Like hundreds of other councils Wandsworth pays an annual subscription to the Local Government Association (LGA). The LGA, according to their website “is a voluntary lobbying organisation, acting as the voice of the local government sector, and an authoritative and effective advocate on its behalf” and “promotes the interests of English and Welsh local authorities”. In fact, with 424 members, most of the country’s local government is a member.

Today they released their annual list of banned words that councils shouldn’t use. It’s an annual event – last year I found myself sticking up for coterminosity – but one they seemingly never learn from since once again the media, from the BBC to the Daily Mail, have leapt on it for a bit of council bashing.

But are these words really used by councils or councillors?

Last year the late, and missed, Jack Pickard did a bit of research to show that, actually, councils weren’t guilty of over-using jargon and, in fact, the LGA were often the guilty people.

Just looking at their list and using Google.co.uk as an indicator:

• Trialogue Not a single council returned in the first five pages of results.
• Wellderly Not a single council returned in the first five pages of results. (Although Harriet Harman features heavily.)
• Goldfish bowl facilitated conversation Two councils in the first five pages of results, but only because they were carried a feed, featuring the phrase, from the BBC website.
• Tonality Not a single council returned in the first five pages of results.
• Webinar Not a single council returned in the first five pages of results.
• Under-capacitated Not a single council returned in the first five pages of results.
• Clienting Not a single council returned in the first five pages of results.
• Disbenefits One council, Surrey, appears in the first five pages of results.

I’m not suggesting that none of these words and phrases have ever been used by any council. But if these new words were being bandied around by Town Halls they’d manifest in Google through one of their websites, press releases or leaflets, but only one council turned up in the 400 results.

It’s hard to decide where to begin with this. For a start, there seems to be be some sort of inverse snobbery with some of these (like coterminosity, I think disbenefit is a perfectly good word). Plain language is all well and good, but when it over-reaches and starts to strip out perfectly valid English I can’t help but be reminded of Orwell’s Newspeak. And that’s doubleplusungood.

And while I can’t remember hearing any of these phrases in councils, it is perfectly valid for jargon to be used internally, it’s how professionals communicate with other professionals (would you expect a surgeon to talk in theatre in plain English?) and as these don’t appear to be creeping into the outside world that’s not a problem.

But because the Local Government Association have published the list, everyone assumes that it’s a local government issue. So despite the LGA’s qualifier that it’s a problem across the public sector the papers that have picked up the story have gone with the council angle. The Daily Mail says: “Welcome to the world of local government gobbledegook” and even CNN have got in on the act telling readers “councils ordered to quit jargon.”

And that’s what gets me most of all. An organisation that is meant to stand up for councils, and is paid by hundreds of them to do just that, once a year persists in giving a stick to the media with which to beat councils.

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They are always odd meetings. You would expect them to be something of a set-piece occasion, it is, after all, the council’s budget. But we don’t have red boxes, or quaint traditions that the relevant councillor is allowed, on this one occasion, a sip of whiskey in the chamber. Instead we have a fairly dry affair in which the Conservatives lay out their proposals and Labour try and argue against them; try and fail.

It must be hard, you’ve got a good council, well rated independently, with incredibly high resident satisfaction and the lowest council tax in the country. What, exactly, do you go for?

To give the Labour party their due, they did try. Their argument was for exactly the same council tax, but with three key differences.

1. Pay people more,
2. Except high earners who should be paid less (they implied senior council officers were “socially useless” which suggests they’ve already given up hopes of winning the council and working with them in May), and
3. Lord Ashcroft.

It was a truly bizarre argument. Essentially socialist on pay with attempts at political point-scoring as if Ashcroft were also funding the council. (And missing the point that they have their own non-dom funder in Lord Paul, not to mention the numerous peerages they sold to taxpayers.) Indeed, I wonder why I am even airing their arguments here, since not a single member of the public or press was in attendence for the meeting.

But aside from their bluster the business of the council went through. And council tax stays the same for the third year running. Wandsworth is an incredibly well-run and managed authority, and credit it due to all the people involved, from top to bottom.

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I’ve spent a fair chunk of today at an inward investment event for Putney Town Centre. Although Nine Elms and Tooting have been getting a fair degree of attention recently, the council has continued to promote the rest of the borough as a destination to businesses, retailers and investors. Today’s event was aimed at attracting people to invest in Putney, highlighting both the opportunities for retailers and the consequent advantages for those seeking to establish offices in the area.

It is, of course, coming to the time in the cycle when a lot of the borough is talked down for political advantage. I recall Stuart King’s rather negative campaign as Labour leader four years ago that was little more than a litany of complaints and criticisms that – in fact – most people didn’t relate to (and may have contributed to him losing his own seat; if things were so bad, why hadn’t he done anything in his eight years as a councillor).

In fact there’s a lot to be positive about in Wandsworth and Putney. The high street has weathered the recession remarkably well and managed to attract new investment during it. And today, the area was still enough of a draw to attract 70 or 80 people from developers, retailers and businesses who might be the ones investing in SW15 in coming years.

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And now that my 2010 one has finally appeared on a leaflet I thought I’d dig out the photos from previous elections. I could only find three – from 2002, 2006 and, of course, 2010. To be honest, while I know I have the 1998 photo somewhere I also know I have a real Tory boy look and, therefore, not much incentive to find it to republish it to the world. I’m fairly confident no-one has actually kept a 1998 leaflet and that’s definitely for the best.

Tory boy-ed up for the 2001 election

However, to give you an idea of how I would have looked in 1998 when first elected here’s a photo of me taken during my incredibly close battle for the Great Grimsby seat in 2001. If that’s not Tory boy I don’t know what is.

And this set me thinking. What if I were to assign a Tory boy rating to myself over time, how would that graph look? Would there be any interesting or telling patterns revealed?

So that’s exactly what I did. Clearly Tory boyism is a subjective measure. But I’ve tried to assess it objectively, using measures like parting and hair neatness, fondness for ties and level of political ambition.

And I was astounded – my Tory boy rating seems to be inversely related to the Conservatives Party’s electoral fortunes and poll ratings. Now I know some may be eager to point out that correlation and causation are totally different things. But I have to ask, can I take the risk? Should this graph be what guides my next haircut? And should I be scheduling it for 6 May?

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If you have any information on any of these crimes you can get in touch with the local police on 020 7350 1122 or via Crimestoppers (anonymously, if you wish) on 0800 555 111.

You can click on the individual markers for more information.

1. Yellow flags represent burglaries and red flags represent street crime.
2. The briefing only contains details of burglaries and robberies. Other crimes are not included.
3. You can see more detail by following the link to the Google website.
4. The flags are not placed precisely (it would be irresponsible to advertise victims of burglary) but instead are spaced roughly equally on the roads they took place. The idea is to give a visual representation of the spread and range of crime in Wandsworth, rather than pinpointing crime locations.
5. While I try to ensure the data is accurate it is reliant on the information I receive, and I’m only human, so it may be mistakes have crept in. Please let me know if you think you’ve spotted one.

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One of the odd things about confidence in policing and fear of crime is that the biggest driver is not changing policing methods or tackling specific problems but communication and engagement. Even if everything else remained unchanged the levels of those two activities would affect public confidence.

You can sign up for the newsletter on the GLA website.

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I wish him luck, but do have to question his commitment to the constituency and his campaign if he’s not even here for a good chunk of it.

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So it’s been arranged, with a little help from Jack Bremer and Tim Bush.

7pm onwards on Thursday 8 April at The Merchant on Battersea Rise.

It will be a fairly relaxed affair, just turn up, have a drink and meet other people from SW11 (and elsewhere). If you want to come along RSVP at the twtvite.

And a promise – I am not going to say a single political word at it!

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The scheme runs twice a year for year five children and exposes them to controlled risk, teaching them about potential danger and how they can be safe in a variety of situations. Yesterday I was observing (along with a representative from the Department of Children who was keen to see what we do) children from two Putney Schools – Brandlehow and Our Lady Queen of Heaven – being put through their paces by the council staff, police, fire service, paramedics and volunteers.

One of the amazing things is how much potentially life saving information is absorbed when the day is combined with the work done in schools – during the simulated fire (complete with smoke) Brandlehow pupils knew exactly what to do before the firefighters even told them!

It one of those schemes of which I am very proud, since it makes a real difference and I have no doubt has probably saved a few lives in the 20 years it has been running.

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