Of Parishes and Presidents.

Written by David Heath MP and published in Western Gazette on Fri 6th Nov 2009

Pull hard, they said. You need to pull it hard. So I did. I pulled the bell-rope at the cemetery chapel in Castle Cary for all I was worth, expecting it to toll the bell and formally mark the opening of the restored building. The bell rang, once, twice, three times, and then the rope snapped, and I was left rather sheepishly holding a length of bell-rope no longer attached to a bell. As I said at the time, the chapel was by now well and truly open, but slightly broken! Despite the mishap with the bell, the friends of the chapel, the town council, and a host of donors and helpers have made a really good job of restoring the building back to its Victorian best, although now with the thoroughly modern addition of a wind generator and photo-voltaic panels to make it energy self-sufficient. A brilliant job done, and congratulations to all concerned.

If there's a success story for the town council in Castle Cary, the story is rather different in Somerton, and it's a shame the town is hitting the national headlines for the wrong reasons. Over the last few days, virtually the whole town council has resigned en-masse, leaving just three members in place. That is less than is legally required to form a quorum, so for the moment the council cannot take any decisions, even authorise payments to staff. It's not a happy position.

There has been a degree of ill-feeling in the town for some time, and some derogatory comments have been bandied about which councillors were far from happy with. Then a major row erupted a couple of weeks ago over a planning application, and that seems to have precipitated the mass resignation. It is ironic, if entirely understandable, that some who have contacted me because they were deeply concerned about goings-on in the council are now equally concerned by the vacuum left by the resignations.

So what happens next. Well, the responsibility lies with South Somerset District Council, and I have been in contact with Council Leader Tim Carroll over the weekend. The District Council has powers (under Section 91 of the Local Government Act 1972, if you're really interested) to appoint "temporary councillors" to act in the period until a new raft of councillors can be elected, and I understand it intends to do so at the first opportunity, which is likely to be the meeting of council on 19th November. I'm also told that the Town Clerk has the authority to advertise the vacancies, which means that elections can be held in mid-December. That means the temporary councillors will only have to attend a couple of meetings. It's good to know the District Council is acting so promptly.

It also means there's an opportunity for people in Somerton to stand for a newly created Town Council. I do hope the places are contested, and there's some enthusiasm for taking on the role. Co-opting a new slate of councillors without any contest, given the history over recent times, would not be in the interests of the town, and there's obviously no lack of interest in local decision-making. So, let's hope there are volunteers ready and waiting to have themselves put forward and help the community.

Meanwhile, back in Parliament, I asked last week for a debate on the Presidency of the European Union Council. I think we ought to know what the British government thinks the post entails, and at least some reason for so vigorously supporting Tony Blair for the role despite the misgivings of many people in this country, let alone abroad.

The role of President only comes into being if and when the Lisbon Treaty is finally ratified, which looks as though it may be sooner rather than later now the Czechs have been brought onside. But there is a real difference of opinion as to what such a President will actually do. Some see it as merely a matter of presiding at meetings of the council of ministers, what has been described as a "chairmanic" role. Others, including the Foreign Secretary, say it should be someone who will "stop the traffic in Washington, Moscow or Beijing". I have to say that I am very much of the former view. We need a boring old chairman, not a traffic-stopper. We don't need a President with a capital P, because the EU is not a state.

But whatever the role, why would Tony Blair be the right man to do it? Some say having a British politician in a leading role is necessarily in the interests of the UK. I'm not sure that's true. Others say that he has name recognition in the USA and elsewhere. That's right, but I'm not sure it's a positive in large parts of the world where he is blamed as much as George Bush for the Iraq war and its consequences. And he has hardly been effective as a mediator in his capacity as peace envoy to the Middle East.

But the biggest problem for me is that, yet again, the British people have had absolutely no say in his candidature. It hasn't even been put to Parliament, and apart from grumbling, there is little we can do to either support or object to his nomination. A lot of people don't want Mr Blair as President of the EU council. I am one of them.