Thursday 20 November 2008

More trouble in Aberdeenshire

Oh dear - it seems that the lingering bitterness caused by the aftermath of the Trump affair is continuing to cause ructions.

I really don't like criticising Lib Dem colleagues in public, but this whole sorry affair is causing damage to the party. And that damage could cost us seats, in Aberdeenshire itself at the next council elections, and possibly parliamentary seats as well.

Now, I'm looking at things from the outside and I don't know all the ins and outs of what's been going on in Aberdeenshire. But I do know that Debra Storr and the other Lib Dems who found themselves in the minority on the Trump issue are people I respect both as liberals and as campaigners. In contrast, the majority of the Lib Dem group are giving the impression to outsiders like me that they are more concerned with their positions in the council's ruling administration than anything else. So if Debra Storr says that she feels she's been the victim of a witch-hunt, I believe her.

Of course, it may be that the council group were right to take the action they did against Debra Storr. I invite them to respond to this posting and put their side of the case across. However, I would point out that they also need to give more consideration to how they put that across, as they haven't yet managed to present a convincing case for their actions, either within the party or through the media.

I also think it's a bit rich for the Lib Dem group to give party loyalty as its reason for taking action against Cllr Storr. This, remember, was the council group in which a majority of members failed to back Martin Ford when he was the subject of a successful no confidence vote following his casting vote against the Trump golf and housing development, even though he'd done absolutely nothing wrong.

I appeal to my colleagues in Aberdeenshire to put an end to this stupid infighting. It's doing us as a party no good. And unless it stops soon, we will surely suffer at the ballot box.

4 comments:

neil craig said...

As a member of the party executive she voted for a document calling for my expulsion & alleging that a motion I had drafted for conference, calling for debate of tax cutting to improve the economy, was "badly drafted" & "too right wing" to consider.

In fact the final draft had been written by her. She thus deliberately voted for a motion which, untruthfully, said she was incompetent.

The executive voted unanimously that in saying windmills would not keep the lights on & that tax cuts would help the economy I was being "illiberal" & "to right wing" to be a member. Such a thing could only have been claimed by people who have absolutely no understanding whatsoever of the ideas liberalism was founded on.

I understand that the party are now promising, clearly dishonestly, to support tax cuts.

The description of her as having "such strong liberal and green credentials" is clearly untrue on the "liberal" part though she is certainly willing to tell any lie to support the eco-fascist cause.

For her to complain about a "witch hunt" when she so enthusiastically engaged in one to expel somebody whose only "crime" was to be a traditional liberal shows a quite astonishing degree of hypocrisy

Bernard Salmon said...

Yawn.

Bernard Salmon said...

In case anyone wonders about my somewhat dismissive reaction to Neil, there's rather more to his expulsion from the party than he claims, as this makes clear: http://voting.taktix.org/2005/12/23/libdem-expulsion-a-brief-little-fisking/#more-93

I think calling a former party leader a Nazi can certainly be construed as bringing the party into disrepute.

Bernard Salmon said...

Neil, I've rejected your most recent comment. If you wish to make potentially libellous comments, you do so on your own blog, not on mine.

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