DawnAs I am the target of what is a very ill-informed criticism from your good self you will understand the temptation I feel to humiliate you for your complete and demonstrable lack of knowledge both as to how the Sustainable Development Committee (SDC) at the London Borough of Hounslow operates and of the whole Mogden issue in particular.However out of respect for what I think is your genuine affection for the local community and the sincerity with which you try to speak I will instead simply offer you some heartfelt advice, which I give with the honest intention of helping you to avoid making a fool of yourself in the future.Research the issues, learn how the process works and be sure of your facts before you issue forth. In that way you will not leave yourself so open to ridicule.The bare facts concerning the initial vote on the proposal to expand Mogden are these:The SDC during the previous administration comprised, if I recall correctly, 5 Conservative councillors, 5 Labour, 2 ICG and one Liberal Democrat. I may be slightly out with these figures but this was pretty much the proportionality of it, the two major parties had equal representation and between them they made up the large majority of the Committee.When the Mogden proposal came to SDC one of the ICG councillors (Paul Fisher) was excluded under planning rules from taking part as he was party to a residents' legal action against Thames Water and could therefore be deemed to have had a prejudicial interest in the matter.The other ICG councillor on the SDC, Jon Hardy, took part in the debate, spoke eloquently against the proposals and voted against them.The Labour councillors on SDC were in favour of the development from the start and in my view had clearly been well briefed prior to the meeting. Their position was, at least, consistent throughout.The Conservative councillors intitially gave an impression of being against the proposal, however after an intense period of lobbying by both the Labour councillors and the officers who were presenting the report, in the latter case unprecedented in its intensity to the point that they more or less refused to accept a vote against, they changed their minds and voted in favour.As a background to this you need to understand that the SDC is a quasi-judicial body and individual members are required to vote as individuals and not according to a party position. That is the theory. In this instance though the Labour councillors supported the proposal together, the Conservative councillors at first opposed it together and then finally they capitulated together.The solitary Liberal Democrat on SDC, Andrew Dakers, voted in support of the proposal on the basis of the information provided on the night by officers, but later came to the view that he had been wrong to do so when it was demonstrated to him that the information provided to members on the night had been selective, and that pertinent facts had been withheld.So you see Dawn, this was not a case of ICG councillors voting with their Conservative coalition partners to force through a development in the face of Labour opposition.It was a case of Conservative councillors raising two fingers to their coalition partners and voting alongside the Labour councillors so as not to upset the officers, whose continued co-operation they needed in order to effectively carry out work on projects that were politically important to themselves.For us in the ICG, this was probably the first time it had dawned on us just how much contempt we were actually held in by our so-called partners, and how little value was placed upon our contribution to the coalition other than as voting fodder for their own political programme, which to all intents and purposes began and ended with low Council Tax.Before that fateful evening we had laboured naively in the belief that if we conducted ourselves with honour and integrity towards our partners then they would similarly demonstrate honour and integrity towards us.For some inexplicable reason I more than any other member of my Group had forgotten the lesson that I had spent many painful years learning about the way in which the big parties operate - that unquestioning, idiot-style allegiance to the rosette is absolute and that considerations such as decency, loyalty, honesty, honour, and least of all public interest, would never be permitted to stand in the way of it. I accept full personal responsibility for this failure.In my, in retrospect possibly naive, opinion the relationship between the two coalition groups prior to the Mogden vote had been a good one based upon mutual respect and a real desire to deliver good local government based upon those many areas in which a commonality of purpose existed. After it the contempt in which we had probably always been held by our partners became more and more obvious. When the last "coalition" budget was presented to Borough Council in March 2010 the ICG had barely even been shown it, far less had it been discussed between us.Then we discovered that, had the possibility of a renewed coalition arisen following the local election of 2010, the Conservative plan was to attempt to negotiate a coalition agreement with some ICG councillors and not others, in other words to attempt to break our organisation in two by offering sweeteners to those individual ICG councillors whom they deemed to be the most fickle and easy to flatter and manipulate.Do you think this is a decent and honourable way to behave? Do you really want to be the one to argue the case for people who conduct themselves in this way on a public internet forum?Dawn, I do not criticise you for being a supporter of the Conservative Party. I am sure you have very good reasons for your choice, and whatever they are I respect them.But I do believe you are sufficiently independent and free-thinking not to give a political blank cheque to a local party that conducts business in the way that I have described.At the very least you may wish to ask yourself whether the election of a Labour administration that is likely to be in office for a very long time if not forever is a price that you think was worth paying. Because I am not hearing any expressions of regret, let alone apologies, from the local representatives of the party you support. Many Conservative supporters, and indeed members, of my acquaintance feel very let down by the antics of these people. Do you too not think you deserve better?
Phil Andrews ● 5080d