Principled Stand.

I was glad to receive the leaflet recently distributed byCouncillor Jenny Roach in which she explains her reasons for rejecting the recent increase of 23% in councillors allowances recently voted through by Mid Devon District Council. At a time when ordinary working people are facing massive increases in utility bills and benefit cuts it beggers belief that a group of people , few of whom could be described as poor could decide to award themselves a rise of such magnitude, especially when other areas of local government are facing savage cuts  in their budgets. Its good to see someone taking a principled stand on such matters.

Too oftenn these days, it would seem that too many get involved in politics both local and national, for reasons of immediate personal gain, or to gain future advancement. It often seems that the party that they commit themselves to is irrevelant as long as it gets them what they want and principles and idealogy are a long way second, This seems to have become more acute the more the three main parties have sought to occupy the same political ground.

Its always good therefore to read of those  who spent a lifetime trying to promote the principles that they lived by usually at no personal gain, often at personal loss.  Such lives are often recorded in the obituries written by my old internet colleague, Mick Hall on his blog Organised Rage,

http://www,organisedrage.com

Mick writes from a political perspective which probably is not shared by many who read this blog. Mick writes from the perspective of a lifelong trade unionist, socialist activist and internationalist with a particular interest in Irish republicanism and the middle east, particularly  Turkey. The people that Mick records in his obituries are  often trade union, community and political activists of the type who never recieve, and would indeed reject honours, and are often only rememberd  by their former comrades or those they represented.  People of principle used to be present across the political spectrum, sadly, howefer they seem to be fading into history.