February 23: Why the Downing Street bullying saga won't affect much
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AS I
expected, Ann Widdecombe quit as the patron of the
National Bullying Helpline late yesterday as the swirl of
allegations against Downing Street and the charity itself grew.
She did so "with regret" but I suspect
she quickly realised that the charity’s credibility was fatally
damaged after its chief executive chose to go public with
revelations that it had been contacted by Downing Street staff
about concerns over bullying.
Is the row damaging Labour? It’s bound
to have had some impact but I feel that this is one of those
"Westminster Village" stories – or Washington beltway stories -
which makes for a great yarn for political observers and others but
ultimately has little real consequences for either Labour or the
other parties.
For some, the story will simply
reinforce perceptions that Gordon Brown is not the easiest of
people to rub along with.
A lot of politicians do have furious
tempers, blowing up at the slightest thing and get rather cross
about what’s written about them in the media.
Many are relentlessly single-minded –
often, it’s how they have got to where they are – but whether
voters make up their minds at the ballot box on their perceived or
actual temperamental deficiencies is another thing altogether.
Personality does of course come
into it, of course and it's better for a politician to have a
"likeability factor" than not to have one. But it is only part of
the equation.
Interestingly, the latest batch of
opinion polls suggest the bullying saga has made very little
difference to the parties’ respective ratings.
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Kent County Council’s Conservative
administration had at one stage toyed with trying to set a
zero council tax increase but wasn’t quite able
to.
Had it done so, I wonder if we might
have seen the council publicise its achievement in the rather novel
way that the London borough of Haringey has done – by plastering
adverts in a pop art style on the side of rubbish lorries, which is
an interesting choice.
Read the story
here
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It’s not a sobriquet that many local
government officials are given but KCC’s chief legal eagle
Geoff Wild has been described admiringly as one of
its "poster boys" in an article detailing the authority’s latest
venture in its burgeoning legal empire, as you can read here.
Can a calendar be far behind?
Let’s hope his colleagues don’t get
too green eyed.
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KCC is making cautiously optimistic
noises about the remaining £45million it still has tied up in
Icelandic banks. We shall see - whatever the outcome, it won't, as
Cllr John Simmonds says, be a quick one.
KCC optimistic
over Iceland cash - read our story here>>
Interestingly, it seems councils are
trying to take a low key position on the issue. The Local
Government Association has not posted on its website any bulletins
up-dating developments for councils since September.
You can read these up-dates here
Tuesday, February 23 2010
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