Cllr. Gavin Ayling

Adur’s results are in

The bottom line is that the Conservatives retained all their seats and with the postal votes counted it’s a reasonable turn-out and satisfying majorities in every ward.

Congratulations to the successful candidates and thanks to the electorate for not subjecting us to nuisance politics.

The numbers in Worthing are similarly reassuring with the Conservatives picking up one seat and the Lib Dems retaining their tally.

What a wonderfully varied week this past one has been when it comes to local politics.

On Monday I attended a party committee which concerns itself with the organisation at a very local level of the party machine. The people who do all the work to support the three of us at that meeting who are elected by the general public (two District Councillors – Debbie Kennard and myself – and the County Councillor – Clive Williams).

Tuesday was a Council committee meeting of the Housing and Central Services committee. And an entirely frustrating rubber-stamping exercise it was. All of the decisions we had to make were no-brainers: Increase Council home rents because the government’s slapping us with a negative subsidy or (you’ll love this) burn our reserves and increase them by even more next year? I think you’ll agree there’s no choice.

And the same was true of all the other agenda items – we had a choice but it was a non-choice.

But the variance came into play tonight with two of Adur District’s and Worthing Borough’s joint committees meeting one after the other. At these meetings we discussed the budget for the shared services (the refuse and recycling collection service and the joint management structure) as well as a report on coastal erosion.

The first item was great news. The Councils have saved, already, £67,000 through being able to buy fewer vehicles because of shared efficiency and we effectively did not have to pay for the new bins because of savings due to economies of scale in the procurement process as well. We have also saved £32,000 in the nine months to the end of the financial year that the service has been running just because of the increased quantities of recycling that are now being collected!

But I cannot be all positive. There was something much more important that came out of this evening’s meetings. The first meeting was of the Joint Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Worthing Liberal Democrat members did not have a single negative comment to make about the services or the savings. They did, momentarily, suggest that Worthing’s Council tax payers are being subsidised by Adur (which isn’t true), but they could not see anything wrong with the savings etc. being made.

It didn’t stop them making a fuss though. And when it came to voting on the recommendation before them, they decided to abstain even though they did not disagree with the recommendation and, as I say, could not find anything negative to say at all.

As a result of this experience I want to make a plea to the residents of Adur and Worthing who may be reading this: Please don’t vote Lib Dem in May – if they win seats the members elected will just be a nuisance and if they win one of the Councils they won’t do a better job because they cannot see anything being done that they would do differently!

Vote Conservative at the local elections in May 2008 and ensure that your Councils continue to run smoothly and efficiently despite the government’s obsession with attempting to run the country’s Councils remotely.

I have noticed a lot of things change about me recently. A friend tells me, for example, that our tastebuds and so our tastes change every seven years. Whether or not this is true — and if it is whether it is definitely seven years for everyone — my tastes have definitely changed recently.

Last year I started to like apples. Earlier (maybe two years ago) I started to like cabbage and this Christmas, for the first time ever, I liked brussel sprouts.

And it’s not just food, last week I slept much less than normal (and didn’t feel tired). Come Thursday I decided I must just not be noticing the tiredness and so went to bed early. The result? I woke up at 4am on Friday morning feeling fully refreshed!

It’s also extended to politics and religion. On this site in the past I have been strongly against religion. I continue to be frightened by people who will do things in the name of God that I hope normal people would not do in the absence of His influence. But I can also feel sympathy for those people who do believe. I can feel what Dawkins has described — a feeling that God exists — which can be explained by biological means.

So, like all things, religion is not black and white. There are fundamentalist nutters at one extreme, a violent version of Richard Dawkins at the other and myself sitting nearer Richard Dawkins than Bin Laden, closer to the Dalai Lama than the Archbishop of Canterbury and closer to a vicar than a priest.

Why am I telling you this? Well, at almost regular intervals (perhaps the seven-year thing), I have come to see another aspect of life as grey rather than black, or as grey rather than white.

It’s a shame, with these newly discovered shades of grey, that we no longer have the diversity of political parties we once had. SDP, Liberals, Whigs, Radicals, Tories and Independents have now been replaced, to all intents and purposes by the Conservatives and Labour. And neither of these parties, for all their minor differences, reflects the opinion of more than (at a guess) 5% of the population. The so-called centre-ground, is actually the swing vote — a part of the population which has a particular opinion but has not bothered to make a firm decision about whether people should be taxed a lot or a little, and whether people should work hard or have a ‘right’ to the dole.

There’s another problem with the party system. I know Libertarians who would never vote UKIP or Tory even though they ought to be their natural home; and I know socialists who could never vote for Labour or the Liberal Democrats because of other policies.

In France, as I was discussing with a colleague the other day, the president must be elected, eventually, by more than 50% of the population through run-offs resulting in just two candidates. But why couldn’t this work when electing a parliament too? It would guarantee a working majority for a particular party (which I believe is important) while not disenfranchising the 66%-ish who do not vote for the eventual winner in most English elections (assuming the FPTP system we currently have provides a reasonable impression of the intentions of the electorate; which is doesn’t).

I was described, not inaccurately I believe, as a right-wing anarchist last night.

But what’s so wrong with that? I believe that the law should provide protection for people from the cruel twists of fate that life brings and from those members of society who do not act with consideration for others — to use religious parlance those who do not “treat others as they would wish to be treated”.

And that should be the end of it.

If I want to drive without a seat belt and potentially injure myself, if I want to take mind altering drugs in the privacy of my own home, if I want to do anything at all that harms no-one else, I should be allowed.

And who would object? Actually, the answer is surprising to my naive mind!

There are several groups of people who would object. There are those Tories who supported Section 28, the Road Traffic Act 1991 and the Single European Act. There are those socialists who believe in positive discrimination, redistribution of wealth and behaviour modification (state-funded anti-smoking adverts for example).

But worst of all are the so-called ‘centrists’. These people believe that because there are large-ish numbers of people on the ‘right’ and ‘left’ of them that they represent some form of better political ideology. Of course, they are wrong.

There is nothing admirable about sitting on a fence but when the fence means that you believe in ‘modest’ redistribution of wealth, ‘minor’ racist treatment of the indigenous population and when you believe only in legislating in behaviour management some of the time you are not helping anyone. Small steps towards a police state are worse than large steps because people notice them less. Being between a clear, well thought through ideology of socialist equality and the clear, well thought through (and superior) ideology of libertarianism (classical liberalism or right-wing anarchy — call it what you will), then you are standing for nothing at all.

For once I am ranting about political ideology without complaining about religion in politics. And I think this is not because religion in politics has become less of a problem (as Cllr. Eade well knows), but because right now our political leaders are being made aware, through polls, that policy-theft is no longer to be tolerated.

Policy-theft is a symptom of being ‘centrist’. You cannot hold a clear, respectable ideolological position and find any benefit in the opposition’s policies. The truth is, if you feel able to steal policies (or believe it is likely your policies could be stolen, actually) then you’re not sticking to your ideology and, by default, you are suffocating democratic choice.

Say 50% of people want a government that does not interfere, does not impose behaviour-modifying legislation and does not support so-called ‘good racism’, who should those people choose? A-list Cameron? Ethnic-training-programmes Brown? God-forbid Mr Campbell?

If we want to have a healthy democracy then we need fewer people to vote ‘the way their Dad did’, more people to be adventurous in their voting, and more people to care what the politicians do with their vote. And this from a people’s representative.

But the blame is not only the electorate’s. It’s massively the media’s fault obviously, but it is mostly the fluff-spined politicians. Stand up for what you believe in, and stand for election on that too. Don’t change your opinions because there’s been a change in leader, and don’t change your opinions as a result of opinion polls. Please.

I am delighted to announce that my motion on the EU treaty and the referendum Mr Blair et al promised us was passed, not unanimously, but with no opposition votes. The text reads as follows:

Notice of Motion - Council Procedure Rule 17
The following Notice of Motion is proposed by Councillor Gavin Ayling:
The “Reform Treaty”, signed by Tony Blair on 23 June, is acknowledged publicly by the leaders of nearly all our EU partners to be virtually the same as the Constitution Treaty. France and The Netherlands decisively rejected that Treaty.
The “Reform Treaty” transfers yet more substantive powers from Britain to the EU and further erodes British laws and the British Constitution.
It will reduce the rights and freedoms of the residents of Adur and the whole nation.
Therefore this Council calls on Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, to abide by the Government’s promise to the electorate in the 2005 Labour Party Manifesto page 84, “We will put [the Constitution Treaty] to the British people in a referendum…”

Read the original on the Adur District Council website.

And I’m also delighted to see that Ming the pitiful has now suggested a referendum would be a good idea, naively believing that the people would vote for massive bureaucratic waste, cultural erasure, pathetic and unnecessary directives and higher taxes (for no gain).

Oh, and Sign the Petition

Why is this message considered too sensitive?

Tonight’s meeting was fantastically important. So important that even though I’m yet to eat dinner (which I normally eat around 7pm) I’m sat here at the computer telling you what happened.

First, the opposition (actually the lone LibDem cannot officially be called an opposition — but for the sake of clarity) voted for all the proposals which will lead to Worthing and Adur Councils moving toward a single workforce. Adur Council will now work out a basis for moving to a cabinet system of government.

Also, the speech I read and copied below for your information, was well received and you’ll be pleased to know that the Motion was not carried! I’ll take some of the credit for that especially because the Liberal Democrat (apparently not the party of liberalism and freedom) failed to stir even for that.

So all recommendations before tonight’s Council were carried unanimously and Motion 11a lost while Motion 11b (on West Sussex Hospitals) was carried.