Online access is now Free. If you have an existing subscription click here for more information
Jobsworth: Triumph of the willing
Published 19 October 2023
Keeping hope alive despite current austerity
Just like suits and shoes if you wait long enough in housing eventually you come back into fashion. I’ll freely admit that Kerrydale District Council has been somewhat of a sartorial backwater over the past 10, 20, maybe even 30 years but now the worm has turned.
We’re not counting our chickens but let’s just say that things are looking good for the second wave of funding from the local authority new build programme in the autumn. The bid written by yours truly seems to have been just the ticket and I reckon that for perhaps the first time since the 1970s we are back where we belong.
Over the years we’ve had to drink deep from the bitter cup of disappointment. Three different attempts to do a stock transfer scuppered by interfering tenants, the PFI bid that was – literally – laughed out of the regional office, the ALMO that never made it off the drawing board. Now, finally, our complete and utter failure to move with the times has paid off!
Except that in these new times of austerity there seems absolutely no chance of that shiny new car. Holidays for la famille Baggott will be more caravans than cottages and more Bognor than Barbados and it seems like the not so trusty Mondeo will have to keep running for a few years yet.
‘Is that any way to treat dedicated public servants,’ I thundered as I read yet another politician advocating yet another public sector pay freeze in the Telegraph yesterday morning. Mrs B just smiled and nodded in a way that could have meant ‘yes, dear’ but was more likely saying ‘you? dedicated?’.
Two thoughts consoled me as I got to work this morning. One, at least I’ll be long gone and retired by the time all the young whippersnappers find they have to work till they’re 75. Two, at least I’ll have the chance to end my career with a triumph. Who knows, maybe big lapels and kipper ties really are on the way back!
Neil Baggott, FHTPS
