… Tidying my desk this weekend I came across a postcard with four scenes – a church I didn’t recognise, a canal lock, a chalk down white horse, and Stonehenge silhouetted. And in the middle was the slogan: “Wiltshire – where One Council makes sense”.
On the back it invited me to tell some Secretary of State or other that I either supported or rejected the WCC’s view that we needed a unitary authority.
The County Council was in no doubt. “It would be: Affordable; Good value for money; Would keep local government local; Would provide strong effective leadership; Would bring easy access to services countywide.” Well, I thought a bit about what I knew of them and then ticked the “I disagree” box. Unfortunately I neglected to post it.
A pity: if I’d done so I might have had a significant statistical effect. (I’m not kidding; if I’ve read the Vision for Salisbury document correctly, less than 300 people registered their opinion. Which hardly justifies the 81% popular support currently being claimed by its advocates).
So maybe I’m partly to blame for this ludicrous insanity. It’s just that - like a lot of others I guess - I never thought for a second that such a daft concept would ever come into being. How wrong can you be…
<li>Nice to see Alan Forshaw as the new Cathedral Close Constable. He used to be one of Ted Heath’s minders; but we originally met years before at Lippitts Hill, the Metropolitan Police firearms training centre.
I was one of a group of reporters inveigled into spending the day playing armed cops. It involved exercises such as getting two armed suspects out of a flat and living to tell the tale (I failed miserably); and firing double-taps into projected images of gunmen. (Or not: I hesitated too long when a target photo showed a naked lady’s companion had a sawn-off shotgun, but for some reason I hadn’t noticed him.)
I remember Alan getting us stressed-up by making us run a couple of hundred metres in heavy body-armour. The ceramic plates bouncing on one’s unprotected sensitive bits brought tears to the eyes. By the time we stopped running I was ready to shoot anyone, especially those laughing at us.
