Letter: We Need a Political Mix of Competent Councillors Prepared to Compromise

Published on: 3 May, 2026
Updated on: 3 May, 2026

From H Trevor Jones

In response to: There Will Be Other Budgetary Matters for the New Council to Address

At last Wednesday’s Guildford South West ward hustings in Onslow village, I thought all the candidates present (ie all except the second Reform candidate) sounded pretty decent folk. The Reform candidate could be commended for saying the most controversial things, but I simply couldn’t agree with his solutions to known problems such as the budget difficulties.

I actually gave the opening question from the floor to ask candidates how well they would work with other candidates from different parties, if elected, and got the impression from the answers that any of the Lib Dem, Green, Labour or Conservative candidates could work well with other parties, which is what I would look for, rather than a council solely containing people from any one party.

The important thing to me is to elect competent people who can contribute a range of ideas and agree to differ but compromise as necessary.

I would like to commend Tom Wolfenden standing as an Independent voice in Guildford South East. But I also hope that, notwithstanding the current dissatisfaction with the main historic parties, we electors won’t entirely throw out all past experience of running a council. So my suggestion to voters is to vote for one trusted past experienced councillor plus one promising newcomer from a different party if there’s no good Independent to vote for in your ward.