Fair's fair?

MY last post forecast a pretty quiet month ahead politically. How wrong could I be.

For a start we've had the Tories blocking Labour's call to make West Lancs a Fair Trade district, then we've had the Ormskirk Bypass row rumbling on, with petitions both for and against it started on the Downing Street website.

And to top it all is the story in this week's paper that our local councillors were paid nearly half a million in allowances.

It'll be interesting what people make of the latter. Personally, I think if you're going to attract new, young blood into the Council Chamber (something that's desperately lacking at the moment), then it's got to be paid for somehow. Whether there needs to be so many councillors is another matter...

The Fair Trade thing was also quite interesting because politicians of all shades have at one time or another indulged (even if they won't admit it) in what I call 'gesture politics', something which the Fair Trade idea comes under.

But unlike those who slavishly follow the herd on these things, council leader Geoff Roberts actually took the time to check the whole Fair Trade organisation out and reached his own conclusion.

Now personally, I would have liked to see WLDC become a Fair Trade district because, as a family, we do try to buy its items every so often, just as we always support our local, independent shops.

Nethertheless, like many people I'm glad that Cllr Roberts looked at the matter in a considered and forensic way and then decided to reject it. Much better he does that than just dismissing it purely as some political gimmick, which I'm sure it wasn't intended to be.

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