SomersetClive’s Agony Uncle is here to answer questions from our readers. This week a reader faces a moral dilemma.
Dear Horace,
My local Council recently had a cabinet reshuffle necessitated by a Councillor resigning and an opposition party candidate winning the seat.
This left a spare seat on a couple of committees and also a couple of positions which required a Council representative.
One of these was for someone to serve as a member of a local Community Centre Trust committee.
Numbers are very close between my party and the opposition party and, at the meeting in question, it was only because a member of our party was chair and had a casting vote that we were able to get our way.
So when a certain Councillor threw his hat in the ring to join the Community Centre Trust it became obvious that I was going to have to vote for him.
I don’t know if you know the history, but this particular Councillor has had to undertake special aversion therapy to try to curb his enthusiasm for women’s breasts. This took the form of having him strapped in a chair, showing him images of breasts and my delivering a short, sharp shock everytime he tried to make a smutty comment.
Whilst he has completed his training, I am still not comfortable having him as a member of our party and pushed for him to be removed. Unfortunately, although I had support for this from my boss, the other members of my party said he should remain as he’s learnt his lesson.
So you can imagine my consternation when I realised I was expected to vote for him for the position of Council Representative for this particular group. Especially given that his name is mud amongst shopkeepers and residents in this town, after he tried to take away car parking spaces.
It took a lot of effort to put my hand up in the air and although I did have the fingers on my other hand crossed, I still felt used and dirty once the deed was done and he had been voted in. I have had several hot showers since then, but continue to feel violated.
Will I ever be able to reconcile my feelings of disgust when I see this man. I feel such a hypocrite, knowing that I don’t want to even be in the same room as this man and yet have condemned the other ladies on the Community Centre Trust to that very fate?
I am still toying with the idea of defecting to the dark side. I think my skills would fit in perfectly, and the leader of the other party often makes overtures towards me, telling me that he loves the way I defend his favourite project.
Yours
IWantACoatMadeFromTheSkinsOfDalmations
Dear IWantACoatMadeFromTheSkinsOfDalmations
I am afraid that being a politician, even an insignificant politician, means that you sometimes have to do things you don’t want to.
Cabinet reshuffles are always difficult, often you just don’t have the right person for the job and have to give it to someone who is obviously incapable of doing it just to make up the numbers.
I feel you can probably capitalise on your position here. For example, suppose you wanted a massive injection of funding for that pet project you mentioned, you could easily tell the members of your party that they must support it, because if they don’t you will join the dark side, and this will give them the majority, put them in charge and push through your budget anyway.
You see? Play it to your advantage and to hell with the ladies on the Community Centre Trust. Their loss is your gain.
Love
Horace