Local Election Report 2011 RCC

Local Election Report 2011 RCC

The results of the RCC and AV elections have no doubt been blogged by www.martinbrookes.blogspot.com, although I cannot access his blog since it remains blocked, which is in my interests, at Oakham Library. However the cliff hanger of the day was the count for Oakham South West. Mrs Joanna Figgis, Conservative, was clearly a well-deserved winner. What a nice woman, she really seems to be a genuine asset to local politics and my hearty congratulations go to her. Mrs Figgis had family duties and went home for a couple of hours, presumably to feed her family, whilst the recounts for second place proceeded. The one candidate whose name I recognised in this battle for second place was Peter Jones.

Cllr Richard Gale told me at the Count that Peter Jones had claimed, during the election campaign, that he ‘did not voted against Sainsbury’s planning application.’ If so might this not be considered just a tad disingenuous? Whilst it is true that Peter Jones did not vote, having declared a personal and prejudicial interest in the planning application, he certainly spoke out against Sainsbury’s planning application at the planning meeting I attended

Finally, and rather belatedly, I began to take an interest in this race for second place. The table, where the recount was taking place, was surrounded by Conservatives, including Roger Begy, the Conservative Agent and two or three others, as well as a smartly dressed, pristine, Conservative candidate from Ketton who had won her seat uncontested. Peter Jones, a Conservative, was one of the candidates, but I had to double back to find out who the other candidate for second place might be. I am admittedly a bit slow on the uptake, but I was told it was someone called Richardson. Stupidly, the name meant nothing to me, but it seemed he was an Independent and had no one observing at the counting table on his behalf.

I wandered back over to the table where the recount was taking place. Roger Begy, both hands leaning on the table, with elbows akimbo, jutting out like buttresses on a venerable, but crumbling, heritage building, was a difficult obstruction to overcome, however I did manage to slip through that hurdle. Having found a place all the Conservatives asked me to leave the table, saying: ‘You are not the candidate, you are not the agent, you shouldn’t be here.’ Remarkably, Mrs Helen Briggs, the Returning Officer, then came over and repeated that mantra, ‘You are not the candidate or the agent, you shouldn’t be here.’ She went on to say that as the Returning Officer she was in charge and I should leave my observation post.

Well what could I do?

With all the Conservative people on my side of the table asking me to leave and the Returning Officer, on the other side of the table, also asking me to leave I had no choice but to point out that there were at least four people representing the interests of Peter Jones on my side of the table, I forbore to mention one n the other side, and one of me representing the interests of Richardson, a man I didn’t know. I also pointed out that all candidates at the count not only had a duty to themselves, but also had a duty to observe the proceedings on behalf of others, to ensure a free and fair election. This shouldn’t have needed saying, but perhaps Helen Briggs may need some retraining as a Returning Officer? Then quite stupendously the Conservative Agent said he was only there to observe a fair election and was not representing, Conservative, Peter Jones’ interests. The Conservatives certainly distinguish themselves in disingenuousness, don’t they?

For the Returning Officer to seek to exclude the only non-Conservative from the counting table was so breathtakingly outside the scope of her statutory duty, that I went over to beg Cllr Richard Gale to come to the counting table too. Richard Gale seems to play a fairly straight bat.

He came over in time to see that there was a ten vote discrepancy on the reconciliation of votes. Before the reconciliation was made Helen Briggs ordered the votes to be taken from the table. I was speechless and paralysed for a couple of minutes.

Turning to one of the women counters I asked: ‘Is that correct the unreconciled votes have been removed from the table?’

To which she replied: ‘I couldn’t possibly say.’ Amazing that RCC have made so many staff redundant recently and yet have been advertising for new staff yet again. Who was weeded out? Why? Are staff being intimidated?

I asked Cllr Gale to get Richardson to the Count. He rang Richardson’s number and handed me the phone. ‘Mr Richardson, you don’t know me, but my name’s Helen. Where the bloody hell are you? I am at the Count, and your votes have just left the table with an unreconciled 10 vote discrepancy. You have to get over here now, I can’t represent your interests, I am not your agent and I won’t be able to examine the spoiled voting papers.’ (276 – 286 discrepancy between the marked pencilled sheet to number of votes counted)

There had also been a nine vote bundle in which voters had voted for both Richardson and Jones. When the votes were brought back to the table there were now eleven votes in that pile. Curiouser and curiouser.

The Conservative Agent began leafing desperately through the 11 vote bundle. Prompting me to say: ‘Excuse me sir, but you are not meant to touch the voting papers.’ At which point the counter nodded her agreement. Should one, as a rank amateur, have needed to say this to a qualified Agent for a major political party?

Richard Gale then spotted that one of the voting papers in the eleven vote bundle for both candidates had one vote for Richardson and one vote for the person above Jones. That vote was removed and placed in Richardson’s pile. As the votes were removed from the table again, the chic Conservative woman from Ketton said, ‘That means there’s another discrepancy so we’ll have to have another recount.’

To which I replied, ‘But it’s clear that one vote was placed in the wrong pile, so the discrepancy is fully explained.’

With the votes back on the Returning Officer’s table, out of plain sight in the recess of the roped off Staff area, Mr Richardson finally appeared. He’d been coaching a Rugby Club in Stamford. The votes were brought back to the table once again and recounted very very carefully. The poor counters seated at the table behaved impeccably despite grabs at the voting papers by sundry Conservatives as they desperately sought to verify what the counters had ascertained.

Finally the announcement was made: ‘Jones 277, Richardson 279.’

Various Conservatives, who had said they would stay for the counting of the Parish votes, then high tailed it out of the room and into their cars. One couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps this was to seek a private corner in which hatch a plot on how to rectify the vagaries of the voting public for Oakham South West.

As for me? Thank goodness I lost. Had I won I would not have been able to file this blog! However I do thank my voters for their votes, they were deeply appreciated. But that’s democracy in action.

1,233 words

Helen Briggs, Local Election, Rutland County Council, Roger Begy, Richard Gale, Richardson, Rutland, Oakham, Conservatives, Helen Pender, Multum in Parvo, Peter Jones, Martin Brookes

Greetham

Greetham, Stretton, Pickworth, Thistleton and Clipsham

I earned most of my campaign blisters in the service of prospective candidate, Martin Brookes, in Greetham, Stretton, Clipsham, Pickworth and Thistleton. We motored up there on several occasions and found posters strewn in public places, one within yards of Roger Begy’s home on Greetham High Street. The most vile accusations were thrown at Martin Brookes throughout the campaign. One would have thought this was not a very clever thing to do in a two horse race. Wouldn’t one?

At a planning meeting 48 hours before the election Martin Brookes was able to ask Mr Begy why he hadn’t taken steps to distance himself from these posters. What was Begy’s reply? ‘I don’t read your blog.’ A classic example of a non sequitur!

The first posters were black and white, stapled or drawing pinned to bus stops, wooden poles, fences and most worrying of all in the official Parish notice board in Clipsham. At Clipsham, on the first occasion we spotted the notice, we thought we might remove it. But this is an official Parish notice board. We decided instead to track down the Parish Clerk and found the Parish Clerk for Clipsham mowing his lawn. We took him to his notice board. He rapidly read the poster and asked whether any of the accusations were true, picking out one particular accusation. I must commend the Parish Clerk for his speed-reading of a document he said he’d not seen before. No doubt Clipsham have a very able and erudite public servant in their midst. What a treasure he must be.

As usual Martin Brookes wittered on at length in a convoluted explanation. Eventually I summed up more succinctly and the Parish Clerk said ‘Well I don’t understand it. There are a lot of funny things going on.’ I am not sure but did I sense a degree of disappointment in the Parish Clerk’s face when I offered my explanation?

We were satisfied that no more posters would appear in the Official Parish notice board in Clipsham. How wrong we were. New coloured posters slightly amended were issued this week and wonder of wonders there, skewed with just one drawing pin, in the official Clipsham Parish notice board was a new poster! This new poster, presumably in a vicarious distancing of Roger Begy from the poster, proclaimed: “This poster produced by ‘The Friends of Greetham Ward’. It is NOT produced by the RCC, OTC, The Conservatives. The Cabbie nor any individual Society thus accused by Mr Bookes to date.” Well that certainly makes it clear who produced it. Doesn’t it?

However my congratulations go to a user of one of the bus stops in Greetham who had torn down the leaflet. This was found flapping in the hedge at the first bus stop in Greetham. A deep thank you goes to the upright citizen whose sense of fair play led him/her to tear this poster down.

BBC Radio Leicester appeared at the Count in Oakham on 6th May. I bumped into them as they returned from a coffee break and showed them one of the latest anonymous leaflets, which Martin Brookes had removed and cut out his photograph, using the top part as his own election poster. The reporter immediately said ‘Are you Helen?’ Hardly anyone reads my blog, she had clearly been briefed by someone. Who had briefed her and why? She wasn’t prepared to say.

She asked for a copy, so I went to the library and, only having a 20p piece made two copies. One of which I handed to BBC Radio Leicester. They opened the boot of their radio car and fiddled with a couple of switches, turning off their equipment as one reporter sat reading the leaflet in the back of her radio car. The mike was placed in the boot, but I was not interviewed. Despite this I began to suspect that I was being surreptitiously recorded. Isn’t it amazing how paranoid one can become when faced with an anonymous campaign?

They asked who was behind this campaign. My reply was that I didn’t know but it was funny that the poster had been issued in an area in which there were only two candidates. They asked whom I might suspect. I pointed out that these people hide behind their anonymity, but said that they behaved like terrorist cells, the campaign is coordinated and yet each anonymous cell appears to be acting autonomously and separately.

What I didn’t say was that living through this onslaught of anonymous tweets, blogs, postings and posters is a little like living in a third world country with a despotic and dubious band of autocrats determined to silence any voice of opposition. Shenanigans in the Kingdom of Swaziland sometimes pale into insignificance beside the Kingdom of Rutland.

Like my childhood home, Rutland appears determined to silence any opposition. In Swaziland the opposition is regularly locked up and false accusations levelled at political opponents. The newspapers in Swaziland are prevented from reporting anything but censored news. Whereas in Rutland…

Rumour has it that the new editor of one of our local newspapers is a Conservative who tried to stand for election on RCC but was prevented from doing so since she had only just moved back into the area and did not satisfy the residential requirements for prospective candidates. If what Gene Plews tells me is true, this is only interesting as a litmus test of the political allegiance of our local press.

The only independent and free press would seem to be our blogs. At least one of which has been hacked. A local lady I bumped into recently said: ‘You have to stop otherwise they will destroy you. Your blogs and your emails will be changed. You just can’t win.’

The problem as I see it is – if I stop they will just grind me into the ground silently. Whether I blog and use email or take a vow of omerta, I will be silenced. Better by far to go out attempting, however vainly, to speak out, than to be silenced by fear of intimidation, which will continue come what may.

In the face of a despotic regime one should always struggle, however vainly, to speak out before one segues into oblivion. In the despotic Democratic Republic of Rutland let’s hope that we can find others with the courage to ensure that eventually the miscreants are traced and brought to justice.

1,072 words

Helen Briggs, Local Election, Rutland County Council, Roger Begy, Richard Gale, Greetham, Thistleton, Pickworth, Stretton, Clipsham, Rutland, Conservatives, Helen Pender, Multum in Parvo, Gene Plews, Martin Brookes