I have been reading in the newspapers about the expenses MP's get. There are also lots of potential for scandals at LOcal Government level, as well. Most people have no idea how much money is wasted in employing consultants and paying their expenses. in our LOcal council I meet consultants all the time who are brought in to do a job that could easily be done by employees. as well as paying the consultants lots of money, the council often pays other costs such as putting some consultants up in LOcal hotels for sometimes months at a time. It is especially galling to see money wasted like this when so many small charities are able to provide so much with small amounts of money.

Local Council

Well we are off tonight to a meeting the local council has called. This is to give local people a 'chance' to give their views on the vision the local council should have for the future. Sounds good does it? I'm afraid not. The questions are the equivalent of 'do you think the council should increase recycling?' or 'do you think the council should improve local parks?'. So it ends up totally meaningless.

There is also a very small amount of time where local people are asked their opinion on more general questions in small groups with a Council staff member writing these points down on a flipchart. Staff at the Council have told us that if local people say anything that is not deemed 'pc' then they have been told to change it and write down a more 'pc' friendly version of what the person has said. Now I don't have any objection if people say something obviously racist for example, that this isn't written down, but this isn't what we are talking about here. We are talking about anything that may be seen as 'not the right thing to say' even if it is a real issue locally.

The staff I have spoken to aren't happy about this, but they have no choice. It just seems a recipe for encouraging racism, etc.