Who'll put the clocks back?

One of the things I like about working in local government is that, as well as the poor pay and having less protection for our pensions than other public servants, we get to be subject to daft Government initiatives.

Thatcher famously brought us ratecapping and abolished authorities she disagreed with. New Labour then came up with elected mayors, an idea rejected by the electorate in the great majority of places where they were asked. Never one to let the democratically expressed wishes of the people get in the way of some daft reactionary nonsense, Ruth Kelly wants to resurrect the idea.

If the Government want to do really stupid things they should do it properly. I notice that the Tory controlled Local Government Association don’t want to put the clocks back (must be trying to prove they are all forward looking Cameroonies?)

So, let’s have elected mayors for every local authority all in charge of their own time zone! Then they can all put the clocks back to wherever they want.

I am happy to offer this network to the New Local Government Network, who – after all, are probably working on a way of privatising time completely (sorry, I mean “modernising time through a partnership approach…”)

This has all the hallmarks of current Government thinking after all, it doesn’t make sense, it won’t improve public services and it will cause chaos – but no one could say it wasn’t radical! And when Ruth Kelly achieves the political oblivion which must surely be her destiny, she can be an elected major for some poor deserted little village somewhere and put the clocks back to the Middle Ages.