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Council leader was right to go

Posted On 07/19/2010 01:46:42

I HAVE carried out a small survey among my colleagues, and not one of them has seen Martin Samuel. Not in the flesh, anyway. Which is curious, given that we're all journalists, and he is supposed to be one, too.

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Even more curious, since he and I once worked for The Times. In almost two decades in that newspaper's Wapping headquarters, I never clapped eyes on Samuel's portly frame.

Ordinarily, this wouldn't matter. But it does matter now, because the sports-reporting Samuel writes in his Daily Mail column (he left The Times) that Plymouth should not be a 2018 football World Cup host city.

He reached this startling conclusion because he, and a small sample of his fellow hacks, currently in South Africa for the World Cup, have hardly ever visited Plymouth. Not even never, mark you.

By his own reasoning, those of us who have never seen Samuel in the flesh (of which there is no shortage) can conclude quite reasonably that his opinion is worthless.

COUNCIL leader Vivien Pengelly and her chief executive Barry Keel have just spent five days in South Africa finding out about how to be a World Cup host city.

The trip was organised and partly paid for by the FA: the cost to Plymouth taxpayers was Pounds 5,700.

Plymouth is one of 12 potential host cities and part of the England 2018 bid. According to Labour leader Tudor Evans five of these 12 cities did not send anyone on the visit.

Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds you can understand as they are probably shoo-ins. But what were Bristol and Sheffield thinking about? Do they really believe they've got it in the bag? Mrs Pengelly was right to go and to make sure Plymouth is seen to be taking its bid seriously.

She slipped up badly by trying to keep it a secret, though. People just get suspicious (and envious).

You can understand the argument that she was concerned about publicising the fact that her house would be empty, but surely someone at the council has the wit to find a way round that small problem.

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SO I was standing in front of my bathroom mirror on Tuesday morning, practising my Budget speech.

Well, you never know when Wee Georgie Osborne might be given detention, requiring someone else to step into the breach, and I was betting no one else had prepared.

Some people who listened to the Chancellor's speech thought it was a formula for double-dip recession; others that it made the best of a bad job. But not half as good as mine would have been; ask my mirror. Things could be so different.

A bit of judicious slashing and burning of the BBC's Pounds 3.6billion budget could bring in a few quid, for a start. Never mind Plymouth City Council's Pounds 5,700 trip: the Beeb has hundreds of staff in South Africa, producing fatuous programmes about nothing. The once-great BBC has become just another bloated organisation sucking from the communal pot.

The Chancellor promised a shakeup of the welfare system by 2014/ 15. Not before time. But he needs to understand that 'welfare' is much more than just Jobseeker's Allowance.

It is the mark of a great and civilised society that it takes care of the weak, the vulnerable and the plain unlucky (I intoned into the mirror). So we must certainly be sensitive. But it's a fine line between good and harm.

Our economy depends on a fairly high level of unemployment, a pool of available labour. In Plymouth that pool has hit 6,500. Some are feckless, no doubt, but most are victims.

But what's this about disability living allowance? Last year there were more than 16,800 Plymothians claiming to be disabled. Pull the other one. There is another kind of 'welfare' system that as stand-in Chancellor I'd turn my sights on -- quangos and other generously funded public sector organisations.

Nationally there are more than 1,000 of these boards and agencies employing some 700,000 people in a fancy job-creation scheme for the well educated middle classes. Together they spend Pounds 64billion a year of your money: Pounds 2,550 per household.

I was pleased to hear the death knell sounding for Replica watches one of them, the South West Regional Development Agency. Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, said SWRDA spent Pounds 50,000 on a party at Center Parcs, as reported in The Herald this week.

Just listen to that sucking sound

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