We have already seen that the cabinet has been reduced by one post, a long overdue step. I always thought that deputy leader should be a role that one of the other executives took on rather than a separate portfolio. There might be scope for further changes, but that was the obviousone. I’ve always thought that the whole idea was really a way to give Bert Crane a vote on the executive and benefit from his vast experience, without wearing him out by giving him too many responsibilities. The surprise is that the Tories didn’t change that a lot sooner, what with them not having a Bert Crane.

Apart from those larger, more structural changes, there will be the impact of some of the new faces – although some of them like Chris Mullins and Bill Ward are old faces returning after an absence. Peter Smith in Ifield will be worth watching, but I’m particularly interested in my old ward of Broadfield South.

I visited our new councillor for Broadfield South the other day, and realised something which I knew already but had not though about: he is going to bring an engineer’s perspective to the council. Colin has spent his life working on machines at work and at home. If something doesn’t work he fixes it, and if it does work he keeps it that way or makes it work even better and he will keep going until he succeeds. It will be fascinating if he takes that approach to the council.

From all those years of being married to a councillor, mayor and MP he will know a lot about the political side of things but I still think he is going to find himself wanting to get the metaphorical spanners out to some of the council’s departments when he gets onto scrutiny panels. Certainly continuous improvement should be second nature to him.

Early days yet, but I think the council meetings are going to be a bit more lively now. I might even go to a couple.

We now have a situation where there are 5 split wards which have both Tory and Labour councillors. Four of them were, I think, recently all-Tory wards and all of them have had Labour wins as their most recent result. We only need to gain three of them to regain control of the council.

But what about Southgate? That ward stubbornly refuses to change hands. It used to be all-Labour (as most of the town was at one point) then started to swing both ways and it has now been all-Tory for a few years. My one firm prediction about our local elections was that at least one ward would end up with a majority of less than 50. I was wrong and this year the narrowest margin was the 66 votes in Southgate. So why didn’t we win it this time?

Raj got a little bit closer than last time in terms of the absolute size of the margin but in percentage terms it is almost exactly the same as 2011, just on a greatly reduced turnout. Why is it that the swings we see elsewhere in the town, and the country as a whole, aren’t happening there too?

I don’t like to over-analyse election results. I think its pointless trying to second-guess the electorate by over-simplifying it all. In Southgate there were 2068 votes cast and probably more than 2000 different reasons for why those votes were cast the way they were. But I think there are probably four factors that contributed.

The biggest one is probably the presence of the Greens in Southgate, with a well-known candidate – the local vicar who is an ex-Labour councillor. While Labour and the Tories have been on 41% and 44% for the last two years, the Greens have polled 14%. If you assume that the Greens take more votes from Labour than the Tories that alone could explain the difficulty there.

Another big factor was probably the rehabilitation centre that was mootted for East Park. It became a well-publicised possibility in the run up to the election and while I don’t think any candidate was in favour of it, it was the Tory who took most advantage and was prominent in the campaign to stop it.

There are three other factors which may or may not have contributed. Both are a bit nebulous, if that is the right word, but you can see the effect when there are all-out elections or when a by election happens along with the normal one.

It sounds silly, but alphabetical order seems to have a small impact. When there two candidates from the same party there is a tendency for the one who comes first on the polling slip to get more votes. It doesn’t make sense to those of us who use both our votes for the same party but it seems to happen. It is probably a coincidence that the first few letters of the alphabet are over-represented in the surnames of councillors. I reckon the alphabet effect could account for a small handful of votes.

Another factor is the doesn’t-live-here factor. Some voters have a real reluctance to vote for candidates who do not live in the area they are looking to represent. In this case I know the Green does live in Southgate, the Labour candidate lives in Furnace Green and I’m not sure where the Tory lives. At the very least this could account for a few Green votes that might otherwise have gone Labour.

The last factor is a bit less amusing. It is the racial aspect. Again, where there are elections where two candidates from the same party appear, there is a distinct tendency for the one with the less ‘English’ name to poll fewer votes, all other things being equal. I’m not suggesting there is a consciously racist motivation at work, but there could be an inclination to be less likely to vote for a name that is unfamiliar or that you can’t pronounce. Mind you, the BNP have stood in Southgate before and got a handful of votes, would those erstwhile BNP voters have voted deliberately against Raj or just stayed at home along with the majority of voters? Nobody knows, but if the foreign-sounding name factor cost a dozen votes it could account for a chunk of the small margin.

When the gap is only 66 votes a few factors that can cost maybe 10 votes each can be significant. Or perhaps I am just talking out of my backside. It does happen.

The other noteworthy ward was Maidenbower, for personal reasons. I was standing there and didn’t win. I didn’t expect to of course, but considering we did no work there I think 425 votes was respectable. considering the shockingly low turnout. In percentage terms it is about 5 points up on last year. I feel a bit sorry for the voters of Maidenbower. They must feel a bit ignored really. We don’t put in a lot of work there because our limited resources are better used in places where we are likely to win – which worked out well for us this time. I guess the Tories also have limited manpower and will also concentrate on the marginals so safer seats like Maidenbower get ignored are engaged with less than voters in, say, Ifield or Gossops Green. No wonder the turnout was so low. If the parties can’t be bothered with the voters why should the voters be bothered with the parties?

I imagine the Tories do engage a bit more with Maidenbower, but then they have two councillors who are effectively being paid to so I hope that is the case. In the absence of more proportional voting methods I can’t see it changing, which is a shame. I’d like to think that if we spent a couple of years identifying our potential voters there we could make it a lot closer. If the Maidenbower branch expands a little and gets more active maybe that will start to happen.

I think a lot of my colleagues will, like me, wish next year was another borough election rather than the county – although we have to have a good chance now of at least doubling the Labour presence in Chichester.

For various personal reasons I won’t go into, I wasn’t hugely involved in the Labour campaign this time round, but from what I saw of it we have finally started doing it right. We started early and have got more into the mindset of permanent campaigning. We also selected earlier which really helps, and we selected good candidates in the main wards who all led their own campaigns from the front. As long as we continue to take it seriously like that it all bodes well for the future.

Bert Crane

Last week I went along to the full council meeting at the town hall. It is not something I do very often, maybe once or twice in the last five years, but last week was a very special meeting – the last one ever to feature Bert Crane as a councillor.

He has been a councillor since before many of us were born, and possibly longer than anybody else in the country – 58 years continuously. Not on the same council of course. Local government has been reorganised a few times while he has been there.

He started on Horsham rural district council then the urban development council and finally on Crawley borough council. This year his four-year term is up and he has decided not to stand again.

At the meeting last week the mayor presented Bert with a badge which will continue to give him access to the town hall facilities after his retirement. She described it as being an honorary councillor and having the freedom of the town hall (though I think he already has the freedom of the town) but in practice it just means he will be able to go into the members’ room for a coffee and the read the newspapers.

Perhaps he will enjoy being able to continue his long-established routine, or perhaps he will try to catch up on 58 years’ worth of jobs around the house, but at least he has the choice and it was a well-meant gesture by the council.

The dark side of it all is the well of mean spirits that the event uncovered. The way I understand it, this gesture was thught up by somebody on the Labour group and agreed with the leader of the council. All was well until he raised it in a Tory group meeting and there was a lot of resistance to doing this small thing. Why and how could you object to it?

Really this is a once-in-a-lifetime event. I can’t imagine many people, if any, have served so long in the same place without a break, and I can’t see it happening again. It is well known that Bert would not accept any sort of official honour like an OBE or CBE or whatever as he has a robust view of the whole honours system, but this is something from people he knows and who know him, so that’s OK.

Bert isn’t in the best of health these days but he is still sharp and puts a lot of energy into being a councillor, even after so long. Anybody who would not have some admiration for him or who would begrudge him a small token of appreciation must be a very small-minded and spiteful individual indeed.

Were they just called in to police Richard Symonds? Must remember to ask my comrades at tonight’s constituency meeting.

Despite having been deputy mayor I have no idea what allowances are paid to the mayor and I mean I don’t even know what ball park they are in.  Maybe I am naive but before I took on the job I didn’t even know that the deputy mayor got anything.  It turned out to be about £1100 back then I think, though I may be wrong, and I assume it has risen at about the same sort of level as the other allowances.

I can’t remember it ever being mentioned.  There was always great debate in public about what level the other allowances should be.  I can’t even recall seeing any line in the financial documents. On reflaection, it seems a bit strange that whether some minor responsibility should get an allowance of £300 was argued about but something that is probably thousands was all organised out of sight.

I know the mayor has a budget which is supposed to cover the running of their office, the civic ball, food and drink for the mayor’s parlour and so on, but that is different (and come to think of it, I can’t remember that being debated either) and I assume separate. Mind you, even that is public money and of some interest so we can see if it is going up or being reduced in line with other budget cuts.

So what is the deal?  Is it a secret?  Is it just left off the published list because it isn’t mandatory to publish it? It isn’t something councillors are told to keep quiet about, because nobody told me not to mention it at the time.  It isn’t something I am worked up about I just can’t see why its all so obscure.  I would have thought it was of much more interest to the average council tax-payer than what the chair of general purposes gets.

Of course it is possible that I just can’t remember details from about ten years ago. Perhaps I never paid attention to that bit of the budget.  Can anybody shed some light or do I have to go through the pain of looking at the CBC website for budget documents?

West Sussex county council had a ‘revenue spending power’ in 2010-11 of £563.9million.  Next year it will be £560.2million and in 2011-12 it will be £549.4million – £14.5 million less than this year, a reduction of 2.5%

A pittance compared to those (predominantly Labour) councils facing cuts four or five times larger, but still…   Every year as leader of the county council Henry Smith complained that it didn’t get enough support from the government, and now he is in the government the support is even lower.

In fact it is even worse because those are just cash figures that do not take inflation into account.  Assuming inflation of 3% (and it could get higher than that) the spending power in 2012-13 would have had to be £598.2million just to be equivalent to this year, so the real reduction in 2012-13 is more like £48.8million, or 8.7%.

Somehow I can’t see how the removal of nearly£100million over two years will make West Sussex county council better.

Horsham council sees its spending power go from £16.6million this year to £15.8million next year and £14.5million the year after – £2.1million down just in cash terms.  How will they manage?  They won’t be able to afford any more £800k overspends on recycling schemes that’s for sure.

Crawley will have its spending power reduced from £17million this year to £15.6million and then £14million – a reduction of £3million or 17.6% before inflation is taken into account.

What is interesting is that Crawley’s ‘revenue spending power’ is £400k higher than Horsham this year but in two years will be half a million less than Horsham.  Is this a pre-emptive punishment for the voters of Crawley giving the Tories a good kicking in the local elections next year?

I know one thing.  I would not like to be a councillor this year, or next.  A Tory councillor would have to be making cuts in services without the luxury they have enjoyed in recent years of blaming it all on the government.  A Labour councillor could be faced with making cuts, setting an illegal budget or resigning. A Lib Dem councillor will just be looking for a new hobby to fill all that extra free time they will be getting soon.

Here’s the thing though.  Adding up the column on the spreadsheet for reductions, the total reduction in spending power across all councils is about £2.6billion next year and £1.7billion the year after.  A total of £4.3billion.

That figure is dwarfed by the tax which is avoided and evaded by individuals and companies every year.  Just the amount avoided by one single company, Vodafone, would have been enough to avoid any reduction at all in the formula grants for every council in the country for two years!

Philip Green’s tax situation is not exactly transparent, but best estimates are that just the income tax he has personally avoided would have covered the reductions for almost the whole of Greater London next year.

Even George Osborne’s own personal tax avoidance scheme could have covered Horsham’s shortfall easily.

This would be a good time to remember that this Saturday is ‘pay day’ and this is why protesters will be outside Vodafone shops and Philip Green’s shops like Top Shop across the country (nearest organised protest to Crawley is in Brighton).

Those people who go out protesting on Saturday are the real taxpayers’ alliance.  The Tories asked us to embrace the big society and take over failing public services and a growing number of people are deciding that the service they would most like to help is HMRC.

Meanwhile good luck to the local councils in trying to balance those books.

Maybe not as exciting as the goings on up in Rugby, but still something quite strange is going on.   There is no suggestion that this action of Goldsmiths was an official council decision, or discussed with the leaders of opposition parties, or even other memebrs of the Tory party.   Be interesting to hear the details when they eventually slip out.

As for the byelections, we have two in Crawley.

One is on the borough council, where one of the Tory councillors for Tilgate has decided to resign because he can’t fit in the council work, the day job and the family, and the other is on the county coucil where Henry Smith has finally stood down after being elected to parliament.

I guess Labour should have some chance in Tilgate.  The area always used to be Labour and since the Tories got in there they have had some fairly poor councillors, from what I have heard.  I think the Tories peaked locally a year or two ago, and have been shedding council seats across the country by the hundred so that combined with the poor performance of the Tilgate Tories must help us.

If history is any guide then Maidenbower is a dead cert for the Tories, which is a shame.  It is always a shame when a Tory wins aywhere, of course, but especially so here because of the candidate.  Given the past performance this is about as close to a guaranteed win as you can get in local elections and so a chance for them to get somebody new into local politics.

Instead they have selected somebody who is already a borough councillor.  Not only that, but he is the leader of the council, Bob Lanzer.  Now I quite like Bob, and while the Tilgate Tory whose name escapes me finds it hard to fit being a backbench councillor into his life alongside his day job, Bob seemed to have no trouble fitting in ward matters and being in the shadow executive alongside his job.  Going by the register of interests it looks like he has given up the day job now he is the leader, which would be understandable.

I don’t agree with the direction Bob wants to take the council but I have no doubt in his abilities to take it in those directions, but would county councillor just be a job too many?

As a rule, I don’t like having councillors on both the county and borough council anyway if it can be avoided.  With so few people willing to stand these days apparently it can’t be avoided, but I don’t think it is a good thing for all sorts of reasons that I have blathered on about before.  Usually when it happens the person represents the same area at both levels but in this case Bob would represent Pound Hill & Worth on one authority and Maidenbower on another – so two lots of constituents to deal with.

As leader of the council he will have all sorts of unavoidable meetings with auditors and the like, and visits to the represent Crawley at the LGA.  These things happen during the daytime and can be arranged around council meetings, but the county council does all its business during the day.  I can’t see there not being clashes and when that happens he is likely to prioritise the borough committments – there are enough Tories in county hall that they can afford to have a dozen absent and still win any vote going.

I’m sure Bob would be a good county councillor without the weight of responsibilites of being leader of the borough council, but as it stands I think this is an unwise move.  Unless he is expecting to not be leader of the borough at some point in the not-too-distant future…  perhaps he is anticipating a wipe-out in next year’s borough elections? 

Yesterday I was a little less impressed as we passed through, as we do every day on the way home from work.

This is, as the council keep reminding us a multi-million pound scheme, so who decided it would be a good idea to put a bus stop in a single-lane road, only a few metres after a roundabout?  A bus only has to stop for a few minutes and the traffic backs up to block the roundabout.  There is a wide expanse of pavement where the bus stop is – more than enough room to make it a proper lay-by bus stop.  The stop in the other direction has room for cars to park, but not the westbound side.

Very poor planning in my opinion.

It is going to look lovely tomorrow after the huge cat population have an overnight shredding spree.