The Love life of Lenny: a Beatcroft Social tribute. Shouting at the Chief Inspector, feeding a ferry frenzy and why councillors must carry the can.
A special radio show in memory of Lenny Love, and a long piece about local politics. you have been warned!
The extraordinary life of Lenny Love - pop mover and shaker, record producer, promo man, DJ, boulevardier, life and soul of Edinburgh, and latterly an inspired humanist celebrant, is being celebrated on 28 May at the Voodoo Rooms in Edinburgh (7.00pm) and a book called, inevitably The Book of Love will be be available to buy on the night.
It’s a lovely tribute, and the man behind it, Tim Maguire, is my guest on the Beatcroft social (the final 45 minutes). Listen to the Mixcloud stream here.
We play music Lenny loved and was inspired by, and talk about his amazing and very colourful time on the planet. Here’s the playlist for the whole two-hour show (loosely inspired by Edinburgh and the city’s music scene):
The Human League — Open your Heart
Lucky Jim — you’re Lovely to Me
Adam Holmes — Edinburgh
Mylo — Drop the Pressure
Beta Band — Dry the Rain
Black — Wonderful Life
Julian Cope — World Shut Your Mouth
Shack — Beautiful
XTC — Senses Working Overtime
Kevin McDermott — Tell It Till It’s True
Marco Rossi — Can’t Cut It
Del Amitri — Sticks and Stones Girl
World Party — Is It Like Today?
Nick Lowe — I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass
Aztec Camera — Good Morning Britain
Furniture — Brilliant Mind
The Undertones — Wednesday Week
Grace Jones — Nightclubbing
ZZ Top — Sharp Dressed Man
Rezillos — Can’t Stand My Baby
Ian Dury and the Blockheads — Sex and Drugs and Rock’n’Roll
Simple Minds — Love Song
Paul Kelly — From St Kilda to King’s Cross
Dean Martin — Ain’t That a Kick in the Head
Sean Connery — A Pretty Irish Girl
Tracey Thorn — The Book of Love
Waterboys — Death is Not the End
Now, this week’s essay, and it’s all about local politics and what it means to be a local politician. With some non-appearances by the First Minister of Scotland. There are funny moments. Appearances by Michael “Get down and Get With It” Gove. And some needless sarcasm…
A general election, eh? Never mind the generals, what about the poor bloody footsoldiers, down and dirty here in local government, where the real work gets done? The bins uncollected, the skiving bairns rounded up? The space stations approved?The budgets bankrupted for the sake of a ferry with a decent, Michael ‘Travolta’ Gove-approved dance floor?
The interesting thing about being a councillor is the relationship with the executive, the officials who actually do the work of keeping the council going. I mean, they’re experts, trained and retrained, educated and employed after rigorous selection procedures I wouldn’t have a hope in fundamentalist hell of navigating.
“Do you love me?” “I’m hovering between a 4 and a 4.75”
I’ve had my brushes with these horrible systems of assessment and recruitment, the formulaic questionnaires, the box-ticking and scoring…oh, that scoring! Everything in Councilworld is points and numbers out of 10 - contracts, tenders, department performances and people. I hate it. It’s a spurious attempt to pretend that everything can be displayed mathematically. The real world is messy, fleshy, unpredictable, unreliable, dirty and often somewhat both spiky and slimy. (“Do you love me?” “I’m hovering between a 4 and a 4.75”)
Councillors of course, fleshy, spiky and slimy as many of us can be, are the result of counting too - numbers of votes. Or in my case, the zero alternative contenders. But after election, our authority rests solely on the position we find ourselves in for up to five years, and we can and should wield it - responsibly, carefully - over officials, as our decisions are the final ones. We carry the can for their actions. We can, even blundering along in amateur, well-meaning ignorance , hold them to account. Because if we don’t, nobody else will. Until or unless central Government has to intervene.
Shetland councillors are deluged with offers of training, in person and online, with seminars, briefings and other frantic attempts to render us as knowledgeable as or similar to our officials. But that’s not our job. We’re politicians and we are, or ought to be in charge. We are in a very real sense, the people. We represent the community our officials are employed by. We bear public responsibility for what our officials enact.
And of course we can be ignorant, biased, stupid, petulant, power hungry, vain sometimes to the point of narcissim, arrogant, conniving and aggressive. But we can also be insightful, inspiring, clever, educated and experienced in ways our specialised officials can only dream of; kind, caring and generous to a fault. Saints, in fact. Occasionally faulty ones.
It’s always fun shouting at the Chief Inspector…
Recently I attended Shetland’s Community Safety and Resilience Board, which is where councillors get to hear reports from the blue light services - police, ambulance, fire brigade - and other representatives of safety and health in the isles, such as the coastguard . It’s where crime, punishment, death, disaster and illness colllide with politics, and it is both fascinating and offers a chance to congratulate or criticise services crucial to the community’s wellbeing. It’s always fun shouting at the Chief Inspector, or telling the Scottish Ambulance Service to get their house in some kind of order.
The Education and Families committee, in a similar way, is at the interface between politics and welfare Recently a decision had to be taken to mothball a primary school, in the face of ferocious local opposition. Some of us became briefly very unpopular in one neck of the Zetlandic bog. But just four pupils ranging from primary one to seven in a composite class? Educationally there was no justification for keeping that school open. If more families move there, it can be reopened. But from personal experience I can say that the starry urban idyll of a tiny rural school can sometimes be a nightmare for children.
‘Get Into the Groove’ Gove
We had a special, in-private council meeting on Wednesday of this week to discuss the latest shenanigans surrounding the proposed new ferry to Fair Isle. Michael ‘Get Into the Groove’ Gove and his Levellers Up system of electoral bribes had promised Shetland £27m towards the boat and new harbour works.
Originally, two years ago, The cost was sitting at £30m and the council would only have to provide £3m. Bargain! Some of us always thought the whole thing was preposterous. Well, I did. I wrote this piece last year, which proved financially prophetic. Nobody at the Best of all Possible Councils took any notice, of course.
By January this year costs had rocketed to the extent that a reduced project (no longer roll on roll off) was sitting at £45m, with £18m coming from the council. All I’m permitted to tell you about yesterday’s in-camera meeting is that costs have now escalated hugely for that option. I cannot state the exact figure, though it’s been extensively leaked locally. There are, in addition, a whole heap of other negative aspects to the agreed tenders, plus Government nonsense around the award of that £27m which again, I’m not able to tell you about. Whatever, we were asked to approve a delay to and complete retendering of the entire project, - boat, and two lots of harbour works. Because it’s bound to come in cheaper. Maybe.
Anti-democratic stitch-ups
I was the only one to vote against this. There had of course been a ‘pre-meeting’ of senior councillors and officials. These anti-democratic stitch-ups are a hallmark of this council, one where the almost total absence of political party representation has helped encourage a too-close relationship between some councillors and officials: “For the good of Shetland.”
It’s not good enough.
Next day officialdom overreached itself. A press release was issued. I felt it did not represent accurately what had happened at the meeting. There were exchanges of emails. Turned out I was not alone in puzzlement and anger. Because as I’ve said already, it’s councillors who are, in the public’s perspective, the Council.
What happened was that officials - under pressure, operating admittedly to tight deadlines - appeared to forget that they don’t employ us as councillors. A political decision was presented to the public in a way that seemed accurate and perhaps useful to the officials concerned. But it was neither. It was I felt, misleading.
It would be a lot easier if I could just explain exactly what happened at the meeting, but I’m bound not to. What I can say, I think - hope - is that it won’t be happening in this way again. Everyone concerned should by now know the, ah, score.
John Shiney eclipsed by fog
Meanwhile, I note that the very short notice appearance of Scotland’s third First Minister in 15 months (see? I can do numbers) in Lerwick on Friday, on another mission of political bribery, had to be cancelled. John Shiney and entourage were aboard a Loganair flight from Edinburgh (how did they even get seats?) which returned to the capital as fog prevented landing at Sumburgh.
Coincidentally, it looks like the SNP will take a hammering in the Orkney and Shetland seat come 4 July. No connection, I’m sure, with the decision to head for Shetland. Anyway, he kens noo a little of what we have to put up with.
I feel slightly embarrassed to be the first person to comment on this programme, but I have a dog in the game and that dog is Lenny Love. Thank you so much and you can imagine the capital letters for yourself, for creating this fabulous tribute to his life.
I’m very touched that you did it, I’m even more touched that you asked me to be part of it and I know that you can’t be with us on Tuesday of next week to celebrate his life, but I know that you’ll be with us in spirit.
Slainte!
Tim
And having now read the rest of the article, thank you even more. You have enough on your plate already and while I admire your willingness to serve on the Cooncil, I don’t envy you