From the local papers ...

Thursday's Whitehaven News contained the following letter from local businesswoman Carla Arrighi:

SIR – As many of your readers are aware, myself and several other people are running a campaign in support of getting an elected mayor.

This has not been an easy task, because although we have had a lot of support of the community, we have had no help from the council – the opposite, in fact.

To be eligible to sign our petition you have to be over 18, and live in the Copeland area. Fair enough. But how come a prospective Labour councillor is allowed to stand when he does not even live in the area? He does work in the area and this is one of the requirements, but it means that if he wanted to sign my petition he would not be able to, but he would be able to be a councillor.

I wonder if your readers think this is fair or democratic?

Carla Arrighi

Some of those reading this may have been wondering which candidate Carla is referring to, whether he is one of those standing to represent the ward where they live, and how far outside Copeland is the home of the gentleman concerned lives. If someone was putting up who worked in the area and lived a few hundred yards outside, no reasonable person would make too much fuss, surely?

Well, if Carla is referring to the person I think she must be referring to, we're talking a bit more than a few hundred yards. In fact one of the Labour candidates standing to represent Bransty ward has given an address in Kirklinton on his nomination papers - which is a few miles on the other side of Carlisle and a good hour's drive away from Copeland.

If you find that so hard to believe that you would like to see some evidence, here's the statement of persons nominated again. (Click to enlarge.)



At the same time that someone whose home is more than an hour's drive from Copeland is standing to represent Bransty ward, prominent members of the Labour party who do live in Bransty ward are standing for Copeland council in areas like Bootle and Gosforth, which are nearly as long a drive in the opposite direction.

All these candidates have been validly nominated and it is entirely within the rules for them to stand for these wards, but it is hardly unreasonable for their opponents to ask how "local" these candidates are.

Comments

Chris Whiteside said…
I refused to accept a comment on this post repeating a "rumour" about Carla Arrighi which I considered potentially actionable.
8:55 am
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the...
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more