CRUMBRIA: 03/05/2025: EXCLUSIVE
The Chronic’s Secret Councillor “Neville Waffle” has bad news for the 677 new Reform councillors across the country. Changing your Council, he says, is like “Trying to push water up hill with your feet”.
Roll Call For Reform: The Secret Councillor
By Cllr Neville Waffle
My own election began with a landslide victory on a turnout of 19%! As I soaked up the applause (seven people clapping including my grand-daughter in her buggy), my political opponent leaned over and whispered: “Thank you!”
As the holder of the ward for years she did not want to stand for election but had been bullied into it by her Party. “Over to you, I’m off!” she grinned.
I had been swept into the town hall with a strong mandate from the good people of my Cumbrian village. Let’s call my member ward Thankless Without.
Like this week’s Reform candidates, I was brimming with over confidence and idealism. Fixing the potholes on a cratered road in Thankless and sorting out the bad parking on Thankless Lonnin. I would do it all!
It took 19 months for the Council to install a “No Parking” sign on the Lonnin and still the parkers parked.
Then a reversing Council gritter lorry knocked the sign down six weeks later on black ice, or so the village gossip goes. Despite my discussions and meetings, it’s still there on its side covered in moss and dandelions.
I quickly discovered that changing a council is like trying to turn around a cruise liner with a toothpick. That’s assuming you’re not obstructed by the Captain (chief executive) or keelhauled by the Unions for daring to try.
The fiercest resistance to change comes not from your political opponents but from Council lifers, the lanyarders, and the keepers of the “way it’s always been done”.
The most immovable object in politics isn’t the opposition—it’s Glenda in HR who works flexi-time for 11.75 hours a week and spends her lunchtime with Unison members.
The new Reform councillors are about to face a wake-up call from council staff who hate Nigel and all he represents!
Some of the older staff are, at least, vague and diplomatic about their own political allegiances.
But some, increasingly the younger staff, will tacitly let you know that they strongly disapprove of your party’s brand of politics.
They do this in a very childish way by openly charming your opponents in front of you but then reserving only scowls for you and your members, or muttering about the “appropriateness” of your proposals.
You can’t just breeze in on Day One and click your fingers. Even if you want to hold an urgent committee meeting in a different meeting room, you’ll need at least three emails and two meetings to justify why it’s necessary.
Once you get your meeting in the empty Clock Gallery Meeting Room you’ll find that the wifi password doesn’t work there and the door won’t open without an ancient passkey that only Simon in Records knows the location of.
Simon will want to know why you need the passkey, which has now been changed to a door code, and have you filled out the request form for the door code number, and who has counter-signed it or second-lined your use of this room?
“We tried using this room once in 1998 and there was hell on!” Simon will mutter defensively. He will then produce a folder marked “EVIDENCE: Clock Gallery Meeting Room (1999).”
Simon, who has fading “Momentum” stickers around his desktop monitor and a “Fuck Elon!” mug, has been with the council since 1986. He views any suggestion of change in the way a Victorian vicar views someone wearing trainers to church.
New Reform members will have to quickly pick up the archaic language of their councils. I’m still not fluent after 10-plus years.
Then there are the passive-aggressive emails from team leaders. In meetings, they will tell you: “We really need to have a conversation about this.”
“Aren’t we having one?” you will quip. Their faces won’t flinch.
As hundreds of new Reform councillors are about to painfully learn, winning the vote was the easy bit.
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