Letter: Joe Public Is Not Stupid

Published on: 6 May, 2019
Updated on: 7 May, 2019

From Colin Cross

R4GV councillor for Lovelace (Ripley, Wisley and Ockham)

In response to: The Dragon Says: Out of Touch, Out of Reach, Out on Their Ear

A fair assessment as far as it goes, but it fails to reveal the true heart of darkness in the Tory leadership’s manoeuvres relating to candidate selection.

On the one hand, they deselected a string of both experienced and/or promising newbies such as Tony Rooth, Bob McShee, Nils Christiansen and Matt Sarti, all assets to any party. Why? Because they didn’t obey the whip or follow the party line. The evidence is there for all to see.

If that wasn’t bad enough their next decision was appalling, devoid of common sense. They chose to re-select several councillors who stood in 2015 as “paper candidates” and most of these were not up to the job. In many cases, they never contributed and rarely spoke publicly during their four-year period in office. Please understand that I’m not critical of them as individuals; they were all really pleasant people but totally out of their depth.

The correct and only proper course of action for the Tory leadership was to deselect these councillors but no, they were kept aboard the good ship Titanic as the Tories steered their route to a cataclysmic collision with political reality. They had thrown good councillors overboard and retained the “yes men” crew in the absurd notion that we would not notice this con trick.

The rest is history, with two of their rejects romping home in Pilgrims and Worplesdon, where Mr McShee, his wife and the local curate swept all before them, the stuff of dreams. Nils Christiansen did not stand this time but waits in the wings to return and haunt the Tories yet further. We may yet see Matt Sarti change his mind, who knows?

The moral of this tale is that Joe Public is the final arbiter and Joe Public is not stupid.