I am hoping for the Tories' time flies

Well this year, I am finally going to have to give in and admit that my elders have got it right when they tell me that the older you get then the faster each Christmas and New Year seems to come round.

Maybe it is Father Time’s revenge on that small child who once tried to wish away the last few days before Christmas so as to be able to get his hands on his presents.

Of course, I soon learned that I could not have those wished away days back to postpone the New Year’s return to school.

Nowadays, I would not dream of being so cavalier with time as every day is precious.

Nonetheless, I really do not seem to be able to put my finger on why 2011 just seems to have flashed by both personally and politically.

On the personal front my daughter will be 18 this month.

It really does seem like yesterday that we brought her back from Northampton hospital.

But even without the user manual that every baby still comes without, she seems to have turned out brilliantly!

Politically, the whole world needs to find that elusive economics user manual or learn to manage without one.

The level of political debate descending into the finger pointing of “you got us into this mess” with the returning riposte of “you have no idea how to get us out of it and are fast getting us into an even bigger mess” hardly helps either.

On the local front, at County Hall the Tory administration’s latest budget proposals are going to ruin Christmas for many of the county’s hard working staff with yet another round of redundancies.

Last week, one member of staff confessed to me that she had been put on notice of risk of redundancy every year since the Tories took over at County Hall in 2005.

She did not think this year would be any different.

Yet, this woman is excellent at her job which is vital to the council.

Of course, there is one vacancy at County Hall to be filled next year when the people of Towcester elect a new county councillor following the belated resignation of Rosemary Bromwich after she left the county to retire to Cornwall.

So, what kind of county council will the newly elected councillor find in the New Year?

Well, the new member will quickly recognise that the Tory administration at County Hall is getting both the big and the little things badly wrong.

For example on the big issues, the centre point of the 2005 and 2009 Tory county election campaigns was to contribute £500,000 towards Police Community Support Officers.

All the political parties agreed, so the Tories are not just breaking Tory election promises, they are breaking the community’s promise too.

But the Tories are getting the small things just as wrong.

Hands up anybody who thinks that it is right for the Tory county council’s parking staff to target a charity event like the Race for Life run at Abington Park back in June?

Well, they issued 12 tickets around the park on the day of the event and only managed one in total over the previous three Sundays.

Even in today’s conditions it is surely not beyond the conscience of the Tory Leader to have done the decent thing and organised a small donation to the charity to restore the good name of the leader and council.

So, I trust that Father Time will forgive me when I hope next year flashes by just as quickly as this year, so that we can all vote the Tories out of County Hall come 2013.

This week’s guest columnist is deputy leader of the Labour group at Northamptonshire County Council Cllr Mark Bullock