Thomas Paine, Leek bailiff’s, Mr Reid and a smorgasbord.

Thomas Paine has always been a great hero of mine and before anyone asks what is the relevance of this to the 21st century that I invoke the shade of an 18th century figure bear with me

The son of a Norfolk Quaker Paine tried his hand as a shop keeper, stay maker, teacher, custom officer, and labour organiser before coming to America in 1774. The experience of living in an aristocratic Britain led him to despise everything that system stood for. He used the power of language to convince early Americans that they had it their power to turn the world upside down.

Through his pamphlets Common Sense and the Crisis papers—and through such words as “The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth,” “We have it in our power to begin the world over again” and “These are the times that try men’s souls”—Paine not only emboldened his fellow citizens-to-be to turn their rebellion into a war for independence, he also defined the new nation in a democratically expansive way and articulated an American identity charged with the greatest purpose and promise.

America and its people turned Paine into an inveterate champion of liberty, equality and democracy and after the Revolution he went on to apply his pen to struggles in Europe. In Rights of Man, he defended the French Revolution of 1789 against conservative attack, called for democratic change in Britain and outlined a series of public initiatives to address the inequalities that made life oppressive for working people. In The Age of Reason, he criticised the power and influence of conservative churches and clerics. And in Agrarian Justice, he proposed taxing the propertied rich to provide grants to young people and pensions to the old.

Thomas Paine was a heroic figure for many of the working class movements in the 18th and 19th century and who could not be thrilled by language that addressed the lot of the poor and the powerless in such a vivid way

“ The present state of civilisation is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be and a revolution should be made of it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye is like dead and living bodies chained together”

Or

“The people’s enemies take care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understand, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know namely that government is a national association acting on the principles of society”

Animated by Thomas Paine, we have organised unions and pressed for workers’ rights; demanded the abolition of slavery; campaigned for women’s equality; confronted the power of Big Business, opposed Fascist and Communist tyrannies; fought for racial equality; and challenged government’s policies, domestic and foreign, when we have found them wrongheaded and oppressive. Admittedly, we have suffered defeats, committed mistakes and endured tragedies. But we have achieved great victories and far more often than not, as Paine himself fully expected, we have transformed the world for the better.

But there are still things in British society that Paine would have recognised as wrong and corrupt and this is where the 21st century and North Staffordshire comes in.

I have just become a member of the Peak and Potteries Pro Democracy Group based in Leek but working on the understanding that in Britain we have a democratic deficit. The electoral system is deeply flawed; there has been a power shift from local to national government. The power and influence of quangos of people’s lives is a cause of concern. The EU requires more democratic structures and controls and the power of corporations runs unchecked.

Thomas Paine would have recognised the problem. We need a radical change; a revolution for as Paine himself remarked political systems are for the living and not made and sustained for the dead.

During discussions at that inaugural meeting one of the participants asked about the state of democracy in Leek. I guess that the situation in Leek is no better or worse than other towns in the area, but the question did get me thinking and from my own insight as a Councillor of 8 years I would diagnose a very unwell patient.

I will give a couple of illustrations to prove my point

In the autumn of 2007 there was some concern expressed in Leek by the excessive use of bailiffs and the instant recourse to the law should there be a delay in the payment in Council Tax. The newspaper was full of stories of upright local citizens being summoned because they choose to pay their tax on a different day than the local Council required. A meeting was organised where a local magistrate and the independent Councillor Steve Povey were present and about 100 rather annoyed people attended.

I had done a little research and discovered that the bailiff’s that the Council used had a special relationship with SMDC and that each was a very complimentary thing about the other on websites.

The meeting was well trailed in the media, but no Councillor from the ruling group attended to hear the views of the people in a packed hall or explain their actions.

It was a similar result when 120 or so people attended a meeting last February over the supermarket applications for Leek. Again only 3 or 4 Councillors attended the meeting yet the meeting was a highly productive one. There were views expressed on the possibilities of developing the town’s tourism potential but again no senior Councillor or officer was present.

I similarly hear a view that increasing number of decisions are made on the closed agenda in the local Council.

My second example concerns the then Home Secretary John Reid who came to Leek in the summer of 2006 following a horrible murder of a family in Cheddleton and a street killing in the market square. There was a concern that there was a violent crime spree in Leek. It was not an open meeting and people were invited to the meeting with the Home Secretary. I was later told that questions were planted in the audience and that the meeting was vigorously chaired by a Labour Party stalwart who did not allow open questioning. I was not present because I was not invited. But I would not be surprised by the planted question because I saw them used when Tony Blair came to Kidsgrove in April 1997.

Curiously enough some months later I came across a report in a Leek paper of a visit made by another Home Secretary and a Scot as well, David Maxwell Fyfe in April 1952. The meeting, unlike the Reid meeting, was open and over 600 people packed into the old Town Hall. The questioning was open as well because the whole meeting and questions were reported verbatim in the paper.

(Perhaps that is another indicator of the reduction in scrutiny the demise of local government reporting in the press).

I have to say that in the intervening 50 years the command and control operated by the major political parties has damaged scrutiny and open questioning.

And the smorgasbord?

This is a very recent example and rather aptly describes the Paine criticism of the mystery of words. I went to a Staffs Moorlands Council for Voluntary Service (CVS) organised meeting as there was a request for people who were volunteers to attend a meeting where the involvement of volunteers was required to help in the planning and delivery of local services.

The meeting summed up what I essentially think is badly wrong with the structures and accountability of public service in Leek. If I were a willing volunteer who had intrigued by the notice and wanted to help I would have been badly put off by that CVS meeting.

Firstly there were very few volunteers at the meeting. I think that there were under 10, I was there as a volunteer representing the local Transition Town Group. But most people around the table were in paid posts either in the voluntary sector or the local council or health services. There were few people sitting there who were not being paid for their involvement.

Nothing was really explained I guess that as most of the people in the room knew each other it was judged that there was no need for explanation or background papers. Well, it was all very cosy and people just knew

But worse was the language. LSP. PPP, Compacts, etc used here which was, to use Thomas Paine’s phrase an exercise in puzzlement "the people’s enemies take care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understand”,

As I said at the time a veritable smorgasbord of initials and strange words.

There was no explanations a list of names were read our and approved of the great and the good who could represent the people of Leek on these various boards and that really was that.