Why the UK is screwed: #1, County Councils

Okay, number one could have been anything, but this weekend I have mostly been cursing East Cheshire County Council. Even though they’re not even a county council. They’re half a county, council. When Cheshire was split – against the will of its inhabitants (I wrote about it on CiF) we were assured that the new geographically tighter council would deliver better services to us Eastern plebs in Macclesfield, away from the bright lights of Cheshire. Well, have they fuck.

As an example, this weekend it has been snowing like a bastard. Forecast on Friday, it came down on Saturday afternoon, in the night, then really heavily on Sunday. Terrific. I love the snow. A man who is tired of snow should go to live in London and snort cocaine with other twats. But in order to do what a doting dad does in the snow – driving up the middle of the Peak with a car full of children, sledges, hats, gloves, spare hats, spare gloves, a winch, an axe, two spades etc etc – you kinda need at least a patina of developed world activity from our highly paid public servants. Just gritting the bloody main roads, for instance? But no. Those dozens of gritters, the crews, the salt (from just down the road in Northwich no doubt) remained warmly esconced in… somewhere. Bed? Over on the M6? Well they weren’t up on the bloody Cat and Fiddle.

Highest road in the county, main link between Macc and Buxton, and prime route into the Peak, it remained stubornly ungritted all weekend and in consequence was finally closed last night. Why? What is the point of a county council highways department, if it can’t keep the roads open in four or five inches of snow? They manage it in Scandanavia, why not here? Maybe because in Scandanavia they don’t employ “five a day” coordinators, or “Lead Safeguarding Officer – Conference and Reviews – Permanent – 37 hours per week – Grade: Grade 13 – £45,659 – £49,631 per annum “. Maybe they don’t have people working five days a week “safeguarding services”. Perhaps they don’t have staff sitting there trying to come up with new jargon such as “cared for children”. My children are cared for too…

I just hate these armies of pointless penpushers. Pointless? Caring for kids? Yes, because 15 years down the line the “cared for kids” will be delivering their own “cared for kids” to deal with – more of them. More and more and more…. Blizards of untermensch. In the meantime, the basic infrastructure that *I* pay for is sacrificed. The practical jobs, the necessary jobs, go undone. The billions are poured into a black hole of social engineering that will never succeed, parasiting on the rest of us. I despair.

Well, the country and our children’s future may be fucked, but the good news is that my new Hyundai Santa Fe is great. Ignoring the nannying warnings to stay at home, and the drifting snow and ungritted roads, we buggered off into the Peak regardless and had a great day. The Santy is lower and lighter than my much-missed Mitz Delica, but below 25 (which is as quick as you can go with the locked 4X4 on) it was just as sure footed. I was pretty impressed. The antilock cuts in a little soon, and the stock tyres were garbage (I swapped to some Bridgestone ATs), but the car overall is a great performer in the worst weather.

Maybe that’s what we should do with our public services – get the Koreans to do it. The North Koreans would be better than East Cheshire Council…

UPDATE: I wondered if this might be a smallminded rant about a small issue, but I see it isn’t…