Curiouser And Curiouser

Rumours abound in our little town that County Councillor Gary Price is throwing his hat in the ring for the vacant seat on Disserth & Trecoed Community Council. Whether or not he will also contest his old seat of Llandrindod East on Llandrindod Wells Town Council is not yet known.

Mind you, this could all be a smokescreen dreamt up by his mentor, Harold Nicholls, in accordance with some cunning plan, the detail and purpose of which may become clearer when the elections are eventually held.

I suppose it is possible that, having upset the majority of town councillors, Gary moves on to cause a similar bad feeling on the neighbouring community council. We can only wait to see if the Nicholls/Price cunning plan is any more successful than any of Baldric’s cunning plans.

Warning: The Tory European Group May Contain Nuts

It does indeed look as though David Cameron is giving up the Conservatives' traditional position on the centre right of the political spectrum in favour of a bid to lead the ultra right in Europe. His brief flirtation as a moderniser of the centre appears to be over, and we are likely to get confirmation next week of those whom the Conservatives are going to align themselves in the European Parliament.

This article in today’s Independent speculates on who the Tories are in negotiations with, and it does n lot bode well for British influence in matters European. Indeed, the Tories look set to become an even bigger laughing stock. They may even end up in alliance with the stars of Italian politics, the Northern League. They cannot be serious – can they?

This is such a serious misjudgement on Cameron’s part that it is likely to seriously damage his party’s chances at the next General Election. Who would be prepared to trust him after such a gross error of judgement?

The Late Ralf Dahrendorf - A Great European

Today’s Guardian carries the obituary of a truly great European, Ralf Dahrendorf. German born, naturalised Briton and eventually a Life Peer, but above all else – a European. Of him it can be said with some justification that he led a full life. Always an academic and public intellectual, and variously a politician in both Germany and Britain, even a European Commissioner.

Perhaps his greatest contribution to public life was as the leader of two of Britain’s most respected university institutions – the London School of Economics and St Anthony’s College, Oxford. This work, together with his other professorships around the world, made him a hugely influential figure in modern social thinking.

Others far more qualified than me are paying fuller tributes in the press around the world. I would simply note his passing with immense regret. He was, for me, not only a great man but the epitome of the European ideal.

Is Truth Absolute or Relative, Or Simply An Agent Of Pain?

I get very uneasy whenever a politician uses the word “truth”. Perhaps I have always been excessively cynical, but the word truth associated with a politician has, for me, come to indicate the prelude to a “Jonathan Aitken moment”.

You will recall that moment in 1995 when Jonathan Aitken, the then Conservative Chief Secretary to the Treasury, sought to deny allegations that he had been involved in arms deals with the Saudi government by arming himself with ...the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fairplay... and began his lawsuit against the Guardian newspaper and Granada Television. Suffice to say, he lost and was subsequently convicted of perjury.

In today’s County Times we have the self-righteous Cllr Gary Price with his own possible “Jonathan Aitken moment”. He makes a very personal and disgraceful attack on the new Chairman of the Town Council and is quoted as saying the following:

“For someone to be mayor of this town they should know the town, know it’s people and the people should know them.” He goes on: “I have always been taught that the truth hurts, and that sometimes the truth needs to hurt.”

For me, the telling phrase is “… and sometimes the truth needs to hurt.” This says more about Cllr Price and his near megalomaniac ambitions than almost all his previous utterances. He has clearly set himself up in judgement on his fellow citizens and thinks he has the right, the duty even, to be deliberately hurtful to whoever gets in the way of his warped agenda.

Llandrindod can no longer afford to indulge Gary Price and his appalling behaviour towards anyone and everyone who has the courage to disagree with him. He is simply doing too much damage. He remains a county councillor and must therefore be subject to the Members Code of Conduct. It is time Powys County Council’s Standards Committee reviewed Cllr Price’s actions and utterances to determine whether or not his recent behaviour is in accordance with what we, the people of Llandrindod, have the right to expect of an elected representative.

Empty Vessel

Yet another rant against all and sundry from Harold Nicholls in this week’s Brecon & Radnor Express, thinly disguised letter as a of congratulations to John Bufton on being elected as a Member of the European Parliament. Nicholls’ letter contains the usual mixture of old news, half-truths and innuendo, but also contains a threat guaranteed to send a shiver down the spines of all sensible people throughout Britain. After explaining how the so-called "Brussels gravy train" works, Harold goes on:

"Being an MEP is a lot better than being a town councillor or a county councillor and I would recommend it to anyone. I may stand myself at the next EU election and I would certainly be ready to climb aboard the gravy train and feather my nest at the expense of the British taxpayer."

The trouble with Harold Nicholls and his ilk is that their sweeping generalisations are cynically misleading and grossly insulting. Just like the spouting of other ultra right groups, they seek to present over simplistic propaganda as serious analysis. The danger of people like this is that they simply cannot accept the limits of their own knowledge of issues which are beyond their comprehension, and so they continue to wallow in their own ignorance and, what is even more insidious, they seek to draw others into that murky darkness.

What Exactly Is Cllr Price Up To?

There is a puzzle in Cllr Gary Price’s letter to the Llandrindod Wells Town Councillors, it is this paragraph:

“I believe that the Town Council needs to appoint a Civic Leader/Mayor, someone the people of the Town can relate to and have full confidence in, who can demonstrate leadership skills to promote Llandrindod and who can take on the role for the Town’s benefit and not their own.”

What exactly is Cllr Price calling for here? Does he really mean 'appoint', knowing his penchant for elections, surely he means 'elect'? Is it a directly elected Mayor as we now have in a few local authorities in England, and, of course, in London? Is he calling for the election of someone of whom he approves but by the normal method of election at the Council’s Annual Meeting? Or is Cllr Price simply having a dig at the properly elected Mayor, Tony Phillips, who has since resigned after coming under the sustained personal attack from Cllr Price and his sidekick, former Cllr Keith Tampin?

No doubt Cllr Price will make this clear in his election address when he tries to get back on the very Council he walked off a month ago in a fit of pique. His electorate are not fools, they will be well aware that Cllr Price has engineered this election by resigning and then standing for re-election almost immediately thereafter, and thereby causing the Town Council to fork out between £1000 and £2000 of its much needed funds gleaned from the council tax payer to pay for this quite unnecessary by-election.

Clearly, Cllr Price is forcing this by-election to satisfy his need for adoration from his electorate, I hope they respond appropriately.

Too Big For His Boots?

I have at last read the letter that has been the talk of the town for over a week now, the letter written by Cllr Gary Price to his former colleagues on Llandrindod Wells Town Council. Now I understand why the town councillors had to search for their dictionaries, and I must admit it is not a word that is used very often these days. Here is an example of Cllr Price’s purple prose:

“No doubt you will be familiar with the media articles as a result of the many [three] resignations. I have been contacted on many occasions and have given many quotes and will continue to do so should I feel it necessary. Indeed, many Journalists have told me that they are finding the proceedings of Llandrindod Wells Town Council a miasma with very little, if anything to report at the end of the meeting. I have also been contacted by many residents supporting my actions and who have asked me to consider standing in one of the by elections. For this reason I intend obtaining ten nominations."

Just like the town councillors, I rushed to my dictionary to check that miasma did, indeed, mean what I thought it meant, and yes, the Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary defines miasma as: Infectious or noxious exhalations from putrescent organic matter, poisonous particles of germs floating in and polluting the atmosphere.

Now I know the journalists who report the meetings of our town council and although I know them to be very erudite, I find it extremely difficult to believe that, even on its worst days, they would describe the proceedings of Llandrindod Wells Town Council as a 'miasma'.

Very diligent as Cllr Price is in interfering in the affairs of practically every organisation in the town that is in contact with either Powys County Council or Llandrindod Wells Town Council, the time has come for his enthusiasm to be reigned in. He has become supremely arrogant as is evidenced by this threat he makes against his former colleagues:

"It has become apparent that many Town Councillors may not understand protocol and Members Code of Conduct that they agreed to abide by. I will report to the Public Service Ombudsman for Wales any Member I feel has failed to abide by the rules and regulations, as indeed there appears to be several breaches of protocol within previous minutes."

Not quite the way any normal person would set about winning friends and influence.

More On The Madness Of David Cameron

My favourite public intellectual, Professor Timothy Garton Ash, has presented an analysis of the Tories proposed new alliance within the European Parliament similar to that in my post of Wednesday, 3rd June, but he does so much more elegantly and with much more depth, which is presumably why he is a professor at Oxford University and I am semi-retired and vegetating in Llandrindod.

The Art Of Myth

During my recent brief visit to Helsinki, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend a couple of hours in the Ateneum Art Museum and was delighted to find a temporary exhibition mounted to celebrate the 160th anniversary of the publication of the extended edition of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala, in 1849. The Kalevala is based on folk tales originating in the part of Finland adjacent to Karelia, and were brought together as one volume by Elias Lonntrot.

The story begins with an early creation myth and proceeds eventually through to a version of the virgin birth. Among the heroes are a sage Vainamoinen, the smith Ilmarinen, the warrior Lemminkainen, Louhi, the enchantress queen of Pohjola and the ill-fated Kullervo. However, in addition to the various adventures of the heroes, many involving water nymphs, is the story of the Sampo, a product that is forged, then stolen and then lost in battle, but quite what the Sampo is, remains a mystery. This national epic was an important part of the part of the movement that led to the eventual independence of Finland from Russia giving a kind of legitimacy to the notion of a distinctive Finnishness.

The exhibition itself is a collection of works derived from the stories of the Kalevala since its publication to the present day and includes works by artists such as R W Ekman. Akseli Gallen-Kallela, Heikki Virolainen and Waino Aaltonen. It also includes works specially commissioned for the exhibition giving a modern day interpretation of the Kalevala. Particularly interesting was two versions of the Aino Myth, the first, a triptych painted in 1891 by Akseli Gallen-Kallela and the second a re-interpretation, also painted as a triptych, in 1988 by Sirpa Alalaakkola. Another painting that impressed me was Marjatta Tapiola’s Louhi, one of the specially commissioned works. Overall, I found this is a fascinating exhibition offering a novel introduction to the Kalevala.

Can We Learn The Lessons Of History?

European history of the 1920s and the 1930s has lessons for us today if only we would listen and act. Study the political history of Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s and the parallels with Britain today are quite striking. Then you had a moderate centre left government who had presided over a massively failing economy burdened by debt, the debt resulting from the reparation payments it had to make to the victors of WW1. Then you also had a small but fanatical band of right wing thugs creating scapegoats of minorities who could be characterised as being ‘not like us’ and whose very presence represented a threat to ‘our way of life’.

Today, in Britain, we have a vacillating centre left government presiding over an economy burdened by debt and a small band of right wing thugs seeking to create scapegoats of minorities who are characterised as being ‘not like us’ and whose very presence threatens ‘our way of life’. Add in rising unemployment, a weak trade union movement, a ‘motor-mouth’ propagandist like the leader of UKIP, and you have the recipe for disaster.

It is ever so easy for an apparently moderate centre right party like our Conservatives to be squeezed and eventually overwhelmed by the rhetoric and hate of the ultra right. The Conservatives in government will soon find that they are pandering to an agenda set not by them, but by those who would use them to achieve their fascist ambitions. We already know that Cameron is seeking to ally the Conservatives with some of the nastiest right wing parties in Europe, in this he is already pandering to the ultra right.

Those voters who legitimised the BNP on Thursday last and who gave succour to UKIP have done Britain a great disservice, they have created, in Britain, the very circumstances that gave rise to a regime that their fathers and grandfathers fought and died to defend Britain from.

Let us be absolutely clear, the politicians of the BNP and UKIP are not, in any way, the moderate, sensible, thoughtful politicians that we are used to in the mainstream parties, they have an agenda which is xenophobic, intolerant and isolationist, and they will use whatever means at their disposal to pursue that agenda.

Half Truths and Lies

In a letter in this week’s Mid Wales Journal, Cllr Sarah Millington makes a rather clumsy attempt smear my record as a County Councillor. She writes:

“Out of curiosity, I did look at what the former councillor for Llandrindod Wells claimed in 2007/2008 and the total was, I believe, £13,533.66 which divided over a 12 month period is an average of £1,127.80. Adding up my last 12 months gives me an average of £905.38. This calculates a difference of £222.42 a month saving to the council taxpayer.”

What Cllr Millington fails to point out is that my total allowance for 2007/08 comprised the basic allowance that every county councillor is entitled to, plus a special responsibility allowance which I received as Chairman of the Council’s Audit Committee. Cllr Millington doesn’t receive this allowance because she has no special responsibility. Moreover, she is not saving the taxpayer anything as she claims because the special responsibility allowance to which I used to be entitled is paid to my successor as Chair of the Audit Committee who I understand is Cllr Sandra Davies.

So Cllr Millington, please don’t try to smear my reputation by telling half truths, and don’t claim to be saving the taxpayer money when you are not.

Cameron's Utter Madness

David Cameron’s meeting yesterday with the leaders of Poland’s Law and Justice Party and the Czech Republic’s Civic Democratic Party is not only sheer and utter madness, but it demonstrates the Tories total ignorance of the finer points of European politics. How on earth does he think that Conservative MEPs will have any credibility in the European Parliament by being allied to the ultra-religious right rather than to the centre-right parties in the coalition that makes up the European Peoples Party?

No modern Conservative leader in his right mind should ever dream of allying his party with the bunch that met in Warsaw yesterday. The only explanation that I can think of is that the Conservatives are being forced into this alliance by their financial backers who clearly have an agenda that is ugly, intolerant and regressive. Such an agenda would attack the very foundations of the liberal and progressive society that Britons have created over many years and threatens ultimately to upset the peace that Europe has enjoyed since 1945.

If Cameron and his inner circle of Eurosceptics continue in this vein, then in a few years we will find it very difficult to distinguish between the Conservatives, UKIP and the BNP, at least as far as European policy is concerned.

Unholy Alliance?

An interesting visitor to the special meeting of Llandrindod Wells Town Council this evening was Jeffrey Green, lead candidate for Wales for the Christian Party in the European Parliamentary elections on Thursday. He was flanked by County Councillors Millington and Price and I suppose it is possible that all three will attempt to join the council by filling the vacancies caused by the recent spate of resignations.

If Gary Price does in fact attempt to regain his place on the Town Council so soon after resigning in such dramatic circumstances, then it will have to be by election rather than co-option because I am fairly certain that none of the existing town councillors would be prepared to consider co-opting him after his disgraceful behaviour. If he does indeed, force the town council to incur the not inconsiderable costs involved in conducting a by-election, or even three by-elections, then I hope the electorate will make their displeasure abundantly clear.

Gary Price’s relative youth and populist appeal can no longer be used to excuse his appalling and arrogant posturing in both tiers of local government. His actions are beginning to bring Llandrindod Wells and Powys into disrepute.

It’s not just me saying this, here is an extract written by Matt Withers in the newspaper Wales on Sunday in 2007:

ANOTHER slur on a picturesque Welsh town, this time Llandrindod Wells, invites an even more ludicrous response from a local councillor.
Mike Parker, presenter of ITV Wales’ Great Welsh Roads, said of the town’s Victorian charms: “Why don’t they go the whole hog and introduce cholera in the town’s water supply or send the kids up the chimneys?”.
A wry aside, you might think. But not if you are Councillor Gary Price, who appears to have interpreted it as a direct incitement to chemical terrorism.
“What kind of comments are these? To say this could be dangerous,” he said, apparently without irony. “Imagine if someone listened to him and upset the watercourse.”
Yes. Just imagine.

STILL, we can forgive him his hyperbole.
After all, this is the same Councillor Gary Price who, upon learning of changes to the layout of Powys Council’s debating chamber in January, told the Powys County Times: “I’m not prepared to lie back and take it. Changing the chamber would be like throwing away the history of Radnorshire.”

Unhappy Bunnies

A clearer picture is emerging of the circumstances of Cllr Gary Price’s resignation from Llandrindod Wells Town Council. After Keith Tampin had failed in his bid to be elected to the post of Chairman and made his extremely unpleasant and highly personal attack on Tony Phillips and waltzed out of the chamber, the meeting was adjourned for a short time to allow the Chairman to consult the Clerk. When the meeting resumed, the election for the post of Vice Chairman was conducted and Gary Price was narrowly defeated.

Gary Price then addressed the meeting congratulating his victorious opponent, expressing his personal loyalty to Keith Tampin and reserving his position on whether he would remain as a member of the Council. Nevertheless, he stayed in the meeting until the discussion on the Tourist Information Centre.

In this context, Cllr Val Lymer was reporting on the progress being made on the proposed town leaflet which will incorporate a map of the town, when Gary Price asked who would be drawing the map. It was on receiving the information that a local resident, Rob Davies, had been asked to draw the map that Gary Price got up with a flourish and headed for the door. I have been given to understand that as he passed Cllr Mike Hodges, Mike suggested that Gary might like to reconsider his decision but was rewarded with an earful of abuse. Gary Price was hastily followed out of the chamber by concerned fellow County Councillor, Sarah Millington.

Both Keith Tampin and Cllr Gary Price subsequently made statements to representatives of various local newspapers. Tony Phillips, who had been elected as Chairman in preference to Keith Tampin, has also been moved to resign but, to his credit, has maintained a dignified silence.

Let us hope that the electors of Llandrindod Wells think long and hard about how these three vacancies on the Town Council are now filled.