‘No matter how short you may be, you are always tall enough to reach the ground.’

Yesterday i voted, I did this despite the fact I was voting for two things I fundamentally disagree with.

The first of these was for the local Police and Crime commissioner. A bureaucratic position created by the government so they could pass the blame on issues that look bad to them politically, ergo general policing and crime issues, back in 2012. In the 12 years since the various Police and crime commissioners around the UK have successfully achieved their mandate. Which is to say, done nothing, but taken the blame away from central government. What they have not done is in any way lower crime figures or improved the life of UK citizens.

The second post I was asked to vote on was for Tees-valley Mayor. Regional Mayors are a great boon, in that they give the government another layer of bureaucracy to blame. So successful have these regional mayors been that the number of regions with mayors has been expanded this election cycle… My local regional mayor has ‘allegedly’ committed several acts of fraud and ripped off the local tax payers to the tune of half a billion, having sold 500 million’s worth of land for threepence to a couple of his mates (guess which party he stood for).

These two bureaucratic positions, both 100k+ salaried positions at that, which are a layer of local governance we never needed that only costs us money and achieves very little aside fire-walling the UK governments from local issues. They did not exist until very recently and they have not made anyone’s life better, I doubt they ever will because salaried bureaucratic positions become about getting reelected to that same position, rather than achieving anything meaningful very quickly.

Dispute knowing all this, I voted yesterday. More in hope than expectation…

In any regard, here is a sloth hugging a tree