Tax might not be taxing, but it’s bleedin’ tedious
Posted on Jan 15 2007 | Tagged as: Politics, While I should be working, Work
Question: How does being able to memorise the values of council tax bands for Wales make me a better journalist?
Presumably there is an answer, or we wouldn’t have to study it, but I can’t fathom what it might be.
I’m currently revising my for Public Administration Part 1 - Local Government exam, the joys of which I shall be experiencing this afternoon. The course is far more targetted towards the newspaper and broadcast options than it is to us magazine students, since they will in al probability be starting their careers in local media, and local government will be a frequent source of stories. There are, by contrast, precious few local news magazines.
The really frustrating thing is that anyone remotely engaged with the world - which I’d like to think I am - should know much of this stuff already. The new models of leadership following the Local Government Act 2000, for example - which is how Hartlepool wound up with a monkey for a mayor, and Middlesbrough with an ex-cop of questionable honesty. Or the media and public’s right of access to meetings, or the methods by which central government controls local government.
Having studied the latter it might prove useful in an entirely different way.
My parents’ local authority is threatening to fine people for not recycling (because they’ll get a bollocking for failing to fulfill some EU quota or other). I don’t think they have the authority to do so. So I might make some trouble.
1 Comment »
on 15 Jan 2007 at 9:44 pm 1 Gary said …
Oddly, I remember sitting through numerous Public Admin lectures wondering when the hell I was ever going to use this shite. Oddly I use it at least once a week, usually more oftenand found it to be useful in ways I would have never imagined possible.
I hardly ever use Central Government stuff and you’ve still got that to come. It’s evil.