Ploughing Through the Bank Holiday

Bank Holiday Mondays feel a bit odd when you don't have a proper job. `Should I be working',I ask, knowing that nobody will be paying for my slice of National Leisure. Peer pressure won when the children appeared with swimming gear in my study at half-nine and five hours later the in-tray feels... less compelling.

There were plenty of grown-up around today so I swam a mile in the pool, my first time out since I completed a rather long triathlon before Ruby was born in 2006. I forgot how hypnotic it can be, the rhythm overcoming all thought. Unlike running, swimming doesn't leave you gasping but imbues you with the deep muscular tiredness you get from a massage. It also leaves you with a few hours of endorphins which even quite intense running doesn't achieve for me these days. I

I diary in a swim every Thursday evening from now on, half-knowing it won't happen but enjoying the intention. The pool is one place where my body doesn't feel 41. No wonder the oldies love it so. I even check online for my nearest triathlon event this summer. There's one up the road in July. Bit of practice on the bike and I'll be there. Then I realise that this won't happen. I'm away in the camper with the kids. Probably where I am meant to be. But it was nice to pretend otherwise, for a short while.

Shifting Values

`Is that chair safe to sit on?` asked Prince Phillip when visiting a Mencap furniture workshop recently. I had to laugh, although I was probably supposed to show concerned disapproval as the story was related. But it was the funniest thing I had heard in days so I didn't hold back.

We are in strange days as far as norms and standards are concerned. Today I learnt that David Laws, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is in trouble over expenses. Turned out he didn't want his friends and family to know he was gay so pretended his boyfriend was his landlord and claimed rent. Laws is 44 and says he didn't want people to know. Even though times have changed, he says he grew up keeping it quiet and wanted to keep it that way.

Being 41, I can sympathise with Laws on one level. Nobody admitted to being gay in 1986 unless you were Danny Larue or Holly Johnson. Gay friends my own age tend to be low-key about it, even now. There's still a tinge of fear somehow. Today, thankfully, kids - middle class ones anyway - discuss it with their parents and each other. Indeed, I would hope Wilf or Ruby could, rather than feel alone or ashamed.

I hope Laws survives, though I fear he might not. I wish he had felt able to be be open with those close to him and not got himself into a mess. He is wealthy and never needed the money - and the claims were pretty low. It would be a terrible waste of the talents of capable and essentially honest man.

Its Academic

The Coalition is wasting no time. Today all Heads received a letter from Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, that they can now, if they choose, look to become independent of the local authority.

As a school governor and Chairman-designate of a local school, this is music to both mine and the Head's ears. Last night, the Governing body met to discuss a new 10 year vision for the school. The three words are Community, All-Round-Excellence and Different. Our biggest aspiration is to be far more adventurous with the curriculum. We want our children to learn and pass exams, sure, but we don't want to be restricted to formats which actually hold many of our children back. We want our children to THINK, to interact and learn how to function. We want proper links to companies, to people in our communities. Schools have become cordoned-off. Even Councillors need 'safeguarding' training to be allowed near the place. In pursuit of safety, we have lost trust. We all aspire to a different future.

Key to this is throwing off the monkey of our local education authority. This is an expensive adjunct to our system that sucks away money while adding very little value that I can see. All that I as a Governor see are documents written by expensive people which we have to `pass' as a committee. Well, I am sorry, Eton doesn't work like that so why should my school? Myself and the head want to take the school into a new place, one free of local authortity nonsense. My own party is more enthusiastic about the role of LEAs. I do not share this view, unfortunately. I see a commissioning role and that's that. Ten people max, not the current - which runs into the hundreds.

Full Council tomorrow. With a shocking financial settlement it will be interesting to see how things are shaking out. Everyone is bought into `doing thing differently'. But nobody has a clue what that means. What I think it means is everyone working a lot harder, faster and with less of the usual faffing about. And all for less money, a smaller pension and less time allowed for sickness.

Welcome to the real world, comrades.

I hate to say it but George Osborne is right

Saw the news yesterday and found myself nodding along with George Osborne. What the world coming to eh? Had just come off the phone to a Councillor mate of mine who said, quite rightly, that this is what we've all voted for - and we need to remind them of that once the pain comes.

I was struck recently by an excellent Sunday Times piece by the academic Alison Wolf. Her view is that all this public sector reform is buggered if we don't get rid of national pay agreements, the pensions set-up and the juggernaut of legislation which locks costs into the way many things are done in the public sector (take `Safeguarding' as a very good example of high costs).

As someone who represents the users of public services, primarily - though I know a lot of people also work in them - I am concerned that the price will be paid disproportionately by users and not staff in the form of lower wages and reduced terms and conditions. In the public sector, you get a pension that is pushing two thirds what you earned if you pay in for a whole career. You can take off six months sick on full pay and you get paid the same whether you work in Guildford or Glasgow. All of this needs to be challenged and we can't do it from local authorities. We need the centre to make this happen, even if it means we have teachers nurses and coppers marching down Whitehall.

In Suffolk we are in brace-position for the imminent crash down to earth after seven years of being pumped up on Gordon and Alistair's budgets. Even last year, Suffolk recruited 1800 staff. Now we will hardly be recruiting anybody and deciding where the hammer will fall. While the public voted for it they won't be happy to see their new school buildings cancelled and their roads left unrepaired. But that's where we are just now.

Following this last election I now so crave sensible, far-sighted governance and hope, in this coalition, we get a bit of it. I believe that Labour are now out of the game for at least ten years - and deserve to be. I hate to say it but Thatcher was right when she said that Labour Governments always, in the end, spend us into trouble. This one was no exception.

Back in Business

Some wag once said that having a young family is like running a small business with your ex-girlfriend.

I say this because I am in the process of preparing to go into business. Yes, guys I am at it again. I know I said I wouldn't but here I am. It's not that I am a `born entrepreneur' or any of that bollocks. And my demons are more or less sorted now, it's just a) that I can't get revved up about of the jobs around just now and b) that I am still attracted to the space that currently sits untouched - I want to make my difference.

This time is different to the last. I have six months before my money runs out. Last time I could mess around for a year. Also, I was invisible before and young enough to get over it if I screwed-up. This time I would fail publicly, risk my mortgage and possibly never be offered a decent job again.

So why am I doing it? Well, I have weighed it all up and come to the following conclusions. Firstly, if I fail I don't actually think I will be untouchable. I have enough cred to carry me into another life, as long as I behave well. Secondly, I think people will admire me trying, even if I don't succeed. And thirdly, I want to do it - or at least try. I don't want to look back in regret. If I do end up in a big CEO job working for someone else I want to be able to say that I chased the dream before settling for the safe option.

I won't go on about my plans yet as they are still embarrasingly ill-thought out. But I think I am onto something. My principal fears concern not the quality of my ideas or my native abilities but being able to summon the energy, time and focus to pull it all off. My biggest weakness is the dispersal of my time - kids, the council, speaking, coaching, running, Trusteeship. All things I love. How I pull off a new business without losing some or all of this is the circle I somehow need to square.

Answers on a postcard please... But whatever happens, I feel a big need, at 40, to follow my true north, whatever that is, however the risks look. I am blessed with my health, a great network and people who will, if it all goes wrong, stand with me, financially as well as emotionally.

You can't really ask for more than that.

Notes from a Small Island

Hello from Jersey! I am here courtesy of Jersey Citizens Advice Bureau as the guest speaker at their AGM. Being a `Third Sector' Columnist gets me to some unusual places. It all started as was staring at my empty post-CEO in-try in April I get an email from the CEO of the Bureau saying he likes my column will I come and speak? We quickly agree terms and here I am. For once I am not riding solo and Katy is along the ride, leaving the youngsters with Granny.

So what of Jersey? With my own knowledge limited to 80s TV hit `Bergerac', I had to go into research mode - and what I found was actually rather interesting. 90,000 people live here. Half are indiginous, half immigrants. Many British but lots of Poles and Portugese. Very much `two-nations' with a wealthy mainstream paying on average 360,000 pounds for a home and lots of people eking out on minimum wage. Financially, although full of the super-wealthy who pay low taxes, they are having a recession here with public services being cut back up to 5% a year for the next two years.

Which makes the politics fascinating. This is, for all intents and purposes, an independent country, with, since 1204, its own 53-strong Parliament - the `States of Jersey' and a distinct legal system. There is no party-system so its a Parliament of `independents' with all the benefits and troubles that brings. The Government here runs every aspect of what both local and national government administer in the UK. All 53 politicians are full-time. Some are elected on the basis of locality, others are cross-Island. It is a bit like having a statelet based on the City of Cambridge - which raises challenging questions to sceptics of ultra-devolution. If it works here, at this scale, why not, say a virtually independent Manchester or Suffolk?

I hear more from my host, the CEO of Citizens Advice, Francis le Gresley who is standing in a by-election for senator. Elected island-wide he is up against 8 others, including someone currently going through the courts, essentially for saying things he oughtn't about other people on the Island. Because he doesn't have a party machine Francis has to run his own campaign and, somehow, craft a message that targets his core vote (essentially the less well-off) while not putting off the comfortable middle.

On probing I find that while there isn't a party-system there are distinct groupings. The left is the smallest, the centre is substantial but lacking leadership and the right is in control. Given what the Island is up against, Francis is firmly of the view that all strands need to work more closely together to reach agreement on the difficult choices ahead.

The AGM itself goes well. It's well-attended and Francis is clearly a respected figure as 20 year CEO of Citizens Advice here. My bit goes down well. I have come to enjoy public speaking and seem now to be doing more and more. It's in a strange space between story-telling and stand-up. You need to hold on to your audience and you don't always know yourself where this is going to take you.

I have a visual `show' - some slides with photos on - which I often use - but each time is always very different to the last. Depending on the audience. This particular group appeared very formal, a bit older and disproportionately female. No swearing I immediately decided. A couple of gags about the Island's local newspaper and we were away, followed by questions and a lot of chat afterwards. I sell 8 copies of my book and people seem to go away happy.

Afterwards, out with Francis, who spent a career in banking before taking over the CAB 20 years ago, I ask him about what makes Jersey special. He cites the sea and the values of the place, which he seeks, through his candidacy, to uphold. I wish the future senator luck before bidding goodnight.

Don't Take this Personally Portsmouth Fans...

But I don't believe you should be in a Cup Final. As a club, you're 140 million in debt. Portsmouth FC represents the very worst in Premier league financial skulduggery and excess. Rightly the club was docked 9 points by the Premier League and relegated. It should also have been removed from the Cup and your place given to the last club you beat before your shocking financial problems came to light (probably a better-run club that wasn't willing to spend irresponsibly to beat you).

Now I hate Chelsea as much as the next person. But I hope they win today - and by a wide margin. For Portsmouth to win the Cup is a triumph not of courage over adversity or heroism but a triumph of everything that is bad about football in this country. And Portsmouth were still at, even when their debts were in the public domain, scrabbling around to pay money to sign bonus agreements and god knows what to highly talented players they have no right to have playing for them.

I support a boring but well run club that struggles every year to stay in the Prem. We don't buy flash players and we develop the ones we have got. We're about the size of Portsmouth. We don't get into Finals nor will we ever win the League. That is sad and says important things about the way football in England has gone. But it doesn't excuse what Portsmouth have done and their victory today would, for me, be the wrong outcome, not the David versus Goliath that we are being sold by the media.

Personalisation - Why it Matters in Cameron's Britain

`Personalisation’—where people are allocated their own personal budget to spend on the public services of their choice—is a hot topic among the UK’s think-tanks at the moment. But what’s driving it? What are its possibilities and pitfalls? And what does it mean for charities?

Personalisation hit the UK in the 2000s , driven almost single-handedly by the philosopher and social entrepreneur Simon Duffy and his pressure-group `In Control’. Duffy persuaded the UK Department of Health to try personal budgets in social care for older people and those with learning and physical disabilities, as an alternative to direct state provision.

Duffy’s argument was simple: The UK spends £20 billion (30 billions US dollars) on people who need help to live independently, 40% of which is tied up in `transaction costs’—bureaucracy in other words. Added to this was the fact that outcomes for these people were, at best, mediocre. So, Duffy argued, why not move to a system which cuts out the middle-man, costs less and results in greater user satisfaction?

Sceptical of Duffy’s claims, the UK Department of Health ran pilots in 2006-08 which proved Duffy to be right—now 30,000 UK citizens are in receipt of a personal budget.

Progress by 2010, however, has been slower than anticipated. The local authorities that control funding for individuals have taken a long time to reboot their systems to allow people to get their money out. There have been wide variations in the rate of roll-out ,suggesting that in many areas the local authorities don’t actually really buy into the policy—not a huge surprise as evidence shows that once people get their hands on a personal budget they often stop buying services from the state!
But this may soon change.

Up till now, growth in UK public spending has meant that life has been able to carry on undisturbed in Britain’s sclerotic public sector. Soon, however, the taps will be turned off—creating a huge driver for cost reduction. As a low-cost alternative to traditionally provided public services, personal budgets suddenly make a lot more sense

Personalisation is, of course, about more than budgets. It is also about creating a more customized or `personalised’ version of public services. At the moment, if you’re unlucky enough to rely heavily on public services in the UK, you will find that they are a bit like the first of Henry Ford’s motor cars: You can have whatever colour you like—as long as it is black! In an age when we have become used to sitting by a mouse and tailoring our experience as a traveler or purchaser, the public services experience feels Neolithic.

The biggest advances towards something resembling a normal customer experience have come from Conservative councils such as Barnet. Also known as `Easy Council’, following its adoption of the model of customer service showcased by the airline easyJet, the basic council service is free—but can be augmented or made quicker by customers who are willing to pay a bit more. This keeps the council’s own service cheap and enables any `extras’ to be funded by the citizen. While criticised in some quarters, ‘Easy Council’ is highly popular with its citizens and other UK councils are adopting the model.

So what does personalisation mean for charities? One clear change is that they will increasingly need to reach out directly to users, rather than upward towards the public bodies commissioning services on users’ behalf. What users say and think will have to be taken seriously lest they do what they haven’t yet had the opportunity to do—vote with their feet.

This can only be healthy. The problem with charities in the UK so far has been that, in the final analysis, they have only needed to impress the people giving them funding —either the public or public sector commissioners. Tugging on the heartstrings has tended to be just as effective as performance data, even with sophisticated investors.

But as personal budgets take hold, we will get a much better idea of the impact of certain types of charities without the need for complicated impact-assessment tools—you will just need to observe the traffic of users between the various charities. For social care charities, this will be no bad thing.

Are there any drawbacks with personalisation? Undoubtedly, yes. One obvious one is that by individualising budgets, it is very easy to reach a position where popular services are quickly rendered financially unviable by the withdrawal of just a small number of clients. This has reportedly happened in a number of locations across the UK. Finding ways to enable users of personal budgets to `club together’ their funding to maintain or create new collective provision have not yet been found.

Another limitation is around economies of scale. Big services, while often low quality, are affordable and keep people safe and occupied, often with their peers in a setting that they are familiar with. Breaking down the budget for that service often means the individual can afford a lot less out there in the marketplace, leaving them without a service for at least part of the time.

A final limiter concerns the practicalities of personal budgets. A person with complex learning and physical disabilities will often command a personal budget in excess of £150,000 a year (250,000 US dollars). Managing this funding and all the risks incumbent in running what is, in effect, a small business, will challenge even the most capable and committed families. When a family has neither the time, ability nor inclination to do this, personal budgets look like a recipe for trouble.

However I am, after 20 years of my life working in charities alongside disabled people, very positive myself about personalisation. While it isn’t a perfect solution—and there isn’t one—it is preferable to both the waste of money and potential of a system in which the state both controls and consumes the funding intended to improve the lives of our citizens.

60% of seats, 60% of votes - the Tory - Lib Dem Coalition Has to Happen!

The news is full of talk about a `progressive alliance' of Libs, Labs, Nats and Greens. Silly talk. Added together, this rainbow coalition barely gained 50% of votes. And look where they were - all north-west of a line between the Exe and the Humber. Most of England would rightly feel cheated by such an outcome. Plus, of course, we'd have another unelected Prime Minister. Again, totally unacceptable.
Finally, this rainbow would be unstable and incapable of agreeing to tackle the deficit. As David Blunkett said on the radio this morning, this would be a total disaster for all taking part and Labour should accept it lost and go into opposition. It's their own fault. Had Gordon introduced AV before the election, the situation would have opened up for Labour. But for all his talk of constitutional change when coronated in 2007 he did nothing.

As a Liberal Democrat, I believe we have to walk our talk and get involved in a coalition with the Tories. Not confidence and suppy - coalition. AV is now on the table. As is the Pupil Premium, fairer taxes, a fixed-term agreement and Cabinet places for Lib Dems. Nick Clegg has played a blinder. To enter a coalition is to deliver the balanced governemtn people asked for. Us as part of a coalition takes the scarier edge off the Tories. For every IDS or Howard there will be a Cable or Laws. This has to be democracy in action.

Of course, electorally it is dangerous. Labour will be able to brand us as cutters and will steal votes from our left-leaning supporters. Vote Lib Dem Get Tory will be their big message in 2014 and yes we will pay. But a possible outcome in 2014, under AV, will still be a reasonable Lib Dem presence that Labour may need - so they may have to temper their fire, given that their position in the South of England is so dire and the path back to government so long. Labour's task is made even harder if we go down to 500 constituencies.

Notwithstanding all of this, the current situation brings into focus the question of what politics and political parties are for. Which is to represent interests and create a political settlement. A Tory-Lib Dem coalition has just under 60% of voters behind it and near-on 60% of seats. Were we on the continent it would be viewed as a viable and natural coalition.

So let's just get on with it.

The Way Forward for the Lib Dems

A bad night for the Lib Dems. After all that hope, a lower seat-count than last time. I believed that the Clegg boost was soft but not quite as soft as it turned out. However, 23% is respectable and we were tanking along on 18% till the debates so Clegg can take small solace from that.

So what now? Mandelson and others are now talking about progressive coalitions and electoral reform. The trouble is that this doesn't produce a majority and, if Clegg accepts, he looks like the ultimate pol. The accusation of a coalition of the defeated would stick and I don't think we should even contemplate it, even with a commitment to PR.

So it's then about the Tories. The truth is that they can govern alone with 310 seats. Given that Cameron will refuse point-blank on voting reform we will probably enter an agreement on deficit reduction and other key stability measures - but something far short of a coalition. Something a bit like the Lib-Lab pact of the late 70s perhaps. While this will keep Nick Clegg out of the Cabinet, it will effectively act as a check on the zanier aspects of the Tory manifesto including their planned gerrymander of the voting system with 500 equal sized seats elected using FPTP.

A Conservative government with some of the rough edges hewn off seems like a fair result to me. They got more votes than Labour did in 2005 and will need to govern with some care to their small majority. Indeed, we might not be their only problem as the influx MPs may be more independent-minded than the people they replaced.

Either way, I believe its Prime Minister Cameron, no seats in the Cabinet for the Lib Dems and a functioning minority government with Lib Dem support on key legislation which we can support (with likely amendment).

Personally I am comfortable with this. From a pure political point of view, I don't think being a very weak coalition partner is sensible as we would end up being blamed for a lot of the future discontent without being the main architect. This government will probably have a hard time at the polls next time and we may be better waiting till 2014 when Labour recover a bit and we can build our position to 80 or more seats. Then go for a deal - probably with Labour - but possibly with a weakened Tory party - in which either will have no option but to give us PR.

But that's going too far ahead. For today, its a Conservative minority government. I am worried, but I also wish them well. We're in a tricky place as a country and we need a year or two of very good steerage.

Missing It

Until this week I have felt nothing but relief from handing over the brass cannonball of responsibility of CEO to somebody else. Then today, I was driving along and, for the first time, felt a bit rueful, disconnected and on my own. Organisations are communities, social systems. As CEO you sit at the apex, shaping and being shaped by the tangle of interactions going on. While it is often dysfunction and beyond control, it is also absorbing and part of you, as you, as CEO, are a pulsing corner of the organism.

Since leaving I have actually been haring around as much as ever. Not earning a great deal of money (just over half of the usual in April) but being busy. In May I have gone down a notch and, as happens with me, my energy has suddenly dipped. This week everything has been an effort. I've still got a lot done and had some fun - but it's felt a bit colder and harsher than it did in April. I lost a couple of meeting which wouldn't have gone if I'd still been a Chief and I am having to get used to working harder to get people to see me.

Overall though, it's working well. I am drumming up an idea for a venture which may or may not fly but I am giving it a good run-out. A job feels like it could happen and if, say, a third child came along, I may have my hand forced. Up till today, a job felt like the last thing I wanted. Tonight, a bit knackered and struggling to manage all of my own paperwork the thought of a salary, a PA and a big organisation to pull to my bosom feels sort of nice.

Time to see what's happening in the election...

Why we must stop the Gerrymander

Whatever happens today it is fairly clear that this is the last day of Labour government for some time. In it's place will be a Tory-dominated one - either alone or with Lib Dem support.

This could also be the last election in this country in which it is possible to actually elect anything otherthan a Conservative govern
ent. Why? Not because we are going to get PR but because the Tories plan to equalise constituencies in size and move to 500 MPs from he current 650. While nobody has done the mapping of this yet, what this actually produces is a huge weighting in the system to the Tories. City constituencies include more suburbs and countryside. England - where the Tories are strongest - gains versus Scotland and Wales. And the south gains massively over the north. Add First Past the Post and you have created a Tory state that will make us look more like Japan -where the ruling party has been in power virtually unbroken since 1945 - than a multi party pluralistic democracy.

Cameron's credentials as a progressive, reforming leader are, for me, utterly shallow. His willingness to entrench and render voiceless even more people than is the case today show him for what he really is. If you are serious about empowermnent, locAlism and the good, fair society you have to start by giving people a voice that counts and fair votes. Cameron's proposed reforms take us back in terms of the franchise and I da only hope that he hasn't got the numbers to push this through. My prediction for today is 37, 29, 26 with the Tories scraping a tiny majority due to the marginals. Let's see.

One Nil to the People

Occasionally, as a Councillor, you score a quick, emphatic and satisfying result. Amid all the slow-burners, there is the odd firecracker. One such was last week. On the Monday I had a call from a distressed woman from my patch with a terminal illness saying she'd just been told she was losing a small but significant chunk of care. What's more she told me the council were holding out the possibility of a care-home if she didn't go along. I went round to check her story and managed to corroborate this with her advocate, her GP and a third party from a charity.

I got the wheels in motion that day with a polite email to the director of social care suggesting that this maybe wasn't such a good idea, particularly given that this lady's needs were, if anything, going to get worse very soon. Within 24 hours, the lady was called at home and informed that there was never a plan to cut her hours and that these were merely ideas, not solidy proposals. A call to her advocate put this right. Things were moving swiftly along and thank-you Councillor, it clearly made a big difference that you put in that call.

Now I know that Suffolk, like all places, has some ugly cuts to make. But crafty, nasty cuts meted out to people who they believe aren't going to bite back are not really on. While Councillor's are the pond-life of Britain's political scene, we are probably its most powerful Advocates.

On the Stump

Three hours today knocking doors for the Lib Dems on my Patch. This work is always best done in twos and I am accompanied by an energetic pensioner Martin who is still knocking out half marathons in his late 60 s. It's the day after the final debate and as I expected our immigration policy isn't playing well. A few say it has put them off. Although Bury has few immigrants people tend to worry about the issue almost as much as the economy. It comes up at every other door. The policy itself electorally speaking, while honest and imaginative is like cyanide on the doorstep. Personally I would prefer a much safer line if we are serious about winning middle England.

The good news today was that there is little real enthusiasm for the Tories. Although Cameron won the final debate, comfortably I felt, they don't appear to have the necessary traction to win outright. It's feeling like 36 30 28 with us just ahead of Labour, who appear to have lost respect. Locally they risk fourth place behind the Greens.

Also encouraging were the numbers who said they were definitely with us thus time. Although Cleggs early impact has waned the debates have irreversably changed the election into a three way race. Locally the Tory MP David Ruffley has a ten thousand majority so it is a relatively dead election as the result is foregone. The best hope is taking him down to four or five. Hardly a motivator to vote let alone campaign. But we do and we must.

Today was a lot friendlier than last year when expenses was breaking. It was all we heard and people didn't want to know. That seems to have softened a year on. Out all day Tuesday and Thursday when at last we will know. Cameron will I believe start to pull ahead this week. It's really about whether or not he gets just up to the line or remains well short. I predict a slightly-hung Parliament with the Tories 20 short and needing the Unionists but not us to govern. We shall see.

Downtime with the Fortunate-Retired

I don't usually blog too much about family life but will make this one exception. We are now proud owners of a camper-van (or motor-home, as they are actually called). Or half-owners with my in-laws. Its a Fiat and it looks a like a giant beige billboard with wheels.

We tried it out this weekend with a gentle run up to Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast. Rather than park without permission we dutifully booked into the Church Farm Holiday Park, a vast city of static caravan with names such as `Solitaire', `The Viking' and `Excelsior'.

We had, unwittingly, stumbled across around a thousand of the Fortunate-Retired (or F-R's). These are not the stinking-rich, obviously, but people sufficiently well-off to own a very large caravan next to the sea, drive a nearly-new car (normally an Audi A6 or a Skoda Octavia) and bake in the sun as they flick through Dick Francis novels.

Unusually, there were no children at all on site. Our two were looked at like exotic birds, or, and I find this strangely common in the younger F-R's, totally ignored. "Been there, done that", I see written on their always-downturned faces.

Anyway, except for Church Farm Holiday Park, Aldeburgh is cool and you must go there if you can. It's stayed small, despite becoming a bit famous and the charm is everywhere. You can get good coffee, even very early on Sunday morning and you can buy fresh fish from numerous tin-shacks on the beach. OK, it's a bit Boden in parts and quite pricey but Aldeburgh is very much my kind of place.

After a long morning walk, we drove down to Orford and Orford Ness. Another of Suffolk's high-spots. Bobbing boats, a working quay and a sense of being away from your cares. Except for an MG Rally arriving during our lunch (those F-R's again), we had a splendid time.

This camper-van is sort of my present to myself for leaving Speaking Up and doing something else. I am trying to say to the family `Let's do more together - and I'll try not be be that distracted, miserable old twat I have been for the last couple of years'.

Whether it'll work, I don't know. Depends on what I get stuck into next I suppose. One side of of me wants to just get a nice job and chill a bit. While the other side is plotting the next big thing. One thing I do know. When I go to Orford-Ness, I stop caring about which side will prevail.

From the Front-Line of the Big Society

A Tuesday evening in April.. Arrive at the local school on an estate I represent to find 50 people from the community have given up Eastenders to come and talk together about how to improve their area. I am late so skulk in and slide silently into my seat. The format is the one you’ve seen a thousand times with a desk at the front with councillors, the local copper and a minute-taker from the council then row after row of seats.

Fifteen minutes in, it doesn’t feel great. We are still on the constitution and elections to the new committee. Most people don’t understand what is going on. There’s a silence impatience and a few of the older folk are starting to drop-off. Then the questions. “Why isn’t the Council/police/authorities doing that or that?” “Why haven’t we got a community centre?” “Who is going to clear the leaves this year?”.

The format lends itself to this perfectly. The passive citizens in the audience, those “responsible” at the front. Like 95% of the audience, I am getting both bored and impatient. A question comes up about the county council. I am invited to speak in “response”. I then take a small risk. I tell the audience that whatever they believe about we at the front could do for them was, by and large, an illusion. We can’t do that much, and that the best thing they could do was to set up not a residents association to harangue the system but a residents action group that just decided what to do then do it. I then offer an initial £2.5k to the best ideas and ask them to split into groups for 20 minutes to share their ambitions for the estate and asked the assorted heads at the front to each join a group.

Things warm up very quickly and, for a while, I could hardly hear above the buzz from the groups. People were enjoying the task. Sure the moaning was still there, but given the invitation to do stuff rather than to complain, most wanted the former.

This was evidenced during feedback when a spokesman for each of the six groups came to the mic and spoke. These contributions were all of a really high quality. Eloquent, measured, considered and brief. The meeting had found its voice. People had all, on some level, had a chance to speak. The line between the responsible and the community had been blurred as person after person volunteered not only good ideas but also a public commitment to help make them happen.

Had we not chopped things around – and I thanked the Chairman afterwards for permitting the change-tp-plan – I am not sure how things would have ended. We would have heard less and what we did hear would have been a lot less positive. As things are, we are moving forward with optimism and a feeling that it is up to us what do do next.

Two observations here in relation to the Big Society. The first is that there is, within people, a desire to contribute to the well-being of their community if there is an easy and co-ordinated way of doing so. We simply struggle to get simple mechanisms formd properly in most communities. So it is right of Cameron to press on this. But whatever one does, it has to be them driving it, not people like me.

Second is about formats. Whoever came up with the row-of –chairs approach to meetings and slipped it into the national DNA did us no favours. It kills any potential stone dead. I was surprised, if I m honest, that Council `community development’ officers who do this sort of thing for a living don’t have the insight to know this and are happy to sit at the front having turds thrown at them. It clearly doesn’t work.

As it is, we are in a better place. In a month’s time we are meeting to talk about how some of the ideas generated this evening can be made happen. Sure I will continue to try to get holes in the road fixed but my main role here, I hope, will be to support what folks want to do, not do it for them.

Don't Listen To Me

When it comes to politics I tend to get things wrong. Nick Clegg? Wrong leader, I said after being love-bombed about Vince on the doorsteps this last year. Twice I had seen the man, once at an ACEVO event, once in person to talk about the third sector. At the ACEVO event he was dull and verbose. One to one, he was likeable, intelligent and I wondered why he couldn't come across like that on telly.

Which is why I for one was surprised by what happened on Thursday. Although I am sure the Lib Dems are in a mini-bubble, it is stunning to see the polls respond to one event as they have. For a few days it has been possible to dream of a mould-breaking election. The reason Clegg succeeded was that he made even Cameron look like business-as-usual. After all his effort this last five years, Cameron will be deflated this weekend. Good politics, Nick.

Being a pessimist, I suspect the polls will level out as quickly as they surged forward for the Lib Dems. Weaknesses on Europe, crime and defence will be played up and the Tories in particular will paint the Lib Dems as flaky. Most won't stick but enough Middle-Englanders will take the bait. And those in Tory-Lab marginals will still, sensible, vote tactically anyway.

But it has been fun and interesting. Clearly there is appetite for something quite different, a clean break, something honest and straight. Clegg is representing that in the way Blair once did and watch how people respond. Cameron, for a while, did this too but it feels like he's been around forever and his lightness of touch appears to have deserted him. A lost Mojo at the last fence.

So, all to play for. This morning in my weigh-the-Tory vote constituency I banged in my garden sign in defiance as much as hope. Our hope is a good second against a popular local Green who defected from the Labour Party last year. Bury St Edmunds has been Tory since 1911 so we know history is not on our side. We have to take the long-view!

Who We Think We Are

Had an enjoyable meeting yesterday with Allison Odgen Newton from Social Enterprise London. We got onto the election and the class system in this country. Upper-class, she was remarking, is really about your relationship to the Doomsday Book.

Although I didn't ask, I sensed Allison's own relationship to the Doomsday Book might be a bit closer than my own! But, like millions of people who, until very recently knew next-to-nothing about their ancestry, my family have done some interesting recent digging.

The main discovery is that my lot aren't quite as straightforwardly working class as I thought. Because my grandparents all worked in the Lancs cotton mills I kind of assumed that at some stage in the 18th century we came off the land. Not quite so.

On my materal grandfather's side, the journey to Lancashire was via Scarborough. My great, great Grandfather, we discoved, was an architect, a Liberal Councillor and once stood for Parliament for the Liberals. He had several sons, one of whom, my Great Grandfather, married `below' himself, was cut out and moved to the thriving mills of Lancashire to start-over. He then had 12 sons, including my Grandfather, all of whom played a part in the Second World War and all of whom survived. A photo of them all back home in 1945 survives in the the local library.

On my Dad's side, my Great Grandfather, Tom MacWilliam was, we knew in domestic service in the late 19th century. He was in fact coachman to the Grant brother, mill owners who were the inspiration for Charles Dickens' `The Cheeryble Brothers'. The coachman in that novel is known as "Tommy" and is, apparently based on Tom MacWilliam. A small literary footnote I know but I felt strangely proud to know this.

I actually don't enjoy `Who Do You Think You Are' very much. All that faux-emotion at events 100 years ago. We often forget that we are all what Morrisey termed `Pale Descendents' of these characters, diluted many times by the generations. But it is good, I think to know where you've come from, even if it isn't the Doomsday book!

Being Mr Benn

I have a varied life. Its a deliberate thing. I like the idea of being different people in a kind of Mr Benn way. I can be on the phone to Liam Black one minute and then in a pensioners' living room the next discussing a dropped kerb.

Which is where I was today at 6pm with the delightful Mrs Roberts, an 85 year old who contacted me to thank her for getting her own kerb dropped. Since my last visit in August she had lost her beloved chiwawaah Fangio. He hadn't been the same since an attack by an Alsation six months before and his poor heart gave out one night as he chased after a ball. She filled up. I knew this wouldn't be a short visit. Tears turned to laughter however when she told me she was considering a micro-pig which are now promoted as alternative house-pets. Good for people with allergies, apparently.

Following this I called on the 80 year old Mr Bradford to tell him I had persuaded the evasive Tree Surgeon from the council to cut some overhanging branches next month. The relief at having his light back caused him to pump my hand with thanks.

I have always liked old people. There is a simple joy in being that I get from easy conversation with people who are glad to see you. It never feels like wasted time. Whatever their foibles, they, more than any other group, make being a Councillor feel worth it. I just hope they all make it to 2013 when I am up for re-election.

Spirit-Levelling

Kevin Gough died last week. He was 58. In 2005 he won £9 million on the Lottery. He died broke, alone and alcoholic. Before the big win, Kevin was happily married, worked in a bakery, couple of kids, plenty of friends. But the jackpot did for all that. He stayed on at work but colleagues grew hostile. He then blew millions on high-living and ill-advised ventures. He lost his marriage, his health and finally, last week, his life.

What does Kevin's story tell us? On one level it says something straightforward about how too much money can screw us up. But it also tells us that if you inject a large dose of inequality into our social relationships, you put them - and thereby yourself - at risk.

This simple idea - that the fact of inequality is the root of many social ills - is the main point of `The Spirit Level' , a major international study by academics Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Mental ill-health, obesity, imprisonment, violence and social isolation are all mitigated, they argue, by greater equality. In short, more equal countries like Japan and Finland have fewer social problems than the more socially stratified US and the UK. Inequality and broken societies are, the evidence says, incontrovertibly related.

What was personally challenging about `The Spirit Level' was that I had accepted growing UK inequality because I know that top 10% of earners contribute 50% of all income tax. Indeed it seemed to me almost `moral’ to allow top earners to go make hay - incentivized by globally low taxes - because we need them to pay for schools and hospitals.

However, two profound points have, I think, changed my mind. Firstly, the financial benefits of more tax coming from higher earners have probably been dwarfed by the costs of us allowing an unequal society to develop in the first place. The second is that in an unequal society even the better-off are far more anxious, fearful and unhealthy than if they lived in a more equal one. Equality, it seems, helps even high earners, even if like me we hate the extra taxation!

So what do we do? Collectively we in the third sector need to remind the parties at this important time that equality will benefit everyone. Politicians, particularly on the Right, need to know that the Big Society has, by definition, to be One Society, not several grossly unequal camps drifting further apart.

As civil society organisations, we need to continue to walk our talk. Thankfully, unlike the public sector, we never bought the bullshit that supersonic salaries buy success. This fallacy forgets that organisations are, in fact, human communities. And like poor Kevin Gough, our charities need a degree of equality if they are to survive and thrive.