Have Your Say On Budget Consultation so they say

This is an outrageous fraud on the people. RCT is not a democratic council, far from it, they are very much a closed shop.

I will challenge any councillor, or council official from the CEO down, to any open forum debate covering the undemocratic slipshod manner in which our council is being run.

Democracy requires openness,(EXCLUDING MATTERS OF NATIONAL SECURITY), government of the people, by the people, on behalf of the people, not withstanding the fact that each individual has a right to directly take part in government under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In my experience in dealing with RCT they have little respect for the truth, nor the rights and well being of the citizen.

For too many years the people of the valleys, much to their folly have put trust in the Labour Party TO THEIR GREAT DISADVANTAGE, AS THE LABOUR PARTY SOLD OUT THE WELSH VALLEYS YEARS AGO.

UNFORTUNATELY THEY WILL MOST PROBABLY CONTINUE TO DO AS SADLY THERE IS NO CREDITABLE OPPOSITION.

Take for example the good and true, stout senior Labour party members/politicians, all with great conservative ideals and life styles.

Prime Minister, James Callaghan, Commons Speaker George Thomas, and I may as well throw in Lord Harlech.

All these have a great common interest, they were all founding directors of Sir Julian Hodge's Commercial Bank of Wales. Back scratching nepotism at its very best as Hodge, never anyone's fool, wanted the prestige of calling his bank the Bank of Wales, but the Bank of England objected!

However, you are known by whom you associate with and although Sir Julian was admired for his patriotism, and his charitable largesse, his relationship with the financial authorities in London was uneasy, just as it was with a lot of working folk in the valleys who took loans with his bank and many often felt that they had been screwed through what some claimed were extortionately high interest rates; consequently he was regularly pilloried in Private Eye as being "the Usurer of the Valleys."

But then directorships and the rewards can often make very strange bedfellows, even if one is labour Party Member, albeit with conservative ideals.

The most recent example of a good Labour Party member is Blair and his millions!

That's Labour Party politics at play, where people tend to make a lot of money from representing the people who always seem to be the worse off for voting them into a life of luxury way beyond the ordinary folk's wildest aspirations.

as far as rct being democratic it fails at every turn, e g you can only ask questions they can answer anything else is disalaud. how dare we question them they are the untochables
as a labour party member i am bemused at their atitude as i see them doing nothing for aberdare as i see it the M P not doing much either.how they sleep at night is worrying but their all the same. get lots of money,keep a closed shop and do not tell the people of aberdare anything, they now nothing,

They can sleep at night as they know that in general their conduct is unquestionably almost beyond reproach, together with the fact that they are rarely accountable.

One of the great slights to democracy is our MP. Does anyone seriously think that this MP would last 5 seconds in an open constituency where Labour did not have a strangle hold upon the electorate? I would seriously doubt it!

All one has to do is to look around our area to realise that what ever RTCBC is doing it certainly does not work well for the community.

We are at present building our castle upon sand and if we continue to give our council and councillors a free hand without question the day of reckoning will soon be upon us all.

As far as RCTBC goes--- exercise your constitutional rights to question all...and everything...that they do. And of course make them account for every penny that they spend!