Psst! - don't let on, but the Home Office has been and gone ...

The Men from the Ministry came and went on Friday, and their visit was marked in the usual way by  our open and transparent Boston Borough Council – with no information before, during or after the event.

But news gets around in any case, and we hear that from the point of view of the Boston Protest March organisers, it went really well.
Dean Everitt, the man who thought the whole thing up, told supporters on their Facebook webpage: “I think I managed to give them some insight as to what life in Boston has become like for local people in the last 10 years.
"Now, we need to get this task and finish group sorted and get the problems of Boston sorted ASAP.”
It seems there’s a busy week ahead for the protest group.
A meeting with Boston MP Mark Simmonds has been mentioned, and about 50 volunteers are also being sought to attend a meeting on Thursday between 6.30pm and 8.30pm “to discuss the problems of migration in Boston … aimed at giving a bit more insight to the local council” with the promise that attendees will have “your chance to have your say as you see it.”
By all accounts the meeting is being organised by something called the Centre for Good Relations, who are apparently helping Boston Borough Council out - and the opinions gathered will again be used to inform the council’s task and finish group.

The centre is a not for profit company based in the North West – whose core work is “civic mediation,”  and prides itself on  its “strong link” to the Belfast-based Mediation Northern Ireland.
"Civic mediation"  is more fully defined as “facilitation and dialogue, working through issues of contention and dispute, and addressing social conflicts and tensions.
“We work with people positively on matters of contention, taking them through dialogue processes which unpack issues and tensions. Good relations work creates space for people themselves to work towards positive outcomes.
“Our contribution can:
“Build understanding between groups and communities that are at odds with each other...
“Help develop agreements between agencies, elected representatives, community members and others...
“Address polarising behaviour...
“Work around conflicts, campaigns and disputes over business developments...
“Explore community dynamics resulting from changing demography; bring parties together who are in dispute over the control of facilities and initiatives ...”
Without prejudgment,  we would suggest that they will have their work cut out for them, and that if they can solve Boston’s issues, they can solve anything.
Already one or two sceptics involved with the protest march doubt the value of  such meetings …
One said – though not quite in these words  - “they (the politicians) have already got the answers to every question you’re going to ask, because they are clever with political claptrap! The only time they were worried was when there was a threat of a protest march! Bring back the march! People of Boston had even Westminster scuttling about!”
Organiser Dean Everitt replied: “A march in Boston won’t solve the issues. We would have only got talks and that’s if it had stayed peaceful. There’s a bigger picture that needs looking, at and it’s a nationwide one”
However, he does agree that nothing has happened  since the meeting with local police, who promised to address various issues.
“Yes, the police seem to have ignored the problems so far,” he writes.  “But I will be putting pressure on the police again to sort this out, and if these talks lead to nowhere we can say we’ve tried the right way first - and the march is still on the back burner simmering.”
It’s not clear whether Thursday’s meeting will include Mark Simmonds, or whether he will attend a separate session. We think that the latter is most likely. MPs usually only surface in their constituencies on Friday for the weekend, and we also suspect that he doesn’t do crowds.
Last Friday Mr Simmonds was the guest on a BBC Radio Lincolnshire “phone-in” – which raised some interesting issues – including the protest march – and also gave some interesting insights into how our MP appears to regard his constituents….
More on that in tomorrow’s blog.

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