While writing the previous post I was reminded of a conversation I had some years ago with a friend who worked as a medical researcher. He had spent several years looking into the effects of mumps and the treatments available. However, he had just changed the focus of his research to give prominence to the effects of HIV and AIDS on patients who had suffered from mumps during childhood. I asked him why the change and he admitted it was purely to obtain funding. He told me that it was politically advisable (at that time) to include HIV and AIDS in some way in any grant application as it was almost impossible to obtain cash without them.
Reading the Council Papers I receive it seems to me that the Tall Ships Race is Hartlepool Council's equivalent of HIV and AIDS when it comes to obtaining funding. It is politically advisable (well at least from the Mayor's viewpoint I would assume) that no opportunity is lost to refer to the Tall Ships Race. Almost any spending can be justified if it can be linked to the Tall Ships Race. It was career suicide for any medical researcher to suggest there might be other aliments or afflictions apart from HIV and AIDS and in Hartlepool Council at the moment it is totally unacceptable to question anything that has the words "Tall Ships Race" attached to the proposal.
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