The great re-write of history

A rather bizzare letter appeared in yesterdays Southend Echo from Independent Party Shoeburyness ward councillor Mike Assenheim. Either Mike has bouts of amnesia or history wasn't wasn't one of his strong points at school.

For Cllr Assenheim's benefit, in 2005 Cllr's Terry and Velmurugan formed the political party Alliance Southend along with two fellow sitting Conservative councillors at the time. It was a legitimate political party as it was registered with the electoral commission, had Cllr Terry as leader and had its own logo.

In the 2006 local elections Mike Asssenheim, Ron Woodley and Tania Painton all stood as candidates for Alliance Southend. All three have subsequently been elected as councillors. Following mounting criticism they decided to drop being a formal political party and now call themselves the Independent Group.

This group now consists of seven councillors. Had Cllr Assenheim read my blog post carefully I said that six of whom who have eith stood or belonged to a political party. This Independent group incidently still has Cllr Terry as its leader and is one of four councillors who receive a leaders salary.

I defy anybody to tell me what the difference is between Alliance Southend the political party and the relics of what remain of the 'Independent Group.

Cllr Assenheim made the dubious claim that Cllr Terry is a spokesman not a leader and all councillors get a spokesmans salary. No, that isn't true is it Mike. All councillors receive a basic allowance but the leaders of the four groups (Conservative, Lib Dem Independent and Labour) receive an extra allowance.

Squirming, Cllr Assenheim also claimed that he welcomes scrutiny on him. Maybe then he can explain why he had four different positions on the East Beach Improvements and has wasted nearly £4,000 of taxpayers money refering six Conservative councillors to the Standards Board for hurting his feelings.

Maybe Cllr Assenheim could have developed some feelings when over a £1,000 of that total was spent on reporting a Shoeburyness councillor to the Standards Board when he had terminal cancer and then appealed the decision when he only had days to live despite being asked to drop the claim when told of the news by a fellow Shoeburyness Ward councillor.

Its also worth noting that Cllr Assenheim still believes that old chesnut of party politicians follow a party line. Maybe he can explain why it was only the Independents who followed their leader like sheep and voted the same way on the issue of dog control orders.