RobinIt is not my place to answer for Paul but I'll offer you a few thoughts of my own if it is helpful to the discussion.I don't think I'm giving any secrets away when I say that at least three of the six former ICG councillors (2006-1010) were approached by the Tories with a view to poaching them, and that was while we were still in coalition! Paul was one of them.Paul was an excellent councillor, as indeed were all three, but he and they are all bright enough to have understood that the object of the exercise was principally to undermine the ICG rather than the necessity to garner their individual brilliance for the Conservative cause. As is the case with all major political parties who find themselves in a similar position, they were becoming impatient for overall control and frustrated that they were unable to pursue their ideological objectives at full throttle due to the fact that they were in coalition (are you reading this Nick Clegg?).I assume they figured, probably correctly, that Labour would not work in any way with the remaining three ICG councillors (one of whom was very ill at this point and unable to attend many meetings anyway), and that the three recruits would therefore give them a strong enough team to enable them to form a Conservative minority administration.You may also be aware that had the "status quo" been resumed following the 2010 local election the Conservative plan was to approach individual ICG councillors rather than the Group as a whole with a view to creating a new coalition. It is reasonable to assume that it was the same councillors that they had in mind. However at the ICG selection meeting in December 2009 every candidate without exception made it clear to the membership that they would not be interested in taking part in any such arrangement.Paul has some exceptional and unique talents and he would be a catch for any political party, however if (and I stress if) the Tories were trying to recruit him I would imagine it would be with a view to deploying him in Isleworth where he is well known, and where they would figure he might be in a position to help them take advantage of last year's election result and to replace the ICG as Labour's main opposition (David Giles was bragging on the Chiswick forum about their intentions in this respect within a couple of days of the last local elections).Like Labour, the Tories regard groups like the ICG as cuckoos in the political nest, and feel they have a right to battle it out in every ward with the other big parties without interference from the likes of us. Towards the end of the 2002-2010 administration taking us out became in some respects a more urgent priority than winning the election itself. In that respect their campaign was successful.I cannot see the benefit for the Tories therefore in hiding away any hypothetical recruit from the ICG in a safe seat somewhere else in the borough. That is unless they are chronically short of credible candidates. Instead they would use them in their own localities as a means of trying to restore the "proper" two-party hegemony.Incidentally you probably know that the Conservatives are not the only party to have approached Paul. When he first announced on this forum that Labour had attempted to recruit him also I was incredulous, but when a second approach was made I was standing no more than three feet away and couldn't believe what I was hearing. I wonder which of the existing ward councillors was considered expendable had this rather ham-fisted and spiv-like approach proved successful?
Phil Andrews ● 5257d