On 18/04/05 19:10 Theresa Feetenby wrote: > Who do we have to thank for getting the high street resurfaced? Well, if you read recent Conservative "In Touch" leaflets one might think it was all down to Gerda and Jim Paice. I'm blowed if I can see what they've done mind you. We (Milton PC plus your district and county councillors, especially the latter, Jane Coston) have been campaigning for this for some years. I've lost count of the number of meetings we've had with officers to press them for it but we finally won and the county agreed to re-surface it in January and I announced on the milton-news list and village web site at the time[1]. Curiously Gerda only started actively campaigning for it (remember her petition?) at around this time. Only a cynic might think that the best time to start campaigning for something is after it's been agreed. I'm afraid we're now seeing the same tactics for winning elections as has happened in Waterbeach. There they elected James Hockney as district councillor last May. As a resident there (who, like me is not a party member but does pay attention to local politics) put it to me in an email last week "Hockney [their Tory district councillor] continuously claims credit for things he hasn't done, and seems to put most of his efforts into self-promotion rather than into work for his constituents". But that's the way the "game" is played, and sadly it works - that's how Hockney got in as people fall for it - so we can expect it here too. The shame of it is that in the long term they all descend to the same level. We've already seen Jane Coston decide to stand down, largely because she's fed up with it (which is a *huge* loss to the village). Eventually the only Lib Dems left willing to stand will be those happy to play the game by the same rules. So instead of getting as councillors people who really will work hard for us all we will just get the ones who tell the best story, and that's often not the same thing at all. It's what gives politics a bad name. I find it all very depressing. -- Paul [1] www.miltonvillage.org.uk/opus1066.html