Local Democracy

I attended local meeting tonight run by local councillors.

It was a an experience in watching how the Liberals try to implement their idea of handing power down to the people. 

The problem is that they don't actually do it. They produced reams of paper, admittedly printed on both sides but still a forest full. The documents contained details of proposals for decisions to be made by the Councillors at the meeting, but hey it's ok the public can say what they want about the proposals.

These proposals  had already been discussed by the councillors in a meeting they had held prior to the meeting, and it was obvious that they had already made their minds up about what way they where going to vote.

The surprise was that  an issue had arisen with one of the matters in the proposals. A small group of people, very well meaning I think had been working on a proposal to clear some wasteland and plant a vegetable garden, with poly tunnels and greenhouses. Unfortunately they had forgotten to consult with the local people living next door to the proposed development. About 200 of these disgruntled locals turned up to the meeting obviously thinking that they could exercise their democratic rights to put a stop to this development.

The poor fools, it doesn't work like that in ConDem land, no, it only appears that way. I had to laugh though, they managed to totally disrupt the meeting I thought the chairperson was going to throw all of us out! 

In the end they voted to propose the proposal to a special meeting to be held in a couple of weeks, this is so typical of the way this Council is run, decisions are made in secret and the ordinary voter has no chance to change it until the election.

Local democracy don't make me laugh!