Your Hometown

You surf the local pages, perusing St Perpetua’s website. All very bland. Offensively non-offensive. Talking up the school’s achievements. No signs of controversy or scandal.

Then on to the local council. Again nothing interesting. You notice Mrs Oversight’s husband is on the town council, an array of old men and old women. Looks like he’s been a councillor for decades. An independent councillor. You’d say that was unusual, but a look at the rest of the council and the majority are independents or claim to belong to the Local Party.

Which makes you think. Yes, you never paid much attention to politics growing up, but Samantha, your ex, had an interest and you’d picked some knowledge. At last year’s general election she was intrigued to discover that the parliamentary seat centred on your hometown was the only seat never held by any of the 3 main parties. It always went to an independent.

Just like the majority of the town council. All independents. The same independents. For decades. You peruse photos of the town council from 30-40 years ago and it’s the same councillors, give or take. Yes, there’s Mr Oversight, looking younger, but clearly still the same person, and so it goes for all of them. Only **** appears to remove them from the council, and then they’re replaced by similar looking councillors, quite often similarly named councillors; sons, daughters, brothers, sisters of the deceased.

You’d always thought your hometown was separated from the rest of the country, only peripherally connected to current affairs. This suggests you might have been closer to the truth than you realised.