Local election results here are rather gloomy. The same old faces, many of whom look about 30 years older in person than they do on publicity posters.Some say that it’s better to go for experience, but the trouble is that ‘experience’ has brought us to a place that most folks would rather not be. I hope that those with ‘experience’ will not allow the same old crooks to go on milking the system. What power do local politicians have anyway? I gather that the answer is ‘pretty much none’, in which case, why are they so expensive?

We see the same phenomenon in church elections: select vestries, diocesan synods, diocesan councils. Same old names, same old faces. How do we get new blood and new thinking on to tired and listless committees?

It’s said that the emigration of young people from Ireland will be reduced by providing more jobs. Will it? Maybe they emigrate because they’re tired of the same old faces perpetuating the battles of the past without, it seems, the ability to look ahead with imagination and vigour.

I’m just a humble clerk in holy orders, but I really do think that a bit of ‘inexperience’ might serve us better than the narcoleptic complacency of ‘experience’.