THAMESDOWN Transport’s new owners have begun a consultation asking, among other things, whether the public feel the bus company’s name is outdated or still relevant.

Some people are worried this means curtains for the name but we should remember Thamesdown Transport is a private organisation and must focus on pleasing customers if it is to prosper.

We should also remember that a private sector consultation is not the same as a public sector consultation.

The philosophy behind a private consultation can be summed up as: “We’d like as many people as possible to spend as much cash with us as possible. Therefore we’re anxious to know what people want so we don’t send them away in droves.

The philosophy behind a public sector consultation, however, is along the lines of: “We’re planning to close the day care centre/swap hospital anaesthetic for a blow on the head with a mallet/turn the library into a house of ill-repute. Nevertheless, for the sake of form we’ll ask people for their opinions – which we’ll then ignore.”

Handy guide to being a parish councillor...

THERE was an event the other night at the Health Hydro for people considering standing in the new parish council elections come May.

The aim was to help prepare them for the role.

Here are a few of my own pointers for candidates and potential candidates. I hope they’ll make everybody’s lives easier when the parish councils are properly in place: n Bear in mind that the changeover to parishing was forced on us.

There was no referendum and no consultation that made a blind bit of difference. The borough council simply announced it was chucking away a whole raft of responsibilities, and is now doing so with all the indecent haste of a hot air balloonist frantically ditching ballast in order to avoid power lines.

This analogy isn’t quite fair, of course. Not quite fair to balloonists, that is. They tend to chuck only sandbags out of the basket, and not paying passengers.

Anyway, because of these factors, you may find that some of your constituents are a bit bewildered as to what you do, how you do it and why they’re paying so much.

Most of us are reasonable people, however. It’s up to you to convince us we’re in safe hands.

  •  As soon as you possibly can after being elected, get together with your fellow parish councillors and issue a list of the parish council’s functions and the functions still performed by the borough.

Who do we contact for, say, catching stray dogs? Getting graffiti cleaned up? Broken street lamps? Permission to hold street parties?

Make everything crystal clear. If you don’t, some of the more cynical among us will start to believe that you and the borough want to keep us in the dark so we won’t pester you.

  • n Whether you are new to being a councillor or are a veteran of other councils, ditch any party political affiliations you hold before parking your posterior in a parish chamber chair.

You are not here to serve any political party; you are here to serve us. There should be no place for scoring points from one another, refusing to back somebody’s good idea because you dislike their politics or generally behaving like the proverbial ferrets down a madman’s trousers.

Many of the rotten things which have beset this borough in recent years could have been avoided were it not for certain councillors having the mentality of toddlers.

  •  And don’t snipe at one another on Twitter.

Doing so does not make us think: “My, what an astute and shrewd political operator we have here.” Rather, it makes us think: “Why the hell do I bother going out to work and being ripped off for tax, just so insufferable, preposterous, grinning goons like this can say stupid things about one another on Twitter?”

  •  When appointing senior officials, beware of advice to pay the ‘going rate.’ Who decides what the ‘going rate’ should be? Senior officials, that’s who. If greedy people want to be paid private sector salaries, let them head for the private sector, where they’ll be obliged, among other things, to be competent on pain of being slung out on their earholes.

There are any number of competent, decent people with a commitment to the public sector and morals readily distinguishable from those of scorpions. n Try to avoid raising your allowances, and try especially not to raise them in an inflation-busting manner.

Also, do not use excuses along the lines of: “We’re just going along with national guidelines.” If national guidelines advised you to stick your head in a mangle, would you do so?

  •  Follow these pointers and you will gain the respect of the people you serve.

None will ever look at you and say: “They’re all the same.”

Who knows - if you show yourself to be a decent person, maybe more decent people will be inspired to come forward and follow your example.

I SEE Thames Water’s been up in court over pollution.

It pumped 1.4 billion litres of untreated effluent into the Thames, leaving farmers with sick animals and destroyed angling businesses.

In a sane world this organisation would have been nationalised years ago, with every executive chucked out and obliged to reapply for their job.

Offences such as this merit significant jail time, not fines which will end up being paid by long-suffering customers anyway.