I understand that a very short Special Borough Council Meeting was held last night at Hounslow Civic Centre to consider various questions and motions tabled by the opposition Conservative Group.
The reason it was short was that a Labour councillor moved at the onset of the meeting that it be adjourned indefinitely, and so it was.
Of course this kind of stunt is underhand, bad for democracy etc., but is anybody truly surprised by Labour's actions? I know I do bang on somewhat about the fact that it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May - but - well, it was a Conservative campaign which put Labour back in office in May.
The new Labour administration at the London Borough of Hounslow has no respect for its Conservative opponents and, with appropriate apologies to my good friend Councillor Mark Bowen who now leads the Conservative Group (and I wish him well), they don't deserve any respect following the debacle that was the local election.
Labour will simply trample all over them throughout the next four years as they quite rightly do not fear electoral repercussions at the hands of the Conservatives in a borough which has a "natural" Labour majority. Especially with a Conservative-led government in office which, whether rightly or wrongly, is committed to a major cuts programme.
The only hope of unseating Labour in Hounslow now, if that proves to be a desirable objective, lies in the emergence of a third political power within the borough to take on both establishment parties and to present residents with a new, radical, community-led and community-focused alternative. I wonder whether any of the current crop of Conservative councillors is ambitious enough, and angry enough, to wish to join us in helping to bring that about?
In the meantime the opposition should expect much more of the kind of thing they experienced last night. And the less time they spend at council meetings, maybe the more time they will have to reflect upon whether or not the strategy of using the cover provided by the general election to move in on the various independents around the borough in the hope of replacing them in their respective areas of influence was truly a clever one.
Showing posts with label Third Force. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Third Force. Show all posts
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Saturday, 15 May 2010
Some further thoughts from last Thursday
Trying though I honestly am to get a real life, I have to admit that I still find myself dissecting last week's local election results and looking for pointers to where the borough might be heading when "real" voting conditions are restored in 2014.
One interesting number that keeps coming back to me is 8816. This is the minimum number of voters who opted for independent candidates in preference to any of the established parties. This figure was reached by taking the highest independent vote in each ward in which non-aligned candidates were standing. In practice of course, because not everybody votes in blocs, it is likely that at least 10,000 voters in Hounslow placed at least one cross beside the name of an independent candidate. I would venture that is the most ever.
Then there was a minimum of 8336 voters who supported Green Party candidates. And if we want to think outside the "big two" as opposed to the "big three", there is the small matter of at least 11,824 voters backing the Liberal Democrats in spite of the fact that they were not contesting every ward.
As "third forces" go, the support of 30,000 - 35,000 voters in the London Borough of Hounslow is not a bad base to be starting from. But of course it should not just be assumed that every Green voter would have supported ICG candidates in the absence of a Green, nor that every ICG voter would have opted for a Lib Dem, and so on. If we are to think in terms of a third power in Hounslow politics to challenge the sterile hegemony of the tired old parties (and I should stress it is no more than a thought at the moment, I still believe the new administration should be given an opportunity to prove itself), we must explore what unites those of us who choose to think outside the establishment box and who consciously take the more difficult path towards realising our aspirations.
This is something I intend to research over the coming months, if only to keep a promise to those caring souls in my community whose new-found freedoms were so prematurely dashed, at least for the time being, by the "Gumby" vote herded out last week by the media circus that was the general election.
For the benefit of younger voters (and councillors) who are too young to remember the Gumbies, the following amusing little clip pertains:
One interesting number that keeps coming back to me is 8816. This is the minimum number of voters who opted for independent candidates in preference to any of the established parties. This figure was reached by taking the highest independent vote in each ward in which non-aligned candidates were standing. In practice of course, because not everybody votes in blocs, it is likely that at least 10,000 voters in Hounslow placed at least one cross beside the name of an independent candidate. I would venture that is the most ever.
Then there was a minimum of 8336 voters who supported Green Party candidates. And if we want to think outside the "big two" as opposed to the "big three", there is the small matter of at least 11,824 voters backing the Liberal Democrats in spite of the fact that they were not contesting every ward.
As "third forces" go, the support of 30,000 - 35,000 voters in the London Borough of Hounslow is not a bad base to be starting from. But of course it should not just be assumed that every Green voter would have supported ICG candidates in the absence of a Green, nor that every ICG voter would have opted for a Lib Dem, and so on. If we are to think in terms of a third power in Hounslow politics to challenge the sterile hegemony of the tired old parties (and I should stress it is no more than a thought at the moment, I still believe the new administration should be given an opportunity to prove itself), we must explore what unites those of us who choose to think outside the establishment box and who consciously take the more difficult path towards realising our aspirations.
This is something I intend to research over the coming months, if only to keep a promise to those caring souls in my community whose new-found freedoms were so prematurely dashed, at least for the time being, by the "Gumby" vote herded out last week by the media circus that was the general election.
For the benefit of younger voters (and councillors) who are too young to remember the Gumbies, the following amusing little clip pertains:
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