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Search forPetty niggles get the heads shaking
Thursday, November 20, 2008, 19:03
Since the city planning committee has moved into the main council chamber we have been treated to a regular song-and-dance routine from chairman John Lock (Con, Plympton Erle) and his shadow, Nicky Wildy (Lab, Devonport).
The viewing public have been seen shaking their heads and rolling their eyes at the tussle over who should lead and who should follow.
If the audience had a vote, I have little doubt that this couple would follow in the quick-steps of John Sergeant.
Lock, his deputy and the committee officials, sit on the raised dais, with the chairman in the seat used by the Lord Mayor during meetings of the full council. They look down on the rest of the committee and the public.
Ms Wildy wanted Lock to vacate the Lord Mayor's chair, in which case he would have to sit in the main body of the chamber, and the only feasible spot would put him lower than the committee. They have been bickering over this for weeks.
For God's sake, it's just a chair.
Not to be outdone in fancy footwork, Lock has brought in a rule that says no one may pass a committee member a note without showing it to him first.
I have watched parliamentary select committees, I have sat in on US congressional hearings. I have been in the press gallery in court. And from every vantage point I have seen people passing notes to each other.
Quite why our planning chairman thinks it's his job to treat councillors like children I cannot figure out.
It's time for the dancers to stop kicking each other's legs and get on with the tango. Planning is too important for party political bickering or pompous posturing.
Last week's meeting took two hours to get through the first two applications, and a large part of that was tied up in petty niggling.
JACQUI SMITH, the Home Secretary, has invented a powerful new system of justice. I'm going to call it Policing By Uncertainty, and this is how it could work.
Take speed limits. Under PBU, everybody would know that they can travel at, say, 20mph anywhere in the country. That's the base level.
Of course it would be higher on motorways and dual carriageways – only no-one would tell you how high.
To improve the system further, the limits would change randomly every day, or even every hour. There would be no speed limit signs – you would just have to take your chances.
If you were caught breaking whatever the speed limit happened to be, the normal penalties would apply.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Likewise, tax. Each year the Government sets the tax bands – and then keeps them secret. We citizens are obliged to pay what we think they should be. If we pay too much, the Government makes a profit. If we pay too little, we're heavily penalised.
Ignorance is no excuse.
Similarly prostitution. It's perfectly legal to pay for sex, but it's illegal if the prostitute passes on your money to someone else – a clever ruse to get rid of pimping and sex slavery.
Ignorance is no excuse.
If you ask whether she has a pimp, and she lies, that's tough: you're nicked, my son. Ignorance, as we said before, is no excuse.
But hang on a minute, that is Jacqui Smith's madcap idea.
GARY STREETER, the MP for South West Devon, has called for a rule change to allow new homes around existing towns and villages.
This is so much better than building new towns like Sherford. If the development line around every village was relaxed by 10 to 15 per cent we'd solve a list of problems in one hit.
As villages grew bigger, they would be better able to support shops, post offices, schools and pubs.
If the relaxation went hand in hand with a guarantee of affordable housing for locals, young people would be able to stay in the villages.
And, because most development land would be owned by locals, there would be an important injection of cash into village life.
FROM the rumour mill. "Are you completely out of touch?" an informant asked when I admitted that I had not heard the "fact" that council leader Vivien Pengelly is planning to step down next year and hand over the reins to colleague Ian Bowyer.
Mrs Pengelly said she hadn't heard the rumour either. "I'm not going anywhere," she said. "I can categorically deny it. I've got a lot more to do here."
And "even more important than the Life Centre", she says, is taking care of vulnerable children in Plymouth.
She has asked council officers for a report into what they're doing to prevent a repeat of the "Baby P" case here.
Baby P was the toddler who was killed in Haringey, while social services failed to intervene.
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