Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Reality Trumps Satire Again

"A government minister is due to make a speech setting out plans to give greater powers to local communities"

"Hand more power to people and communities"

Bwuuuaaa-ha-ha-ha ! You kill me !

In other news - local hospitals to close, local police stations to close, local magistrates courts to close, local pubs to close, local shops to close, police forces to be amalgamated, local councils to be abolished, detention without trial, compulsory ID, Magna Carta to be torn up, habeas corpus 'out-dated', free speech 'greatly overrated', elections to be scrapped.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Lets take a quick check on that "reality" again:

local hospitals to close it has always been health policy to get people out of hospital and get them treated at home, its a lot more hygenic for a start. So closing a local hospital and replacing it with local nursing care is better.

local police stations to close what matters is a local police presence, i.e. they should not be cooped up in police stations, so whether a police station is local or not is immaterial.

local magistrates courts to close thank f*ck for that, I certainly don't want a courthouse on my doorstep with all them criminals, what is next, "local prison to close", "local asylum centre to close", horror !

local pubs to close, I never knew of all these government controlled public houses.

local shops to close, there I was thinking the increase in cars and the internet had nothing to do with this, it was a government conspiracy all along.

police forces to be amalgamated which affects local operations - how ?

You need to push a bit harder if you want to go down that slippery slope.

Anonymous said...

err... genius

local nursing care? Nobody I know has heard of that. What about distance of home to hospital? Further you go, longer it takes, harder it is for people without a car, longer it takes for ambulances;

local police stations - nearby locations from which police are deployed.

close them local magistrates courts, nimbyism to you too.

amalgamated forces? less local autonomy, police chiefs yet further from local interests.

I guess if you like Central Control Freakery and hate Local Democratic Control, this is all ok.

The further something is controlled from people that use it, the more people that thing has to cover, and the more diluted local democracy becomes.

Anonymous said...

local nursing care? Nobody I know has heard of that. - Let me ask my partner, a practise nurse, who has probably spent most of today visiting old biddies to tend to their wounds. I bet they'd all prefer a daily trip to their "local" hospital to catch MRSA.

nearby locations from which police are deployed. - as long as there is no delay in deployment it makes bugger all difference.

Bigger central police stations mean more cover during illness etc and better redeployment when important events occur.

amalgamated forces? less local autonomy, police chiefs yet further from local interests. Meaningless, police chiefs aren't supposed to be involved in local interests.

I guess if you like Central Control Freakery and hate Local Democratic Control - What ? "Local Democratic Control", of hospitals, of police, of pubs, of shops, of courts. Since when has that ever been the case, we are losing _nothing_.

Anonymous said...

"What ? "Local Democratic Control", of hospitals, of police, of pubs, of shops, of courts. Since when has that ever been the case, we are losing _nothing_."

sadly, you're right there. But wouldn't it be nice to have local democratic accountability?

DJ said...

I guess those polls must have been terrible if Nu Lab is adopting a scorched earth policy in local government. I'd have more confidence if 'communidee groups' and the like ever contained anyone who'd you actually meeet in any normal community, but no - it's just the Enemy Class in excile.

See, that's what's wrong with Cameron. Sure, the Tories can beat Nu Lab, but who cares if Blair manages to leave behind a whole army of money-gobbling socialist wheenies ?

Anonymous said...

"local hospitals to close, local police stations to close"

Hands up all those who want a 3 hour journey before they can X-ray your broken leg/spine/pelvis/skull and get some treatment.
And hands up those who want to see what little forces of law and order left to joe public retreat even further away