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Not being ignorant, honest

December in full swing. Pans, knives etc. Will be more coherent in new year promise.

Though whilst I am here I will point out this: the incumbent government made a big hoohah upon arrival of their bonfire of the quangos because they are "unelected and not answerable".

Today Eric Pickles pushes through his localism bill, devolving power to local citizens. Who are also, I cannot help but note, unelected, and not answrable. Just saying.

Also just saying that docking Pickles' Pie Allowance may go some way towards making a dent in the deficit. Okay, fair enough, mocking his corpulence is cheap and petty. I'll just have to stick to mocking his smalltown, pettifogging, mean, nickelfucking bill, the upshot of which is that a few people in a jolly nice conservation area will form a community group to clear the odd footpath in their vast acreage of free time and councils will use that as an excuse to sack a couple of maintenance staff.
Meanwhile council tax rises at a flat rate across the board to make up the shortfall, and I have no need to tell you that fifty quid hits the hard-up a lot harder than the jolly path clearers. So those who are in the time-rich postion of being able to keep their library going will do so, and well done them for that. But the problem with a Big Society is that, as ever, the small elements of it are nigh on impossible to see. So congrats to the path clearers and library savers, the bus-stop improvers and graffiti cleaners. I applaud you all for your civic sense and selflessness, believe me. But unfortunately I fear that no community groups will be formed to clear up sink estates, I very much doubt that bands of civic minded citizens will get together to maintain amenities in tanhouse and digmoor. I suspect, in fact, that the nice areas will get a little nicer. But have a wild stab at what happens to the less nice ones when the citizenry are used as an excuse to turn the tap off and step away. So fine, shan't mock Pickles for his marked resemblance to the death of a star, but for blandly smiling as the life drains away from every area where the houses don't have bay windows yeah, yeah I may have an issue with that.

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