DO YOU remember It’s a Knockout? Daft games and daft people. I was reminded of this TV classic insofar as while the chef’s toques, penguin outfits and King’s regalia are no longer part of our national DNA, the attendant levels of juvenile idiocy are still prevalent.
Everywhere you look it seems as though (to use a phrase beloved of the left) the adults have left the room. Education, local authorities, the NHS, the civil service, defence, judiciary and sitting atop of this steaming pile, the government. Each silo seems to have been eviscerated of any vestige of common sense and in its place an uncritical woke mindset has taken root. This plant seems to spread like Japanese knotweed and is impervious to eradication – especially, it would seem, in local authorities.
Step forward Leicestershire County Council, now under Reform with one Dan Harrison as Head of Council. No sooner had Reform decided to abolish the previous policy of flying LGBGT+, Windrush and other flags than they received a letter from representatives of LGBTQ+, disabled and BAME staff who said they had not been properly consulted on the change. Further meetings will need to be held and decisions made. How the county’s residents have responded to this momentous waste of time is unfortunately not recorded.
Britain seems to have become one long game of woke with participants eagerly queueing up to outwoke one another.
Leicestershire County Council’s website is, I would imagine, pretty much a mirror image of all other councils up and down the land. Apart from the obligatory ‘stand with Ukraine’ it is a showcase of personal bêtes noires which illustrates exactly why local authorities need far greater scrutiny and more pertinently, financial accountability.
Net Zero must be a pressing doorstep concern in Leicestershire given the council’s engagement with it. For those with time on their hands I can recommend their concise 78-page Leicestershire Net Zero Carbon Roadmap. How the Chinese official who cuts ribbons weekly on opening new coal mines must quietly titter at the whole pointlessness of this ludicrous local authority.
For Leicestershire County Council though, nothing appears to be off limits. Worried about your weight? No panic, the councillors have got your back with their Healthy Weight Strategy covered in a useful 24-page PDF. Although if this opening morsel is anything to go by, I’m not sure I could digest all two dozen pages.
‘Obesity is a complex and multifaceted problem that requires coordinated, effective action to change the food, physical activity and social environments from “obesogenic” to ones which promote a healthy weight. If we are going to take effective action to reverse obesity at a population level, we need to work together with partners in a “whole systems” approach to create an environment that facilitates healthy choices and supports individuals to be physically active and achieve and maintain a healthy weight.’
Have all the potholes been filled and gulleys cleared?
In fact, it’s all part of their Health and Wellbeing Strategy, which aside from the weight issue also helps with Mental Health and Getting Active. No doubt all very commendable, but is it necessary to have eight different courses on mental health? These are: Learning for Confidence and Better Mental Health, Connecting with Nature, Dealing with Worries, Introduction to Mindfulness, Sleep and Wellbeing, Coping with Change, Introduction to Self Care, Positive Wellbeing Goals, and Five Ways to Wellbeing. All are offered free of charge because someone else is paying for them, obviously.
What’s puzzling, given Leicestershire’s benevolence to their citizens, is that there is any call for this support. One would imagine that living there is a cross between Shangri-La and Utopia.
But Leicestershire is not unique in any way. All councils are infested with the same mindset. Whether it’s Bristol’s traffic-calming green circles, or the ubiquitous low traffic neighbourhoods, 20mph zones, unused cycle lanes, parking charges, or an almost cult-like devotion to woke causes, it’s the put-upon taxpayers funding the staff salaries, pensions and work-from-home lifestyle who always come a very distant second.
I am not sure at what juncture councils became these leviathans of woke. In days gone by people had very little to do with local authorities – now we seem unable to do anything without arousing their interest.
Yet whenever you talk about local authorities, you never ever hear someone say anything positive. It is always a moan about how they waste money, do little if anything of practical benefit to the community. You hear plenty about decisions made that are hard to comprehend or even justify. Waste and woke are like a tailored glove-puppet that seamlessly fits councils.
Whenever you hear them complain about ‘cuts’ and ‘difficult decisions’ you can safely assume it’s largely codswallop. I can guarantee that anyone who has worked in the private sector and has managed a cost-and-revenue budget could go into any council office and trim 25 per cent off spending without anyone in the locality experiencing a detrimental effect.
But why bother about reining in your desire to parade your woke credentials when you have a captive audience to fund it?
