I spoke to both Corinna and Mel during during the count, and whilst they were understandably disappointed that they had failed to win in Syon I felt that our conversations had been polite and good-natured. In Corinna's case we spent much of that time discussing her hobby of birdwatching (apologies Corinna if I am using the incorrect terminology). I was therefore disappointed and not a little surprised to read her accusations of boorishness.It is true that there was a lot of bad feeling between the two groups in Isleworth but this was hardly surprising when one considers the weeks of doorstep character assassination, dirty tricks, smears and outright lies which we had been forced to endure throughout the election period, and which had intensified as the nature of their predicament became more and more obvious to the Labour candidates towards the tail-end of the campaign. This culminated in Paul Fisher being repeatedly abused and sworn at in the street by the children of one of the candidates as he knocked on doors during polling day.I do not completely blame the Labour candidates for this campaign. They are politically competent and ambitious but, in the cases of two of them, inexperienced at this level and had been misled by their campaigns manager into believing that they would achieve an easy victory. They must have felt very disappointed, not to mention used, when it became clear to them that they had been cynically used as decoys in an unsuccessful attempt to keep ICG campaign workers tied up in Isleworth rather than working to win seats in neighbouring wards. Sadly their frustration led them to take increasingly desperate measures (I am leaving out any discussion of the "firebomb" incident here as I intend to respond to comments about this separately on another thread) and what had been in some parts a good campaign became tarnished as a consequence.I certainly cannot understand how we could be accused of fighting a dirty campaign in Syon, and I would be grateful if Corinna could provide some clarification of this remark. We certainly fought Syon hard, and majored on the fact that on the basis of the 2002 result we were the main challengers to New Labour and that a vote for other non-Labour candidates would be a wasted vote, but this cannot in all good sense be described as "dirty" campaigning. Whenever I was asked on the doorsteps to comment on the performance of the incumbent councillors my criticisms were invariably of their party and not of them personally.Although I will address the points already made on this forum about various incidents which took place during the campaign I do not intend to indulge in prolonged discussions about them. What is important now is where Hounslow is going from here, and I hope that the ICG will be able to play a constructive part in reshaping our local authority with a view to providing open and honest government and improved services for all its citizens.
Phil Andrews ● 6954d