Local election candidates announced

[marpleleaf]

Belly is quite right, it makes no tactical sense for a single issue campaign to stand a candidate in this election.

However, how candidates behave in relation to the issues - like a major development on Hibbert Lane - is how you assess their fitness to serve as our representatives.

For me, Shan Alexander has failed in her duties, and it is time to give someone else a chance.

For all the reasons Miss Marple has said.

As for the matter of her criminal conviction, well, it doesn't help.

[Belly]

I am 100% sure that it is not a coincidence that plans for the supermarket have not as yet been submitted......  But times have changed and we must remind our elected members that they are to be more accountable now than ever.  

You are correct, but please don't sniff out conspiracy again. This is absolutely standard practice for developments of a resaonable size. What developer would want his scheme to be used as a local political football? Despite planning having nothing to do with politics, it doesn't stop local Councillors trying to get elected off the back of tub-thumping, when in reality they have little influence in the long run. And neither does it stop pressure groups trying to bully Councillors in the same manner.

Your second point that I have highlighted above is an interesting one. Short of a referendum how do we actually know what the majority of Marple want? Is it a case of whoever shouts the loudest must be right? Again, politics has no part in planning decisions, other than to get them wrong (which then gets corrected at public inquiry at tax-payers expense).

If, for the sake of argument, MIA were to field a candidate and win then I'm not entirely sure what good it would do in the long run - given that the Council are going to refuse any retail application at Hibbert Lane anyway on policy grounds, and there is no way that any MIA Councillor would be allowed onto the local planning committe to vote on such a subject, due to their stated bias. After this initial Council decision any Councillor wouild have little or no influence on any later planning appeal stages anyway. I suspect this is why MIA haven't gone down such a route.

[Heritage]

Miss Marple - why don't you merely stand for election? Seems you have an armchair passion which is wasted in being channelled into tapping into a keyboard rather than putting yourself on the stand? Have you not thought to put yourself up as an Independent on a single issue campaign?

[Steptoe and Son]

Don't you think we have tried to gain the information !  And Steptoe it is important that justice is seen to be done , more importantly in Ms Alexander's case who has to ensure as her role as a councillor a commitment to those  she serves and a true belief in the British judicial system ! So far I see none of those requirements in Ms Alexander who to date has not displayed a commitment to those she serves with regard to the supermarket issue.

Again, you are willfully trying to link the supermarket issue to your original inference of wrongdoing regarding the sentencing.  You're going for the moral high ground regarding the judicial system when, basically, you want to try and sentence her via an internet forum and see Shan Alexander in the stocks in Memorial Park.  I'm against the supermarket but these tactics do the campaign far more damage than good.

[Miss Marple]

I am 100% sure that it is not a coincidence that plans for the supermarket have not as yet been submitted. I may not be the brightest button in the box but even I can see it is being delayed until after the elections and that must be a concern to all people who will be effected by a supermarket on Hibbert Lane.   This is why it is important that all elected members are accountable to the very people that put them in the privileged positions they hold and they should NEVER be allowed to  forget who put them there.
As for endorsing another candidate I think we should wait and see what their election addresses are   Six elected members from the same party representing the best interests of the people of Marple is not healthy as the past months have proved.  It is my belief that until the supermarket issue raised it head some of our elected members felt that they no longer needed to consult on issues with the people they serve, such was their inflated opinion of themselves.  But times have changed and we must remind our elected members that they are to be more accountable now than ever.  Marple has had it's wake up call and will not be caught out again.

[Howard]

Howard, I'm a touch confused about this particular piece of moderation.

I have PM'd you. Howard

[Bowden Guy]

Miss M - you say you are going to campaign "against" Shan Alexander. Does that mean you are just encouraging people not to vote for her or will you be endorsing another candidate?

[Miss Marple]

Don't you think we have tried to gain the information !  And Steptoe it is important that justice is seen to be done , more importantly in Ms Alexander's case who has to ensure as her role as a councillor a commitment to those  she serves and a true belief in the British judicial system ! So far I see none of those requirements in Ms Alexander who to date has not displayed a commitment to those she serves with regard to the supermarket issue.

[Steptoe and Son]

Miss Marple does intend to contact Ms Alexander especially now she has seen her election address.  For the record Steptoe !   I invited Ms Alexander to  the first ever MIA meeting held at the Crown In July 2011 at that time I was not aware that she knew anything about the supermarket,  I was to find that out months later.  Ms Alexander sat throughout  that  meeting and blatantly denied any knowledge of a supermarket so can you really blame me for feeling aggrieved ?  And to think that she now has the audacity to use the campaign against a supermarket for her own election address makes my blood boil ! 
MIA was started round my kitchen table with 10 concerned residents printing and folding  3,000 leaflets of my printer and then hand delivering them up till 12-30 am in the morning.  MIA have worked hard and have spent hours researching what Ms Alexander already knew!  So yes I am well and truly miffed off and I WILL be asking her how she has the cheek to say she has done anything against the supermarket indeed I intend to go one better and campaign against her !  How can we ever trust her again it's beyond me !

Whether you feel aggrieved or not is irrelevant to me and my point, and your original post, had nothing at all to do with the supermarket issue, so attempting to make a link is disingenuous. If your research capabilities are so good, then surely you could have found out about Shan Alexander's sentence etc rather than using an internet forum to infer wrongdoing.

[Miss Marple]

Miss Marple does intend to contact Ms Alexander especially now she has seen her election address.  For the record Steptoe !   I invited Ms Alexander to  the first ever MIA meeting held at the Crown In July 2011 at that time I was not aware that she knew anything about the supermarket,  I was to find that out months later.  Ms Alexander sat throughout  that  meeting and blatantly denied any knowledge of a supermarket so can you really blame me for feeling aggrieved ?  And to think that she now has the audacity to use the campaign against a supermarket for her own election address makes my blood boil ! 
MIA was started round my kitchen table with 10 concerned residents printing and folding  3,000 leaflets of my printer and then hand delivering them up till 12-30 am in the morning.  MIA have worked hard and have spent hours researching what Ms Alexander already knew!  So yes I am well and truly miffed off and I WILL be asking her how she has the cheek to say she has done anything against the supermarket indeed I intend to go one better and campaign against her !  How can we ever trust her again it's beyond me !

[Steptoe and Son]

Does  anyone know if Shan Alexander ever did the community hours she was sentenced to.  Given at that time she was a magistrate I doubt her peers would have sent her shovelling slack down pit ! So just what did she do to undertake her community hours  . Does anyone know  

Really, some of the posts on here are getting worryingly low.  Why don't you contact her and ask?

Personal remark removed from this post. Howard

Howard, I'm a touch confused about this particular piece of moderation.  I can assure all forum members that I didn't post a personal attack.  What I did want to highlight was the implication that Mrs Alexander's position as a magistrate was somehow influential in her sentencing.  My point was that if Miss Marple was so concerned about the sentence, she should contact Shan Alexander. Rather than doing that and reporting the outcome, Miss Marple went on to infer something potentially serious which, by extension, amounts to a attempted smear. I genuinely don't see that as a personal attack.  

[marpleleaf]

Have you seen the latest leaflet from the Lib Dems?

I've blogged on it here, but won't waste this forum's space with it in full -

http://themarpleleaf.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/make-shan-history.html

To call it "Shan's campaign against a supermarket on Hibbert Lane" is a disgrace. It is an insult to all the people in Marple who have given up their time to organise and get 1000 people marching in the streets, putting up posters, filling a rally at Memorial Park and collecting signatures on petitions.

I would be equally as disgusted if ANY candidate claimed the "NO to a supermarket on Hibbert Lane" campaign as their own, but frankly I would be surprised. Not so with this candidate or her campaign team.

[Duke Fame]

remind yourselfs that councillors are on extreamly good wages,new laptops and phones and other percs of the job,so they will be no great rush to leave thier posts

The basic councillor allowance for 2010/11 was £9,554.52, alot of
our councillors after May 2011 have taken a 10% reduction (as I will).

Anything on top of that is for 'Special Responsibility' such as being the chair of a committee, or if you are
an executive councillor for a specific department like Environment, Children & Young People, Finance, etc.

Any laptops or phones are for council use only.

Is this just Stockport, I ask because Labour's Dickie Leese seems to enjoy a rather more generous allowance. Does our council tax (as greater Manchester) contribute to this disgraceful selfish waste no doubt essential council spending?

[Carl Rydings]

remind yourselfs that councillors are on extreamly good wages,new laptops and phones and other percs of the job,so they will be no great rush to leave thier posts

The basic councillor allowance for 2010/11 was £9,554.52, alot of
our councillors after May 2011 have taken a 10% reduction (as I will).

Anything on top of that is for 'Special Responsibility' such as being the chair of a committee, or if you are
an executive councillor for a specific department like Environment, Children & Young People, Finance, etc.

Any laptops or phones are for council use only.

[Carl Rydings]

Whatever happened to that faintly ludicrous Annesley Abercorn guy with his London Bus? Haven't seen him shopping in Marple recently....although I might have missed him in Greggs last week...

He is up here on a regular basis, he helps out with our local campaigns.