They say ‘It’s never dull in Hull’. Whoever ‘they’ are, clearly haven’t yet clocked the dreadful weather that this east coast city is routinely prone to (yes, the Humber Estuary is part of the English Coast, so Kingston upon Hull is actually firmly on the English coast, albeit with no beaches but lots of lovely chocolate brown mud). So far this year, it has been nothing but ‘dull in Hull’.
Now we Northerners like to take our simple pleasures where we can get them, and ideally completely free of charge. One source of unbridled pleasure is to be found in the routine email circulation of ‘The People’s Panel – Making Your Voice Count‘.
It gladdens the heart to be given the decidedly retro pleasure of participation in something named as though it comes straight from the 1950s Soviet sphere of influence! These fun questionnaires always start with a section on how the recipient is feeling, with a slider to let Hull City Council (HCC) know. Now if every recipient who completes the questionnaire unanimously indicated that they were down in the dumps and suicidal, what exactly would HCC do? The mind simply boggles.
Each People’s Panel broadly has a theme (of sorts), routinely with a ‘tick up to four boxes with your top priorities’. N.b. the priorities are of course all those things HCC thinks its citizens need, I purposefully say need rather than want. This is then repeated with the recipient asked to direct HCC’s priorities for action (based on the priorities HCC has anyway decided are the only ones worth pursuing).
Today’s Peoples’ Panel has a section on – yes, you guessed it – ‘Ambition 5, An Environmentally Friendly City’. Nothing wrong with that, except the entire section is based firmly on HCC’s belief that there is a ‘climate emergency‘ caused by carbon, and that unlike God (different varieties are available), The United Nations, every international organisation and every national government – Hull City Council can, and must, DO SOMETHING! And by implication, this something will have a significant effect. Sadly, these others also share HCC’s delusions, but strangely God doesn’t appear to.
I’m sure TNC readers will be agog to know what HCC is inviting its citizens to set as its priorities for this far-reaching and rather ambitious programme to take. The introductory blurb sets the scene beautifully [my reflections in brackets]:
“Our ambition is for Hull to be an environmentally friendly city at the forefront of the climate change agenda [even if the climate change agenda is the biggest con since Tulip mania or the South Sea Bubble]. By stopping the pollution causing climate change [does pollution really cause climate change? What ‘climate emergency’ did the Industrial Revolution cause actually in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?] and protecting and increasing the space for nature [how exactly? Perhaps by demolishing the city?], the city [surely, former city?] will be a place that is easy to travel around [well without any buildings it might be quicker and easier to get from A to B, always assuming that there would be any need to then] and where homes are energy efficient [it will probably be easier to demolish homes that HCC decide aren’t energy efficient or whose owners aren’t willing to comply] and neighbourhoods are greener [green is after all nature’s default colour, assuming the clearance of the city is done properly by Hull City Council’s chosen contractor, presumably one chosen for only employing the right kind of people and only wielding environmentally friendly toffee hammers]. Hull City Council will provide leadership in the city’s climate change goals [goals that Hull City Council has set all by itself by the way], making sure that protecting preserving the environment [with most energy inefficient homes demolished and resultant less Council Tax receipts that may be a tall order?] and reducing emissions are embedded throughout our organisation [emissions of what? For example, if it’s bogeyman CO2 does Hull City Council itself produce most of this citywide, as opposed to Guildhall produced hot air? Why does Hull City Council believe in ‘Thermostat Theory’ anyway? We really ought to be told], and the decisions we take [surely the decisions taken ought to be those of the payers?].”
Well, all I can say is ‘whoop-de-do’! Actually it isn’t, because I made a comment in the ‘Anything Else’ box, it rhymed with ‘rowlocks’ and sadly, for HCC, cast doubt upon their ability to stem a ‘climate emergency’ even if one existed.
What I want to know is this, if Council Tax payer money is going to be used to protect us in this way, when is the People’s Panel going to get around to having a section on the very real threat of alien invasion from outer space, and what should HCC’s priorities be for dealing with it?
Martin Rispin has had a career in many different sectors, most lately in the fields of English Tourism and Heritage based Urban Regeneration. He now lives, retired, in Kingston upon Hull.
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‘It’s never dull in Hull’
Back in the mid 70’s serving aboard HMS Jura with the Fishery Protection Squadron from the Humber to the Shetland Isles it always raised a cheer amongst the crew when it was announced that we would have a few days tied up at Hull. This was mainly due to the fact that there were some good pubs and clubs (Bailey’s) in Hull town centre and the general consensus of opinion was that there ‘must be something in the water’ as it all the local ladies were ready and willing for what the Jocks term a spot of ‘Hochmagandie’ Happy days! o|—)
Surely you didn’t bypass the infamous Earl De Grey (with parrot, later murdered during a break in) and the Waterhouse Lane ‘Ladies’?