Iconic buildings: who pays?

The Public

I’ve started with a picture of an ‘iconic building’ today. Just down West Bromwich High Street, is another iconic building; the old town hall. That’s a Grade II listed building, but its not good enough for the councillors, they had to have a new civic centre with crystal chandeliers, miles away in Oldbury .

Who pays?

Who paid for the Public in West Bromwich? Who paid for their new Civic centre? Who paid for the iconic town hall in Victorian times? West Bromwich is a deprived area, there is poverty. There was poverty and workhouses in Victorian times. We couldn’t afford iconic building then and we can’t bloody afford them now.

Pigeons

Because we have poverty and a system based on elitism, greed and envy; we also have mental illness. One local charity formed a partnership with West Bromwich Albion this week. The charity probably does a good job. You sometimes see people with mental health problems doing strange things, like feeding the pigeons. The pigeons in turn mess up those iconic buildings. The councillors, who like iconic buildings in Sandwell are introducing a fine for feeding the pigeons. People feeding pigeons will be classed the same as fly tippers and prosecuted and fined £75. These are your local caring and sharing Labour Councillors in action.

Education

Can councillors be trusted with education? Not according to the government who have championed ‘free’ schools. Now a row has broken out because a report has shown they have unqualified teachers and are more concerned with religious and political ideology than education. Involved in this row is Michael Gove as Education secretary, Nick Clegg trying to inject some common sense and for Labour, Dr Tristram Hunt, shadow education secretary. This quote s from Dr Hunt’s webpage: “I am an intellectual and cultural historian, with a particular focus on the urban past.  My initial work looked at the ideological development of Victorian civic pride – and its aesthetic and architectural representation.” That would be iconic buildings then…

That’s what we could do!

It’s alright for me to be critical, but I should express an opinion. Right? How about we have regulations requiring all schools to teach to national standards and send in the inspectors when the kids do really crap in exams. No free schools, no academies with chief executive officers, no friggin’ space age iconic buildings; just plain old high schools with well trained teachers. No parental choice, no 50 mile school run, no traffic jams at 3.15 every afternoon and while we’re at it, teach the bloody kids to cross the road safely so we don’t need more traffic calming measures. That’s what we could do!

Global warming

Many politicians don’t believe in global warming. They believe in invisible Gods and have their churches, mosques and synagogues, but they don’t believe in something that scientists now have a lot of evidence for. They will sing God save the Queen, carols at Christmas and some will face Mecca to pray, but global warming is an inconvenient scientific fantasy. They trust science when they want to make a call on their smart phone or watch EastEnders on their 40 inch television, but the scientists have it wrong if it stops them having a holiday in Goa. Maybe if we stopped wasting energy putting up iconic buildings and driving the kids to the best free school twice a day, it wouldn’t be such a problem.

Population control

I think we could consider population control too. Encourage people to have fewer children.  We could also ask people nicely to stop feeding the bloody pigeons, because they crap everywhere.  If people just had 2 children, then the population would go down. I know some dopey councillor will ask who will do the work to keep him in his old age. We have machines to do most of the work and we will have even better ones in the future. Hopefully councillors will be replaced by robots who aren’t so impressed by iconic buildings and don’t claim expenses.

That’s enough for today. What do you think? Do you like this elitist attitude that all politicians appear to have? Do we need a bit more humility in politics. A little more listening rather than, do this or get fined 75 quid? Poor people built the pyramids for their masters, nothing changes…  Please comment and share your views. You can also follow me on Twitter for updates.

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