Up Close and Personal
The monthly comment from CTM founder, Phillip Day

IN BRITAIN the time came and went to go to the polls for the local government elections. A lot didn't bother. Those who did yawned and did their civic duty without too much hope as to what it might accomplish. More recycling. The worrying noise from the quarry. Schools. It's democracy, after all, and we should vote. How lucky we are not to have the kind of mess seen Zimbabwe, North Korea, China and the People's Republic of the Borough of Camden.

Hang on, what did we vote for?

Daniel Hannan's When in Rome article in this month's EClub strikes the right chord with me on the voting problem - expectations versus realities, one lot as bad as another, my vote won't count, etc. A deeper problem, however, is almost never highlighted in 'democracies'. How the steadily burgeoning army of local government apparatchiks has effectively rendered council government a communist dictatorship. Like their national counterparts, a Tory, Labour, Lib-Dem or Green local councilor in the UK has two goals in common; they want to justify their existence, and strive for an increase in budget. This is accomplished, among many means, via new rules from Brussels on Human Rights, requiring more departments to examine whether we are disparaging gays, lesbians and Lithuanians. Yet as the costs for this social revolution soar, what we don't get are safer streets, less government intrusion, crime down, and the proper 'services' to which an adult, civilized society should feel itself entitled - a real health system being one of them.

At the end of your tether? Peter Hitchens' advice was to place an extra box at the bottom of the ballot paper, add the words 'None of the Above', then tick it. 'Don't vote for clowns' being the point, vote for a person or system who embodies the values you espouse. If that's Tony Blair, David Cameron and whoever's running the Lib Dems these days, you did your duty. For the rest? A revolution anyone?

PYLONS KILL - sort of semi-official in view of the massive litigation, reconstruction and compensation bills likely to succeed a bare-faced declaration (£7 billion might be the bill in the UK alone). Unfortunately no such unequivocal statement will likely be forthcoming. The timing's bad. Radiation kills sends the wrong message to the cancer folk. The hope is, like GM, the opposition will fade and just go away.

For those of you to whom the problem of a daily fry-up is a depressing reality, you have three choices. If you live close to power lines, mobile phone masts or other intrusive, round-the-clock EMF emissions, you can start a campaign, move, or play the odds and hope you'll be OK. Whichever you choose, above all, be informed and strident. My village successfully fought off three attempts by the telecoms industry to place mobile phone masts around the place. Trust me, sometimes you have to get worked up and quite onery, no-one's listening anymore. 'Not my problem! Not my problem!' the local councillors shrill. Make it their problem.

THE SIMPLE CHANGES UK/IRELAND TOUR kicks off this week - the 100 things you can start doing today for a happier, healthier life! The Australasian tour commences the beginning of October 2006, so steel yourselves for a royal tune-up. With each ticket comes a free copy of my audio CD, There Must Be an Easier Way. Buy ten tickets, get ten CD's - how's that for spreading the word? Here is the UK and Ireland schedule. Ticket sales for Australia and New Zealand will commence from the start of July - we'll mail you the details as usual.

That's it, have a great May.

And look on the bright side. You've probably had a better week than John Prescott.

Phillip