Real Zorro

Mission - to challenge in East Devon. To hold elected representatives & their officials to account.

Thursday 4 June 2015

Ex-EDDC Conservative Councillor tries to savage dead sheep (well the EDA)

Zorro seems to recall that until the latest East Devon District Council (EDDC) elections last month there was an ineffectual Conservative Councillor who represented the Ottery St Mary Rural Ward by the name of Tony Howard. So ineffectual was Tony that Zorro really had to wrack his poor old memory bank to recall him.
Ex-EDDC Conservative Councillor Tony Howard
However, Zorro does now recall who Tony Howard is. In the 2011 District Council elections in the Ottery St Mary Rural Ward he came second behind a smart young independent candidate Claire Wright http://www.claire-wright.org/. When Zorro says that Tony came second what I really mean is that he came a dismal second behind Claire polling over 60% less votes than her and just squeezing past the other Conservative candidate Sara Randall Johnson.

Tony Howard seems to reside in the West Hill part of East Devon which is also where Claire Wright lives. Tony is a member of the West Hill Conservatives which have a nice notice board that some of the members liked to use to post updates about what Claire Wright was doing that annoyed them.

Who can forget the anonymous posting on the West Hill Conservative notice board last November that read “Clr Claire Wright has today been reported to the authorities for allowing the publishing of offensive and threatening comment (sic) towards the Conservative Party councillors of East Devon District Council”? Come on Tony, own up! It was your posting! it has all the same hallmarks of the ungrammatical language that you have displayed!
 
This related to the Conservative Chief Whip Phil (getting them in a) Twiss on EDDC referring Claire Wright to the Devon and Cornwall Police for an innocuous, and now infamous, political “cull” comment which the police told “Oliver” Twiss to find something more important to bother them about as they were too busy and overstretched due to Tory cuts looking for real villains. Hat tip to Devon and Cornwall Police – try looking in at EX10 1SG!

Zorro likes to wander around the various parts of East Devon observing what is happening and my curiosity took me back to the West Hill Conservatives’ notice board the other day. Blow me, if there wasn’t another interesting piece of information posted there. This time it was a missive posted by ex-Councillor Tony Howard. Perhaps “rant” is a more accurate description of what he had placed there. But Zorro will let readers be the judge of that – have a look at the posting that is set out below in two parts.

Tony Howard's posting - page 1

Tony Howard's posting - page 2
In a rant aimed at the East Devon Alliance (EDA) http://www.eastdevonalliance.org.uk/ Councillors on EDDC dear old Tony starts off by randomly referring to “teamwork”. He then decides to state that the EDA Councillors have mandate that “seems to be to disrupt the business progress (sic) of the majority Conservative Party members”. Zorro offers Tony Howard space in this blog to justify that claim.

Apart from the whole posting being a bit grammatically challenging Tony seems to be a bit miffed at the EDA having the temerity to put up a challenge to East Devon’s natural born rulers the Conservatives.

Tony then claims that the EDA Councillors are “driven to punish” the Conservatives. Come on Tony “disrupt” “punish”. What you really mean is “hold to account”.

Tony then changes tact and argues that the EDA Councillors having been “duly elected” “have a right to express their individual arguments”. How gracious of Tony to recognise the blindingly obvious but it appears Tony doesn’t accept that the EDA Councillors have a right to voice their collective arguments, just their individual ones! Perhaps Tony that’s what you really meant but couldn’t quite articulate it!

Tony really goes for the EDA by bemoaning the loss of so many “experienced” Councillors which to his mind will lead to “chaos”. Zorro apologies as momentarily I mixed Tony Howard up with Hugo Swire when referring to “chaos”. That's an easy mistake to make mind you.

Tony claims that the sad loss of these “experienced” Councillors, which is a subtext for “Conservative” Councillors, will “likely damage the business and financial prospects of EDDC”. Zorro offers Tony Howard space in this blog to justify that claim.

Tony then turns his attention to the shortcomings of the local press and the press apparatchiks at EDDC. Between them they “allowed the misunderstanding of events (at EDDC) to fester and attract wild speculation”.

So there we have it. Conservative EDDC Councillors – good.  Local press and associated journalists, and bloggers and Tweeters – bad. Electors - just plain stupid.

Tony clearly doesn’t have a high regard for his majority Conservative Group colleagues on EDDC as he is “fearful that East Devon residents will suffer a retrograde performance from the newly formed council as a learning curve is played out, together with a “Punishing” objective from EDA members”.

Zorro now has a vision of hordes of EDA Councillors and their rent-a-mob middle Englander compardres from across East Devon running a mock both during EDDC meetings and through their brain washing vindictive that an ever compliant local press will publish with glee!

Tony adds a post script to his posting by saying that his “fears may become a reality” because some Councillors had the gall to call a special Council meeting to seek to overturn the proposed move from, and sale of, the Knowle. Err...Tony; some Councillors were elected with that objective in their manifestos. Err....Tony; that’s called democracy!

Zorro asks one of Tony’s friends or neighbours to make sure that he now goes and has a lie down in a darkened room as I fear that he will not be able to cope with the next four years. Unless that is the EDA Councillors see sense and, in Tony’s inestimable words begin “acting in a constructive team spirit and not as individuals out for revenge and damage to EDDC with the inherent adverse cost levels”.

In other words Tony wants the EDA to stop doing what they were elected to do and to just do what the Conservative Group wants. As the advert says “simples”. This frankly, is how dear Tony Howard comes across.

Finally, Zorro repeats his genuine offer to Tony to give a reasoned and detailed summation of all of invective and alarmist comments that his posting has made. If Tony does that, then Zorro will do what the EDA lackies on the Ottery Herald and Express failed to do – reproduce his words in their full unedited glory!

Over to you Tony!

It’s still time for challenge!

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