During her deputy leadership campaign, Hazel Blears gave a fascinating speech to the New Local Government Network, entitled ‘After devolution’.
It was interesting in itself but, of course, it can now be read as an unprompted blueprint of her ministerial thinking.
The speech offered ‘not just a defence, but a celebration of politics’. Party politics, and especially local politics, are laudable activities, essential to the functioning of democracy. Yet they were constantly undermined by a cynical media and even single-issue campaigns, cultivating ‘a sense that politicians are all on the make, not serving their communities’.
There followed several proposals, some of which Ms Blears is now in a position to progress – citizenship education, more powers for local government, reviewing the restrictions on council employees’ political activity, and targeted state funding for parties.
I was struck most, though, by the minister’s memorable eulogy to local politicians – ‘unsung heroes’, yet who ‘are increasingly viewed as a quirky anachronism, rather like morris dancers’.
Councillors and morris dancers – I’d never previously seen the parallels. Yet what does being a party councillor involve? It’s surely ‘a means of personal expression through organised and practiced group movements, which make limited, but not insignificant, technical demands on the participants?’ Or is that morris dancing?
‘People who know nothing about it choose to ridicule it. If they’d just try it, they’d find out how enjoyable it is – especially people who like real ale.’ OK, that’s definitely morris dancing.
There’s also a comparability in both the numbers and ages of participants. At present, the 19,500 members of England’s principal councils almost certainly outnumber the nation’s morris folk, estimated at 14,000. But consider the directions of travel.
We’ve already lost almost 2,500 English councillors since 1973, and, if the nine approved unitaries materialise, another 1,300 or so of Ms Blears’ unsung heroes will presumably follow them. The average age of those remaining is now above 58.
Morris dancing is somewhat more physical than most aspects of councilling, and in that world, too, the average age is at least a decade older than most would like. However, the profile of morris dancing is probably higher today than for years, and they also have a recruiting weapon local government would kill for – Fluffy Morris. Fluffy Morris flourishes, as it happens, on the secretary of state’s proverbial constituency doorstep, in the North West. Here, it is anything but anachronistic, being taught in many schools and practised particularly – in contravention of the morris’ long traditions – by girls and women. Active troupes have up to six teams or ‘sides’ – Tiny Tots, Babies, Dinkies, Tinies, Juniors and Seniors – who travel around the region and compete against each other.
We get excited at reducing candidacy age to 18. In Fluffy Morris you’re a fourth year Senior by then. If the Fluffies stick with it, it can only be a matter of time – 2012 perhaps? – before morris folk outnumber councillors – a prospect to which we shall return. First, though, an uneasy thought. We tend to see morris dancing as a rustic, bucolic pursuit, rooted in villages where, if anywhere, localism rules. But no – its traditions and organisation are essentially regional.
There is the Cotswold tradition – the most familiar – with white-britched dancers, much stick-brandishing and handkerchief-waving. Border Morris, from the English-Welsh border, is more vigorous – or, to its critics, degenerate... rag coats, more sticks, less hanky-waving, and questionable blackening of faces, justified by its reference back to when begging was illegal and dancers blacked up to prevent identification. North West Morris is all clogs, highly-colourful costumes, more intricate ‘mazy’ dances, and, even in the past, more women. East Anglian molly dancing is altogether rougher – everyday clothing with a few ribbons, hobnailed boots, and men dressed as women.
It couldn’t be, surely, that the minister’s morris dancing analogy was actually a cleverly disguised puff for English regional identities, an0 for Brownite regional governance at the expense of the elected local politicians she seemed to be celebrating? No. Banish the thought. However, I do wonder if it’s shortened the odds against Lib Dem Peer Lord Redesdale’s campaign to have morris dancing at the centre of the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. n
Chris Game is a professor at the Institute of Local Government Studies (INLOGOV), University of Birmingham
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