X-Factor check to see if council’s got talent

LAST WORD ON THE WEEK:

DOES Oldham really need 60 councillors?

Cutting the number of councillors in each ward from three to two would save more than £280,000 a year, according to leader Howard Sykes, who probably thinks that he would be immune from facing the chop.

It is an interesting idea and opens up the exciting prospect of an unelection campaign whereby we, the chaff in the political wheat fields, could vote off one of our three local councillors.

Each ward could hold its own talent or talentless contest, its three councillors taking the stage to convince the electorate that he or she should be allowed to keep their seat on the council gravy train.

It really would be the X-Factor in more ways than one with a panel of Chronicle letter-writers expressing their views before the vote is thrown open to the great Oldham public.

It’s quite exciting and would do much for local government and governance, putting the chosen ones under the searchlight as well as the spotlight.

After all, do you know the name of your local councillor? Have you seen him or her, apart from at election time? Would you recognise your councillor if you bumped into him or her in Tesco, Aldi or the local chippy or takeaway?

The Lib-Dem-Tories (LDTs, which sounds like something you might get after drinking too much) tell us that they want to reduce the members to 40 to save money. But is that the real reason?

Labour group leader Jim McMahon reckons it is because they can’t find credible candidates to stand in all 20 wards, but what does credibility mean in this context and since when has the credibility of candidates ever been an issue for any of the local parties?

And what about those of us who question the value of a council at all when all the decisions are taken by a tiny cabal and who wonder whether an elected mayor or town manager wouldn’t be a vastly better and cheaper option?




HOME secretary Theresa May has proved that she is not just daft heels and even dafter outfits by coming up with a daft idea, too (isn’t consistency nice in a politician?).



Tottering Theresa wants to scrap the anti-social behaviour order (asbo) and replace it with what she calls a toolkit containing five tools to deal with anti-social behaviour. And no, it’s not a hammer, thumbscrews, pincers, electric drill and axe.

The community trigger in Theresa’s master plan sounds promising but unfortunately it is not attached to some kind of automatic weapon or even a stun gun.

Instead it’s really scary, deterrent things like placing requirements on young villains; a crime-prevention injunction and confiscating what are described as prized possessions such as iPods (probably stolen from someone else).

The asbo brigade will be quaking in their nicked trainers when they finally get out bed.




FINAL WORD: Why did Oldham Athletic start demolishing their stadium before they knew for certain if, when and where they could build a new one?



Why did Oldham councillors think that acting as both land-owning councillors and trustees of the same piece of land would get them into less trouble this time than it has in the past?

What next for our beloved Latics?

Answers on a postcard to the civic centre and Boundary Park.