POLITICS IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Politics should have no place in Local Government, unfortunately that is not the case, even at Town Council level we have the politicos trying to exert their policies and influence; we also have County Councillors who, because they are privy to more information than we are, take the “Holier than thou” attitude and see us as mere “Town Councillors”. It’s all very amusing but in a serious way, if, for example, we were to believe everything a certain Labour Councillor said in the local papers then there would be no need for a Council because between him, Leighton Andrews and the Labour Party they are the only ones to have brought Grants or Funding into the Town. No points for realising this isn’t true or for guessing who the Councillor is.
We have a co-option coming up for a vacancy on the Council, the Conservatives have dropped their usual candidate for the daughter-in-law of County Councillor Margaret Lyons who will, no doubt, be using this as a stepping stone on her way to standing for the County Elections, I believe her husband, Cllr Lyons’s son, is the chairman of the Clwyd West Conservatives, so regardless of how it actually is it is perceived to be “seedy”. Poor old Councillor Merfyn Thomas was probably cajoled into agreeing to this without seeing the overall view or as to how it would be seen by outsiders. Merfyn; if something smells fishy, it probably is!
I was also asked the other day “What Lodge are you in?” in response to my negative reply I got the following comment “Well I know you’re not a JP (Justice of the Peace) so how come you’re on the Council, you wont be very welcomed”. The fact that I’m neither bothers me not and as to how I’m liked by other Councillors interests me even less, I’m not there to be popular, I’m there, I hope, to make a difference. Hopefully things may soon start to happen that allows the Town Council a lot more say in what is happening to us and our communities, a turning point, if you like, where the County Councillors use of politics is curtailed and common sense takes over.