On 19 Apr 2005, at 8:15 am, Paul Oldham wrote: > There they elected James Hockney as district councillor last May. As a > resident there (who, like me is not a party member but does pay > attention to local politics) put it to me in an email last week > "Hockney [their Tory district councillor] continuously claims credit > for things he hasn't done, and seems to put most of his efforts into > self-promotion rather than into work for his constituents". > > But that's the way the "game" is played, and sadly it works - that's > how Hockney got in as people fall for it - so we can expect it here > too. I hate party politics for local elections. It's not just the tories, they're all as bad as each other. Give me an independent candidate every time. > > The shame of it is that in the long term they all descend to the same > level. We've already seen Jane Coston decide to stand down, largely > because she's fed up with it (which is a *huge* loss to the village). > Eventually the only Lib Dems left willing to stand will be those happy > to play the game by the same rules. So instead of getting as > councillors people who really will work hard for us all we will just > get the ones who tell the best story, and that's often not the same > thing at all. It's what gives politics a bad name. I was annoyed at the praise for Jane in the Tory leaflet, which made it sound like Jane was standing down for Gerda, then lots of slagging off of the Lib-Dems, which was Jane's party. > > I find it all very depressing. > I'm thinking what you're thinking! It's just all petty bickering about who did what. Winds me up! -- Jen