United we fall

There is an old adage: "United we stand, divided we fall", wise words indeed but the events of November 5 would appear to bely this.

The previous council made quite a show of always presenting a united front, regardless of the debate which went before. Very admirable apparently, but it leaves the voter only one place to turn to when it comes time to mark the ballot paper.

Of course the previous council had the misfortune to have a number of issues of concern for the voter to deal with, not least the "Global Economic Downturn" (to coin a phrase) but it would appear that the most upsetting to the average voter was the reformation of Government (or whatever it was called) and its associated cost. On the QT I have yet to find a councillor from the previous bunch who did not have reservations with the re-organisation. Yet it was passed by Exco so they must have held a discussion and presumably a vote in GPC beforehand.  Clearly then some of them must have supported it and supported it strongly enough to carry the motion.

Once council has made a decision it is absolutely right that from then on the individual members should do their level best to make that decision work whether they approved or not. However, by the same token they should not be afraid of saying, and saying publicly, that they disagreed with the decision and it should arguably be a matter of public record how individual councillors voted on any particular issue. This then allows democracy to work properly and for voters to make their mark based on individual performance rather than personal knowledge or indeed, perhaps, family allegiance.

The previous council insisted on having a 'spokesperson' to relay the decisions to the populace. Unfortunately the style of delivery frequently sounded condescending and over the four years many voters started to feel isolated. The series of unpopular decisions which had to be made, both in Stanley and Camp, and lack of dialogue with the voter coupled with the apparent unanimity meant more and more voters felt that the only way to get any progress was wholesale change. This surely offers a salutary lesson for the current council.

The united front approach fails diplomatically in two important areas: firstly it does not give credit to councillors who fought against, but ultimately failed to change, an unpopular decision, but also and perhaps more importantly it allows councillors who vote for an unpopular decision, or for that matter against a popular one, to hide behind the corporate façade if they wish to.

There are apparently some fairly major disagreements on policy within Gilbert House at the moment, but once the cards have been laid on the table for this latest budget session will we know who, for example, fought for or against individual cuts? Come the next polling day it may be the only thing which sees them re-elected.

More a case, perhaps, of "United, they fell."

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