Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:22 pm Post subject: King terry`s tormentors try telling truth..? ?
AUDITORS are investigating an allegation Frinton and Walton Town Council gave cash to a political party.
It is alleged the authority made a £250 donation to Tendring First.
The issue cannot be discussed at tonight's town council meeting because 12 of the 16 councillors are members of the party.
They will have to leave the chamber which will render the council “inquorate” - meaning there are not enough people to hold a meeting.
The Gazette can also reveal there are two ongoing Standards Board of England investigations into goings-on at the authority.
Councillor Nick Turner has placed an item entitled “The Standards Board for England and its present dealings with the town council” on the agenda.
Mr Turner said he is asking for a report so the council's situation can be clarified.
Mayor Terry Allen has warned “frivolous” investigations into the town council's conduct could cost taxpayers thousands of pounds.
“We are mystified by this item (Standards Board),” he said.
“He (Mr Turner) is supposed to be a responsible person and we will see what he comes up with.
“There were two Standards Board investigations in 2006 that were thrown out.
“There are two ongoing cases that will be published very shortly.”
Mr Allen said there is “no truth whatsoever” in the Audit Commission allegation.
“It will be pleased to know who made the complaint because it is a serious allegation.
“It will cost the council money whatever the outcome.
“Frivolous things like this are happening from certain groups. They are using the system in abundance whether it costs lots of money or not.”
Mark Bartlett, audit manager at the Audit Commission, has written to the council.
He says he has received correspondence and documents from a member of the public who has raised concerns about a £250 payment to Tendring First.
It also concerns the alleged distribution of the remaining balance belonging to the previous Walton Residents’ Association.
He is considering whether any action is required but will not divulge the informant's name.
Bob Richmond, town clerk, said the allegation is “manifestly untrue”.
He has advised councillors that Tendring First members have a prejudicial interest in the agenda item and would need to leave the chamber.
The meeting would then be inquorate and the item would have to be passed over without comment from any councillor.
Tendring First was formed after a split in the Conservative party ahead of the 2007 local elections.
Frinton mayor Terry Allen, former mayor Jack Robertson, town councillor Denzil Watson, and fellow members Bernard Leatherdale and Peter Balbirnie, had their Tory party memberships suspended amid allegations they broke into the Conservative office in Clacton’s Station Road.
They were among the founder members of a new party which proved a resounding success in the Frinton and Walton Town Council elections.
A total of 12 of the 16 seats went to Tendring First candidates.
Tendring First is also part of the ruling administration at Tendring Council.
ALL is not well on the lush acres of Frinton's famous greensward. In the avenues of smart houses and luxurious apartments inside the gates, the lace curtains are bristling with indignation as one of the most bizarre elections I've ever come across reaches its climax.
There's nowhere quite like Frinton. It has successfully fought off all the bright lights of its brassy neighbour Clinton. There are no asylum seekers or hordes of homeless lounging about as there are in virtually all other seaside communities.
Its main shopping boulevard is known as the Bond Street of the East and it was only in recent years that the residents' fight against having a public house within their midst was lost and the Lock and Barrel opened its doors.
The people here are generally well heeled, although there is a fair proportion of the property rich, cash poor who are making do on fixed incomes or pensions while their houses and flats soar in value.
Frinton is Tory to its finger tips. But it is also highly Eurosceptic - to the point of even wanting the UK out of the EU - and the town was in the vanguard of supporting Jimmy Goldsmith's Referendum Party and its successor the UK Independence Party.
Which is how ten years' ago, local resident and businessman Jeffrey Titford saved his deposit in the Harwich constituency and was able to use Frinton as his springboard to success for UKIP in the 1999 and 2004 European Parliament elections.
Welcome to the serene district of Tendring, where an almighty bust up within the Conservative Party is threatening to ruin David Cameron's election celebrations next week.
In most other parts of shire England, the Tories are expected to make sweeping gains to add to the misery of Tony Blair as he faces his final weeks in office.
But a feud in the Tory ranks could scupper Cameron's Ode to Joy. In a nutshell, Tory high command has taken the opportunity presented by parliamentary boundary changes - Harwich will be divided between the new Clacton seat in the south and Harwich & Essex North - to set up two new constituency parties and weed out councillors and party supporters of long standing who they claim are not “fully in tune” with party policies.
Or to use Mrs Thatcher's famous words: They are not one of us.
The Conservatives, having suspended from membership many of its leading members - including the council leader Terry Allen - are now desperately trying to disassociate themselves from the past eight years when the Tories led an alliance of councillors with no party in overall control.
It's happening all over the Tendring district. One council decision that the new “all singing, all dancing” Tories have pledged to reverse is the introduction of car parking fees in Dovercourt, but everyone in the town knows this was forced through at the behest of the Conservatives.
The official Conservatives are trying to blame the suspended renegade faction - which has been provoked into fighting these elections as Tendring First - for every bad decision made by the outgoing council, even though, of course, it was voted through by the Tories of the time and their partners in the administration.
It's equivalent to David Cameron repudiating all the excesses of Margaret Thatcher, including the poll tax.
In the language of the official leaflet being posted through letter boxes, those Tories leading the alliance produced “inefficient services and wasteful spending of taxpayers' money.”
It gets worse. “The Conservative Party has gone to great lengths to ensure that all its candidates for these elections measure up to the highest standards; sleaze, corruption and any other bad conduct will not be tolerated.”
What does that juicy titbit mean? Neil Stock, a senior figure in Tendring Tory Party, says its time to make a fresh start in the district.
“For too long, the Conservative Party in the area has not been fully in tune with party policies,” says Mr Stock. “That will all stop once we are elected - and from the response we are receiving, Tendring First is not registering on the voters' radar.”
That remains to be seen. For evidence of the schism in Tory ranks, focus on Frinton. Here Terry Allen is hoping to retain his seat standing on the Tendring First platform.
This is a two member ward and trying to topple him will be Giles Watling, who runs the Frinton Summer Theatre and is the son of well-known actor Jack Watling. Also standing is Tory councillor Nick Turner who is hoping to be re-elected, while the other Tendring First candidate is Jack Robertson.
Wendy Watson, who was chairman of the influential women's section of Frinton and Walton Conservatives and a party member for 50 years, resigned after husband Denzil was suspended as part of the putsch against senior activists.
Mr Watson was chairman of the Harwich Conservative Association, and one of the chief backers and workers for Tory parliamentary candidate Douglas Carswell during the successful 2005 election campaign in which Labour MP Ivan Henderson was defeated.
But Mr Watson has been suspended from the party along with the councillors and is left to rue the old adage: there's no gratitude in politics.
Mrs Watson reports: “At the last meeting of Frinton and Walton women Tories, my members all voted to leave with me. What has happened to the Conservative Party in this district defies belief. It's appalling, the very opposite of democracy, and is all very sad.”
Mrs Watson is busy helping the Tendring First campaign - the clearest possible sign to David Cameron that his party is in turmoil on the tranquil backwaters of the Essex coast
What made me fall of my chair laughing was this paragraph :-
In the language of the official leaflet being posted through letter boxes, those Tories leading the alliance produced “inefficient services and wasteful spending of taxpayers' money.”
Now is it me, or have i missed something here.
Inefficient services and wastefull spending of taxpayers money:-
let me see now,
little used bog block (well have you seen the till results yet ? ) half a million quid
proposed "kids" youth centre (will they ever get there to use it . ? )
seaside love shelters on the greensword..(HOW MUCH to regenerate them.?.)
oh, and supermans changing room, the phone box from hell no one uses either.
dearest readers, have i missed anything else from the Lord of Flushing wish list..
OH almost forgot, who can remind me of the true facts that either:-
Mr Allen was or was not re elected as a council member for and to, represent Frintons voting residents.....
The full/true story of what caused the split between the in-power tories and the conservative party in 2007 I do not think has ever been truly revealed.
I believe that at the time there was quite a lot of underhanded goings on and threatening behaviour on the part of some who were eventually removed from the tory party.
I just think that if you have a council which is currently under investigation for 3 separate areas, and most of that council also happen to be in the party that is currently the major party in the TDC alliance, i.e. the bus company, then I would have very serious concerns about what is really going on in TDC behind closed doors.
Terry Allens comments about "frivolous investigations costing tax payers thousands" is designed to try and draw attention away from the matter by diverting it somewhere else, have seen this government use that trick many times over the past 10 years.
JUst love the comment about being "mystified" by the Standards Board and then saying there are two ongoing cases due to be published shortly.
Sounds to me like Mr Allen has a very in depth and personal knowledge of the Standards Board.
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