We understand that District councillors Phil and Tracy Capon have quit the Tory group today and gone independent.
That means we now have 25 Conservatives and a combined opposition of 14….
BREAKING NEWS: Phil & Tracy Capon Quit Tory Group
October
22
by admin // in Ashingdon, Canewdon & Around, Council Drama, Hawkwell, Independents
7 comments
Great news, slowly but surely we are moving back towards a democracy – now just needs some of the Rayleigh Councillors to vote for their residents and not the Cabinet rulers ( and pigs might fly…..).
This is great news all power to the Capons ,hope others follow suit.You can retain your principles whilst representing with a clear conscience those who elected you,not those who Dictate to you .What have the few who control , have over the rest who follow?Whilst I can understand a Cabinet system may be necessary in large Councils to enable business to be conducted efficiently ,these should only bring policies to full council to be democratically debated and amended .Rochford on the other hand is a small Council with little power ,except to ignore the electorates wishes and pursue it,s own agenda .
Also pleasing is the number of new names appearing on the postings on here now –
A big increase just lately , apparently driven by the threat of more traffic chaos.
Whilst I dont know all the circumstances, please remeber they were both “deselected” by their local conservative association before they decided to become independant.
We wont ever know what went on behind closed doors but let’s not get carried away here
If you want to know the truth we did not attend enough of the Conservative Constituency luncheons which is were they try to raise funds for the party. This is because we were not prepared to spend between £25 to £35 plus babysitting to sit with all the fuddyduddies and listern to them slapping themselves on the back saying how wonderful they all are and how they can continue to control what happens in the chamber by ensuring that the whip is used to ensure that the Tory councillors voted the way they require. They were also unhappy with our attendance at some meetings this was with regards two traffic accidents all within half an hour of each other. I was not only on crutches for over six months and in a wheelchair for six weeks then back on crutches again after knee surgery. Even though I still got to the Chamber on crutches to Chair the development committee meetings. We also stopped attending the Conservative private meetings where they discussed how they would control the meetings because we felt that these meetings were undemocratic. Discussions should be in chamber with all councillors not in secret meetings before hand. Hilton Brown said on this site that we had not been de-selected but has never contacted us to rescind his previous email to us that clearly states we could not stand as Conservative in 2015. This just meant that we had to move our plans forward. I would like to thank the on-line focus for allowing us to respond to this post and thank everybody for your support at this time. Thank you all.
All power to independent thought .Good luck to you both in the future ,hope you stand again at the next election ,and that the electorate remember your stand .It is a sign of weakness that Councillors should hide behind closed doors to avoid debate in the chamber .Please do not attach yourself to UKIP as they only follow a narrow agenda,which has its attractions but potentially could result in disaster both locally and nationally.
I too would like to wish both of you the very best for the future. It seems as though the layers are slowly peeling away to reveal exactly what lies at the heart of RDC, and it isn’t a pretty sight.