Some good news from south Essex: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/essex/7964803.stm
"An Essex Conservative council leader has quit his party and joined Labour.
Terry Hipsey blamed the Conservatives' taxation policies for his decision, as well as Prime Minister Gordon Brown's handling of the recession.
His defection gives the two parties at Thurrock Council parity with 23 seats each, with two independents and one BNP councillor."
Hilarious!
ReplyDeleteA rat deserting a lifeboat to join the sinking ship!
Labour are simply a corrupt bunch of crooks who are going to be annihilated at the coming General Election.
How can the Tories inheritance tax proposals give hundreds of thousands to millionares?
ReplyDeleteThe millionaire would be dead!
They can’t enjoy the cash six foot under!!!
Hee hee hee! Shows Cameron is not as popular as he thinks. So Labour are a 'corrupt bunch of crooks' eh? Here's my two word reply - Neil Hamilton!
ReplyDeleteMillionaires know all the tricks of how to leave money without paying any tax on it thereby creating more millionaires even before they're dead. They've usually managed to avoid any tax by exploiting any loophole whereas those of us fortunate enough to have inherited a bit due to a parent's house being sold after death end up giving the taxman a goodly portion of the inheritance.
ReplyDeleteLuke, perhaps it's worth pointing out that the the Tory administration now relies on the BNP councillor to keep itself in power. I understand that the two independents abstained but the BNP voted with the Tories.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what the Tories offered to win her vote?
And how many Chief Executives has the new member of the Labour Group got through in the last few years?
ReplyDeleteHow about Labours tax policy? How are they going to repay the trillion £££s borrowed.....taxing those earning over 45k a year won't make anywhere near enough.
ReplyDeleteLabour are going to have to tax the working classes and they won't like you one bit for it.
This was not the working class crisis yet we are expected to pay for it!
ReplyDeleteThere is not much difference between Tories and Labour, the Lib/Dems are another Tory party too.
There needs to be a Workers party, if the Labour party did not have so much right wing crap in it that would have been it?
Its interesting. Thurrock has tended to have very far-right Tory representation - such as their former MP Tim Janman - I do think that much of the Cameron make-over is very skin deep. The right wing haven't gone away
ReplyDeleteThis is the same Terry Hipsey I know and lived just around the corner from me?
ReplyDeleteThe gun owning blood sports enthusiast who spends every spare moment with his two gun dogs blowing birds from the sky?
Whom I believe is also moving to Norfolk?
As much as I enjoy seeing the Tories getting a hard time, there should be limits to how much political capital we try to squeeze out of these defection stories.
ReplyDeleteI was in Leeds last year when a Libdem councilor had defected to the party.
The local party then dedicated both side of an A4 leaflet to the story and even had a picture of the pratt shaking hands with Hillary Benn.
It looked like he was the latest signing to the Labour Party Football Club.
With the exception of a couple of 'pothole politics' stories there was nothing on the leaflet that defined a single political difference between the Labour Party and the Liberals.
This is just petty. It is surely one of many reasons why people don’t trust politicians.
Luke, the story is an important one to report as it shows a serious lack of judgment amongst the South Essex Tories who selected him as leader. Unfortunately we appear to have accepted him with open arms. Some people will defend this on the grounds that it was an issue about who controls the council. Those would probably be the same fools who argue that Labour marginal authorities should consider making coalitions with the Tories.