No snow in Torquay but still fairly cold, down to -4 Thursday night and day time never got above zero.
What else? Oh yes after dumping Nick Bye, Torbay's best ever and least loved elected mayor the con party have also ditched the leader of their councillors here in the Bay. For the second time in less than a year. After getting rid of Councillor Kevin Carroll last April he got re-elected on the promise he would be a "cuddlier" councillor from then on. It turned out he wasn't "cuddlier" enough for a majority of his fellow con party councillors who backed a vote of no confidence in the poor guy. Then the deputy mayor Councillor Chris Lewis quit his post so he could run for mayor. saying, "
I think Nick (Bye) has done a good job but I couldn't criticise some aspects of what was going on if I remained in the cabinet and as Deputy Mayor. I thought it would better to have a clean break and a new approach. To be the leader you have to put forward your own manifesto. I am now free within the group to say what I believe in." He wants to be mayor and leader of con party.Quick question here Chris; Why couldn't you criticise what was going on if you thought it was wrong when you were deputy mayor. You just had to stand up at the time and do the honourable thing and say, "This is wrong. I quit" or have you just become aware that it's wrong now you are no longer deputy mayor.
So what we have got at the moment is a mayor who because he doesn't have the backing of his party, doesn't have much power. There is no deputy mayor and no leader of the party. So the Con Party could be considered to be in a state of disarray, not a nice state to be in with an election in 5 months. I know a week in politics is a long time but not when you go round shooting yourselves in the foot, or even both feet.
Mind you the opposition round here might not be in a position even to catch up with, never mind overtake the heavily limping con party. People round here still call a local barn the Spanish Barn because some tourists from the Iberian Peninsular slept there for a week 400 years ago. With memories like that we can still remember that 4 years ago the Lib Dems closed most of the public toilets in the Bay to save money. What did they want to save the money for you might ask? Well a few weeks later they voted for a massive increase in their out of pocket expenses; by a million quid more or less. The Con Party and the public protested this nonsense and we managed to get the toilets open again. And as soon as the Con Party got elected they did absolutely nothing about the expenses increase. Well what did you expect? Miracles?
Maybe it's time for the local Labour Party to re-invent themselves. No. No, lets get that right. It is TIME for the local Labour Party to come in from the wilderness like a joyful prophet riding into town on a donkey.
Either that or we could join Devon County Council and have done with trying to run the Bay ourselves because we have made a right mess of the job over the last 10 years.
2 comments:
The trouble is David you expect democracy to work. The rest of us know it doesn't. Elections are just to make people think they have a say in things.
It's not only the last ten years that have been a problem, Dave.
Torbay was made a County Borough back in the late 1960s; the three town councils disappearing and the subsequent loss of autonomy and local accountability. Torbay became a 'rotten borough' and has been ever since. Top heavy with managers and too big to deal with local measures effectively. It's time to turn the clock back. All three towns have different priorities and a 'one size fits all' council just won't do.
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