Find-your-partner waltz

Council Survey

IT was a bit like those frustrating progressive dances where one second you are skipping the light fantastic with with some buxom wench with a twinkle in her eye and the next you are having your toes trampled by a busty harridan, all lavender, moth balls and outrageous blue hair.

But when they said take your partners for the council two-step (a sort of now you see it, now you don’t dance) last night, nobody quite seemed to know who their partners were.

The first step in what was always going to be more slow, slow, than quick, quick, was taken by Mohib Uddin who wanted all the members of the Oldham Partnership in which, apparently, the council is “first among equals” whatever that means (now, don’t laugh out loud) to be as open and transparent as Oldham Council is. Like bathroom windows?

Labour’s Shoab Akhtar wanted to know just who the partners were. “What about the Unity Partnership?” he asked and might equally have said who are they and what do they do? “And is the Pennine Acute Trust (which runs the Royal Oldham Hospital) one of the partners?”

Nobody really seemed to know.

Ann Wingate, though, thought that all the partners in The Partnership should share responsibility for all the cock-ups instead of hiding behind the council. “The council gets the blame for everything,” said Ann and for a fleeting second it was almost, almost mind you, possible to feel sorry for them.

“Elected members are highly visible (well, their e-mail addresses are) and it is time the partners shared responsibility and did more to engage with the public.”

Tory John Hudson though had another take on the issue. “We should get our own house in order first,” said John who’s pretty nifty in the ballroom, “there’s no openness and transparency here unless you are in the Cabinet.”

But, all the partners, once we have found out who they are, are to be asked to share their secrets, budgets, papers and meetings with you and me and, of course, with the first among equals. Aren’t we glad!

So, if you get a call today asking you if you are in the Oldham Partnership, just say you’re in double glazing — that should be transparent enough.

Philip Holley for the Lib-Dems, challenged Dave Hibbert to say whether or not he supported Oldham’s Britain in Bloom entry. The answer, predictably, was no, not at £200,000.

Dave, clearly more a bunch of daffs man, said the money should have been spent on 15 alleygates with £1,500 spent on pretty flowers. “It’s a dog’s breakfast,” he said, but has anyone seen a tin of Pal or Chum out there?

Is £70 million spread over 30 years’ council tax too much to pay for Metrolink? Labour leader Jim McMahon clearly thinks it is, but Howard Sykes said he was proud to have been a party to the decision.

“We have been campaigning for it for 15 years,” said Howard, “it has been seen by all three parties as the golden thread of regeneration that will unlock the Uni campus, the Science Centre and restore the bottom end of Union Street.”

Ah yes, Howard, but can we afford it?

Finally, as we head for the recess, I can banish once and for all a myth. Ken Hulme and Warren Bates were both at last night’s meeting of Oldham Council proving that they are not one and the same person. In fact it’s probably more scary that there are two of them!