Dear Philippa,

 

I’m limbering up for what for me is what invading Poland was for Hitler – I’m planning to stand in the May local elections for Ryedale District Council. I shall be standing as an independent. As my daughter ungenerously observed, “being unburdened by principles or policies, you are the ideal candidate”. We shall see.

 

My initial preparation involved having a cursory medical, which revealed a blood pressure reading that encouraged me to press ahead – 83/141. It used to be said that your “big number” should be no more than 100+age, which in my case would be 166, but my actual reading shows that I have the BP of a man 25 years my junior; of course, the restless medics have abandoned this neat rule of thumb, saying now that I shouldn’t exceed 150. I’m sticking with the old system.

 

The task now facing me is to compose what is grandly referred to as my manifesto – in reality a list of obvious targets. A more shallow, self-serving man would be tempted to promote policies from which he himself would benefit – free bets on the Grand National for OAPs, a bottle of sherry a week for people with hearing-aids, that kind of thing. But I see a bigger picture: fears for our local hospital despite reassurances from slippery officials, patchy provision of flood defences, often bizarre planning decisions inadequately explained. If elected, I am looking forward to finding out more about the Council’s obsession with obesity, which is very strange. Certainly there is a problem, but even if the Council were to abandon all its services and divert its efforts to its solution, nothing would change; it is a complicated and difficult issue with multi-factorial causes, and one which local government is, perhaps more than any agency, incompetent to address.Were it no so, there would be fewer chubby employees in town halls.

 

I have been given extensive tuition on what to expect from politicians: passive-aggressive behaviour, character assassination, delusional beliefs, halitosis etc. Pretty much what you find in business in other words. What I hope to find is altruism, saintliness and high standards of personal hygiene. I shall keep you posted. Eight weeks to polling day.

 

Best wishes

 

Howard