20 May

It’s called democracy, Geoffrey.

Posted by jamesogilvie

And so it starts. The new Conservative opposition leader, Geoffrey Theobald, has chosen to start his term by having a good old whinge. According to him, the Conservatives have been “frozen out” of key jobs on the council. I’ll save you the brain damage and sum up his reaction thusly:

We were given a chance – and we fouled up royally. Now the Greens have been voted in - and it’s just not fair! They’re only giving us two committee chairs in opposition (we gave Labour 4). Anyone would think they didn’t trust us to organise a piss-up in a brewery…

It’s no secret that the previous Conservative council in Brighton was an utter shambles. Now that the Greens have been democratically voted in (under the “first past the post” system – it seems that fate is not without a sense of irony), Geoffrey has chosen not to accept with dignity the inevitable defeat that Mary Mears (the previous Conservative leader) brought about. Rather, he would like to appeal to your sense of fairness. By somehow arguing that the Conservatives should have more positions of authority and oversight than the Greens were given while the Conservatives were in charge. Because that’s fair. In his head. Somehow. Even though that’s not how the system works.

Mary Mears, it’s fair to say, was a disaster as council leader. She has rightly been deposed, following months of dissent within the ranks of the Conservative council (due, apparently, to her “freezing out” her own people from key decision making – again, my cup of irony doth overflow).

The citizens of Brighton and Hove deserve competence. The Conservatives have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they do not fit even the most charitable definition of the word. The people of Brighton and Hove have reacted accordingly – and Mr. Theobald (a former council leader) now finds himself the impotent leader of a disgraced and toothless administration. No wonder he’s angry.

You’ll forgive me descending to his level of argument, but – diddums. It’s called democracy, Geoffrey.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 20th, 2011 at 12:44 pm and is filed under Community, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.