A week is a long time in politics...

Last Tuesday I broke the news that Independent Party leader Cllr Martin Terry had joined the blogging world and with a week a long time in politics his ramblings warrant closer and further inspection.

First up Cllr Terry revealed the names and wards of his candidates. This post made interesting reading as it confirmed that the Independent Party are only contesting 9 seats meaning that in the unlikely event they won all the seats that they are contesting would only give them 14 councillors resulting in them forming a coalition with the Lib Dems and Labour to gain control of the council. So much for them wanting to keep party politics out of local government!

The surprising name on the list was that of Cllr Stephen Aylen, who has recently been de-selected by the Conservatives following his claim at a Full Council meeting in December that he did not care "if smokers got cancer and died".

Next up was the personal attack on me, sticks and stone and all that, but some of claims are wide off the mark. The post claims that the Independent Party have grown since 2003, odd, considering in 2010 no progress was made and they actually lost a seat in the local elections that year. It was also claimed that last year the Independents received more votes in the East of the town than any other party. By the East of the town that is meaning the wards in Southend which make up the current Rochford & Southend East constituency (Milton, Victoria, Kursaal, St Lukes, Southchurch, Thorpe, West Shoebury and Shoeburyness). In another attempt to mislead, the totals for the parties, which have representation on the council, are as follows:

Conservative - 7,110
Independent Party - 6,828 (7,000 if you include the Independent in Kursaal who was not part of the Independent Party)
Labour - 4,850
Lib Dem - 1,126

The full results for the 2011 local elections can be found here for those who want to question my maths.

The most bizarre part of that post is the insinuation of the links to the Regis Group, myself and the local Conservative Party. Followers of this blog may not be aware that all donations over £500 made to a political party have to be registered with the Electoral Commission. A quick search from when donations were required to be registered in 2001 up until today show a single donation was made by the Regis Group to the Central Party for £7,900...in 2008.

Another search showed that no donation has been received by the local Conservative Association since 2009 and none have been made by the Regis Group.

I am happy to place on record that no donation made to the Central Party makes its way down to local Conservative Associations. Still, as Cllr Terry has previously claimed, figures are not his strong point but never let it get in the way of a good story or conspiracy! But whilst we are on the subject of donations to political parties maybe as their leader Cllr Terry could look into the boastful claim by one of their candidates in this years elections that they donated £10,000 to the BNP when Nick Griffin visited Southend in 2004.

Now trying to play the April fool, it was now the moment for Cllr Terry to champion Respect's victory in the Blackburn Bradford West by-election as evidence that it bodes well for the Independent Party's electoral fortunes in May. God only knows why Cllr Terry wants to use the electoral success of a political party who has a leotard wearing, dictator appeaser as a leader to further their cause.