Local Govenment Nonsense, Social Mobility

                                 Local Government

                               From Bristol City Council’s ‘One City Plan.’

Brown and Blue, Alan Michael Green (1932-2003)

Photo Credit: Senate House, University of London
[CC BY-NC-SA]

The lifeblood of Bristol is connectivity. Our connectivity is considered the template for contemporary city living. Whether our people connect in person or in virtual spaces whether they connect in their physical communities or their global communities, our city infrastructure helps bring them together. Bristol connectivity means multimodal connectivity – we designed our infrastructure around the human condition.

Pretentious nonsense.

     




*Donald Adey, a Cambridgeshire councillor, claims more than £14,000 a year in allowances despite living more than 400 miles away in Fife. However,

“Donald has a serious rival. Tory Aberdeen city councillor Brett Hunt who supposedly represents the Bridge of Don ward, has been dubbed locally as the “councillor for the Bridge of Dubai.” Since September last, Cllr Hunt has been living in Dubai, where he has kept in touch with his constituents by posting on social media pictures of himself drinking cocktails, windsurfing and driving a speedboat.

Hunt is on secondment in Dubai for his employer, National Oilwell Varco…which employs him as an area manager.

Aware that…he risks losing his £16,742 annual allowance if he doesn’t attend a council meeting for six months, Hunt has let it be known that he’ll shortly be putting in an appearance at Aberdeen town hall. Meanwhile, he told The National newspaper constituents can always contact him on the beach.

(Private Eye, 1491)

Media and Social Media

Danielle Wall may be the managing editor of the Spectator, but she still feels the odd one out at some corporate events. Not because she is one of the weekly title’s most senior women, but because she left school at 16.

“It can make me feel uncomfortable,” she said last week. Wall’s journalistic flair and fierce work ethic first brought her to the attention of the editor, Fraser Nelson when she was his PA ten years ago. Her rise is the inspiration behind an internship programme at the magazine, which is one of the most innovative in journalism.

…Unfortunately, Wall’s is a rare good news story in an industry that has become more and more socially exclusive. Journalists from working-class backgrounds without tertiary education are an endangered species. A combination of nepotism and a dearth of well-paid entry level jobs, tied to the near collapse of local journalism, has largely handed the media over to the wealthy, white and well connected.

…Research from the SMC [Social Mobility Commissioners] found that 82% of people who became journalists in a three-year period did some form of work placement or internship, 92% of which was unpaid. Applicants without family or friends in London, where the majority of internships are offered, need to pay for accommodation, which rules it out for many.

(The Guardian, 2019)

Congratulations Danielle and a pat on the back to the Spectator.

*The press is a mouthpiece of British public opinion.

I don’t think so. A large majority of the public in 2013, if polls can be believed, wanted renationalisation of the railways, energy and utilities, rent control, the introduction of a living wage and higher taxes on the rich. Did any mainstream papers endorse these views? No, they did not.