Caught Napping

Value for money from our elected officials is a hot topic at the moment. We all want them to be dedicated professionals, devoted to serving the public need and preferably not flogging off their contacts list to the highest bidder.

One of the requirements we might justifiably demand is that when they attend important meetings, they pay attention. Not place space invaders on their smartphones.

Last week, The Westmorland Gazette had a splendid story and set of photographs showing a local councillor happily playing Solitaire on his iPhone … whilst attending a Cumbria County Council meeting to decide the county's budget for the next year.

I submitted a number of ideas for this story. You can see below the one which my steamed editor picked for the front page of the newspaper. But did he pick the right one* ? Vote in the comments below.

* No.

Sick as a parrot

Due to cutbacks and austerity measures from our Beloved Government, Cumbria County Council has been feeling the squeeze on its finances. It has recently proposed a way to gain extra income - on-street parking charges.

Specifically, on-street parking charges in Windermere, Bowness, Ambleside … the central Lakes honeypots famous for its tourist industry and therefore ripe for picking. 

Except they're not. Various interested parties have pointed out that on-street parking meters will deter visitors from stopping in those towns and villages. Visitors ill instead head straight for the nearest supermarket, such as Sainsbury's which is due to open in Ambleside. It has been pointed out that Cumbria County Council has few councillors actually from the central Lakes and therefore have little idea what impact this will have. Cumbria CC has countered by pointing out that they raised it for consultation by burying it as a one-line suggestion at number 97 in a general document sent round to households eighteen months ago.

With local meetings, campaign groups and letters to the press, this is an ideal subject for my Westmorland Gazette cartoon. Add in Cumbria County Council's further proposal to build itself a new £10 million HQ in Fiji Carlisle and it all starts to get fun.

Here are the cartoons submitted over the last two weeks. It includes some nonsense abut the World Cup (schoolkids build England Team scarecrows) but don't let those detain you. And a story about priests blessing loaves and fishes at Morecambe Bay for reasons which escape me.

To see which cartoons got into the newspaper, head over to my website.

click any cartoon to see a bigger image (although the handwriting remains a bit scrawly)

Term Time Blues

An education controversy from the Department of Education? Surely, such a thing is unheard of?

Apparently not. I was shocked to discover this week that all is not light and harmony within the education sector. The latest wheeze of education secretary Michael Gove is that children taken out of school to go on holiday, should be fined. Or rather, their parents should be fined.

No more cheap holidays for Cumbria parents. Now if they try and grab a term-time bargain break, they could be charged up to £120 by the County Council.

This is the lead story in today's super, soaraway Westmorland Gazette. And below you can see the four ideas I submitted to go on the front page.

But which did my steamed editor pick? Match your editorial wits against his, vote for your choice in the comments below and then take a break over on my website and see if you were right.

Recycled

As my regular reader will know, The Westmorland Gazette cartoon is always greatly interested in the doings of the local council. This is fair enough. As I pay them council tax, I feel it is only fair that they provide me with an income in return. It’s all part of the circulation of money which has helped make capitalism the astounding success we see today.

Recent council doings have included a couple of wheezes which have proved useful to a cartoonist. These include a plan to close down local waste recycling centres and a campaign to remove A-Boards from our pavements.

But locals have not been amused. A petition was compiled. People Had Their Say. The result being that the council has backtracked on both these schemes and they are either “in consultation” (i.e. Keep quiet about it until everyone forgets about them and we can pretend they never happened) or “we are actively looking for viable alternatives” (which translates as: Do nothing).

Elsewhere in this week’s newspaper, two lads in Grange-over-Sands have set up as ghost-hunters. Next week, I’m hiring a daily Mail investigative journalist to track down the fairies at the bottom of my garden.

Here are the ideas for the cartoon. A few of them recycled, in the spirit of the stories. To discover which made it onto the front page, visit my website from Thursday afternoon.