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| "Everything is fine. All is well. I'm doing a good job. Give me a pay rise. .....Wait, what are you doing with those Kalashnikovs?" (Pic : Verzio.org) |
I want you to close
your eyes....no wait, that won't work. Just read the description
below and see what images this might conjure up in your mind.
- Those with executive powers are appointed, not elected, and aren't accountable to anyone but themselves.
- Internet access for democratically-elected representatives is selectively blocked.
- The local print press is undermined with the tacit approval of the executive.
- The elected body is a puppet to the executive and generally does whatever the executive wishes.
- Meetings behind closed doors regarding freedom of the press are considered the height of transparency.
- Steps are taken to make watching the elected body as uncomfortable as possible to the public.
- The constitution is, generally, made up as they go along.
- There's a gathering separatist element in some parts of the territory, unhappy with the way things are being run from the centre and willing to take the unprecedented step of breaking away from their control.
- The executive and elected body consistently ignores condemnation from relevant watchdogs and authorities and seems to take very little action to remedy the situation.
- They have a track record of co-operating with "dodgy" individuals and groups that others would turn their noses up at.
North Korea? Myanmar? No, Carmarthenshire obviously.
If this were a country full of brown people living in mud huts and carrying AK-47s, Michael Stipe would be painting lines on his face. Other celebrities would be diverted away from important matters - like deciding which disease is the most glamorous to support - to comment on it.
Morrissey would write something for The Guardian about how we're in no shape to criticise the regime because we eat burgers, while people will bathe in Poundland All Day Breakfasts to raise money for relief efforts.
Lenny Henry would be on the back of a 4x4 being driven down mud lanes in hilly areas after being smuggled across the border. Midge Ure would be thinking of lyrics for the charity single. It would probably go something like this:
There's a soggy biscuit council
Who are a persistent stain on democracy
Doobie, doobie, doobie doo
Why? Kev, Pam and Mark
Why?
Let's be hypothetical for a moment.
Let's suppose something really, really bad slimed its way out of Carmarthenshire County Hall at some point in the future. Something much worse than anything that's preceded it. A scandal on the scale of Jimmy Savile or Baby P. Something that makes the UK press sit up and take notice en masse. Not just The Guardian, but the major UK papers ordinary people in Carmarthenshire read, including "red tops".
They'll do some digging for stories around the side of the main piece. They'll stumble across blogs and the South Wales Guardian story. They'll find the council's track record over the last few years quite "interesting" I'd imagine. One of the first stories that'll pop up will be a blogger being arrested for trying to film a council meeting. What was she trying to find out? What were the council so desperate to hide?
Fleet Street would have stories for months about "The Rotten Borough". It would take Ceausescu-esque levels of obliviousness to think that Carmarthenshire's PR department would be able to put any gloss on it. They'd probably try though.
Someone would be followed by cameras. Someone would have to make statements to the press on behalf of the council body that's politically accountable for all these deeds. Someone would have to justify any and all decisions made in that council chamber.
Kevin Madge (Labour) and Pam Palmer (Independent) are the public faces of what's happening in Carmarthenshire. They're accountable for all this nonsense - hypothetical or not. Maybe the press would turn their attentions to the devolved government in Cardiff Bay that didn't pay any attention to the warning signs and didn't do anything about it.
It probably won't happen, but I hope they're all prepared for that.
I'm starting to wonder whether some Welsh local councillors in ruling parties or coalitions are either naïve, sadists or are just incapable of thinking for themselves.
Do they think that if the heat is turned up enough, or if a scandal is big enough, that the executives aren't going to throw them to the wolves to save their own skins? "They voted for it." "They approved it." "I only offered a recommendation."
After it was so spinelessly decided to hand executive powers over to unelected officers, we've created the conditions necessary for, effectively, absolute monarchs. It's a system of monarchy right from the top to the bottom. Many haven't gone whole hog, others have. Like any good tyrant, they also have plenty of human shields in front of them to protect themselves.It's not the chief executives standing for election, is it? Their head isn't on the block.
All you need is enough elected humps, combined with an unaccountable, paranoid executive hoisted up by a servile PR department with a commitment to blocking honest and upfront communication with the public. That increasingly describes many Welsh local authorities. In 2013. In a "democracy".
Before you think it's just "Crazy Carmarthenshire", there've been rumbles in Cardiff, Pembrokeshire, Caerphilly and Wrexham. Now Gwynedd too. Perhaps others that are being kept quiet. Lest we forget Anglesey as well.
It's not really a Labour problem then, but you have to wonder how a party with such electoral dominance here can be so inconsistent from county to county. You also have to question how and why some candidates are selected at local level.
Who are "officers" accountable to when they make mistakes? Who do they answer to full stop?
Why are "independents" even allowed to form groups to enable them to run a council by themselves or in coalition? What do they stand for? What are their agendas?
So, tonight thank God it's just Carmarthenshire. But it'll probably be you soon enough.
