Dial S for Scandal
Written by Mark Pack on 24th April 2008 – 4:46 pmFollowing yesterday’s double reports of Conservatives in trouble with the police (in Slough and Swansea) today brings news of a third legal incident involving the Conservative Party. This time, it’s Sutton. (What is it about places starting with an S?)
The time: Wednesday 16 April, approximately 3pm
The place: near a front door in the London Borough of Sutton
An aggrieved resident takes up the story:
“I was watering plants in the space near our front door when I heard the sound of the letterbox flap. I looked round to see a hand take out the [Liberal Democrat] Sutton Gazette … I waited for it to be pushed back in again with whatever the person who took it out was delivering, but only a Conservative election pamphlet appeared. I opened the door, and asked ‘Could I have that back please?’. The gentleman turned around and handed it back (he had one other Gazette in his hands), saying ‘It fell out’. I then went back inside, quite stunned, and turned back again to say ‘This really isn’t on, is it’. He then said again that it had fallen out, and walked on. There was another gentleman delivering, also holding a few (about 2, 3) Gazettes. My husband then went out and took [photographs] and confirmed that he also saw Sutton Gazettes in the pocket of the conservative pamphleteer in the photographs … I stress that the Gazette was definitely taken out of our door, and it had *not* fallen out … I was and am quite angry at this, so yes, I can confirm this with anyone necessary.”
Investigations are, as they say, continuing. One of the people featured in the photographs is Steve O’Connell, the Conservative GLA candidate for Croydon and Sutton.
A curio from the local newspaper coverage of the story:
Mr O’Connell, Croydon Council’s cabinet member for public protection, denied he had ever taken Liberal Democrat literature out of a letter box.
“It is something I personally have never done. However, there are a lot of people doing stuff for me.
“This is very clearly not referring to me, although we have been up there delivering. I am not aware of any confrontation or any row.”
Now that last sentence - “I am not aware…” - puzzles me. According to the resident quoted above, someone came out and photographed Steve O’Connell from a short distance, and the photographs certainly look to have been taken from close up. Personally, if someone came up to me and photographed me, I’d ask them what it was all about. So what happened in this case?
Posted in Opposition watch
24th April 2008 at 4:55 pm
A lesson for all Lib Dem deliverers to push their leaflets/newspapers all the way through.
24th April 2008 at 5:38 pm
This is a bit sanctimonious; not really in the same league as stealing stakeboards.
24th April 2008 at 5:41 pm
As Dan says a lesson for our deliverers!
24th April 2008 at 5:43 pm
Exactly Dan. I used to always follow LabCon deliverers to do just this.
24th April 2008 at 5:49 pm
Maybe there isnt as much danger in leafy Sutton as there is on council estates from snarling rotweilers on the other side of the letter-box
24th April 2008 at 7:43 pm
Oh come on Mark - this kind of stuff is not worth publishing outside of the local paper. I don’t know of a local party of any political persuasion and in any location that hasn’t had deliverers do this. People in glass houses and all that…
24th April 2008 at 10:03 pm
This is getting into Chris Paul territory at pumped-up high horsiness. All Lib Dems do this sort of thing, and for good reason. The only fault I can pick with the Tory candidate is that he got caught.
25th April 2008 at 3:06 pm
A couple of weeks ago I delivered a section of my patch in Milton Keynes a half-hour behind a clueless Tory deliverer who left the Tory leaflet hanging out of the letter-box of each and every house. I could have nicked about 250, no trouble. Decided to feel virtuous and left the lot. Was I right to do so?
25th April 2008 at 3:22 pm
I always push it all the way in.
Fnarr, fnarr . . .
25th April 2008 at 5:57 pm
Everybody does this, your begining to sound like Chris Paul.
25th April 2008 at 6:44 pm
Love the Viz reference, Laurence Boyce.
25th April 2008 at 7:14 pm
Roger Mellie is my personal hero!
25th April 2008 at 7:37 pm
I like Roger Irrelevant meself.
25th April 2008 at 9:13 pm
Edis, you weere wrong, since you asked.
And I would like 4,327 offences taken into consideration!
25th April 2008 at 10:24 pm
Stealing skateboards, who’s been stealing skateboards?
I had the Labour Party steal our tellers’ list one year; I set the police on them. Didn’t half get it back quickly.
Two years later some prat of a Liberal pinched a Labour teller’s slip; sent him back with it right rapidly.
Mind you, I still retrieve LabCon leaflets when they fall out of letterboxes !
25th April 2008 at 10:49 pm
I’m confident the sentiments expressed above will be reflected in clear and unambiguous advice to deliverers in Crewe and Nantwich in a few weeks/months time.
It would be rather hypocritical not to really wouldn’t it