From Gav’s View:
The ruling Conservatives in Adur have been rocked by a second defection in a fortnight, as Southlands Councillor Carl English has followed colleague Gavin Ayling in choosing to cross the floor to the Liberal Democrats
“Since my election in 2006, I have found it increasingly difficult to defend Tory policies, locally or nationally,” said Councillor English. “On the doorstep, when people have attacked the Tories, I have found myself agreeing with them more and more that Adur is being let down by the Conservative administration. When you are asked to put party ahead of people; when you’re told what to think and say by an inner circle: then democracy goes out of the window. I felt that as the electors of Southlands ward had elected me as a Conservative then I should serve as much of my term as possible as a Tory, but I also wanted to have time to explain on the doorstep my reasons for leaving a party that has no interest in serving the community.
You can read the full story here.
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If I recall correctly, Adur was a LibDem council in the 1990s and was then a pioneering “green” local authority. Are we seeing a swing back to those days?
I’m afraid these two aren’t all they claim to be and have poor reputations locally.
http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4778298.Defecting_Adur_Tories_told_to_hand_back_members__allowance/
Lazy Tory rejects is the last thing the Lib Dems should want
Hmm, defectors “told to hand back members allowance by their former Tory bosses”! Nice to see an unbiased commentator…
Adur is the middle bit in the Sussex coastal conurbation, Worthing to its west, the now merged Brighton&Hove to its east.
It doesn’t have any of the pretention or faded grandeur of its larger neighbours, nor the retirement home culture of Worthing, or the posiness of Brighton, or the severe grinding poverty that exists in parts of Brighton and Hove. It doesn’t have the seaside tourist image either (which is not nearly as dominating in the other parts as most suppose), given that much of its seafront is taken up by Shoreham Harbour, very much a working port. It doesn’t have much in the way of big expensive housing. It’s not somewhere where people from outside tend to come to live, and all this contributes to a somewhat parochial small town atmosphere. Or “towns” given that it’s made up of several, Shoreham the largest but not enough to completely dominate.
Adur was a shining example of the 1970s Liberal revival, becoming Liberal controlled when it was a first formed in the 1973 local government reorganisation, and remaining Liberal for many years after. The Tories could win it in a good year (it has elections by thirds, so it changed hands frequently), but it was Liberal more often than not. That was until just a few years ago when it all imploded and the LibDems were almost wiped out and haven’t recovered since.
If anyone knows more than I do as to why that happened, I’d be interested to know. I’m not aware of there being any big scandal, so it looks to be the usual personality clashes and key people dropping out and just tiredness that hits us. Adur Liberals never managed to turn their local vote into one that was loyal for national elections as well, which maybe was part of the issue. I think they may have been hit by a bit of a Labour revival in the Blair years, having profited before that by Labour being almost non-existent. In neighbouring Hove, which was never as true blue Tory as people suppose, the 1970s and 1980s actually involved a fairly titanic struggle between Libs and Labour as to who was to emerge as the main challenger to the Tories, where Labour and Lib tended to be hitting each other most of the time. Once it was clear Labour had won that struggle, they moved on to win Hove. In Adur, it was the other way round.