously) you have allayed concerns other bloggers have about your lack of substance.

    Myself and some friends have been following the blog and while you have taken the leap to start setting out more than just a set of beliefs we are hardly feeling the seismic shift of politics in Northampton with your latest tasters. Our comments follow your cut and paste statement below:

    EDUCATION
    For Local Community Schools
    Against: Academies as the ONLY answer

    Not sure any party says Academies are the only answer. What do you mean by Local Community Schools - if you don't give us more its just rhetoric.


    HEALTH
    For: Local Control of Healthcare
    Against: Regionalisation of Services

    What does 'Local Control' mean? Elected Councillor making decisions on what money is spent where? health care being democratic?


    CRIME
    For: Keeping a Northamptonshire Force
    Against: A Regional Police Force

    Hardly revolutionary, independent or orginal!



    ENVIRONMENT
    For: Green energy, Local Sustainability
    Against: Further imports of carbon energy

    Who honestly is standing at the General Election and will say '..actually I am against green energy?...'

    Come on Tony - biomass or wind turbine? solar or nuclear?



    LOCAL GOVERNMENT
    For: A Unitary Council for Northampton Against: Two tier Local government

    Other parts of the UK have gone unitary and not noticed an ounce of difference. Why would it be different in N'pton?

    OLDER PEOPLE
    For: Restoring the Pension link to earnings
    Against: Cuts to personal care budgets

    If the link had been restored when Labour came to power in 1997 pensioners would get less now than they did before.

    YOUNG PEOPLE
    For: Votes for all at 17
    Against: Further Student top up fees

    Why 17? 16 is the legal age for a number of permissions followed by 18. 17 seems an age you have pulled out of the sky.

    No to top up fee's is fine - how then would you pay for post 16 education?

    SPORT
    For: More statutory provision for Sport Against: Further loss of playing fields

    FORIEGN AFFAIRS
    For:Phased withdrawal from Iraq/Afghanistan Against:Unilateral action without UN consent

    phased withdrawal - if you are truly independent you should make clear your timetable for withdrawal and how this is different from the main parties.


    All in all, hardly a fire brand, independent, clear and fresh thinking first pop at policies for about four weeks to go.

    The clock is ticking and all we are asking for is a fair C.O.P

    ReplyDelete
  8. Dave Smith from Semilong5 April 2010 at 22:48

    Tony,

    Dave here again - dissapointed at 0 - 0 today but I am with you that on our day, over two legs we can do anyone.

    Ah, memories of John Frain against Swansea. We need to go up otherwise we'll never hear the end of it from the egg chasers.

    Me and the lads at the Duke of York need some serious convincing to vote in the election. Saw the comments on hanging and to be honest mate, if you get in, and loads of people come to see you with a pertition calling for you to vote for it in parliament, if you are really sticking up for us you should back us. Thats the whole point of being independent isnt it?

    Anmyway first things first - if oyu get in will you promise to make Northampton the capital of England and chnge the national colours ot claret?

    Chhers

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  9. Dave,

    It was a depressing 0-0 draw as we both know that we can play better than that.

    I note your comments but the whole reason for being Independent is that people know me, they have time to understand where I am coming from and in the main I will support the views of the majority, however on clear issues of conscience, like capital punishment and abortion to name but two, I have to live personaly with my vote and I am a principled man.

    On being the capital.......... Of course we once were, and I certainly feel we have far more regional significance than simply being an afterthought for the East Midlands golden triangle of Nottingham, Liecester and Derby.
    Can't promise you a Claret flag yet, but my election colours will be claret and white and the slogan? revealed here for the first time?

    THIS TIME YOU CAN VOTE FOR NORTHAMPTON!

    C.O.P calm down, you will make your self ill...... and keep coming back you will get plenty of opportunities on here to question me as a candidate on all the issues you raise, which is more than can be said for any of the other candidates at the minute!

    Unless you know different?

    On green energy though for starters and to keep you busy, I am great fan of the current German model of a feeding tarrif regime, which obliges energy companies to pay German citizens for clean energy generated from their homes and factories, thus creating a renewable energy industry which reduces the import of energy and creates jobs within the local economy. If our energy companies had to pay us and the companies we work for for the supply of renewable energy then the money stays in the UK economy and the supply is increased. I will explain more when we dicuss the environment.

    Any way early to bed now, someone just called an election and I have a lot of work to do in the morning!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Dave Smith from Semilong7 April 2010 at 22:17

    Tony - lots on Sky on National Insurance (the boss of Dewson has come out to speak on it). In a hung Parliament, you have the casting vote, whcih way do you go on it? Your conscence over what we want didn't go down well tonight althow to be honest, Bayern beating Man U cheered us all up. Keep the maroon flag flying.

    Dave

    ReplyDelete
  11. Sorry Dave, only just caught this post. Obviously I have written a piece on this now, but just for the record, the NI increase stays, as to do anything else would be madness at a time when we need every penny we can get to protect public services. The big bosses will just have to make slightly smaller profits I am afraid!

    ReplyDelete

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