GrumbleSmiles

On the eve of the local elections the Last Laugh Looney Party has a vote winner for elections in the future, including the General Election.

The idea came from thinking about the Local Authority elections that take place today. Who on earth do you vote for? Unless it’s the LLLP. Will it change anything? The answer is probably NO!

There are over 300 Local Authorities and all bar 38 are in debt!

• Why? Because they are living beyond their means.
• Why? Because Central government gives them responsibilities, but not the power to pay for them.
• Why? Because the majority of Authorities are run by Councillors who muddle their role with Party politics.
• Why? Because they don’t think outside the box!

So what’s the LLLP GREAT IDEA?

Well the two biggest problems for LA ‘s are their responsibility for looking after vulnerable old people and children. About 50% of their budget is spent on this and the need is growing all the time. What’s more, the service delivery is often not very good. Many vulnerable older people are lonely and isolated. Equally worrying are children at risk through poverty or lack of care and support.

The answer is LAUGHING GRANNIES and LOONEY GRANDPAS matched up with vulnerable children.

It sounds daft. It is daft. But it just might work!

The LAUGHING GRANNIES could provide chid care for young children and focus on improving social skills and reading and writing. Periodically the GRANNIES could get together with other GRANNIES and hold parties with lots of cakes and fizzy pop.

The LOONEY GRANDPA ‘s could look after the more boisterous children. They could take them on long walks in the country or on adventurous bus trips with their free bus passes. Or they could just go jumping in puddles🤡

The ultimate focus for the GRANNIES, GRANDPA’S and children is to have fun. All at minimal cost to the Local Authority. Just expenses for the cakes and pop.

The Local election results were a great success for the Last Laugh Looney Party. Their “PotHole Policy” proved a vote winner. They were elected in 100% of the seats in every Local Authority. Unfortunately in most places only one third of the seats were up for election, so the LLLP only gained overall control in a few councils.

So what happened next?

Where they had overall control the LLLP immediately initiated their “PotHole Policy”. A few staff didn’t turn up for work and were in a whole lot of trouble and were dismissed. The rest didn’t find the work too hard and were amazed and delighted when people came out and clapped them. They were back in the office in a week and ready for the next fun task. More later…..

Most of the Councils still had a majority of councillors from the traditional political parties, with no fresh ideas. Nonetheless they were shaken by the dramatic success of the LLLP in the election. So they carried on in their old ways. Meantime the LLLP councillors kept banging on about potholes at every opportunity by raising points of order at each council meeting. The general public kept ringing the council and reporting more potholes.

Where the Conservatives were in control, they were worried about the LLLP’s success and decided to steal their idea and adopt a new “ Build better roads” publicity campaign. They are strong on P.R. but they are not so good at following up with action. Sadly they didn’t fill in many holes, but they blamed that on budget constraints. I wouldn’t fancy their chances at the next election. They are going to regret every one of those unfulfilled potholes🤡

Labour lead Councils thought the LLLP craze would soon fade away, so they didn’t bother with the potholes. They were also concerned about the trade union objections to office staff having to do manual work. They also felt that if more staff could work from home they cold avoid the potholes. There are now 15,000 holes in Labour lead Blackburn and their telephone lines are permanently jammed 🤡. They definitely need a more holistic approach !

Quite a few Labour councillors are defecting to the Last Laugh Looney Party after seeing the local election results. Now they are saying that they always wanted to filll in more potholes, it was Mr Stammer that held them back. Mr Stammer was intending to look into potholes, ever since his friend Jeremiah Corbit told him about his hobby of photographing manhole covers. Now Mr Stammer has appointed a Royal Commission to examine who is making all the potholes. Is it anything to do with climate change? Or could it be fracking? The Royal Commission will report back in 2035.

The LLLP decided to enhance their appeal to voters in the upcoming local elections with some fun and incentives to get people to go out and vote. Still focussed on their “ PotHole Policy”.

It appears to the LLLP that the Local Authority staff don’t know where all the potholes are. So before the election the LLLP wants people to ring the Council and report potholes. Of course this may flood the local authority with calls; but at least they will know the scale of the issue. Remember 10,000 holes in Blackburn, Lancashire 🤡

After the election the Local Authority staff will have one week to fill in all the reported potholes. So they will need to get on with it straight away. No time for debates about elf& safety; no hard hats; no high viz jackets. LA staff in their normal office clothes repairing holes in the road should be fairly obvious🤡 No doubt the electorate will wish to come out on the street and give them a clap.

After the first week if anyone finds and reports a pothole in their council area they will get a £100 finding fee, which will be taken off their Council Tax bill. The highly paid Chief Executive and Directors will personally fill in all the late reported potential holes.

That should teach them a lesson about local politics !

So what’s next ? 🤡

The local elections are coming up soon and the Last Laugh Looney Party is going to put up a candid in every local area. With just one idea to prove how effective they can be ! “ The Pot Hole Policy”.

Sounds daft ? It is. But it just might work.

If elected the LLLP will propose that the first thing all Local Authority staff do is fill in all the potholes in their town or county area. All the admin staff, all the regulators, all the social workers, all those working from home, everybody except the bin men— who do a good job already.

This exercise will help them understand what the electorate really needs them to concentrate on in their local area rather than pontificating about national issues which they can’t control. They will need to do a good job, otherwise they will be back out again later in the year.

This is just the start of the LLLP bid to change the way Local Authorities work in future. More ideas will follow ……..

How many more glaciers need to melt before it becomes obvious to everyone that climate change is happening. Reaching nett zero carbon emissions by 2050 is the agreed target by most Nations. How to get there is not at all clear.

So in the Timeout two years the LLLP will halt production of electric vehicles until they can travel at least 500 miles with the heater, the headlights and the radio on. We will also drill for all the oil in the North Sea so we don’t have to import it from Saudi Arabia. The ‘ Just stop oil ‘ protesters will be glued to the central reservation of the M25 to remind us of how important it is to tackle climate change by 2050.

British politicians, all keen to jump on the bandwagon, rushed to be seen to be leading the World, by closing our last coal mines; switching to heat pumps that don’t heat; stop drilling new oil wells; building new nuclear power stations at a snail’s pace and telling people to buy expensive new electric cars before there is the infrastructure to power them. This is in spite of the fact that Britain only accounts for 4% of global emissions.

With a bit of luck if temperatures really have risen by 2050, we can all turn our central heating off and save a fortune by not installing new, expensive, useless heat pumps.

Finally, we can erect poly tunnels all over southern England and grow our own vegetables rather than importing them from around the world.

In the meantime, just in case the climate change scientists have got it all wrong, stock up on hot water bottles and candles !