Attitude, Tone, Confrontation, Public Discourse

My husband Tony is a borough councillor. For friends not in England, a borough is a town or a district. Ours is Hastings borough, which includes St Leonards as well as Hastings since they're effectively the same place. Within the borough we have wards, smaller residential areas, and each councillor is elected by the residents of the ward s/he then goes on to serve.

Because of his involvement in local politics I take a little more notice of what's going on around me than I might otherwise. So today, after a (local) meeting last night to do with the (national) government requirements for housing targets in our borough, I read carefully through the comments on a social media post giving a report n the meeting.

 

People said things like this: 

What they mean is more backhands in councillors’ pockets… 

 and in reply

 nothing beats the brown envelopes the council love them.

We can have our say but................makes no difference as its already decided amongst themselves. Just makes it appear that they care !!!

You most probably have made your minds up what you are going to do, how about the people of Hastings getting a vote to who they would like on the council.

Spend the money to re-elect all council, planner members and elect actual local people who live in Hastings to make decisions, get rid of the current people who have been doing nothing for years. We need people with common sense, hearts and brains.

This is what you get when you for for the left…

Share our views and then totally disregard them and do whatever they want anyway!!!!

No one's listening, so it will go ahead no mater what we think !

So issue we keep having reoccurring - water mains failure for large portions of the current town. Service provider claiming that they can't provide internet to houses/flats due to no space in cabinets with no plan to expand. Road ways that are some of the worst in the country struggling to keep up with current levels of traffic. A town that routinely floods due to poor drainage. A hospital, GP surgeries and dental practices that struggles to meet the needs of the local area due to expansion already exceeding limitations of what they can manage.

To put it simply, don't invite the town to a BBQ when you've got one pack of sausages. Don't even expect you to fix the issues, just start making a damn plan.

And how many of these so called homes go to people on the waiting list in hastings and surrounding and how many go to people that live no where near or of boats every year uou build houses and every year thoes that have been on waiting list or homeless get over looked cus there given to people from London and such like seriously its about bloody time you lot woke up and thought of your OWN people in your OWN town befor others 

 

I'm sure you get the drift. In case you were wondering — no, there are no "backhands" or "brown envelopes". Our councillors neither give nor accept bribes, nor are even offered them. 

They work punishingly long hours. The meeting under discussion by those commenters had a preparation document running to 400 pages, which each councillor had to assimilate and understand, ready to answer questions; and that's just one meeting of many similar, in addition to ward responsibilities and heavy correspondence. 

Today my husband has gone to meet with a local group focusing on mental health for men, and will go on from there to meet with two women who have had huge success in organising and running a volunteer group to manage the rose gardens on the sea front, securing a partnership with the David Austin Roses that provides new plants and information on their care. When he gets home, there will be the day's crop of emails, typically about 150, to read and respond to before his evening meetings.

I know several of the councillors personally; they are serious-minded, courteous, committed, intelligent and astonishingly hard-working. They won their seats in fair elections, and have made admirable wins in improving things in our borough — most notably the finances, which were teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and now are not.

I am no longer surprised but still always disappointed, to see instance after instance of ignorance, rudeness and contempt in the comments people leave about the council on social media; the unquestioned assumptions, the sourness, the cynicism. I wish we could do better.

Looking beyond our borough to national politics and civic life, I see more of the same thing. An example is the recent choice of Dame Sarah Mulally as Archbishop of Canterbury. Leaving aside entirely whether she would have been my choice, I have been taken aback by the spite and vitriol poured out by her fellow Church of England priests — many of whom have been quick to call the election and the woman herself satanic (because she is not a man).

Another example (take your pick, there are so many) is the instance of self-styled citizen journalists using their phones to film in sensitive areas (eg around asylum hotels) or in sensitive encounters (eg with the police or with TV licence inspectors). 

Concerned by reports of police aggression and incompetence, and intrusive inspectors overstepping proper boundaries, I have watched a number of such videos, only to conclude that the "citizen journalists" brought their problems on themselves — provocatively rude to the police, to the inspectors, to officials of every kind.

Perhaps I've just been unlucky in the videos I've seen and the comments I've read; it is always possible. But it seems unlikely.

I think we have reached a place where a reset of attitude and tone would be helpful. Yes, it is responsible to speak truth to power, to counter injustice, to take seriously our rôle as citizens; but with courtesy, with respect, and bringing the assumption that people in public office are doing their best. 

With this in mind, I came across this video (inset below this paragraph) about the troubles in Minnesota and the shooting of Alex Pretti. I haven't so far watched any of the video footage recording what happened (though I will), but that's not exactly what the video below is about. It's more about extrapolating relevant principles to apply in the way we conduct ourselves. I found it very sane and sensible, and I hope you will, too.