… no, not the Outer Hebrides but Outer Hindhead and Haslemere!
1.1 Ensure you are a TORY with a Capital T.
1.2 If you are a borough councillor, always keep your head down – unless, of course, you happen to absolutely have to bestir yourself on account of the pesky locals, who helped get you elected – and now want their just reward by demanding you look into a controversial planning application on your patch!
1.3 Sit on as few committees as is humanly possible and, by all that’s holy, keep your comments strictly limited to parochial issues. And, whatever else you do, don’t involve yourself in the stuff of other people’s lives – eg, anything to do with Farnham or Godalming!
Most certainly not Cranleigh, unless of course, you want to support a Private Care Home on public land with public money!
Life Lesson 2
2.1 Leave the council whenever it suits you. Everyone understands you need to support your local coffee shop, and do the odd jobs, … well, maybe not now we’re all working from home on Zoom! And, of course, you need to do the weekly shop at Waitrose, leaving the delivery slots for the elderly and vulnerable. And, of course, you need to get your roots touched up and your dry ends trimmed with another lockdown looming. God forbid, you have to resort to dying it over the bath again – your bathmat still hasn’t recovered from that unfortunate incident during the March lockdown.
2.2 And, as long as you pop back into the chamber when the Tory-Tossers are having trouble finding a local candidate and ensure you don’t go around rocking the Tory boat, by disagreeing with the Party, all will be well. Just follow Noah’s example in these dire times and remember that the animals went in two-by-two. Otherwise, you risk being swept away in the flood when the day of reckoning comes – as it surely will!
And last, but certainly not least:
Lesson 3
3.1 Ensure you stick as many leaflets through local letterboxes as you possibly can, regardless of how many Louboutin trainers you wear out in the process! What price vanity? For and on behalf of Ewhurst resident and local MP, The Hon Angie – she of the Rupert Bear scarves, not The Queen Vic – that’s a whole other story! – and the unforgettable Leprechaun outfit – who could forget the Leprechaun?! No, this is The Hon Angie, who, even before the ink was dry on her acceptance of office, was telling former colleagues:“
If you play your cards right I could get you an MBE.“
We wonder if all those really deserving souls in the eastern villages, who have given their lives to public services in one way or another, could or should have any faith in the honours system if all you have to do is rock up to parish and borough meetings and become a Trustee of The Shottermill Recreation Ground Trust to get a BEM?
Eat your heart out Carole Cockburn and all those other Waverley Councillors who have been slogging their guts out for donkey’s years. Who have rocked up at every council meeting known to man and have produced not one, but two Neighbourhood Plans. But who, sadly, no longer appear to be singing from the same hymn sheet as their new choir mistress.
Is the Hon Angie helping Bumbling Boris prepare the ground for a behemoth unitary authority? Or is she busy helping to bury another algorithm now her Tory heartland is revolting?
Is the Hon Angie helping Boris prepare the ground for a behemoth unitary authority?
It just goes to prove, it’s not what you know – it’s who you know. Poor councillors such as Carole Cockburn just don’t have the right contacts. I might not share her political affiliation and her manners may be called into question from time to time, but nobody has served their home town as well as Carole Cockburn single handedly producing the Farnham Neighbourhood Plan and driving it though not one but two referendum, when most of her fellow town councillors seemed to be asleep at the wheel.
How very true. But surely the honours system shouldn’t be about who you know, or how many favours you have given -or for that matter, how much money you have poured into a political party’s coffers?
Over the life of Waverley Web we have had reason to take issue with Carole Cockburn’s views on some issues, but never with her tireless dedication to her roles in fighting Farnham’s corner. As for her work on the Farnham Neighbourhood Plans and driving them through two referendum which will provide the blueprint for development for many years in the future – a simply gargantuan feat of human endurance.
Who knows, perhaps one of these days our Jeremy will do an Angie and ensure her contributions are publicly recognised? We can think of many other councillors whose contributions to their areas, over many years, deserve recognition.