| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Sad news about Brentford Festival cancellation | |
| Posted by: | Phil Andrews | |
| Date/Time: | 19/02/12 22:56:00 |
| "I understand where you're coming from but in Brentford we had Luke Kirton as a councillor. He had no desire to be one but stood for BFC and to the disgust of the Labour party at the time, he was elected. And you know what? He was bloody brilliant. Because he wasn't attached to a party. He wasn't attempting to make it a career. He wasn't trying to get free drinks at 9 in the morning from a pub that his lot had refused a license to. He was honestly trying to make the best of the position he was elected to." 100% agree with you on that Claire. Luke was a magnificant councillor despite not being attached to a "real" political party and having no previous experience in the role to call upon. During the 2006-2010 period in particular Peter Hills in Bedfont and Linda Nakamura in Hanworth were also very highly regarded in their respective wards, proactive in working on local issues and keeping their constituents informed at every turn. John Connelly was acknowledged by friend and foe alike to be one of the most knowledgeable, radical and intelligent contributors to council business. I'll let others be my judge but the ICG councillors generally were in the frontline of shaping most of the council's strategies in the field of housing and community empowerment and consistently led from the front of behalf of residents at Area Committee, usually having to take on almost everybody else in the process. And yet according to former Welsh Secretary Peter Hain at today's Welsh Labour conference independent councillors have "no clue" and Welsh voters (and by implication other voters too) have to elect Labour councillors to do everything for them (as they presumably have no clue either). The difference between party political and independent councillors is in my experience substantial, but not in the way Hain would like you to believe. The truth is that the former comprise people of a wide range of abilities but all of them constrained by the whip and tribal allegiances which supersede their commitment to the wider community, whilst the latter are by nature free-thinkers and innovators who are answerable only to those they were elected to represent. |