Must be something in the air at the moment for, in addition to the news from Hinckley & Bosworth Council about a Conservative switching to the Liberal Democrats, two more in East Hampshire have also switched.
East Hampshire councillors Maureen Comber and Eve Hope have joined the Liberal Democrats and will be standing for the party this May.
Cllr Comber said, “There is a nasty atmosphere. Elected councillors are being excluded or browbeaten into following the party whip as dictated by the leader and his inner circle”.
Earlier this year Ian Dowdle also switched from the Conservatives to the Liberal Democrats. Local Liberal Democrat chair Adam Carew said, “We have been speaking to a number of disillusioned Conservative councillors and I believe more defections will follow”.
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4 Comments
You beat me to it Mark. I got the email this morning and was going to submit a piece..
What are the total figures for councillor defections to and from the Liberal Democrats since 6 May 2010?
Here is the full deal about defections:
Councillor A falls out with her colleagues: defects.
Councillor B fails to be elected as chair of the cemetery board: defects.
Councillor C is a useless ward councillor and gets de-selected: defects.
Councillor D has an affair with councillor Z and defects to their party.
Councillor E has a personal obsession and can’t interest anyone in his party in it: defects.
Councillor F sees the way the political wind is blowing and defects to the party most likely to win next time.
Councillor G is hard-working and principled, and over a period of time realises that their ideas have more in common with those espoused by another party than those of the one they were elected for. They discuss their dilemma with their colleagues and with councillors in the party they now feel they would be more at home with and eventually decide, without acrimony or recriminations, to change parties.
We all know people from other parties who fall into the G category who we would be pleased to have on board. I hope the recent defectors are ‘G’s. Frankly we are better off without the A – Fs, whether they want to join us or defect from us.
You missed the “local party leaders go insane, councillors not in that group defect” case.