Tag: Glaholm

I’m not sure what Mr Glaholm is on, but it is clearly strong stuff. His suggestion on how to solve the problems with waste and recycling collections is pure fantasy.

I think what we need now is for Anne Snelgrove to call for a public meeting on this. She’s the one person with the connections that could make it happen and who could be viewed as independent by both sides.

There are many things Ms Snelgrove may be but, as her ignominious voting record in the House of Commons and her many partisan interventions in local politics show, she is neither independent nor seen as such. She’s already had her say on this topic, and it was little more than a party-political jibe.

Mr Glaholm’s other thought on this subject, that the change in waste and recycling collections would have been much more successful if done area by area is also based on an assumption which, for this council, is just plain wrong.

When I was on that working party I suggested that rather than a blanket roll-out we should do it slowly, but I was told the council had the bins in West Swindon and knew what would happen. But it was a mistake. Rolling out everywhere at the same time meant that we learned as we went along – instead of looking at areas where we could learn from best practice.

The evidence so far is that the council has no interest in learning anything from its mistakes and prefers to flatly deny that any mistakes were made.

There seems to have been a slight reversal in which councillor gets the front page treatment for their misdemeanours. This time it is Councillor Heenan making the headlines for driving without insurance and not displaying a tax disk, whilst Councillor Glaholm’s resignation from the chair of Swindon Borough Council’s Scrutiny Committee (following his recent indiscretions) has yet to be reported in any place of significance. I just hope Councillor Heenan is better at town planning than he is at planning (and monitoring) his car insurance renewal.

The deputy leader of Swindon’s red nest seems unsure as to what caused one councillor’s encounter with the law to make it to the front page of the local rag, and another councillor’s encounter with the law just got a small mention on the inside pages.

Two Councillors in the paper too for alleged misdemeanours. Interesting one is a front page article and the other one a few lines on an inside page. Not sure if that’s due to the worlds obsession with sex, or political bias?

Unless she has never read a UK newspaper, I’d have thought that was simple to answer. The outspoken Councillor Glaholm arrested for kerb-crawling, or Councillor Heenan charged with failing to produce a driving licence, driving without insurance and failing to display a valid vehicle excise licence (and one of those charges already dropped, apparently). For an editor of a local daily paper with nothing much to report and looking for a salacious headline, the choice is obvious.

Shock, horror… very little has happened whilst I’ve been concentrating on the pain in my shoulder rather than the local news. The aforementioned Councillor Glaholm has flown his nest, influenced, in part, by a below-the-belt election letter distributed in several wards, and the response from his former nest.

I was appalled when I saw it and I could not believe that someone in the group would stoop so low, and then for them to make light of it and make out it was nothing was just outrageous. Hopefully, sometime in the near future the person responsible for the leaflet will be disciplined by the party.

The only other thing that caught my attention was the local railway company’s decision to reduce some off-peak fares. Given that off-peak trains between Swindon and Gloucester have been almost empty for years, one wonders why it has taken so long for them to reduce the fare by 48%.

Apparently, Councillor Glaholm has had a little dig at one of the ministers from the national red nest. Not quite the ‘grilling’ it was headlined as, but certainly stronger stuff than either of the local MPs have been heard to say.

Ms Kelly: We have a Government initiative to build more homes and £60,000 homes for first-time buyers will be available in Swindon.
Cllr Glaholm: She may have said affordable homes costing £60,000 were coming to Swindon, but I think that’s rubbish. Where are they? I can’t see any.

Either a piece of clever politicking, just before polling day, or a rather rash outburst. Difficult to tell.