| Topic: | Re:Re:Sarah's posting of 17:59 | |
| Posted by: | Tim Henderson | |
| Date/Time: | 09/07/09 19:29:00 |
| Kath's notes on the meeting (front page) seem very fair to me. There was considerable talk about councillors' allowances (and so much that I think I heard calls for it to be dropped and the pre-arranged agenda followed). Of the on-stagers, the one who impressed me most was Jon Hardy who, despite claims that he was "crash-damaged" from an incident earlier in the afternoon, still spoke with what came across to me as abundant reasonable common sense without any particular political axe-grinding. He possibly had the advantage of not having to adhere to political spin and could speak what he felt. I didn't warm to Mary McLeod who appeared a very competent Conservative spokesperson and a much more credible candidate than the Tory-boy central party apparatchik that was chosen last time round. I fear that she isn't tough enough to be her own person and she will, like Ann Keen, be dominated by the whipping system when she gets returned to Westminster and Brentford will again have no independent voice to express its concerns. The speaker who resonated most with me was a lady from the floor who was disgusted with the current MP - but was somewhat sad that Brentford was a Labour town but didn't have a Labour candidate fit to vote for. In desperation she said what should happen was that people who wanted to vote Labour should join the party and pressurise the CLP to deselect the sitting MP. I'm seriously tempted to spend the £38 to do as she says.... |