Vandals, and other words pertaining to Fife Council

Published Dunfermline Press: 28/01/11

Sometimes I wonder if the Council puts any thought into what they’re cutting. Do they take us seriously? Really? I mean if they considered it fairly, would they have cut the hugely popular and successful music tuition programme down to the bare minimum? Even in the face of a huge public backlash and a musical protest, a number of councillors took advantage of the free concert before returning to their desks and doing precisely nothing about it. Did they listen? No.

Did they take the hint that young people’s educations shouldn’t be taken so lightly? No. Fife Council have announced that they propose to close the Ardroy Outdoor Education Centre too, an absolute gem of an establishment which does great work in giving young people experience of the great outdoors and of the importance of conservation. It means so much to the people who visit it – for some deprived youngsters, it’s their first proper experience of the real outdoors.

Teachers, pupils and parents have been contacting the Council, not only asking them to reconsider their decision but also offering two generations of testimonies to the Ardroy experience.  Some questioned how the council could afford £6.8million on a new museum for Dunfermline, when Ardroy costs the council just £250,000 per year. The Council replied that the outdoor curriculum was voluntary for schools and “a good number of Fife Schools already go elsewhere” – yes because, according to the Save Ardroy campaign website, the centre is booked “virtually every academic week through to June 2013” They then suggest that the Council would be free to invest in outdoor education at Lochore Meadows, on the edge of Lochgelly. Hold on a second - the great outdoors doesn’t have a toilet and a visitor centre to have your packed lunch in - where’s the real outdoor experience when you go home at the end of the day?

Nothing was said about where the £6.8million that is being contributed by the council to Dunfermline’s new museum is coming from. Nothing.

It gets worse too, this email was generic. The councillor who wrote this did not address all the points raised by the objectors and instead showed what he thought of the objectors by simply copying and pasting the same text time and time again. Do they take us seriously? Really?

Young people’s services are just too valuable to be cut like this. Outdoor education gives young people a chance to learn about ecology and conservation. Youth clubs give something to do for young people in some of our most deprived areas. The Scottish Youth Parliament gives Fife’s young people representation in politics and a real chance to make their views heard. With musical education is already on its way out, just how much is going to go and what are we going to be left with?

It seems to me that the Council just doesn’t understand, their generic reply email referred to the objectors’ “emotional attachment” – perhaps, but what this is really all about is making sure young people learn about living away from home, the environment, conservation, team-building, caring for each other. This is not just some emotional attachment; this is about twenty people’s livelihoods and the experiences of thousands of school children who all learnt valuable life lessons that couldn’t be replicated at school, or even at Lochore.  Living and learning together is an invaluable experience that no child should go without.

Overly Opinionated

Published 12/01/11 - Dunfermline Press

A few things around Christmas have got me thinking about society, the media and our wonderful ability to have an opinion on anything – regardless of how little information we have about it. For example, Frankie Boyle took a slating when he used racist terms in his show. Obviously that sort of language isn’t acceptable at all, and plenty of people complained about he was racist towards certain groups. He wasn’t, if you’d seen the show (and I bet a fair few of those complaining hadn’t), you’d know that he was in the middle of a routine about how little the media (and to a much lesser extent, society) seems to care about the innocent civilians caught up in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. I believe that term was used to emphasise the fact that we don’t care about them as much.

This leads on to my second point, the Joanna Yeates case. Joanna’s landlord, Chris Jefferies, was released on Police bail on Sunday after being arrested on suspicion of her murder. Within hours the media was drawing attention to his scraggy hair, unusual dress sense and the fact he lived alone, demonising him to the public, portraying him as a potentially evil man. Have they not heard of Innocent until Proven guilty? They have no evidence - yet they can’t wait to imply he’s guilty, it’s shocking. Let’s wait and see if Mr Jefferies is arrested again, then let’s wait until after the jury has made up their minds. Then, and only then, we can properly make up our own minds. We seem to love making kneejerk reactions, it seems that everyone has to have an opinion even if they know very little – a look at few forums for national newspapers proves this, “I never watch [Boyle’s] shows, he’s disgusting”

Then again, people will soon have to make up their minds on who to vote for in the Holyrood elections in May. I think we’ve given the Government long enough now to have a fair shot at governing and we do have evidence to back up our judgements. The Lib Dems promised to vote against raising tuition fees – of the 57 present for the vote, just 21 voted against the rise. David Cameron said he would protect SureStart nurseries, yet it was reported this week that an English Council was planning to slash the scheme by 60% and that many more councils were likely to follow.

And now on an altogether different tangent, since it’s a new year I’ve been thinking about new year’s resolutions for some of the big names in politics at the moment.

Nick Clegg – Put some money away for your children’s university education...

Vince Cable - Stick to the dancing, since your policies are much like your dance moves: 1, 2, 3 – about turn! Oh, and stop declaring war on people.

David Cameron – Make the ‘Big Society’ work by doing something unpaid, being Prime Minister for instance, you have a rather large income as it is...

Lindsay Roy – Keep up the good work! Inside sources at the Labour party said they wanted a “Lindsay Roy – type character” to fight the Oldham East by-election.