There’s been a long tradition of married couples on Rochford District council.
On the Lib Dem side , there were the Helsons. Derek Helson became the third Liberal councillor here in the late 1970s and was later joined by his wife Jeanette, who eventually became majority group leader. In current times we have Chris and June Lumley.
For Labour, we’ve had Jock and Myra Weir.
For the Conservatives, there’s been quite a few… for example at the moment there are Mavis and Peter Webster, and Phil and Tracy Capon.
There are also a brace of husband-and-wife teams on Rochford who each comprise a political group. Diane and Michael Hoy make up the Green Party group, and Christine and John Mason are the Rochford Residents Group.(By law, a political group consists of two or more councillors who decide to be a group. The side of the group determmines how many committee places etc they get).
Quite rightly nobody has ever suggested in Rochford that the Greens or the Rochford Residents are any less a group because they are a married couple.
However there seems to be some controversy over in Brentwood where there’s now a Labour group again. Mike LeSurf was the only Labour councillor there, now his wife Julie Morrissey has joined him, making a group.
See Lib Dem Karen Chilvers blog here for an update.
Jock! You mean David.
Yes indeed – certainly no disrespect intended, I can’t remember anyone calling him David much.
When he was on the council he was a very formidable opponent -or staunch ally – in the council chamber.
When he began a speech with the words ‘What worries me Chairman is that…..’ you knew that the chairman – and/or officers – were in for a tricky time.