Highs and Lows

The massed ranks of the CLP flocked to the Council House on Thursday for a rally. Posted as a debate between the wings – Progress versus Compass this was in reality an opportunity for a group caress. A chance to massage the raw edge of the enormous disappointment which is the G Brown administration.

So. We turned up, by all appearances, one of the better represented constituencies in the Region. We sat, quite by accident in the Council Chamber seats allocated to the Tory Party. This didn’t spoil our enjoyment of the evening. Just felt a little bit uncomfortable.

Steve Richards chaired the evening. Steve is a TV guy but we were determined not to hold this against him. He was certainly confident, fluent, articulate, media savvy. The Party is not as enthusiastic abut these skills as it used to be.

And the debate wasn’t bad. One side or the other, fielded Gisela Stuart and Liam Byrne, Minister for Immigration. They were both very good. We endured short apology from Sir Albert when he explained that the microphones weren’t working because the organisers forgot and the electrician had gone home.

Undaunted we flogged on. There was, as you might have imagined, a lot of agreement, it was all very civilised. The bigger names spoke very well, Byrne managed it without notes and took us effortlessly out of the humdrum into the opportunities presented by the emergence of the new economies. Hadn’t struck me but both Liam and Gisela are market people. And here we were in the midst of our travails getting to the very core of the Labour Party role.

Do we need to be players in International Commerce. Or can we insist on a morally secure position doing a lot of good to our own by concentrating on the sharing out function. It was noticeable that the Edgbaston Constituency were not lining up obediently behind Gisela – when we got to questions there were vigorous arguments from a couple of activists taking a contrary line.

Roy took the opportunity to berate the ministers on their insistence on digging their way into further trouble then expressed his blank astonishment that the Government, our government had somehow managed to get a state funeral for Thatcher on to the national agenda. This, of all the contributions seemed neatly to catch the mood of the meeting. There was a last an issue where we could safely unite – applause broke out and the subject offered subsequent safe ground to reach back into the party’s soul. We were at last agreed.

So. Surprisingly upbeat. We were still old campaigners, we were holed in various parts of the vessel, we were no longer as sprightly as once we were, we were/are still hideously white. But hey. Maybe it’s still in our hands. And it’s the summer, and the mistake quotient has to go down when they’re all on the beach.

So bloody cheer up.

I didn’t win the monthly draw on the way home. Conducted this time on the 8.05 to Four Oaks.

And then we lost Glasgow East.


Nightwatchman

Rubbish!

What the local pol needs for than anything else in chutzpah.

The ability to know for certain that you own the keys to the kingdom. To be aware that it is your song that they’ll be singing. Might not be next week but they’ll come round. And there will be no triumphalism. Self deprecation works so much better in the long run.

Having the ideas is a brave act of extreme confidence. Articulating them is of course ten times braver, and requires a degree of skill both in the speechifying but also in the wider realm of getting the message out. Press Releases, letters, leaflets to supporters all need to hang together intellectually, all need punch, all need precision.

But the major test comes a little later.

It’s the defence, stupid.

Strange to relate, all, or even most ideas take time to become accepted. Many of them attract reactions of scorn and ridicule first time around. When the Wright brothers ran their number about flying aeroplanes, it didn’t go down all that well in the Dog and Duck. It was much the same with ol’ John Maynard Keynes when he had the rather clever notion that we should spend out way out of recession. Didn’t seem right at the time.

So when Dr Rob suggested Wheelie Bins to the honest burghers of Sutton Coldfield, he could have been ill prepared for the emotional meltdown that followed.

The letters page of the Sutton News was bowed by an instant whirlwind response. Was it five or was it six letters straight off the bat. They are probably saving a vast number more for next week. We wonder if a Special Supplement has been planned. The Advertising Department were said to be absolutely delighted.

You may be surprised to learn that none, not one of these occasional correspondents shared Dr Rob’s enthusiasm for said Wheelie Bins. In fact WBs were self evidently a major threat to civilisation as we know it. WBs are unsightly, unwieldy, cut out the light, sit obscuring front windows and have a savagely deleterious effect upon the general morality of the community’s youth.

There can be no more catastrophic step envisaged by the old and wise than casting one’s lot with the Wheelie Binners.

It’s not easy, sitting amidst the shot and shell and smoke eviscerated by the flat earthers, to discern why they are so worked up. Any proposal to move civilisation forward, even in Sutton Coldfield, should surely deserve at very least a hearing.

One wonders whether the invention of the Circular Brush for Victorian Chimneys was similarly vilified by the middle classes of the day. This, after all, blighted the prospect and careers of countless tribes of undernourished sooty boys.

So we wish the good Doctor well. His mission to move the Town forward is a testing yoke indeed. His defence, I have no doubt will be stout. I am confident he will wrong foot the Neanderthals with a clever feint toward the third way. (do not rule out the mini wheelie bin). But the underlying message will be uncompromising.

Wheelie Bins are our future.

Do not stand in their way.


Nightwatchman

Read me a Story

When Nightwatchman was younger he used to read to the kids. All sorts of stories, witches, goblins, tales from the sea, fables. Their favourite though, for a long time, was a series written, I think by Roger Hargreaves, called the Mr Men. Fascinating ditties about this peculiar tribe of driven men who regularly made their distinctive mark upon the world.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that they live. Not only that, but they’ve moved to Sutton. And making their presence felt. It feels like a reunion. Just wait till the kids find out.

The acknowledged leader of this bunch is a portly balding bloke with rather an insecure command of the English language.

He’s called ‘Mr Don’t know What to Do’. He earns two livings. One as a more or less respectable member of the Sutton Coldfield earners and spenders but the other as the head of an extremely busy group who all sail under the same colours.

These guys, and there are a couple of gals as well, spend an enormous amount of time and an enormous amount of our money zipping around town not doing.

It isn’t hard to pick them out. They wear a common expression somewhere between humble concern and querulous puzzlement. Most of the reason for this is that they are time poor. It takes a very long time.

Not to do – which they don’t

But to explain in mind numbing detail to everybody why it is they haven’t. Leaving out the principal reason. Which is they don’t know what to do.

Now most of the time this is a minor affliction treated with bland indifference in the Town. There is an affectionate attraction for the slightly impaired, mild enthusiasm of the type endured through the many long seasons of ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. Their presence could reasonably be compared with the British Summer.

Windy, wet and its nobody’s fault.

There is a certain feeling of inclusion to be in on the joke. To feel that – they might be rubbish, but they’re our rubbish. Blues fans will know exactly what I mean.

So it’s very sad to relate that the comfortable world we knew and loved is showing unmistakable signs of stress and strain.

Mr Don’t know What to do has actually suffered a fairly serious accident.

He has fallen down a very deep hole.

Its called Mere Green.

The whole tribe can be seen blundering around in the gloom displaying all the distressing signs of their affliction.

A saviour, you will be glad to know is buckling on his scimitar, his horse is ready, his lance awaits his manly grasp.

His name is Mr Blame Somebody Else for the Time Being.

He won’t get the hole filled in. But hey, he might stop them digging.


Nightwatchman

Surprise!

This is the week that Brassington Avenue finally imploded.

City Lofts was the owner and expected developer of very large block of flats which looked stunning on the mock up but stubbornly remained a fairly unattractive and real hole in the ground.

They have thrown in the towel and placed site in hands of Receiver.

The reaction in Sutton is a profound sigh of relief.

But then a feeling of irritation takes over to be followed in its turn by intense frustration. Heading towards Mr Angry.

My town has been mucked around for years while this bunch of City Guys from far away throw the dice and make their projections all the time stifling the work that needs to be done to take the Town forward.

The Tory response was really vigorous.

Councillor Howard went out on a limb “I hope a sympathetic developer will acquire it.”

Whereas the Poster Boy climbed on the high wire and threw caution to the winds…”Future developments should…….not stick out like a sore thumb.”

It’s contributions such as these from the deep intellectual well of modern free thinking which keep the Conservative Flag flying in the Town.

And I thought we were going to sit around and let it rot. Like we have for the last four years.

Dr Rob, I know has been fretting about identifying the line, the political difference between the parties.

Here it is. Its in Black and White and Pictures.

The Tory approach to the shambles is to trust the market. And if a sympathetic developer does not appear, we’ll do the best with what we get.

Dr Rob entertains no illusions that this is solvable overnight. But his starting point is the power and the preference of the community. And if the community vest their trust and confidence in elected Councillors, he expects them to employ any and all levers available to bring about an acceptable result.

So his instinct would not lead him to issue anodyne statements prior to serious hand wringing from the Directors Box a tidy distance from the field of play.

His instinct is to rub on the liniment, grab hold of the mascot and get on the pitch.

We need to fill that hole and we need to coordinate our ambitions for Sutton Coldfield.

That said, we need to take charge. And if deals and trades and understandings and regional cooperation are what it takes to rescue the Town Centre, Dr Rob’s water tells him that the elected guy needs to get used to it, to get started and to get real.

I hope its a game of two halves.

We are six nil down. We are not going to get to extra time by hoping.

Or by playing safe. Or sucking a sore thumb.

The kop is about to give tongue.

“You don’t know what you’re doing”


Nightwatchman