Feel the power

The race for local power is on, and as the campaigning gets under way, our political correspondent Aitch (not to be confused with H, formerly of Steps) tells you why you should vote. This is power to the people stuff, people – don’t waste your voice purely on fruitless tv telephone phone in competitions!
“When something goes wrong, everyone blames the council, they don’t do this and they don’t do that and why are they wasting our money on blah blah blah…

The thing is, that to justify your moan, you should do something about it.

On May 3, everyone has the chance to say who they want to represent them at parish and district level.

Turn out is notoriously low because people think that the general election is the important thing, and most don’t even bother to vote in that.
But local politics is the bit that really affects us, like bin collections, clean streets, dirty beaches, dog poo, you know what I mean.

Parish and town councils are at ground level and can hear your views and make representation for you, they have a bit of cash from the precept and run some things on their own, like your allotments, toilets or pathways.

District Councils have a lot more power, they decide on your planning applications, on what development is going to happen in the future, on your leisure centres, bus stations and a load of other stuff.

It really matters that you decide who will best represent you and who has ideas like your own.

You might say that it’s a waste of time because they all do what they want anyway, and the whips in some district authorities cut out freedom in voting on big decisions. Yep, that does happen.

So why not make sure that you vote for your favourite to help them gain a majority?

There’s plenty of worthy reasons to vote, like it is a privilege of the free, and you ladies owe it to that Wilding Davison one who hurled herself under the King’s horse for you.

And if you don’t give a poop about that, do it for the smug feeling you get when you walk from the polling booth, thinking you know something of politics after all.

Posted by Aitch