That Gordon Brown’s statement in the London House of Commons last week was another stunt, has been already recognised. In my first response to his statement, I did say as much within minutes of Gordon Brown ‘s statement.
In particular I have a good deal more to say about the flawed Crossrail hole plot which Brown has been ‘persuaded’ to parade in his House of Commons stunt [that created a miniature constitutional procedure whereby the former secretiveness of the Queen's Speech will be allegedly removed].
What is it that I can ‘usefully’ add to what I have already said over the past 42 months on the crassness of the CrossRail hole plot against the east end of London and against the inner cities generally, speaking, on this occasion, strictly in public finance terms?
A very large number of things.
For instance, what is going on at the Financial Times, one of the most embarrassing ‘experts’ group that has been peddling the CrossRail hole plot?
Well, by the sound of the things they have published in the past 24 hours, the FT-based promoters of the CRASSrail hole plot are not able to maintain their immature exuberance over CrossRail any ore.
Not even on the level that they had shown within days of Gordon Brown’s appearance as the official clamant to occupy No 10 Downing Street.
And now this, the Murdoch-ed Times of London. It is, has been, a major ‘main stream’ source of ‘legitimacy’ sought and used by the peddlers of the current Crossrail hole plot. So what follows is an extremely important comment about the shift that must have taken place within the Times about how they are going to present the CRASSrail hole plot now.
In the editorial comment as published after 0100 Hrs Gmt today [Monday 16 July 2007], the Times [on its web site as far as I have seen at the time of writing this at 0450 Hrs GMT], accepts, and for the first time in pubic and in this way in all these years of insane promotion of Crossrail, that CrossRail is a hugely expensive project!
I am going to discuss the CROSSRAIL aspect of the Ties’ comment in a later piece today.
Before doing that, I have discussed briefly the same piece’s reference to local Councils.
Here is an explanation of what I have said and the quotation of my piece as posted on the Times web site.
I must say that the otherwise important contribution to the overdue debate about the role of local councils in the UK as published on the web site of the London Times newspaper this morning [Monday 16 July 2007] is marred by their contradictory arguments. In my brief response which I pasted to their comment section [where it is yet to appear], I have said this:
“The most important flaw in your argument is the assumption that election promises must always or necessarily be about or be followed by council expenditure. What about accountability? How long must it be before it is acknowledged in fact that it is as important to have accountability as it is to have the money, to serve the local communities? Without true accountability, NO council, no matter where they are or what class or section or type of constituency they are elected by, can even begin to represent the people in terms of material services needed locally if there is no true accountability by the elected councillors and by their bureaucracies. Can we start having this understood and appreciated by all concerned? It is a given that money is needed. But what happens when the decision makers are allowed to decide on what happens to the money in eternal secretary that is not being broken even by the increasingly undermined [and very limited] Freedom of Information legislation? Before councillors were allowed to pay themselves salaries, it was argued that with reasonable income being allowed, we would see the dawn of an era of high quality representatives on our local councils! What a costly and damaging and anti-democratic spin that was. With the tangible prospect of awarding themselves ever increasing salaries [de facto], councillors on most councils that I have observed, are prone to behave just as irresponsibly as they would have been before. And the scramble for a post as councillor is even uglier now in most inner city areas in the UK than it ever was. The more income-seeking individuals are encouraged to seek to become councillors, the less likely it is that councils for the peoples’ representation will be revived. They cannot be revived. They can only be discredited and thereby made in effect redundant… The political parties are not constituted in ways that even recognise the need for accountability by holders of elected office locally or regionally or at the UK central level.. This is a fundamental crisis of the very fact or nature of democracy in Britain and it is one that has not been given the serious and the sustained attention it deserves…”
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