Letter: Cllr Harwood’s Move Is A Strange Decision

Published on: 7 Nov, 2021
Updated on: 7 Nov, 2021

From: Shelley Grainger

Labour party member

In response to: Good Luck to This Thoughtful, Astute Councillor

So, in essence, Cllr Jan Harwood has joined the Conservatives because they are winners? A strange decision considering the Lib Dems and the R4GV hold considerably more seats than the Conservatives in the current administration and he’s now lost his position as deputy leader.

As well as this illogical justification, Mr Brooker seems deluded as to the ideology and values of the Conservative Party. The Tories do not “adapt” to serve the public’s needs, their purpose is (and always has been) to conserve power, wealth and privilege in the hands of those who have always had it. They couple this with a conviction that free markets should solve all economic problems, an idea which has consistently been proven wrong over the last 40 years of neoliberal dominance.

Nationally, the modern Conservative party has been forced to pursue a more tax and spend policy (temporarily as Thatcherite chancellor Rishi Sunak keeps stressing) but their policy pursuits remain corrupt and corrupting.

See the systematic dismantling of democratic scrutiny, the intent to gerrymander the electorate (through voter ID), pork-barrelling of certain constituencies (in the gift of PM Boris Johnson it seems, with his recent threats to MPs to withdraw funding if they didn’t vote the right way) and the approaching scandal of personal enrichment and incompetent handling of the pandemic response.

Locally, the Tories are as beaten as they have ever been and nationally they are a shameful set of self-servers. It’s extremely odd that Cllr Harwood wants to associate himself with them.

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