Treat yourself to the Kendal Traffic Tango

8:41am Friday 11th January 2008

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PERSUADING people to get out and vote at local elections is a perennial problem, but while watching television the other day it occurred to me that there is ready-made alternative - Strictly Come Councilling.

Television's Strictly Come Dancing pulled in millions of votes and I am sure the formula could be adapted to both make selecting our own council hopefuls more interesting than putting a cross on a ballot paper and, at the same time, raking in large amounts of cash from the phone calls to offset Council Tax charges.

Hopeful candidates would be paired up with professionals in various council departments and given a week to learn a routine essential to the job.

Their efforts would then be assessed by a celebrity panel of four sitting councillors. One a total know-it-all, another an easily impressed woman, third an avuncular veteran and the fourth an excitable idiot. I will not put names to them but, like me, I am sure readers will have their own ideas of likely candidates.

Imagine some of the assessments.

"We really enjoyed your interpretation of the Pest Control Trot - the new category which replaces the now banned foxtrot. Your staccato tap dancing when you flattened five mice was impressive but your twisting, arm-flailing routine when you accidentally kicked open a wasp nest was perhaps excessive."

"Old time seems to be your forte. We liked the way you led on the prospective developer so confidently in the Barn Conversion Dance and the exquisite reverse at the end when you explained that it would not be permitted as it was within the Lake District National Park was breathtaking."

"Undoubtedly the Gestapo-like costume helped establish an atmosphere of menace, but your haughty arrogance as you slapped the ticket on the car window in the Parking Attendant Paso Double was convincing."

"Everyone thinks that the Debate Waltz is easy, involving just three steps, but your version was superb, you swept your opponents along in an ever-decreasing circle of twisted logic until their arguments finally disappeared to who knows where."

"This dance used to be exclusive to Latin America and more specifically to the centres of some of the major cities there, but you have bought it here and made it your own - the Kendal Traffic Tango."

"In the Refuse Collection Rumba we expected the bins to resound like the beat of steel drums, even if they are made of plastic, and you did well in creating a suitable din, but the lift was dreadful.

"Although you effortlessly spun the bin above shoulder height you then emptied it in the heart of the dustcart, completely ruining the expected spilling of half of it on the footpath to show you had passed that way. "

"Your quickstep was completely up to professional council standards. Whatever accusations about inefficiency were thrown you skipped aside so lightly on your feet that blame never touched you and the reverse turns where you neatly deflected particularly damming arguments to the door of the opposition party were worthy of a chairmanship at the very least."