Axminster Tory District Council candidates in desperate attempt to defeat East Devon Alliance

We know that when things start to get difficult for the Conservatives on East Devon District Council they have no worries about turning on their opponents, whoever they are.

In recent years we have seen the Conservative majority group on the district Council have attacked opposition Councillors when they have challenged the Conservatives actions. Zorro would be the last to object to robust political challenge, but the Conservative group have often relied upon personal attacks and bullying to ensure that anyone opposing them are dealt with.

The Conservatives attacks have not been restricted to their elected political opponents. Remember when 4,000 residents marched through Sidmouth in opposition to what the Conservative group were proposing to do? Remember when residents banded together through campaign groups such as Save Our Sidmouth? For their efforts these concerned residents were denigrated by the Conservatives.

Earlier this year we have the spectacle of Councillor Twiss, the Conservative District Council whip, the man responsible for ensuring that his colleagues kept to the Party line on issues, reported Claire Wright to the Devon and Cornwall Police for a throw away comment that a  member of the public had posted on her website. The crime? The member of the public had called for a political cull of Conservative Councillors at the impending local election.

Judge for yourself whether such a comment could in any way, as Councillor Twiss claimed, be a call to arms for someone to do physical harm to local Conservative Councillors. Or was it a crude and deliberate attempt by Councillor Twiss to try to politically damage Claire Wright, someone who he and his Conservative colleagues clearly dislike and fear?

But this North Korean style approach to politics as espoused and demonstrated by the Conservative group on the District Council has not just remained amongst them. The Conservative candidate in the general election clearly doesn’t like challenge either as we have seen in this election. Anyone who has attended any of the election hustings will have so clearly seen the clear disdain that Hugo Swire has exhibited towards his challengers, particularly Claire wright, his Independent opponent. Indeed Hugo Swire made his disdain so clear when a few weeks ago he wrote to the Express and Echo and attacked all of his opponents.

As we moved towards the point where local people had to decide whether they were going to stand as candidates in the local election on 7 May we saw the creation of the umbrella local party, East Devon Alliance, which allowed those who wished to stand as a co-ordinated set of Independent candidates to do so and to do so within the bounds of electoral rules.

As this was happening we saw Councillor Twiss pop up again to try to attack the EDA as a front for other political parties – Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens. This attack, whilst being palpably untrue was clearly designed to try to inflict damage on what has become a ground up opposition to the dominance locally of the Conservatives. If the EDA was a front for all of these political parties then given that each of those three parties are also standing candidates, often in opposition not just to the Conservatives, but also the EDA, shows either their collective political incompetence or their individual political independence.

Zorro has previously called for the EDA and the Labour, Liberal Democrats and Green Parties to form a grand coalition in order to not split the anti-Conservative vote in the District Council elections. Indeed, Zorro has also called upon the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties not to stand in the general election in East Devon in order to provide Independent candidate, Claire Wright, with the greatest opportunity to beat Conservative Hugo Swire. Regretfully, these two parties have maintained their political independence.

As we enter the final week of the local election campaign we now have the local conservatives returning to type. In Axminster Deputy Council Leader Andrew Moulding, a person at the heart of the political decisions of the District Council ruling majority group,  and his Conservative colleague Stephanie Jones who are both standing locally in the local elections issue another attack on the East Devon Alliance.

This time, in a poorly produced and written leaflet these two Conservative candidates think that the way to beat the EDA is to describe them as a group of Sidmouth residents. Whilst there is nothing wrong with being a group of Sidmouth residents, in this case it is untrue. This is an attempt to try to make it look as if the EDA is only interested in, and representative of, Sidmouthians. They will find out on 7 May how untrue this childish attempt to dismiss the EDA challenge is.

Equally in this leaflet these two Conservative candidates tried to explain that the EDA will operate as traditional political group, such as operated by the Conservatives on the District Council if elected. Err…. But we have been told time and time again that the Conservative group on the District Council did not operate as an organised political group! Andrew Moulding and Stephanie Jones seem to want to have their cake and to eat it! So, despite the previous protestations from Conservative group Whip Councillor Twiss the conservatives on the District Council did enforce political discipline amongst their Councillors.

Zorro was intrigued that in the rest of this leaflet these two conservative candidates have the brass neck to try (unsuccessfully) to defend the Conservative group’s decisions to delay the production of the Local Plan and the relocation and sale of the District Council Headquarters from the Knowle.

It is clear to Zorro that in Axminster the Conservatives are so rattled and worried about the EDA’s challenge that they have resorted to petty and inaccurate political attack through a poorly produced leaflet.

It’s time for challenge! It’s time for change!