Shades of Grey

It is now three months until the City Council elections. This time, the Morley North and South seats are for the sitting candidates who pulled the highest votes back in 2004 (when it was an all out election) - Judith Elliott & Robert Finnigan, both Morley Borough Independents.

To my mind, the campaign started a few weeks ago, when an MBI trademark lime green leaflet arrived on the doormat, the contents of which were so banal that I didn’t even bother saving it.

Last week, the trademark red/black on white shiny leaflet “Morley Mirror” arrived from that busted flush, the local Labour Party. In amongst the usual cheap jibes and statist nonsense we are introduced to Mr. Alec Hudson in that well tried & trusted (& equally transparent) formula of someone we have never heard of in Morrisons Car Park discussing local matters with our local MP, always happy to appear for a photoshoot (provided it is to further the Labour cause, of course). We also see Mr. Hudson squinting at the camera with a run-down playground behind him, walking along next to a grass verge on South Parade and even verturing down an alley off Queen Street and pointing at some rubbish on the flags. (I’d give him a lot more credit if he had actually picked some of it up and put it in a bag…)

Back in the local press, Politicians are popping up to pontificate. We recently even had the local Chairman of the UKIP ask about why Morrisons trolleys had shelters but patrons waiting for Taxis did not.I have news for him- this was done to death in the Town Council in recent years. I’m not surprised he doesn’t know this though, the Town Council appears to be hiding its light under a bushel somewhat, with zero mention in the local paper (apart from the occasional “Spot the Town Mayor” photo), a rather out of date stagnated website (which doesn’t even display properly in Firefox and has lots of broken links) and no sign of any quarterly reviews or even last year’s annual report down at the library. (This strains the credibility of the quality council status). News also reaches me that the Council are reluctant to provide Minutes of meetings , citing an exemption under Freedom of Information because the documents are held at Morley Library. All well and good, until you actually contact the Library and they tell you that they throw them away as they receive never sets. If the Council were serious about being open and accountable then they would simply publish the Minutes on their website, but that would be too easy…

In another development, the MBIs are accusing the BNP of a Witch Hunt, after they apparently reported Judith to the Standards Board for England. Now, this might be retaliation for something else…

During the last election, there was a rather strange story of how the BNP had reported the MBIs to the police for breaking electoral law and a few months ago, I heard a bit more on that story. I haven’t had it corroborated, but a number of letters were sent to voters and the MBIs forgot to put the “printed & published” bit on the bottom. As a consequence of this, the MBIs’s allegedly had their collar felt for breaking election law and one of them had to go to the Police station in order to be officially cautioned. The rumours are that whilst it was Terry’s letter, Robert had to take the rap as Chairman of the MBI Party. Now I had forgotten about this until now, when it suddenly occurred to me that I may well have scanned and uploaded that letter for a blogpost. Indeed I did, and the letter looks to me as though it is in technical breach: it doesn’t strictly comply with the rules.

All election publicity must carry an imprint with details of the full name and full postal address of the printer and promoter of the material.

The Electoral Commission
Guidance for candidates and agents
Local government elections in England, 3 May 2007

I’m surprised the Press didn’t pick this up, as it is certainly in the public interest. I don’t think it would have been a bad thing for it to come out either, as it can be seen to be a rather trivial matter in the scheme of things. As it stands, there is a rotten smell of fish being swept under the carpet…