|
||||||
|
||||||
|
||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
| FEATURES | BY ROBERT HENDERSON |
 Robert Henderson |
All very democratic, the naïve outsider may think. In reality this “consultation” is an elaborate pantomime. True consultation is a dialogue, a discussion whereby two parties meet and put forward views on a basis of equality, from which comes agreement based on compromise. For Camden Council, “consultation” consists of something very different. For them it is simply a way of being able to claim that a decision was made with the participation of those affected, when in fact the decision was made over their heads. In other words, it is a device to give a spurious democratic legitimacy to council decisions. Camden achieves this in four ways. The first and most common is the supply of “information” which is in effect council propaganda. The second ploy is to send a questionnaire designed to elicit the answer it wants. The third is to offer two or three options for people to choose between, any of which the council can live with. Sometimes the council is unable to manipulate matters to their own satisfaction using the ploys described above. It then adopts a shameless fourth “consultation” technique. It convenes a meeting to announce a decision which has already been made and which will not be changed under any circumstances. The council then claims that the mere holding of the meeting means the people have been consulted. The common thread in these “consultations” is that nowhere do the people being “consulted” have any input to the decisions. They are merely there to act, in Lenin’s phrase, as “useful idiots”, people who unwittingly lend themselves to a political process which is directly against their wishes. A classic example of sham consultation concerns what is probably the single most important issue for any large number of Camden residents, the proposal that the stock of council housing in Camden be placed in a “stand-alone” corporation called an Arms Length Management Organisation (Almo). Whether or not this is a good idea is a subject for another time. What is clear is the council is determined to have an Almo by hook-or-by crook. The council’s claims to be acting even-handed in this matter are demonstrably untrue. One vivid example of bias occurred at a meeting of tenants representatives in early May (New Journal article Tenants’ Anger at ‘Chairman Charlie’, May 1) where the reps made it clear that they were overwhelmingly against Almos. Despite this, Cllr Charlie Hedges, the chair of the Housing Committee, announced that the council would be putting in a bid for Almo-dependent Central Government money based on the assumption that an Almo would be introduced. This is turning the democratic process on its head. Before an Almo can be introduced Camden tenants have to vote for it. No vote has been held, nor is there a set date for such a vote. Until that is done, no application for the Almo-dependent money should be made – vote first, action afterwards is the proper democratic process. That this application is to be made before the ballot gives the impression that the vote is a foregone conclusion, a fact which could significantly influence the way tenants vote. Local politics used to be about local people and local issues. Even 30 years ago the party label was not the be-all-and-end-all even in our larger cities. Now it has become everything and local politics mimics national politics. No longer do local politicians act on the merits of local issues but on the dictates of their parties. The power of party in local politics has been made much greater recently with the introduction of cabinet government into Camden (and elsewhere). The effect of this is to exclude not only opposition councillors from decisions and information but also councillors who are part of the ruling party within the council. I attended a tenants’ association meeting after Cllr Hedges announced to the CNJ that service charges for tenants were on the cards. The two Labour councillors present were unaware that the announcement had been made. Where the local party is part of the same party as that of the national government, as is the case in Camden, the opportunity for local opposition to the national government will is rendered practically nil because the council will do whatever the Government wants. That is the undemocratic hole we are in. How do we get out of it? As a start, I suggest citizen initiated referenda on the Swiss model and the scrapping of “cabinet” government. Both are within the power of Camden to institute without Government approval. n Robert Henderson is a retired civil servant and has been a council tenant since 1986. |
|