Sorry to hear that John will not be running for town council. I stood in 2010 general election as an independent and think it is important to have more independents at all tiers of government.
I took part because I was put off by party politics and had heard stories about how party politics and self interests at the Tory dominated district council were not serving us well.
However since I have been involved at Hertford Town FC and spent less time travelling for my day job I have been involved locally much more and I have to say there is no sign of party politics at Town Coucil. I have nothing but admiration for Tory town councillors like Isabel Sigmac, Chantel Geal, Jane Sartin, Peter Ruffles & Andrew Stevenson who seem to work tirelessly for the community. It is not just the limited number of things that are in their jurisdiction that they work on but they are always getting out there and organising and participating in "extra-curricular" activities.
Perhaps it gets more party political at district and county level and you could say that town/parish councils are the breeding ground for these, but I am thinking that we need to encourage more people to take part regardless of which parties colours they wear.
When I ran there was something that felt dirty about being part of the political system and this is very damaging. I have been at Hertford Town FC for 3 years now and some of my colleagues have just admitted to me that they did not trust me at first purely because they knew I was a "politician". We need less cynicism and then more people will step us as both party politicians and independents........then eventually there will be less to be cynical about.
Loucas, I recall you standing that year and was interested because of your independence. I too am impressed by the likes of councillor Ruffles who has represented impressively over the years. Yet I am confused by the need to align with a major party when it is a town council election. Is it simply to ensure support from those who generally have an allegiance to one of the major parties? if so then I would not be surprised if those who vote for them do so because of such allegiance without understanding how that councillor will serve the local community best without direction from the party itself.
What would happen if the prospective town council candidates were not permitted to state whether they were Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, etc, etc? Would voters be more inclined to want to get to know the candidates and what they stood for?
Aside from this, if you had won a seat, Loucas, would we have seen you on the roof of the council offices with a broom? (Hertford Town FC joke!!!!)Statistics:Posted by Ewoowar — Thu 02 Apr, 2015 12:56 pm
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