Attending the Town Hall meetings can be a very tedious job. Most of the items on the agenda are rubber-stamping procedures, putting out political brush fires and speculation over the price of the paperclips. Wasting time political posturing is generally discouraged. That’s why I was surprised to see three items added to the agenda of this weeks General Purposes Committee. Of these three additional items, one related to council standards and the “Parish Charter”, the other to the future of the police stations and the last to adult education in Todmorden. The last one, I thought, sounds like a Labour item.
But alas no, all three of them were placed on the agenda by Coun. Margaretta Holmstedt (Liberal, Stoodley). Why the sudden urge to begin raising items you may ask? Well she is her party’s candidate for Todmorden Ward in the upcoming May 22nd Local Elections.
The item of Council Standards was a bit rich, coming from a Town Councillor who was forced apologise and hand back a cheque made out by her committee to a charity event where she herself was the end recipient. The item over Adult Education relates to the slow-mothballing of the Todmorden Community College, a process that began under the Liberal-led Cabinet of over a year ago. The item over the Police Station was just the typical election scaremongering similar to that of Labour’s Steph Booth over the Todmorden Library.
I think it is highly unethical, if any of these things are of real foundation, to wait until the selection of election candidates to raise them, wasting valuable time that could be used doing something about the said threats and hazards. Do all three pressing issues just happen to have tuned up at the same time at such a politically sensitive time of year? You decide!
Realistically I can do little to influence the make-up of the Council, but I seriously believe now that it’s time the Liberal Democrats (harmless busybodies one moment, ruthless and unethical scoundrels the next) were buried as a political party for a decade or so. That of course means Labour taking overall power but under such a situation, that’s when other more genuine third parties such as the NF or the Greens, and Independents of course, can then break through the ranks and stand a chance of influencing policy. Maybe even taking over!
Let the war games begin.
But alas no, all three of them were placed on the agenda by Coun. Margaretta Holmstedt (Liberal, Stoodley). Why the sudden urge to begin raising items you may ask? Well she is her party’s candidate for Todmorden Ward in the upcoming May 22nd Local Elections.
The item of Council Standards was a bit rich, coming from a Town Councillor who was forced apologise and hand back a cheque made out by her committee to a charity event where she herself was the end recipient. The item over Adult Education relates to the slow-mothballing of the Todmorden Community College, a process that began under the Liberal-led Cabinet of over a year ago. The item over the Police Station was just the typical election scaremongering similar to that of Labour’s Steph Booth over the Todmorden Library.
I think it is highly unethical, if any of these things are of real foundation, to wait until the selection of election candidates to raise them, wasting valuable time that could be used doing something about the said threats and hazards. Do all three pressing issues just happen to have tuned up at the same time at such a politically sensitive time of year? You decide!
Realistically I can do little to influence the make-up of the Council, but I seriously believe now that it’s time the Liberal Democrats (harmless busybodies one moment, ruthless and unethical scoundrels the next) were buried as a political party for a decade or so. That of course means Labour taking overall power but under such a situation, that’s when other more genuine third parties such as the NF or the Greens, and Independents of course, can then break through the ranks and stand a chance of influencing policy. Maybe even taking over!
Let the war games begin.