EDDC Conservative candidates brand electors - foolish & wrong for having betrayed them!

Oh dear! The fallout locally from the East Devon District Council elections hits the local press! Some of our, now ex, Conservative Councillors really are sore losers. Perhaps they arrogantly assumed that the electors would just forgive and forget. Clearly in some Wards the electors didn’t do either and the losers have shown their real colours.

Last week’s Sidmouth Herald covered the outcome of the local elections and obviously for that newspaper and its readers the results of the elections were, as its front page headline said “Bombshell? It’s as nuclear blast”. The headline reflected the clearout of Conservative incumbents on the District Council in Sidmouth and the Sid Valley generally that the electors had brought about.

In the Sidmouth Rural Ward incumbent and (previously) influential Conservative candidate Christine Drew was trounced by Independent candidate David Barratt. Apparently Christine Drew was “devastated”. Indeed she saw the result as “The people in the Sidmouth Rural Ward have out of the blue voted for the independents”.

Zorro thinks that it was less "out of the blue" Christine but more the blinking obvious given the shenanigans that there has been about the proposals to build an industrial estate on AONB land at Sidford. Perhaps if you had listened and acted on local electors concerns then 800 plus people wouldn’t have voted against you!

Not only was Christine Drew out of touch with the electors, she also showed her true feelings for them when she told the Sidmouth Herald “I think it is the wrong decision, and they (the electors) will realise that”.

So Christine, 813 electors in the Ward that you were contesting as the incumbent candidate got it wrong! How humble and gracious of you! Christine must be regretting her tactical decision to stand down from Sidmouth Town Council to concentrate on her District Council work after all she was the District Council’s Vice Chair! That was clearly a gamble that failed!

Also in the Sidmouth Herald last week unelected Conservative Councillor Sheila Kerridge, who had contested Sidmouth Town Ward, was even more condescending and derogative towards the electors in Sidmouth. She said “They targeted us over the Knowle relocation – it’s just one tiny thing when you think about what we have done”.

Oh dear Sheila! It was just the Knowle relocation was it? The Knowle relocation is “just one tiny thing” is it? Think again back to what and how you and your Conservative peers acted over the previous 4 years. Think about the impact on Sidmouth from the loss of the Knowle to the town. Even the local stalwarts of local business, Sidmouth Chamber of Commerce, opposed the Knowle sale and relocation. And what about all those “Save our Sidmouth” signs that popped up all over the town? What was all that about? Perhaps that related to “just (another) one tiny thing” or two, or three.....

Sheila was there nothing else that persuaded the electors in the Ward to cast 1495, 1704 and 1832 votes respectively for the three Independent/East Devon Alliance Independent candidates who was elected was 384? As you say “it’s just one tiny thing”! Or perhaps hundreds of tiny things.

Ex-Councillor Sheila Kerridge also told the Sidmouth Herald “I think that the people of Sidmouth are going to feel a bit foolish – I feel they have put the wrong people in. I feel as though we were betrayed”. Hopefully the 1500 plus electors who voted against Sheila and her fellow Conservative candidates will remember this. Perhaps it was the electorate of Sidmouth Town Ward who felt betrayed Sheila, hence the fact that, as you say, they determined to “put the wrong people in”.

And Sheila Kerridge and her Conservative colleagues wonder why so many people went to the polls across East Devon to try to eject them from power!

Even ex-Conservative Councillor Chris Wale who stepped down at this election hadn’t understood that whilst many electors were resentful about the way that the decisions about the future of the Knowle had been conducted, as well as the outcome of the decisions, this had not been the only reason why so many Conservative candidates failed in and around Sidmouth and the Sid Valley.

Chris Wale seemed to blame the Knowle fiasco for the reason that many failed to be elected as he told the Sidmouth Herald “One local issue (Knowle) has robbed the Sid Valley of some good Conservatives who served to the best of their ability”. Chris, it wasn’t just the Knowle that did for the Conservatives! And frankly, perhaps the electors realised that “the best of their ability” just wasn’t good enough!

Zorro leaves the East Devon Conservatives to ponder how they will fare in four years time at the hands of the electors when the Sidmouth Herald supplementary headline for its District Council election report that reads “Robbed, betrayed and devastated – the verdict of ousted Conservatives” dusted off. Humility costs nothing, but can save votes! For some of you that lesson has passed you by!

It’s still time for challenge!