Today a letter came through our door from our councillor, Marcella Head, to tell us that she has left the Tory party and joined the Liberal Democrats. This was unexpected but not a huge shock. I knew she was not entirely happy in the the Tory party, which was why I gave her a membership form for Labour a couple of months ago.
After the last local elections the balance of Crawley Borough Council was 19 Tories, 16 Labour and 2 Lib-Dems, so now the balance will be 18 Tories, 16 Labour and 3 Lib-Dems meaning that, although they still have the largest group in the council, the Tories no longer have an absolute majority and we have ended up with the sort of hung council that many people predicted for last May anyway.
This should make the rest of the year quite interesting for the council and puts a bit more pressure on the elections next year as it will be a fight for control rather than a right to regain/retain control.
Gordon Seekings // Dec 9, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Nice factual posting Skuds (which is most definatly not a sarcastic comment as the level of poltical debate on your site here is probably the best in Crawley).
For interest of your many readers (of all political pursuasions) I’ve copied the text of Marcella’s letter below. Sorry I didn’t get a chance to see you when I was out and about in Broadfield today.
If anyone wants to read more about Marcella becoming a Lib Dem then (plug! plug!) go to http://www.crawleylibdems.org.uk. 🙂
Richard // Dec 9, 2006 at 9:01 pm
Marcella Head would have done better by becoming an Independent 🙂
Skuds // Dec 9, 2006 at 9:12 pm
Thanks Gordon. Debate here did once get a bit childish and nasty so I deleted all the comments to keep the standard up. Otherwise I don’t interfere.
Having said that, I took the liberty of editing your comment to put the letter in blockquotes. I would not normally edit comments, but it made it look tidier.
(I resisted the temptation to change your link so it pointed somewhere else)
Skuds // Dec 9, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Richard, I think Marcella probably is independent in all but name, and has been for a while.
Gordon Seekings // Dec 10, 2006 at 12:31 am
“I took the liberty of editing your comment to put the letter in blockquotes.”
That, my dear skuds, is worth my while buying you a pint the next time we meet – especially for leaving the website pointer to where it should be. (I have assumed, of course, that some of your colleagues will not think buying you a pint is a bribe to join us as well……although I can e-mail you a membership form if you want.) 🙂
Richard // Dec 10, 2006 at 12:37 am
Become an Independent, Gordon – along with your wife – and I’ll buy you both a pint 🙂
Skuds // Dec 10, 2006 at 12:49 am
All this talk of pints… I almost wish I actually enjoyed drinking alcohol still.
Gordon Seekings // Dec 10, 2006 at 2:02 am
Richard. I am a liberal and a democrat. I have been a Liberal party, and now Liberal Democrat party member, since January 1974.
An “independant” does not mean necessarily someone of independant thought – too many so called independants are nothing more than conservatives (small “c”) or Conservatives (large “C”) – or even someone lacking in rational thought. But being a Liberal Democrat for me does mean rational thought (although I accept skuds and others will disagree with me on this latter point).
Incidently Skuds I’ve done a link from the latest Crawley Lib Dems website story on Marcella’s move to the Liberal Democrats to this website. Lets see what that does for your web stats. :-))
Martyn Smith // Dec 10, 2006 at 2:37 am
Is anybody in a position to advise when the Crawley Conservative or Labour websites are likely to post comment on the changed political balance of the Council?
Skuds // Dec 10, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Good question Martyn.
While I can spout whatever rubbish occurs to me as it occurs to me I imagine that official sites have an element of ‘decision by committee’ or needing some sort of approval before posting anything contentious.
Obviously the Lib Dems had advance notice and time to think about it – and any sort of approval process will necessarily involve fewer people 😉
I have suggested to the webmaster that we should get some sort of responseon our site.
Danivon // Dec 10, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Weird. I wonder if there will be calls for her to stand down and allow a bye-election, seeing that the Lib Dem vote in her ward is very low.
I think that the ‘responses’ will be more visible in Wednesdays local papers. I do hope that none of the Tories get nasty.
Skuds // Dec 10, 2006 at 11:11 pm
Of course there will be calls for her to stand down. There always are, but nobody ever does.
When Marcella was elected in 2004 there was not a Lib-Dem candidate, although this year they did stand and got 98 votes. I wonder what would happen if she stood again… would she take some personal votes from the Tories and let Labour in?
Its all a bit uncertain – perhaps the Tories will be happier not to find out yet?