The middle of the line

In a recent post, I made a mistake. It’s something I should have known not to do, but for some reason I thought perhaps things might be different in Rugby from Crawley. My mistake? To take a Lib Dem at face value.

Thankfully, Ish has shown me the error. You see, I read a letter in the Rugby Advertiser in which Cllr Neil Sandison says (amongst other things) that Craig Humphrey had suggested to the Boundary Commission that the next Borough Elections, due in May 2011, be suspended.

What Cllr Sandison did not say was where the suggestion had actually originally come from. It was from Cllr Jerry Roodhouse, who is leader of the Lib Dem group at Rugby and often sits next to his party colleague and fellow Eastlands councillor, Neil Sandison.

A beautiful stitch up, no? One Lib Dem suggests that the Tories ask if elections be suspended, and then another can write an angry letter to the local press denouncing it.

By the way, in the same edition of the Advertiser, Cllr Roodhouse got an article devoted to his announcement that the Lib Dems would refuse to take any increase in their councillor allowances. What he didn’t mention was that this had earlier been agreed with the Labour group leader, Jim Shera, and they had also decided not to go public until nearer to an actual decision.

So, I apologise to Craig Humphrey. You were duped by the Liberals, and so was I. Of course, that doesn’t affect my stance on the Chief Executive/Leader thing.

And the warning is plain to see. Do not trust the Liberal Democrats. They will stitch you up so that they can get decent coverage in the press.